The Spark of the Dragon's Heart: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Fantasy Romance (Harem of Fire Book 1)

by Willa Hart

  Because of course.

  I had such fun chatting with him, I nearly forgot we were on duty. The flirting, the light touches, the sweet sideways glances were all part of the act. But he seemed so genuine, I got caught up in the first-date glow. He really was a terrific actor!

  “I think now’s the time,” he said, smiling at me as if I were the most beautiful girl in the world.

  For just a second, I thought he meant it was time for us to kiss, but then his gaze darted over toward where Crystal was leaning against the back counter, checking her phone. That brought me out of my daze, and for the first time I noticed the crush of bodies had dwindled.

  “Miss?” he called, waving at her.

  She returned his smile and sauntered over. Several of the downcast dudes at the bar carefully watched her walk away.

  “Ready for another round?” she asked.

  Her smile seemed a tad forced, and she kept glancing down at her phone. She was preoccupied with something.

  “Almost,” Ryen answered, then gave her a smile that would have melted any woman’s heart. It certainly did mine. “I was just hoping you might know if a guy by the name of Enoch has been in here lately.”

  The fake smile dropped from her lips and her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “Who’s askin’?”

  Ryen set his beer down and held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m not a cop and I’m not looking for trouble, miss. I’m just a concerned family friend. He hasn’t been in touch for a while now and we’re starting to get worried. I know he comes here sometimes. Figured it was worth checking out.”

  He slid right into the role of a concerned buddy without blinking. He really was a good actor. Seeing how well he was doing, I kept my lip zipped, despite Crystal shooting glances my way.

  “Bertram’s just worried about his little brother is all. You know how protective big brothers can be.”

  At Bertram’s name, her face squinched up in disgust. “That man is always poking his nose into business where it doesn’t belong.”

  “He’s still worried…” Ryen made a show of leaning in to inspect her name tag. “Crystal.”

  She heaved a massive sigh, as if we’d asked her to lasso the moon. “Whatever. I haven’t seen Enoch lately, so you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “But—“ Ryen started, but she cut him off.

  “Look, I can’t help you. And if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”

  She turned on her heel and stalked down to the other end of the bar to chat with a couple of old men getting lit on whiskey. Ryen watched her for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He fished out a twenty-dollar bill and set his empty beer bottle on top of it, beckoning for me to follow him. Neither of us said a word until we got into the SUV.

  “You can’t possibly believe her,” I snapped as soon as he climbed in beside me. “I didn’t even need to use my super powers to know that chick was lying her ass off.”

  Ryen’s mischievous smile did funny things to my insides. “Hell no, I didn’t believe her. Which is why we’re going to wait here until her shift is over.”

  “Then what?”

  “We’ll follow her home.”

  Chapter Eight

  I woke with a jolt, and for a few moments, I honestly had no idea where I was. The murderous neon bar sign came into sharper focus, and I finally realized I was sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV.

  “Sweet dreams?” Ryen’s voice asked softly, his breath warm against my forehead.

  I’d fallen asleep on his shoulder! Mortified, I pulled myself upright and rubbed my bleary eyes. I had been dreaming — something to do with Uncle Max — but it had already faded into a stew of foggy memories by the time I realized I was still with Ryen outside the bar. The harder I tried to hold onto the dream, the more it slipped away.

  It was like trying to watch a TV station that was mostly snowy fuzz and white noise, but you could almost make out shapes if you stared at it long enough. When I was a kid, I used to think those were secret channels you could only watch if you had the right eye for it. Stranger things already existed — dragons, for example.

  “What time is it?” I asked, clearing the dry, scratchy feeling from my throat.

  Ryen pointed at the car radio clock. The soft glow read 2:30.

  “Bar’s closed,” he murmured, his own voice sounding a little thick and weary. “Crystal should be heading out any minute.”

  My head was still fuzzy, I had to think hard to figure out exactly where we were. Ryen had said it would have looked suspicious to sit in the parking lot, so he’d wisely moved to an alley where we’d have a view of the parking lot. Sooner or later, Crystal would show up and hopefully lead us to Enoch.

  I’d barely rubbed the sleep from my eyes when two tall figures walked out of the bar’s back exit. One looked like a bodybuilder — presumably a bouncer — the other was Crystal. They chatted on the way to the parking lot, then they gave each other exhausted waves and hopped in their cars. The bouncer drove off in one direction, Crystal the other.

  As soon as her tail lights went out of sight, I looked to Ryen, then back to the road. “Are you going after her?”

  He held up a hand, counting to himself quietly. A few seconds later, he nodded, then pulled out.

  “Tailing someone during the day is easy,” he said. “Tailing someone in the dead of night when the roads are already almost empty is a little trickier.”

  “Have you tailed a lot of people in your day?”

  “I was following people before there were enough cars in the world to make it ‘a thing’,” he said with a wink.

  I wasn’t entirely sure if he was joking.

  We followed Crystal at a safe distance for about ten minutes through the almost-eerie streets of San Bernardino. To my surprise, the roads weren’t as empty as I thought they’d be. Bars all closed around the same time, meaning there were quite a few Ubers and cabs taking people home — as well as the occasional car that was swerving a little too much for comfort. Crystal didn’t take any sharp, last-second turns, and she never noticeably sped up. Obviously, she obviously didn’t know we were following her.

  Ryen seemed relaxed enough, even though my heart was doing its best to hammer right out of my ribcage. This was my first stake-out, my first tail. I’d spent the past five years answering phones and filing, and now I was finally learning how to be a private investigator. Of course I was excited!

  It didn’t help that Ryen sat just a couple feet away from me.

  Crystal eventually parked on a dark street near a crusty, old apartment complex. Newer ones in L.A. usually offered gated parking lots for their tenants, but not this one. The tiny open lot was packed, and Crystal must have known not to bother even trying to find a spot so late at night. Ryen parked next to a hydrant a half-block away.

  “Showtime,” Ryen said, turning a blinding grin on me.

  “Damn, why am I so nervous?” I had a big, strong dragon shifter to protect me from a human woman, yet my entire body vibrated with anxiety.

  Crystal unfolded herself from her compact car and stretched her back.

  “A little tension is good for you,” Ryen said, turning off the SUV and keeping his eyes trained on our target. “Keeps you on your toes.”

  Crystal locked her car and headed for a walkway leading to the apartments.

  “I don’t think—“

  I never got to finish.

  He came out of nowhere. One second, Crystal was trudging up the walkway, the next a huge, burly shadow tackled her to the ground. As she fought him off, my brain was still trying to figure out where he’d come from.

  Thankfully, Ryen didn’t hesitate.

  His door was open and he was gone before I could blink. I scrabbled for the door handle and stumbled out of the SUV as fast as I could. Sprinting toward a man who had a hundred pounds on me — and who’d just tackled a woman who stood a head taller than me — seemed like suicide, but that didn’t slow me down.


  Naturally, Ryen was much faster, and he closed the distance in a heartbeat. The attacker must have heard him coming because he looked up just in time to see Ryen leap toward him. The big guy had been holding down Crystal, but he raised his arms to meet the impact as Ryen came flying in. He caught hold of Ryen, but Ryen’s momentum was too much for him. The two went tumbling into a dirt patch that had once been a lawn.

  I kneeled down next to Crystal and grasped her shoulders. She tried to fight me off for a second, probably thinking I was a second attacker, then she seemed to recognize me and calmed down a little. As much as she could, anyway.

  The big guy wrested free from Ryen’s grasp and jumped to his feet. Ryen moved so fast, the guy didn’t even see Ryen’s beautiful right hook before it landed on his jaw. He stumbled back, but kept his footing. His entire body rotated as he tried to punch Ryen, but even I saw that swing coming. Ryen jerked back, avoiding the big ham-fist by a mile, then jabbed the guy in the kidney.

  The lights from the apartments shed enough light on the scene for me to see the attacker looked nothing like the photos of Enoch in his file. The big guy had probably a foot on Enoch, his hair was lighter and shorter, and he was much beefier. Maybe some random mugger or rapist. San Bernardino had a bad reputation, after all. Then he blinked and I knew the truth.

  A dragon.

  His perfectly round irises had turned to slits during that blink, and his eye color had switched to bright yellow. I had to look up to see them because he was growing taller and broader by the second. His skin took on a leathery texture and his face stretched the tiniest bit.

  Before the guy could go full dragon, Ryen caught him off-guard with a tackle. They landed in a jumble of arms and legs, and by the time they’d disentangled themselves, Ryen had grown just as large as the attacker. His reptilian eyes flashed green as powerful punches flew left and right. Inhuman snarls set goosebumps along my arms. Any second now, they’d shift fully and then it would get really scary.

  But they never shifted past that hint of dragon. It was just enough to make it a fair fight, and fight they did. They pummeled each other like professional MMA fighters, hitting and kicking and growling like animals.

  After Ryen delivered a powerful blow to the solar plexus, the guy leaned over, his hands on his knees. For a second, I thought he was about to give up, but then he trained those evil yellow eyes on Ryen and wiped a trickle of blood from his nose. He snarled something that sounded vaguely Eastern European at Ryen. The accent sounded like a cross between Russian and Farsi.

  Before he finished talking, he launched his considerable mass at Ryen, but Ryen was ready for the attack and managed to use the guy’s own momentum to throw him to the ground. Ryen was about to jump on him, but the guy took off running down the street. I never saw anyone run as fast, not even professional athletes, then he managed to leap over an eight-foot-tall construction fence like it was a hurdle. And just like that, the fight was over.

  It couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds, but it had felt like an hour. Crystal and I sat on the ground, eyes trained on where the attacker had fled. Ryen panted and by the time I turned toward him, all of his draconic features had faded away.

  “You certainly keep interesting company, Crystal,” Ryen said, his chest heaving.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, offering a hand to help her stand.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she took it and got to her feet, dusting herself off. She looked as stunned as I felt.

  “Yeah,” she said after a few seconds. “Uh…let’s go inside.”

  The apartment complex wasn’t anything special. The exterior was a little grungy, and it wasn’t much better on the inside. Still, it seemed as clean and tidy as one could hope in such a place. Crystal hung her light jacket on a coat rack by the door, next to a heavy parka. A scruffy pair of knock-off Uggs sat on the floor, surprisingly clean considering the muddy prints next to them.

  “Anyone else need a drink?” she asked as she made her way into the kitchen.

  We declined and waited in the compact living room. She joined us, sipping from a can of cheap beer.

  “Have a seat.” She gestured toward a burnt umber monster straight out of the ‘70s, while she dropped into a much-newer recliner. Her gaze bounced between us as she took a long drink, then belched before speaking again. “I was wondering if I’d see you two again tonight.”

  “Presumably not the way you did,” Ryen said with a soft smile. Always the charmer.

  “Nah. I figured if you showed up again, I’d have Reggie — he’s the bouncer — throw your asses to the curb.” She took another swallow of beer. “Guess I saved him an ass-whooping, huh?”

  “Crystal,” I said, leaning forward, “we just wanted to ask a few questions, not start a fight.”

  Ryen leaned forward too, his upper arm pressing against mine in a way I couldn’t not notice. Every cell in my body woke up, totally aware of his nearness and hoping it would never end.

  “I know you’re probably still in a bit of shock, but I’m hoping you’ll reconsider your position on answering those questions.”

  Crystal sniffed and dropped her gaze to her beer can. “And if I don’t?”

  A muscle in Ryen’s jaw flexed, highlighting a fresh bruise. “If you don’t, that guy out there who was spouting Romanian curses at me will come back and drag it out of you the hard way.”

  Romanian? I’d never heard the language spoken before, but I had no reason to doubt him.

  Crystal sniffed again. “Sounded Russian or something to me.”

  Ryen gave her another soft smile. “Well, close. It’s on the Black Sea.” When she gave him a confused look, he tried one more time. “It’s in Eastern Europe.”

  One shoulder jerked up in a pouty shrug. “Like I said, Russian.”

  Silence stretched between us as we waited for her to decide. She gave us an uneasy look, then swore under her breath and pounded the rest of the beer.

  “Okay fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Why did that guy jump you?”

  “How should I know!” she shouted, leaping to her feet and heading back into the kitchen. She returned a few seconds later with her second brewski.

  “Crystal,” Ryen said, a warning floating around in her name.

  She sighed and rolled her eyes as she took her seat again. “It probably has something to do with Enoch.”

  “What exactly?” I asked.

  My pulse pounded in my neck, and I wondered if every witness interview would get me as amped up. Most likely not, unless a dragon jumped out of the shadows every time.

  “Enoch had this job,” Crystal started. “You know what I’m talking about, right? You don’t act like cops, so I’m guessing PIs. Done your homework?”

  Ryen nodded, then held up his hands. “No badges, no guns.”

  That seemed to satisfy her.

  “Good. Anyway, he said this job was gonna make him rich. I know, I know, his family’s rolling in it, but Enoch’s always wanted to do his own thing. Always hated the estates and the bloodlines and the fancy parties. Never made sense to me. Money’s money, you know? But he wanted to make it on his own, for some reason.”

  Pride, I wanted to sneer, but I held my tongue. “Making it” meant something completely different to people who were truly struggling. To people like that — like I used to be — simply earning enough to pay rent and buy groceries was making it. To spoiled brats like Enoch, who always had a safety net to fall back on, “making it” was all about stroking their egos, in my humble opinion.

  “What was the job?” Ryen asked as I bit my tongue hard enough to taste blood.

  “I don’t know much, just that the client wanted him to steal some jewelry.”

  “Here in L.A.?”

  Her red braid flopped on her shoulder when she shook her head. “No, I’m pretty sure it was out of town. But it couldn’t have been too far away. He said he was going to do the job and be back here by the time I got off work.�
��

  “When was that?”

  “After we got back from our ski trip,” she said, making eye contact with Ryen. She was worried. “Three days ago. I keep checking my phone for a text from him…”

  Ryen broke into a smile. “I love to ski. How was it?”

  “Meh,” she said with a shrug. “End of the season. Coulda been better.”

  “Bummer,” Ryen said, leaning back like they were two old friends shooting the shit. “At least all the snobs and hipsters were gone, am I right?”

  For the first time, Crystal smiled. “No shit.”

  The knot in my stomach grew tighter at the way they smiled at each other. It wasn’t jealousy, that much I knew. It couldn’t be. I liked Kellum. I couldn’t also like his brother. That would just be…greedy.

  “I think we’re done here, don’t you?” I said, jumping up and giving Ryen a pointed look.

  He smirked at me, but said nothing as he stood and addressed Crystal. “Sure, but let’s trade numbers in case you remember anything else about Enoch or his job.”

  “Hey,” Crystal said, jumping up with a serious expression. “I just want to thank you for”—she waved her hand toward the door—"all of that. Seriously. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Ryen said, shaking her hand. “But next time I won’t be here to save you. You might consider making yourself scarce for a few days, maybe go visit out-of-town family. I have a feeling our Romanian friend might be the persistent type.”

  Chapter Nine

  I turned up my stereo when my favorite ranchera song came on. I had no idea who the artist was or what it was about, but the beat was peppy and made me dance in my seat. Aunt Shirley and Uncle Max’s house wasn’t too far from Maximus Investigations, which meant even at the height of rush hour — say, eight in the morning on a Thursday — my commute was rarely more than fifteen minutes. It was the perfect amount of time to listen to music in a language I didn’t understand.