by Abigail Owen
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Discover more Amara titles… Drakon Unchained
Bitten Under Fire
Savage Hunger
The Bite of Silence
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Abigail Owen. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
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Amara is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Heather Howland
Cover design by Kelly Martin and Heather Howland
Cover photography by
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ISBN 978-1-64063-789-4
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition April 2019
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To firefighters and first responders. You’re the true heroes!
Chapter One
“Watch your six, rookie.”
His Alpha’s voice sounded in Aidan’s head through the telepathic link all dragon shifters shared. Urgency cut through the words like shattered glass.
“Bank left,” Finn yelled before Aidan could check over his shoulder for what could be coming at him.
Training, instinct, and total trust kicked in. Without a blink of hesitation, Aidan dropped one wing, wheeling hard enough that air and gravity pushed against his massive body in opposing forces. Halfway into the turn, he craned his long neck to see if whatever was behind him was still there.
The moonless night cast the earth in darkness broken only by the myriad of stars overhead and the orange glow of the wildland fire raging thousands of feet below. Dark smoke billowed around him, obscuring his vision. This fire was yet another that had been caused by rogue dragon shifters. Aidan and the crew needed to get it contained. Fast. Before humans discovered it and them.
But first, what the hell was behind him?
There. The firelight glinted off diamond-bright scales. A white dragon tailed him, wobbling as he struggled with the force of the turn Aidan had put them in. More the shade of pure starlight, the fucker was easy to locate against the dark sky and smoke. At least he wasn’t a black dragon who would’ve disappeared in this kind of cover.
How’d I miss this asshole?
Silently beating himself up over that slip and determined to make up for it, Aidan pushed harder, increasing his speed and pulling away. White dragons tended to be longer and leaner than those from other clans, making them better long distance flyers and more graceful in the air than blue dragons, like Aidan, who were the sprinters, known more for their speed.
Gaining distance, but not too much, Aidan suddenly threw his wings wide and slammed his momentum to a halt. He flipped in the air, talons outstretched, and braced for impact.
The white dragon, already forcing himself faster than he naturally flew, and unable to turn his long form quickly, careened right into him.
Satisfaction spiked Aidan’s blood faster than a shot of alcohol. Gotcha.
Grappling—both trying to take a chunk out of the other—they dropped like a sack of boulders right toward the flaming granite mountain peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains below. Meanwhile the guy in Aidan’s grasp thrashed and fought as though demons had possessed him.
What’s wrong with this fucker?
The other dragon snapped his jaws around Aidan’s wrist, and jagged pain ripped through him. Those massive, cutting teeth penetrated, ripping sky-blue scales out of the way to expose the more vulnerable flesh beneath.
Before Aidan could pull free, the rumble of gathering fire, an inferno being stoked deep inside a dragon’s belly, sounded beneath him. Not letting go of his bite, the dragon blew white-tipped flames from his maw, pouring them over the open wound he’d slashed into Aidan’s body.
The minor pain from the bite bloomed into something the minions of hell would love to use as a form of torture on poor souls. In this form, his scales protected him from dragon fire, which burned hotter and harder than any other kind of fire. Once those scales were breached, however, direct fire could do serious damage. If Aidan couldn’t get free, the guy could pour enough flame into that small puncture to consume him from the inside out.
But Aidan had trained for this.
Fought for this.
Put every fucking ounce of his heart and soul into proving himself worthy of his Huracán Enforcer team.
Hell, growing up an orphan dragon shifter, at the hairy edge of rogue, the way he had, fighting for his very existence when many of his people would have seen him dead, had prepared him for this moment.
He’d been ready for a long time, and now he’d finally get to prove it.
Divorcing his mind from the screaming pain, Aidan quieted his body. He couldn’t wait for any of the other members of the team to intervene.
With a twisting move he’d learned wrestling with the other shifters at the home for orphans where he’d grown up, Aidan not only yanked his arm free, but took one of the dragon’s teeth with him in the move. The other shifter yowled his pain. Aidan slithered around, finding purchase on the curved spikes protruding along his opponent’s spine, and climbed onto the guy’s back, riding him bucking-bronco style. The ground rushed up at him, and he knew exactly how long he had before he needed to let go.
Sinking his talons deep into the other shifter’s bony shoulder, Aidan lunged over his attacker. Striking like a cobra, he managed to get his own piercing teeth between steel-hard scales, right at the base of the shifter’s neck.
The white dragon, even as crazy as he’d been acting, froze in his grip, survival instinct kicking in hard. Aidan hadn’t bitten with enough force to snap his neck. Yet. He applied pressure so the shifter knew he was screwed.
“I’m going to flare my wings and slow us down. You are going to stay very, very still. Got it?”
“Dah,” came the resentful response, along with a low rumble of a growl.
Russian. Some dragons adopted the native language of the home-base country of their clan, but not as much here in the States where most spoke English. Interestin
g.
Throwing his wings out wide, Aidan clenched against the force of the wind dragging at him, straining the wound still raging on his wrist, not to mention his wings. Dragons’ wings were designed to carry one, not two.
They were going to hit. Hard.
Bracing himself for impact, Aidan had to clamp down as the creature in his grasp started to struggle, thrashing his tail around, making it even more difficult to stop this runaway train.
“Hold still,” Aidan growled, biting harder.
The white dragon stilled, though his entire body vibrated in Aidan’s grasp, like his nerves were live wires. “Vill to kill us.”
The odd response could’ve been a lack of English, but the phrasing still triggered a series of memories for Aidan. Was this a new dragon, shifting for the first time? “Calm down.”
“Hey there, rookie.” Rivin’s voice pinged through his mind.
“Need some help?” came Keighan’s lower pitched tones.
Both his teammates’ amusement grated, but they didn’t wait for him to answer. The two white dragons on his team appeared on either side of him and latched onto the dragon he held. Together, the three of them not only landed, but managed to avoid the fire ravaging the mountains all around.
Not that fire would harm them.
Seconds after landing, a sapphire-blue dragon, scales like living water in the shimmering light of the fire raging nearby, landed beside them. His Alpha’s claws scraped with a curdling screech as Finn found purchase on a large swatch of exposed granite.
“Thanks for the warning,” Aidan shot the thought at his leader. “I wouldn’t have seen him otherwise.”
Finn had led their team of dragon shifter enforcers for hundreds of years, a position of honor, appointed by the kings themselves. Until recently, Finn had led with his brother, Fallon, at his side. But Fallon was in Europe now, mated and the healer for the king of the Blue Clan. His vacancy on the team had opened up a spot for another blue dragon.
The chance Aidan had been waiting for.
Finn nodded an acknowledgment, then turned to the captive and bared his teeth, a low rumble of warning vibrating from him like the sound of an earthquake. He kept his wings flared wide, ready to pounce or drop away at any second. “What do we have here?”
Given how the young dragon was trembling, not in fear, but as though he couldn’t control his body, combined with the glimmer of mirage-like waves that faded in and out around him—signs Aidan had seen before—he had a fair idea.
“All I know is he speaks Russian,” Aidan reported. “I think he might be in his first shift.”
A glance passed between the four of them, acknowledging the significance of that fact.
Confident his captive wouldn’t run, Aidan unhooked his claws to climb off and stalked around to stare down the white dragon head on. Sure enough, the lack of fully developed spikes, and no callusing of the scales around his claws and spine indicated a younger dragon. The kid was still lucid, though, and smart enough to remain quiet and not even think about running.
At least he hadn’t gone fully feral as could happen to a young dragon without a member of his family there to anchor him and mentor him through it. If he had gone savage, no way could Aidan have subdued him, and that fight would’ve gone to shit fast.
Finn lowered his head, sniffing at the wound on Aidan’s arm. “Definitely the one responsible for this fire.”
Aidan already determined that the second the guy had spewed fire over him. Every dragon’s fire had a different scent to it, marking the flames as their own.
Keighan leaned in closer, muscles bunching, setting his scales to rippling. With a hiss, he opened his maw ready to blast their captive. Rivin mimicked his stance, prepared to rend their captive’s flesh and let Keighan’s fire work faster. However, neither moved to finish him.
“What do you want to do, boss?” Keighan demanded.
Usually the goofy pair of their team, never taking anything seriously, they looked more than serious now. An almost bloodthirsty light reflected in their glacial eyes. An attack directly against a team member was something guaranteed to piss off all of them. Including Rivin and Keighan.
“Wait,” Aidan snapped.
It said a lot about the respect he’d earned in the group when Finn held his order and instead cocked his head in question.
“He’s not with Rune.” Aidan directed the comment to Finn alone.
Rune didn’t use kids for his attacks. Only fully grown rogues, dissenters from the kings, but adult and in control, making them deliberately dangerous, rather than ruled by the creature within.
Finn’s glare went dark at the mention of his former Beta. These days, they had to worry that every fire had to do with their old teammate. Rune had turned traitor and gone rogue with two goals: first, to find and abduct mates before the Mating Council could get ahold of them, and second, to put an end to the current mating process.
As it stood, members of the Mating Council were tasked with helping human women who showed dragon sign—smelling of smoke, setting off small fires, or shifting small parts of their bodies—to find their destined mates. A process that Rune believed to be so wrong, he’d been willing to turn against the men who’d once been close as brothers because they were sworn to protect and uphold the rules of the clans and kings.
Rune made a big damn noise about it every time he stole a mate from under the Council’s nose. He seemed to think if he turned it into a problem the kings couldn’t ignore or sweep under the rug, they’d be forced to change the mating process.
Many of the fires they dealt with lately were thanks to Rune. But not this time.
“Prove it.”
Aidan faced the young dragon. “First shift?”
Eerie white eyes jerked back and forth between him and the two white dragons ready to flay his scales and char his bones inside his skin. “Dah.”
“Where’s your family?” Finn demanded.
“Yмерший.”
Aidan angled his head to glance at Rivin. Most dragons from the White Clan hailed from mountain strongholds in and around Russia.
“Dead,” Rivin translated.
Oh. Damn.
This youngster was lucky, though. He was in the colonies, even if he hadn’t started that way. At least here, dragons lived in smaller groups less prone to kick out young, orphaned dragons if they remained in control.
Not like the clans.
Although that fact hadn’t helped Aidan when he’d been shunned after his own parents’ deaths. Sure, the group he lived with had let him stay, but he’d been more isolated than if they’d kicked him out. If it hadn’t been for Drake’s sister, Lyndi, taking him in, he’d probably be dead by now.
But rogue—choosing to leave the protection of your group or the clans, or, worse, being kicked out for a reason—was a different animal altogether. He had to know.
“Are you rogue?” Aidan asked the kid.
“Dah.”
Shit. Aidan snaked his head around to give his boss a significant look. Finn knew what he was asking without words. Orphaned dragons were dangerous because of their lack of control, but rogues had no loyalty. While the clans considered orphans a liability, like a limb with gangrene that needed to be cut off, rogues were to be killed on sight.
“My parents made choice to leave with no permission. I come back?”
Damn. The kid had guts. He wanted to return to the fold? Was it even possible? An orphan whose parents went rogue and who’d never shifted before? Maybe with some guidance—
“He’s accountable for this fire,” Finn pointed out, to Aidan only, as if reading his thoughts. A deliberate fire was punishable by death. But this obviously wasn’t deliberate. Attacking Aidan, on the other hand, fell under the same consequence.
“I know.” That didn’t mean the kid didn’t deserve a second chance.
“The Alliance Council is on my ass like wet toilet paper,” Finn said.
Aidan knew that, too. Their Alpha was alre
ady under the microscope. Last year Finn had claimed his mate, Delaney, without informing the Alliance Council—the representatives from each clan who governed the colonies and whom the Huracán Enforcers reported to directly—of her existence or getting permission from the Mating Council, who presided over all dragon shifter matings worldwide.
Not to mention, Finn had a new king. A king who’d recently taken the throne of the Blue Clan by force, which heaped a whole other layer of complication and suspicion on every blue dragon—including Aidan—until things settled between the blue king and the kings of the other five clans—black, white, red, green, and gold.
“Let’s talk to him first. Then figure it out,” Aidan suggested.
Finn considered that before turning his focus to the young dragon. “Can you shift?”
No response for a long moment. Then he grunted, as if in pain. That grunt grew to a full-blown roar, including a few yelps, as the dragon tried, for the first time, to force the beast to bow to the man. Mirage-like waves appeared then disappeared, as if he couldn’t hold the magic.
“Take a deep breath,” Aidan instructed. He’d done this with so many younger dragons at Lyndi’s. At least his parents had still been alive to help him and steady him, when his first time had come. “Hold it, and picture what the world appears like when you’re human. What you feel like in that form. What you look like.”
The young dragon’s rib cage heaved then held. After several more tries, those waves appeared and stayed, hovering about his body. With excruciating slowness, and in total silence, the dragon forced his body to shrink. Not a smooth motion like the shifters around them would show, but in jerks and fits, bones and muscles realigning themselves, scales disappearing as skin and hair took their place. Along with clothing, magically absorbed into his form during the shift. Clothing that hadn’t seen a washer in months. The stench hit Aidan a second later.
“Fuck,” Keighan exclaimed. “He’s just a kid.”
Couldn’t be more than his early teens, given the way dragon shifters aged, making the kid around twenty to thirty years in human time. Living a millennium or more, dragons physically aged much slower than humans.
Sure enough, the flesh on the back of his hand between his thumb and forefinger was bare, the brand of his king—Volos for white dragons—conspicuously absent, marking him for all to see as a rogue. Rogue and orphan. This kid needed help.
