The Apex Shifter Complete Set: Books 1 - 3

by Emilia Hartley

  Her fingers stroked his solid arms. “One more time?” she whispered the question.

  Without hesitation, he moved on top of her. Her lips still hungered for his. When her hand strayed to his cock, she found it already stiff. This time, he moved into her gently. Kayla wrapped her legs around him. The continual kiss aroused her as much as the intercourse, perhaps more so. She felt all of his focus, all of his being, communicated through the hot press of his mouth.

  It took him much longer the second time. Kayla didn’t mind. She was still lost in the kiss when the next orgasm flooded her.

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  Chapter Twenty-seven

  A blizzard of ash veiled the cave a hundred feet above. Choking on the smoke, Blood climbed the remaining distance, rocks and soil burning through his boots. Sharp stones and falling embers shredded his uniform. His eyes scanned the slope for mud flows or the burning progress of lava. Other than the ashy blizzard, the heat, the mountain seemed dead. Once at the opening of the cave, he drew the tomahawk from his belt. It seemed a pitiful weapon against his enormous foe.

  Still, the dragon had just risen. She would be weak, muddled by a long sleep. Her lair was a deep cavern that ran all the way to the smoking heart of the mountain. Blood had to reach her before she doused herself in the volcano and grew to full strength.

  The poisonous atmosphere brought him to his knees as he reached the cave. He had to press on. Blood would not let the monster escape. Thoughts of the decimated village—his village—urged him on.

  Crawling through the cave, keeping below the smoke, he soon saw a shape emerge from the smoke. Red eyes glowed through the miasma, smoke flowing from nostrils and maw. Those incandescent, intelligent eyes took his measure. It was now or never.

  “Dragon!” he screamed. Taking a deep breath, he leapt to his feet. The monster roared, shaking the cave walls, shaking loose a rain of rocks and pebbles. As she inhaled, the very smoke around him swirled with the unnatural breeze.

  He had one shot. Blood had to take her out before her fiery breath did him in. With a grunt of effort, he flung the tomahawk at her. The very stone beneath him quivered as the dragon thrashed, the cave throbbing with its scream. Blood had hurt the thing.

  The scream became a gout of flame. His hair caught fire, and Blood beat it out with his hands. Lungs burning, he could not gasp another breath. He collapsed to his knees, darkness blacker than the cave swirling before his eyes.

  “Elathan!”

  A vision stepped from the smoke. He saw Kayla crouch over him. Red cascaded down her pale face, her black hair, her eyes wild. She shook him.

  “Elathan, you must run, run!”

  She helped him up. All around, the smoke had thickened. He could not see the entrance to the cave or where the dragon waited. Kayla swiped the blood from her face, pointing with the red-smeared hand. “Run! Run!”

  Limbs shaking, lungs seared, Blood rose in a crouch and moved where his love pointed. He reached back to take her hand. She was gone. A rumble shook the cavern, the force nearly knocking Blood down. He staggered on, finally seeing the light of the mouth of the cave. The earthquake increased in intensity. Rocks rained down, pelting him. As he reached the ledge, the cave collapsed behind him with a—

  With a jerk, he woke from the nightmare. He felt like he only dozed off for a moment, but his eyes opened to gray light. Kayla lay against him, her limbs tangled with his. This was not the injured, fearful woman in his dream, but a beautiful face and body relaxed in slumber. The pounding of his heart now pumped not in fear, but in contentment. He reveled in the softness of her, the smell of her. As much as he wanted to linger, to dwell in her nearness, guilt spurred him on. He could not lie in bed blissfully when Isabela was out there somewhere. It was Blood’s fault she’d been captured. He needed to save her if he could.

  Reluctantly, he untangled himself from Kayla. His heart warmed at the sight of her sleeping face. Blood had to wonder how this slender, beautiful creature became his greatest defender. While he warmed at the thought, he felt the edge of guilt in his guts. He had pledged his life to his lost love, that he would expend all his energies to avenge her death.

  Now? He would throw away many lifetimes of his quest, all to save a girl who had stepped in the path of destruction. He would toss aside his devotion to his one true love for the heart of another. What was becoming of him?

  He showered, reveling in the hot water. He’d gotten used to frigid streams for bathing. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he moved to the living room. Kayla sat on the couch, dressed in her robe. She examined his clothing, the shredded shirt, torn jeans.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “I knocked over one of those donation boxes.” He frowned at the useless rags.

  Kayla gazed at the towel. “I’m sorry, I haven’t had a lot of boyfriends… What I mean is, I don’t have anything that will fit you.”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  “How did you find my apartment?”

  Blood balked at first, but he figured he might as well fess up. “I looked into you some.”

  “What, you cyber-stalked me?”

  He didn’t exactly know what that meant, but the thought suddenly occurred. Leon, Thorn, they would have Isabela’s phone. No doubt, they would look for clues to her whereabouts. Blood hurried to the windows. He peeked between the blinds.

  Light rain fell, shrouding the area in mist. Blood keyed up his bear senses. Down in the parking lot, he spied a large black car idling. On the street, a white truck with Marino Bros. painted on the side trailed smoke from its tailpipe.

  “Shit. They’re here.”

  Kayla rose from the couch. “Who’s here?”

  “That flatfoot cat and the Kodiak. Isabela’s father, too.”

  She looked through the blinds as well. “What are they doing?”

  “Waiting for me. They’ll try to take me in.”

  Kayla looked stricken. Her face went so pale, the old scar on her forehead stood out.

  He put steadying hands on her shoulders. “Don’t worry. Even if I have to bear it through town, they won’t find me here. It ain’t like I have anything I need to take along to fight the dragon with.” For a moment, he thought of his preparations. The obsidian slugs, the shotgun, these would be in the hands of León. Not even that cunning cat would know what they meant.

  He flung the towel away, moving for the door. As he started to shift, Kayla called out. “Wait!”

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  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Usually, a man stripped of everything appeared powerless, helpless, even. Not so Elathan Blood. Even naked, he looked prepared to take on the world—and win. He turned to her, a question in his eyes.

  “My neighbor’s kind of a big guy. He’s on vacation.”

  Elathan smirked. “You suggesting I bust into his place and steal his duds, counselor?”

  “No. Someone might see you. I’ll do it.” Kayla hurried to the bedroom, quickly sliding into jeans and a T-shirt. “Stay here,” she told blood, and slipped into the hall.

  She knew her neighbor kept a key atop his door frame. Glancing in both directions, she reached up and touched metal. It felt wrong, walking into a stranger’s apartment. She didn’t have much choice. Rifling through his dresser, she found a flannel shirt, a pair of jeans. Underpants? It seemed too weird to steal his jockey shorts. Elathan would have to go commando. She did scoop up a pair of thick socks and hiking boots before returning.

  Elathan dressed quickly. The jeans were too wide for his waist, too short for his legs. His broad shoulders stressed the flannel of the shirt but it was better than nothing.

  “They’ll probably be watching your car.” Elathan slid into the boots.

  Kayla blinked a few times. The rental wasn’t parked in her assigned space. She couldn’t remember driving home.

  “Watching the doors, too.”

  �
�We’ll go out my neighbor’s window. It’s on the other side of the building, and I think there’s a fire escape.”

  Elathan stood up. “Okay. What’s the plan?”

  “How quickly can you steal a car?” She couldn’t believe the words were coming out of her mouth. She felt the need to defend herself. “That girl’s in trouble. This isn’t about the law right now.”

  He offered his palms. “Nobody knows that better than me. I’m not good at stealing cars. I’m more of an opportunist than anything. Car left running, or keys in the ignition—I’m not what you call technically inclined.”

  “We’ll play it by ear for now, but we need a plan.”

  “Now that I’m good at.” He followed her out of the apartment and across the hall.

  Fog and rain still marred the view; hopefully enough it was to hide their progress. Elathan hauled the window up. Kayla slipped out onto the shaking metal platform. When she started down the ladder, it didn’t slide down. She had to hang and drop from the bottom rung. Luckily, she lived on the second floor, not the third.

  Elathan dropped behind her. Together, they scanned the street. “Not a lot to choose from. Too early,” he said.

  “There.”

  Kayla spotted a white and blue panel truck, the legend Express Delivery on the sides. The driver hopped out and grabbed a package from the back. “Come on,” she urged.

  She and Elathan raced out onto the street. The driver had gone into one of the apartment buildings on the other side. They jumped into his idling truck. Elathan reached down, disengaging the brake.

  “Hold on a second. How well do you know this part of town?” Kayla asked.

  Elathan squinted at her. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Get up. I put myself through school driving one of these things.”

  There was only a driver seat in front. Elathan stood, holding onto a bar above the door. He looked over his shoulder and swore.

  “Shit. We’ve been spotted.”

  Laramie Marino jumped out of his truck, running toward them. Kayla dropped it into gear and made a quick right. “He’s parked half a block up on a one way street. It gives us a little time.”

  “He’s calling in the cavalry,” Blood said.

  In the side view mirror, she saw the man whip out his cell phone. Kayla made a left and a right in quick succession, managing to keep ahead of the traffic signals. Elathan hung on for dear life.

  “This truck is too conspicuous,” he said.

  Kayla gunned it through a yellow light. “I don’t want to head for the highway. That’s what they’re expecting.”

  “I wouldn’t count that private dick out just yet. That son-of-a-bitch has some kinda radar.”

  As predicted, the black Lincoln appeared in the mirrors.

  “Damn it to hell,” Elathan spat though his teeth.

  She upshifted and floored it. “I can lose them. Just hang on.”

  Elathan grabbed the safety bar with both hands. “How?”

  “Like I said, I drove one of these to get through school.” She leaned on the horn as she ran a red. Behind them, the Lincoln shot the gap. Kayla bulled over to the left lane. In front of oncoming traffic, she turned left.

  “Keep your eyes on my six,” she said, concentrating on weaving through the traffic ahead. “Is he behind me?”

  “I don’t see him. He hasn’t made the turn yet.”

  “Good.” Kayla hauled the wheel hard and parked on a fire hydrant.

  “Why are you stopping?”

  Kayla pointed to a sign hanging from a brick building. On a white background in big blue letters read the legend: Express Delivery. As they watched, three trucks pulled out of the driveway. A moment later, the Lincoln shot past, following the truck moving fast toward a highway onramp.

  She faced Elathan’s assessing gaze. “I’m sure the driver reported this stolen already. We need to steal a different car.”

  “You’re in the wrong line of work,” he said after a moment.

  Kayla got out of the seat. “There’s a parking lot down the block. We should be able to find something there.”

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  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Twenty minutes later, they sped east in a stolen Prius. Blood eyed Kayla behind the wheel. For a moment, the thought occurred that she knew where she was going.

  “Should we try to recover the tomahawk?” she asked as Mount Hood came into view. They could also pick up her rental car. Kayla was fairly sure it was still there. The last thing either of them needed was to get busted for car theft.

  “No. The campgrounds will be crawling with firefighters, maybe cops. And since that detective lost our trail, it’s a likely place for him to start looking for clues. We have to find Isabela fast. Dealing with León and Thorn would slow us down. Criminals often return to the scene of a crime.”

  Or maybe halt them completely, he didn’t add. The Kodiak and jaguar were hard after him.

  “I think that’s a TV myth,” Kayla said.

  Blood gave her the eye. “Really? Where were you heading, again?”

  “Touché.” She shrugged. “So where to? Last night, I saw more fires on the news in Ripple.”

  He thought back on the night he and Isabela had drawn the dragon out magically. Guilt surged in him. He tried to push the thought away. “Last I saw her, she was heading south.”

  “Where would she go? A cave, right?”

  Blood shook his head. “The only ones nearby are full of hikers and tourists.”

  “Maybe there’s a cave beneath the animal hospital?”

  “Too swampy. It would be full of water.”

  Kayla passed a truck as the highway curve. “You must’ve had a plan. How did you intend to kill the dragon?”

  Again, his heart sank as thoughts of Isabela intruded. “I have certain spells that call to her. Once I tracked her to her lair, I planned to lure her out, and wait for her inside. When she returned, I’d use an obsidian weapon against her. There should have been one under the house Sally inherited, but I didn’t find one. But…”

  She shot him a look. “Go on.”

  “Isabela figured one out. Obsidian that could be loaded in a shotgun shell.”

  “Why did the dragon take her?”

  Blood shook his head. “I don’t know. Some kind of twisted instinct. She isn’t behaving right.”

  “She could be sick, hurt maybe.”

  “Maybe.” After chasing the creature around the world, Blood had got in a few licks. “But I never should’ve involved the girl.”

  This time, Kayla kept her eyes on the road as she asked, “Why did you?”

  Blood faced out the window. “I don’t know. I guess because she wasn’t afraid of me despite my reputation as a murderer. She wanted to become my partner in crime. Maybe deep down, I recognized how alike we were. She’s an alpha bitch at the bottom of the pack. I’m an apex predator with no territory. Strange as it sounds, it was nice to have someone to teach after all these years.”

  “Sounds like you have your own twisted paternal instincts.”

  “This isn’t getting us any closer to finding Isabela.”

  “Well, I’d like to know why you didn’t involve me.”

  He took a long breath. “I don’t want to say it.”

  “Please, Elathan. I need to know.”

  “It’s because you weren’t expendable. There. I’ve said it. Does my confession make you feel any better?”

  Kayla didn’t speak.

  “That’s how it was at first. I didn’t need to manipulate her, she was a willing participant. Unfortunately, as we went along, I began to rely on her. I even started to—”

  “What?” she asked sharply.

  “Damn it to hell, I started to really like the sassy kid.”

  They didn’t speak for a while. Kayla kept driving. Blood stared out the window, trying to clear his thoughts. Where the hell would a dragon nest?

  “I can only on
e thing to do,” Kayla said, leaving the highway.

  Blood looked out at the town they passed through. “What’s that?”

  “Just try to follow the path the dragon took. You said she headed south. Ripple is south. Maybe if we just keep driving south, we’ll figure something out.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t have a better idea. Do you have a map? Maybe I can try to plot her course.”

  “A map? Nobody uses maps anymore.”

  Blood found the idea bizarre. “How do you ever get to where you’re going?”

  “Cell phones, GPS, things like that.”

  “Do you have these things?”

  Kayla dug out her cell phone and handed it over. “Swipe it a couple times. The map app should be one of the first ones.”

  He wasn’t one for technology. It had taken him hours to figure out how to send the texts to lure Thorn into danger. When he pressed the image labeled maps, he was surprised to see a grid appear. A little dot moved along—their vehicle. No wonder Marino and León had so easily trailed Isabela.

  “How do I make it bigger?”

  Kayla made a motion with her thumb and index finger, drawing them together. “You sort of pull the edges in closer.”

  It took him a moment to get the hang of it. He now looked at a much broader map, many of the side streets disappearing, the main drags now threads on the screen. After a moment, he located Little Crater Lake and the unmarked intersection that was Ripple. Due south of the tiny town, there was nothing but mountains and woods.

  “I can’t see anyplace she would go,” he said. “The Cascades are too far. There isn’t even a road—”

  Blood stopped himself. He remembered their conversation just before the dragon first attacked them. There was a road south of Ripple. It just wasn’t used anymore.

  “Do you know how to get to 26?” he asked.