“Knows what?” Mason asked from where he stood leaned against the railing. His eyes were glowing bright blue.
“Look, we could get away with more when they didn’t know Damon and Diem existed. And then there were dragon offspring. Diem and Bruiser had one, Creed and Gia had another, and the government was leaving everyone alone because they knew Damon was very old. Ancient. Immortal. Untouchable. They didn’t want trouble. That’s what kept his mountains safe for you to live however you wanted.”
“They found out he lost his immortality,” Mason said in a soft, horrified voice.
“Yes,” Cora whispered. “They’re trying to change laws without votes, calling it a state of emergency and striking fear into the humans with bullshit ads and information. I’m fighting and rallying as best I can, but it’s me and my pull against the country. Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”
“We’re losing,” Harrison murmured. “They’re stripping rights.”
“They’re doing it to keep the number of dragons and other shifters to a small population, and Damon’s mountains have become a safe haven for the most dangerous of our kind.”
“We aren’t dangerous to humans,” Kirk gritted out.
“Says us. With enough negative publicity against shifters, people will begin to believe anything. Listen. I need to keep this brief because it is chaos here with organizing protests and rallies. The Breck Crew is in clean-up mode. You have two females now, right?”
“Yes,” Harrison and Bash said at the same time.
“If you want anything done, we have delayed the changes until noon tomorrow. I hope to God we can get everything overturned, but I don’t know how much time it will take or if we’ll ever get these rights back. If you want anyone bound to the Boarlanders, you have until midday tomorrow.”
“Why didn’t those damned officers just say that?” Clinton asked, sounding pissed.
“They weren’t supposed to,” Emerson said, feeling hollow inside as she lifted the crumpled note. “Holman broke some rule by giving me this information. She was trying to tell us we had a little more time, but her partner wouldn’t have been on board with that outright admission.”
“My advice, for what it is worth,” Cora said in a softer tone. “Pledge or do whatever it is you want to legally do by tomorrow, and then go to work. Build your public relations in Saratoga and beyond, as far as you can reach. We’ll be doing the same from Breckenridge. Half-naked lumberjack calendars for woman, interviews, donations, blogs—whatever you can do to show how normal we are to the public, do it. We have a battle ahead to get us back to where we were.”
“Okay. Thanks Cora, we’ll keep in touch.”
“Yep. Good luck tomorrow, and Harrison?”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever you do, don’t let Damon eat anyone until this all blows over.”
The line went dead, and Harrison looked like he wanted to chuck his phone into the woods. “Like any of us can control that,” he gritted out. “Damon only goes all hungry dragon when we’re being attacked, shot at, hurt, annihilated. If we don’t have his fire, these mountains fall. The Ashe Crew, the Gray Backs, the Boarlanders—we’re all sitting ducks.”
“No, we’re sitting grizzlies, dragons, silverbacks, boars, birds of prey, tigers,” Mason ground out. “If they come at us, the shifters here aren’t defenseless. I’ll talk to Damon about keeping a low profile. In the meantime, we need to worry about tomorrow.” He arced his blazing blue gaze to Emerson and Audrey. “If you want legal ties to this crew, now might be your only chance.”
Chapter Eighteen
Bash had disappeared shortly after the call with Cora Keller. He’d seen Emerson to 1010 and then left without another word. The snarl in his throat was constant, and his eyes glowed like a beast, but the look on his face right before he left said he was just as shattered on the inside as she was.
How was she supposed to sleep after what had happened tonight? She’d tried, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw those guns pointed at Bash’s bear, and the flashbacks felt like getting hit by a car.
At five in the morning, she gave up on sleep and made breakfast, sure that he would come in from his Change, or whatever he was doing, but instead, she sat at the table with two plates of food that eventually went cold. She couldn’t even stomach a single bite. Everything had gotten so messed up in such a short time that her head was spinning.
Giving up on him coming back, she dressed and readied for the day, then struck out on her own to find him. She’d never seen Bash down, and she had no idea how he handled heartache, but she knew one thing. Neither one of them should go through this alone.