Stealing the Snow Leopard's Heart

by Zoe Chant

  “I should have shifted,” she muttered. “Like to see them get through my hippo.”

  “And I’m sure the humans would have liked to see a hippo suddenly appear in the subway,” Lance replied. Yelich snorted, but the frustration on her face eased.

  Lance turned to Zhang. “You found something?”

  Carol had held back during the fight. At first, Lance had thought it was because of her lack of experience. It was only as they’d trudged back up to the street that he’d seen what she was carrying.

  Now, she looked down at the black case on her lap, her eyes like pools of midnight.

  “I found this under one of the seats at the near end of the car,” she said. “There was nothing else there. No one else, either.”

  And that’s strange. Lance felt another sixth-sense shiver of unease and made a mental note to follow it up later. The enemy had sent in a team to grab the egg, then left it on a subway car for another group to pick up at another station? Either that was the stupidest plan he’d ever heard, or he was missing something.

  “It’s locked,” Zhang muttered, tugging at the lid, and Lance took the case from her.

  “Allow me.”

  The fight might be over, but Lance’s snow leopard was still alert and close to the surface. Like Yelich’s hippo, it was champing at the bit to be let loose.

  Lance concentrated. Heavy, sharp claws sprang out of his hands, and he removed the case’s hinges with two sharp flicks.

  “Let’s see what we have here…”

  His heart was already rising, anticipating success. He flicked the lid of the black case open.

  Zhang gasped. “Oh, God, no,” she whispered, and Lance wished he could do the same. His jaw set so hard he could feel the tendons in his neck stand out.

  There was no life inside the case, no hope for Julian Rouse and his broken family. Just smashed fragments of shell.

  “What happened?” Briers’ voice crackled over the comm, startling after his long silence. “What’s going on?”

  “The egg’s broken,” Lance replied, his voice clipped. Professional. He stared blindly into the case.

  He’d failed. He’d let one of the eggs, a potential life, be stolen—and now that potential was gone. Smashed.

  He felt sick.

  Parker leaned forward, his long face pensive. “Now, this doesn’t seem right,” he remarked, his nostrils flaring.

  Lance’s snow leopard sniffed, too, not wanting to be one-upped by the bloodhound. The sizzle of gunpowder filled his nostrils, overlaid with something like black pepper. He scratched his nose, resisting the urge to sneeze.

  “That’s just the shell, there. Now what’s happened to the rest of it?” Parker sat back, frowning.

  Lance stilled.

  Inside him, his snow leopard’s eyes gleamed as the memory of a scent filled his mind: sunlight and cut grass, with a hint of salt.

  And the bright gunpowder spark of dragon.

  “I know where it is,” he said.

  Keeley

  A thief. That’s who I am. One hundred percent a thief. Oh, shit. I hope my ears stop ringing soon.

  Keeley ran until the deafening nothingness in her ears popped, and the sounds of the world started to filter through again.

  She wanted to run until she couldn’t smell smoke anymore, but there was no escaping it. It clung to her hair, her coat, the inside of her throat.

  At last her ragged steps slowed, and she looked around. She was a few neighborhoods away from the station. Far enough away that anyone who caught her eye quickly looked away again, instead of looking at her with concern, like they were asking her if she was alright. Disasters brought people together, but only to the edges of the blast zone.

  Good. She didn’t want anyone to find her. Not Sean. Not whoever he was working for. Not…

  Gray-green eyes, startling against dark skin, appeared in her mind. The man who’d dragged her away from the explosion.

  She had no idea where he’d come from. She’d checked the platform before she got off the train, and it had been practically empty. Definitely no giant, incredibly handsome black men who looked at her like—like—

  Like you’re some fancy New Keeley, and not a filthy thief?

  She shook her head. She’d escaped the explosion at the station. Next step, get out of town. Away from Sean, and whoever was pulling on his leash, and incredibly fucking sexy guys who’d probably forgotten she existed by now, anyway.

  Keeley walked until she began to recognize the storefronts around her. Somehow, in her panic, she’d run within a few blocks of her apartment.

  She let herself slip into cruise control, her feet automatically setting in on the route to her apartment building. She was only a street away when Sean’s words echoed in her mind. You’re still in that shit apartment in Queens?

  She stopped dead. He knows where I live.

  Suddenly, the thought of going home to her apartment filled her with dread.

  Heart pounding in her throat, Keeley found a quiet side-street and leaned against a wall. The brick was cold against her back, even through her coat. She dropped her head onto her chest, panting softly.

  Okay. Think. I can still leave. What’s in my apartment that’s so important, anyway? I’ve got my wallet. Phone. That’s all I need.

  All we need.

  Tiny claws prickled against her stomach through the cheap cloth of her uniform. Hidden under her coat, a tiny warm body lay curled in her apron pocket, its heart beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

  Keeley swallowed as she remembered. A tiny body, lithe and snakelike. Four legs, each tipped with lizardy claws. A long, narrow head like a crocodile, with big cat-like eyes. And wings. Wings.

  Lizard? Crocodile? Bullshit. There was only one thing the creature that had hatched from that egg could be. A dragon.

  Holy shit, a dragon.

  Keeley waited for her brain to tell her, No, you must be imagining things. But it didn’t. It was crazy, but every part of her was totally on board with the fact that she’d just watched a baby dragon hatch out of an egg.

  And stolen it.

  Keeley swore under her breath. Sean was going to kill her. Sean’s new business partner was going to kill her.

  She was so fucking dead.

  “Prrp?”

  Keeley froze. The creature in her pocket—the dragon—was moving. She felt every wriggle as it unrolled itself, claws pricking through her uniform.

  “Prrp?”

  A long head nosed its way out of her pocket and up under her coat. Gold scales caught the light. Bright, cat-like eyes looked up, blinking, into Keeley’s.

  “Prr-rrp!”

  The tiny dragon pulled itself up onto Keeley’s chest, balancing with its tail whipping back and forth behind it and its wings spreading to either side. A feeling like “Aha! Found you!” bobbed against the edges of Keeley’s mind.

  “Hey, baby,” Keeley whispered. “What’s up?”

  It chirped back at her, and flicked out its tongue to lick the tip of her nose.

  Keeley closed her eyes. Opened them. The dragon was still there. It licked her nose again.

  “Oh, f—fudge,” she muttered. Her head was spinning. A dragon. Okay. So, dragons existed. The world had changed, without warning, and she was stuck in the middle of it.

  She’d acted on instinct back on the subway, relocking the case and stashing it under a seat in the seconds before the train had stopped. But now that she had time to think, she had no idea what she was going to do next.

  Sean was back. He was involved with people who were… smuggling dragons? Oh, God, she was in so far over her head.

  “Prr-eep?”

  Keeley took a deep, shaking breath. Maybe the world had gone mad, but she knew one thing for sure.

  There was no way in hell she was letting Sean or his new friends get their hands on this baby dragon.

  She drew another long breath. This time, it didn’t shake.

  “Okay, little… drag
on,” she said, staring the tiny creature straight in its burning-gold eyes. “We need a plan.”

  The baby dragon cheeped back at her, louder than before. Keeley quickly looked around, but the side-street was still empty.

  “First bit of the plan,” she murmured, easing the tiny dragon back into her apron pocket, “No one is allowed to see you, okay? We’ll be in a shi—we’ll be in a lot of trouble if they do.”

  To her relief, the baby dragon let her hide it back in her pocket. It rolled up against her stomach again, chirping happily.

  “Okay. Okay. Good dragon. First bit, done. Second bit…” She paused. She knew what came next, but her mind jumped away from it like it burnt. “Second bit, you need a name,” she relented, giving herself a few more breaths to build up her courage.

  A name. A name for a dragon. What the hell do you call a creature that shouldn’t even exist outside of stories?

  Keeley peeked into her pocket. The baby dragon was the size of a kitten. With an extra-long tail, and extra wings. She rummaged through her memory. Weren’t there dragons in Harry Potter? Game of Thrones? They had names, right?

  This was supposed to be the easy bit to distract from the hard bit, she thought, swallowing. Her eyes felt hot. How am I going to handle any of this if I can’t even think of a name for it?

  She raised one hand to her neck, her fingers searching for the thin gold chain that was her only connection to her only good memories from growing up. There was nothing there.

  Keeley’s breath caught in her throat. Her gran’s necklace. Had she lost it in the subway station? After the explosion—or when that handsome stranger had picked her up and carried her to safety?

  No. No, it has to be here. Somewhere. It has to be… She scrambled at her coat collar and blouse, hoping against hope that the thin chain might have caught on a button. Nothing. And it wasn’t caught on her apron shoulder-straps, either, or—

  She paused and looked closer at the little golden bundle rolled up into a tight ball in her front pocket.

  Gold scales. White-gold claws. Gold eyes with black slit pupils like a cat’s, peering back up at her. And, wrapped around the baby dragon’s neck and front legs…

  “Oh, who’s the thief now, huh?” Keeley breathed, relief washing through her. “Did you sneak that off me just now?” She hesitated, pursing her lips. Thief. Maybe she and the dragon had something in common.

  She shook her head. The dragon needed a name, not an insult. What was something else that liked shiny things?

  “Magpie. Well, dragons are supposed to like shiny things, aren’t they? And it’s better than nothing.”

  She reached into her pocket and scratched the baby dragon on the top of its head. “Hello, Magpie. Maggie.”

  “Prr-eep!”

  Keeley giggled as the baby dragon nibbled the tip of her finger. After Maggie had thoroughly taste-tested Keeley’s finger, she dove back into the depths of her pocket, hugging the thin gold chain as though it was a beloved teddy bear.

  “Okay, Maggie. I think I’m ready now. Step three of the plan…” She took a deep breath to steady herself, and stood up. “Step three. We go to the bus station, pick a destination at random, and get the hell out of Dodge before Sean finds out what’s happened here tonight.”

  Air moved against her face. Keeley didn’t even have time to think, That’s odd, there isn’t any wind tonight, when Maggie shrieked and dug all four claws into her stomach.

  Lance

  Lance ran around the corner. He’d followed the woman’s scent through street after street, leaving the rest of his team far behind.

  His mate had run aimlessly, as far as he could tell. As though all she wanted was to get as far from the danger as possible.

  Which meant she must be an innocent in all this.

  The thought eased something inside him. Something about the situation at the subway station still pinged him as wrong, but he put that aside for now.

  Her scent was stronger here. Lance glanced along the street, letting his human eyes shift slightly so he was seeing with his snow leopard’s more powerful senses.

  There.

  A short, stocky figure in a long coat, standing in a dark corner with her head bowed. There was exhaustion in every line of her body: the rounded shoulders, the hanging head. The shock of adrenaline from the explosion would be wearing off now, leaving her trembling and bone-weary.

  She still had her hands wrapped around her front. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he saw the slight bulge under her coat.

  Hope flared inside him. His hunch had been right. The hatchling had escaped—thanks to this stranger.

  He could have laughed. How had he missed it earlier? The woman—his mate, God, this woman was his mate—had kept her hands in front of her stomach the whole time he was pulling her out of the burning station. She’d been protecting the hatchling under her jacket.

  Lance lifted one hand to his shield. He’d kept it activated while he tracked her, but if she had the hatchling with her, a dragon hatchling, then she’d already seen enough weird shit for one day. A strange man appearing out of thin air right in front of her might just tip her over the edge.

  His comm crackled.

  “Briers here. I’m having trouble tracking the target, sir. And you, with the shield on. Can you let me know your location—”

  Lance sighed. “I’ve got the target, Briers. Focus on tracking the shifter mercs from the station.”

  “You’ve found her? But—”

  Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Lance muted his comm. Briers was good at what he did—but he got in a hell of a mood when his cameras and computers let him down. Well, let him stew. Lance had work to do. He tapped his shield off.

  As Lance strode purposefully down the street, his snow leopard raised its head. Lance’s senses exploded as his animal tried to take in too much detail at once: the gas-dirt smell of the air, the million stale scents trodden into the sidewalk by passersby, the cold bite of the night air and the moving shadows on the street-front windows as cars passed by.

  A million points of data, and not one of them explained his snow leopard’s sudden sense of wrongness. Frowning, Lance tapped his shield again.

  He saw the attacker a split second later. A split second too late.

  A black-clad man loomed above Lance’s mate, flicking an extendable baton. Lance broke into a run as he raised the weapon, aiming for the woman’s head.

  “Look out!”

  Shit. He hadn’t unshielded again. She wouldn’t even hear him.

  He sprinted. He was only twenty or thirty feet from the woman and her attacker, but it was like he wasn’t moving at all. Time stretched out. The baton whistled towards the woman’s head in slow motion, and he was still too far away.

  At the last moment, she cried out, and ducked.

  Lance didn’t have time to stop or unshield, or thank his lucky stars that she’d moved in time. He barreled into the attacker, slamming him into the wall.

  The man roared, dropping the baton and reaching for a gun. Lance grabbed his wrist and twisted, and the gun clattered to the ground.

  Who are these people? he wondered as the man gave up on the idea of weapons altogether and tried to headbutt him. Lance stepped aside neatly and laid him out with one blow.

  Lance knelt to make sure the attacker was out cold, and then looked up to see the barrel of a gun pointed directly at his face.

  The woman had picked up the man’s gun and was aiming it straight at him. Her grip was shaky, the barrel waving back and forth—but that wasn’t exactly a good thing. Scared people did things they didn’t mean to.

  Always assuming she didn’t actually mean to shoot him.

  Lance considered his options. If he still had Briers on comms, he could have asked him to look up the woman’s name, and any information he could use to get her on his side. But he’d muted him, and that would take time, anyway.

  Time to do this the old-fashioned way.

  Lance strai
ghtened up slowly, holding his hands palms-out at his sides. Look, I’m unarmed, his stance said.

  “Hey,” he said, keeping his voice low and even. “I hope you can hear me alright now, not like back at the station. My name’s Lance MacInnis. I’m—”

  And then he made the biggest mistake of the night so far. He looked into her eyes.

  “I…” he tried again, but his throat was suddenly dry.

  He’d heard of this happening. When shifters met their mates for the first time, the mate bond formed. It would remain weak until the shifter claimed their mate and the mate accepted them, but the creation of the bond was still—and Lance was quoting his friend Grant here—”like having a fucking house fall on your head, and then explode”.

  Lance thought the rush of adrenaline as he rescued her from the station had been his equivalent of that.

  Oh, how wrong he’d been.

  I tried to tell you, his snow leopard purred. I knew we should have followed her from the start!

  He shushed it absently. The woman’s scent danced on his palate, like sweetness and salt and the crackle of sun on a hot pavement. Like a day at the beach, and finally jumping into the surf. Like endless summer, and the burst of a cool drink against your lips.

  She was… Lance couldn’t put words to it. Beautiful wasn’t enough. Gorgeous wasn’t enough, even though she was. Her hair was pulled back severely, and she was pale with shock, but none of that stopped her beauty from shining through.

  Lance’s eyes lingered on her soft-looking skin and a body that promised soft curves under her enveloping coat. One loose curl of dirty-blonde hair hung across her forehead. Lance felt the seconds ticking by, knew he should say something, but he was trapped, helplessly soaking up every detail of her he could see.

  The curve of her ears, each with two small gold studs. The tension in her neck and shoulders as she held the gun on him.

  Oh, that’s right, a voice said inside Lance, very far away. The gun. For some reason, that didn’t seem important. Not when he could look at her lips, instead. At her rounded cheeks.