Blackwing Dragon (Harper's Mountains 5) (2 page)

Jeremy went to the ground and grabbed a jagged glass shard from the lamp and slammed it into Kane’s neck. Kane dropped, struggling for breath, but Jeremy wasn’t done.

Hold on. Don’t Change.
Black rage was drifting through his soul like a thick fog, and Kane was losing. Losing blood, losing air, losing to Jeremy, losing to The Darkness. He pulled the glass out of his neck, and it gushed with warmth. Jeremy was on him, straddling him, hitting him, but Kane still desperately held his control because Jeremy didn’t understand. He wasn’t fighting a grizzly. He was going to push too far, and Kane wouldn’t be able to keep him alive.

“Fuckin’ grizzlies, think you own the whole goddam planet!” Jeremy screamed. He stopped hitting Kane long enough to lean down and smile in his face. His teeth dripped red. “Well you don’t own Sarah. I do,
grizzly
.”

“I’m not a grizzly,” Kane gritted out, his limbs seizing as The Darkness took him. Kane had been shielding his eyes, trying to protect his identity so Jeremy couldn’t tell everyone what he was when this was over, but now he lifted his gaze to Jeremy’s and locked on.

Shock replaced the rage in Jeremy’s face. “W-what are you?”

Kane was barely there anymore, just a sliver of consciousness in his head.
No, no, no! Jeremy run!

The Darkness smiled and made two warning clicks with his Firestarter deep in his throat so Jeremy could hear the fires of hell coming for him. “I’m the last Blackwing Dragon.”

And then everything went black.

“Where are you?” Rowan said low into the phone as her attention dashed this way and that through the airport terminal.

“I need to tell you something,” her great grandfather, Damon, said. “You’re going to stress out—”

“No, no, no,” she murmured, adjusting the strap of her carry-on bag. “You aren’t backing out of this. I can’t do this alone!”

“You can—”

“I can’t. People are staring.” She couldn’t pull in a deep enough breath to stop the panic freezing her lungs. “The only reason I said yes was because you swore you were coming with me.”

“If I didn’t tell you that, you wouldn’t have gone to the airport.”

“Damon, please. Please! Don’t make me do this alone. I don’t want to leave my mountains.”

“
My
mountains,” he rumbled in a deep, rattling voice. “

“Excuse me,” a woman said from behind her, touching her elbow gently.

Rowan startled hard and jumped out of the way, giving the woman and her three kids a ridiculously big amount of space to pass between her and a pillar. Concern flashed in the lady’s eyes as she passed, huddling her littles close. If she knew what Rowan was, she wouldn’t have allowed her family even this near. And now Rowan was going to shove herself into a tiny plane like a sardine with complete strangers? Without Damon? Hell no.

“I’m coming home,” she gritted out into the phone.

“The fuck you are,” Damon said, his voice still too low and gravelly. “You are a Bloodrunner, Rowan. And not a small one. Your dragon is almost as big as mine, and you have the fire. Now I’m fine with you living with the Gray Backs for the rest of your life if you at least go out and see the world before you settle.”

“But my treasure—”

“Is in your suitcase and will be in Asheville when you land. Rowan, there is nothing stopping you from helping the Bloodrunners.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Get on that plane.”

The line went dead, and Rowan glared at the screen as it faded to black. The last part had sounded an awful lot like an order. Damon wasn’t her alpha, though. Creed Barnett, her father, was, and she didn’t have to take orders from Damon. She could just leave and go back where she was safe and comfortable. Where her dragon felt in control.

Bloodrunner. She gritted her teeth.
Thanks for that, Damon.
His genetics had put a monster dragon in the middle of a submissive woman. His genetics had made controlling her inner monster a relentless chore from birth. His genetics had made her different from everyone. It wasn’t a good thing, being a special little snowflake. All her dragon did was bring her attention she didn’t want.

Rowan stared longingly at the mother and her three kids.

She would give anything to be human.

“You dropped this.” A man holding the straps of a black duffle bag over his shoulder stooped and picked a plane ticket off the floor. He stood easily enough and got taller and taller until she backed up a step just to look him in the face. He wore a black hoodie over dark hair and sunglasses, and a three-day black beard shadowed his chiseled jaw. His hair was longer on top and fell forward in front of his face. He shifted his weight to the side, and behind his sunglasses, his dark eyebrows winged up. He shook the paper gently. Right, she needed that.

She swallowed hard, took the ticket from his fingertips. There were tendrils of tattoo ink that curved out from under his sleeve and covered his hand.

“Thank you.” Her words came out nothing more than a frightened croak. Some Bloodrunner Dragon she was, afraid of a human.

A handsome human with muscles pushing against the long sleeves of his hoodie and powerful legs pressing against the threadbare fabric of his worn jeans, but a human nonetheless. She’d dated one once. They broke easily.

He was staring. At least, she thought he was. All she could see was her own reflection in his sunglasses. She looked petrified. He parted his lips to say something, but a woman announced over the loudspeaker, “All military personal and veterans, you can board now.”

The man turned abruptly and made his way toward the kiosk. He was the only one who walked to the front, and Rowan had to look around the broad shoulders of a man in a business suit to watch him. Tall Dark and Mysterious bore a deep limp. The woman up front took his ticket and talked just low enough that Rowan couldn’t hear. He answered, but all she caught was a deep, rich tone to his voice.

So, he was military. Points for him.

Rowan drifted closer, enamored by how his arm filled out his hoodie on the shoulder he carried the duffle bag. As he limped to the open doorway to board, he turned his face and seemed to look directly at her. A small gasp left her lips, but before she could force her attention anywhere else and pretend she wasn’t staring at him, Tall Dark and Mysterious was gone.

“First class and priority, you are free to board,” the woman announced over the speakers.

Rowan clutched the strap of her bag and looked longingly at the hallway that would get her back to the parking garage and back to Damon’s Mountains. She was twenty-five and had never flown on a plane. Why? Because the one time she’d left Saratoga, Wyoming was to aid her cousin Harper’s crew a couple weeks ago. And instead of stuffing herself into a plane, she made like a smart dragon and flapped her wings instead. Which is what she should be doing now, but she was moving temporarily to Harper’s Mountains on Weston Novak’s relentless requests to protect shifters much more dominant than her. Made no damn sense, but okay, maybe if she spewed fire and looked tough, the vamps, ravens, and werewolves would leave them alone. If she wasn’t bringing everything she could fit into four suitcases, including her treasure, she would’ve happily flown her own ass to North Carolina.

“Group one, you are free to board.”

Eight tiny months, and Harper would have her baby and be able to shift into her dragon and protect her own crew, but so much could go wrong in that amount of time. And if anything happened to the Bloodrunners because she hadn’t protected them, well…Rowan would never be able to forgive herself. No more sleeping soundly, no more easy conscience, nothing. It would wreck her.

But…there were reasons—deep, big reasons—she hadn’t wanted to leave Damon’s Mountains before, and taking this leap of faith that she would be all right away from home was terrifying.

“Group two, you are free to board.”

Shit, that was her. That should’ve been the first clue that Damon wasn’t coming with her. He’d been fine with flying coach. Damon Daye didn’t do anything less than first class, but she was on a budget. She’d been epically duped.

Her phone vibrated in her hand, and Weston’s name drifted across the caller ID. Before she could stop it, her dragon let off a soft, irritated growl. The mom with the three kids turned around and gave Rowan a wide-eyed look. Crap. It’s not like she was an unregistered shifter, and the airline knew she was taking this flight, but it was best not to announce to the humans she was about to sit in a tiny plane near them for most of the day.

Rowan ignored the call because she already knew what Weston would say.

A text chirped on her phone, and she read it.

Don’t be a chicken shit.

Harper needs you.

Fuckin’ Novak Raven. It was his fault she’d had to leave Damon’s Mountains two weeks ago. If they hadn’t grown up in the same crew, she wouldn’t have even considered putting herself at risk like that. And now he was making her do this. If she was completely honest with herself, she was pissed at him.

Get on the plane.

Asshole sounded like Damon now. Rowan turned off her phone.

“Last call for flight two-forty-five, last call.”

When Rowan looked up, she was alone in the terminal. The woman taking tickets was staring at her, and another lady behind the counter gestured her toward the gate.

Oooh, she really didn’t want to do this. What if The Sickening started in the plane, or she had an uncontrolled Change and killed everyone in there? God, that was a morbid thought.

But…

Tall Dark and Mysterious was somewhere in that plane. That made it a fraction more appealing. She could stare at him between the seats or maybe sneak a picture and send it to Aunt Willa and they could ogle him together.

“Last call, honey,” the lady behind the counter called to Rowan. “We’re about to close the doors.”

Harper did need her. All the Bloodrunners did. She would be shit in an actual fight, but maybe by her being there, crew enemies would stay away and let Harper grow her baby in peace.

“Miss?” the woman taking tickets called. “They’re closing the doors.”

Indeed, a portly man was preparing to pull it closed.

With another pissed-off rumble, Rowan strode deliberately for the gate, gave her ticket, forced herself not to turn around and run for the exit, and made her way down the long ramp to the door of the plane.

“It’s my first time,” she blurted to the flight attendant who greeted her. She’d said it too loud, and the woman’s dark eyebrows jumped up like Rowan had startled her. Reading her nametag, she murmured. “Sorry, Nancy.”

The woman smiled and pushed a fallen strand of hair out of her face. “Are you the dragon?” she whispered with a worried moue to her lips.

Rowan looked around at the passengers in first class. Two of them were staring intently at her.

Rowan nodded.

“No trouble on this flight, okay?” the attendant said in a barely audible murmur. “It’s been a long week, and I just need this flight to go okay. Please?”

“Is there liquor on the flight?” Rowan winced at her own question. She wasn’t the best at social situations.

“I’ll bring you something to take the edge off. Is a mimosa okay?” the woman asked.

“Perfect. Can you make it strong?”

“Sit down so we can take off,” a rude asscrack in seat 2A called out.

“Go on, and I’ll bring your drink in a minute,” the nice stewardess said.

“Great.” Rowan had almost made her way out of first class before she remembered her manners and called, “Thank you, Nancy!” too damn loud again.

Asscrack shushed her.

Inner dragon growled.

Everyone was staring.

She tripped on a purse strap in the aisle and knocked a guy in 3C on the head with her carry-on bag.

He said the F-word and then called her the C-word.

She was
not
getting Damon a birthday present next month.

Why were planes so damn tiny? Everyone was mushed in here like a box of toothpicks, and the man in row five smelled like peanut butter.

Rowan checked the seat number on her ticket again. Every seat looked full from here.

“Hi,” she said to a little girl who was flopped sideways out in the aisle as though she was already bored. But then Rowan felt bad giving special treatment to her, so she said, “Hi,” to the next row, and the next, until someone sighed an annoyed sound from a window seat.

She missed Damon’s Mountains already.

Behind her, Nancy was already doing the plane safety lesson, and Rowan really needed to pay attention to this in case of imminent death. She double-timed it to the back of the plane, which was apparently where her seat was. But when she made it to the single empty aisle seat, she lurched to a stop. Tall Dark and Mysterious was slouched down in the seat next to hers, looking out the window, the wires of earbuds snaking from his phone to inside his hoodie.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, be cool!

“Are you stalking me?” she joked.

He rolled his head on the seat and frowned up at her. Slowly, he plucked the earbuds away from his face. “What?”

“I said are you stalking me?” Rowan grinned, waiting, but he wasn’t smiling. Another grumpy human then. “Never mind.” She opened up an overhead bin and wrestled her small carry-on bag up there next to his black duffle bag. They looked cute together. Neon pink and black. She should take a picture for Willa.

Rowan pulled out her phone and snapped a quick one, then nonchalantly pointed it at Tall Dark and Mysterious, too, but before she could push the button, he shoved the flat of his palm in front of the lens and blocked her shot.

“What the hell,” he gritted out. “No pictures.”

“Oh, are you famous?” she asked, sitting beside him. “Are you a singer? You have lots of tattoos. I’m nervous.” Rowan looked up front to see if Nancy had finished the safety lecture. Crap, now she was screwed if the plane went down. “Do you ride a motorcycle? You look like you would ride a motorcycle.”

“Are you going to talk the entire time?” a man across the aisle asked. “I mean seriously. You’re worse than a crying baby right now.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. To Tall Dark and Mysterious, she lowered her voice slightly and said, “I forget how fucking grumpy humans are.”

He had tucked his hands in his pockets and was currently staring at her. At least she thought he was. The damn sunglasses were hiding his reactions.