Gate Read online

  Table of Contents

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Gate

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Excerpt

  Afterword

  Gate

  Dragon Heartbeats

  Ava Benton

  Contents

  Gate

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Afterword

  Gate

  A dragon heartbeat reveals the Scottish dragons are still alive and the Appalachian dragons go on a mission save their kin.

  One little detail they didn’t count on, though. A certain brunette firecracker of a stowaway who’s hell-bent on proving herself, and proving her mother wrong. Said firecracker’s mother? None other than the formidable Mary.

  Poor Gate, he’s in for a hell of an adventure, and that’s before the mission even begins.

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  1

  Gate

  “Why can’t I ever go with you when you get supplies?” Tommy trotted behind Miles and me as we walked down the long tunnel leading to the cave entrance.

  I exchanged a glance with my cousin, who shrugged.

  So, it was up to me to explain it to the kid. Again.

  I stopped and counted to five in my head before turning around to face the tow-headed little kid who had become a sort of unofficial mascot of the entire clan.

  His eyes were wide and teary—the sight of them erased even the slightest bit of irritation I had been feeling only moments earlier.

  I crouched, putting us at eye-level.

  He was a wise boy, much too smart for us to pull the wool over his eyes for long.

  We knew this time was coming, naturally. A time when it would no longer be acceptable for us to keep him cooped up in a cave without experiencing more than a bit of pushback. He was a healthy, active boy. Playing in the woods near the mouth of the cave would only satisfy him for so long.

  “I would love nothing more than to have you with us,” I said, lying only slightly in order to spare his feelings.

  There were many things I would rather have done than take a child to a crowded store and suffer through his asking for one thing after another.

  I had seen enough of that on my supply runs over the years—sticky-mouthed children who pointed and pouted and asked questions. The nice ones, the ones who didn’t give me a splitting headache, took “no” for an answer. The rest threw tantrums. I’d once watched from the corner of my eye as a pudgy little boy wept, begging his mother to buy him a pack of chocolate bars. He had even tried to hide it under his shirt when she’d refused. Not that I suspected our young friend would ever pull a stunt like that, but there was no telling what might happen when a child was overstimulated.

  “So? Why can’t I come, too? I’m a good helper. I could help you.”

  He was breaking my heart. “I know you could. You always do help with things when we need you to. But this is something we have to do on our own—Miles and me.”

  “How come?”

  “You know how come,” I murmured, taking his shoulders in my hands.

  He was small for his age, probably a result of malnourishment when his mother was at her worst.

  “We’ve talked about this before. You and me and everybody else. I know it isn’t easy for you to be here all the time. And do you want to know a secret?”

  “I guess so.”

  “It wasn’t easy for me at first, either. It took time for me to get used to being here.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Yes. I mean it.” I couldn’t help but smile just a little, though it was a rueful one.

  Yes, I meant it. I had hated feeling cooped up in the cave, no matter how serious our mission was or how invaluable the treasure we protected. My rational, human side had understood all of that.

  My dragon had been a different story. He had wanted to fly free, unencumbered, without having to hide from humans at every turn. It was the same back in Scotland, ever since I’d grown into my wings and learned to control my shifting.

  “What did you do to get used to it?” he fretted, one corner of his mouth screwing up in a distrustful pout. “You had lots of people your age here with you. I don’t have anybody except my friends on the computer.”

  “And imagine what it was like for me, back before there were computers,” I suggested, raising an eyebrow.

  “No computers?”

  I laughed. “Come on. You know there was such a time. You’ve been studying history with Ciera. So imagine being here, in this very cave under this very mountain, stuck with my family. Do you know how boring that can get? I could read, certainly, but that was about it at that time.”

  “That does sound boring,” he observed.

  “Trust me. It gets better.” I caught sight of Carissa hurrying down the tunnel and was glad for it. “Did you happen to tell your aunt that you planned to follow us to the truck?”

  He looked at the floor. “No.”

  “I had a feeling.” I patted him on the back, more than a little sorry for him, as he turned to face his punishment.

  Not that Cari would go too hard on him for only being lonely and bored. We couldn’t be very good company, no matter how we tried.

  Even so, it was a relief to get away from him and join Miles outside.

  Fence was out there somewhere, taking his turn at guarding the cave. My cousin waited for me next to the truck and climbed in when he saw me coming.

  “Letting me drive. How thoughtful,” I muttered as I slid behind the wheel.

  “I thought I owed you at least that much after leaving you swinging in the breeze back there,” he shrugged.

  “Yes, and thanks for that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you run away from anything that quickly. And he’s only a little boy. I wonder what would happen if you ever faced a real threat.” I pressed my foot on the accelerator and relished the way the engine responded.

  I didn’t get to drive nearly enough. It had always been a fantasy of mine to drive a sleek sports car as fast as it would take me, perhaps with a curvy bombshell at my side.

  No such speeding could be performed along the side of the mountain—and Miles was no bombshell.

  “I’ve done just fine for myself, thank you very much,” he grumbled.

  “Just the same. Perhaps we should rethink allowing you to perform guard duty when a child frightens you so badly.”

  He punched my arm—not the best idea while I was driving the truck—and replied, “It’s not the child. It’s all the questions, and you know it.”

  “I know it,”
I confirmed, no longer joking.

  It had only been a short while since we’d returned from Scotland, and Tommy had joined us a few weeks earlier, but he was already becoming restless. It was inevitable. He’d want to know why his life had become so secretive. No matter how mature he was or how understanding, there were always limits.

  I shuddered to think how much worse it would get. I didn’t even want to consider how much the poor kid might be missing out on.

  But that wasn’t my call, was it? Cash was the one who’d shown him his dragon form during the rescue, and there hadn’t been a choice but to bring him and Cari to our underground compound. I could understand it, but I didn’t have to think it was a good idea.

  “We’re none of us are equipped to deal with a child,” Miles observed as he looked out the window. “There’s bound to be a period of adjustment. He seems happy enough.”

  “Yes. Happy enough.”

  I remembered only being happy enough. It wasn’t all a pretty lie, the story I told him about my dissatisfaction when we first traveled to our current home. I, at least, had been an adult. Older than Tommy, anyway, and there was a larger mission at stake. Much more than simply doing as I was told. I’d keenly understood my duty, and even then, I’d been unhappy. What was it like for a child who couldn’t rationalize the turn his life had taken?

  “It’s really not worth worrying about,” my cousin muttered. “We have too many other things on which to spend our time.”

  “True. But I’m not sure I feel like obsessing over the length of time it’s taken Mary to get back to us about that little device her team built.”

  We were still waiting, and every new day which ended without word from her was another nail in the coffin.

  There was no telling what was happening to our extended family as time slipped past us. Even if they hadn’t been dead back when we’d first become aware of losing the clan heartbeat, they might be after so much time had passed. And we were sitting on our hands, waiting for somebody else to come up with answers. Hardly our style.

  “Please. Don’t remind me.” He wasn’t any more pleased than I was—in fact, going out for a supply run was a relief, when it was normally a chore.

  Getting away from the rest of them when tensions ran as high as they were right now made the long drive worthwhile.

  I didn’t even need Miles’ help, but he’d all but begged for the chance to leave.

  I turned up the music in an attempt to drown out my irritation.

  It was a fruitless effort, but I had to try something.

  2

  Gate

  As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait much longer before things took a turn.

  I was in the walk-in freezer, loading the shelves with the steaks we’d picked up at the store, when I heard the commotion.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as I rushed into the control center, but my words were lost in the noise.

  Mary’s face filled the screen on the wall, and she looked about as enthusiastic as the rest of my family.

  “They have a heartbeat.” Cash clapped me on the back, grinning from ear to ear.

  A heartbeat. We’d always been able to hear the heartbeat of our dragon clan in Scotland, the one we were descended from before we were brought to the Appalachian Mountains to guard a treasure that we weren’t really supposed to even look at.

  Then one day, a few short months ago, the heartbeat went silent. We’d been on a quest ever since to find our missing kin.

  Adrenaline pumped through my body. “Where?”

  “Somewhere in the Caribbean,” Mary announced. “We need to zero in on the exact location, but when our plane circled the area, the signal suddenly became very distinct.”

  “What now?” Smoke asked. He gripped the edge of the long table hard enough to turn his knuckles bone white.

  We were all on edge, in a place between jubilation and apprehension.

  After all, it was good to find a heartbeat—but what did that mean for the clan?

  Why were they so far from home, and who had taken them there?

  “Now, we find a way to get onto the island and find where the clan is being held.”

  Of course they were being held. Why else would this be happening? Why would they leave Scotland after all these centuries? Why would the heartbeat have gone silent?

  “I’ll go,” I announced before I thought twice.

  Not that I needed to think. I knew I was going to want to go long before hearing that we had a signal. Everyone else had gotten the chance to contribute—even the trip to Scotland, while interesting, didn’t yield much of anything exciting. We’d found the plans for the tracking device, but that had been more of a happy accident than anything deliberate.

  “I’ll go, too,” Miles announced. The two of us looked around the control center, gauging the acceptance of everyone involved. They all seemed to agree that this was the best course of action—at least, they didn’t speak to the contrary.

  And I understood why. They had their mates to consider. Taking chances was no longer advisable.

  I supposed I’d feel the same way if I were in their shoes.

  “All right. Be sure to bring plenty of Carissa’s antidote with you,” Mary reminded us. “I’ll have a helicopter out to the mountain in two hours, which will take you to the nearest airstrip. A boat will be waiting for you when you land.”

  And that was it. That was how missions like the one I was about to embark on were arranged.

  One minute, I was stocking the freezer for a couple of weeks—the next, I was hurrying to my room to shove clothes into a bag. The girls were waiting outside the door to the control center. Including Cari.

  “How much available antidote do we have?” I asked as we walked down the corridor.

  My heart was racing in a way it hadn’t in ages, and my dragon rejoiced. I could hardly hear myself think for the ecstatic roaring. Yes, yes, this is what we’re meant for, we need to save our clan. I felt alive, useful in a way going to the store couldn’t possibly make me feel.

  This was the sort of thing I was meant for. Not for supply runs or checking on the status of the generator. Not even standing guard over the treasure. I was finally going to see some action, after waiting for so long.

  “There are several dozen applications in storage,” she announced. “According to my records, your last inoculation took place ten days ago, so you have nearly three weeks before you’ll need another shot. You probably won’t be gone that long. Will you?”

  I chuckled, shrugging as we entered the room. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “I wish we knew how many members of the clan are there,” she fretted, chewing her lip as I packed.

  “So do I—I mean, we’re taking a single boat? Who’s to say how many of the clan will need to be removed from the island? Who knows how many people are guarding them? Will there be enough of us?”

  All of my apprehensions came spilling out of me before I could stop them. I threw a glance her way, expecting her to look surprised or disappointed. Instead, she smiled softly.

  “I have a confession to make: I’ve been asking Cash the same questions for ages.”

  “You have?”

  She nodded. “There was no telling until now how many of you would go, or what the circumstances would be when you did. It’s been keeping me up nights. All of us, in fact.”

  “You girls?”

  Another nod as she leaned against the doorframe, arms folded. “We have our little coffee klatches, of course.”

  “I would expect nothing less. Get a bunch of females together in the same place…”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “At any rate, it seems like the odds are in your favor, doesn’t it?”

  “How so?”

  “Because with the antidote, you’ll have an entire army at your back.”

  Cash stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  She smiled at him, then continued, “The only
thing that could possibly keep them prisoner would be iron, correct? Once they’re inoculated, they’ll be able to shift. A dragon army is a powerful thing.”

  “Certainly. So there will be just the matter of infiltrating the location where the clan is being held. Not a problem.” I let out a mirthless chuckle.

  Cash smiled. “That’s Mary’s specialty, remember. If there’s a way to get in, she’ll help you with it.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I also wished he was coming with us. I wished they all were, though that was impossible. While finding the clan was a priority, our highest priority was as it had always been: guarding the treasure deep inside the mountain.

  “Aunt Cari?” Tommy’s voice grew louder as he drew closer. “What are you doing in here?” He elbowed his way through the open door, eyes widening when he noticed the open suitcase on my bed.

  “Hey, little man. I’m getting ready for a trip, and your aunt is helping.”

  He looked up at her, then at Cash. “You’re not going, too, are you?”

  “No, I’m staying. Just Gate and Miles are going this time.”

  He turned his attention to me. “I guess I can’t go with you.”

  “I guess you’re right,” I said with a grimace. “Sorry, little man. One day.”

  “One day,” he muttered, looking at his feet, hands jammed into his pockets.

  Cari sank to her knees, wrapping him up in a hug.

  “He’ll be back soon,” she promised, glancing at me over his shoulder. Making a promise she didn’t know whether she could keep. “Come on. We have to go to the lab to pack up my special antidote. I need my assistant with me.”