by Jill Haven
“I made this too easy,” I grumbled, for a moment more concerned with making Mason work for whatever the hell he thought he wanted from me than with the dire circumstances I’d created for myself by being a bad sneak thief.
The cop pushed me into the room, and I stumbled, going to my knees.
2
Mason
“What’s going to happen?” I asked Bobby Anderson, the fancy lawyer that Carlisle had sent with me from Charleston to New York. I’d gotten messages from my answering service and from Bishop about Seth being in Buffalo—in jail—and I was frantic that something terrible was going to happen to him before I could get to him. Seth seemed to be living a dangerous life. I couldn’t stand the idea of someone hurting him now that I knew where he was. He was in the same building as me, and my dragon buzzed underneath my skin in outrage at the idea of him in a cage. Sweat rolled down my spine and gathered at my temples. If they didn’t bring him to me soon, I would change and rip apart the building until I found him, the cops and their guns and dragon laws be damned.
Bobby lifted one bold eyebrow. He was handsome, Carlisle had neglected to mention that when he floated the idea of sending him with me, but he was also only human, so he was exhausted already by our adventure. His mouth was bracketed by deep lines that weren’t there when we started our night together almost eight hours earlier, close to midnight. We’d driven through till dawn to get here as fast as possible.
Bobby forced a smile and hefted his briefcase into both arms. He’d argued with the cops for nearly an hour before we were ushered into this room to wait while they went and located Seth. No one could figure out how a hoodlum from Buffalo was able to hire such a slick lawyer so fast, especially one with a refined southern accent and out-of-state license, and the cops kept asking us questions they didn’t have the right to answers for. Everything took longer than it should have while Bobby used legalese to throw them off and then the cops dragged their feet on purpose out of spite.
Meanwhile my dragon stalked in my mind, urging me to go find Seth. I clenched my hands into fists and my fingernails bit into my palms. I swore I could smell his sweetness on the air.
“Nothing will happen to him,” Bobby answered after nearly a minute, “so long as the owner of Fabiano U-Store stays true to his word and doesn’t file charges against your… what is this Seth Preston to you and Carlisle again?” Bobby had been asking that question on repeat for twenty minutes. He was like a dog with a bone.
“Well…”
Bobby frowned at me, and I laughed. “He’s our… uh… He’s my friend.”
“He’s my cousin,” Bishop rumbled with a twisted little smile at the same time I said friend.
Bobby whipped around and tilted his head back to make eye contact with Bishop, obviously even more confused now. He must have had an iron will because he actually stared Bishop down for a few seconds before he dropped his gaze.
“Well, whoever Seth Preston is to you people, he’s lucky. There’s no reason I can parse why the owner of a building that had been broken into by a known thief and con artist should drop solid charges. From what I could track down, there are a long list of priors on Seth Preston that have never stuck for one reason or another. What probably saved him this time was that nothing was taken, but it wasn’t for lack of obvious intent.” Bobby shook his head and went over to lean against the shoddy table surrounded by chairs. His nice blue suit was wrinkled, and I noticed a coffee stain on one leg. The table creaked and Bobby slapped his briefcase down on the top.
I cringed internally at hearing Seth described as nothing more than a common grifter. My dragon hated that. Okay, maybe I did too because all people had value, but the dragon didn’t necessarily think like a human. He knew that Seth was good—pure, perfect, smells like sex and happiness. My dragon practically purred at the idea of rubbing against him. There was a dull, hollow ache in my chest that had shown up the night I met Seth, and it had eased the moment we stepped foot into the police station. Electric tingles raced over my skin. The sensation was akin to a logging chain that had been yanked tight around my chest and now it was loosening by a link or two.
Over the last few weeks, searching for Seth had turned into a full-time job, until it was interrupted by dropping in to check on Haiden when he was close to delivery. Haiden—a gravid omega—had been a beautiful sight and gave me so much hope for the rest of the dragons we knew who desired to have children. Everyone deserved to have a family if they wanted one, and if we could solve this population problem for the clans by simply searching out new blood, I was happy to be a part of the solution.
I stopped for a second to smile as a wave of awe washed over me. I hadn’t thought it would really be possible at first, but Haiden had birthed his baby without complications, and now I had a niece capable of shifting into a dragon. Carlisle and I weren’t true brothers, but we were as good as. Baby Charlotte was family to me. My heart swelled and I smiled to myself. Carlisle and Haiden seemed so happy and they were blessed with their little one.
I rubbed at my aching chest and attempted to ignore it. I had read the information that Bishop sent Carlisle when he was watching over Haiden in Muscogee. I knew this pain was a sign of having found a life mate, but considering the fact that Seth ran from me, my body might be mistaken. Would a true mate leave? Could they? If he felt even half as obsessed with me as I did him, how did he have the fortitude to go?
“That’s good. So we’ll walk out of here with him today,” Bishop rumbled from beside me, startling me back into the present. His voice scraped down to octaves I don’t think any human could naturally reach.
Bobby shrugged. “Depends on what they decide they need in order to process him out of lockup. They said he doesn’t have any existing warrants, so here’s hoping. I can’t wait to get to our hotel.” He yawned and covered his mouth with one hand.
Bishop grunted. Most people probably couldn’t tell, but he seemed uncomfortable here. His unease was clear in the way he stood at attention and he didn’t stop roving his gaze around the room. He didn’t like cops or cities all that much, and here we were dealing with both. Bishop gave me a long look. “You know what you’re going to say to Seth?” he asked.
I ran a hand over my face and shook my head. “All I know is that I want to…” I stared at Bobby and sighed. I couldn’t talk about anything to do with my dragon here. I couldn’t talk about how much it had shaken me to sit in a dark bedroom with Seth while he slept at Jade’s and restrain my instincts. The mesmerizing smell of him had reached inside of me and woken a gnashing, raging beast that I hadn’t been aware I contained. As a doctor, early on I’d fought with myself to tame my dragon around blood and humans so that I could do good in the world, but one sniff of Seth had destroyed centuries of hard work.
He was fragrant and enticing, and I wanted him badly. I’d sat with my back pressed to the wall in the spare room at Jade’s while moonglow silvered the floor in a shallow arc, marking hours—my cock aching, hard, and so ready for him—if he would only give the word. I wanted to sink deep into his welcoming body and knot him, fill him with my seed, have him scream my name in pleasure.
The situation was fucked up. Seth had been through hell, manhandled, mistreated, kidnapped and abused by dragons. His father murdered. And all I could think about was fucking him.
The urge was a travesty, so I hadn’t blamed him for not trusting me. He could probably smell my need on the air when he woke up to stare at me in the dark. I was as terrible as he assumed, every bit as bad as Vladimir, the only difference being that I refused to allow myself to hurt Seth in any way. I would not break my Hippocratic oath, even if he wasn’t a patient. I wanted him happy, not scared.
Seth had told me to leave and then slept, smelling like fresh soap and bergamot and vanilla—baby powder. He gave off that enticing omega scent so strongly that it overwhelmed all my senses, and I’d spent as much of the night as I could hovering nearby, wallowing in it while my dragon urged me to go to him, touch
him, keep him safe—mate him.
And then he’d left, but that note he’d written—Catch me if you can—gave me a sliver of hope to cling to. I’d sworn that there was interest in his eyes when he looked at me, when he spoke to me, and that note had made me think maybe my dragon wasn’t confused, even if it insisted I had the right to take him whether he wanted me to or not.
But Seth had been gone too long, and I couldn’t let go of the idea that something bad had happened to him. The search for Seth on my own had been aimless. I could tell when I was traveling generally closer to him, the coldness in my chest thawing as I drove north or east, but at best it was a haphazard way to hunt him. I hoped maybe today, after we cleared up some of this mess for him, he would sit down with me and actually talk. Surely showing up today would prove to him that there was enough between us to attempt to build a relationship? In the past, dragon couples had been given far less to go on when treaties were made and sealed between clans with marriages.
The door burst open and I could barely stand the shockwave that flashed inside along with the noise of the door bouncing off the wall. For a split second all I could focus on was the magnetic pull of heat that glided into the room and made my chest warm. The hollowness that seemed to live near my heart shivered and danced and lessened. The air felt alive.
And then Seth lurched forward through the door, clearly shoved, and hit his knees with a moan. He winced and looked up, catching my focus. I barely had time to register his sad, blue eyes or the way his beautiful bow mouth was locked into a grimace of pain. I shot forward and slammed the man who had hurt him into the wall, wanting to rip the human’s head off. There was a bad crack and some drywall gave. The man’s eyes flew wide, but all I saw was prey. I wrapped a hand around his throat. There were shouts. Bishop grabbed me from behind and tugged me back, but I held on tight and only let my grip go when Bishop drilled a fist into my left kidney that sent pain zipping into the animal part of my brain. Several cops rushed into the room. Bobby started yelling about “excessive force” and pointing at Seth on the floor. The cop I’d had in my grip gasped for breath and narrowed his eyes on me.
For his part Seth sat on his knees and shook his head, watching us all like we were lunatics in an asylum, and he wasn’t very far off. I struggled against Bishop to get to Seth.
“Stop. You can’t do anything with him here. You’re going to end up in a jail cell together. Do you want that?”
I took deep breaths to attempt to calm myself. “We’d be together, huh?” I tried for a joke and Bishop only snorted.
“That was assaulting an officer,” the man who shoved Seth said. I growled at him and his eyes flew wider. Bishop walloped me again.
“You pushed him. He’s smaller than you. You’re a bully,” I said. Bobby nodded his head and gestured toward me as if I’d said the most profound thing in the universe.
The handful of cops who had barreled into the room finally seemed to note Seth still on the floor and there was a grumbled huddle as they got together with each other in a circle on the other side of the open door. Bishop finally let me free.
Seth’s mouth flipped into a smirk. “That’s exciting, doctor. You punch people often? I didn’t think you medical types did things like that.” He licked his lips and I couldn’t look away.
“I didn’t punch him. I relocated him.”
Seth rolled his eyes and climbed to his feet, but the smile on his face made my blood run hot. My mate is pleased with me. That sounded a lot like my dragon in my head, but I preened anyway.
“Yeah, yeah,” Seth snarked. “Maybe docs get special privileges, ’cause I sure woulda gotten tased for that.” He glanced at the cops near the door and I couldn’t help but eye up his long, graceful fingers where he wiggled them at his sides. His cheeks flushed the longer we held eye contact.
“Uh, so you found me.”
“Yes.”
Seth glanced around the room and Bobby studied us both curiously. “This isn’t awkward at all,” Seth finally said.
“I’m having a blast, aren’t you?” I joked.
He blinked at me and then snickered.
“Listen, we’re leaving in about fifteen minutes,” Bobby called out over the hubbub the cops were making while he jabbed a finger in their direction. “You’re going to make that happen, or I’m going to file so much paperwork over this incident that your commissioner will fire you just for the inconvenience.”
That got grumbles and the cops moved out in a pack. “We’ll be back,” one said and slammed the door behind himself.
“They’re gonna let me go?” Instead of seeming happy, Seth chewed on his lower lip and scowled in my direction.
“Isn’t that good?” Bishop asked.
Seth startled toward him and slapped a hand over his heart, like maybe he hadn’t noticed Bishop for staring at me. “Uh, sure, yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?” His voice rose and he chuckled, but there was no missing the panic in his tone.
“Okay, what am I missing? Tell me,” I demanded.
“Nothing. De nada, you know. We just maybe want to get out of Dodge sooner rather than later. Get on the open road. Maybe go see Haiden. He had the baby, right?” Seth rocked onto the balls of his heels and I felt like I was playing a game I didn’t know the rules to. I was wrongfooted somehow.
“They’ll probably want you to stay in the state, actually,” Bobby said. “We should get you a lawyer here. I haven’t passed the bar in New York, so I’m not actually that useful.” He shrugged, and Seth groaned. His enticing scent changed from sweet to tangier, and my dragon crawled closer to the surface of my skin.
Seth on the floor, naked, welcoming me into his arms.
I shook my head hard. Yeah, I needed those thoughts to stay out of my head.
A cop waltzed back in with a stack of papers, giving me a serious stink-eye. The cop had Seth sign his life away and Bobby giving it the go-ahead, and handed him back his wallet and a cell phone.
“Okay, let’s go,” Seth said, and rushed out the door before anyone else could. I had to run to keep up with him as he power-walked through the police station, not bothering to wait for a cop to show us out. He didn’t take a wrong turn, so he either had a great memory, or had been here more than once.
“I’m still not clear on why all the charges are being dropped. You were trespassing,” Bobby pressed. We walked so fast his briefcase flapped at his side.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, champ. Let’s go.” Seth pointed toward a door and we went through it into the front lobby and then on out into the sunshine. I winced at the bright light and cold. It occurred to me then that Seth was wearing my jacket and I puffed up again, happy that he’d chosen to keep something of mine with him.
“You’ll… go back with me?” My question stopped Seth in his tracks on the wide sidewalk in front of the police station. He carefully swung around to study me and I was lost again, staring at his handsome face.
“Yeah,” he said softly, “as long as you let me go see Haiden.” He was slim and small compared to me, but every line of his body was well-toned and strong. I stepped closer and my fingers tingled with the urge to draw him against my body.
I smiled. “That would be great. We can do that.”
He studied me for a long moment and then the smallest, shyest smile I’d ever seen flickered to life on his beautiful lips. “Good.”
Carefully I reached out and touched the back of Seth’s hand. He turned it and brushed his fingertips to mine and a devastating heat melted through my stomach as tingles passed between us. His eyes widened. I clasped our fingers together and he sighed out a low moan that I wouldn’t have been able to discern if it weren’t for my sensitive dragon hearing.
“Company,” Bishop said and ruined the moment, but a spotlessly gleaming black Cadillac limo pulled up nearby and Seth moaned, a low distraught noise that had my teeth tingling in my mouth. I wanted to shift to keep him safe. His scent morphed to something downright sour—fear.
&
nbsp; The only new thing in the area that could have caused the change was the limo, so I stepped between Seth and the vehicle, confused, but with my dragon ready to rear up and destroy anyone, or anything, that attempted to hurt him.
Seth had been gone for weeks, and now that I had him back, I wouldn’t be losing him again.
3
Seth
“Oh, no,” I groaned. The fancified black car wasn’t one I’d seen in the past, but I wasn’t confused as to who probably sent it, or who might be in it. Grandpa probably had someone watching me here at the police station. There was no way for me to get out of here fast enough to avoid a confrontation, and Mason didn’t let go of my hand when I tugged on it. Instead, he stepped between me and the slowing car like a brave fool.
“Don’t,” I whispered to him, “I’m going to have to go with them.”
“With who? What’s going on?” He glanced over his shoulder at me and for a hot second I wished we knew each other better and that I trusted him more. He probably wouldn’t murder me, and he would be okay to ride out of the city with, but could I trust him with all my secrets? Nah.
It wouldn’t be good for him to know too much about me; besides, knowing me and being near me would only get him hurt in the long run. Calling him had been selfish, something I’d done in a moment of weakness, however until this second that hadn’t clicked in my mind. Blind hope that maybe my life could be different from what it always was had consumed my common sense. This was never going to end the way I wanted it to. My heart hammered so hard that I could hear it rush in my ears, and I couldn’t decide if Grandpa would be proud of me for stealing so much money from him, or if he would shoot me in the head without even asking one question. The old man was volatile, and a confrontation with him could go either way once he had me at his mercy.
