by Lolita Lopez
Renegade Dragon
Dragon Heat #4
Lolita Lopez
New York Boston
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
About the Author
Also by Lolita Lopez
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Copyright
Chapter One
Nico Drakon snorted furiously and jerked at the chains holding him hostage in the lair beneath his great manor house. His scaled golden skin blazed with a prickly sensation. Forced into a mating heat by a massive injection of synthesized lust root, he raged within the fortified bunker and wished for a female dragon to ease his pain and hunger.
But, in his shifted form, he was much too dangerous to be unleashed. He had to stay here, safe underground, until sunrise.
Silently, he acknowledged the nights of discomfort he would suffer were a small price to pay for his betrayal. His motives had been true, but he had broken a promise to his dear friend Reynard.
Stretching his aching neck, Nico exhaled with a shuddery growl. His reptilian eyes watered, and his heart raced like a hummingbird’s. Whatever the cost he now paid in physical torment was worth the knowledge that Ivy was safe. Forever mated to Madoc, she had a powerful partner to protect her. She also had her new mate’s tribe to back her up when trouble came. As precious as she was with that psychic matchmaking gift of hers, she needed all the guards she could get.
Locked in a blood feud with the humans known as the Knights of St. George, Nico and the rest of the Brotherhood of the Green Hide had been fighting to protect what was left of their species. Entire breeds were dying out and tribes were falling down to single-digit numbers. His own tribe now consisted solely of himself and Ivy. Between the lives lost to the Knights and the ongoing fertility issues among their species, the annual census hadn’t been very reassuring.
In the last year, the attacks on dragons and their mates had been increasing again. The Knights had attacked Cora on an open highway just miles from Stig’s home. They had attempted to kill Avani and Griff in Mad’s house and destroyed the place in the process. They had kidnapped Ivy from a highly trafficked spring break spot. The Knights were growing bolder.
Nico feared the darkest magic of all might be at play. As a gifted alchemist, he had encountered forces like this in the past. It never ended well for anyone involved.
A snap of energy burned his neck. He lifted his head and held his breath. Eyes closed, he listened intently. The layers of wards he had placed around his home had been strengthened after the Knights’ last incursion. Only dragon blood could pass through them now.
Someone probed at the edges of his property. It was a woman. In his lust-crazed state, her feminine pulse of energy called to him. He followed her movements as if tracking a blinking beacon on a radar screen. She didn’t push at or attempt to break the wards surrounding his home. Did she even know of their existence? She seemed more concerned with scaling his gates at their easiest, shortest spot than with finding the weakest layer in the magical protections.
When she put her hands to the gates, she encountered the slightest resistance but no pain. She wasn’t stopped by the wards, but they didn’t admit her very easily. His dragon rejoiced upon the discovery that this female who had trespassed upon his land was like him. The resistance she had encountered alerted him to the human blood mixed in with the dragon. Was she some long-lost member of a dragon tribe, her bloodline diluted from years of human breeding?
As swiftly as a cat climbing a tree, she scaled the gate and hopped down on the other side. He tracked her movements across his property. When she reached the house, she entered through a side door after expertly picking a lock. Was she a burglar? Did she intend to rob him?
Her close presence inflamed him with desire. He stamped his feet and jerked at his chains. Her scent finally reached him, and he growled, the rough, low sound rumbling through him and into the very ground beneath his feet. Could she feel him? Did she know that she wasn’t alone and that something very dangerous and very scary lurked in the darkness?
Room by room, she searched the house. She seemed to have a purpose, but what? When she entered his lab and lingered there, he thought perhaps she had come to steal one of his potions, experimental pharmaceuticals, or research. Whatever her purpose in the house, she seemed to find the lab rather interesting because she spent more time there than any of the other rooms she had investigated.
Eventually she moved out of the lab—and into the courtyard. He tensed with worry. Would she try to touch the ancient and mysterious fruit tree his family had guarded since the days of Troy and Odysseus? The golden apples were rumored to grant the gifts of the gods of Mount Olympus. Knowledge. Prophecy. Bravery. Inhuman strength. Immortality.
The woman walked a slow circle around the tree. His heartbeat did quite the opposite, speeding up to a wild pitch that stole his breath. If she touched even one apple, the tremulous control his human half held over his dragon would snap. The oath he had sworn—to protect the apples from all mortals—demanded that he hunt her down and snap her fragile neck.
When her delicate hands brushed the leaves of the tree, Nico felt her fingertips on his own skin. The electric sensation made his gut clench. She ran her curious hands along the branches and rubbed the waxy leaves between her fingers. When she finally touched one of the apples, he snarled a warning she couldn’t possibly hear. She plucked one of the golden fruits, and he furiously jerked on his chains.
Put it back, he silently willed. Don’t bite it.
But she didn’t take his unspoken advice. She brought the apple dangerously close to her mouth and inhaled the sweet, ripe scent of it. Her tongue flicked at the shiny peel to test the fruit. As if in slow motion, she pressed her teeth against the apple. With a snapping crunch, she took a bite of the apple…and sealed her fate.
Though the forced mating heat had rendered him beastly and a slave to his dragon’s needs, the woman’s theft of the apple pushed him right over the edge. An uncontrollable urge to catch and kill her gripped him. The human center of his thought process crumbled. Now only the primal, animalistic side of him mattered.
Gathering a mouthful of the venomous acid his breed was known for, he spat the sizzling stuff on the chains attached to his left wrist. The fluid spattered on the ancient metal enhanced with sigils and symbols of alchemy. Designed by his own hand, the metal links would only give way to his acid. It was the failsafe he had integrated in the chains in case he needed to get loose to fight or flee.
When Reynard had taken him down to the dungeon at dusk, they had both agreed this was the only way to be sure he wouldn’t harm anyone or do anything dangerous while suffering from the massive overdose of the synthetic heat-inducing drug. It wasn’t much different than the other natural heats he had struggled through during his lifetime. Safe belowground, he wouldn’t be a risk to humans in the area, nor would the strong scent of his pheromones attract the Knights who liked to hunt dragons when they were at their most vulnerable.
One by one, he broke the chains keeping him prisoner beneath his home. He flexed his wings twice and then bent them tight against his back. With thunderous kicks, he battered the door with his foot. His thick, sharp talons gouged the metal. He finally succeeded in kicking the door right off the hinges. It slammed into the ground with a ferocious clatter.
Nico bent down and squeezed through the human-sized opening. His heavy dragon body crunched the door as he strode over it. Picking up speed, he ran down the dimly lit hall and up
the staircase to the hidden door that sat behind a bookcase in his library. His too-large body made moving through his home a chore. His wings clipped walls and his talons clawed up the fine rugs. It was little matter. Those things could be fixed or replaced, but the apple that had been eaten? No, there was no fixing that.
With a vicious snarl, he stormed out of the house and into the muggy night. His heightened senses picked up the faint scent of approaching rain. The clouds hummed with electric energy. Thunder rumbled in the dark night. His beast yearned for the warm splash of a late spring rain on his golden hide, but the bloodlust raging through him would only be cooled by the taste of that thief’s red lifeblood spilling over his fangs.
His wings cracked the glass panes of the French doors. A shower of tinkling bits hit the flagstones. The clatter broke through whatever spell the apple had woven on the burglar. Gasping, she nearly choked on the mouthful of fruit and gulped it down. He could hear her swallowing. The wind kicked up between them and the scent of her, a seductively spicy and sweet smell, wound around him and invaded his nostrils.
Suddenly a different sort of lust gripped him. The woman still hidden by the shadows of the tree threw the only weapon she had—the apple core—and ran like hell. He easily dodged the flying chunk of fruit. The predator in him delighted at the idea of a chase. With a wild snarl, he flapped his wings and sprang high into the air.
She could run—but she wouldn’t get far.
*
Holy. Fucking. Hell.
Eris Jones had seen some scary stuff in her twenty-four years of life but that thing? No, not even the pimps and drug dealers who had ravaged her childhood neighborhood and threatened her every time she walked to and from school had scared her as much as that…that…dragon?
No. Dragons aren’t real. Dragons are myth and fantasy. They’re in books and television shows. They. Are. Not. Real.
Her feet pounded the slick flagstones. She didn’t dare look back to see if it was gaining on her. When she reached a burbling fountain, she hopped onto the flat ledge of the circular perimeter and raced along it. The soles of her sneakers squeaked on the wet marble, and she narrowly avoided a nasty tumble.
She hit the pavers running and rushed toward the wide-open lawn. A tree line called to her. If she could get into the woods there, she might have a fighting chance to escape that…dragon.
No. It’s not real. It’s a hallucination.
The apple she had eaten must have been filled with toxins. Her scientifically trained mind would accept no other conclusion. Because what she had seen with her two eyes wasn’t possible.
Lungs burning and sides aching, she ate up the dewy grass with long strides. She was suddenly very glad for all those charity races she ran with her best friend Ivy. A flood of memories assailed her. All those early mornings she had cursed Ivy’s loud alarm and her cheerful chirping as they headed out to train for the half marathons she was always signing them up for? Eris wanted to hug her now.
Ivy, where the hell are you?
After Ivy had gone missing in Mexico during their spring break trip, Eris had refused to give up on her. She’d stayed in Mexico, scouring the seaside resort and daring to poke around in the more dangerous areas of the nearby cities until the Federales had finally picked her up and forcibly deported her to Houston.
And then thirteen hours ago she had woken up to find the most cryptic voice mail. Ivy’s voice had cut out three or four times during the message, but Eris had heard enough. Her lost friend said she was safe, but there was something in her tone that set Eris’s teeth on edge. After disappearing without a trace, Ivy suddenly reappeared a month later with a phone call and no explanation?
Something wasn’t right. Eris had called in a favor from an ex who dabbled in black hat hacking to track the cell phone call. When she discovered it had originated only a few hours from their apartment near the university, she threw together an overnight bag, grabbed her pistol and her emergency envelopes of cash and called upon the illicit survival skills of her teenaged years to help her save her friend.
Except she hadn’t saved Ivy. She hadn’t even found her best friend. She had discovered a strange mansion housing a lab that rivaled even the most advanced research and development department of the multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical firm where she had recently interned. Something very odd was brewing in there. The mishmash of chemicals, biological agents, herbs, and plants was too weird. She had never seen a setup like it.
And that apple tree! She had sworn it was singing to her, drawing her closer and closer with a melody that she couldn’t ignore. The apples had smelled so very good. Hungry from her day of traveling and the nervous stomach that hadn’t allowed her to eat, she hadn’t been strong enough to fight the impulse to steal one of the glittering golden fruits.
It had been so delicious. Ripe and juicy, the sweet taste of it had burst upon her taste buds. For a brief moment, her tongue had gone numb. A flowing heat ran down her throat and into her chest. It blossomed behind her heart and spread low into her belly. She had grown curiously aware of the building storm and the promise of lightning. The very tips of her toes had buzzed with energy.
Then that thing had burst out of the mansion and shocked her near to death. Now the thwack of heavy wings snapping in the night air seemed so intensely real.
You’re hallucinating. It isn’t real. It’s just a big bird of some kind. The apple’s toxins are messing with your head!
Upon biting the apple, the sweet flesh had numbed her tongue. She tried to convince herself that the toxins that had caused the reaction were now playing tricks on her mind—but she wasn’t succeeding.
A wicked snarl erupted in the night. A chill raced down her spine. The sight of a fast-approaching hedge she hadn’t been able to see in the darkness frustrated her. Every bit the street kid who had learned to escape tricky situations, she vaulted over the hedge like a hurdler. When she hit the grass, her feet slipped and she stumbled forward. She clawed at the grass, desperate to get back upright.
A blast of air slammed into her, and something hard snapped against her shoulder. She tumbled forward and ended up flat on her belly for a moment. Gasping for air, she instinctively covered the back of her neck. Was it a wing that had clipped her?
Rather awkwardly, she managed to stand and run again, but that thing swooped down and grabbed hold of her thin black jacket. Fabric shredded as her feet came up off the ground. Like a field mouse in the clutches of a great big hawk, she shrieked with terror and frantically twisted her hips. She wasn’t a very big woman and that winged beast was so much bigger and stronger, but she wasn’t going to give up so easily.
She reached up and swatted at the clawed foot that had gripped her jacket and shirt. Digging her short nails into its foot didn’t work. The skin felt hot and hard…and scaly. She cried out in horror and balled up her small fist, slamming it into the reptilian foot. When that didn’t work, she grabbed one of the talons and jerked it roughly, determined to yank the damned thing out if necessary.
The dragon roared and let go of her. Her belly swooped as she plummeted to the ground. It had carried her high into the night sky before she had dared to hurt it. Now she squeezed her eyes shut as the quickly advancing ground threatened to break her legs or maybe even her neck. Would that be a merciful, easier death than the bloody, violent one she had been imagining?
Eris suddenly stopped falling. A strangled cry erupted from her throat as the beast sank its claws into her jacket and shirt and halted her wild descent. Though she was thin and light, her weight was still too much for her clothing to bear. The cloth started to tear, and she felt her arms slipping out of the ripped jacket.
She fell again. A moment later, she screamed as that evil beast grabbed and tossed her in the air. She did a wicked somersault and squeezed her eyes shut. Did this thing want to play with his food first?
Two steely arms closed around her waist. With an oomph of discomfort, she stopped falling and spinning. The creature held her
tight to its blazing hot and rough-skinned body. Sour puffs of hot air blasted her neck every time it breathed. She shuddered with revulsion. What would happen now? Bloody and brutal visions tormented her.
Refusing to die like this and low enough to the ground that she was certain she could survive a fall, Eris fought like hell. She kicked, twisted, and smacked at the beast. It was so big and powerful that all her fighting was futile, but she couldn’t stop. Grabbing hold of the thick, corded forearms of the creature, she tugged hard.
And then she felt the strangest thing. The skin beneath her palms began to grow incredibly hot. Just as quickly, the texture changed. It wasn’t hard, reptilian hide beneath her hands but something softer and more familiar—human skin.
The dragon made a strange sound and snorted loudly. She cringed as the acrid scent of the air from its lungs breezed across her face. The beast began to descend quickly. The flap of its wings sounded different now. Their pace was almost panicked, as if he feared falling, too.
She rocked her weight and then did something truly brutal. She sank her teeth into the vulnerable skin of his arm and bit down until she tasted the coppery burst of blood on her tongue. The beast roared with pain and let go of her. When Eris hit the ground, all the air was knocked out of her lungs. Her rattled brain didn’t send the right signals to her legs and arms. Get up! Go!
Her fingers slipped on the dewy grass. Sobbing with fear, she finally clambered to her feet, knocking off her sneakers in the process and soaking her socks. She took four steps before the beast smacked her with its wing. Flung to the ground, she wrapped her hands along the back of her neck. Would it try to bite her now? Flay her open with those vile talons?
Clawed hands gripped her shoulders and roughly flipped her onto her back. She lifted both legs and donkey kicked the dragon right in the stomach. It snorted violently and knocked her legs out of the way. Like a true predator, it dropped down on top of her, its knees on either side of her hips and its hands planted on either side of her head. She pushed against its chest, and the creature made a strange noise. It jerked back as if her touch had burned him.
