by Mina Carter
Hell—all seven of them—would freeze over first.
His gaze slid down from the utter perfection of her face, the unaccustomed makeup lending her exotic features a sultry edge that hit him in the cock. That was nothing compared to the effect the rest of her ensemble had. The curves imprinted on his memory were poured into a little black dress that should have been illegal. It clung like a jealous lover’s hands, revealing nothing, but yanking every dirty thought he’d had about her from the recesses of his mind. Replayed every fantasy, every scenario he’d imagined with his cock in his hand, jerking off to thoughts of her.
Long legs shimmered in the light, and the edge of a stocking top played peekaboo with her hem. Her feet, delicate and finely boned with the toenails painted blood red, arched seductively in strappy sandals. Instantly he wanted to strip the rest of her clothing, leaving her in just stockings and shoes.
His growl slipped loose before he could stop himself. Striding forward, he scattered the women around her, their cries of surprise ignored as he came to stand in front of Baby. He loomed over her, his darkness swirling around him and dimming the lights overhead. He hadn’t lost control that way since he was a teenager, but he didn’t care.
“What the fuck are you wearing?”
She didn’t shrink at his barked demand as another woman might. With no fear on her face, she looked at him, those golden eyes of hers unreadable.
“They’re called clothes. Try to keep with the program, Raterrenh.”
He loved when she used his real name. She was the only person who dared. The sounds rolled off her tongue like an auditory caress over his skin. He knew he was hard, erection easily visible in his jeans, and didn’t bother to hide it. Anyone oogling his groin deserved an eyeful. All his attention was on the woman in front of him.
The one giving him sass.
“Where do you think you’re going dressed like that?”
Another snarled demand. He couldn’t seem to just talk to her. Instead he growled, battling his rage and frustration. She seemed determined to drive him out of his mind.
She blinked, then smiled. “Out. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Jaw dropping as she swept past him, two friends in her wake, he couldn’t think of a comeback. Honor, a human mated to one of the three shadow-dragons, gave him a sympathetic look as she passed.
The door at the end of the corridor closed behind them.
“Fuck!” He turned, arm tensed to deliver a punishing blow to the innocent wall, only to find a claus elf watching him. It wasn’t Cole or Rhod…both he’d worked with in the past, but a new one. Probably just down from the Pole.
“Be a brave man who takes that one on,” he drawled, one shoulder propping up the wall. “If I were you, I’d pity the poor schmuck who ends up in her bed tonight.”
“What?” Rat didn’t think it was possible for his fury to deepen, but it did, red tinging the edges of his vision.
The elf shrugged and pushed off. “Heard them talking earlier. They’re planning to find a tame human to pop her cherry.”
Rat snarled wordlessly and stomped toward the locker room. Screw the gym and playing nice.
If Baby was fucking anyone tonight, it would be him.
Chapter Two
Baby had never been in a nightclub, not in the flesh anyway, but so far it more than met her expectations. It was hot, dark, and sweaty…she felt right at home. So she should. Dragons loved heat, and shadows were simply the little cousin of true darkness. As a shadow-dragon, she loved both. Basked in them, in fact.
Sighing, she leaned forward on her stool and took a sip from her drink, scoping the club over the lurid pink umbrella. The alcohol hit the back of her throat and burned all the way to her gut to cause a pleasant tingle. That’s all it was and all it would be. A tingle. She couldn’t get drunk. The substance that could inebriate a dragon hadn’t been invented. It would probably bend the laws of nature if anyone ever managed it.
After millennia of sleep though, Baby would take the tingle. Happily. She’d been locked in her dragonlet form longer than was natural, even for her kind. So long, that her developing mind had been forced to reach out telepathically and latch onto humans who lived around her resting place.
She’d ridden in the backs of their minds unnoticed as they went about their lives. Hidden. Experiencing everything they did: their lives, their thoughts, their emotions. She’d lived and died countless times. Become a mother… A father… A grandparent. The whole gamut of human experience, but she’d never lived. She’d never felt the sweet caress of air on her face. Never felt the sunlight, or danced under the moon. Not in her own body.
Now she could. And it was… Glorious.
Shoving the memories of her pseudo-lives to the back of her mind, she closed her eyes and gave herself to the heavy beat of the music. It throbbed through the club like a heartbeat, more felt than heard. She opened her eyes to look at the dancefloor.
Humanity crammed in tightly. A sea of bodies writhing as the music pounded. Each using the medium of dance to escape humdrum lives for a few precious hours.
She got it… Really she did.
“Chase, if you carry on glaring like that, no one will talk to us.” Honor’s amused voice drew Baby out of her trance and she looked at the other two women.
They couldn’t have been more different if they tried. Honor was a child of these times. Human, she was the bond mate of Baron, one of the only two naturally occurring shadow-dragons for millennia. Before Baron and his brother Duke, the species was supposed to be extinct. Something the other dragon species in the world celebrated. Of all the draconic races, shadows were the most dangerous. But they’d been hunted almost to extinction tens of centuries ago, and they were thought to be gone, relegated to myth and legend.
Until two brothers of unknown parentage manifested draconic powers. But not like any the world was used to seeing. They’d been thought to be a new species. An evolution. No one had thought to look to the past…
“Chase? Are you listening to me?”
Chase ignored her. Mated to Baron’s brother, she was also a shadow-dragon. Like Baby, she’d been born millennia ago, and had gained notoriety as a legendary warrior. Selected by Baby’s mother to protect her only egg, she’d slept alongside Baby until they’d woken in this time. Then there had been some hinky crap with a wannabe Dragos magician, that had ended in Baby manifesting more power than she’d ever handled, and Chase ended up bonded to Duke.
Her lips quirked… She’d been born to be a queen. The most powerful Shadow-Dragon Queen of all time. She supposed she was. It wasn’t a great accomplishment since her “kingdom” consisted of three other dragons, and a half human dragon mate. Go, Queenie.
She didn’t care.
All that mattered was, despite the odds, they were alive and healthy. Finally, she was awake and she had family. People who cared about her. Perhaps a little too much, she realized with amusement as she caught Chase glaring at a couple human men who looked their way with interest.
She couldn’t blame them. She’d piggybacked on enough lives to know that, dressed for a night on the town, the three of them looked good. She resisted the urge to tug at the tiny black dress Honor had assured her was suitable attire to attract a male. Since the last mind she’d occupied had been a decade or so ago, she’d had to bow to the human woman’s greater knowledge and experience. Given the looks sent their way, and the outfits some of the other club-goers wore, little black dress was obviously the way to go.
Honor let out a sigh. “I thought the point was to get Baby laid?”
Chase cut a glance over her shoulder, disapproval of that plan evident in her expression. “Your plan maybe. I think it’s a stupid plan. She should wait for her destined mate.”
Baby closed her eyes for a moment, and sighed. Sometimes, the dragon warrioress was a stick in the mud.
Surprisingly, Honor came to her rescue. “Her destined mate? Supposed to be the biggest and baddest dragon warrior o
ut there, yes?”
“Actually,” Baby cut in, “the prophecy just says biggest and baddest warrior, nothing about him being a dragon.”
“The queen’s mate, Babylonia, is always a dragon,” the words exploded from Chase’s mouth like bullets from a gun, her ire evident.
Uh-oh, her full name. She was in trouble now. Although now she was in her power, she didn’t need a bodyguard anymore. Chase still considered it her duty to protect Baby from anything, even a burn from a coffee mug. Gotta watch those coffee mugs, they’re sneaky.
Honor folded her arms, leaning back in her chair with a smug expression. “Okay, so how’s she going to manage that then? Since you and I are mated to the only two shadow-dragon warriors in existence?”
Baby chuckled softly at Chase’s expression. Leaning forward, she put her hand on the other woman’s arm. “Don’t worry, it’ll all come out in the wash.”
The warrioress lifted an eyebrow. “Are we doing laundry? Now?”
It was unfair, but Baby couldn’t help joining Honor as she chuckled. “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
Swirling her umbrella in her half-empty drink, she looked up again and caught the eye of a male human looking her way with interest. Pausing, she considered him. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had dark hair and pleasant features. She’d even go so far to describe him as ruggedly handsome.
Nowhere near as good looking as the demon, a little voice in the back of her head chose that moment to whisper.
Instantly, an image of the half demon, Rat, formed in her mind. She had no idea why he chose to shorten his name to such an ignoble word. Even if the others at the agency couldn’t see, she easily discarded the illusion and glamor he used to shield his true nature. Royal blood called to royal blood and his was as regal as hers. She just didn’t understand why he chose to hide it.
Not her problem. Even if the guy was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen on two legs. A Demon Prince and a Dragon Queen? The sky would fall… Surely?
“Oh, now he is cute.” Honor edged closer, peering over the umbrella in her glass, bright green this time, with a look completely predatory. Perhaps being bonded to a dragon had imparted some draconic tendencies to the human woman. But then, humans were an apex predator too, so perhaps it was all natural. “Oh shit, he’s coming this way.”
And so he was. Baby ran her finger around the rim of her empty glass, watching him every step of the way. He was flanked on either side by two men of similar age, height, and build. Friends obviously. She could practically see the fraternal bonding between them. On instinct she reached for her powers, and pulled the shadows from the corner of the room, twirling them around her to create a dark backdrop that she stood out against. A jewel set in midnight velvet for display.
“Hey, ladies.”
His voice was low with a pleasant enough timbre. She couldn’t help comparing it to Rat’s fire and brimstone suffused growl. The man had a voice that made her think dark thoughts, and yearn for erotic situations she had no experience of. Suppressing a growl of frustration, she put the demon from her mind and concentrated on the human in front of her.
“Hi, yourself. What's a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?”
His lips quirked as she turned the age-old saying around. Honor snorted and buried her nose in her drink, while Chase was busy glaring as one of the friends rounded the table to stand next to her. Baby sure hoped he asked before touching. Chase had at least three blades on her, and that was before her natural weaponry.
“It's like that, is it?” He grinned and leaned forward, interest sparkling in his eyes. To his credit, his gaze didn’t drop below her shoulders, focused entirely on her face as though the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “So if I’m a good boy, does that make you a bad girl?”
She allowed her lips to curl into a matching smile, a hint of wickedness slipping free. “It depends.”
“On what?”
She stood and offered him her hand. “On whether you ask me to dance or not…”
***
Rat was a man on a mission. He stormed through the front doors of a club and hit pay dirt. There, whispering through the air and teasing his sensitive nostrils, was the exact scent he was looking for... Feminine allure wound around dry heat with a subtle hint of total-pain-in-the-ass.
Baby.
It hadn’t taken much to find her. Women as stunning as her, people remembered. Plus the PPA only used one cab firm, so a quick call had gained the location they’d been dropped off at. Lower Easton Street. When he’d arrived, there had been the choice of two clubs.
Sector Five was the classier of the two, so he started with that. Plus, he was fairly sure the dried vomit on the wall next to the door of the other club would have put off the three dragon women, whose sense of smell was better than his.
The doors banged against the walls behind him and the bouncers wisely stayed out of his way as he strode into the club. It was a maelstrom of sound and packed bodies. Storming through the throng, his anger radiated from his skin. The air behind him swirled and heated, drinks of people that he passed bursting into flame. He ignored the chaos. It was all he could do to keep his horns and tail under wraps. Popping a tail here wasn’t an option…it would freak the humans out.
A couple shifters scuttled out of his way with frightened squeaks. Their terror filled the air. Hedgehog shifters. Not the biggest or the bravest of shifter-kin, and rare. He hadn’t realized there was a pack in town.
Boots clunking against the floor, the sound lost under the heavy throb of the music, he sought his prey. And Baby was his quarry. Since he realized she planned to get laid—to let some other man touch her—he hadn’t been able to think straight.
The moment he’d seen her, all fire and majesty as she faced off against a maniacal rogue sorcerer, he’d known he’d never find another woman to match her. Ever. His heart and body belonged to her in that instant, and even though he knew a demon wasn’t good enough to touch a hair on her head, he couldn’t…wouldn’t let her go. He’d give her time, had given her time, but she belonged to him. He’d kill any man who touched her.
Screw being polite. Screw playing the game. She was his. Only his.
Where the fuck was she?
Stopping in the middle of the club, he turned in a slow semi-circle. He could smell her, her scent was playing havoc with his senses. She was here but he couldn’t see her.
Fuck. He scraped a shaking hand through his hair. His father would be laughing his freaking socks off if he could see Rat right now. He’d always urged his offspring to treat them mean and keep them keen. To be as ruthless as he was himself. Fuck and kick out was Lakai’s mantra, but what else would anyone expect from the King of the Seven Hells?
His father was a demon king, the Demon King.
That was one little fact Rat kept off his file with the PPA. Despite his mixed blood, he wasn’t a prince of one of the minor hells. He was Prince of all of them. Raterrenh Di Lakai Telosa, son of Lakai. Prince of the Night and Shadows, Lord of the Seventh Gate and all the minor hells below. Which totally made him badass demon royalty.
It would be impressive if his family wasn’t dysfunctional. He’d lost count of the times his father tried to have him killed. Seemed the old man viewed sending assassins every once in a while an act of affection.
His mother was, if possible, even less affectionate. A pixie warlady with a fearsome reputation, she considered Rat little more than an unfortunate accident, and most of the time seemed surprised he hadn’t died in childhood.
With family like that, who needed enemies?
It meant one thing though. Rat was as ruthless as either parent, and twice as determined. And he was set on one thing… Baby.
He would have her. If any man touched her, ever, it would be him.
The crowds parted ahead of him like theatre curtains, and there she was. In the middle of the dance floor, her fiery hair and darkness were a cape around her. The music hummed through his body, each beat echoed b
y his heart and the surge of blood through his cock. Sight and sound combined to send lust through his warrior’s body, freezing him in place. His heart stuttered, hands clenching at his side as he watched her.
She was perfect. From the top of her head, adorned with flame-like locks to the tips of her delicate toes. Acres of creamy, pale skin he ached to touch. To stroke and caress and make his own.
The crowd moved again and she was hidden from view. He started forward, cleaving through the crowd, scattering dancers to get to her. They moved like a sea and he spotted her again…
In the arms of another man. Their body language reeked of lust. Fury burst through Rat. Red obliterated his vision. Within a heartbeat he stood next to them, his gaze hard as he shoved his body between them.
“This is my dance.”
“What? Hey!” the displaced human exclaimed, trying to yank Rat away. “Get your own dance partner, asshole!”
“Fuck off if you know what’s good for you,” Rat snarled over his shoulder, fangs visible, “…human.”
The guy paled, backpedaling as all hints of lust disappeared from his scent, replaced by fear. Rat lifted his lip higher in a sneer and released a little of his inner fire to flare in his eyes. The human stumbled back and knocked over a couple of female clubbers. They swore at him, a torrent of abuse as he made his escape. Rat’s lips quirked and he turned back around.
To find Baby watching him.
“Pathetic human wouldn’t have made a good mate anyway.” He found himself growling in self-defense.
Her full lips pursed. “Who said anything about taking a mate. I just want to fu—”
He couldn’t hear those words on her lips, not if he wanted to keep his composure and avoid taking her here and now. Yanking her closer, he crashed his lips over hers.
*
Whatever Baby had expected of the evening, it wasn’t for Rat to arrive and scare off her human admirer. It certainly wasn’t for him to cast off jealousy like a furnace gave off heat, or for him to kiss her…
