Page 10 of Rook (Dragon Brides #11)
Van life looked cooler on TikTok.
Sasha hissed as her elbow slammed against the tiny counter that served as her kitchen, office, and dining room. She glared at the dented aluminum, rubbing the tender spot.
“Just great.” She wrenched open a sticky cabinet and fished out a stale granola bar, her third of the day. Eight months ago, the choice had seemed brilliant. Move in with three nightmare roommates or put her meager savings into sprucing up a van as old as she was.
The thrill of freedom and open highways had called to her. She’d told herself she was minimalist enough, frugal enough, independent enough.
Now she just missed her stuff. Her battered French press. The stack of paperback novels she’d hauled through five states. Socks that didn’t vanish into the void.
“Don’t worry about that,” Sasha said, her voice sharp. She focused on the small, familiar annoyances to avoid the bigger problem. To avoid thinking about who she’d left behind.
Rook.
Pain twisted in her chest. She told herself she wasn’t thinking about him, but her traitorous brain summoned him with every hot draft through the window, with every flicker of red-gold sunlight that reminded her of a dragon’s fire.
She definitely was thinking about him.
It had been two days. Not a word. No weird phone calls, no tall, broad-shouldered men with golden eyes knocking on her window, not even a note taped to the windshield. Nothing. The world trudged along as if it hadn’t split wide open to reveal that fire breathing monsters were very real.
The slavers hadn’t appeared. She scanned every shadow, every passing stranger, half expecting one of them to step out from behind the laundromat. Nothing. The campers at Rugged Trails Motorhome Lodge showed no signs of alarm.
Yesterday, the tour group that was due back radioed that the lower trail was flooded, so they were detouring and would be delayed another day. On paper, everything was normal.
Except now she knew what normal was hiding. Now she knew about dragons and aliens, and everything real felt dangerously fake.
She’d only known him for a few hours, yet it felt like she’d left a piece of herself with him in that forest. A wild, reckless piece she’d tried so hard to outgrow.
She flopped face down on the van’s tiny bed, clutching the pillow. “I need to get laid,” she grumbled into the mattress.
The thought was a lie, and her body knew it.
It only brought her back to the kiss. The memory of it in the ruined cabin, Rook’s mouth hot and seeking on hers, his hands trembling where they gripped her waist. That kiss had felt like it could have been the beginning of something.
Something reckless, world-ending. New. Then she remembered his fire display, the ribbon of gold and red that had danced in the air just for her.
And the second kiss, a goodbye that had stung more than she could have imagined.
Sitting in her van wasn’t helping, clearly.
Sasha swung her legs off the bed, pulled on her boots, and got out to stretch.
She was parked in her usual spot, a patch of gravel at the back of a row of battered RVs.
In the late afternoon, the place was alive with the bustle of arrival and return.
Engines rumbled. Folding chairs scraped open.
A neighbor’s barbecue sent the sharp smell of burning onions into the air.
She walked through it all, her body alive with nervous energy. Every shout made her jump. She scanned for alien eyes, for hard jawlines, for signs of anything otherworldly.
But there was only the familiar litany of RV life. Hoses coiled beneath bumpers, dogs yapping, someone grumbling about a leak.
“Hey, girl, thought you’d finally pulled out for greener pastures.” The voice was raspy with too many cigarettes and too much laughter.
Sasha turned and smiled automatically. Janice stood there in a faded tie-dyed shirt and cargo shorts, a battered straw hat on her cropped gray hair. She clutched a beer can, her rings catching flashes of sunlight. “I’d say goodbye if I did,” Sasha promised.
“That makes one of you, honey.” Janice’s eyes lingered on Sasha’s face, sharp and knowing. “People come, people go.”
Sasha willed herself not to flinch. The words brought Erik’s face flashing to mind.
Someone had to have noticed he was missing by now. No cops had come by asking questions, but they would. And what the hell would she tell them? Alien dragons burnt him to a crisp when they decided they didn’t want to leave witnesses?
If she thought her van was tiny, she didn’t want to find out how cramped a padded cell was.
“Who left?” she asked, pushing the thought away.
“Vanessa, over in one of the rentals. Little nurse, cute nose ring. I’ve been poking around, but nobody’s seen her in days.”
“Oh.” Sasha knew Vanessa a little. “Last I heard, she was talking about getting an apartment.”
Janice sniffed, unconvinced. “Could be, but she left her cactus on the windowsill, and that plant was her baby.” She shrugged, finishing her beer with a practiced swig. “But what do I know?” With a wave, Janice wandered off.
Sasha drifted along the cracked road, her boots scuffing the gravel. The air smelled like hot dust, pine needles, and sunscreen. It was all so fucking ordinary.
She read the community board outside the shower block out of habit. Flyers for dog sitters and yoga classes blurred past until her eyes snagged on the word MISSING.
Vanessa’s smiling face stared back at her from an off-center selfie.
Have you seen this person?
The flyer listed her description, her car, and a phone number to call. So Janice was right. Vanessa hadn’t just left.
Then Sasha noticed the other posters.More of them lined the board now. A man with a sheepish smile under a fisherman’s cap. Two kids in matching hoodies. A young woman named Monica whom Sasha sometimes saw doing her laundry late at night.
What had Rook said again? The slavers came to Earth to take people. Had Erik been helping them find victims? People no one would miss. Except they were missed. Missed enough for these faded, hopeful posters.
Her stomach tightened. She had to find Rook. She had to figure this out. But how was she supposed to call down an alien dragon lord? She didn’t exactly have his number.
Sasha cursed, shoving her hands through her hair.
She felt it first. A wave of heat, unnatural against the fading warmth of the day.
The hairs on her arms prickled. A thunderous crack shattered the air before she could process it.
The explosion rattled up her spine, and a dark plume of smoke unspooled from the north end of the park.
Another bang followed, closer this time, and the world tipped into chaos.
People ran, screaming, their faces blank with panic. Sasha stood frozen, her mind scrambling for a rational explanation.
A gas leak. A generator accident.
Her hope died when a man strode onto the main path—one of the slavers.
Even at this distance, the dark, metallic glint of his bodysuit caught the setting sun.
He moved with an unnatural confidence, a weapon from a nightmare cradled in his hands.
It had a glowing red barrel and wires coiling around the grip.
Her body finally remembered how to move. She bolted, her boots hammering the dry ground as she dove behind a nearby dumpster.
Two more slavers emerged, their strange weapons sweeping side to side. They fired in short bursts that sent fountains of dirt into the air. One blast caught a folding table, which erupted in an unnatural blue fire.
Sasha hunched lower. Running for her van was a death sentence. She couldn’t outrun that fire.
A sob scraped through the noise. Janice was down near the laundry block, clutching a bloody thigh, her face pale with shock.
Sasha’s heart hammered. She dropped to a crouch and darted across the open space. “I got you,” she hissed, skidding to Janice’s side.
“Shot me,” Janice gasped. Sasha hooked her arms under Janice’s and dragged her behind a toppled recycling bin, gritting her teeth against the weight. She pressed a hand to the wound, her fingers coming away slick with blood and fear.
“Stay with me,” she whispered.
A slaver stalked past their hiding spot, his weapon held loosely, his eyes scanning the campsites. Was he looking for her? Or was she just unlucky? In the end, it didn’t matter.
There was no running from this. Not anymore. She could hide, or she could fight.
If she was going to survive, she had to fight.