by T. S. Joyce
Oh, she had his ticket punched. She sees too much, way too much.
Nox revved his engine and gave her a devil-may-care smile. Get used to this, Mate. He wouldn’t ask her to be tamed, but he wouldn’t be tamed either. The blood on his claiming mark hadn’t even dried yet, but it was for the best she saw him for what he really was.
“Nox!” she yelled as he spun out of the parking lot.
He would make it up to her later. Probably. If Vyr didn’t eat him. He would give her a hundred dandelions and eat her out, make her scream his name and forget why she was mad, rinse and repeat until she forgave him for what he was about to do.
He sped through town, skidding on patches of ice with each turn. The snow was falling harder. If he hadn’t been seeing red right now, maybe this place would have been pretty. Picturesque woods blurred by, and the creek he splashed through had chunks of ice in it already. Snow season was here to stay. Bad weather. He could smell it. Smell the storm. Feel it in the aching shin he’d broken falling off a water tower he’d vandalized as a teen.
Nevada. Nevada. Pretty, perfect, curvy angel. She was good. Good to her soul and back, and he was a mess. He would always be a mess, and now they were bound and he was going to drag her down. Nox couldn’t get the look on her face when he left out of his mind. He cleared the last of the trees and skidded to a stop in the manicured yard of Vyr’s mansion.
Asshole dragon was waiting for him, sitting on the edge of his roof, one leg dangling down, the other knee bent, resting his arm on that one, staring at him with those dead blue eyes.
As Nox got out of the car, pulling off his shirt as he did because, hell yes, this was going down, Vyr jumped from the second story and landed with no impact. Show-off.
“I could hear you calling me out from two miles away, Ob-Nox-ious,” the red-haired fire-breather called as he strode toward him. “You gotta death wish today?”
“I told you to stop calling me that, you micro-dicked lizard.”
“What’s your problem, man?” Vyr barked out. “I gave you an out. Why the fuck are you still here?”
“Because I can’t go back home until you’re in the cage where you belong, you motherfucking fuck-fuck!”
“Torren’s not here to save your ass this time, Ob-Nox—”
Pop-pop-pop-BOOM! Nox let his beast break his body into a bear before Vyr even got the rest of the insult out.
Claws digging into the earth with the desperation to rip that chode’s throat out, Nox barreled toward Vyr. Time slowing with every step, he lunged closer. The dragon shifter skidded to a stop and clenched his fists, a look of pure hatred on his face. His body was vibrating, blurring at the edges, and his face was contorting into something monstrous, but Nox was already too far gone in his rage to stop now.
Cursed with this temper.
Cursed with loneliness.
Cursed with being different. With being unacceptable.
Cursed with this bone-deep instinct to fight.
Cursed to let Nevada down. Fuck. Fuck. Cursed to let her down.
Vyr arched his neck back and roared a deafening challenge that shook the earth, and a blast of fire shot into the air. He squeezed his eyes closed as if it hurt to spew fire as a human. But when he opened his eyes again, they were silver with elongated pupils. He shot a fireball across the clearing. Behind Nox, there was an explosion that blasted heat against his back.
My truck, my fucking truck. He burned my truck! Kill, kill, kill.
“Don’t Change!” Torren bellowed. “Vyr, don’t you fucking Change!” He was in gorilla form. Freak shouldn’t be able to talk as an animal, but he always could. Damaged. Monster. Just like Nox, but they couldn’t see he could’ve been a good friend. A good ally.
From the corner of his eye, Nox could see the massive silverback charging at him from the woods, but he was too late. Nox was about to shred Vyr before he could Change into the Red Dragon.
Three beasts, one collision, and Nox was gonna survive this. Why? Because he had an anchor. He had a reason to live. He had Nevada.
He finally, finally had someone to come back to.
But first…there had to be pain.
Chapter Thirteen
She wasn’t going to make it in time! Nevada pulled into the clearing just as a redheaded man near the sprawling house blew fire into the sky. No dragon shifter in human form should be able to breathe fire. Horrified, she slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop. There was a silverback Charging Nox, whose enormous grizzly was at a dead run right for the dragon shifter. Nox was so much bigger than he looked on the video.
Nevada was out of time. She kicked her door open and didn’t even put the car in park before she was out. Inside of her, something awful was happening. Her Changes were gentle. They always had been because her fox was docile and always tried for maximum comfort. But right now, she was shredding her way out of Nevada. She yelped as she pitched forward. Her body snapped, burned, and broke in a second of agony so blinding she had to close her eyes and hope she wasn’t dying. She landed on all fours, and she was off, completely out of control of her animal for the first time in her life.
Ours. He’s ours, and he’s going to die!
Vyr shot a fireball directly at Nox’s truck, and with the impact of the explosion, the entire thing lifted off the ground and flew backward until it smashed into a tree.
“Don’t Change!” the silverback yelled, desperation in his inhuman, gravelly voice. “Vyr, don’t you fucking Change!”
Nevada was lightning fast in this body. She might not be able to heal as quickly as other shifters, but foxes could book it, and she was running faster than she ever had in her life. Her paws were barely touching the ground as she bolted for the trio of monsters converging in the middle of the clearing.
Just as Nox reached Vyr, Torren slammed into him from the side, knocking him off his path of destruction. The flurry of violence from the gorilla as he slammed his fists against the bear, and from Nox as he ripped into Torren’s arm, was something she would revisit in her nightmares. But for now? She had to stop Vyr from Changing and killing them all. And not just the three of them, but from burning the entire town. Her life didn’t matter compared to the hundreds he could hurt if the Red Dragon tore out of him.
What do I do? What do I do! The fox wasn’t slowing down, but she couldn’t rip into Vyr because it would only anger a monster like him. There would be no stopping the Change if she drew blood. Vyr went to his knees and grunted, his face contorted with pain as he slammed his fists on the ground. He screamed through gritted teeth, every muscle bulging in his body as an awful cracking sound echoed through the clearing. Massive red, tattered wings unfurled from his back, spanning the width of the entire clearing and blanketing them all in shadow.
Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot! She was already to him, couldn’t stop now, but that dragon was coming out of him, and there was only one thing she could think of to do.
And it. Was. Disgusting.
Nevada locked her legs against her forward movement, spinning in the snow. And then she lifted her bushy, red tail, positioned her butt on Vyr’s closed fist…and peed.
“What the fuck?” Vyr gritted out as the bear and gorilla war raged on under the span of his left wing. He yanked his fist out from under her, and his face lost some of its fire as he stared down at his dripping hand with a look of utter disgust.
In an attempt not to get eaten, Nevada dropped to her belly and rolled over, wagged that big, bushy tail of hers as hard as she could. Look how cute I am! You don’t want to eat me!
Vyr knelt there frozen, staring at her like she was some mythical Pegasus he just realized really existed. And then slowly, he folded those monstrous wings and pulled them back into his body, face contorted with agony the entire time. He looked delirious with pain as he slammed against the ground and rolled to his back, arching his spine as though his body was on fire. When he placed his dripping fist to his forehead, pee-pee sprinkled into his hair. Vyr yelled and looked
horrified as he wiped her piddle drops from his hairline with his clean hand. Not clean anymore!
She kind of wanted to laugh, but mostly wished she could find a hole to hide in from the mortification. She’d just taken a leak on the Red Dragon. Please God, let this be rock bottom. Don’t let life get worse than this.
“Torren, Nox, Change back!” Vyr snarled out in a terrifying, booming voice that tapered into a dinosaur rumble.
Eek. Play dead. Nevada laid there with her feet in the air, perfectly still with her eyes closed.
Nox and Torren’s twin roars of pain filled her head, and both turned into human screams within seconds.
“Oh my God, Nevada!”
“She pissed on me!” Vyr yelled.
Keep playing dead.
“So you killed her?” Nox bellowed. “I’ll fucking kill you! Slowly. I’m gonna rip your guts through your mouth, you— Get the fuck off me, Torren! Ew, your dick touched me. Nevada!”
Her body was hoisted up. Nox’s mouth crashed onto hers, and suddenly her lungs inflated painfully. Stop that! She nipped him, and he reared back.
“The fuck?” His lip was bleeding, and his eyes were bright silver. His beard looked really cute. His hair was mussed on top and his tattoos were really dark and his face was red. He looked hot all worked up and naked. Mmm, nipple piercings. Her thoughts were a hurricane right now, spinning around and around. Wait… he looked hot, but he also looked mad. I’ll fix it. So she licked his lip and crossed her paws and did her best to give him a foxy-flirt-smile.
His face relaxed with relief and he let off a shaking breath. “Were you playing possum?”
She didn’t know what that meant, but his lips were cute when he enunciated poss-um. She leaned up and licked his beard to reward him for being a cutie-patootie.
“Dude, she pissed on my hand. Did no one hear me?” Vyr barked out. “And I touched my face with it!”
Nox snorted, and beside him, the six-foot-two, dark-haired, tatted-up behemoth Torren let off what sounded like an accidental chuckle. “Well, it worked, didn’t it? And P. S. Nox, you idiot, you almost got us all busted.”
“Uh, that’s not the main concern,” Vyr yelled. “He could’ve gotten people killed!”
“You probably wouldn’t have killed random people,” Torren said, but there were false notes in his tone.
Vyr got to his feet. His shirt was ripped in shreds from his wings, but at least he didn’t have his big dangling dick out like Nox and Torren.
Nox dropped Nevada a split second before Vyr’s fist crashed into his jaw. There was no recovery time before Nox was pummeling him back. Torren tried to separate them, but the two giants went to the ground, just…wailing on each other.
“I’m getting my crossbow,” Torren muttered, sauntering off in the direction of the house.
What? No! He needed to separate Nox and Vyr before they killed each other or the Red Dragon started coming out again.
Flinching at the pain, Nevada forced her Change back to her human skin. She desperately swiped snow out of the way to grab two fistfuls of dried grass, then covered her boobs and her hoohah with them as best she could.
“Stop it right now!” she screeched.
“Fuck!” Nox yelled, hunching at the pitch of her voice.
“Ha, ha!” Vyr said, right before Nox blasted him in the face with a closed fist.
The dragon shoved him off so hard Nox landed ten yards away and skidded through the snow.
“I hate you!” he yelled at Vyr, getting back up on his feet.
“Yeah, well I hate you, too.”
“Both of you just lied,” Nevada said with a smile as she looked between her mate and the Red Dragon. “And whoa, I’m not even scared right now.”
Vyr’s eyes were round as twin moons and honed in on her chest.
“Don’t look at my boobs,” she admonished him.
“Yeah, asshole, don’t look at her boobs!” Nox pointed to Nevada. “Mine!”
A zinging sound whizzed through the air, and Nox spun so quick he blurred. When he slowed down, he was holding an arrow in his hand. What the heck?
Torren was standing near the house, pulling the string back on a crossbow, reloading another arrow.
“You missed, you robin hood wannabe dipshit!” Nox yelled. And then he chucked the arrow in his hand like a tiny javelin, and a split-second later, Torren yelped and grabbed his arm. Mouth hanging open in shock, he looked down at his shoulder where red was streaming through his fingers. Actually, he was bleeding a lot. Nox had shredded the other side of his body, too.
Nox, himself, was black and blue from Torren’s fist, and there was blood in his beard where she’d bitten him. Vyr was wiping the hand she’d peed on in the snow over and over, muttering about how he wanted to barf. Her car was inching slowly past them toward the pond, and Nox’s truck was on fire, wrapped around a tree, with black smoke billowing into the air. The wind was cold on her bare skin, and she hugged the clumps of grass tighter to her nether regions.
Nevada cleared her throat. “I’m Nevada Foxburg.” She looked from Vyr to Torren and back to Vyr. “It’s sort of nice to meet you. I think.”
“I would shake your hand, but mine is currently covered in urine,” Vyr said. “Torren, stop shooting people. Nox, please stop Nevada Foxburg’s car from driving into my pond and hurting my swan.”
“I killed your swan,” Nox muttered as he stomped off toward her slowly moving vehicle.
“What?” Vyr yelled.
“Just kidding, lizard-breath.”
Nevada pursed her lips against the laugh that was bubbling out of her throat. “You guys are a mess.”
“Speak for yourself,” Vyr said in a strange, emotionless tone as he stood gracefully. He canted his head and narrowed his eyes at her, like he was looking straight through her. A sharp pain behind her eyes made her wince and press her palms to her temples.
Vyr approached, one slow step at a time, eyes drilling into her. “Submissive. No…something more. You panic. You don’t like people. No. It’s not that you don’t like them. You don’t like talking to them. You don’t like being seen.”
“Stop it,” she murmured, backing away.
Vyr followed her step-for-step and cocked his head the other way. “How many times did you get put in your place as a kit, Nevada Foxburg? I see hundreds.”
“Vyr,” Nox called from where he’d stopped her car by the pond. “Cut it out!”
Vyr was stalking her faster now, and she stumbled then righted herself as fast as she could as she backed away.
“And every time you fought an order, your people cut you down,” Vyr said. “Over and over and over until you ended up like this. Scared.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
Vyr frowned. “No, you aren’t. Why?”
“I…” She let the explanation taper off because she didn’t really know.
“Why?” he growled out.
“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because you tried not to Change. You were trying to protect the world…from you.”
“I’m not safe.” He twitched his head toward the gorilla shifter near the house. “He’s not safe.” He flicked his fingers at her neck at her claiming mark. “The mate you chose? He’s not safe.”
“But he feels safe to me.”
“Who, Nox?” Vyr asked. “Your instincts are completely broken. He’s a loose cannon.”
“Vyr!” Nox yelled, jogging toward them.
She was getting too close to the burning truck. The heat would blister her skin if he kept backing her up like this.
The snow was falling harder, covering all their footprints in the clearing. She was glad for the white downpour so she didn’t feel so naked and vulnerable.
Vyr stopped in his tracks, a look of sheer puzzlement on his face. “I don’t understand you.”
She dipped her voice to a whisper and looked at the snow on the ground. “You don’t understand Nox either. He’s good. He just reacts differently than other people
. He’s different, but different doesn’t always mean bad.” Nevada locked eyes with Vyr. “Surely you can understand that.”
Torren now hung behind Vyr, shifting his weight from side to side, as though his feet were cold from the frozen ground. His attention was on her, though.
“I like you, Nevada Foxburg,” Vyr said. “It was disgusting what you did to my hand, but after seeing into your mind, seeing what has happened to you to make you submissive like this, it seems very brave that you tried to stop a dragon from Changing.”
“Correction,” she said, lowering her eyes to the ground. “I didn’t just try. I did stop you.”
“Look at me.”
The weight of his dominance was overpowering now that her adrenaline had run its course. Now, he felt like the monster he was. It was as if she was trying to inhale snow instead of oxygen.
“Nevada,” he said softer.
Nox’s fingers brushed her hip before he placed himself between her and the dragon. “Back off, Vyr. She doesn’t like being crowded.”
“It’s okay, Nox,” she murmured.
He stepped out of her way after only a second of hesitation. Good man, letting her stand strong on her own. Oh, she knew he would go to war for her, but he also had no problem letting her speak for herself.
She forced her gaze to the dragon’s silver eyes with those elongated pupils. “What?”
“I know about foxes.”
“No one knows about foxes,” she argued. “We’re secretive.”
“You’re wrong. My father makes shifters his business. He knows a lot. Maybe he knows everything. I inherited his curiosity about the different cultures, and I know what your den is going to do to you. I’ve seen your memories. In the country club? The way they reacted to Nox? They’ll shun you.”
“I know,” she whispered, feeling miserable.
“Do you know what happens when they shun a fox from the den?”
Her eyes burned, and her chest hurt just to think about it. “Yes.”
