Page 106 of Saving the Last Heir
I hadn’t seen what had gone on inside, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
“Fantastic,” I said, smiling back at her. “Oscar-worthy.”
“Yeah,” Christian said, his voice thick with tears. “Keanu will be handing you awards pretty soon.”
“Really?” Bryn said, turning to her brother. “I was that good?”
“Hell yeah, you were,” Tanner mumbled. “When we heard you screaming, I thought someone was actually hurting you.”
Again my heart ached at what we’d had to do. Bryn reached out and put a hand on her father’s cheek.
“Calm down, silly. I was just acting,” she said.
The whole family burst into laughter, and I couldn’t help but chuckle along. Kids were damn resilient, and sometimes they were able to shrug things off that would destroy adults. Did she evenrealizehow much danger she’d been in? Maybe? Maybe not? Who knew? At what age did people stop thinking they were invincible?
“I’ve got to get back,” I said. “Thank you for trusting us with your daughter. Jackson and I would never have let anything happen to her. We’d have doneanythingto keep her safe. I hope you believe that.”
“Where are you going?” Christian asked. “I thought you were coming with us? That was the plan.”
Shaking my head, I got into the car. “No. Jackson might need help. I’ve got to go.”
“I’m coming with you,” he said, extricating himself from his family.
“No, Christian,” his mother said, nearly in tears again. “Don’t.”
He put a hand on her arm. “Jackson is my best friend. He needs my help. I’m going.”
His mother looked like she wanted to argue, but his father put an arm around her. “He’ll be okay. Our boy is the strongest wyrm in several generations. An alpha. If anyone can help Jackson, it’s him.”
Without another word, Christian rushed to the passenger side and climbed in. I turned the car around, giving one last look to the four remaining members of his family, still standing in a circle with their arms around each other.
“How fast can we get back?” Christian asked as we got back to the highway.
Without Bryn in the trunk, I could be a bit more aggressive.
“You’ll see,” I said as I hit the gas.
The turbo spooled up, hissing. The exhaust rumbled, and we rocketed down the road, hitting sixty in less than four seconds.
“Holy shit!” Christian cried.
“She’s a beauty,” I said. “Kinda proud of myself, actually.”
The miles flew by in a blur, and soon we were turning back onto the driveway that led to the mansion where I’d left Jackson.
“We could hear the explosion all the way back there,” Christian explained. “It must have been huge. I mean we…oh…Jesus!”
His words trailed off as he gazed out the window at the scene before us. Chaos. That was the only word that could describe what lay beyond. The courtyard had been turned into a charred semi-crater. All the decorative pebbles had been blown away, shattering pretty much every window of the mansion. The garage beside it was a raging inferno, and flames leaped from the roof. Several bodies lay scattered about, all in their humanforms, which made me wonder if shifters transformed back when they died.
The fire from the garage had jumped to the house, flames licking at the curtains and roof of the top floor.
“Oh my god,” I said.
Two men sprinted out the front door, one shifting as he hit the bottom of the steps, becoming a massive, dirt-brown drake. It slashed its tail around and lifted its head to the sky, belching out a billowing gout of flame. I flinched back in surprise.
When I’d discovered dragons and other magical creatures were real, the idea that they could breathe fire had occurred to me, but seeing it like this? It was terrifying as well as awe-inspiring. I could feel the heat, and I was still in the car. If we survived this, I was so asking Jackson to show me himself.
The second man shifted as well. His drake form was a bit smaller, and moss-green rather than brown. The two spotted the car, and with snarls of rage, they rushed toward us.
