Snatched: A Dragon Shifter MC Romance

by Jadyn Chase

  I sat down next to him again. The whole thing seemed too fantastic to believe. “What if he makes a mistake? What if the Longtails anticipate him and he underestimates them the way he did at the safe house?”

  “Hey!” he murmured. “Don’t worry about it. It’s going to be all right. You’ll see.”

  He put out his hands and took hold of me. One warm palm slid behind my neck and the other soothed my back. He pulled me down next to him and hugged my head into his shoulder.

  “He won’t make a mistake. He didn’t underestimate them at The Zone. He couldn’t possibly have known who or what to expect when the alarm went off. He came on the spur of the moment with the only men he could muster. This is different. He knows what he’s getting into and he’ll be sure to bring every gun in the cabinet.”

  A thousand objections and considerations crowded for my attention, but Brayden’s presence silenced them all. He quieted my mind. If he thought this fiasco would end in some positive resolution, who was I to argue?

  He knew Carlos and Los Diablos a lot better than I did. Besides, if it didn’t end well and we all died at the Longtails’ hands, what difference would it make? At least I would die with Brayden.

  I nestled into the strength and protection of his embrace. I nuzzled my nose into the undamaged muscle of his shoulder. At least I could touch that part of him without worrying about hurting him.

  I really didn’t want to run anyway. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to rest in peace and comfort where Brayden was. I never felt this vulnerable safety since my father died and I didn’t want to give it up.

  If I was going to die, at least let us die together. I couldn’t think of any place to go outside this house. I couldn’t think of one person I wanted to see or talk to. I just wanted to stay right here in this bed and feel him next to me. That was enough.

  12

  Brayden

  I eased my arm out from under Morgan’s head and slipped out of bed. I padded two steps away and turned around. She stirred once and fell back into deep slumber.

  I stayed where I was and gazed down at her drifting in sleep. How did a total stranger wind up meaning so much to me in such a short amount of time?

  I heard every word Carlos said to her on the phone. If I knew anything about Los Diablos, they would all be lying out in the dark right now waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

  When that happened, I couldn’t be half-dead with a dozen broken ribs. I held it all together to put Morgan’s mind at ease, but I couldn’t go into battle like this. No way.

  I tiptoed back a few more steps and surveyed the room. The beach house just might be barely big enough to accommodate what I had in mind. I dropped down into the black reaches of my soul and let the dragon float to the surface. A shimmer sparkled on my skin and my reptilian brain took over.

  In a fraction of a second, my body erupted to twenty times its size. I crouched low, but my back spikes still bumped the ceiling. I coiled in my neck and tail and folded my wings down tight, but I still packed every inch of the room.

  I huddled as small as I could get. I fixed my eyes on Morgan asleep in the bed. In between blinking at her, I burrowed into my guts and felt my bones knitting back together the way they should be. My cells repaired the damaged tissue and strength flowed through my veins.

  I swallowed my mounting adrenaline and forced myself to sit still. My nerves twitched for battle, but I had to measure my actions. The longer I sat here without moving, the longer the enemy took to attack, the stronger I got. I needed every sinew and corpuscle in mint condition to play my part in this fight.

  Hours passed and my agitation died away. It left my lizard brain calm and centered. I could take anyone. Let them all come. They would find me ready and waiting for them.

  The sun snuck over the horizon and lit up the garden outside. Golden light played on the flower-decked trellis. It danced down Morgan’s arm to her gently curving neck. Her skin glowed pearly pink. What I wouldn’t give to climb back in bed with her right now, to feel her glide near me between the sheets.

  A lot of water would pass under the bridge before I got back into that bed again. The minutes ticked by. What happened in an hour or three hours no longer mattered. We would meet it with fire and brimstone no matter the outcome.

  Out of nowhere, a loud clang broke the stillness followed by the screech of tires on pavement. That must be it. The noise aroused Morgan. Her eyes flipped open and she raised her head. “Brayden?”

  In a flash, I shifted back to human form. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” I breathed. I bent over the bed and kissed her. “It’s starting. I have to go out there. Just stay in the house. Okay? We’ll do our best to hold them off.”

  Her eyes darted around the room. “Wait! I want to do something. Can’t I at least….?”

  “You don’t have a weapon, darling,” I pointed out. “Even if you did, it wouldn’t do much good. It will be dragon against dragon out there. Just stay in here. You’ll be safer.”

  She opened her mouth to protest. When I pulled away, she grasped my arm to hold me back. “Don’t leave, Brayden. Please.”

  A smattering of machine gunfire juttered through the air outside. It set my hair on end and I jerked away a lot harder than I intended. “I can’t stay, sweetheart. I have to go. I love you.”

  I kissed her one last time. I never meant any words more than those. I loved her. I didn’t want to leave her, but the flaming demon in my soul demanded I rise to battle. I couldn’t stay in here enjoying her while my brothers faced the enemy.

  Her lips quivered, but I dragged myself away. I devoured her with my greedy gaze backing toward the porch. I didn’t want to ever forget her immaculate face. Even her scars and bruises filled my heart to bursting.

  A dragon’s screech echoed beyond the door. That call came just for me. It overrode everything else. I whirled around to leave the house and came face to face with seven Longtails charging up the yard. They vaulted onto the porch and would have rushed straight through the open sliding door on top of me.

  I reacted in a split second. I already knew my dragon bulk could fit in this room without splintering the roof off its joists. I shifted lighting quick and spat a blistering fountain of flame at the onrushing attackers. I caught them in a deluge of fire and sent them somersaulting down the lawn from whence they came.

  More screams drifted to my ear from out of sight. I couldn’t see any other dragons around, so they must still be fighting as men. Wisps of smoke floated over the trees. Constant gunfire belched around the other side of the house.

  I lunged forward to follow up my advantage when a shrill yelp made me turn around. My blood froze in my veins when I spotted another ten Longtails streaming through the backdoor. They rushed Morgan and grabbed her.

  The room might just be big enough for my purpose when I wanted to stop those assholes coming through the front. Now it confounded my efforts to pivot around and help her. I could barely look over my shoulder and watch as they hauled her toward the exit.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I shifted again. I shrank to the size of a man. I whipped around in a hurry and flew across the room, but I couldn’t exactly take on all of them unarmed, could I? I kicked myself. I told Morgan she didn’t need a weapon, but I sure needed one now.

  One of the bastards got behind her and locked his elbow around her neck. He jerked her off her feet while another swiveled in front trying to pick up her legs. She burst into a frenzy of kicking, scratching, and screaming.

  She landed her ankle between her assailant’s legs and he buckled in half. She whipped her arms behind her and snagged a fistful of hair. She ripped a chunk out of her captor’s scalp before he knew what hit him.

  Another three bolted in to take the place of their fallen comrade. One of them leveled a pistol at Morgan’s head. I made a dive for the weapon, but I couldn’t get there in time. For a second, I feared the jig was up, but I didn’t count on her indomitable spirit.

  She wi
nd-milled her leg high and smashed a different guy in the skull. He pitched to his left and his cranium cracked into the gun. It skated sideways just as the gunman pulled the trigger. The bullet whistled through Morgan’s hair and punctured the man behind her through the eye. His arm unfolded and left her suspended in mid-air. She collapsed onto her back with four of them on top of her.

  My wrath erupted in mammoth proportions. If she could fight back like that, so could I. I grabbed the nearest Longtail and snapped his neck with one wrench. I flung the body aside and put out my hand for my next victim. At that instant, another five guys plowed through the door behind me. They seized my arms and wrestled me away from Morgan.

  Christ, I wished then that I could put up half as effective a struggle as she could. I flapped my arms and kicked and roared, but I couldn’t land a single blow. My mind switched to dragon mode. I had to shift, but I couldn’t fight these cocksuckers in here. I needed more space. If I shifted now, I could crush Morgan along with the Longtails. If any of them shifted in here to tackle me, we would blow the house apart.

  My feet skidded on the hardwood floor and I sensed them towing me toward the porch. I couldn’t let them do that. I couldn’t let them take me away from Morgan. In front of my eyes, they dragged her one step at a time toward the rear of the house. They would kill her out there. I never doubted that.

  A thunderous bellow caught my ear. The men holding me turned to look and I tried to crane my neck to see. When I did, a colossal eruption of fire woofed all around me. I ducked and carried my captor with me. He tumbled over my back and the flame caught him from behind.

  A few Longtails screamed as the inferno engulfed them. The others spun around and launched out of their frail human bodies. They shifted glowing brilliant golden yellow in the morning sun.

  Across the yard, a monstrous red fiend crouched next to the garage. It narrowed its eyes at the puny creatures writhing in agony at its feet. It gave only a passing glance to the golden enemy swooping up to zoom around his head.

  My soul expanded in joyful pleasure at the sight. This was it. The battle was all on, dragon against dragon exactly the way I expected. I unfurled my wings and rocketed into the clear blue sky. I joined a swirling whirlwind of dragons soaring all over the property.

  Carlos stayed exactly where he was on the ground. He eyed his prey with unerring accuracy. He snaked his long neck out and snapped his great jaws at any passing opponent. He clipped a wing here and tore off a limb there. He left his enemies shrieking in their death throes. They twirled out of the sky spraying blood everywhere.

  I let my fury and exhilaration run away with me. I careened through the air on a breakneck course to destroy every dragon in sight. I slashed and bit. I looped my tail around a neck and cracked the spine racing off somewhere else. I only checked my flight when I spotted a flash of red in my peripheral vision.

  More Longtails emerged from the undergrowth, only to engage and fall before the might of Los Diablos. I suspected Carlos wouldn’t neglect to bring enough fighters and he didn’t let me down. The Longtails never expected to find the house so heavily defended.

  I scanned the battle zone for someone to kill. Below me, Carlos stalked from right to left flashing his reptilian glare around the air conflict. He shot his fire at weak dragons and incinerated them on the wing. He sent their charred corpses crashing into the trees before he turned his ire on his next victim.

  I saw the skirmish turning our way and amplified my efforts. Nothing thrilled my heart like death in the morning. I let out a cackling laugh at the sheer joyous jubilation of it all when, with no warning, a massive weight hit me from one side. I never saw it coming.

  In a heartbeat, powerful coils slithered around me. They wrapped me up in an unbreakable grip and flattening my wings to my sides. I tried to thrash around to see what was attacking me, but I could make out only acres and acres of golden scales.

  I didn’t have time to see anything else. Without my wings, I smashed into the ground with catastrophic force. The dragon holding me immobile struck with equal devastation, but the impact didn’t seem to faze him at all.

  The instant we touched down, he wriggled over and pinned me down. I couldn’t move. He unwound part of his tail and lashed it down on top of me. He pounded my newly healed ribs to smithereens and smacked me in the head until I saw stars.

  I floundered trying every trick in the book to free myself, but his massive body refused to give an inch. Nothing I could do would budge him. He sank down on top of me with an unbearable weight.

  His tail cracked through the air one more time. I saw it coming, but I couldn’t stop it. It flashed toward my eye and delivered a devastating splintering clap across my face. My vision blacked out for a second. When I came to my senses, I found myself lying in my human body under his granite coils.

  I blinked the confusion out of my mind trying to decide what to do. At that moment, a strident voice stabbed into my brain. “Brayden! Brayden!”

  I pried back my head and saw Morgan. She lay flat on her back wrestling a sawed-off shotgun in both hands. The man holding it bared his teeth trying to wrench it from her grip, but she fought too hard.

  From here, I got a single glimpse of a Desperados patch on his jacket. What was he doing here? His lanky dark hair swayed around his pointed, rat face.

  At the same time, another Longtail vaulted to his feet a few steps away. He dove for the pair and leveled an automatic rifle at Morgan’s face. A silent command whispered in my head. No. I wouldn’t let this happen.

  Before I knew what happened, I rotated onto my stomach. Fighting this dragon as a dragon accomplished nothing. As a man, though, I just might be too small for him to compensate.

  Sure enough, I squirreled under his coils. The minute he sensed me slipping from his grasp, he seethed around in circles trying to consolidate his hold, but to no avail. He only succeeded in creating a tunnel through which I could crawl to freedom.

  I didn’t bother taking my dragon form again. It wouldn’t help me once I got inside the house. I broke out from under the dragon and charged for the open porch door. I lunged across the living room and struck the Desperado square in the shoulder. He collided with his friend and pitched over, but he didn’t let go of the gun.

  Morgan didn’t let go, either. They somersaulted head over heel, all three of them tangled up in a ball with me. We rolled over and over each other, through the back door, down three rickety wooden steps, and splayed on the back lawn.

  13

  Morgan

  The tattoo artist snarled through his yellow teeth. His neck and knuckles strained to the breaking point trying to pry that gun out of my hands. I couldn’t let it go for anything. The minute he regained control over it, he would turn it on me and that would be it.

  Some obsolete microchip in my brain recorded his name when he gave me my tat, but I couldn’t remember it now to save my life. He glared at me in undisguised menace. What did I ever do to make him hate me so much? I just wanted to live. Was that so wrong?

  He paid no attention to Brayden or anything else. He trained all his focus on tearing that gun out of my hands. My awareness narrowed to a pinprick with the same object in mind. That gun represented my one and only lifeline out of this mayhem.

  The Longtail who tried to shoot me regained his feet. He groped around for the assault rifle to blow me away, but Brayden flipped over on the grass and caught him by the leg. Brayden swept his arms under the man and knocked him down.

  The Longtail spun around to face him. At the same moment, three yellow dragons swooped over the hedge from somewhere out of sight. They converged on our location shrieking and glistening in the sun.

  My heart sank. The strength in my arms ebbed. I couldn’t hold out much longer. The blissful dream of love and connection I shared with Brayden last night faded to a nice idea. We spent a few majestic hours in this house pretending to be real people, but it couldn’t last.

  We would never live like normal people because we we
ren’t normal people. We belonged to a hidden underclass dwelling outside everyday society. The world would always hunt us. It would do its utmost to rob us of happiness whenever the chance presented itself.

  The tattoo artist gave the gun a vicious yank. The stock tore out of my numb fingers, but I didn’t try to fight anymore. The scene slowed to a standstill.

  Across the yard, the three Longtails alighted in a circle around Brayden. He levitated off the ground and flung his arms wide. The man I knew, the man I loved, ruptured from the inside. He melted away to vapor and a crimson monster more terrible than the most horrific nightmare took his place.

  The thing arched its sinuous neck. Black spikes shot out of its spine all the way down its snake tail. Its pointed wings flexed and a hot wind blasted from the tips. The creature reared, retracted its neck in on itself, and let fly a scorching cascade of hellish fire.

  The cyclone sprayed across the yard and pummeled the Longtails across their chests and faces, but they didn’t retreat. They cowered under the bombardment, but the minute it ended, they launched at Brayden spouting their own flame in equal measure.

  The tattoo artist whipped the gun around and crammed the barrel in my face. The cold steel touched my mouth. His lips curled back in a malevolent grin and he tightened his fingers around the trigger.

  Brayden thundered to wake the dead. The other dragons moved in. He couldn’t save me now. He tried, but the Longtails won out in the end.

  The dragons converged on him and circled for the death stroke. The man Brayden tackled in the house rose up and joined them to make four. Every time Brayden wheeled to confront one of them, the others darted in slashing and striking. They cut him until blood ran down his legs.

  All at once, the four flew at him in a blind rush. They attacked him at once and wrapped their scaly bodies around his limbs, They towed him to the ground snapping and beating and foiling his best efforts to fight back.