One obstacle down, and seemingly a million more to go. Every time Lonny thought he got closer to claiming Lana, she found another way to push him away. And for some damned reason he couldn’t convince his heart to give up.
He sat in the corner booth of Shenanigans, at the edge, so he could watch Lana while she worked.
Did that make him a stalker?
Maybe.
But he was beyond caring what anyone thought. He gave her space, he didn’t follow her after work. He was just there because he couldn’t help himself, and Reance made him promise to keep an eye on her.
He knew better than to ask the reason. Reance wasn’t keen on giving out too much information, but everyone knew the man saw the future. Hell, he helped guide everyone into better paths. The only thing he could come up with was that he wanted to keep his daughter happy, and Lana was one of Isa’s closest friends, so that meant keeping her safe.
There was one bright side. For as often as Lonny found his ass in the booth while Lana was working, she didn’t complain. A blessing. He had time to memorize her face, her laugh, her voice.
He sighed. There was nothing that was going to make him forget the woman was meant to be his mate. However, she wasn’t interested in the awakening, or him. And the sooner he got away from her, the sooner they could both get on with their lives.
Ten minutes to closing, and no one was in the bar but the two of them. She could have closed the doors on the slow Thursday night.
Her gaze swept back to his and a smile flirted across her lips. A black swirl appeared between them, and Lonny was on his feet, moving to the person who stepped through the portal before it shut.
Something told him this was what he was waiting for. The big guy with a hoodie pulled a gun, and Lonny reached out, touching him half a second before the bastard pulled the trigger.
He phased them into thin air before the gun could go off and the bullet essentially disappeared.
Actually, Reance would try to explain that he pulled them into a higher dimension that layered over theirs. All of that bullshit gave him a headache when he thought too hard on it. He couldn’t move from place to place like those who translocated, and he couldn’t open portals, but he could disappear when need be, and he could still see everything going on in the realm he started in. So none of that made sense.
The second they rematerialized, the shooter’s knees gave out. Lonny pushed him face first into the ground and knocked him out by gripping pressure points.
Lana rushed over. “You okay?”
He looked up, one brow arched. “Are you?”
“Are you? Damn it, Lonny, what happened?” she demanded.
He nodded to the gun lying on the floor. “He tried to shoot you. I simply stopped him.”
“You’re serious?” she demanded, glancing at the gun.
“Call Kevin. He can lock him up at the Silver Council.”
“What about cuffs?” she asked.
“You have some here?”
“Yeah, don’t ask.” A blush stained her cheeks as she hurried into the office.
Lonny looked around with a sigh. They were on Capitol Hill close to closing time, and no one seemed to be around. Something strange was going on.
Lana came running back, her cell phone to her ear. She handed him the cuffs. It stung, and he winced as he locked them around the guy’s wrists. Lonny shook his hands before flipping the guy over.
“Shit, they burn you?” she asked.
He snorted. “Don’t worry about it.” There wasn’t enough iron for the burn to last. Had they been pure iron, he wouldn’t have been able to cuff the bastard.
She held out her hands. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.” He didn’t have contact long enough to form blisters. No reason to fuss. Lonny nodded at the bastard on the ground. “Recognize him?”
Lana nodded. “Vaguely, but I don’t know much.” She pulled her phone away as she hit speaker. “Sorry, Kevin, we need you down at Shenanigans. You close?”
“Just down the road.”
Lana breathed a sigh of relief. “Good to hear. You don’t have to worry about a crowd. There are only three of us here, and you need to deal with one.”
Lonny stood up and took a picture of the guy with his phone. He sent the image to Eddie, who happened to be working late. The kid was a whiz at finding information on people.
“Let me see your hands,” she said.
“I’m fine, Lana. Are you okay? You were the target, not me.”
“You stopped him.” She touched his arm. “Let me see your hands.”
He shook his head, pulling away as the door opened. Her concern felt an awful lot like the night she lost Reese. The man she’d been seeing around the time of Isa’s awakening. Saressa killed him at Scotty and Jayde’s party.
Kevin stepped inside and locked the door. “What happened?”
Lonny nodded toward the gun on the floor. “This prick pulled it on Lana. I disabled him.”
Kevin lifted a brow at Lana. “Did he fire?”
Lana let out a breath. “Lonny says he shot at me, but he phased him out of existence for a moment. Then the guy went down.”
Lonny lifted a shoulder. “What else was I supposed to do? The gun is right there.”
The guy started to move, and Lonny hopped up before hauling the asshole to his feet.
Kevin cocked his head, then shouted. “Move, Lonny, move!”
Lonny stepped away as blue mist formed around the asshole, turning him to solid ice. A shiver rolled through Lonny as he moved between Lana and the freezing air. Glancing over his shoulder, the guy fell, shattering into a million pieces.
He couldn’t fathom what the hell had happened.
“What the hell?” Kevin muttered, pulling his phone out and calling someone. Probably Robert or one of the other enforcers. This was going to prove a mess.
“Did he just shatter like glass?” Lana asked.
Lonny nodded, unsure what to say. The obvious was scattered across the dance floor.
Lana threw up her hands. “Why the fuck would he be shooting at me?”
Lonny looked around and caught a glimpse of a blue-haired man slipping through the door. Alenathos, he was damn near positive. He was known to hang around Isa, watching over his master since she broke his bond to Saressa. Isa only kept the bond at his request, and yet, he stuck around the bar often, even when Isa wasn’t there.
Isadora had taken control of Alenathos shortly after her awakening. She and Lana owned Shenanigans. She was the daughter of Reance, the King of the Fire Realm again, and Aeryana, the Queen of the Air Realm, though Isadora was raised on Earth, away from her family.
But why was Alenathos watching over Lana?
His mind spun through the possibilities, but they didn’t make much sense. Unless he thought outside the box, but even then…
Neither Kevin nor Lana noticed the blue-haired man’s exit, so he kept his mouth shut for now. He’d tell Isa before he left town. She could figure it out.
Shaking his head, he explained, “He pulled the gun, I phased him out before he shot at you, and then brought him back after.”
Lana crouched to touch the end of the barrel. Shaking her fingers, she glared at the pile of icy shards. “Fuck a duck, he did.”
He couldn’t stop the chuckle. “Now that’s an expression.”
She rolled her eyes.
Kevin shook his head. “Any of you know how to find where a portal went? Maybe reopen it? Or do you want the mages involved?”
“You’ve already been called, which means the Council is involved. And unless I missed something, I thought you had jurisdiction over Fae in Seattle. Maybe we can work together?” Lonny suggested.
Kevin rubbed his chin. “Know anything about him?”
“He was Fae,” Lana answered. “And he works for the Delnias family.”
Lonny’s eyes narrowed. “You mean that piece of shit who paid your parents off for your hand in marriage?” The morning after Isa married Toryn, one of Reance’s closest friends, they learned of Lana’s arranged marriage. Reance had him find the contract and bring it to him so they could ensure Lana was free of the bastard. He knew she’d been promised to Maddock Delnias, but not why. And the prick would have used her as he saw fit.
Her eyes slid shut as she turned away.
Kevin shook his head. “We need to clean this mess up.” He nodded to Lana. “I would put the closed sign up.”
“Yeah.” She moved behind the desk.
Lonny looked at Kevin. “Now what? I have no fancy way to get rid of the mess. If he were whole I’d have a solution.” He could turn him into air, raise him into another dimension, whatever in the abyss he did when he did that stuff.
Kevin smirked. “Wish I knew how you did that.”
“Don’t know what to tell you.”
“Come with me. I have something that should take care of the mess.” Kevin started for the door and held it open for Lonny.
At the cruiser, Lonny looked down the road, searching for Alenathos, but the bastard had disappeared.
Kevin leaned into the cruiser and dug around a hidden compartment. “Didn’t the King of Fire make arranged marriages a thing of the past?”
Lonny nodded. “Look, can we not? Delnias still thinks he can get to her. The question is why. The debt was taken care of. She’s unawakened, and the half-blood daughter of an Earth Fae.”
“How did her family get into debt?”
“Not totally sure.” Lonny’s best guess was that it was set up to force Divad’s hand. Delnias had to know something about Lana to make her a worthwhile investment. Which brought him back to Alenathos and his presence in the bar. Was he there for Lana? If he were…that might be the reason Divad was willing to trade her to get out of debt. But who was her mother? He had exactly one guess, but that made her far more important than a half human, half earth Fae.
Kevin’s comment snapped him back to reality. “Lana wanted to help you with your hands.”
“They’re fine.”
“She seems to be changing her tune with you.”
“Look, can we not get into my personal life? Can we stick to the fact some asshole tried to kill her, then wound up frozen and shattered?”
“Who froze him?”
Lonny lifted a shoulder. He couldn’t say it was Alenathos for sure, but that was his best guess. The shapeshifting dragon had many forms, and he wasn’t one hundred percent sure.
Lonny sighed. “How long before you can get someone here to do a proper investigation?”
“Sometime early tomorrow. That work? In the meantime, I need to figure out what to write in the report, but I’ll wait until Robert and Preston can show us what happened with a handy spell.”
“That’s good.” He headed back inside.
Kevin brought a bottle half-filled with purple liquid inside.
* * * *
Lana glared at Lonny as he left.
Only, Lonny wasn’t the problem. She was mad at herself. He was right. Her father sold her out because he got in over his head. She’d never been the favorite. So why not sell off the weak daughter.
The debt was taken care of now. She was supposed to be off the hook. And still, the bastard hadn’t given up.
Her buzzing phone pulled her attention. She picked it up with a cocked brow. Isa. Lana pressed talk and put it to her ear. “Hello, Isa. Shouldn’t you be resting or something?”
She sighed. “Hard to do with this little guy moving so much. Besides I saw something…” Isa groaned. “Was it my imagination? Or something else? Like some creep coming in to shoot you and Lonny saving you?”
“You saw what happened.” She kicked the counter. “Look, I’m fine, the guy is dead. I don’t think anyone can put him back together. But it was weird. He froze solid, then fell and shattered. There are shards of him all over the floor.”
“But Lonny saved you,” Isa pointed out.
“I said I was going to talk to him.”
“Why haven’t you?”
Lana groaned. “I was working. I figured I could after closing, then this happened. Now, I need to convince him to go out to eat, come over, something.”
“Shit, Lana, why do you keep putting him off?”
“Fuck, Isa, I was closing.” She rubbed at her face. “I got this.”
“I hope so. You’re breaking his heart.” Isa sighed.
“Yeah, got it. I’m going to fix it,” Lana snapped.
“So what happened to this asshole?”
“He froze, then shattered when he fell.”
Isa sucked in a breath. “That sounds like something out of Alenathos’ play book.”
She snorted. “Somehow, I don’t think the dragon is lurking around watching me.”
“Maybe not. Don’t lose your words when you talk to him.” Isa hung up.
Kevin came back with a bottle with iridescent purple liquid that swirled around. He set it in the middle of the mess and popped the cork. The icy shards of the prick were swept up in a whirlwind and sucked into the bottle. Then he grabbed the gun, taking the last of the evidence.
Lonny stepped inside and met her gaze. A second later, he dropped his eyes. She’d made him give up. Could she fix her mistake?
She was tired of lying awake, wishing she wasn’t so damned stupid. There were so many stupid little things in her head, and she needed reassurance that he wouldn’t bail when he realized how insignificant she was. She couldn’t even perform the smallest spell in her own element. Most half-Fae could do something with plants or earth before being awakened, but the best she could do was manipulate temperature slightly.
“Is there anything I can do to help, Kevin?” Lana asked.
He lifted a shoulder. “Access in the morning. Either you, Isa, or one of the guys, if you trust them to let us in.”
“Yeah, one of us will be here. I’ll figure that out in a bit and send a text.”
“Thanks. Maybe I can have one of the guys in the lab figure out this.” He held up the bottle and swirled it around. Now inside the swirling purple liquid were icy chunks of a person that had shrunk down to fit.
Lana moved around the counter and crossed the room to Lonny. “Can we talk in a few?”
He shook his head. “No, I have stuff to do.”
Kevin glanced at the door and moved toward the exit. “I need to go. Let me know who will meet me here and when in the morning.”
“See you then.”
Kevin slipped out the door and Lana stepped in front of Lonny, touching his chin.
His gaze swung back with a slight shake of the head.
“I’ve been a fool, ignoring what was growing between us. I want to talk, to explain what has me freaked out. You can answer my questions.” Then ease the ache between her legs.
He shook his head. “I can’t tonight.” He blew out a breath and glanced away.
“Why not?”
He turned away, focusing out the window. “Doesn’t matter.”
“You want me, right?”
His eyes narrowed as he glared back. “You know I do, but I’m not going to take advantage of your gratitude for saving your life.” He stepped away. “I’m sorry, but if we go there, it’s not going to be like this.”
He hurried out the door.
“Well fuck,” Lana muttered. She locked up and then sent a text to Isa. Please, please, please, show up at the bar a few hours early and text Kevin to let him know they can investigate. Looks like it’s my turn to chase Lonny,
She threw her phone in her purse, yanked on her jacket, and locked up. Then she drove as fast as she could to his house.