The Dragon's Warlock: A paranormal dragon shifter romance (Immortal Dragon Book 4)

by Linzi Baxter

  Diem was sick of people only telling her half stories. When they left the house, she would ask that Gideon explain what had happened. Even if he didn’t want to talk about it, she would demand answers.

  “What can you tell me about my sister? I’m trying to find her.”

  “Your twin sister is safe for now, but you need to find her.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  Emma rested her hands on the ball. The smoke inside it swirled and turned from white to purple. Her lips turned down as she stared into the swirling smoke. “You need to go on a spiritual journey to find her.”

  “Aren’t you a spiritual person? Is this the journey?”

  “Yes, but no journey is easy. The spirits have already set in motion the path you need to take. They are clouding the information I have to see to tell you what you need. From what I understand, you have the answers in your mind. You aren’t tapping the information you need.”

  “What the fuck?” she huffed. “I’ve racked my brain a million times, and I can’t remember.”

  “A spiritual awakening will help you find your answers.”

  “Like going to the desert and smoking peyote?”

  “Not the desert—more like the beach. The shaman will be with you the whole time. The place you need to go gives you a plant-based medicine.”

  I have to do drugs to find my sister. Will I be able to control my dragon with the medications? That was just what the world needed—a high dragon flying around the beach.

  “What other option do I have to find her?”

  “This is your only option. The place you need to go to is in Costa Rica. There’s a shaman there by the name of Ethno, and he will help you on your journey. Too many things from your past are hidden. You need to uncover your hidden secrets to find your sister.”

  “I don’t have secrets.” Diem ground her teeth. “All I want is to have life go back to normal and to find my sister. In my research, I was told you were the best. Now you won’t help me.”

  “Right now, you don’t understand, but at the end of your journey, you will have your answers to questions you didn’t even know you needed answers to.”

  Diem’s head was pounding. It would take a week to drive all the way from Florida to Costa Rica. She didn’t even have her passport with her.

  “I really hate this supernatural shit. Why can’t I go back to being human?”

  “The spirits gave me a glimpse of your future. Everything will work out as long as you follow your journey. That man in the other room will be your rock during the hard moments. Lean on him, and you will heal together.”

  “Why is everything so hard?” Diem asked.

  Emma’s eyes softened, but before she could say anything, Gideon was back at the door. “You get your answers?” His arms flexed against his black T-shirt. The man was too sexy for his own good.

  “I’m supposed to go on a spiritual journey.”

  “It’s been a long time since I went on one of those.” His lip twitched. “This should be fun.”

  The man was crazy. How can he possibly think a spiritual journey will be fun? Sadness washed over her as she thought about her sister waiting for her to come and get her.

  “It’s going to take a week to get all the way to Costa Rica.”

  “Not if we fly.”

  A new wave of worry washed over her. Flying was something she hadn’t been able to do since becoming a dragon. It was something she missed. Her job as a pilot had allowed her to see the world. After Kael was taken down, she tried to go back to work. She told her employer she’d gotten in a car accident and had been in a coma. The council helped forge the documents for her.

  But the second she sat in the cockpit, her world changed. The dragon pushed at her skin. It did not like being in a small area. Sweat poured down her face, and she fought herself for the whole six-hour flight. After she landed, she quit and drove back home.

  If she couldn’t get on a plane, she would be letting her sister down.

  8

  Gideon

  “This is bullshit!” Diem shouted.

  He wasn’t surprised they hadn’t gotten an exact location with an arrow pointing to it. That wasn’t how readings worked. Seeing a shaman wasn’t something he’d expected to do, but it was something he’d done in the past, and it had helped.

  The vision helped him find his way. Which he’d lost again. Maybe the drugs would help him figure out his future too.

  Ethno was the same shaman Gideon had gone to centuries before. He was the only shaman who knew about shifters. There would be a good chance of a change during the ritual, and Diem wasn’t in control of her dragon. That could be dangerous to her and those around her.

  He held back his smile as she stomped her little feet down the trail. She felt so small next to him. He also didn’t miss how she kept her hand on the gem he gave her. Deep down, he wanted her to have his cave on his property.

  “Are you even listening to me?” she grumbled.

  “Yes. You're mad. You didn’t get the perfect answer.” Gideon shrugged. “Like Alida couldn’t tell us the future even though she knows it. The fairy can send us in the direction we need to go.”

  She ran her hand through her hair and sat down on the decorated bench. The garden had changed a lot since the last time he was there. More grass had been cleared out and more bright colors added.

  “I thought I would be closer to finding her,” she said.

  He didn’t like how sad her voice sounded. “I promise we will find her.”

  “When? Am I going to go have this vision that will send me on another path that leads to another journey?”

  “I don’t know, but the only way to find out is to go to Costa Rica.”

  “How expensive is this shaman?”

  The price for a human wasn’t bad. Ethno didn’t charge the same for shifters and humans. He tacked on a fee for shifters because there might be a chance they destroyed the hut or building.

  “It’s been years since I went. If I had to guess, around twenty thousand dollars each, and if we don’t destroy the place, we get a portion of the money back.”

  “I can’t afford that. And I don’t expect you to pay for yours.”

  He had more money than he knew what to do with, and he wouldn’t hesitate to use it to help Diem find her sister. “Let me worry about the money.”

  “I can’t let you pay. There has to be another way.”

  “There’s not.” He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.

  His chest tightened as his lips touched her soft skin. He didn’t know how much longer he could fight the pull. Diem would be his, even if he wasn’t good enough for her.

  “Why don’t you sit here and enjoy the view?” he said. “I’m going to make a few phone calls.”

  “Okay.”

  He didn’t leave the seat as he pulled out his phone. It didn’t take long before he’d found a private jet to take them to Costa Rica. The call to Ethno was a little harder. The man said they didn’t have any open spots. But when Gideon offered him a hundred grand, the spots magically opened.

  “I think we should stop and grab some food before we head to the airport,” he said, and Diem tensed. “If we could drive, we would, Diem.”

  “Try explaining that to my dragon.” She sighed.

  The ritual might also help her become one with her dragon.

  “Maybe if we fill you full of food, you can sleep on the plane. I would say you could fly us there, but I’m not sure your dragon could carry me on your back that far, and it would still take a few days.”

  “Will you hold me on the plane?” Her face turned pink. “I meant my hand. When you touch me, my dragon is a lot calmer.”

  Holy shit. Her words sent a new wave of protectiveness through him.

  “Yes.” He stood from the bench and pulled her up.

  His tug was a little harder than he expected, and she flew into his arms. Her small hands pressed against his chest. He could feel the hea
t from them. The need to capture her lips was at the front of his brain. When he was about to lower his head, her stomach growled, reminding him that he needed to take care of her.

  Instead of pressing his lips to hers, he stepped back, and he heard a faint whine come from her.

  “There’s a restaurant in the hotel on the main street. We can stop there for a bite and then head to the executive airport near downtown Orlando.”

  He shifted to get more comfortable as they walked to the car. His dick was still painfully hard. But he couldn’t cave in to his needs. Yet.

  “What did Garth want to talk to you about?” she asked.

  “He wanted to tell me it wasn’t my fault.” Gideon had dodged the alpha for years. It wasn’t too hard since the guy hated technology and hadn’t had a phone. “Garth needs to learn to mind his own business.”

  “When we first came to the door, he looked mad.”

  Garth always looked mad, except during their conversation when he’d talked about Emma, and a rare smile had brushed his lips. Those two deserved each other, and he couldn’t be happier for them.

  “I think his surprised face and mad face look about the same.” Gideon laughed.

  “Are you going to tell me the story?”

  It wasn’t pretty. Hell, it still haunted him at night. The cry for help before…

  He shook his head, trying to get the image out of his mind. “It’s a long story.” He wished she would drop it, but she had a right to know what kind of man he was.

  “We have a long plane ride. Maybe the story would keep my mind busy.”

  “Or make you wish you weren’t in the same room as me,” he replied.

  “I’m not sure that could happen. Most of the time, when we do something wrong, we think it’s ten times worse than what others might think.”

  They reached the car, and he opened the side passenger door for her to get in. He wasn’t sure he could ever sit in the passenger seat again. The woman drove like a maniac. She’d somehow sped through Georgia without getting a ticket. That never happened. Georgia was known for handing out tickets like candy.

  Once she was inside, he got in and headed to the restaurant. It was a weekday, and the place wasn’t bustling. On the weekends, Cassadaga was flooded with tourists wanting to get their palms read.

  The waitress seated them by the front windows. Diem ordered half the menu. He didn’t care as long as she was hungry. Garth was the alpha of the local wolf pack, and Gideon figured they came into town often and ate. They would have an appetite like Diem’s.

  He wanted to know more about Diem. Once the waitress walked away, he asked, “Before all of this happened, did you live in West Virginia?”

  “No, I lived near Fairfax, Virginia, and worked out of the Dulles airport.”

  “Did you get kidnapped from a bar in West Virginia?”

  “Nope. My sister worked at the pentagon. We went out one night to a bar in DC.”

  He hadn’t looked into Diem’s sister much. After Diem had left the bar, asking for his help, he’d looked at the basics of her file. There wasn’t much in it. The data Kael had was erased before Kirin and his brothers could get to the other labs. Now Gideon was worried about what kind of information people could get out of Diem’s sister.

  “She said she worked for the Department of Defense.”

  “What did she go to school for? And it doesn’t sound like you think she worked for the DOD.”

  “Kayda has a degree in biomedical engineering. She got the job straight out of college, but it seems like she traveled more than I did, and I was a pilot.”

  There could be a chance the people who’d taken Diem and her sister had actually been after Kayda. He’d seen over the years how the government worked to make super soldiers. A select few high office government officials knew about shifters. She might have been traced from the fertility clinic.

  “Maybe you weren’t the target. It could’ve been your sister all along.”

  “That’s what I thought, but her boss told me she was working on a project to help design fingers.” Diem’s nose scrunched.

  It took him a second to figure out what she was talking about. “You mean if someone loses a finger in the field, she would have a replacement? That doesn’t sound very state-of-the-art.”

  “They were doing full scans of military men. And if they lost a finger, they could recreate it. Not only did the finger look the same, but it would also function the same, all the way down to the touch. This research was the beginning of the future.”

  “That sounds amazing, but I’m not sure that would lead someone… holy shit.”

  “You figured out what the link could be?” Diem asked.

  “Maybe. Shifters can heal fast. Let’s say you almost slice your finger off.”

  Diem nodded.

  “In a matter of minutes, your body will heal, and your finger will work perfectly. That’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to kill any type of shifter. The healing happens so fast, but if a shifter has tons of wounds, that could cause death.”

  He stopped talking when the waitress filled up the table with food. She had to set a few of the dishes on the table next to them. Diem’s cheeks pinked as she looked at it all. The waitress asked them if they needed anything else then left the table.

  Diem took a bite of food before saying, “I’m sure if my sister had known about shifters, she would’ve told me.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to sound like an ass, but you’re not even sure if she told you where she actually worked.”

  “Now you care about sounding like an ass?” She laughed.

  He deserved that. It was his defense mechanism to help deal with the fact that she did things to his body, things he never thought would be possible. Now he didn’t know what it would be like if she wasn’t around.

  “Let’s play hypotheticals. If Kayda used her own blood in an experiment, it would change the outcome in a different way than someone else’s blood. And if that information got into the wrong hands, they could easily find out she had a sister. There might be a chance they are using your sister to get what they need. You could be her weakness.”

  “But they don’t have me any longer.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know that,” he said.

  A movement out the window caught his eye. Fuck. He wasn’t sure how Ursula had found them so fast. Diem didn’t see the threat because her back was to the window.

  Gideon reached in his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and threw five hundred dollars on the table. It should cover the massive amount of food she’d ordered. “We need to go.”

  Diem didn’t ask questions. She was out of her seat a second later. She grabbed a piece of pizza from the table. He couldn’t help but smile.

  The waitress was headed their way. “I left enough money on the table, but we need a different exit.”

  He had to give the woman credit. She didn’t ask any questions. “There’s a secret door to the left. It will take you to the back of the building.” She eyed him for a second. “Do I need to call Garth?”

  She wasn’t a shifter. He would have sensed it the second he walked in. He also didn’t have time to figure out how a human knew about shifters. “Tell him Ursula is in town. He’ll know what to do.”

  He tugged Diem toward the back door. It easily pushed open. They entered a dark, narrow hallway. He could barely see as he jogged toward the exit. Diem didn’t say a word, just kept a grip on his hand. When he reached the door, he placed his ear against it, trying to hear what was on the other side.

  “This seems a little like déjà vu. Are we going to fight four men on the other side?” she asked.

  “Hopefully, we don’t have to fight anyone. And the bitch didn’t see me through the window. What I want to know is how she found us.”

  He slowly opened the door and stepped outside. The back alley was empty, but they would still need to get to his car parked out front. When they made it around the front of the building, he saw her standin
g next to his car.

  “I’m going to distract her. When she isn’t watching, I need you to get into the car and make your way back to the fairy garden and wait for me. If I don’t show up in ten minutes, find Garth.”

  “Not going to happen. We do this together.”

  “We don’t have time to argue. Just do as I ask.” He didn’t wait for her answer or a nod. Instead, he stepped outside the shadow. “Hey, Ursula, what brings you to Florida?”

  Her head whipped around, and he led her in the opposite direction of his car. Ursula had her disguise back in place. She looked like a beautiful blonde most men would trip over their feet to get to, but he knew the actual person who hid inside.

  Once across the street, he waited for her. Her high heels clicked against the road. What he didn’t expect was for her men to pull a gun on him in broad daylight.

  “Move,” she hissed.

  He turned and walked back across the street to the alley. At least Diem would make it out. But he wasn’t sure he would.

  9

  Diem

  Stupid man. Does he really think I’m going to go and sit while some crazy-ass bitch tries to kill him? Diem pushed the start button to his fancy sports car. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be too mad if she put a dent in it.

  She pulled out of the parking spot and watched as the woman and her two men pointed a gun at Gideon. Nobody else was paying attention to the three of them. They walked across the street down the alley.

  Luckily, the alley would give her cover. She slowly drove down the street. Her veins turned to fire when she saw the two men halfway down the alley, still pointing a gun at Gideon’s head. She knew the second her warlock saw her. His eyes glowed deep green. He was mad.

  Tough shit. She wasn’t going to let him get hurt, but she did hope he would jump out of the way. The car lurched forward as she slammed her foot down on the gas pedal. Cars were never something she’d cared about, but this thing handled like a beauty and was fast. Gideon jumped to the side as she took out the three people trying to kill him.