by Anna Lowe
The elevator doors pinged, and he yanked Karen around a corner to the stairs. In less than a minute, the second guard would saunter back to his post and raise the alarm. Tanner flew down the stairs four at a time, and Karen kept pace, thank God. Hell, being a dragon, she probably could take ten at a time.
Half dragon? Half witch?
No time for twenty questions, though, so he pounded on and reached the ground floor just as his earpiece screeched.
“Alert! Alert! Guard down! Guard down!”
He sprinted down a hallway toward the back, praying they wouldn’t be seen. It was about five in the morning, and though the casino never really slept, things did slow down a little around dawn, when most of the vampires would return to their quarters. He took a circuitous route, knowing exactly which hallways had cameras and which didn’t.
“Tenth floor! Tenth floor!” Another alert came through. “Guard down!”
No one had reported Karen missing yet, but they’d put two and two together any minute now.
“Hurry!” he said. “Here.”
He threw a door open and stood gulping fresh air, staring at the pale pink glow on the horizon. It was amazing how even the streets of Vegas could feel clean and fresh after hours spent cooped up inside. If he ever made it out of this crooked town, he’d head home to his mountains and never, ever leave again.
He gulped the sight of Karen, too. Wild green eyes, glossy, auburn hair, freckled nose… Could he really let her go?
Forget about the clan. We’ll figure out some other way of getting the money we need. Let’s just leave with her, his bear begged.
And God, he’d never been so tempted to forsake his family as just then.
“Go,” he said hoarsely before his heart got the better of him.
“Guest One missing!” A voice boomed through his earpiece. “Repeat, Guest One missing!”
“Go,” he said, motioning from the shadows toward the sidewalk, where a group of tourists was walking by. Karen could mix with them and flee.
“Wait. What?” She grabbed his arm.
“I have to go back…” he started then stalled out. How could he possibly explain?
“Don’t. They’ll know you helped me. Don’t.”
The magnetic force felt stronger than ever. He could feel it in his bones, in his veins.
“I have it all figured out,” he lied.
She snorted. “Sure. What are you going to do?”
Yeah, what are we going to do without her? his bear demanded.
“Security team to stations!” The next announcement pierced his ear.
Jesus, he had no time. It was now or never.
“Go. You have to go.” He meant to say it forcefully, but it came out weak and warbly, not at all fitting for a bear. He settled for pushing her toward the sidewalk instead. Maybe that would work. “You have to go.”
She took two steps, then stopped and glared at him. Jesus, his last sight of his mate, and she was glaring at him.
But then her eyes softened, and he swore he could hear her dragon pleading with her the way his bear did with him. Don’t let him go…
Half dragon. Half witch? a little voice reminded him. How could a bear and a witch ever make things work?
Somehow, we’ll make it work, his bear shot back. We will.
Karen tilted her head back and closed her eyes, then nodded silently to herself. Was she thinking the same thing?
When she opened her eyes again, her gaze was firm. Uncompromising. “Meet me tonight. At eight,” she said, like she had an internal clock or appointment book or something. “Can you get away by then?”
Another point of no return. He’d given her freedom; now he needed to get back on track.
A bear that plans ahead, gets ahead. The old saying whispered through his mind. And damn it, his plans didn’t involve evening meetings with dragons or witches or anyone else.
Careful means you’ll never be burned. He could practically hear the bear elders chanting in his ear. Careful meant letting Karen go.
He opened his mouth, but the word refused to come out. Flat-out refused, like a stubborn dog digging its heels in, shoving its ass down, and fighting against its leash.
So he nodded. “Okay.” What else could he do? Hell, yeah, he’d get away if it meant seeing her one more time. “Where?”
She snorted. “Some place bloodsuckers would never go.”
He wanted to suggest Alaska, but he doubted she’d make it that far in the next fifteen hours.
“The Golden Panda,” she said before he could come up with anything. A damn good thing her mind was clear enough to decide, because his was still bouncing all over the place. “Off Fremont Street. Ask if they serve dragon soup.”
He gaped at her. “Dragon what?”
Now she was the one hurrying away, and he was the one rooted to the spot while her voice carried back to him. “Dragon soup. Golden Panda. Eight o’clock tonight.”
She mixed with the crowd, and then she was gone.
***
Tanner stood still for another long minute — a minute he didn’t have — fighting the urge to run after Karen instead of heading back into the casino. Eventually, he did it, though, wiping his mouth from the kiss and sprinting back up the stairs. It was a damn good thing vampires didn’t have a keen sense of smell — not for anything except blood — so chances were good they wouldn’t scent her on him.
But he sure could. It was heaven and torture at the same time. And Christ, what a mess. Why hadn’t she listened to him the first time around? He’d warned her away from the Scarlet Palace right from the start. Why did she have to be so infuriatingly stubborn? So reckless? So…so…
Mine, his bear rumbled inside.
He ran up the stairs — a good excuse for appearing breathlessly on the tenth floor, and started berating the men for letting down their guard.
“You what? She what?” he bellowed, making damn sure every accusation was aimed at the two guards.
“I swear, I found him like this…” the shifter guard said, motioning toward Antoine, who was propped up against the wall, groaning.
Antoine touched the back of his head gingerly. “She’s a witch. I swear she’s a witch. How else could she sneak up behind me?”
Tanner held back a snort and let out his best growl as he gestured at the wolf’s coffee cup. “You left your post?”
The second guard trembled, and the five others who’d gathered around tut-tutted as if they would never consider doing such a thing.
“We’re reviewing the camera footage now.” The voice of the head of security came from a speaker, and everyone hushed.
Tanner, too.
“I’m sending it up to your monitor now.”
The picture on the monitor blinked then showed an empty hallway with a timer on the upper right. It scrolled back in time, then forward from the point that the shifter guard lumbered into view and pressed the elevator button.
“Shit, man, are you in trouble,” one of the guards said, making the wolf groan.
Tanner stood very, very still, staring at the screen long after it showed the guard disappearing into the elevator. His nails bit into his palms, and a fresh line of sweat broke out on his brow. He’d be the one in a hell of a lot of trouble if his timing had been off.
“Nothing,” one of the men muttered. “Not a thing.”
He exhaled slowly.
“I’m telling you, she’s a witch!” Antoine insisted. “She must have levitated a chair and popped me over the head.”
It took everything Tanner had not to smirk. That had been his fist, not a chair. But hell, if Antoine wanted to believe that, it sure suited him.
“How else could she break into the penthouse?” Antoine went on.
That part, Tanner had to agree with, and it made his skin itch. Could it really be?
“I’m telling you, she’s a witch,” Antoine insisted.
Tanner glared at him, but inside, his mind spun. Shit. Could his mate really be
half witch?
Chapter Six
Karen followed a stumbling group of all-night revelers for five long city blocks, then darted down a side street and looked back.
No alarms. No security guards chasing her down. No undercover vampires showing their teeth.
Well, not yet, it seemed.
The only faces she spotted were bleary-eyed and weary — the faces of gamblers and drinkers — humans, one and all. Some were just waking up, while others were weaving their way home after too many drinks downed and too many dollars lost.
She shook her head, as much at herself as at them. What was she doing in this crazy place?
The sky formed a pinkish yellow backdrop to the blinking lights that never seemed to go out in Vegas. Screaming reds and neon greens and clamoring blues — a color for every one of her faults, it seemed. God, she’d gone and done it again — lost her head to the alluring glitter of it all, but how could she help it? After all, she was half dragon.
And yes, half witch. A second-rate witch whose powers were about as useful as her dragon powers were.
In other words, just enough to land her into trouble, but not enough to get her out.
She took a long breath of air that wasn’t as painfully dry as it would be in another hour or two and hung her head. Everything had gone smoothly — well, relatively smoothly — until she’d fucked up. She’d hexed the rooftop lock open — child’s play, really — then snuck down the stairwell and set a fire on the two floors below the penthouse. Fire was about the only spell she was really good at. Her dragon could cough up enough sparks for her magic to accelerate into a huge, hungry blaze. That was always satisfying — especially this time, because she got to watch Igor Schiller’s collection of blood-themed artwork go up in flames.
Then she’d backtracked to the penthouse, managed not to gag at the scent of old blood that permeated the place, and grabbed the diamond. Her diamond, damn it. But then she’d tripped the web spell and fucked it all up. That was the problem with being half witch — she could only sense some forms of magic. Others, she was as blind to as a bat.
So she’d lost her chance. No diamond, no revenge.
“Great job, Karen,” she muttered under her breath. “Great fucking job.”
How was it that her brilliant plans didn’t quite work out?
At least a guardian angel had been looking out for her. Or rather, a guardian bear.
Tanner. Just thinking of him made her pulse skip and her ears ring. It was pathetic, really — and confusing as hell — because she’d grown up thinking destined mates were a myth. But then her sister Kaya had gone all dreamy-eyed for a wolf and rode off into the sunset with a blissful look on her face. Not just a this-guy-knows-his-way-around-a-woman’s-body kind of bliss, but a deeper, soul-soothing kind. The kind that said forever.
But, shit, could it really be that fate had its eye on her, too? It had taken all she had to peel herself away from Tanner after their first night together, and this time had been even harder. She was still reeling from his kiss. Still savoring the faint scent of him on her clothes, and damn it, still dreaming about the way his fingers had traced the contours of her face.
Mate, her dragon purred inside.
She could just hear her great-aunt Tilda cackle now. As a witch, you’ll be immune to that fated-mate nonsense so many shifters make asses of themselves with.
Maybe. Maybe not.
A taxi cruised past, and part of her jumped up and down.
Hail it! Get the hell out of town!
But she didn’t budge, because another voice in the back of her mind chanted Tanner’s name over and over and just wouldn’t let up. It was just like when she’d tried leaving Vegas with Kaya and Trey a few days ago — that feeling of a rubber band pulling her back to Tanner, refusing to let him go. That how am I going to survive the next few hours without him feeling she swore she would never, ever give in to.
And yet, there she stood, pining away for her bear in a thousand different ways.
Shit. Her bear?
He is ours. And he saved us. Our hero! her dragon crowed.
She snorted. Her dragon really ought to have more pride.
He put himself in danger for us!
That part was true. Painfully true. The question was, what was she going to do about it?
She stalked the streets, zigging and zagging and checking behind her every few seconds while gradually moving away from the high-rise glitz of the Strip and into the seedier side streets of old Vegas.
A ghost dressed in a pinstriped suit and leather shoes meandered past, tipping his hat to her. A rat skittered into the shadows, and a crow cawed overhead. The faint scent of the desert wafted in on the fading morning breeze. She tilted her chin up, watching the colors of sunrise blend into the full light of day. A good time to be out — when vampires were not. Still, their henchmen might be out and about, so she didn’t let down her guard.
She hustled into a bright red English phone booth on the corner of Eighth and Fremont — the kind with dozens of square windows and a gold crown on the top. A goddamn crown, as if the Queen might turn up in Vegas and make a quick call to Buckingham Palace to check on her corgis.
Karen darted inside and tapped her fingers beside the keypad for a good three minutes. She’d lost her phone sometime in the past few hours. Should she call her sister? Shouldn’t she?
Finally, she punched the number. Kaya was an early riser, and she might worry — or worse, grow suspicious — if Karen didn’t check in. The last thing Karen needed was her older sister coming to her rescue again. She’d gotten herself into this mess; she could get herself out.
Right?
She pursed her lips.
The phone buzzed twice before the line clicked and her sister’s breathless voice came on. “Karen? Are you okay?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom.”
“Where are you?” Kaya demanded.
“Um…Palm Springs. It’s great.” Karen closed her eyes to the storefronts and the stretch limo rolling through the intersection, imagining golf courses, fountains, and whispering palms instead. So she was fibbing. So what? It was for her sister’s own peace of mind.
“So you’re out of Vegas? Thank God.”
Well, she was out of the Scarlet Palace. Close enough?
“Where are you?” Karen asked, trying to distract her.
“Home,” Kaya gushed in a way she rarely did. She was the no-nonsense sister, not the impulsive, emotional one. And damn, if Kaya had fallen head over heels in love with a wolf she claimed was her destined mate, what chance did Karen have?
“You should see how clear the mountains are this morning,” Kaya said. “The air is so fresh, and the creek is sparkling in the sun…”
Karen pictured the jagged peaks, the babbling brook. She inhaled, imagining the clean mountain air, remembering the timeless peace of her great-great-uncle’s old place, which was Kaya’s now. Karen had never been interested in ranching, but she’d been ankle-deep in the creek’s cool water prospecting for precious gems more times than she could count.
She wiggled her toes in her sandals. Yeah, it would be good to head home. She’d been away too long, chasing rainbows. Looking for something more exciting, though all she’d discovered was that the grass wasn’t greener — not in New York, not in Miami, not in LA. And definitely not in Vegas.
“I don’t know why anyone would want to live anywhere else,” Kaya enthused.
Karen smiled, picturing the faraway look on Tanner’s face when he’d told her about his mountain home the first night they’d met. He’d gone on and on about the night sky, talking about stars like so many neighbors and gushing about old stands of pine and spruce like they were buddies of his. Her soul hummed just thinking about it. Maybe she and Tanner could head back to the Rockies, too. She could go back to prospecting. Her dragon had a nose for the best stones and gems, and she’d always earned enough at it to do fairly well.
Honest work, her dragon nodded.
Right, she snorted. As if it wasn’t your idea to go after the diamond in the first place.
The diamond is different. It should be in the hands of dragons, not vampires.
And just like that, all her rage and bitterness came back. She’d show Schiller and his bloodsucking band what an angry dragon could do.
“How’s Trey?” she asked, trying to keep her sister distracted.
A dreamy sigh floated over the line. A month ago, Karen would have rolled her eyes, but now… She remembered the electric hum that warmed her body when Tanner touched her and nearly made the same sound.
Mate, her dragon murmured. My mate.
She thumped her head against the side of the phone booth. God, why was the attraction so hard to fight?
Why bother resisting? her dragon shot back.
Because she had her pride. Because Tanner worked for the enemy. Because she had a diamond to steal. Because…because…
No matter how many good reasons she came up with, they all fell flat in her mind.
“So you’re off to a good start?” she asked, only half paying attention to the conversation.
“Well, getting this place up and running will be a lot of work,” Kaya said. “But it’s going great. Really great — having a project to work on together, making a future…”
Karen suppressed a little sigh. Jeez, that sounded nice. She’d spent the last two years bouncing from city to city, looking for something she had never really managed to define.
We were waiting for our mate, her dragon whispered.
It hadn’t felt like that at the time, but the second Tanner had bumped into her in a Vegas bar, the world had zoomed away, and suddenly it seemed as if every step in her life had been leading toward that momentous occasion. As if fate had been steering her all along. Working the wanderlust out of her system, learning from a thousand bitter mistakes — all so she’d be ready to settle down when the time came. With Tanner, her destined mate.
She could picture it perfectly. Him and her, working side by side in a quiet valley at the foot of the mountains. She could prospect for gemstones, he could log the choicest lumber. They could fix up a little cabin with a big fireplace and huge views and…
