He knew they were exposed. He knew they were hunted. And yet, even with that knowledge, he also knew he had no hope of releasing her. Not when she was responding to him with such fierce desire. Not when she felt so perfect against him.
Squeezing her arse cheeks harder, he tore his lips from hers and rained a slew of greedy nips over her throat.
She moaned, rolling her head as she ground the curve of her sex to his engorged dick. “I…I…this…can’t fight…so good…”
Her panted words caressed him, feeding the fire building inside him.
A prickling rush of concentrated pleasure swept over him. He dragged his lips up to her ear, nipping her earlobe with gentle pressure before capturing the side of her throat and branding her with suction.
She cried out, arching into him, her nails scoring lines over his shoulder. “Oh God. Oh God, Ryan…I need…I need you…inside—”
“Hey?” a shout—full of shocked disbelief—shattered the silence around them. “What the hell are you two doing?”
With a gasp, Deanne jerked away him.
For a terrifying moment, the dragon Ryan was deafened him, fighting for release, furious at the interruption, hell-bent on destroying it.
He staggered under the force of its power, struggling to contain the shift before it could begin. Stumbled sideways, eyes squeezed shut, hands clawing at his head.
Shit. Shit.
“Deanne,” he rasped, her frantic confusion and panic lashing at him in wild waves. “Deanne, you need…you need to—”
Something hard smashed up into his jaw. Something beyond human in its strength. Something that detonated pain in his head unlike any other he’d experienced and lifted him off his feet, sending him arcing through the air.
“I’m not a fucking dragon,” he heard Deanne growl, a heartbeat before an invisible wall of incinerating heat propelled him faster through emptiness and he crashed into the hard, cold ground.
Excruciating agony blasted through him as the bones in his shoulder snapped. The world turned to red pain, to icy agony.
Oh God, Deanne’s thoughts whirled through his head. I can’t be a dragon. It’s not possible. It’s not…
And then there was nothing.
Chapter 4
She ran. Faster than she’d ever run before. Naked but far from cold, she ran from the park, from the shouting man who’d interrupted them, from Ryan.
Ryan, whom she’d somehow driven upward and backward with a single punch. Ryan, whom she’d somehow propelled through the air with nothing but…but…
But what?
She didn’t know. All she knew was she’d never been more uncertain about anything in her life.
Something had surged from her as Ryan rose through the air, an invisible ball of heat fed by her confusion and fear and rage.
Whatever that something had been, it had struck him and impelled him away from her as if he were nothing more than a plastic bag.
How had she done that? She’d never been able to do anything like that before. Sure, she was stronger than she looked, but that…
Increasing her speed, not wanting to acknowledge what her brain was telling her—that she was running faster than humanly possible—she weaved her way through the dense grove of trees on the far side of the clearing.
Would the man who’d shouted at them chase after her? Would he go to Ryan? Or would he run away as well?
Ryan. You need to go back to Ryan. You need to—
She killed the feverish thought.
Any thought of the Australian was off-limits. Not until she located Julian. She needed answers, and there were none to be found when she was near Ryan.
All there was when she was near Ryan was an intoxicating need to hold him, touch him, kiss him…exist with him…
Fly with him…
Deanne stumbled, a choked sob bursting from her. She stopped, resting her palms on her knees as she sucked in breath after deep breath.
Fly with him? What the hell was wrong with her?
The invisible tug on her belly, her soul, told her exactly what was wrong with her. Whatever the Australian had done to her, she was going to stop it. Her father would know what was going on. Julian was somewhere in Chicago, tracking a target he’d yet to share with Deanne.
She’d find him, tell him what was going on, tell him that the Australian dragon had somehow drugged her or entranced her and then they would hunt Ryan down and kill him together.
Just like her father had wanted to do when they’d first heard an Australian dragon shifter was in the U.S.
The first thing she had to do, however, was find some clothes.
Another reason to kill the dragon. If it weren’t for Ryan and his…his magical seduction, she wouldn’t be naked in Marquette Park in the wee hours of the morning.
Clothes.
How the hell did she go about getting clothes?
Straightening once again, she scanned the shadows around her. What she needed was a couple of teenagers making out on a park bench, or even some dubious individual intent on attacking anyone foolish enough to be in the park at this time of night. Not that she intended on hurting anyone, but when the need arose, she could be very intimidating.
Intimidating enough to get herself something to wear.
Closing her eyes, she stood motionless and drew a slow breath, tasting the air.
It was a knack she’d had since she was a little girl, one her father had utilized often in the hunt. It was like she could taste the individual scents of those nearby. People smelled one way, dragons another. She could track a dragon by its scent on the air alone even if said dragon was miles and miles away. She’d asked her father how it was possible when she was young, and Julian had replied with the word “prodigy”. She never questioned it after that, just used it to hunt. It was how she’d tracked Ryan to the bar, although she’d never experienced such a potent tug on her senses as she had when she’d first detected him.
She should have known then there was something—
Cheap body spray. Sweat. Dirty clothes.
The scents tangled through her breath like a thick rope, killing her irritation at the Australian.
Opening her eyes, she stared hard at the copse of birch trees to her left. There were two people there. One older, one young.
Bursting into a sprint, she ran for the trees.
The farther she headed away from where she’d left Ryan, the more the invisible grip on her chest and stomach clenched. The need to turn around and go back to him burned through her, almost impossible to deny.
She fixed her focus on the duel scents ahead of her, rage warring with fear. She didn’t like any of this.
Barely a few seconds later, she found her target.
And stumbled to a halt, her heart crazy, her throat thick.
A woman hugged a small child to her chest as they both slept on a tattered cardboard sheet under the lowest branches of a tree. Both shivered in their sleep. Both were clearly homeless. The child—who looked like a boy but smelled like a little girl—was gripping her mother with frighteningly thin arms. The woman loosely held a thick stick in her hand.
Deanne studied them, a heavy weight pressing on her heart.
Oh God, what must have happened in their lives for them to be here?
You can’t take anything from them, Roe. It would be cruel.
Deanne pulled a slow breath. It would also be cruel to leave them here in the freezing night.
She wasn’t cruel.
Closing the distance between them on silent feet, she lowered herself to a crouch and gently touched the woman’s shoulder.
The woman came awake with a jerk and a shout. The little girl snugged firmly to her body did the same.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Deanne soothed, holding out her hands to show they were empty. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The woman hugged the child—her daughter? This close, their scents shared similar characteristics—closer to her, shielding her from Deanne as much a
s her thin arms would allow. “Leave us alone, please,” she beseeched, plaintive terror in her eyes.
And then realization dawned on her face and she frowned. “You’re naked? Oh my God, aren’t you cold? Are you okay?”
Deanne’s heart clenched some more. A life spent living like no normal person had meant a life detached from normal people. She hunted dragons with Julian. She interacted occasionally with other Extraho Venator. She less frequently interacted with non-hunters. Hers was a solitary upbringing of learning to fight, to hunt, to lure her target, and to kill, with only her father as a companion. It had been that way for as long as she could remember.
There were no ghostly memories of her mother in her head, no wistful recollections of times spent playing with other children. And definitely no memories of Julian holding her, hugging her, the way this woman hugged the child. Nor any memories of her father being overwhelmed with concern for her.
The woman’s eyes no longer shone with fear—now she gaped at Deanne with open worry. “Do you need a blanket?”
For a moment, Deanne wanted to say she didn’t feel the cold. She never did. She was aware it was cold, but it didn’t bite her skin like it seemed to do with other people. And then she held her tongue. The poor woman was already freaked out enough.
“Thank you, but no,” Deanne said, shaking her head with a gentle smile. “But I’d like to trade my anklet for maybe a jacket?” She pointed to the gold chain linked around her right ankle, a present from her father after her first successful solo hunt and kill of a dragon.
She’d been fifteen. The dragon had been the most prized target in Germany; a five-hundred-and-twenty-two-year-old alpha male Lindworm dragon long believed impossible to hunt by the Extraho Venator.
The woman dropped her wide-eyed stare to Deanne’s ankle. So did the little girl.
Deanne couldn’t help but notice the child’s eyes seemed too big for her face. Nor did she miss the sound of her little tummy grumbling.
Hungry. The child was hungry.
And cold.
“It’s pretty,” the child said, twisting in the woman’s arms to look up at her.
“Shhh,” the woman hushed, panic flaring in her eyes. “What have I told you about speaking, Tony?”
Deanne frowned, studying the little girl some more. Dressed like a boy. Hair cut like a boy. Named like a boy.
Protecting her. The woman was protecting her. Making her less of a target…
A hot lump filled Deanne’s throat. Her stomach roiled.
She returned her focus to the woman. “I promise I won’t hurt her. Or you. If you will let me borrow your jacket for a while, I’d like to help you.”
Confused suspicion flashed over the woman’s face. She narrowed her eyes, shifting her body until she was all but between Deanne and her daughter. “Please, just leave us alone.”
A cold thought swept through Deanne, an image of what the woman feared Deanne wanted.
Drawing another breath, the image sickening her and making her angry at how fucked up the world was, she reached down and unclipped the anklet. The fact it had survived the blue fuck flames didn’t surprise her. Nothing was making any sense at the moment. “I don’t want anything from you other than something to cover my nudity,” she said, keeping her voice gentle. “But if you’ll allow me, I can give you back so much more. For you both.”
The woman frowned at the anklet. The little girl tried to see it over her mother’s shoulder.
“What do you mean?” the woman asked, meeting Deanne’s gaze again.
“Come with me to the nearest shelter. I’ll call my father. He can bring me some clothes, and some for you as well.”
The woman studied her. “Shelter? A homeless one?”
Deanne nodded. “Somewhere safe for you. Where you’ll know I can’t hurt you or take your daughter. Somewhere you can be warm while I call my father.”
“I have a cell phone. You can call him on that. And we can meet him at the police station near the park’s main entry.”
Police station.
Deanne chewed her bottom lip. Julian had raised her to steer clear of the authorities. But she couldn’t turn her back on the woman and her child. She couldn’t. She needed to help them. She wanted to help them.
Because it was the right and decent thing to do.
Ryan’s earlier statement, delivered straight into her mind when he was a dragon and she was gripped in his clawed foot, came back to her.
Her heart thumped harder and faster into her throat.
Damn him, why did she have to think about him now?
“Here.”
The word jerked her back from the unsettling thought. She blinked, focusing on the woman before her.
She was holding out an old cell phone, its illuminated small screen telling Deanne it was functional.
“Call your dad,” the woman said. “We will wait for you at the police station.”
Deanne swallowed.
The woman smiled, the expression soft and wry. “No, I don’t know why I’m trusting you either. There’s just something…”
“She’s like a warm angel, mommy,” the little girl offered, her whisper loud enough for Deanne to hear. “I bet she can fly.”
Warm. Fly. The words messed with Deanne’s sanity. As did the woman’s unexpected kindness.
Taking the phone, she placed her anklet in the woman’s palm, and then straightened to her feet and walked a few yards away.
The woman watched her, eyes contemplative, before standing and shedding her top jacket.
Beneath it was another jacket, this one far more threadbare and tatty.
“I’ll leave this here,” she said, placing it neatly on the cardboard bed.
Her little girl scrambled to her feet and held up her arms to her mother with implicit trust.
The woman scooped her up and hugged her close to her side as the child wrapped thin arms and legs around her hips.
Deanne’s throat grew thicker still. It was hard to swallow.
The sight was tearing her apart.
“The police station,” the woman said to Deanne as her child tucked her head beneath her chin and locked her ankles around her waist. “Hold on, baby,” she whispered against the little girl’s head.
They hurried away, the woman’s strides quick and long. She glanced back often at Deanne, as if expecting to see her coming after them.
Deanne stayed motionless. She didn’t even move toward the jacket waiting for her on the cardboard.
She wouldn’t move until the woman could feel better about how much distance was between them.
Finally, as the darkness of the night folded around them, concealing them from Deanne’s sight, Deanne dialed Julian’s cell.
The call connected after the third ring. “Yes?”
“It’s me,” she said.
Her father’s deep voice filled her ear. “Did you kill the Australian dragon?”
Deanne’s heart quickened. Her mouth grew dry. No, she hadn’t. But she had done something to him. Something she shouldn’t be capable of doing. No human that she knew of, not even the strongest or most experienced of Extraho Venator had ever disabled a dragon in human form with a single punch, let alone send one flying through the air with…with…
Damn it, she still had no explanation for how she’d done what she’d done.
“Hello, Julian,” she said instead of answering. “Glad to know you’ve been worried about me.”
Her father grunted. “I have no fear for you when you are facing a dragon, Deanne.” His thick Russian accent turned the declaration into a rough dance of sounds. “Do you know its classification yet?”
“Y Ddraig Goch,” she answered, picturing Ryan’s shimmering blood-red scales, his four legs, his serpentine neck and massive, broad wings. “But he is very Australia when human. No hint of his Welsh line at all.”
Julian grunted again. “Y Ddraig Goch? Very ancient species. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an Y Ddraig Goch. Are
you sure?”
Deanne closed her eyes, unable to kill the memory of being held by Ryan in his foot as they flew above Chicago. “Very. I witnessed him shift from human to dragon to human again.”
“And you did not kill it?” His contempt and disappointment leached through his voice. “Why not? The word is it’s only young. Kestar has it at less than two hundred years.”
“Kestar?” Deanne scowled. “So that’s who was in the alley? Kestar is a moron who fucked up my kill.”
“Language, Deanne,” her father scolded.
Deanne ground her teeth. “I’m sorry, Julian.”
“When are you going to finish the kill?”
Letting out a sigh, she searched the darkness before her where the homeless woman and her daughter had disappeared. “Soon,” she said, turning toward where she’d left Ryan on the ground.
He wasn’t still there. She knew that. She didn’t know why, but she could feel he was gone.
Something deep in her existence cried out for him. Something she didn’t want to acknowledge; a craving. Not just a sexual one, but something far more profound…
“I can find him again without any problem,” she said.
“Why are you calling me then?” her father demanded, clearly impatient with their interaction. He had little time for failure. She had failed tonight. Big time.
Balling her fist, she returned her attention to the direction the mother and child had headed. “I need you to bring me some clothes, two of my warmest jackets, two blankets and some food—a box of granola bars, if nothing else—to the police station near the main entry of Marquette Park.”
Silence greeted her statement. Followed by, “Clothes?”
“Yes, Father,” she said, pulse wild. “I’m currently naked and in need of your assistance. Please hurry. I have questions I cannot answer—and I hope you can.”
He answered with a dry bark of a laugh. Deanne couldn’t miss the contempt in the humorless sound. “I have questions you better be able to answer, Deanne.”
Deanne swallowed at the disapproval in his voice. “Then it’s going to be an interesting conversation. Please hurry.”
She pictured the woman whose phone she now spoke into. Pictured her child. Looked at the jacket on the cardboard, given without argument. Remembered the way the woman protected her daughter. Felt their love for each other in the face of such a harsh life. She heard the child’s hungry tummy rumble. Saw her shiver in her mother’s arms.
Crouching Tigress Horny Dragon (Fire Mates #3) Page 5
