Los Diablos: A Dragon Shifter MC Romance

by Jadyn Chase

  At that thought, my wings unfolded. The pain and uncertainty submerged under a tide of ferocity that enveloped my awareness. The dragon knew no pain and no uncertainty. The dragon knew only dominance, conquest, destruction.

  I levitated off the ground. As soon as I spread my wings, my regenerative powers kicked in. I would live. I would be just fine as long as I could still fly.

  I veered north and swept up the coast. Morgan sent out a beacon to guide me where I needed to go. I scanned the shoreline for the slightest indication where she might be. My dragon brain couldn’t remember the address from my phone.

  The sun dipped toward the western horizon and the air cooled even more. Unwavering instinct steered me around the coast and I saw it. I might not remember the address, but I couldn’t mistake the house.

  I stooped toward the beach, but the toll of flying here caught up with me. I shifted in spite of myself and crashed into the sand. I barely tucked in my shoulder enough to roll and I came to rest flat on my face.

  I lay there panting and reeling for a while. I didn’t want to move for fear of the pain, but I couldn’t stay here. The rising tide hissed at my heels. It would drown me in a little while.

  I forced myself onto my hands and knees. I shuddered with my eyes closed before I built up the reserves to get to my feet. I blew out a long breath and braced myself for the last few yards’ walk to the house.

  Now that I examined it upright, it looked even more beautiful and magical than in Logan’s pictures. White morning glories draped over an arbor shading the porch. Beaten wooden steps lead onto the sand. Double glass doors stood open to the tempting sea breeze. Anyone would be lucky to live here.

  I stumbled up the beach. When I got within a dozen paces of the back door, a slender figure materialized out of the shadows inside. Morgan stopped on the threshold. She saw me, but she didn’t react. Did she care at all that I came all this way to find her?

  10

  Morgan

  I sat on the divan while dusk crept over the landscape. Not even the beauty and stillness all around me could compensate for the aching worry in my heart. I glanced for the thousandth time at the phone in my hand. How could Brayden contact me without his phone? Was he in danger right now? Was he already dead fighting those dragons?

  I never should have left him alone. I should have stayed and fought with him. At least then I would know where he was. I wouldn’t have to sit here dwelling on him and eating myself up with guilt.

  Just for a fraction of a second when I first woke up and realized he was there in my arms, I could almost swear I loved him. I fell asleep holding him. I never felt safer in my life. When I woke up with him, I knew everything was going to be all right. I wanted to kiss him. I should have taken the chance, but I never got to.

  What if he died in that battle? What if the only man I ever loved died the instant I realized how I felt about him? How could I live with that? He died saving my life. He sacrificed himself so I could get free. He took on all those invaders to protect my getaway.

  I couldn’t keep sitting here all night waiting to hear from him, but that creeping chill took hold of me the way it did at The Zone. It froze my limbs in place so I couldn’t move. I should get up. I should make a plan. I should assess just how safe I was in this house, but I couldn’t even do that. Where would I go? What was my life worth without someone as fine and selfless as Brayden in it?

  I tossed the phone on the divan and stood up. I paced around the house. In a fit of angst, I stepped out onto the porch and spotted Brayden standing there. The setting sun glimmered over the far horizon like something out of a movie.

  At first, I wasn’t sure he was real. Did he really come out here to find me? Was he really standing there the same as always? Was he real, or did I just dream him?

  He studied me for a long time. He didn’t move. Then he blinked. He was real. He was really here…. with me. I couldn’t hold back my relief. I ran to him and threw my arms around his middle. I hugged him close and laid my ear against his heart the way I did last night. He was all right. I was all right as long as he was here.

  His big hand came to rest against the back of my neck. His mouth touched my hair. Everything was all right. I didn’t care about the rest of the world. I didn’t even care about this house or my inheritance. I only wanted him. He was the prize.

  When I let go enough to look up at his face, I wanted nothing more than to complete that moment on the couch. I couldn’t live without touching my lips to his and feeling the rightness of having him near me.

  Why did I struggle so hard to push him away? Why did I spend so much time thinking of him as my enemy when I could have felt like this with him instead?

  He clasped me against his iron frame. His hard, rough clothes did nothing to disguise the softening underneath. His warm lips welcomed me into a cosmic sea of bliss dreamier and more intoxicating than the one out there where the sun slipped beneath the haze.

  I cracked my eyes open to see him opening his at the same moment. He appeared so tender and attentive in that moment. How could I think of him as harsh and hateful? I could hardly remember now.

  I found my fingertips drifting toward his face. “You’re all right!”

  His eyes pinched at the corners when he smiled. “Yeah, well, it was touch and go there for a while.”

  “What happened?” I asked. “How did you get out?”

  “The boys came and got me. The alarm alerted them to the attack and they held the Longtails off long enough for us to get out.”

  Relief and overwhelming happiness consumed me. I nodded toward the house. “Do you….do you want to come inside?”

  He chuckled under his breath and his eyelids dipped closed. “Yeah. That would be great.”

  I took a step, but he didn’t let me go. He leaned on my shoulders. I couldn’t understand until he tried to walk. He lurched. His weight crushed me and I had to stop to steady him.

  His countenance went ashen grey. What was wrong with him? My hand flew to his chest to hold him up and he winced. “You’re hurt!”

  “I’m okay. It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”

  “If you’re fine, why can’t you walk on your own?”

  “Yeah, well…..” He coughed behind pursed lips. “I guess I just wasn’t flying long enough.”

  I couldn’t understand what he meant, but that didn’t matter. I picked up the pace moving him toward the porch. He tripped on the steps and groaned through locked teeth. Now he was starting to scare me.

  His knees buckled the minute he got inside. I steered him onto the divan and he pitched over backward on it. He crunched up his midsection and howled.

  I sat down on the edge of the seat, but I couldn’t figure out what to do. “What’s wrong? Where are you hurt?”

  “It’s nothing,” he snapped. “It’s just a few broken ribs. That’s all—nothing a couple hours in the air won’t fix.”

  “What are you talking about? Do you need a doctor?”

  “Oh, look—my phone.” He pulled the device out from under his backside. “Here you go. Here’s yours.”

  I took it, but I didn’t look at it. I threw the phone and the wallet away and tried again to touch him. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Not unless you want to fly back to LA right now.” He started to laugh and succumbed to another coughing fit.

  I bolted upright and narrowed my eyes at him. “How can you make a joke out of this? This is really serious.”

  He swallowed his laughter and looked up at me. His eyes sparkled and he smiled showing all his teeth. “I’m not joking, darling. I’m just trying to cope. That’s all, and I’m too happy to see you alive and unhurt to go tearing back to LA where they might separate us again.”

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “Nothing.” He held out his hand. “Come here and sit down again. This is nothing. I’m telling you the truth. I’ve been hurt a lot worse than this and healed up in no time. The longer I stay in d
ragon form, the quicker I heal. I just want to sit with you for a while. That’s all. Come on. Sit down.”

  His words won me over and I sank onto the divan next to him. He reclined back and closed his eyes with a shaky sigh.

  “What’s this about us going back to LA?” I demanded.

  “Don’t talk about it anymore.” He closed both hands around my cheeks and towed me toward him. “No more talking.”

  The next minute, his delicious mouth enveloped my world. I dissolved in kissing him for all time. His fingers laced into my hair and commanded me to move with his tongue and his mouth. Without meaning to, I leaned over on top of him, but he didn’t try to make me get off.

  His massive energy translated through me so I couldn’t keep still. I had to rub myself against him, but that only escalated the scorching heat tearing me apart. I needed him. I needed contact with his body and his mouth and his being.

  His strong fingers dug into my spine. They crawled down my back to my waist and farther down to my ass. They steered me in luscious circles that drove me insane. His tongue flickered into my mouth. It sent a torching flash of searing electricity straight to my brain. It short-circuited my system and overpowered my ability to contain it.

  My mind shut down and I surrendered to a torrential tsunami of emotion and sensation. It swept me away to somewhere I couldn’t understand. I only knew I wanted this. I needed this. I needed to touch him and feel him moving under me. I needed his muscular arms showing me what to do and where to go.

  Itching, aching hunger burned between my legs. It spread through me until I couldn’t deny the need. My legs parted to straddle him, but he showed no sign of slowing down or stopping. His crotch swelled to pierce my insides. Christ, I needed him so bad!

  I arched back. My spine rippled with successive surges of desire and insatiable lust. I couldn’t stop it now and I didn’t try. I crammed my throbbing box onto his spike. The faster I went, the more I lost control over myself and everything around me.

  I didn’t care if I lost control. I wanted to lose control. I wanted to lose everything in him. I gasped for breath between his lips. He sank his teeth into my lip at every swirling kiss and growled low in his throat.

  He glided his big palms up my ribs and hitched up my shirt. Before I could stop him, he broke off my mouth and dove underneath. He burrowed into my bra and bit down on my tender nipple. I screamed in a tidal wave of pain and unstoppable passion. The pain stabbed down my midsection to my crotch and I exploded in a dizzying orgasm.

  He lunged off the divan seething in volcanic power. No one would ever guess he was hurt. His teeth yanked my nipple to one side, but when my hand flew to his head to stop him, I wound up shoving him into me harder than ever. Fuck, that felt so good! I screamed in his ear riding his prick to my destruction.

  He jammed one hand down my jeans and crushed my ass into him. I couldn’t stop spinning higher into the stratosphere on one spiraling climax after another.

  His hair came loose in my fingers. It drifted across his granite features and stroked my chest while he sucked my breast to the ends of the Earth. His other hand ran up my spine to my neck and I swayed in ecstasy for what seemed like eons.

  All at once, he flipped me over on to my back. He slammed me down on the divan and tore my jeans open. My arms splayed out to one side and I stared up at him smoldering in fury above me. His hard black eyes fixed on my face. He clenched his teeth and his nostrils flared. What did he see?

  He stripped my jeans down and shoved his own pants to his knees. In a flash, he plowed between my legs taut and hard. His hot manhood touched my swollen slit and I caught my breath. He didn’t give me a chance to think twice, but I already crossed the line to become something alien to myself.

  He grabbed my hips and punched inside. The instant his crest snapped through the opening, I pitched into a storm of senseless ecstasy. I writhed on the divan impaled on his tool while one blinding explosion after another catapulted through me.

  He propped his arms on either side of my head. The undulating strokes began at his shoulders and translated down his stomach. They disappeared in the roots of his hair where his body met mine. Every one of those maddening beats rocketed mindless rapture into my soul. How could I stand this?

  He bared his teeth and snarled in my face. He growled with every thrust and fired the last dizzying starbursts into me with a strained expulsion of breath. His long hair hung in my eyes and framed his features in ruthless, primal ferocity.

  My sex-addled brain gazed up at him through the clouds of raving bliss destroying me, destroying everything I knew about myself. He was a dragon—monstrous, dangerous, brutal.

  Almost before it started, he picked me up again. He compressed my torso between his rock-hard biceps and lifted me onto his drilling shaft. He sat me on it while he kneeled on the floor. My legs dangled to either side. Only his insistent driving penetrations help me up.

  He circled my neck with those masterful fingers and steered me into his mouth. His piercing stare hypnotized me into a haze bordering on insanity. He held me captive with that gaze while his mouth devoured me to the depths of my being.

  Was I still orgasming? I couldn’t tell. His body ordained that I should respond, that I should teeter on the brink of oblivion, that I should dwell in his eyes and his sweat and his muscles. I couldn’t break away, and he didn’t release me. I didn’t want to be released. I wanted to belong to him, to obey his commands spoken and unspoken. I wanted anything and everything he could give me. The slightest touch of his hand, the merest glance of his eyes—I asked nothing more.

  11

  Morgan

  Brayden groaned shifting onto the pillow. Black bruises darkened his chest. His tattoos showed up as darker patterns running through the awful pools of blood under the skin.

  He ran his fingers through his hair and blew a long breath through his lips. “I don’t feel so hot.”

  I leaned on my elbow and watched him struggle to make himself comfortable. “Why don’t you let me take care of you? You don’t have to suffer like this.”

  He managed to find a position and relaxed ever so slightly. “What did you have in mind?”

  “At least let me get you some painkillers. I could go to the drug store and be back in a couple of minutes. If you’re not going to fly around long enough for your ribs to heal, at least you could take something for the pain. I have to go out anyway. We don’t have any food here.”

  He grumbled again and he flinched when he adjusted the pillow under his head. “I wasn’t thinking we’d stick around that long.”

  “Well, you have a choice,” I told him. “Either I go get the food and painkillers, or you get up and we fly back to LA right this minute. Those are your choices.”

  He cocked his head to look up at me. His eyes sparkled and his lip twitched into a smile. “All right. Go get them.”

  I grinned back. I didn’t want to go back to LA yet, either, not when staying at the beach house with him promised so many more mysterious delights.

  I snatched my wallet and my phone and headed for the door. I picked the keys off the hook by the door and hurried to the garage. I found the car when I first searched this place, but I didn’t think I would get a chance to drive it so soon.

  I slid behind the wheel, sent up a silent prayer to my dad that it still worked, and turned the ignition. The GT fired up and I reversed down the driveway. Living at the beach house was going to change my life in all kinds of ways.

  I kept the speed to a reasonable level motoring down the highway and pulled into the CVS in Malibu. I went inside and found the pain reliever aisle, but when I scanned the shelves, the usual Tylenol and Advil didn’t really seem to cut the mustard. What could you give a man with multiple broken ribs and probably organ damage?

  Brayden would never admit he needed painkillers. He would never admit he got hurt in the battle at all, but I knew better. The minute the sex stopped, he could barely move.

  He really needed Vicodi
n or maybe even morphine, but I couldn’t get that over the counter. I glanced toward the pharmacy and when I did, my blood ran cold. A man stood a few aisles away from me and stared at me with impenetrable black eyes.

  Fringe dangled from the sides of his leather jacket. I couldn’t make out the design on the lapel, but it didn’t resemble any gang patch I recognized. It didn’t belong to Los Diablos or the Longtails.

  His gaunt face and spidery hands sent chills up my spine. I knew him. I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t place him. He belonged to that shadow world of my past that lay buried in mist.

  While I stood there, he took out his phone, touched the screen, and held it to his ear. That simple movement set off a chain reaction in me. I whirled away and charged out of the store. I hopped in the car and hit the gas. I didn’t know where I was going or why. I only knew I had to get the hell away from him to save my own life.

  I roared down the highway on a breakneck race back to the beach house. I forgot all about the painkillers. This was a matter of life and death. I had to get back to Brayden now.

  I swerved on the coast road and dropped the car into low gear. I slammed my foot to the floor and screeched around a bend. In my frenzy to put miles between myself and that man, I crossed the center line and barely corrected before an oncoming truck collided with me head-on.

  I did my best to steady the wheel through the pounding adrenaline and my thundering pulse. I managed to regain my position in the correct lane, but my heart drummed in my brain fit to burst. I covered a few more miles when that forgotten memory split my mind apart.

  The guy’s hawkish visage burst into my head and I jolted back in the seat. I locked my arms against the wheel, but I couldn’t see where I was going. I couldn’t see anything besides that man’s nightmare countenance.

  Metal screeched against metal as the car skidded along the guardrail. My vision cleared just in time to avoid careening down an embankment. I stomped the brake and fought the wheel with all my might.