The Rookie

by Abigail Owen

  “Rivin, Keighan, watch him,” Finn instructed.

  His teammates both eased their stances, sitting back, relaxed even. “You got it, boss.”

  “Can we at least mess with him while we wait?” Rivin asked.

  Even in dragon form, Aidan could see Rivin’s twinkle of mischief. Now that the threat to the team had been minimized, they were back to the nut jobs he expected them to be.

  “No playing,” Finn rumbled. “You two hold him here while we get this fire under control.”

  Both dragons, opalescent scales shimmering with a rainbow of colors, seemed to grin at that, fearsome teeth offset by lolling forked tongues. No doubt they’d fuck with the kid while no one was watching. Just for the hell of it.

  But they wouldn’t hurt him. Not without orders.

  Aidan wouldn’t leave the kid alone otherwise. Another unwanted, abandoned, wasted dragon with no future.

  Not if I have anything to say about it.

  “You okay to work?” Finn bobbed his head in a dragon version of a head nod at Aidan’s wound.

  “I’m fine.” No way in hell was he claiming injury. Not his first time officially out with the team, and not just as backup, a liaison with humans, or an afterthought, but as a critical member. He’d been waiting for this, working his ass off for this night. He’d still fly even if he’d been gutted. He couldn’t help that kid if he wasn’t earning his place with the Huracán Enforcers.

  “Let’s go,” Finn said.

  With fluid motions, they launched back into the air, side by side, wings extended with a span of roughly forty feet, tipped as they spiraled up to get a bird’s-eye view. “Take back over on that eastern edge,” Finn directed.

  Already the rest of the team had reduced the size of the blaze by at least half, despite four of them being temporarily unavailable.

  “Yes, sir.” Aidan dove toward that area, preparing to do his part.

  All dragons could draw fire into themselves through their maws, pulling it down the same track of pipes into their belly where their own fire was stored. Enforcers were trained in a different method. A faster method that consumed more of the fire. They could drag the flames into their body, absorbing it through their scales.

  With sweeping passes over the fire, he pulled the flames into himself, absorbing them faster than they could burn more fuel on the ground. The rest of his team attacked it from other angles, working together.

  An hour later, the fire was out.

  This job had been large enough to require the entire crew, but small enough that they could contain it in one night, and far enough out in the wilderness that humans probably wouldn’t find out about it unless a ranger or hikers stumbled across the burned area.

  All the team, except Rivin and Keighan, flew up to meet Finn, circling overhead.

  Hall, neon green even in the dark, swiped past Aidan, giving him a friendly bump on the way by. “I assume Aidan found the shifter responsible? First kill, rookie. Way to go.”

  Aidan growled. “I didn’t kill him.”

  “What happened?” Hall didn’t get the clue to shut up. “Couldn’t get it up?”

  Drake buzzed by overhead, low enough to make Hall duck. “You know Aidan’s bigger than you, right?”

  “Nah. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “I might,” Drake snarled. He must be more irritated than usual to bother using so many words. Drake generally preferred to be the silent, brooding fucker of the bunch. Hall had better watch it.

  Instead of backing down, though, Hall stepped it up a level or ten. “You know what’s worse than waking up after a party and finding a penis drawn on your face?”

  Drake whipped around, and, for a second, appeared to bobble awkwardly in the air, which he never did. But he recovered so fast, Aidan wasn’t sure he saw what he thought he did.

  Except Drake seemed to do that more often lately. Little things that would be nothing in someone else, but Drake was one of the best. A warrior from his clan, he’d once served on his king’s guard.

  Was he sick?

  Aidan shook off the thought. Dragons only got sick if they were aging without a mate, and the red dragon shifter was too young for that.

  “What?” Drake snapped.

  Hall dropped low as Drake swiped at him with his tail, his chuckle following him through the air. “Finding out it was traced.”

  The hacking and rumbling sound Hall made came off more eerie than amused, until he snorted green-tipped flames from his nose. Why the green dragon insisted on fucking with Drake—his comments were rarely aimed at anyone else—Aidan had no idea. But it’d definitely bite him in the ass one day.

  “Aidan had reason for holding off,” Finn said when Hall finally quit. “Let’s get back. We’ll talk it out there.”

  Exhausted, the team turned for home, situated relatively close, north of their current position.

  Home.

  And Sera.

  Aidan clenched his teeth as that thought snuck into his head. Immediately, an image of her appeared in his mind, as though conjured. Petite and light to his dark with hair that curled around her chin and turquoise eyes that drew him like gravity. His own secret fantasy who entered his dreams, did things to his body, shared whispered conversations, then disappeared when he woke. A woman who, in reality, he could never let himself want.

  She was human. A single mother with a son to raise and a winery to run. Not to mention Finn’s mate’s best friend and boss. Off-limits.

  With determination, Aidan pushed the image away.

  For months, Aidan had resisted the draw the blonde held for him. He might not be able to control his dreams, but he could remain distant in real life.

  You have one job, he reminded himself now.

  Being an enforcer for the clans was the most important thing in his life. He had to prove himself every single day. Because clans rejected orphans, he’d met resistance to his ambitions at every fucking turn. A glass ceiling he intended to shatter, paving the way for the others like himself. Sera Morrison fell into the category of a distraction he couldn’t afford.

  No matter how much he craved her.

  Even so, he flew a little faster. He might not be able to want the real-life version, but he wouldn’t mind another of those dreams involving her. That was the only weakness he could allow himself.

  Finn had his Beta, Levi, carry the kid in one massive talon. The only gold dragon on the team, Levi, like most of his clan, was the largest and strongest among them. A brutal killing machine when he needed to be, even if the guy was a total teddy bear otherwise. With the white shifter in his more vulnerable human state, if he made any move Levi didn’t like, Levi would crush him in an instant.

  The prisoner continued to show some level of intelligence, staying quiet and still the length of the long flight home. At least this fire hadn’t been a three-day flight away like the last one, which had been set on the northern edge of their territory. The Huracáns were assigned the west coast of North America, the largest of the various dragon colonies all over the world.

  Dawn was breaking, pale-pink fingers of light reaching over the mountain tops as they made it back to their home situated west of Lake Tahoe and over the pass. Finn landed first, flaring his deeply blue wings wide in the relatively open, flat space outside their headquarters.

  He shifted quickly, efficient in the action as his body reformed—shrinking and altering to stand upright, scales turning to human flesh, the nasty-looking spikes along his spine pulling back into his body, talons and teeth both turning human, until a man stood on the ground where a forty-foot dragon had just been.

  Levi followed, glittering in the sunlight as if he’d been gilded. He gave up their prisoner to Finn before shifting as well.

  Titus, black as an ink stain across the sky, was swiftly followed by Drake, bloodred in contrast, right beside him. Hall and Kanta—one almost neon green and snakelike, the other the deep green of a forest—waited until the men had stepped aside before following suit.
Rivin and Keighan jostled each other in an effort to race to the ground, and Aidan had to beat his wings to drift longer as he waited for them.

  “Dudes. Clear the fuck out.”

  “What’s wrong, rookie? Can’t maintain a hover?” Rivin shot back.

  But they completed their shifts and moved out of the way nonetheless. As soon as they were done, Aidan brought up the rear. The shifting process was painless now, and second nature. With a mere thought, his perspective changed, rapidly dropping closer to the ground and adjusting as his sight became less pinpoint perfect, though still better than humans. Only this time, he hissed through his teeth as the wound on his wrist changed with him. A deep throbbing took up residence, shooting up his arm in angry spikes, originating from the nasty red slash, the skin seeming to bubble up before his eyes.

  “You all right?” Drake asked.

  “Fine.”

  Even through his own pain, Aidan didn’t miss how his friend gave his hand a shake, as though waking a sleeping limb. “You?”

  Drake paused in what had to have been an unconscious action. He clenched his fist and dropped it to his side. “Fine.”

  Everyone was fine. Terrific.

  Finn opened a hidden panel on a tree that wasn’t a real tree but did a damn good job of acting like one. After scanning his palm on a high-tech device, a massive boulder nearby slid back, two double doors whooshing open. With their prisoner in tow, they’d chosen to come in one of the back entrances.

  Despite his concern for the kid, exhaustion and the need to get to his bed dragged at Aidan as he followed everyone inside and down a long tunnel. Lights along the sides turned themselves on as the men passed, illuminating only a small section of the blackness at any given time until they eventually emerged in a small round room which sported five more tunnels branching off in different directions.

  “Levi. Lock him up,” Finn directed. “Everyone get some rest. Meet in the war room at fourteen hundred to debrief. We’ll report to the Alliance then.”

  Finn wanted to tell the Alliance about the kid? That was a guaranteed death sentence. But Aidan didn’t say anything. He’d do better to get some sleep first, be fresh to argue later. With feet that felt like cement blocks had wrapped around them, he managed to get to his room. He didn’t even bother to undress, falling face first on his bed.

  In seconds he was out, and through the darkness, he heard Sera’s voice.

  Chapter Two

  With a gasp, Sera’s eyes snapped open only to find herself in her bedroom. Alone and aching. She let out a long breath and scrubbed at her face.

  “Fudgesicles.”

  She’d love to use a stronger swearword, but her son’s little ears were always pricked, even when she thought she was alone. So that was the best she could do. She was thinking something much stronger, though.

  Fuck. Aidan Paytah is going to be the death of my vibrator.

  Not to mention her sanity, but really that had kicked the bucket long before he came on the scene. He just happened to be the tasty cherry on top of a heaping pile of crap life had dished up over the last five years.

  Another dream.

  Months of erotic dreams where they found each other and gave in to that physical need. Except physical had turned into…more. In the dark, they talked. They shared. They held onto each other. And every time she’d wake and have to reconcile herself to a reality where he had no interest in her and she pretended not to notice.

  “Dragon shifters,” Sera muttered before realizing the words even wanted to come out.

  “Are you awake, Mom?” Blake called through her door.

  Sera grimaced. Yup. Little ears.

  She should’ve known. Like every morning, her early bird sat outside her door waiting for her to get up. Once these dreams had started, she couldn’t have him in her room with her anymore. Not after he woke her from one asking if she was moaning because she was going to be sick.

  “Not yet,” she called back. “Just a minute.”

  “’Kay.”

  But even that interruption didn’t pause her mind in tumbling over and over like an orphaned sock in a dryer. Sera still had trouble wrapping her head around the whole dragon shifter thing. That was new in this last year. What she’d managed to piece together was that the Huracán Enforcers were a team sort of like the police, and SWAT, and firefighters, and judges of their kind, all rolled into one. They hid dragon existence from humans, put out fires, and hunted down and punished any who violated their laws.

  Like they had with the man who’d been after Sera’s best friend, Delaney, a few months ago.

  Delaney had moved across the country to get away from what she thought was a stalker setting fires around her. She’d come to work for Sera at the winery, living in the apartment in the top floor of Sera’s home. But the fires had followed her, and it turned out the stalker wasn’t a man, but a dragon shifter obsessed with trying to mate Delaney. The same man had kidnapped Delaney right in front of Sera. He’d also set fire to Sera’s barn, the day she’d met a certain blue-eyed shifter—

  Sera Morrison, you have to stop.

  Real-life Aidan didn’t feel for her in any way. Not like in her dreams. A duality that was slowly ripping her to shreds. In her mind he had become…important.

  In the small hours of the morning, it had happened again. He’d come to her through darkness, but, as had been occurring in more and more of these dreams, he wrapped those strong arms around her and had just breathed her in.

  “Bad day?” she’d asked, happy to just be held and not so alone.

  He huffed a laugh that sounded more like sarcasm in a bottle. “Bad life. I have to prove myself every single minute. Finn’s neck is on the line for me just being on the team. But how do I prove myself loyal to the clans? How do I reconcile being an enforcer of their laws when that means turning my back on others like me?”

  Sera pulled back to search his face. “Others?”

  He pulled a face. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  Because she was human. She wasn’t even supposed to know they existed, but Delaney was her best friend. Sera had lost too much—her parents, her husband—to give up her friendship. Granted, her friend was also newly mated to Finn, part of the dragons’ world more now than she was part of the human world. Heck, she’d even recently shifted into her dragon form for the first time.

  Still… Sera didn’t fit either place anymore. She’d never had, even with her family. Like a sock put on with the heel up. As though she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Something she’d always chalked up to not really wanting to run a winery. True, she had Blake, but Delaney was her only tie to community in any kind of adult way.

  Regardless, between Delaney’s stalker situation last year, and how she lived now, Sera had witnessed too much. Her knowing anything could get Aidan and his team in serious trouble with whoever they reported to. They tried to keep from revealing more, but she wasn’t an idiot, either. She had eyes and ears that worked fine. Maybe not as well as a shifter’s, but possibly better in some ways.

  Still, even if she asked now, Aidan wouldn’t tell her. He was always careful, even in this misty unreality.

  She dropped her gaze and caught sight of a shiny pink patch of skin on the underside of his wrist. Familiar with him, every part of him, in this place like she was nowhere else, she snagged his hand to peer at it closer. “What happened?”

  Aidan stilled under her light touch. “A small burn from our last fire. No big deal.”

  That brought her head up and the world slowed on its axis as her gaze collided with his sky-blue eyes. “I thought dragons couldn’t be burned?”

  For once, he answered. “If we’re injured in a way that leaves a gash in our scales, we can be.”

  “How would you—”

  Those blue eyes shut down, shuttering, the color even dulling. “I can’t talk about it with you.” This time he was more forceful in his conviction.

  “Right.” Sera dropped her gaze, h
iding her hurt. “Silly human,” she murmured as she absently ran a finger over that patch of damaged skin—smooth under her fingertips.

  “It’s the rules. For your safety.” Had his voice dropped? The subtle scent of smoke mixed with an earthier hue drifted around her. Damn he smelled delicious. His unique essence reminded her of her Tempranillo wine—her favorite of all of them—dark and bold. She could practically taste it now.

  Too serious.

  They were way too serious for just a dream. Pulling her shoulders back, Sera lifted her head, bright expression in place. “I could kiss it better for you.” She cast a teasing smile his way.

  His lips tipped up in a crooked grin that she never, ever saw in real life. At the same time, his eyes ignited, glowing with sky-blue flames, and she shivered with an answering lick of need.

  “I was hoping you might,” he murmured.

  They hadn’t talked much after that.

  Memory buffeted her as that familiar sweet ache spread in response to picturing what they’d done together.

  Hands, sure and steady, brushed over her skin, up her legs, over her belly, pulling moans from her lips. At her urging, he took a ripe nipple into his mouth, teasing her with barely there brushes of his lips and tongue. She arched, seeking more.

  Sera took Aidan’s face in her hands. “More.”

  He’d given her much more. Even now her panties remained damp from reaching the highs that he brought her to.

  With the early morning sun streaming in through the cracks in her blinds, Sera squeezed her eyes shut against the urge to go back and find him in the comforting dark. She wasn’t ready to force herself to try to forget those moments.

  Because she had to forget. To write off their time together as never having happened. Otherwise, being around him in real life hurt too much. Like she was missing something or had lost something.

  And she’d had enough loss for more than one lifetime.

  She’d got through the deaths of her parents, and her husband. She was a strong, tough, independent woman running her own business—for a few more weeks, at least. A little sexual attraction, and a few erotic dreams, shouldn’t be a problem to handle without giving in to needs that had no place messing up her life.