Charred Hope

Chapter One

Chapter One

Chace couldn’t sleep, even if he wanted to. Every time he tried, his heart beat so loudly that he wasn’t able to fall asleep. 

Figures my heart is keeping me awake.

A few weeks before, when he’d had no heartbeat, he’d been thrilled to hear the first thump. Now, it was like a ticking clock, a reminder that time was passing, and he was helplessly watching it run by him. It wasn’t just the sound keeping him awake this night, but the pain, too. In the quietness of privacy and beneath the curtain of night, he wasn’t able to ignore the ache that pierced him like nothing before ever had. Without his lair, he never really felt safe anymore.

He came here instead to think. Seated on a charred chunk of cement at The Field, he stared into the night sky overhead. It was chilly in the deserts of southern Arizona, but he didn’t care. The soft glow of warm light came from the once-magic bar a short distance away, the place they’d hoped to make a stand against the slayers three days before, only discover their issues were much, much worse.

Dragons soared through the night and perched on nearby hills, keeping an eye on the bar and its surroundings, while nocturnal panthers and other great cats loped between the watch points as a secondary layer of defense. Without the magic of the dragon king to protect it, the bar that acted as a refuge for shifters was stuck in the middle of the desert, its location known to all their enemies.

Because I have no power. The thought no longer filled him with anger or sorrow or any other emotion that left him frustrated. He’d spent the past few days getting over his feelings and now focused on how he was going to change things for the better, if it was even possible.

“You keep coming back to this spot,” his best friend, Gunner, said, approaching with the silence of the panther shifter he was. He sat down on a piece of the demolished compound nearby.

“I’m missing something,” Chace said, gaze dropping from the sky to his surroundings. “It’s here. Somewhere.” Only dark lumps of melted metal and smashed concrete blocks remained of The Field. They hadn’t found as much as a pen that wasn’t irreparably damaged, let alone a computer or file cabinet that might tell him where the slayers’ secret location was.

“We’ve been over the ruins a million times,” Gunner said.

“I know.” Chace rose and walked a short distance. “There’s got to be some clue as to where Mason took her. It’s got to be here.”

Light from a half moon dusted the dark shapes of saguaro cacti and other bushes around The Field. Nothing stirred, aside from the four-legged sentries circling the small valley. 

If you have any sort of mercy, I could use some, he thought at the stars. He missed soaring close to them, peering down at the world.

His eyes closed, and he imagined what it was like to feel the cold air currents ruffle the fur lining his scales and tug at his wings. He yearned to soar in the heavens again, for the sense of freedom he always experienced when he was flying. Fire blazed through his bloodstream when he was in dragon form, and he sought some small trickle of the magic, praying it remained.

It’s useless. With a sigh, Chace opened his eyes and focused on the desert. His brow furrowed at what was in front of him. About fifty meters away, a familiar, boxy shape had appeared out of nowhere. 

“Cabin?” he asked skeptically. “Is that you?”

One window lit up in response. Chace’s heart almost stopped, and he stared, shocked.

“What’re you talking about?” Gunner asked, twisting to look in the direction Chace did.

“You don’t see it?” Chace asked, doubting his own eyes.