Page 43 of Ronen (Sweet Alps Legacy #1)

Chapter Thirty-Two

Ronen

My shift was only a few seconds, just long enough to free myself, and I prayed to every Goddess out there that I hadn't done harm to my baby.

William was hovering over Matty’s slack body, and as I untied him, I demanded, “Where are the others?”

William shook his head, “I don’t know. We were together, at Mason’s, but it took a lot of our energy and…I don’t know.”

There were a ton of questions in that sentence I needed answers to, but now wasn’t the time. “Can you open the door?”

Checking Matty’s pulse, I was relieved when I found it. It was too shallow and at first I wasn’t sure that it wasn’t my own heartbeat I was picking up, but Matty was still alive.

“William!” I got the ghost's attention. He was staring at Matty with fear in his light blue eyes. “The door!”

“Ugh!” Groaning under Matty’s weight, I got him to the floor, though none too gently. His left foot was swollen in his shoe, and his calf looked like it was swollen in his jeans, the material stretched tight.

“Let me…I’ll try,” William whispered, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to what he was doing.

Pulling off Matty’s shoe, I tried to get his jeans pulled up so I could see the bite marks, but the material was too tight.

Fuck!

Closing my eyes, I shifted once more, my honey badger taking control. With a swipe of my razor-sharp claws, I ripped the seam of Matty’s jeans up to his knee.

The area around the two puncture wounds above his ankle was swollen and angry red streaks were already traveling up his calf. Using my claws, I scratched across the bite marks, making a deeper and longer wound. Matty groaned loudly, but didn’t wake up.

Blood flowed freely from the wound, with a yellowish liquid mixed in. Shifting back to my human skin, I bent over his leg and squeezed the wound.

There was no way I was going to try to suck any of the venom out. This wasn’t a movie, and the chances of me swallowing some of it was a risk I wasn’t going to take. I might be immune, but I didn’t know if my baby was.

Matty moaned, his muscles twitching, and I smacked his cheek lightly, calling his name.

“Ro?” he rasped, his voice barely audible. “What’s happening? Why are you…naked?”

“We’re getting out of here,” I told him firmly, grasping his arm and throwing it over my shoulder. “Come on, up!”

With strength I didn’t know I even possessed, and a hell of a lot of determination and adrenaline, I somehow managed to haul Matty to his feet .

He cried out when he tried to put weight on his injured leg, nearly toppling us both back to the ground.

“Did I see…William?” Matty whispered, as we took one halting, shuffling step to the door then another.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you died for a second or two,” I told him, “Let’s not do that again, shall we?”

William was doing his best to get the lock on the door to budge. I nearly dropped my shoulders in defeat, when Gigi, Miss Rose, and Emily appeared next to William. The four of them put all their hands on it, and suddenly, the lock popped off. It clattered to the floor, spinning in a slow circle.

“We did it!” Emily cheered, while the other three faded before my very eyes, disappearing like mist. “It takes a lot of energy.”

“Thanks, guys,” I said to the air, as Emily also vanished.

With a shaky hand, and trying to balance Matty’s body against mine, I pulled on the door. It creaked loudly, but I didn’t care who heard it.

Dragging Matty over the threshold, my entire body froze when I heard the cacophony of angry rattles in the air. A line of rattlesnakes stood between me and what I assumed was the door out of this place.

Fucking snakes!

Several of them struck at me, but they weren’t quite close enough. Giving Matty’s large body a shove back into the room we had just escaped from, I saw a flickering just inside the doorway.

“Shut it!” I yelled at what I hoped were the ghosts. “Shut it! Shut it!”

I heard the door slam shut, my brother safely on the other side, as my claws hit the concrete floor. Charging the rattlers, I jumped in the air, landing on first one, then the other. My sharp teeth and fangs biting into their necks, again, and again, and again.

Rattlers counted on their quick ability to strike their prey, but they weren’t fast enough to escape my honey badger's wrath.

I didn’t stop until all seven rattlers lay dead at my feet.

Shifting back, I stared down at the bodies, now human, their throats ripped out, and felt nothing but calm. I had never killed anyone before, but I wasn't sorry they were dead.

Resting a hand on the top of my naked stomach, I was glad.

I would kill again if it meant keeping my child safe.

Hurrying back to the room we had been held in, I swung the door open, finding all the ghosts hovering over Matty worriedly.

“Ronen, he’s in a bad way,” Gigi wrung her hands, her bracelets jangling.

“I know,” I exhaled, bending at my waist, hands resting on my thighs. I needed about thirty seconds to catch my breath before I had to lug my brother around.

“Your father is here,” William told me, floating back into the room.

I hadn’t seen him even leave. Sweat was pouring off me, and I was panting like Oreo after he ran around the yard.

“He’ll take care of that bastard. How dare he think he can touch a Sinclair and get away with it. Jameson will handle this.”

Blowing out another breath, I bent down and hauled Matty to his feet. This time he was nothing but dead weight, but I knew he was alive by the gasping breaths he was taking.

“I can do this,” I was speaking to myself more than anyone else in the room .

Slowly, I dragged myself and Matty out of the room, past the bodies of the rattlesnake shifters, towards the door and freedom.

“Damn, Ro,” Matty gasped, coming to once more, “did you do that?”

Glancing at him, I saw he had turned his head and was trying to look at the carnage behind us.

“I did,” I wheezed, opening the door. “Bloody hell!”

I had no idea where we were, but I was facing an overgrown field of grass. In my immediate line of sight was the back of Snake Eyes.

“You killed my father!” he hissed, and relief flooded through me when I heard my dad’s voice. We weren’t alone.

“What is this, The Princess Bride ?”

Pulling Matty and myself outside, I had a clear view of my dad, standing tall, dressed in head to toe black, and looking really, really pissed.

Not wanting to distract him, or make ourselves a target, I stood stock still.

Was Dad alone?

There was no way Papa would have stayed behind, even if Dad had been ordered to come alone.

The howling of many wolves sliced through the night, and Snake Eyes turned towards the sound. A chilling cry tore through the night air, this from a large predator cat, and I almost smiled.

I knew those wolves, and I knew that cat.

My uncles were here, and they were close. Waiting. Biding their time.

“Get them!” Snake Eyes yelled, and suddenly the night air was nothing but the sounds of rattles, so loud I could barely hear anything over them. The grass moved as the snakes took off towards the sounds of the wolves.

“Do you know who I am?” Snake Eyes hissed, seeming like he had all the time in the world.

“I do,” Dad told him, his face impassive. “You’re the son of Ochia. Human trafficker. Seems the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. Hello, Dimitrios.”

“I’ve waited a long time for this day,” the man I now knew was named Dimitrios said. “A very long time. You, and your men, destroyed my family. Now I will destroy yours.”

Dad’s blue eyes glared icy daggers at the man. “My team brought down international human traffickers. Your family needed stopped.”

“You destroyed my life!”

“Your family destroyed many!”

“My father came here, to this town, and he was murdered here. By your hand! I will have my revenge! One son is already dying. The other will make a fine pet or bring me a pretty penny. I don’t really care which. After I kill you.”

Dad smiled then, but there was nothing warm about it.

It was stony, deadly, and just seeing it on my father’s face made my own blood run cold.

This was a side of him I had only heard about, in whispers when I was eavesdropping where I shouldn’t have been.

In rumors around town, from people who speculated about his past.

This was the face of a killer.

“I didn’t kill your father,” Dad’s voice was detached and hard, his tone one I had never heard him use, “but I am going to kill you. How dare you think you can take what’s mine.

” He shook his dark head, a rueful smirk curling his lips.

“For what? To avenge something that happened when you were a child, and you know nothing of. You don’t get to come into my house, take what belongs to me, and walk away. ”

“I’m going to eat you for dinner,” Dimitrios hissed, before he turned his cold, flat eyes on me and Matty. “And then I’m going to eat your offspring.”

He shifted then, so fast I didn’t even have time to register it.

My head tilted up, as I stared at the massive cobra as it hovered over my dad.

Taller than him, broader than him, its head hooded and wide.

It swayed back and forth, moving closer and closer, while my dad stood his ground, glaring daggers at the snake.

In the seconds it had taken the snake to shift, Dad had pulled two lethal looking knives from somewhere, holding one in each hand.

I didn’t know what to do. Did I drop Matty, shift again, and take on this snake? I had a better chance against the cobra than Dad did.

Before I could make a decision, Papa’s voice rang out loud over the infernal rattling, his British accent crisp on each word.

“He didn’t kill your father,” he shouted, catching the snake's attention. Its head swiveled toward Papa, where he emerged from the darkness in a corner of the building. “I did! Just like I’m going to kill you!”

Papa shifted, his honey badger wriggling out of his discarded clothes and racing towards the snake, tearing at it with sharp teeth and claws. The snake went down, coiling, and I lost sight of Papa. They were moving too fast, Papa’s badger screaming as it continued its attack on the large snake.

The wolves were still howling, the cat was screaming, the rattlers still rattling, and then over the din of it all I heard it.

The whoosh whoosh of wings .

Looking up into the night sky, I cursed the my shitty night vision.

An unholy scream, like nothing I had ever heard before, ripped through the air, and I could just barely make out the shadowy outline of a dragon.

Not a dragon. My dragon.

My mate.

My love.

Fire spewed from his mouth, lighting up the sky, before he dipped down low. A stream of flames in a steady line took care of the rattlers in one swoop. The rattling cut off so abruptly the silence was nerve wracking.

The dragon flew past, then made a quick loop, coming back.

“Sebastian!” Dad yelled, “Get out of his way! Ronen, get your brother back!”

Papa’s badger left the snake, scurrying to Dad, who scooped him up and ran.

The dragon screamed again, clearly enraged, so forceful the building shook.

The cobra was down on the ground, bleeding from many wounds, but not dead yet. He was trying to slowly slither away.

Pulling Matty back inside the doorway, we both wobbled under his weight, but I held onto his shirt in a death grip.

The dragon scorched the earth with smoke and flames, hitting the snake dead on and turning it nearly to ash in a few seconds. The heat from the flame singed my naked skin, the air rushing by blew my hair back from my face.

It took me a few minutes to realize it was over.

“Was that…a dragon?” Matty whispered, “Or am I dead? ”

Grinning like a loon, I tightened my grip on Matty, readjusting his arm across my shoulders.

“That was my dragon.”

It was chaos after that, with Dad and Papa rushing in to find us. Dad yelling for Uncle Finn to bring the anti-venom, as he cradled Matty in his arms. Papa held me, while I shook like a leaf.

“It’s not…it’s not a cobra.” Why was my voice so shaky? “It was a rattler. He needs rattlesnake anti-venom.”

“Fuck!” Dad cried, turning wild eyes to my uncle. “We brought cobra anti-venom.”

Because every family just had that lying around? I had some questions for my parents when all this was over.

Uncle Finn pointed to his ear. “Listen, help is coming. Good thing we live in Northern California. I know for a fact the ambos stock rattlesnake anti-venom. It’s going to be okay, Jamie. He’s going to be okay.”

“Ronen,” Papa ran his hands over my still shaking body, “he didn’t hurt you? Didn’t bite you?”

“I’m okay,” I whispered, my voice wobbly. My knees felt like they weren’t going to hold me much longer.

Where was Mason? I needed Mason.

Just as I thought the words, he appeared in the distance. Striding towards me wearing nothing but a pair of low slung sweats, his body lit up by the red and blue lights of the ambulances that came screaming in, sirens blaring.

Tearing away from Papa, I ran to him, not caring that I was naked, and that everyone could see that I was pregnant.

Mason dropped the bundle of clothes he’d been holding, opening his arms as he ran towards me, shouting my name. “Ronen! ”

He caught me in his arms, lifting me up. I wound my arms around his neck tightly, needing to feel him, taste him, smell him.

His lips captured mine, his hand cupping the back of my head gently. Possessively.

“You’re okay?” he whispered, our foreheads touching.

Tears streamed down my face and I couldn’t stop them. My entire body was shaking, as the adrenaline left it, and fear took over.

“I had to shift,” I cried, scared beyond belief that I had hurt our child.

Either with shifting, or dragging Matty’s bulk around, or fighting the rattlers.

“I had to shift. And I had to carry Matty, and I fought a bunch of rattlers.”

“Shhh,” Mason crooned, holding me close and running his hands over every inch of skin he could touch. Reassuring himself. “It will be fine, Ronen. It will be fine.”

“I had to shift,” I cried over and over. “I had to shift, Mason,”

I took one of his hands and put it on my stomach, “I haven’t felt them–” my voice cracked, and his amber eyes looked worried, “I haven’t felt them move since before he took me.”

And then I felt my knees give way and everything went dark.