When the Lightning Strikes (Six Shooter and a Shifter Book 3) Read online

  When the Lightning Strikes

  BOOK THREE IN THE SIX SHOOTER AND A SHIFTER SERIES

  LUCÍA ASHTA

  When the Lightning Strikes

  Book Three in the Six Shooter and a Shifter series

  Copyright © 2022 by Lucía Ashta

  www.LuciaAshta.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Mirela Barbu

  Editing by Ocean’s Edge Editing

  Proofreading by Geesey Editorial Services

  About When the Lightning Strikes

  I need more magic like I need a point-blank bullet to the head.

  All that dragon power Rhett’s already given me is churning around inside me, causing as much trouble as the great poohbah dragon protector himself, and he’s trouble walking in a pair of perfectly fitting jeans.

  Regardless of my desires, and I’ve got lots of them thanks to the two men who won’t stop shooting suggestive looks my way, more magic is exactly what I’ve got—plus a whole band of dragon shifters without it, heh, pointing fingers at me for taking what they think is theirs. Oopsie.

  Still, no matter the hissy fits they throw, finders keepers, losers weepers applies extra when it comes to power. Especially since I’ve got no idea how to give any of it back—or how to properly use it either, for that matter. And that’s before Zeke wants to share some of his magic with me...

  Oy. These men are intent on driving me batty.

  Life in Traitor’s Den, usually crazy enough to keep me on my toes, has never seemed quite so over-the-top outrageous. Denners and our unexpected guests are keeping me busier than a cat on a hot tin roof. When you add in all the resurrections, well, bring on the extra nuttiness.

  But when saving my best friend Birdie’s life involves her kissing Zeke, my quasi-vampire, my man, I wholly embrace the unofficial motto of Traitor’s Den: “Behaving is for losers.”

  Honey, I ain’t no loser.

  Armed with my girls Big Bertha and Big Wilma, the best six shooters a woman could ask for, I’m off to protect what’s mine.

  Now, if only that list weren’t growing...

  To my amazing readers.

  Yes, I mean you, reading this right now.

  Thank you for falling in love with every wild world I create right along with me. Your enthusiasm for my stories makes me that much more excited to write them. I write not only for me, but for you. Thanks for making this journey so incredibly worthwhile.

  ♥

  And also, as always, for my three magical daughters, Catia, Sonia, and Nadia, and for my beloved, James. You add so much beauty to my life.

  I am forever grateful.

  Ain’t no one got a say in how you live your life but you. Make damn sure you’re the one you’re livin’ for. Do things your way and don’t go explain’ yourself to no one. Life’s too short for that tuckin’ nonsense.

  LORETTA MAYBELLE RAY, SHERIFF OF TRAITOR’S DEN

  Contents

  1. The Miracle of Selfish Wenches Failed by Beauty Sleep

  2. When It Comes to Resurrections, More Isn’t Necessarily Better

  3. Life and Death Hang in the Balance of the No-Plan Plan

  4. Oh, Ohhhhh, O!—When Bliss Turns to Piss

  5. Being Dead Is No Excuse For Crossing Bestie Lines

  6. Recently Resurrected Isn’t a Recipe for Good Behavior, or For Much of Anything Else

  7. When Don’t Means Do, Do Get Into Trouble

  8. Insult Daughters, Wives, Women in General, or Their Horses At Your Own Risk

  9. When You’re Out of Choices, the Right One’s Just as Good as the Wrong One

  10. Molasses Resurrections, Gun-Toting Denners, and Cowboys to the Rescue

  11. As Weird as It Is Wild

  12. When Perfection Can’t Be Rushed, and Neither Can Denners

  13. When Lights Flash and Thunder Claps, It’s Time for a Sharmayne Kinda Plan

  14. If Only the Switcheroony Were Due to Diddlin’, It Might Be Worth It

  15. Just Another Day in the Tuckin’ Weird Wild West

  16. First Flight, a Tab of Smallish Favors, and Naughty Monkeys

  17. Bada-Bing, Bada-Bang, Bada-Boom

  18. When Tiger Talks, He Tickles a Tangle

  19. Tiger Talks, Tiger Walks

  20. Fruity Tooty, Airy Fairy, Hardcore Hippie Love Triangles

  21. Happier than a Mule in a Pickle Patch, AKA It’s Not Too Many, Just Enough

  22. Sucker Punches to the Gut on the Road to Fist City

  23. Slap a Damn Crown on My Head If You Must, Just Don’t Ever Let Me Go

  24. Crooked as a Barrel Full of Fish Hooks and Twice as Tucked

  Read the Next Book

  Sneak Peek of When the Sky Falls

  Also by Lucía Ashta

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  The Miracle of Selfish Wenches Failed by Beauty Sleep

  So numb that my extremities tingled, I sat slumped on the dirt right where I’d stood, the space where the portal had gaped open within my sights. Not that I was looking.

  I finally understood what it meant to have tunnel vision. Abstractly, I registered that more Denners had returned to the portal zone to back us up once we’d started firing shots. Now that the fighting was over, most of them still milled around. People spoke in urgent tones, horses neighed and whinnied in unrest, and someone somewhere cried softly, a fact that on its own should have been alarming. Denners were too tough to do their crying in public.

  All I saw was Birdie … her eyes wide open … her stare glassy and vacant. I hadn’t had the heart to close her eyes for her. Apparently, neither had anyone else. That would make it too final. Too real. Too much of a farewell forever.

  Her short, silky, strawberry-blond hair fanned out behind her head, making her look like an angel. The gaping hole in the middle of her chest had charred around the edges, a perfect circle a hand’s length across, revealing the ground below it. I really wanted to stop staring at it, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. My gaze kept landing there, where her enormous heart should have been. It was as if I could still hear the echoes of her buoyant laughter. There was no one better at lightening up the mood of a crowd. That was her true magic, not stupid hairstyling.

  Kiki clung to my back again. I wanted her off me, unwilling to be responsible for any other living creature. But every time I attempted to nudge her off, she only gripped me harder.

  And Baby was snoozing in his sling as if he hadn’t been at the root of so much loss and trouble. Not that I blamed him. There was only one person to pin Birdie’s death on, and I planned to do a whole lot of pinning.

  Not that long ago I’d been fretting about Birdie and Cole kissing. As if that were at all important. Instead of pouting, I should have been spending that time with my best friend, mending the silly rift between us. Making the most of the final moments we had left to share.

  My eyeballs stung, but no tears fell. Perhaps I was too hot inside, my magic instantly evaporating my tears. Either that or I was plain dead inside, catfish on ice. That made the most sense; I wasn’t sure I was feeling a thing around all that hollow inside. You’d think I was the one with the lifeless pit in the middle of my chest instead of Birdie.

  Tiger paced incessantly around me, chuffing in a constant stream of distress. The more still I got, the less he did. A part of me knew I should reach out to reassure him; a greater part of me was too empty to do it.

  A hand landed on my shoulder. I didn’t flinch or otherwise react. Then Cole was talking in my ear. “Don’t worry about Jolene. I’ll go calm her.” When he squeezed my shoulder in companionable support, only then did I register my Appaloosa's panicked whines. As loud as all the other horses were being, she was louder. Like Tiger, she could use my comfort.

  If only I had any of it to offer.

  Time kept marching on, the only thing to distinguish its passing the occasional soothing hand across my back, a kiss to the top of my head, a whisper and a peck to my cheek. I didn’t react. I didn’t move. I didn’t feel.

  Only when the sky began to lighten did I stir, and even then only because I’d had to pee for hours. I blinked at my surroundings.

  Tiger noticed my increased awareness first, leaping to close the few feet between us, barreling into my side and almost knocking me over—and into Birdie at my feet. He dragged his long tongue across my neck before nuzzling my face. I didn’t have the words yet, but I leaned my cheek into his and he purred. We remained like that for several moments before he plopped onto my lap. He was extremely heavy, but I leaned forward to hug him with all I had, wondering if the tears would come at last.

  They didn’t, as if an important function inside me had snapped in half at the first sight of Birdie’s fallen body.

  While resting my head against Tiger’s back, I took in the many bodies littering the dirt, pools of blood under some of them, no sign of injury around others. Most wore the faces of strangers. I sucked in a deep breath of relief. They were the dragon shifters, not Denners. The dead were t
he intruders, our attackers, not innocents—save Birdie. The one and only time I’d refer to her as innocent.

  “Ohmygoodgawd, Loretta, honey,” my mom gushed from somewhere behind me. “Levi. Levi! She’s back.”

  But however far away my parents were, Rhett and Zeke arrived at my side first, sliding on to their butts next to me before Rhett pulled me into a tight embrace, mindful not to squash Baby in the process. Not even a full second later, Zeke slipped his arms around Kiki to hug me around the back. Instead of complaining that he’d gotten shoved out of the way, Tiger pushed his head against my lap in the middle of all of us.

  Enveloped in the comfort of their scents and the familiar pull of belonging, I sucked in my first nourishing breath in what seemed like ages. My inhale was shaky, but it served to burn away the haze that had me in its thrall for hours. The magic swirling around within me ratcheted up in temperature, making me flush, but I didn’t pull away from any of them. Just then I thought I might never want to move at all. This was the best I’d felt since Birdie ... since Birdie died.

  The thought of death hitched inside me, and I trembled in earnest. Tiger, Zeke, and Rhett held me tighter.

  More sets of arms wrapped around us. “I don’t know how yet, honey,” my mom said, “but we’re gonna pull through this. Everythin’s gonna be alright. Somehow.” But my mom’s voice was thick with grief and uncertainty. “We’ll get to the other side a this. Don’t worry ‘bout the mule goin’ blind. Just load the wagon.”

  “That’s right, baby girl. We got you,” my dad said.

  I nodded against Rhett’s chest but said nothing. Words seemed forever away. I might never speak again.

  “Would ya look at that?” Bluebell’s tinny voice cut through the group hug. “Sweet as all get out, y’all are. Even the big dragon brute.” Which had to be Rhett.

  As one, we ignored her. Eventually the tiny fairy would buzz away. She usually did.

  This time though, she didn’t. “Well,” she snapped, “I didn’t fly all over the damn place for most of the night for nothin’. Come on now, y’all. I’m gonna need your help with Birdie.”

  The thought of the diminutive fairy doing anything to take my friend away from me was like a dull spoon carving out my insides. I sagged against Rhett, Zeke, Tiger, and all the rest. I’d need Sharmayne to pour me a good half dozen Dragon Slayers before I gathered the fortitude to bury my best friend.

  Bluebell tsked, and I secretly hoped someone would swat in her general direction. She harrumphed. “Don’t ya know, it’s better to be pissed off than pissed on. Do ya want me to patch Birdie up or not? I figure the longer she’s got to cool, the harder it’ll be.”

  I stiffened. All the arms around me tightened too.

  “Whaddya just say?” my dad asked in a gritty growl. Birdie was like the annoying step-daughter he’d never had but loved just the same.

  Straining my ears to pick up every inflection of her small voice, I waited. Not breathing. Not daring to hope.

  Yes, Traitor’s Den was a town built on magic itself. And also yes, everyone inside the village had magic of all sorts. But no one here had the power to resurrect the dead, or surely I’d have heard about it.

  Bluebell huffed. “I damn well said that I didn’t go flyin’ all over hell and high water in the pitch o’ night for y’all to just sit around huggin’, now didn’t I?” She paused. “No, I didn’t. I went to fetch Henrietta, who wasn’t easy to find, mind. The witch was hidin’ from me.”

  “I was not,” Henrietta piped up, and I edged my head out between arms to get a look at the witch. Her muddy brown hair was limp against her face, and she hugged a robe around her as if she was cold, when I still wondered if I might finally self-combust with how hot everything was, especially at the center of a pile of people.

  “There’s a difference between hidin’ and sleepin’, Bluebell,” Henrietta snapped. “Nothin’ wrong with a girl gettin’ her beauty rest.”

  My parents, Rhett, Zeke, and even Tiger joined me in staring at Henrietta. The witch was perhaps in her mid-fifties, with the kind of matching face and personality that only a mother, or a dog, could appreciate.

  She tipped her face up with an air of haughtiness. “It’s not a crime to get some shuteye, for noodles’ sake, so y’all can stop lookin’ at me like that.”

  “You slept through the bell clangin’ away?” my mom asked.

  “Yup. Sure did. Nothin’ good ever comes through the portal. And it’s never let any of us go through the way we want, so why waste my time?”

  “Anyway,” Bluebell interjected, “I didn’t hunt down Henrietta here for her sparklin’ wit.”

  The sun cracked the horizon in a beam of brilliance as Henrietta scowled at the little fairy.

  “Well?” Bluebell prompted. “Are you gonna tell them or am I?”

  Henrietta’s scowl soured, and she crossed her arms across a flat chest. “Why stop sharin’ everyone’s business now when you’re on a roll?”

  Bluebell zipped down to hover in front of Henrietta’s face, her translucent wings an angry blur behind her. “I ain’t sharin’ nothin’ that don’t need to be shared. I am not a gossip.”

  Of course, that’s precisely what Bluebell was, but it wasn’t like she could help herself. It seemed to come naturally.

  Henrietta smirked. “You said it, not me.”

  Bluebell pursed tiny lips together and buzzed furiously.

  I opened my mouth to tell them both to piss off with their silly drama when important shit had gone down, but Bluebell grunted and snapped, “Ya know what, Henrietta? You’re a selfish wench. You alone got the magic to fix Birdie, and all ya wanna do is get your beauty rest.” Bluebell snorted. “Well, I got news for you. Ain’t no amount of sleep gonna fix ya up—”

  Like a stalk shooting up from the dark and damp earth, I pushed out of the cocoon of comfort pressing around me. Emerging with Kiki on my back, Baby against my bosom, and Tiger glued to my thigh, I asked, “Did ya just say what I think you said?”

  Bluebell’s nose scrunched up. “That Henrietta here’s about as sexy as socks on a billy goat no matter how many Z’s she catches?”

  “No, dammit. Are ya sayin’ there’s a way to bring Birdie back?”

  My mom rubbed my neck. “Sweetheart, there ain’t no bringin’ dear Birdie back to us. She looks like the gophers be nibblin’ at her toes already, bless her sweet heart. That’s as done as done gets.”

  “Unh-unh,” Bluebell said. “Hen can fix ‘er right up.”

  Henrietta glared at the fairy. “I never told you that.”

  “No, ya didn’t. You’re all in love with your secrets. But I seen you.”

  “You spied on me?”

  “Yep, sure did, but only for the good of the town. I wouldn’t know you can bring Birdie back from the dead if I hadn’t, so no one’s mindin’ how I found out.”

  “I’m mindin’ plenty. You wake me up and drag me out of bed n’ then threaten me all the way over here. You’re slicker than greased owl shit, though you put a pretty bow on it with all your bright, sparkly clothes and—”

  My legs wobbled for the first few steps, but by the time I stood directly in front of Henrietta, a board to the head couldn't have knocked me over.

  “Can you or can you not help Birdie?”

  Henrietta hesitated, looking everywhere but at me.

  I clasped her shoulders, working hard to resist the urge to shake the selfishness out of her. “Can you bring my best friend back?”

  Henrietta’s eyes blazed heatedly as she finally met my waiting stare. “I can.”

  CHAPTER 2