Dragon, Interrupted (Fire Mates Book 5)

by Lexxie Couper

  No, not word. Name. His name. Her Harley hunk.

  Ari. His name was Ari.

  But how did she know that? How did she—

  “Shh, Jilly,” Derek said, leading her to the elevator.

  The desire to do exactly as he instructed welled through her once more. She nodded again, gazing at him. Blue fog swirled over her vision. “Okay,” she answered.

  Derek didn’t stop at the closed elevator doors. He hurried to the stairwell, shoving open the door with a single push.

  Jilly’s brain registered the cold concrete under her bare feet, like an icy wet lick, and then a booming echo assaulted her ears as the door slammed shut behind her.

  “You must follow me,” Derek said, his eyes finding hers. “The dragon is going to hurt you if you don’t.”

  She nodded her head, incapable of doing anything else, even as she tried to argue against him. Inside, that same earlier heat she’d experienced threaded through an awareness of…what? She didn’t know.

  Ari.

  The name caressed her mind.

  “Put this on,” Derek instructed, shucking out of his jacket before draping it over her shoulders.

  The denim kissed the form that was her non-existence. For a fleeting moment the notion of being naked, of being exposed, unfurled through Jilly’s foggy head, before scattering into nothingness.

  Derek took her wrist again. “Let’s go.”

  No. The word formed in her head, distant and hazy. I don’t want to go.

  “Okay,” she said again with a wobbly nod, the word barely a breath.

  Time slid around her. The cold concrete beneath her feet turned to carpet and then concrete again a heartbeat later. Swirls of blue washed over her. She continued to tingle, numb and devoid of weight and substance.

  Ari.

  A shadow faded into the blue fog, a man…then not a man…then something massive…something…

  Noise crashed down on her, loud and familiar—cars, people, traffic.

  She stumbled to a halt, blinking. Bright light and colors assaulted her. Her eyes stung. Where was she?

  Head thrumming, she gazed around her, confused. When had she come down to the street below her apartment? Why was she down here?

  “Jilly?”

  She jerked her head toward the voice. Derek stood in front of her, squeezing her wrist. She frowned. “Derek, what…what are you doing here? I don’t…”

  A gust of cool wind streamed over her and she gasped, looking down at her naked body. “Where the fuck are my clothes?” She grabbed at the edges of the jacket she wore—whose jacket? Derek’s?—and yanked them tight around her torso, pressing her thighs together. God, was it long enough to hide her—

  The sound of glass shattering high above her head made her look up. Just as a whole row of windows on what looked like her floor exploded outward.

  A screech split the air, deafening, furious. Inhuman.

  “What the hell?” she whispered, stumbling back a step as glass rained down around her. “What the hell is going on?”

  A hard hand shackled her wrist, not tight enough to hurt, but determined to hold her nonetheless. Her fingers went numb. “We’ve got to go,” Derek damn near snarled in her ear, a second before dragging her toward a waiting taxi.

  “Derek,” she burst out, clawing at his grip. “What the fuck is going on? Let me go!”

  He ignored her, pulling open the back door of the cab before saying something to the driver.

  Jilly dug at his fingers, pulling against him. Her bare feet slid and scraped on the sidewalk. She heard surprised gasps and more than one “Is that woman naked?”

  Yes. She was freaking naked. And clearly trying to get away from a man just as clearly about to shove her into a taxi. So why the hell wasn’t anyone doing something about it?

  And more to the point, why the fuck was she down here in the first place and what had happened to…to…

  Her brain fumbled against an emptiness where she knew there should be something. Something…

  Ari.

  “Ari,” she screamed, twisting to look up at her apartment.

  Another screech split the air.

  Around her, people squealed and clapped their hands to their ears, ducking and scanning the sky, terror on their faces.

  “Ari,” Jilly screamed again. She didn’t yet know who Ari was, but the name—the belief Ari was the only thing that mattered—pounded through her.

  “Enough!” Derek shouted, yanking on her arm. “Get in the cab, Jilly. Now!”

  The screech came again, louder this time.

  Jilly snapped her stare to Derek’s, yanked her clamped wrist up to her mouth with a strength she didn’t know she had and sank her teeth into the back of his hand.

  “Damn it, Jilly.” Derek grabbed a fistful of her hair, jerking his hand—and her wrist—away from her mouth. “Stop that.”

  The distinct taste of copper seeped onto Jilly’s tongue. She glared at him, still fighting. “Let me go, Derek. I don’t know what’s going on, but—”

  He raised his hand and blew at her face, and a deep blue fog engulfed the world.

  And then there was nothing.

  How Ari stopped himself shifting was beyond him.

  The urge to transform into his dragon tortured his body, his self-control. Pain racked him, muscle-crippling and absolute. He didn’t know what Garrison had attacked him with, what had imprisoned him, paralyzed him for who the fuck knew how long, but the druid would be nothing but cinders when Ari caught up with him.

  He sprinted from Jilly’s apartment, shattered glass and furniture crunching beneath his feet. He hadn’t meant to destroy everything around him with the furnace blast of his anger, but it had been the only way of clearing the air of whatever fucked-up druid-shit magic Garrison had thrown at him.

  His wild screech after the blast had been an attempt to appease his dragon’s rage. It had barely succeeded. The need to shift still burned through him as he began his pursuit of Jilly and the druid.

  Why the hell Derek Garrison had appeared at his Fire Mate’s home was a matter for a later time. Where Garrison had taken her—and why he’d said Jilly was his—were the first things Ari needed to address.

  And by address, he meant track Garrison down and beat it out of him.

  Slamming into the stairwell door, Ari allowed himself a moment to picture the other man cowering at his feet. Indulgent maybe, but it tempered the powerful need to shift. Just.

  The cold, musty air of the stairwell wrapped around him, jarring him from his rage. He stumbled to a halt, a wave of abrupt emptiness rolling through him.

  His blood ran to ice.

  Shit. He couldn’t sense her. He couldn’t sense Jilly.

  He couldn’t feel his Fire Mate. He should be able to. The mating fire had begun. He’d tasted her, touched her. He should be able to find her, feel her, be aware of her existence regardless of where she was. But he couldn’t. Instead, he sensed nothing.

  Emptiness.

  The need to shift ripped through him, so potent his bones and muscles began to burn.

  Fuck. He was too close. Too—

  A million pinpricks of heat razed his flesh. His lungs filled with fire.

  No. No. He needed to resist…he needed to…

  Grinding his teeth, Ari closed his eyes and sucked in slow, musty breath after slow, musty breath. He had to regain control of himself.

  Sydney—and the world—didn’t need to discover the existence of dragons. And more importantly, Jilly didn’t need an angry dragon coming after her, not when she still had no real idea of what was going on.

  As the tenth breath of cold air streamed down his throat, Ari sensed her, like a flood of golden life and warmth and perfection.

  Ari. Where’s Ari? Where am I?

  Her frantic thoughts whispered through his mind. Any gnawing doubts she truly was his Fire Mate vanished at the sound of her voice in his head. The sporadic, almost wispy linking of minds was one of the most inti
mate connections between Fire Mates. Hearing Jilly’s thoughts—disjointed and confused as they were—in his own mind filled him with both rapture and rage.

  He was going to make Garrison suffer for this.

  An inhuman screech tore from him before he could stop it, echoing up and down the stairwell. Opening his eyes, he barreled down the stairs, four at a time. The urgent pull on his existence and the burning hunger for Jilly told him she was still close.

  Wherever Garrison had taken her, they weren’t that far away.

  Ari…stop…I don’t…let me…no…Ari…Ari, help…

  Terror filled Jilly’s thoughts, wild and cold.

  Ari threw back his head, incapable of holding back his dragon’s fury. The deafening screech shook the stairwell, so loud concrete dust rained down on him from the walls.

  And then he burst into a sprint, down the stairs, out into the lobby, faster than humanly possible, the drawing sensation on his soul, his croi, growing hotter.

  Teeth bared, Ari panted, blood roaring in his ears. When he caught up with them, the druid was going to regret ever thinking about taking—

  The pulling sensation vanished.

  Gone. Just like that.

  Icy numbness replaced the gossamer connection of his mind with Jilly’s.

  Ari slammed into the lobby door, head spinning. It swung outward, spilling him into the street.

  Around him, people scrambled about whimpering, fear on their faces as they kept looking toward the sky. He didn’t know what had scared them. He didn’t care.

  He barreled out into their midst, searching for Jilly. Any sign. He just needed a sign…

  Nothing.

  No sign. No connection. No pulling sensation.

  Fuck. Fuck, where was she? What had Garrison done?

  The crunch of glass beneath his feet brought him to a stumbling halt.

  He dropped his stare to the footpath, frowning at the shattered glass everywhere on the concrete. Where had that…

  Ah, shit.

  Gut knotting, he looked at the people scurrying around him, and then higher. Up to Jilly’s apartment building.

  All the windows on her floor were blown out.

  The knot in his gut twisted. He knew exactly what had caused the destruction.

  Him. His rage. “Fuck.”

  He studied the gaping windows, unable to miss the scorched curtains flapping through them from what he knew to be Jilly’s living room.

  “Fuck,” he muttered again. For a Cleaner, he was doing a brilliant job of making a goddamn mess. Tyson Conley was going to kill him.

  Deal with it later. All that matters is Jilly.

  Returning his focus to the street around him, he sought out any hint of Jilly with his mind and body.

  Still nothing.

  “Fuck,” he growled a third time.

  He needed to get out of here. The insane twelve-hour mating-fire period still consumed him, his savage fury warred with his consuming sexual hunger, and his Fire Mate had been abducted by a druid with a deluded, dangerous belief that she belonged to him.

  How the hell he had any control of his dragon at this point was beyond him.

  He ground his teeth, head spinning.

  Control. Shit, he needed to get control.

  Shifting right here on the footpath surrounded by people, in broad daylight, would reveal the existence of his kind, and that couldn’t happen. The world wasn’t ready to deal with the reality of dragon shifters.

  Then get out of here.

  Ari spun on his heel and ran for his Harley.

  He had no idea where Garrison was taking Jilly, but he did have an idea where to start his search.

  Halfway to the druid’s cake-decorating business in Bondi, he realized he’d picked up a tail.

  The Extraho Venator again.

  Tenacious bastard.

  Shooting his side mirror a glance, he bit back a growl.

  Yep, that was Colin’s pickup ducking into traffic five cars behind.

  Fuck.

  He dropped back a gear and revved his bike’s engine, speeding toward an upcoming intersection. He needed to shake the irritating sod. Or deal with him.

  Something was off about the whole hunter situation. Colin was as incompetent as an Extraho Venator got, and yet in the last two weeks, the hunter had managed to not only locate Ari, but stick to him. Ever since the day after the safe house incident up on the Northern Beaches involving Kellan Donovan and Reece Collier, and an Uber driver who turned out to be yet another dragon hunter with delusions of grandeur.

  Speeding down a narrow side street, Ari checked his mirror again.

  No sign of Colin.

  “Thank fuck for that,” Ari muttered, returning his focus to the road. If he spied the dragon hunter again, he’d have to deal with him, and with his current agitated mood, Colin wouldn’t walk away from the confrontation, regardless of seemingly lucky the hunter was.

  Five blocks and too many red lights and yield signs later, his mobile phone started buzzing like crazy in his pocket. And again. And again.

  Call after call.

  A familiar vibrating pattern that told him exactly who was waiting on the other end of the incoming call.

  Shit.

  He yanked out his phone and rammed it to his ear. “Heya, Tyson,” he said, slowing down enough to divide his attention between the busy road, his mirrors and his conversation. “What’s up?”

  “What exactly are you doing blasting out windows in an apartment building, Drake? Remind me again what a Cleaner does? Covers up dragon exposure to the public, not creates it, yes?”

  Ari winced. Tyson Conley, Sydney’s apex alpha, was angry. Given what had just happened, rightly so.

  “Explanation,” Tyson demanded, not a hint of the normal good humor in his voice. “Now.”

  If it were anyone other than Tyson, Ari would tell them to fuck off. No one ordered him around like that. Ty, however…

  Ari had a justified reputation for being someone few people messed around with, but no one fucked about with Tyson.

  Turning down another side street—with a quick check in his mirrors to make certain Colin remained nowhere to be seen—Ari let out a ragged breath.

  “I met my Fire Mate,” he answered. No point in bullshitting.

  Tyson laughed. “It was that explosive?”

  “Ha ha.” Ari rolled his eyes. “I didn’t peg you for a comedian, Conley.”

  Tyson chuckled. “And I didn’t peg you for someone with control issues, Drake.”

  Ari snorted. “Bite me, you bastard.”

  Tyson answered with another laugh. “I’ll leave that to your Fire Mate. So tell me what’s going on?”

  Watching an upcoming traffic light turn amber, Ari cut back through the gears.

  Impatience gnawed at him. He suspected Garrison wouldn’t hurt Jilly intentionally—the words she’s mine rang too clearly in his head to believe otherwise. That, and the undeniable sexual longing in the druid’s eyes when he’d looked at her. But Ari sure as hell wasn’t happy about her being in Garrison’s possession. Nor about the building inferno of the mating fire once again surging through him. Time was ticking. He needed to find Jilly before that time ran out and he could no longer control his shift into dragon form.

  “Arriman?” Tyson prodded on the other end of the connection. “Talk to me. What’s the deal with the destruction of the apartment?”

  Ari bit back a growl. Shit, for a moment, he’d forgotten he was talking to the alpha.

  “Someone barged in. Someone took her. Before we could—”

  “An Extraho Venator?”

  Ari planted his right foot on the road, staring at the red light. His heart smashed hard in his throat. The fact he still couldn’t sense Jilly flayed at him like a steel-rope whip. “No. Derek Garrison.”

  The light changed to green. Ari shot through the intersection, his hog a roaring beast loud enough to make pedestrians on the footpath flinch.

  “The druid?” />
  “The druid,” Ari confirmed.

  Every Sydney dragon shifter knew Garrison was descended from one of the world’s most ancient druid lines. Every dragon shifter in the city also considered his surreptitious attempts to evoke the ancient magic quite twee and harmless.

  That would change after today. What Garrison had done to Ari could never be described as cute and innocuous.

  Anger once again battled with the sexual fire stoking inside him. He needed to locate Jilly soon. Real soon.

  “So the bastard’s finally discovered how to use magic. I’m going to have to let Rick know.”

  Ari let out a choppy grunt. Tyson’s Fire Mate, Sera, was also human—and her cousin, Yorick Hayes, was a reincarnated druid of immense power. Yorick, aka Rick, was a veterinarian who came in handy in the Sydney dragon shifter community, able to cure illnesses and injuries a normal doctor wouldn’t be able to believe, let alone tend to.

  Rick also kept a close eye on Derek Garrison.

  Garrison’s insistence on trying to be a practicing druid was an irritation to Rick, who could tap into the ancient form of magic with ease; he knew how dangerous and volatile it could be. Unfortunately, Rick was currently in Spain on a holiday, which meant there was no druid in town to deal with Derek.

  A disquieting knot twisting in Ari’s gut. Too many coincidences were lining up for his liking: Colin tailing Ari out of the blue; Derek making his move on Jilly just as Ari had found her; and Rick Hayes being out of the country…

  Yeah, way too many coincidences.

  “So Garrison took your Fire Mate?” Frustration and confusion threaded through Tyson’s voice. “How the hell can a druid take a dragon?”

  Ari balled his fist on the top of his Harley’s gas tank, his anger burning hotter. “Jilly isn’t a dragon.”

  “Isn’t a…” Tyson let out a dry bark of a laugh. “Seriously? You too? Hey, welcome to the—”

  Ari!

  Jilly’s voice screamed in Ari’s head. Loud. Terrified. Furious.

  Every fiber of his existence reacted to the mental connection. Protective need and sexual desire rushed through him at once, a tsunami of primordial fire, and for a dangerous moment, he lost control of everything—his bike, his body, his dragon.

  Jilly, he called out, straining for her.