Destroyed by Fire (Hate to Love Shifters Book 3) Read online

  “If they do, I’m getting involved.”

  Lacey groaned. “Sometimes I feel like I’m fighting fate trying to keep this family together.”

  Kane frowned. “Sometimes I do too,” he admitted. “But…I don’t know. I imprinted. They imprinted. I guess that’s what fate actually wanted for us all, isn’t it?”

  “I think so,” Lacey said. “Now that I know you, it’s pretty obvious to me that my life wasn’t complete before I met you.”

  “Do they know that?” Kane asked. “The bears?”

  “They know,” Lacey said. “That’s why they’d never try to punish me for being with you. That’s why they’d never hurt you, unless you forced a fight.” She scowled at him.

  “You know I won’t,” Kane said. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Lacey nodded. “I know you wouldn’t,” she said. “However hard things might be, I know you’d never do anything to hurt me.”

  “Do you know when we’ll be able to do this again?” he asked.

  “You really won’t touch me in the house?” she asked. “I know for a fact that Bern and Dov are both going to be out today.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t feel right. I know you say it’s my home too, now, but…it isn’t. Not really.”

  “Tomorrow night, then, I hope,” she said. “You know I don’t like to let too much time go by. Someday, it won’t be like this.”

  “Well, maybe you’re right,” Kane said. “I hope you are.”

  “Do you really?” She hadn’t realized he shared that view of the future.

  “Anything that will make this easier for all of us,” Kane said. “The most important thing is you, Lacey. And I know how hard it is for you that we can’t manage to be together all the time. I really am going to keep trying.”

  She threw her arms around him, overwhelmed with gratitude. “I love you so much,” she said. “I hope you realize that.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. She could hear the mirth in his tone. “I know.”

  She was about to elaborate on how wonderful he was, but before she could speak, a shadow passed overhead, blocking out the moon.

  She frowned and looked up.

  It was vast and dark—much too big and low to be an airplane. But it was moving far too quickly to be a cloud. And the shape of it…

  “What is that?” Kane murmured. He was staring up too.

  “I know what it looks like,” Lacey said. “But it can’t be…”

  They don’t exist. They’re extinct. They died out years ago.

  Then she remembered what Jean had told her—had told the whole of Shifter Town—about the dark fae who were responsible for the recent spate of shifter deaths. If fae could exist, why not this too?

  “It’s a dragon,” Kane said, and he sounded so disbelieving that Lacey was sure he was waiting for her to argue, to tell him that he was wrong and that it was obviously something else.

  “Did you know there were dragons?” Lacey asked. Her heart was pounding as she stared up at the shape soaring overhead, uncertain whether this was something to fear.”

  “There aren’t,” Kane said. “There can’t be. They were all hunted down and killed off generations ago.” He frowned. “At least, in my part of the world, they were.”

  “No, they were here too,” Lacey said. “That’s what my alpha always said.” She remembered lingering on the edge of the group as they’d sat around the campfire, growing up with her pack. She remembered listening to the horror stories from the past about the blight of the dragons, about how they had been hunted into extinction so that wolves could live in peace.

  So she understood Kane’s shock now. Even though they were staring right at it, it was impossible to believe. It had to be a trick of the light. Maybe it was a cloud, and she was just sleep deprived or something—

  And then a burst of flame shot through the night sky.

  Lacey could feel the heat of it. The dragon was so close that for a moment she was sure she had been scorched. She heard herself scream with sudden terror as the reality of what she was seeing smacked into her.

  Kane grabbed her hand. “We need to get out of sight!” he yelled.

  But she was frozen to the spot. The dragon was flying directly toward the little collection of homes that made up Shifter Town and a split second later, another burst of flame shot from its mouth. This time, it left a half dozen tiny fires behind.

  “It’s attacking Shifter Town!” Lacey cried, horrified.

  Kane was already running. Lacey set off after him, but he had always been faster than anyone else they knew, and she had no hope of keeping up. He pulled away from her, and fear gripped her. He was moving toward the flames. He was going to get himself hurt, or worse. He had always been too eager to fight, too eager for action—

  She arrived in the clearing in the center of Shifter Town. People were pouring out of their homes now, staring up at the dragon overhead. A few had shifted and taken up defensive positions, but there wasn’t much they could do against an airborne threat.

  Jean and Vaughn, the town’s two magic practitioners, came bursting out of Jean’s house, both half-clothed. “We need to get everyone out of the houses!” she yelled.

  The dragon made another pass. Lacey flinched, expecting another burst of fire—but there was no flame this time. Maybe it needed to recharge?

  I don’t know if that even makes sense.

  She looked around desperately for Bern and Dov. Where were they? And where had Kane gotten to?

  Jean spotted her and hurried to her side. “Lacey! You’re all right?”

  “I’m fine.” She grabbed her friend’s arm. “Are you okay? What is that thing?”

  “A dragon,” Jean said, confirming Lacey’s worst fears. “Listen, you need to get your mates and get out of here. Go into the woods.”

  “But there are protective barriers around Shifter Town! Aren’t we safest here?”

  “Not from dragons. Those barriers only protect against human threats. You need to be somewhere you can’t be seen from the air.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m going to see if I can figure out a way to make Shifter Town safe for us again. But you need to go.”

  Lacey hesitated. She wanted to offer her help, but realistically, there was nothing she could do. Jean was capable of magic and Lacey was not. The only tool in her arsenal was her wolf, and a wolf would be helpless against a dragon.

  Kane appeared at her side. “Lacey! There you are!”

  “Kane!” She grabbed his arm. “Jean says we need to hide in the forest.”

  “Like hell—”

  “Don’t be stupid, Kane,” Jean snapped. “Get her out of here.”

  Kane only hesitated a moment. Then he nodded.

  “Wait!” Lacey cried. “Bern and Dov! Has anyone seen them?” She spun toward their house.

  Just as she did, the dragon swooped down and expelled another burst of flame.

  It felt as if the fire had ignited her heart. She screamed.

  Her mates home was burning.

  “Do something!” she cried, not knowing who she was talking to. “Do something!”

  And she was running, trying to close the distance between the burning house and the place where she stood, but strong hands closed around her armsWhen she looked back, she saw Kane holding her in place.

  She fought him. “Let me go!”

  “Jean, hold her,” he said, his face grim.

  Jean nodded. “Vaughn?”

  Vaughn stepped forward and took Kane’s place, his arms locked tightly around Lacey.

  And then Kane was running, bounding, and Lacey watched in awe and terror as he shifted, letting loose the tiger within him, sprinting toward her mates house.

  “Take her into the woods,” Jean said.

  Lacey struggled against Vaughn, sobbing in fear, but she was no match for his strength. He lifted her up and carried her toward the trees, away from the utter devastation that Shifter Town had become
. She lost sight of Kane. She could only close her eyes, hope that he would be successful and that all her mates would walk away from this.

  4

  KANE

  He covered the distance to the house in seconds, assessing as he ran.

  No one else in the pack would have been able to reach the bears as quickly. Kane himself, in his human form, would have been nowhere near this fast. But the tiger was faster than any of the rest of them.

  I just need to be faster than the flames.

  The front wall of the house was already ablaze, but there was a chance they could still get out the back window.

  He wondered briefly at his own desperation to reach them—but then there was no more time to worry about it. He had reached the house.

  Now that he was here, the tiger could do nothing for him—and yet it was hard to give up his stronger form in the face of fire. He lost a minute, staring into the blaze, willing his body to relax enough that the human could rise to the surface.

  It was hard. It was all but impossible. His chest rumbled with the snarls he couldn’t keep back.

  But he managed.

  The heat coming off the flames felt much worse to his bare human skin than it had through the tiger’s fur. He winced away from it for just a moment—but then he gritted his teeth, knowing he had to press on.

  There was no sign of movement inside the house. He couldn’t hear a sound.

  Are they already dead?

  A chasm seemed to open inside him at the thought.

  He ran to the window at the back of the house. He had been right to think that the flames wouldn’t have spread here yet, but there were clearly only minutes to spare.

  “Dov!” he called desperately. “Bern!”

  No response. They probably couldn’t hear him over the sound of crackling flames and splitting timbers.

  He leaned in through the window, searching for them, and then pulled his head back and coughed. The smoke was thick.

  They were unconscious. They had to be. The fire had caught too quickly, and smoke had filled their house while they slept…

  There was only one thing to do, and it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Kane drew a deep breath and kicked out hard, shattering the window with his foot. Before he could second-guess himself, he forced his way in.

  The fire was so close in here that he felt as if it was searing his skin. He wanted to cry out in pain, but he couldn’t afford to let go of his one breath of fresh air.

  He couldn’t open his eyes all the way. He squinted—there.

  A shape in the corner, beside the wall. Massive and hulking—and obviously unconscious.

  Kane groped his way toward the figure. He couldn’t tell through the smoke whether it was Bern or Dov—they were difficult to distinguish from one another at the best of times. He couldn’t even be sure whether the man was alive.

  They were both heavier than he was. This wouldn’t be easy.

  He squatted beside the prone figure, pulled the arms over his shoulder, and forced himself upright. He grunted with effort as he moved toward the window.

  Manipulating the man he was holding through the window was the most difficult part. He had to drop his head to get the angle right, and he knew that whoever it was had landed awkwardly, maybe even painfully.

  But at least he’s outside.

  He turned back to the room. Was it too late to rescue the other one?

  He looked around desperately. He had gotten one of them out. That was better than nothing. It was so much better than nothing.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  It would break Lacey’s heart to lose one of them. She would never be the same. And because of that, their family would never be the same.

  I can’t lose them!

  In that moment, he saw the other bear.

  He ran to the man’s side. Lifting him up was next to impossible, and the breath he had been holding for so long burned in his chest. He saw spots. He was afraid he was going to black out.

  He reached the window.

  And there were hands there, unexpected hands reaching in for the man he held, helping him ease the body out the window. Then, those same hands reached in and pulled him, gasping and gagging, to safety.

  He fell onto the soft grass, exhausted.

  Hands pulled at his arms. “We need to get away from here, Kane. Don’t you pass out on me. Come on.”

  He was being pulled to his feet. He staggered slightly, wanting to go down again—

  “No way.” A hand locked around his arm. “Let’s go. Help me with Bern.”

  He blinked, his head clearing slightly.

  Dov was the one helping him along. He could tell by the small scar near his right eye. And Bern was still unconscious on the ground, a raw burn marring his left shoulder. Kane winced at the sight of it.

  “The house is about to go,” Dov said. Kane processed for the first time how painfully raspy his voice was. “We need to get back.”

  Kane nodded and grabbed one of Bern’s wrists. Dov took hold of the other, and together they dragged him several yards away from the burning house.

  As they reached the trees, the house collapsed with a terrible crash, the fire consuming it. Dov and Kane stood together, staring.

  And Kane knew that Dov would be seeing the houses in the distance for the first time, seeing that his wasn't the only one that had burned tonight.

  He turned to face Kane. “What the hell is going on?” he asked. “What happened here?”

  Kane sighed. There was no way to say it that would make any sense or make it any easier to believe.

  “We’ve got a dragon problem,” he said.

  5

  BERN

  Bern awoke to a dull, burning pain in his shoulder. He groaned and tried to move his hand to grip his arm against the ache, but someone stopped him.

  “Don’t,” a voice said, and he recognized it as belonging to his brother. “Don’t touch. You’ll only make it worse.”

  He opened his eyes.

  He was staring through the trees up at the lightening sky of early dawn. As he returned to consciousness, the pain in his arm intensified. He looked over at Dov and saw that his brother was holding his other arm down. “What’s going on?” he managed.

  “Your shoulder’s burned,” Dov said. “Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.”

  “Where are we?”

  “The woods behind the house.” There was something strange in Dov’s voice as he said that, some emotion Bern didn’t recognize.

  “Where’s Lacey?” he asked.

  “She’s safe.”

  That wasn’t Dov. Bern turned toward the voice and saw Kane standing several feet away, looking distracted. His eyes flitted from side to side, as if he was expecting something to come out of the dark at them.

  “What do you mean, she’s safe?” Bern asked. “Where is she?”

  “I left her with Jean and Vaughn,” Kane said. “When she saw that our house was on fire, she wanted to run and help you, but I couldn’t let her risk herself.”

  Dov nodded. “That’s good,” he said. “That was the right call. Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do it for you,” Kane said, his voice tense.

  “Even so,” Dov said. “I appreciate it.”

  Kane growled. “You talk like you think she’s yours.”

  “She is mine.”

  “She’s not only yours.”

  Bern understood what they were arguing about. He and Dov usually didn’t acknowledge the fact that Lacey was sneaking out to spend her nights with her third mate. It was easier not to think about him, and it made all three of them agitated to talk about the time they spent with each other. Now Dov was trying to reassert his dominance over Kane by acting as if he was the one who cared most about Lacey and, of course, Kane wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

  But Bern had heard something else in their conversation, something more immediately pressing than rehashing the same old jealousy.
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  “Our house was on fire?” he asked.

  There was a long hesitation, during which Dov and Kane exchanged a glance that made them look more like friends than rivals.

  What the hell happened?

  “It’s gone,” Dov said eventually. “The house is gone, Bern. It’s destroyed.”

  “But…how did that happen?”

  “Kane said something about dragons.”

  “What?” Was Kane crazy? He supposed it was possible. They hadn’t known the kid that long.

  “We can talk about this later,” Kane said. He was still fidgeting, looking wild and uneasy. “We need to get back to Lacey. Get him on his feet.”

  “He’s right,” Dov said.

  Bern nodded. He wanted to get back to Lacey too. It felt deeply wrong to be away from her. It made him feel restless and panicky. Who knew what might be happening to her even now?

  Kane grabbed Bern’s arm and started to pull him upright.

  Bern swatted him away. That was a bridge too far. “I can handle myself,” he said.

  But as soon as he stood upright, he staggered. Dov caught him and supported him. “Take it slow,” he said. “You breathed in a lot of smoke.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “Kane got me out of the house before he found you,” Dov said.

  Bern stared. “Kane got you out?”

  “He got us both out, Bern,” Dov said. “He came to find us when he saw the house go up. If it weren’t for him, we would be dead.”

  Bern felt a flare of resentment. Of course Kane would be the one to save him. The kid would probably lord it over him forever now and would never let him live it down.

  Still, he was grateful. Better to be alive than not, especially with a baby on the way.

  “Thanks,” he said gruffly, deliberately not looking at Kane.

  “Don’t mention it.” Kane sounded almost as uncomfortable as Bern felt, which was confusing. What did he have to be uncomfortable about? He gotten to be the hero today. Lacey was probably going to fall all over him about this.

  Speaking of which— “You said Lacey was with Jean?”

  “Yeah,” Kane said. “We were on our way home when we saw the attack.”