Dragon Chases (Dragon Breeze Book 2)

by Rinelle Grey

  Lyrian hesitated.

  “If your brother is here, we can get her out then,” Brad pointed out.

  He’d feel safer then. Not like he needed to be ready to run at a moment’s notice.

  Lyrian heaved a sigh. “All right,” she agreed reluctantly.

  Brad headed up the path towards the door, knocked on it, then waited.

  He heard footsteps in the house, and took a deep breath. He had a speech all prepared.

  All of that vanished when the door opened.

  The man standing there was familiar. Brad had seen him when he’d first arrived. The man with the police.

  Of course he was here. He was Lisa’s brother.

  The man hadn’t known where Lisa was at the time. What were the chances he did now?

  He recognised Brad too. His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. He glanced past Brad, towards his car, towards Lyrian, and his eyes widened. “You do know something, don’t you? It wasn’t just coincidence that the phone was in your car. Are you working with Lisa?”

  The man’s thin, sallow face twisted in a half sneer, and the derisive look he gave Brad made him want to punch him. Not a feeling Brad was used to. He always maintained calm, no matter how abusive a patient was getting.

  This was different though. This was personal.

  Lisa’s brother stared at Lyrian again, and Brad could almost hear the neurons firing in his brain. “Is she a dragon? And who fried your car?”

  Brad’s heartrate sped up. He didn’t like this man. Not at all.

  It had been a mistake coming here.

  But they had no other leads at all. So he swallowed down his urge to rearrange the man’s face, and asked instead, “Did you find your sister?”

  The man frowned. “Why do you care? I thought you’d know where she was.”

  Brad was beginning to doubt the likelihood of his sister actually helping Lyrian’s brother. If she was anything like her brother, she probably had an ulterior motive. They needed to find Verrian fast. He could need more help than Brad had thought.

  “I’ve never met your sister in my life,” Brad said flatly. “But I’m fascinated by this dragon. Him I’d like to meet.”

  “Sure, sure,” the man said sarcastically. “And you don’t mean me any harm at all. You have no plans to have your dragon attack me if I don’t cooperate. Well I’m not falling for that. I’m calling the police.”

  Brad’s heartrate sped up immediately. This was just going from bad to worse.

  “No need for that,” he said quickly. “If you can’t help us, I’ll get out of your way.”

  The man didn’t reply. Instead he pulled out his phone.

  Brad glanced back at the car. At Lyrian and his daughter who he was supposed to be protecting.

  He might not be able to deal with an enemy dragon, but he could deal with this paltry human.

  And he reached out and grabbed the man’s arm. “Don’t do that,” he said firmly.

  “Or what?” the man said, his voice challenging.

  But Brad could see the fear in the eyes that wouldn’t quite meet his, that kept shifting away whenever he tried to meet them. Maybe this man could be coerced into giving up some information.

  If he even knew anything useful.

  His hand tightened on the man’s wrist. “What’s your name?” he asked, his voice conversational.

  The man wasn’t intimidated. Not enough to cooperate anyway. “What’s yours?”

  That, Brad certainly wasn’t going to give. Not that the police didn’t already have all his details.

  An idea came to him. Risky and daring. Only a small chance of success, a bigger chance of failure. If it failed, it could fail catastrophically.

  The sort of decision he wouldn’t risk on the operating table.

  The sort of decision Lyrian would take in a heartbeat.

  Adrenaline flooded through Brad’s body, and the feeling was almost exhilarating.

  “It sounds like you’ve met a dragon before,” he said, his voice conversational. “Up close and personal. Maybe even an angry one.”

  He could see the nervous look in the man’s eyes. His eyes shifted away from Brad, as though he didn’t want them to admit the truth.

  A truth Brad was already pretty sure of.

  “See that woman out there by the car?” Brad said, his voice purring. “Well, what you don’t know is that she has a baby. And no matter how many dragon’s you’ve come up against, none of them are going to be as angry as a momma dragon protecting her baby.”

  Lyrian chose that moment to call out, “Do you want me to come up there, Brad?”

  It couldn’t have been more perfect if he’d planned it.

  The man was staring at him now, not even attempting to hide his wide eyed fear. “What are you saying?”

  Brad hesitated, but it seemed there was no reason to spell out his threat. Instead he moved to what he wanted to know. “What happened with your sister and the dragon?”

  For a few moments, Brad wondered if he’d made a mistake. The man’s expression was belligerent and stubborn.

  Then he sighed. “Look, I really don’t know anything. She turned up with this guy. At first we all thought he was just some random guy she’d picked up. Lisa does that all the time, right?” He looked up to Brad, as though he expected support. Maybe even a laugh at his sister.

  Brad stared back at him dispassionately. He’d never found it amusing to laugh at anyone else’s sexual choices.

  The man shrugged. “Well, then when we saw the article in the paper, we realised he wasn’t an ordinary guy. We had people showing up at the door in droves, wanting to see the dragon. Lisa slipped out in the middle of the night.”

  This time, his shrug was uncomfortable. “I followed her. Biggest mistake of my life. Another dragon was hunting them down, and they had a huge fight out near the old ruined house on Peterson Road.” He gave a shudder.

  This time, unwillingly, Brad felt a tiny bit sorry for him. He’d had one of those dragons flying straight at him, and he hadn’t acquitted himself well. Watching two fight would be, quite frankly, terrifying. “What did you do?” he asked.

  “When they landed on the bonnet of the car, right in front of me, I got out of there,” the man admitted. “I’m not stupid. By the time I got back with the police, they were both gone. We managed to chase Lisa for a while, but… well, you know how that ended.”

  The incident when he’d first arrived. Brad frowned in confusion for a moment, trying to figure out how the phone in his car had anything to do with this story. Then it hit him. “You were using that phone to follow her, weren’t you?”

  The man grinned. “Pretty clever huh?”

  Brad could think of a lot of other words he’d use to describe it, but he couldn’t be bothered. He was too busy being upset that this was a dead end. Lisa’s brother had no idea where she’d gone. He was no help at all.

  “Does Lisa know anyone else in town? Is there anyone she might go to for help?” he asked.

  The man shrugged. “I dunno. She hasn’t lived her for ages. She moved to the big city a few years back, and now she’s too big to talk to us…”

  He kept talking, ranting about his sister, but Brad wasn’t listening anymore.

  He could hear something in the distance. A sound that made his blood run cold.

  A police siren.

  He stared at the man in disbelief. How had he done it? Brad had been here the whole time, and he hadn’t called the police.

  The man’s voice trailed off as he, too, heard the sirens. He gave Brad a sly grin. “You don’t think I’m the only one in the house, do you?”

  A woman stepped out then, behind the man, her smile as sly as his. “You think you can just threaten anyone you like and not pay the consequences, do you? Well, the police will have something to say about that.” She glanced towards the car. Towards Lyrian. “And I bet they’ll be very interested in your girlfriend there.”

  Brad’s hea
rt pounded. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of. Exactly why he shouldn’t have threatened the man. If he hadn’t thought he’d be clever, they would have been long gone.

  No time for regrets, he needed to get Lyrian out of here. Now.

  He ignored the betraying couple, and turned back to the car.

  But the man grabbed his arm. “Oh no, buddy, you’re not going anywhere.”

  Brad tried to shake him off, but his grip was surprisingly strong. He glanced towards Lyrian.

  “There’s not going to be time for her to save you,” the man said triumphantly. “I know dragons are tough, but I’m sure a bullet can kill them, just like any other animal. If she attacks the police, do you think they’re going to hesitate.”

  Adrenaline flooded through Brad, painfully this time, his words sending a chill down his spine. He couldn’t bear it if anything happened to Lyrian or Anarian.

  And if it did, it would be all his fault.

  He turned to the man, and snarled, “You’re a coward.” Then he punched him in the face.

  The man was so startled, he dropped his hold on Brad’s arm, flying up to cradle his face. “Ow. My nose.” His hands came away bloodied. He stared at Brad in disbelief.

  Brad tried to ignore the intense feeling of satisfaction. He didn’t have time to gloat.

  He headed back to the car, ignoring the woman’s threats.

  By this time, Lyrian had worked out that something was wrong. She stared at Brad, as he broke into a run. “Get in the car,” he called out.

  Lyrian fumbled at the door as Brad yanked his open and jumped into the front seat, his mind frantically trying to figure out where he was going to go.

  This was a small town, there were only so many places to hide. And somewhere in it was that dragon too. He needed to get back to the cave. They’d be safe there. No one would find them.

  But first he had to lose the police.

  The siren was closer now, the sound echoing through Brad’s head like a wail. He turned the car on as Lyrian fumbled with her seatbelt. “What happened?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  “Bastard called the cops,” Brad snarled. “Or rather, his girlfriend did, while he argued with me.” He spun the car around and floored it, hoping against hope that he was going away from the siren. It was so hard to tell, the sound seemed to be coming from every direction.

  “He didn’t even know anything, so this whole thing was a waste of time.”

  Lyrian was silent, and Brad slammed his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.

  He’d failed her. That had to be what she was thinking. He’d found a clue where her brother had gone, but it had been a dead end. He’d gotten her hopes up for nothing.

  Lyrian put a hand over his. “That’s not your fault.”

  Brad’s guilt argued with him, but she had a point. He heaved a sigh. “No, but it doesn’t get us anywhere, and now the police are after us.”

  That made Lyrian’s face pale. “What are we going to do?”

  Brad shook his head. “I have no idea. If we can lose them, we can go back to the cave. But doing that in a small town like this isn’t going to be easy.”

  He should have a strategy, a plan for how he was going to lose them. But his mind was blank.

  It wasn’t like he’d ever had to figure out how to lose the police before.

  But one thing was certain, right now, they needed to keep moving.

  Brad blindly picked a road and drove as fast as he could.

  Chapter 7

  Lyrian’s heart pounded as she tried to glance back over the back of her seat at Anarian, but the carseat faced backwards, and she couldn’t see the baby. She wasn’t crying, so she was probably still asleep.

  She wasn’t sure how, the car careened all over the place as Brad swung around corners.

  The siren was loud in her ears, and the red and blue flashing lights were right over her shoulder, illuminating the back seat with their colour. It hadn’t taken the police long to find them, and they certainly didn’t seem to be slowing down.

  Lyrian’s heart hammered in her chest. How were they going to get away?

  Brad was swearing, and it was clear he had no idea. “I shouldn’t have run. Maybe we could have talked to them…” His voice trailed off, and he glanced over at Lyrian.

  She knew what he was thinking. “It wasn’t worth the risk,” she told him. “If they figured out I’m not human…” She gave a shudder, not even wanting to think about that.

  She had no idea what would happen if the humans did figure it out, but since Rian clan had fled England to escape the humans there, she didn’t imagine it would be any better with these humans.

  Brad’s frown tightened, and he swung around yet another corner.

  The police car followed without pause.

  There was no way they were going to be able to get away from the other car. It was faster than they were. And knew the area better.

  They needed to do something else.

  Lyrian knew what she had to do, but still she hesitated.

  It had been different when she’d been trying to stop the Trima dragon. She hadn’t been giving away anything the other dragon didn’t know. But once she threw magic at a human, well, it would be hard to turn back.

  But it would be even harder to turn back if the police pulled them over. Then she would need to use far more obvious magic.

  She needed to do it now. Before they were caught. While there was still time.

  She twisted around in her seat, but she couldn’t turn far enough because of the human seatbelt, so she reached down and undid it.

  “What are you doing? You need to leave that on.” Brad’s voice held a note of panic.

  Lyrian ignored him. Now she could see the police car clearly.

  It was close. Too close.

  She took a deep breath, and summoned up the wind, directing it closely, buffeting the police car.

  They were close enough that she could see the expression of panic on the faces of the two occupants of the car.

  The man driving looked wild, his eyes wide and he weaved across the road.

  The woman next to him worried Lyrian more. She didn’t look surprised. Her eyes were narrow, and her face suspicious.

  Lyrian hit them with another gust, stronger this time. Her experience with the Trima dragon following them at least meant she had an idea of the amount of force needed.

  The car swerved wildly, into the other lane.

  Brad had stopped objecting now. He was glancing in the rear view mirror. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if they realise you’re a dragon?”

  “We don’t have much choice. If they catch us, that’s going to be the least of our problems,” Lyrian said, her voice tight.

  This time she focused her wind even more, just pushing the front of the car.

  It swerved, rolling into a ditch on the side of the road and stopping, its blue and red lights still flashing, their colour a little forlorn now.

  Brad didn’t pause. He swung around a corner ahead of them and the police car disappeared out of sight.

  Only then did Lyrian sink back into her seat, her arms and legs trembling.

  “Put your seatbelt back on,” Brad said, glancing over.

  Lyrian didn’t argue. She did up the seatbelt again, then slumped into her seat. Hopefully Brad could take care of it now, because that was the limit of her magic.

  Brad kept glancing in his rear view mirror, then over at her, then back at the road. He swung around another corner, and Lyrian wasn’t even sure which direction they were heading anymore.

  Hopefully Brad knew.

  He didn’t look over, just focused on the road. He seemed to know where he was going.

  Lyrian was just relieved that the siren was fading into the distance. Or someone had turned it off. Either way, it was a relief.

  She sank down into the seat, and tried not to freak out about how close a call it had been.

  And it had all been for no
thing too. They hadn’t found Verrian, or any clues as to where he’d gone.

  She didn’t know what to do next, or where to go.

  Verrian was out there, but if she couldn’t find him, then he might as well not be.

  The thought of not being able to find Verrian, or any of the rest of her clan, brought some of the panicked feeling back.

  She couldn’t do this alone.

  But she wasn’t alone. As Brad had said earlier, he was here.

  That thought comforted her more than it should have. She should be focused on finding Verrian, or figuring out how to wake Calrian. Whatever it took to put her clan back together.

  Not wondering if she could hide in a corner with Brad until someone found her.

  Maybe she could excuse it, if she were an ordinary dragon. But it wasn’t acceptable for a princess at all.

  She should be ashamed of herself.

  “Are you okay?” Brad glanced over at her for a second as he drove, his expression concerned.

  How was she supposed to answer that?

  “I’m fine,” she managed. “At least we’ve escaped from the police.”

  Brad glanced over again, his expression still worried. “We’ll find your brother.”

  “How?”

  Lyrian didn’t mean her voice to sound hopeless. But she couldn’t help it.

  Brad was silent. He didn’t know either.

  That didn’t make Lyrian feel any better.

  Brad drove them back out to the cave. Lyrian manged to summon up some energy to hide their tracks again, as they crossed the dry, baked dirt.

  She found the motivation to feed Anarian, and even to play with her, though it was a rather lacking effort. Anarian didn’t mind though. That was one good thing about babies, they didn’t require imaginative entertainment.

  When the baby was finally asleep again though, the last of her energy seeped away. She sat down on a rock and stared off into space, not even able to try to figure out what they could do next.

  “Look, it’s not as bad as it seems,” Brad said encouragingly. “We might not have found Verrian, but we do know that he was there. That means some of your clan are still around.”