Cohen

by Emilia Hartley

  She knew better. She knew that Raph was still out there and that he wanted Snowdonia for himself. The threat loomed over them all. No one knew how many other white dragons were left. They didn’t know if they vied for the territory the way that Raph did. She wanted to speak with Wesley’s father, tell him about her experience with GOE and warn him about what was coming. This was her home, too, now. If she wanted.

  But, there was time to think about everything later. For now, Dakota could close her eyes and know that in that moment she was safe and sound.

  Freed by the Dragon

  Emilia Hartley

  Chapter One

  Rhiannon sucked in a haggard breath and tried to let it out through her nose. It was going to be a long day. She signed on for field work for a reason. These bureaucratic crowds made her anxious with the hefty judgement they placed on all others around them.

  She hung back in the crowd, anxiously eyeing the spectacle that she had helped to create. Her former boss, Gregor Wilson was being walked through the Guardians of Existence Judiciary building like a cow on display. His hands were casually stuffed in his pockets and he looked up with a straight spine despite the uniformed Guardians that gripped his arms on either side. The crowd around her, politicians, GOE officers, and protesters, whispered about Wilson. It set her teeth on edge. Her former boss’s dark eyes met Rhiannon’s and she saw the nearly imperceptible nod he gave her.

  She pulled in another breath, the air hissing through her teeth. This was the man that had taken her in and raised her after her own parents were killed by a pair of dragon shifters. Now, he was being tried for attempted murder because of a pair of stupid dragon shifters and a human girl. Her eyes scanned the crowd and she felt heat boil through her when she caught sight of Raphael in the crowd. The smug smile on his face made her want to march through the sea of onlookers and punch him in the face.

  That would give away everything they fought to keep under wraps, though. Because the secret she held like a slimy lump in her throat was that Gregor Wilson really did try to kill the human girl in order to start a war that would wipe out the red dragons on the Snowdonia Territory. All because another dragon told them to. The worst part was Rhiannon had helped him. She was the one who had pulled her weapon and shot the girl when she ran for her life. GOE brushed off her participation due to her outstanding record, claiming that she was only following the orders of her senior officer.

  She hated herself for blindly following. She hated herself for letting Wilson, a loving man and an upstanding commander, trust the white dragon menace that slipped into their branch. None of this would have happened had Raphael not whispered in Wilson’s ear.

  Turning toward the hearing, her body froze. Behind Wilson came a procession of the red dragon shifters. Their muscle-bound bodies and heads topped with various shades of red hair gave them away. At least, for Rhiannon they did. The girl that Wilson had kidnapped walked with her head high, despite the tremble in her limbs. The dragon closest to her glowered at anyone that dare glance in her direction.

  That must be her mate, Rhiannon decided. Her eyes moved on until she came across a familiar face. She felt her lips form a scowl against her better judgement. A haze of red and gold stubble graced his jaw and a lock of reddish gold hair fell over his eyes until he reached up and pushed it back with thick fingers. He had been the one to disarm her the day everything went to shit.

  Rhiannon was one of their best agents when it came to hand to hand with the dragon species. She was quick and, more often than not, she was stronger than some of her male counterparts. How the copper haired dragon had swept in and so easily rendered her useless was beyond her. In fact, it made her angry. It burned inside of her like a palpable heat.

  She wanted to move, to put one foot in front of the other and go where she was supposed to go. The hearing was waiting on her. Instead, Rhiannon found herself glued to the spot. She watched the dragon man make a bee line toward her.

  ***

  Gareth hadn’t expected to ever see the woman again. Maybe, he should have known better when Drystan asked him to act as security for his cousin, Wesley, and Wes’s new human mate as they answered GOE’s questions about the incident. This woman had been part of the team that kidnapped Dakota. It should have been obvious that she would be here.

  Gareth liked to think himself a lady’s man. There was not a rutting night that he had ended empty handed. Most mornings after began with a sated and smiling woman. Yet, this woman glowered at him like he was the scum of the earth. Even worse, she confused him and his beast. Her smell drove him wild in a way that he’d never felt before. She smelled like open air and smoldering fire ashes.

  It screamed dragon.

  Yet, she was the enemy. She was an operative of the Guardians of Existence, an elite task force that had once been an order of knights that thought to wipe the earth of dragons for humanity’s so called protection. The Occurrence that happened almost a hundred years ago brought GOE forward and gave them government badges instead of coats of arms and high tech weapons instead of swords. Humans often did a better job of killing themselves than dragons ever had.

  Gareth found himself walking directly toward the woman with dark red hair. It was so dark that it could have been called mahogany brown if he hadn’t seen the sunlight release the crimson in it. She wore it pinned into a bun at the back of her head, as tightly wrapped up as the rest of her from the way she stood. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her feet were spread apart like she might launch into a fight at any moment.

  He was nearly to her when he realized his mistake. What was he doing? Her hot glare of hatred seared across his skin as he came closer. There was no going back. He closed the distance between them. His huge frame had made lesser men cower. This red-haired woman simply tilted her head back to look up at him with her hot glare, unaffected by his size.

  No matter what she thought of herself, Gareth knew two things. One, he knew that he had rendered her defenseless once before and, two, she was willing to kill a human woman.

  “Are you here to lie for your commanding officer?” Gareth growled. He knew that he was invading her space, but he couldn’t help himself. She had threatened his family.

  “Back. Up. Dragon.” She growled the words at him.

  He laughed, a small huff of air that said he would not be intimidated by her. He watched her lips press together into a firm line.

  Gareth breathed her in, so close that he was unable to avoid her confusing scent. It roused things inside of him that he did not understand. He was caught between the anger that burned inside of him and the desire to reach out and pull her close to his body. He could not argue that she wasn’t attractive. She was athletically toned, yet her breasts were still heavy and perky. Had he met her in a bar or on the street, he might have let her take him home. In fact, he would have insisted.

  Instead, the two of them stood in the center of a GOE Judiciary building because she hurt one of his.

  “Why don’t you go find a farmer’s daughter to harass,” the woman growled at him as she pushed into his space.

  “A farmer’s daughter would be a much better alternative. At least she would know the difference between cattle and human when it came time to slaughter.”

  He could see the tick in her jaw, but it was the flash of another emotion in her eyes that made him pull back. Regret. It was bitter and sharp in her scent, lasting in the air between them where the look in her eyes had not. Still, it meant nothing. She was still here to defend her boss. She had still shot Dakota.

  “Your kind can only make the distinction when you stick your cock in it.”

  “Oh, now that isn’t fair. My cock isn’t going anywhere near you, yet here you still stand.” He didn’t add after her own attempted murder. There were too many people already watching them.

  Inside of him, his beast’s tail thumped. His beast begged to differ. It wanted to make the harsh woman scream their name. Gareth promptly told his beast to shut up. The mon
ster that lived in his mind laid its head on its claws and gave him a level glare before turning its attention back to her. The beast’s tail thumped with impatience and made his head hurt. It was a loud message that Gareth didn’t want to hear.

  “Rhiannon Kendrick,” a monotonous voice said over an intercom. “Please report to the hearing or face insubordination charges.”

  The woman’s face fell. Her arms fell away from her body.

  Rhiannon.

  Can you not want any other woman, Gareth asked his impetuous beast? The thing growled at him without looking away from her. She was off limits. Forever.

  “You need to leave,” Rhiannon commanded him.

  “Do not think that this is over between us,” he warned her.

  Chapter Two

  She watched the dragon man walk away. Air filled her lungs for the first time. A hand reached out and patted her arm. Rhiannon looked down to an elderly woman wearing a name badge around her neck.

  “Whatever you did,” the elderly woman said, “he will forgive you. I’ve known my fair share of hot headed men in my life. He loves you, no matter what his actions say. You just have to give them space to vent their fire.”

  Rhiannon laughed, at once seeing the irony in the woman’s choice of words and appalled that anyone would ever think the two of them a couple. She didn’t try to correct her. The hearing was calling for her and she didn’t need insubordination charges on top of what she was already going through.

  The hearing flew by, but Rhiannon heard little of it. There was a dull roar in her ears that made her head ache and her eyes heavy. The stress of the month’s events were getting to her, she thought. Her supervisor would insist that she see an in-house therapist, one equipped to deal with the trauma that GOE agents often go through. She declined several times already. All she needed was to go home and open a beer.

  The silence of being home alone would reinvigorate her and allow her to clear her mind, even if she could not clear her conscience. If not, a good night’s sleep would do the trick. Yet, when she pulled into her drive-way she knew that wasn’t in the cards for her tonight. The hunter green truck parked outside her house might have been familiar, but it did not mean that it was welcome.

  Her former partner was inside already, having known where she hid her extra key because they worked together for almost ten years already. He set up camp on her couch while he waited for her to return. Tomorrow, it would be his turn to sit on the hearing. He would tell his side of the story, one that they both practiced.

  She ignored him and went straight for her fridge. The dull roar filled her ears again. She paused in the chill that seeped from her open fridge and closed her eyes. It eased her aching head only a little. With a sigh, she grabbed the last beer in the fridge and popped the metal cap.

  “To what do I owe the visit? You and I both know that we aren’t supposed to be seen together while the hearing is going on. They’re going to think we are corroborating our story.”

  She heard her old couch creak and groan as Everett stood to follow her into the kitchen. He paused in the doorway, blocking any exit, yet not quite filling the frame. Not like the dragon man from the Judiciary building would have.

  Rhiannon shook her head. She couldn’t be thinking about him right now. He shouldn’t even be a blip on her radar. He was a dragon shifter. It was his kind that rendered her parentless before the age of three. It was because of his kind that she couldn’t even remember her parents.

  She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, willing control to herself. Her life was sideways right now. That was why she was having such a difficult time. It was why her mind wandered in wayward directions. Anything to keep from thinking about what will happen to her boss.

  “We did corroborate a story,” Everett reminded her.

  Rhiannon shrugged. He wasn’t wrong. “Then you have no reason to be here. I wanted a night alone to drink myself into oblivion and fall asleep on the couch. You’re putting a serious wrench in those plans.”

  “Don’t blame me,” Everett said. “I’m here because Wilson asked.”

  Her world seemed to pause for a moment. “He went to you and not me?”

  “After your showdown with the dragon in the lobby of the Judiciary building, he thought it would be more prudent to ask me. All eyes were on you after that.”

  He was right. It didn’t keep her fist from tightening until her knuckles were white. Wilson should have trusted her to be discreet. The run in with the dragon man was an annoyance in her day. Nothing more.

  “Fine. What does he want? Aren’t we supposed to be laying low until this blows over?”

  “It’s not going to blow over, Rhiannon. Not with the woman’s testimony pitted against our own. We shot her. She might have healed quickly, but there’s still a scar.”

  Rhiannon closed her eyes and tried to draw in a slow, steady breath.

  “We have to turn the story against the dragons. It has to look like they’re lying to save their own skin. If our actions were truly self-defense and the woman turned on us, then Wilson has a chance to get through this without seeing the inside of a prison cell. Wilson has a plan that should help us be able to do just that.”

  She had a bad feeling and it made her chest tighten. Her breathing exercises were going to get her nowhere. Instead, she threw back the beer in her hand. It might help her relax, she thought. If not, it would at least drop her into a feeling of nothingness.

  Brushing past Everett, she sank onto the couch before looking up to meet his eyes. He didn’t move from where he stood in the kitchen doorway. Again, she was reminded of the dragon man from the Judiciary building. He would have towered over her partner. Whereas Everett has sandy blonde hair that he kept neatly cut, the dragon man had been more gruff and rough.

  What was wrong with her? Why did he keep interrupting her thoughts? Anger rolled through her. He was invading her personal space without even being near her. It was unbearable.

  “Tell me what Wilson wants,” she said to distract her mind from it’s dangerous path.

  Everett crossed his arms over his chest and pushed his feet apart. It was a sure sign that she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “We have to fake a terror attack from the dragons. Wilson wants us to destroy a GOE building and make it look like a dragon attack.”

  She felt her stomach hit the floor. The feeling made her queasy. She set the beer on the table beside her and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. Did she really hear him correctly? Wilson was asking her to destroy part of her own job? Hell, he was asking her to throw away her career if she was caught.

  “No.” She shook her head. “We are not doing this. Do you realize how many lives that puts at stake? Sure, the woman was just one life in the face of many, but this could potentially hurt hundreds if not thousands.”

  Everett shook his head. “We’re going in during the wee hours of the morning when no one will be there. We place several small explosives near appliances that will create fire and then we get out. The building will go down without harming the ones around it.”

  “You’re talking like I’ve already agreed to this.”

  “Are you saying that you’re not going to help your father? He’s facing time in prison because he wanted to help humanity. He was trying to be a noble knight of GOE and this is how they want to thank him. I won’t stand by and let them do that to him. Why would you?”

  She dropped her head into her hands. She had no choice, really. She owed Wilson everything that she had. She would do anything for him.

  “Alright,” she said. Her voice was small. She didn’t want to be a part of this, but if this plan was what it took to set things right again she would follow orders. She was a knight of GOE, too. There would always be choices that would weigh on her conscience. All that mattered was that they made the world safer for humanity. “I’ll do it. Drop the plans off tomorrow night, but don’t tell me when it’s happening until the night of. I don’t want to know much if anyo
ne questions me.”

  Everett nodded. “Good soldier.”

  Was she, though? Was she a good soldier? The idea of following through with Wilson’s plans dropped a heavy weight on her shoulders that made her reluctant to step forward. Regret over what they did to the human woman made her nights sleepless. Everything they did was in the name of protecting humanity from a danger that could easily wipe out cities. Yet, here she was letting one invade her private thoughts at each turn.

  She was no longer the soldier that Wilson had groomed for GOE, but that didn’t mean she would turn her back on them. She would live with the guilt and pain if it meant a safer world.

  At least, that’s what she told herself as Everett saw himself out. There was a time when he would have stayed the night. Before Raph arrived on the scene, she and Everett slept together after most missions. The sex released the pent-up tension and adrenaline that built during the job. Now, she was afraid that he could see what she had become, that it disgusted him.

  Chapter Three

  After GOE tried to kidnap and murder Dakota, the shifters were allowed a bit more freedom. The exception was meant to escort Dakota to and from the hearings at GOE. She was understandably reluctant to appear in a roomful of the people that tried to kill her.

  Gareth, on the other hand, took the exception as a way to leave the territory when he normally shouldn’t have. He was restless with everything that was going on. Every time they stepped off the territory there were cameras in their faces and people shouting questions. There were women by the sides of the roads, lifting their shirts in exuberant display to perhaps become a dragon’s mate. Wes didn’t see any of them. Not that he’d been the kind to openly gawk at women before meeting Dakota. Gareth sneered at them.

  Maybe those kinds of women would have been fun to roll around with fifty years ago. Gareth had changed. His soul hardened each time he realized that he would live a long life with no one in it. That was probably for the best, he thought.