“There’s incendiaries in the bus,” Jamison said.
Damian saw Stella’s eyes go wide with delight. “Get on it,” he allowed, and she ran for the SUV, with Austin hot on her heels. He walked up to the contraption the Hunters had purchased to use on him. Dragons and whales weren’t interchangeable, given that magic was involved, but healing wasn’t instantaneous. All they needed was one lucky shot through a wing to bring him down to where they could use the net.
“I’ll call in the arson once I’m done fucking their bank accounts sideways,” Jamison said.
“How does that work?” Damian mused, touching the harpoon’s point gently, before picking it up, and spooling the rope for it around one of his shoulders.
“Easy. Take out all their liquid assets, run them through a few fairly transparent cycles of the wash, and notify the authorities right after you invest it all in a bulk purchase of South Miami condos. You don’t need brute force when you can implicate them in an international money laundering scheme,” Jamison said.
Damian chuckled darkly.
“You’re taking this rather well, considering,” Jamison went on.
“I’m surprisingly used to people wanting to kill me.” But if he and Andi were still together, and she’d seen all these….
“This is crazy,” Stella said, returning, her arms full of explosives. Her face was lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. “I like it!”
“Don’t get too excited,” Austin told her, as he started putting timed bombs on piles of munitions. “When this is through, we’re still taking you back to the pound.”
The explosions behind them started as they got into the car. The fact that the house was full of weapons was helping, Damian knew, listening to the firework-like sound of casings full of gunpowder go off.
“Souvenir?” Stella asked, as Damian carefully put the harpoon into the back seat of the SUV beside her. He tossed the nylon cord down, too, and pulled himself into the car’s front passenger seat.
“No.”
“Toothpick for your dragon?”
“No.”
“Sex toy? Piercing needle? Both?” Stella pressed, with extreme sarcasm. Damian didn’t deign to answer her.
“Don’t be dense. It’s for Andi’s brother,” Austin said. Stella looked pissed, and then horrified. “I mean, I assume and all,” he amended, giving Damian a glance.
Damian hadn’t wanted to say as much out loud. Some part of him worried that saying the words might somehow make it so. They hadn’t seen another dragon-soldier since that first night, and none of them knew if that was a good or bad thing. “He is a dragon. And if for some reason I’m not around….”
An uncomfortable silence descended over all of them.
“And here I was worried you wanted us to call you Ishmael,” Jamison muttered in all of their ears, breaking it. Damian would’ve glared at him if he was nearby—and the man must’ve known it. “Come on, Damian. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make that joke for the past twenty minutes.”
Damian groaned as Austin laughed. “Why’d you have to do it the smart way, Jamison? You’ve seen him naked at least forty times. The obvious Moby Dick joke is already right there.”
Stella snickered and hid from the rearview mirror in the back seat.
Andi let Eumie talk her through preparing the poisonous cao wu, wearing gloves the entire time. Eumie’d told them to turn it into a soup, so she’d added it to a can of chicken noodle that’d probably been in their apartment since they’d moved in. Her mother had made her plenty of medicinal soups from scratch when she was sick as a kid—it’s what Chinese moms did—so she knew if she concentrated hard enough, she’d be able to feel the earthquake from her mother rolling over in her grave over her using Campbells.
Together, the girls helped hold Eumie’s head up enough for them to take small sips of the woody scented broth, and right afterward Eumie’d passed out.
“Is that it? Is it going to work?” Sammy asked her. Eumie had stopped bleeding but Andi didn’t know if that was because the baker was healing or because they’d simply run out of blood.
“I don’t know,” Andi said, squatting down on her heels at Eumie’s side. She peeked under the sheet they’d put on top of them. Their wounds did seem…better? Maybe.
Eumie took a big inhale and then sighed contentedly, fluttering one eye open to look at Sammy. “Have we reached the adventure portion of the evening yet?”
“What?” Sammy asked.
“Earlier on in the evening. You said adventure was misery fondly remembered. Have we been miserable enough yet for that?”
Sammy went to shove Eumie but then stopped herself in time. “I know you’re feeling better, if you’re getting mouthy.”
Eumie grinned. “I am. But if it’s all the same to you two, I think I’m going to spend the night on your couch.”
“I think that’s wise,” Andi said, squeezing Eumie’s hand hard, as Sammy gasped loudly. “What?” Andi asked, looking at her roommate. What horrible new thing could possibly happen tonight?
“You’re going to be late for work!” Sammy said.
“Oh, fuck,” Andi groaned. She looked down at herself. She needed a shower. She was covered in Eumie’s blood. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Andi said, dancing down the hall, tearing off her clothes. “Grab my phone! Call into my floor for me! Tell them I’ll be there as soon as I can!”
“What excuse should I give?” Sammy called after her.
“Think of something!” Andi shouted back, running for her bathroom.
Andi blitzed through scrubbing Eumie’s blood off and washing her hair and got out, hauled on scrubs, and ran back into the living room in record time. “What’d you tell them?” she asked Sammy, shoving her feet into her work shoes, praying she could catch the next bus.
Sammy winced. “That you’d just gotten broken up with.”
“What?” Andi asked, frozen and blinking, as she pulled on her coat.
“I panicked, okay? This night…it’s been a lot!”
Andi closed her eyes and shook her head. It had been a lot, and she still needed to go to work for the next eight hours. “I’m sorry, I know. And we’ll talk about Danny when I get back, swear,” she said, holding her hand out for her phone.
“We’d better,” Sammy said, tossing it over as she rocked to standing. “Want a ride?”
Andi glanced past Sammy for Eumie, who was breathing unlaboredly and whose color had much improved. “No, stay here with them just in case. If I’m fast, I can catch the bus. Love you both!” she said, and darted for the door.
Andi ran down the stairs for the bus stop at full speed where the bus was idling, but in the dark the bus driver didn’t even see her coming. It did a California stop and kept rolling.
“Hey!” Andi shouted after it, waving both her hands. “Come back!” She ran clumsily in her Danskos, feeling Damian’s necklace thump against her neck. She reached for it to keep it still beneath her coat. She hadn’t thought about him in, what, twenty minutes? A new record.
A loud engine started up beside her, startling her, as she heard a wolf whistle in her direction. She turned, ready to give whoever a piece of her mind, when she saw Danny lolling halfway out of the driver side window of his El Camino. “Need a ride, pretty lady?”
Andi stomped over to him with her arms crossed, the thick soles of her shoes clonking on the asphalt. “Have you just been waiting outside for me this whole time?”
Danny grinned up at her. “So what if I have?”
“Or were you waiting for my ‘friend’?” she asked with air quotes.
“Nah. Scouts honor.”
Andi eyed him. “As your twin, I know you were never in scouts.”
He laughed. “Why’re you always so paranoid, Andi-bear?”
“Maybe because I recently found out my entire childhood was a lie?”
“Fair point,” he allowed. “But I just wanted to talk to you alone. And I knew you’d come out eventually. So, you w
ant a ride to work or what?”
Andi knew she was never going to make it to work on time if she caught the next bus. “Fine,” she sighed, and circled the car to get in. She looked around as she buckled her seat belt. The car was twice as old as they were—and was clearly in the middle of a restoration. Certain parts were shiny and chrome, but the seats had fluff sticking out and she was pretty sure she was sitting on a sprung spring.
“How’d you like my Elky?” Danny asked, patting the dashboard.
“Depends. Is it stolen?”
“Oh my God, Andi,” Danny groaned. “I’m sitting on my balls, so stop trying to kick them.”
“Sorry. Habit.” She watched her apartment complex fade in the rearview. “Does everyone know where I live? By which I mean all of your murderer friends.”
“Nah. And Uncle Lee meant it, he wouldn’t let anything happen to you. And neither would I.”
“Wow, I’m so glad that the two people in my family who kill other people are on my side.” Andi pinched the bridge of her nose. “What about the other people in my life? Do I have to worry about weirdos coming after Sammy because she’s my roommate, thinking she’s a dragon?”
“What?” Danny asked, following her train of thought. “Oh, fuck no,” he exclaimed. “I’ll make sure she’s on the safe list too. She doesn’t need that nonsense. I already put that girl through the wringer.”
“How nice of you to admit it.”
He snorted. “I’m a jerk, not an idiot.”
Andi pulled her phone out quickly. “Say that again, so I can record it for her?”
Danny laughed, swatted her phone away, and pulled them onto the highway.
“Based on the current movement patterns of the Hunters we’re tracking, I think you all should come in,” Jamison told everyone at the same time. They were driving back to town on an open stretch of road.
Damian frowned. “We don’t need to stop for my sake.” He’d done his best to behave after that first rough night—not because he didn’t still hurt, but because his friends depended on him. But given the option, he’d much, much, rather fight Hunters than his dragon.
“We were just getting started. Do we have to?” Stella asked.
“Yeah, Dad, do we?” Austin asked Jamison, clearly making fun of Stella.
“Don’t make me turn this car around,” Jamison teased back in all of their ears.
Stella laughed, as did Austin, and even Damian snorted. Going out tonight had been good for him. It’d distracted him, if only for a time. He listened to Austin and Stella bicker in the background about who’d killed the most Hunters, trying to get Jamison to break their tie, as Damian attempted to ignore the defeated sensation beginning to ripple through him.
He didn’t want to go home and sleep in an empty bed again without her. If he couldn’t wake up beside her, what was the point of waking up at all?
“Guys,” Jamison said sharply.
“I’m a better shot,” Stella protested, patting the speed loaders she had holstered on her belt.
“The Judge begs to differ,” Austin said, patting the Taurus Judge revolver at his hip with affection.
“That’s Zach’s gun, not yours,” Stella sniffed.
“Incoming!” Jamison said, even louder.
Damian tensed. “Which direction?”
“Two in a bus behind you, just pulled on. Could be coincidence but—”
The bus barreled by out of nowhere, passing them at a high rate of speed only to arc to a stop in front of them, blocking all three lanes, and then another bus blocked behind them just the same, back half a block. Austin threw the SUV into reverse, then paused.
“They’ve made the SUV,” Damian announced.
“Shit,” Jamison cursed. “I’ve been wiping cameras right and left—”
“They probably got an eyewitness report,” Stella said, crouching down.
Austin looked to him for answers. “Any ideas, D?”
Damian put his hand on the door, but didn’t open it. The obvious action would be to change into a dragon, pick up the SUV, and fly it safely home. But there weren’t men running out of the buses that’d stopped to circle them….
“They’re here for me.” He pulled his balaclava back on, even though he knew they couldn’t see him through the SUV’s deeply tinted windows. “They want to lure my dragon out.”
“And shoot it with what, diesel fumes?” Austin mocked. Then they heard it. The distant sound of a Sikorsky helicopter dropping in, as they felt the beat of its blades start to rock the SUV. “Fuuuuuck,” Austin drawled.
Damian’s dragon was instantly thrilled. I want to fight a mechanical bird!
So now you speak? Damian told it, before looking at Austin and Stella. “When you get free, go and don’t look back. I’ll meet you back at home.” His dragon seethed inside him in excitement.
“Wait!” Stella shouted as she reached forward to ineffectually try to pull him back. “Why are you doing exactly what they want?”
“Because as a dragon, I can burn that thing out of the sky—or pick up a bus to bat it down—to save you,” Damian growled.
“Yes, but they don’t know who the dragon is! Not with the masks we’ve been wearing! So send him out instead! Without any magic!” Stella said, pointing at Austin.
“What?” Austin asked, wheeling on her.
“They want you as a dragon, right? You don’t do any good to them as man-meat! Why would they want a single serving when they could have a whole buffet?” She looked between the two of them. “They don’t want you until you’re a dragon, and they won’t kill you until you’re a dragon, so whoever the hell goes out now gets to live for sure—especially if they can’t actually turn into a dragon!”
Damian’s hand fractionally released the door. We cannot fight in the sky? his dragon complained.
No. The girl has a point.
“She’s right,” Jamison chimed in. “He’ll draw fire, while you two can move the bus with spheres on.”
“Double fuck,” Austin groaned, and put his hand on the door handle. “Don’t make me regret this, Starry Sky,” he said, using Stella’s werewolf pack’s name.
“You’re a Wind Racer, you should be great at running!” Stella said with snark.
Austin growled, and Damian told Jamison, “Get ready to take the wheel.”
The werewolf revved the SUV’s engine, drove it in a tight circle, and then bailed out of it after aiming it at the bus in front of them. They heard gunfire behind them but ignored it as the SUV lurched to a stop right in front of the bus’s doors. Stella and Damian ran out of it with the protective magic of the spheres around them, making them essentially invisible except to one another. Stella ran up to the bus with an empty bag slapping across her back. “You clear it, I’ll move it,” Damian shouted at her, and she nodded, running up the bus’s stairs to wrench the doors open with both hands.
Damian ran to the front of the vehicle, crouching down and putting his back to the bus’s grill. He grabbed hold of the metal and then lifted, listening to the bus’s structure groan, as gunshots went off from inside the bus, and the helicopter aimed at Austin more distantly, while the werewolf ran back and forth. He was faster than they could track as humans, even with their talismans on, but he couldn’t run forever. The SUV whirled around, still under Jamison’s control, providing him with a piece of cover, as the helicopter circled to find him again. Behind them, men started pouring out of the other bus and began advancing.
“We’re gonna need this to work real soon, D,” Austin panted over the earpiece, as Jamison wound the SUV around him like a protective cat, shielding him with it as best it could.
“I. Know,” Damian said. His dragon was as near to breaching as he could let it be. He felt the creature tensing just underneath every piece of flesh he had—wrapped around every muscle, straining bone, so close to changing that it burned. He let loose a roar that was not his own and felt the vehicle behind him shift.
“I put it in neutral!” S
tella shouted, returning to his side, kneeling down to take potshots at the advancing men as Jamison ran the SUV straight for the line of Hunters, sending them running like ants.
Now, dragon! Damian let loose the beast inside him, and he felt himself flare with unimaginable power. For the briefest of moments he and his beast were one, in a way that they had never been before. It was nothing to pick the bus up and send it spinning out of the way—even in his human form. Stella whooped and the SUV came racing their direction, with Austin already aboard, the helicopter racing close behind, gunshots ringing out.
“Get in!” Austin shouted at them from the passenger side, kicking the other door open. Damian picked Stella up and threw her into the driver’s seat before diving for the back door, yanking it open to leap inside.
“Go, go, go!” he shouted and they all felt the SUV lunge forward as Jamison hit the gas. The whole SUV rocked with the force of the blows it was taking, but that wasn’t the problem. It was all reinforced with military grade armor, and the tires could run flat if they had to.
The problem was that it was going to be practically impossible to lose the helicopter now that it was on top of them. There was nothing between them and the city to use for cover.
“Damian,” Jamison warned, likely thinking the same thing.
“On it,” Damian announced, leaning forward into the wheel well. “Open up the sunroof.”
“Excuse me?” Austin asked, looking back, his eyes widening as he saw what Damian was doing. “Oh, shit,” he said, then his hands lunged for the console to make the sunroof open. “Duck, girl,” he snapped at Stella, as she squirmed over the front seats to be in the safer back seat by Damian.
She figured out what Damian was doing too, just as he finished tying the nylon rope he’d taken from their first target that night to the harpoon. “Wait!” she pleaded, and rummaged around in her bag, pulling out some bones on leather tethers. She wound and tied them to the shaft of the harpoon. “From us to them and back again,” she prayed quickly, before letting them go and nodding at Damian. “They deserve a chance at vengeance too.”
Dragon Mated: Sexy Urban Fantasy Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds Book 4) Page 12
