Dragon's Challenge

by Jasmine Wylder

  And was that the reason Maura didn’t want him to go to the library with her? Why she had told him to go shopping with Evan?

  “Our names?” Evan repeated in alarm. “What are you talking about, our names?”

  “I told you, I have learned that I have to cover my ass,” Maura snapped. She pulled herself away from Stephen’s arms and flicked on a flashlight. The dim light exaggerated the shadows on her face, making her look almost demonic as she scowled. “Even people who I think I can trust, people I count as friends, can betray me. Have betrayed me. I’m not going to apologize for taking steps necessary to protect myself.”

  Stephen pushed himself upright while Evan did the same. Evan protested, but Stephen only narrowed his eyes at her. “And what sort of information did you gather on us, so you could ‘protect’ yourself against us?”

  What information do you have waiting to be used against me?

  Maura closed her eyes, breathing out a heavy sigh. She sounded so tired now. Stephen almost was willing to put aside his fears and worries and say he trusted her, that he was going to do his best to believe her and promise once more to always protect her.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t. Not now.

  “Well?” Evan demanded. “What’s on that drive?”

  “Information about the various missions that the Blaze Ops ran, mostly. A few things that are more embarrassing than incriminating. Accusations of cheating in high school.”

  Stephen growled. “I never cheated in—”

  “Uh…” Evan tapped his shoulder. “I think that one was for me. And I didn’t cheat exactly, I—”

  He closed his mouth at Stephen’s glower. That wasn’t the issue right now. The issue was that Maura, someone he thought he could trust with his life, had blackmail material on him. Because apparently, she wasn’t able to trust him. The betrayal struck him to his core. Even though he fought to keep his flames in check, smoke curled from his nostrils.

  “Well, you know that you can trust us now,” he bit out. “So you can delete all the information you have on us.”

  Maura turned off the flashlight and was silent.

  “Maura,” Stephen growled, “you are going to delete that information now, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not about you—”

  “Like hell it isn’t!”

  Evan made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, but Stephen ignored him.

  “If it’s got my name on it, it’s about me,” Stephen snarled. His fires raged almost out of control. He fought to keep them contained, but this was beyond his understanding. Sure, he understood why it’d be a good idea to keep information on people running rogue ops. She had to make sure she could keep them in line if anything went wrong. But now? “We’re on the same side. Unless you’re afraid that we’re going to sell you out to the bounty hunters?”

  “Stephen, listen to me, please. I wouldn’t use this lightly, and I’d never use it to hurt you. The information I have, it could destroy the Blaze Ops—”

  “So get rid of it!”

  “I can’t!” A note of desperation came to Maura’s voice. “You don’t understand. It’s all interconnected. I can’t get rid of one file without compromising the rest of them. I know this is upsetting—”

  “You have no idea how upsetting this is!” Stephen ripped open his sleeping bag, wincing at the sound of tearing fabric but not caring enough to actually stop. He wrenched open the tent and let out a howl of anger into the night. Then he whirled back on Maura. “Upsetting? You call this upsetting? You have betrayed us and now you won’t even get rid of that information, even though you say that it could destroy the Blaze Ops if it got into the wrong hands.”

  Maura scrambled after him into the night, while Evan stayed behind. “Stephen, please. Just listen. I can’t delete it—”

  “Is that why we’ve all got arrest warrants out for us?”

  Maura’s shoulders slumped.

  “It is, isn’t it? Someone got their hands on your information and decided to bring us down.”

  “Stephen, nobody could have gotten their hands on the flash drive. Even if they did, if they got the password wrong even once, the information would delete itself.” Maura reached for him again, but he danced out of her reach. He couldn’t stand the thought of her touching him right now. “Stephen—”

  “There are others, though. Other drives with this information on it? You’re too smart to have only one location.”

  Maura buried her face into her hands. “Yes. Yes, there are others. But they’re all just as protected—”

  “As long as it exists, we have no protection,” Stephen cut in. “I can’t even look at you right now. Evan! Are you coming with me or staying with her?”

  Evan emerged from the tent. It was impossible to see his expression in the darkness, but his silence spoke volumes. Even as Maura begged him once more to just listen to her, to let her explain better, Stephen turned. He didn’t need this. He’d already let himself fall too deep into the rabbit hole. Any deeper and he’d never be able to claw his way free.

  He wasn’t going to stand for that—and he wasn’t going to sit here and listen to her any longer either.

  “Wait, please,” Maura sobbed.

  But Stephen was already in the air. The wind rushed over his wings, and his fires burned so hotly he could feel them scorching his insides. He let out another roar of pure fury as he put distance between himself and the woman who he could never trust again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Even bundled up in the sleeping bags, Maura was cold without Stephen’s arms around her. Tears froze on her lashes as the night wore on treacherously slow. Her leopard paced and hissed, too agitated to allow her to sleep. Close to dawn, Evan left the tent. She could hear him rummaging around outside, but she didn’t care to go find out what he was doing. When he returned, the soft glow of a laptop soon lit the tent.

  Maura lifted her head, staring over at him in confusion. “Why did you get another laptop?”

  “Because I’m the technology specialist,” Evan replied. “That’s what I brought to the team. It’s not like I’m all muscly like the other guys.”

  Maura rolled to a seated position, pulling the sleeping bags tighter around herself. “Not as muscly? You could bench-press a car.”

  “And the rest of them could bench-press a bus.” Evan scowled as he propped the laptop on his knees. “I’m not exactly the best fighter, either. I might be a dragon, but most other shifters would be able to take me. I’m a nerd,” he added, glancing up. “That’s why I was chosen for the team.”

  “Well… we did need a technology specialist,” Maura admitted. There were other candidates who were more in line with the physical prowess of the rest of the Blaze Ops, but ultimately, they’d gone for Evan. He was still strong, still physically able, and was the best at the technical stuff that they needed. “But we’re out in the middle of nowhere. Can you even hook up to the internet out here?”

  Evan fiddled with the computer, then opened a bag. “I did a lot of shopping. I might not be able to connect right now, but give me a couple of hours and I will be able to.”

  Maura touched the flash drive still in her pocket. It wasn’t a good idea to keep it out like this. It would be too easily broken or lost. Trying to put the fact that Stephen wasn’t back yet from her mind, she focused. She’d told her target to have the bounties repealed by noon today; they’d need to get into a new town to check that. But if Stephen didn’t come back—

  If Stephen doesn’t come back, that’s his problem. Even though her stomach twisted, she couldn’t let herself get distracted again.

  “Did you pick up those condoms like I asked?”

  Evan’s head jerked up. His face went red as he glanced to one side. “I, uh, I didn’t think you’d actually need those. ‘Cause, you know, I’m here. It’s not like you and Stephen can… and I don’t think he’ll really want to now, when he’s—”

  “I wasn’t thinking about having sex
,” Maura snapped. Her head pounded, a mix of hunger, dehydration and the emotional toll all this stress was having on her. “Did you get them?”

  Evan pulled a box from the bag his laptop had been in and tossed it over. Maura grunted as she ripped it open. She focused only on what she was doing as she put the flash drive in first one and then two layers of condoms, tying them tightly and wadding it down into a small ball. Then, retrieving water to help it go down, she swallowed it. The rubbery ball made her gag and acid rose in her throat, but she managed to wash it all the way down.

  Evan stared at her with wide eyes as she wiped her mouth. “You know, you’re really badass for an administrator.”

  “Thanks. It’s just something you pick up.”

  “No, it’s actually not.” Evan pulled out a few more electronics from the bag and started opening them up. “What sort of shady shit have you been involved in? Lockpicking, I can get. You did a thesis on prisons. But that sort of trick? That’s something else entirely.”

  Maura managed a smile, even though her face muscles felt rather stiff. “Well, you know. Classified and all that.”

  “I could have guessed.”

  “The truth of it all is way less glamorous than you’re thinking. I’d had that thesis about prisons stolen from me by a professor, who then turned around and accused me of plagiarism. Something small in comparison to what’s happening now, but it taught me a valuable lesson.” The lies rolled easily off her tongue. They were ones she had told often enough, after all. “When I started my job at the Academy and learned about just how many layers of lies and deceit there were around me, I realized I had to protect myself from something like that happening again.”

  Evan frowned. “You mean taking the blame for something you didn’t do.”

  Maura nodded as she stretched her back. “Think about it. Anybody who is willing to be part of a secret government operation, breaking rules to get the job done when those rules were there for moral reasons as well as political reasons… Well, I couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t turn on the rules that I tried to put into place purely for moral reasons. I couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t decide they were above the law entirely and go rogue. Turn against me and the Academy.”

  “Which is exactly what happened.”

  “Exactly. And the higher-ups? If any of what happened with the Academy reached public knowledge, I’d be the first they hung out to dry to save their own skins.”

  Evan nodded, busy taking apart the computer. “Yeah, that makes sense. I just wish Stephen had stuck around long enough for you to explain that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that angry.”

  A cold ball crept into Maura’s stomach. She hadn’t, either. “Do you think he’s coming back?”

  His hands paused. He looked up, his expression full of understanding. “Yes. I think he’s coming back. In fact, I’m certain of it. He’s not the kind of guy who would just abandon us. He just needed to cool down. You’ll see. He’ll be back before you know it.”

  ***

  Noon came and went. She and Evan went to town to check on the bounty notices. To her relief, there were no longer death warrants on their heads. The bounty was still there, but there was a special notation to it, stating that they were wanted for information regarding the other Blaze Ops and it was imperative that they were brought in alive—to the point where no bounty would be provided for dead marks.

  When they got back to camp, Maura tried not to think about how Stephen still hadn’t returned.

  “I hope he didn’t come back and see those condoms and assume the worst,” Evan said as he returned to whatever he was doing with the computer. “That would be awkward.”

  Maura glared at him. “Did you have to?”

  “Did I have to what?”

  “You know what that sounded like!”

  Evan glanced at her, grimaced and bent over his work again.

  Maura glared at him. After only a few seconds of sitting around, she found she could not sit still. She jumped to her feet and left the tent. “I’ll get some food cooking,” she called out as she headed toward the food hanging up.

  Her leopard growled and she paused a moment, closing her eyes. It wanted her to go find Stephen. And she wanted to do as it was telling her. She wanted to go after him. Explain to him. Promise to destroy all of this as soon as they were safe. Tell him that he meant more to her than he realized—more than she thought was safe.

  But she couldn’t. Even if she knew where he’d gone, she didn’t think he’d appreciate her showing up when he clearly needed to do some thinking. She just prayed that he was alright.

  When she reached the bags, her foot caught on something. She looked down just in time to see a tripwire break. A percussive blast lifted her off her feet. She went sailing, slammed into a tree and everything went black.

  ***

  White-hot flashes of color bounced around in her brain, making her ears ring. Her leopard snarled in her chest, huddled up with pain. She couldn’t see anything, and her mind was strangely disconnected from her body. She couldn’t feel the rest of her. For a terrifying moment, she thought her neck had snapped and she was paralyzed.

  Then voices made their way through the ringing. The colors focused and clarified into shapes and faces. She became aware of cold metal against her back.

  “Doctor, she’s awake.”

  A man’s face came into her view, smiling. “Ah! Dr. Maura Rizzoli. I am so very pleased that you’ve come back to the land of the living.”

  His face was familiar. Too familiar. Maura blinked rapidly, trying to clear the fog from her brain. “Evan,” she croaked out.

  “Oh, I have no interest in dragons, unlike my predecessor.” The man walked around her, pressing clammy fingers to her wrist to check her pulse. “The dragon that was with you at your camp was released. As a show of good faith,” he added. “Not that he’ll be able to keep himself out of jail for much longer. My people were able to track you down quicker than the humans, but they were getting close, too.”

  So he was a shifter. And he talked about a predecessor… was he one of the Pack’s Betas? She stared hard at him. Trying desperately not to think about Evan and what would become of him if this man was lying—even if he was telling the truth and the cops were closing in on him. Trying not to think about where Stephen was, trying not to think that this man was the reason he hadn’t come back.

  “So you’re not interested in dragons,” she said slowly, testing the strength of the straps keeping her to the cold table. Too strong for her to rip free. Her leopard was still snarling in her chest, though, so they hadn’t put her on blockers. “What are you interested in, then?”

  “You.”

  “I’m pretty sure I could have guessed that.”

  The man laughed. He stroked the hair from her face, making her flinch, and his smile only widened. “Oh, don’t flatter yourself, Dr. Rizzoli. I have no interest in women of your…” His gaze trailed down her figure. She was all curves, she knew that, but was well-proportioned with them. “…girth.”

  Fortunately, it seemed this man was into flat asses. Maura tried not to let her emotions show. The relief that he hadn’t taken her captive out of lust, at least. And if he wanted something from her, she was probably safe from molestation. Her throat was dry all the same as she stared him down.

  Then it clicked. Dr. Shane Carter. That’s who he was. The man that Karey’s father was going to force her to marry. The doctor who had perfected the serum to allow shifters to become hybrids.

  “And what do you want from me, Dr. Carter?” she asked, keeping her voice calm even though she felt anything but.

  “I want what I am owed. I should have been an Alpha but was denied my rightful place out of jealousy and spite. Well, now that Karey has gone and murdered her father and his Betas, the field is wide open. I am going to rebuild the Pack. I will create an empire for myself. And you’re the key to doing that.”

  Maura narrowed her eyes at him.

&nb
sp; Shane grinned. “Don’t think that I didn’t notice you were the first one to get a death bounty on your head. From the start, they’ve been more desperate to get you back. That’s because you know their secrets, isn’t it?” He patted her hand, making her skin crawl. “And I know your secrets. You’re going to help me get everything I want. First step is to get my crimes pardoned, so I can work openly. We can work together, can’t we Maura?”

  She glowered at him hatefully, wishing she could rip his face off.

  “I can see you’re going to need some proof.” He settled down in a chair. “Let’s start with your name, shall we?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Stephen returned to the camp to find everything gone, he was certain he’d gotten the wrong place. But when he continued to search and kept coming back to an empty clearing, he knew what had happened.

  Evan and Maura thought that he had done what Adam and Karey had done. What the two wolf shifters had done. What Erica had done. Taken off and left them to take care of everything on their own. So of course, they'd moved on. Found a better place to camp out and hide. Kept moving. Avoiding getting caught by always being at least one step ahead of everybody else.

  His teeth ground together as he once more stomped around the site. This was where they’d been. He could see the impression of the tent on the ground and the bark on that tree was scraped smooth along the branch, where they’d hung the food.

  He wasn’t good enough at tracking to figure out which way they’d gone, though. That was Adam’s specialty. Now, more than ever, Stephen wondered why they had even chosen him for the Blaze Ops. Everyone else, he could see what they brought to the table. What skills they gave the group. But for himself? Stupid uncomfortable jokes and stupid brute strength.

  He sat beneath a tree, fighting the urge to drop into the well of self-pity. Just because he didn’t see his strengths didn’t mean that the others in the Blaze Ops didn’t. Fiona wouldn’t have hand-picked everybody on the team just for him to happen to be the one who didn’t have any special skills they could utilize.