Page 24

Avery

“Pick up, dammit,” I grumbled, driving carefully along the unplowed mountain road. “Pick up.”

Declan slept in the rear seat while I maneuvered the SUV, in four-wheel drive, along a road we had no business being on. Snow drifts reached the running boards, sometimes higher, as we crept up the side of the mountain. I knew Jacy had to be up there somewhere.

It’s where she’d go to find Carter.

I lost the signal.

Cursing, I clung grimly to the steering wheel, prevented a fatal slide off the edge of the road and into the canyon below. My gut twisted. I risked Declan’s safety in a reckless attempt to find Jacy in the high mountains immediately after a blizzard.

“Why didn’t I find a babysitter, then fly in search of her? Lunatic.”

Upon reaching a swath of road clear of snow, I tried Jacy’s number again. It rang in my ear. Ring after ring after –

“Avery?”

I stamped on the brake and brought the SUV to a shuddering halt. “Jacy! Where are you? Christ, I’ve been looking for you since dawn.”

“I – I don’t know.”

Her weak voice sent alarm bells ringing more loudly than her cell. “Are you all right?”

“No.” Jacy began to cry. “I’m all broke up.”

“Is Carter alive? Is he there with you now?”

I listened as she inhaled sharply. “No. I – I killed him. He’s gone.”

“Jacy, tell me exactly where you are.”

Jacy gulped back her tears. “There was a steep gully. A cliff. I climbed out, my wing broken. I found a – a cabin.”

Gully. Cliff. Cabin. I raked my hand through my hair as I fought to recall the area. I’d flown over the mountains on occasion, though quite a while back, and remembered a deep, rocky gorge.

“A gorge, Jacy?” I demanded. “Deep, very rocky?”

“Yeah.”

“I know where you are. Stay there, do you hear me? And stay on the phone.”

“Okay.”

I drove the SUV higher, following the road and the information she’d given me. An old man in town owned a hunting cabin not far from a gorge that fell more than a thousand feet to the creek below. He often bragged about climbing down into it without killing himself to retrieve game. By his description, I knew exactly where Jacy was.

The blizzard had dropped a good foot in the clearing where the cabin stood. Blue smoke drifted upward from the brick chimney. Leaving Declan to sleep in the back seat, I surged through the deep snow toward the door.

“I’m here, Jacy,” I yelled. “I’m right outside.”

The door swung open under my boot.

Huddled under a thick hide, lying on the bed, Jacy gazed at me from a too white face. Her smile trembled as I crossed the wood floor to gather her in my arms. She cried out in pain as my arm touched her back. With a hiss, I withdrew from her.

“I can take care of your wing, baby,” I muttered thickly. “I have to get you to a safe place first.”

“Declan,” Jacy sobbed, her head bowed. “Declan.”

“He’s fine, Jacy. He’s fine, he’s in the car. Come on, don’t cry. He’s in the car. I’ll take you to him, right now. Just let me help you up.”

***

The only safe place to take Jacy to heal her was the basement of my office building. Large enough for a full-sized dragon, it was built with cement walls and held little except scattered and broken office furniture. Nor did office occupants venture down there.

I set Declan, still asleep, on my coat on the floor, then turned to Jacy.

I cupped her cheeks in my palms and kissed her cold lips. “You have to shift, babe,” I murmured. “I can set your bones.”

She leaned into me, her brow tucked against my collar bone. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, none of that shit.” I lifted her face to mine. “It’s all good, honey, all good. Once I set your wing, you can stay here, safe. No one will find you. All you have to do then is heal, rest. Okay?”

Jacy nodded, her tears turning her cheeks red. “Okay.”

I stepped back to allow her room.

Jacy shifted. Her broken wing drooped like a fallen sail as she cried out in pain. I’d never broken a wing before, but I’d been told it hurt like a son of a bitch. She towered over me, her head brushing against the cement ceiling. Folding her legs under her, lying down, Jacy made it possible for me to reach the busted bones of her left wing.

I closely examined the fragile bones within her thin hide. They were quite apparent, the fractures obvious as I gently extended Jacy’s wing. Two, no, three, broken bones. Yet, the fractures were clean, without splinters. If I jostled them into place, they’d snap shut like locks.

“This’ll hurt a bit,” I warned her, gazing into her wounded green eyes.

“Do it.” Jacy bared her teeth in a grin. “I’m tough.”

I snapped the bones closed.

Jacy cried out, then smothered the sound with her front talons. As I carefully folded her wing against her back, in a good position to heal, I said, “This won’t take long for you to heal, baby. A day, maybe two at the most. In your dragon form, you’ll heal faster than in your human shape.”

Jacy lowered her muzzle to rest it on my shoulder. “I love you, Avery.”

I smirked. “Why, isn’t that a coincidence? Happens I love you, too.”

***

The town dug itself out of the snow the blizzard had dropped.

I fed us on fast food, take-out Chinese, bottled water, and chocolate. Above us, office workers returned to work, Jacy and Declan both healed at a fantastic speed, and we both slept comfortably within the confines of Jacy’s massive forearms.

Two mornings after our arrival, I checked her left wing. Jacy extended it without wincing, then slowly raised it to lower it. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“It’s still weak,” I warned her. “No flying for a week or more. We’d better go home before the dog eats the cats.”

“Daaad!”

Max, while hungry, hadn’t actually eaten Wendy and Pete in our absence. All three devoured their food with gusto upon our return home. Max wagged his tail, pushing his face under Jacy’s arm as she sat at the table, grinning up into her eyes. Declan stroked the cats’ backs as they chowed their breakfast, apologizing for having abandoned them, albeit briefly.

“We’re free.”

Jacy’s smile melted my heart.

I knelt beside her chair and took her hands in mine to kiss. “We are, my lady, my love. We’re free at last.”