“W-why?” She backed away a step, her stare growing wider. “Why did you just hit an old—”
He closed the distance she’d made between them in a blink. “Sera, get dressed or I’m dragging you out of here in that towel. Or buck naked.” His dick twitched at the word “naked” and he bit back a growl. Fuck, the mating fire was almost beyond his control. He was running out of time. They were running out of time. “Do it now or it gets dangerous for all of us.”
She didn’t move or say a word for a split second that felt like a lifetime. He didn’t want to force her, didn’t want to throw her over his shoulder and carry her away. Hell, he didn’t want to subdue her when she put up the inevitable fight, but he would. It wasn’t the best way to start a lifetime together, but if he had to do it, he would. Fast.
She turned on her heel and ran for her room.
He followed. As much as he wanted to believe she was doing as told, he couldn’t risk her trying to climb out a window in an attempt to get away. She was his Fire Mate, after all—she was bound to be feisty.
His heart, still thumping much harder than it should, skipped a beat when he found her beside her bed, yanking on a pair of snug black jeans. His gaze slipped to her naked butt just as she covered it with denim, and fresh fire prickled over his flesh. His balls grew heavy, his cock stiffer. He barely contained a moan, turning away from the sight of his mate dressing.
Slipping. He was slipping. This wasn’t good. He was on the verge of shifting into dragon form and then he’d be stuck in this apartment and the world would discover dragons truly existed. But worse, Sera would suffer the hideous, horrific consequences of a brutish, primitive need he wouldn’t be able to resist.
If he didn’t do something soon, it was all over.
Do what? You can’t fuck her now. Not with a—
“Ready.”
At the sound of her voice, he jerked back around and noticed she’d covered the top half of her body with a blood-red shirt. Emblazoned on the front was a cartoon image of a Komodo dragon wearing an Australian-flag hat, the lizard sitting above gold, glittery letters that read Go on, Puff. There was significance to the shirt, Tyson was sure, but at the moment he could only focus on one thing—getting her out of here.
“Now,” she snarled, “tell me what’s going on before I—”
He grabbed her upper arm and almost ran from the room.
The old duck—ha! Right. How had he been fooled?—was still crumpled on the floor. As they approached her, Sera’s booted feet stomping and stumbling like hiccupping thunder, the woman groaned, shifting slightly.
Tyson sank a swift kick into her side. The muffled “oof” from the floor was far from strong and very satisfying.
Sera let out another scream, this one less terrified and a tad more horrified. “What the hell are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled her down the hallway and through the apartment’s open door, turning back to slam it shut behind him. He shot her a quick look. “Can you lock it?”
She stared at him like he’d grown an extra head. “Gee, I dunno. Do we have the time?”
He growled, a low gnarr deep in his chest, and she started, staggering back a step. “T-the key’s inside.”
He bit back another growl, closed his fingers around the doorknob and snapped it off.
“Holy shit!” Sera’s face leeched of color. “How did you do—”
He didn’t let her finish. His heart pounded, his pulse did the same. Skin tingling with a million pinpricks of excruciating fire, he hurried down the building’s three flights of stairs to the street, dragging Sera along.
The summer night air wrapped around him in greedy haste the second he pushed open the foyer doors and ran outside. Given the inferno claiming his body, the humid air felt like a chilly gust of wind. He turned to his right, half expecting his bike to no longer be parked down the street.
If the Extraho Venator had discovered who he was, they likely would have trashed his bike. Force him to run, fight or shift, and shifting was exactly what the hunters wanted.
Per the Extraho Venator’s own rules, a kill only counted when the shifter was in dragon form.
Fuckers.
His stare fell on something black and shiny sitting in the shadows away from the streetlight, however, and he let out a sharp breath. Thank God. The old duck, whoever she was, may have tracked Sera to her apartment but she obviously didn’t know much about Tyson. Yet.
He ran toward his bike, still hauling Sera with him. Coming to a halt on the footpath, he unhooked the spare helmet his gut had told him to bring and turned to his mate.
She cocked an eyebrow at him, rubbing her upper arm. “Nice bike. A Honda Fireblade. Exactly what I imagined most psychotic dragons would ride.”
He grinned, the steely sarcasm in her comment making him feel happy, of all things. “You don’t think I should be driving an imported Chrysler Crossfire? Or a Pontiac Firebird? Or a—”
“Yeah yeah, funny bastard.” She snatched the spare helmet, rammed it onto her head and flipped open the visor. “Now shut up and take me wherever the hell you think I need to go.”
With a laugh—a wholly surprising sound, considering the Extraho Venator seemed to have found him—he pulled his own helmet off the handlebar, pulled it onto his head and climbed astride his bike. “Get on,” he said, knowing she could hear him through the helmets’ comm system.
She studied him through the narrow window of her open visor. “Are you going to hurt me?”
Her question, asked with such calm curiosity, came through his helmet’s small speaker. He looked at her, his chest tight.
He wanted to say no. He really did. But he couldn’t lie to her. “Not if I can help it.”
It wasn’t the answer she was expecting, he knew, but there must have been something in his voice that made her trust him. Or maybe it was the mating fire working on her in some elemental human way he couldn’t fathom. Whatever it was, she flipped her visor down and climbed onto the seat behind him.
Starting up the bike’s powerful engine, he tucked the kickstand away with his heel. “Don’t forget to hold on,” he said, a second before opening the throttle and flinging the Honda down the street.
Hold on? Holy fuck, did he say hold on? Sera locked her arms around the lunatic controlling the black rocket disguised as a Honda and squeezed her eyes shut. The G-forces pummeling her were at once absolutely petrifying and exhilarating. She pressed herself harder to Tyson’s back, tucking her helmeted head into the crook of his shoulder and gripping his hips with her thighs. Once again, she found herself in a ludicrous, surreal situation thanks to this man and, once again, all she wanted to do was go along.
But this fast?
She lifted her head a little and watched the dark Bondi streets streak by in a blur of shadows and houselights.
Seriously? This fast?
“Tell me what the hell is going on?” she shouted, giving up the attempt to track where they were going. In for a penny, in for a pound, her darling reprobate of a mother used to be fond of saying. A lot. Usually when pissed. Or stoned. Or both. “Seriously, if you really are some fucked-up cultist weirdo, thanks for the orgasm and everything, but don’t think I’m going to be letting you give me another one until I get some answers.”
“Sera.” His voice stroked her ear from somewhere in the helmet. “You don’t have to shout.”
“I can if I want,” she shouted back, wriggling closer to his body. He was warm. So very warm. And, as her cousin and her work colleagues and the few friends she’d collected and lost over the years had often pointed out, she was cold. Hugging him was like someone had switched a heater on inside her. It was nice. Of course, she wasn’t going to tell him that, regardless of the amazing orgasm. “Now answer my questions. Who was that old lady and why did you—”
“There are a few things I need to tell you about the mating fire,” he cut her off, suddenly banking so sharply to the left her belly rolled and she hugged
him tighter. “A few complications, as it were, about being a dragon shifter in heat.”
“Oh my God, really?” Sera pulled away from him a little, and then slammed hard to his back once more when he flung the bike faster down the street. She glared at the side of his neck through her smoky-black visor. “Still with the dragon thing?”
“One,” he went on, clearly ignoring her, “when a dragon shifter experiences a truly soul-shattering orgasm, they…well, they’re engulfed in fire. Only their Fire Mate can withstand such an inferno. Two—”
“Wait wait wait!” She tried to pull away from him again, and again he propelled the bike forward faster, making her grip tighter. “Engulfed? As in, spontaneously combust?”
“As in, spontaneously combust,” he answered, his voice steady and matter-of-fact in her ear. “Two, if a dragon shifter doesn’t claim his Fire Mate within hours of detecting her, he’ll begin to lose control over his ability to shift between forms. Not really ideal in today’s society, I’m sure you’ll agree.” He paused for a moment, throttled back, flung the Honda around a sharp U-bend and let it rip again, shooting them along a narrow street that felt as if it was going almost straight up. “Ultimately, if he doesn’t fuck her senseless within about twelve hours, he’ll shift into dragon form and stay in dragon form. Not so much a problem when his mate is also a dragon shifter, as is the norm—she can, after all, shift into the same form for copulation—but not good if—”
“Copulation?” Sera burst out. Her pussy throbbed at the word. The vibrations thrumming through the bike’s rear seat didn’t help any. Damn it, how could she possibly be turned-on by all this?
“Copulation,” Tyson echoed, and Sera swore she heard a grin in his voice. “Easy when it’s dragon to dragon, a might tricky when the Fire Mate is human.”
Sera stared at the back of his helmeted head. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
He didn’t answer.
“You’re not just psychotic. You’re delusional, deranged and demented.”
“Honey, it’s been eight hours since I first detected you on the Bondi Beach esplanade. It’s been seven hours and fifty-five minutes since our first kiss and close to thirty minutes since I buried my head between your legs and tasted you. If not for those blissful, stolen moments, I think I’d have very little control over the shift now. Unless I bury my dick in your sweet pussy soon, and by soon, I mean in the next few hours, you’re going to have a horny dragon on your hands.”
“This is ridiculous!”
“Sera,” his voice played with her senses, part seduction, part rumbling growl, “when I’m in dragon form, I don’t think like a human. I think like a dragon. A dragon in heat. That means I will fuck you, my mate, whether you’re human or not, and I won’t be able to stop myself.”
The blunt statement sank into Sera’s belly like a cold blade. She pulled away from Tyson as much as their dangerous speed would allow. “I want to go home. Turn around and take me home. Now.”
He shook his head, the streetlights streaking over his black helmet like lines of electricity. “I can’t do that. The Extraho Venator know where you live and they’ll use you to get to me.”
“Who the fuck are the Extraho Venawhosit? The old lady you beat the shit out of in my house?”
She felt Tyson’s muscles tense. “The old lady isn’t just an old lady, Sera. She’s a dragon hunter, an Extraho Venator. They kill our kind for sport and glory, and have done so for centuries. She may look doddering and fragile, but don’t be fooled—the old bitch could most likely beat the shit out of Chuck Norris if it meant a dragon trophy to gloat over.”
Sera’s stomach lurched. She thought of the old lady with the freaky pink running shoes and black socks. She thought of the almost feverish way she’d questioned Sera on the Bondi Beach esplanade. She thought of Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice coming out of a dragon’s mouth as Martin Freeman waved a sword at him. She thought of Tyson’s eyes shimmering with a molten desire she couldn’t help but also feel in her core.
She shook her head, pulling even farther from Tyson’s back. “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t want any of this.”
“Honey,” Tyson’s voice was soft, and didn’t sound anything like Benedict Cumberbatch’s, “I don’t understand it either. There is no way a human should be a Fire Mate. It’s impossible, but you are. You can feel it, I know you can, and there’s nothing you can do to change the fact.”
Sera swallowed. He was right. She could feel it. Something unlike anything she’d felt before. A drawing to him, an attraction so powerful she couldn’t begin to fathom it. Hell, she was sitting on the back of his bike going who knows where with the man. He’d gone down on her and she knew almost bugger-all about him. If there wasn’t something supernatural about the situation, she needed to check herself into a loony bin.
She closed her eyes and let out a ragged breath. “So where are you taking me now?”
He chuckled. Or maybe he growled. She couldn’t really tell. “To the Gap. I’ve got four hours to prove to you what I am and it’s unlikely I’ll even remember I’m part-human during the last two.”
He opened the throttle again and the bike leapt forward, devouring the road with blurring greed. Sera clung to Tyson again, her mind spinning. She wanted to deny everything. Dragon shifters? Pft. As if. But she couldn’t. There was a tiny part of her brain that argued it was all true. It all had to be true. But what did she do if it was? And what did that make her?
Tapping into her mind once again—and seriously, what kind of human could do that, if not a magical, mythical one?—Tyson said, “Tell me something about yourself that you’ve always wondered about. Something you felt made you different.”
Sera pressed herself to his back and slid her arms more firmly around his waist. Once again, his heat was a baking comfort that both relaxed her and made her pussy constrict with want. It was a wonderful sensation, one she wanted to submerge herself in. And yet at the same time, it made her nervous.
Because you’ve never connected with anyone before? And now here you are, more than connected with a guy who is, essentially, still a complete stranger?
Closing her eyes, she let out a soft sigh, aware of the microphone embedded somewhere near her lips in the helmet. “I don’t mix well with people,” she murmured, and even to her own ears she sounded…sad. No, that wasn’t right. Perplexed. “It’s not that I argue or that I’m shy. I’m not. But I usually prefer my own company or the company of the animals I work with to people.”
“What do you do for a living?” Tyson asked. “Are you a vet?”
Sera felt the corners of her lips curling as she thought of her answer. How was her mysterious stranger going to react? “I work at the zoo as an animal keeper. My primary focus is Puff, the zoo’s Komodo dragon.”
Tyson did exactly what she thought he’d do. He laughed. She hugged him closer, loving the way his belly and chest shook with the uncomplicated, real sound.
“Of course you do,” he chuckled, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “Why do I find this unsurprising?”
She grinned, wriggling her thighs a little more firmly against his hips. “Because I’m wearing a Puff shirt?”
He shook his head. “Nope, although it’s a very nice shirt.”
She smiled wider. “Ta muchly.”
She hadn’t intended to wear her Puff shirt. It had just been the first one she pulled from the closet when Ty had been hurrying her to dress and she’d decided she couldn’t argue with the gods of fate or appropriate clothing or whatever higher power contributed to the surreality of her situation.
“Welcome.”
The interplay was quick and sweet and, once again, Sera reveled in the comforting warmth of him. “So, apart from my cousin, I’ve not really had much to do with people.”
“Tell me about your cousin. Your parents.”
Her belly churned a little at the last request and she caught her bottom lip with her teeth. Her parents…
>
“Sera?” His voice whispered in her ear, gentle but concerned. Yes, she could hear it. How did he know? Was he reading her mind again?
“You tensed on the word parents.”
She opened her eyes and stared at the back of his helmet. As much as she was starting to love the bike ride, at this point in time she really, really wanted to see his face. “How do you—”
“I pick up…vibes, for want of a better word, from you that translate to thoughts. Never happens with anyone else so don’t be asking me for the lottery numbers.”
She swallowed. “Vibes?”
His shoulders moved with a slight shrug. “I can’t explain it any better than that. As I said before, honey, none of this should be possible, so I’m as in the dark about these kinds of things as you are.”
A sharp snort tickled the back of her nose. “I doubt that.”
“Okay, maybe I do know a little bit more. Like, how aroused you are on the back of my bike, how much you’re enjoying the feel of my body against yours, how alive you’re feeling right now…”
Sera cocked an eyebrow. “And these are all vibes, are they?”
He chuckled, throwing his bike into a deep, banking right turn. “I have the senses of a dragon, Sera. Which means I can smell your arousal even through this helmet, feel it in your rising body temperature, especially between your thighs where you’re pressing against my backside, and hear it in your rapid heart rate.”
She couldn’t stop the smile playing on her lips. “Think you’re clever, do you?”
“Nope. I know it. Now stop trying to deflect and tell me more. Your mum?”
Sera let out a sigh. “She was abusive and violent and volatile. I hated her just as much as I loved her. She told me that my dad was a Celtic bastard who deserted us both and went back home.”
“Do you believe her?”
She shook her head. “She lied about everything.”
Around her, the streets had grown quiet and still, the windows in the houses dark and devoid of activity. They’d been riding for a while now and, despite the fact she’d never been to the Gap before, she suspected they were drawing closer. For one, she kept catching glimpses of the moon—a fat, bleached-white full one—reflecting off the still, black waters of the ocean. It turned the low waves to white slashes, like someone had painted an endless sheet of black cardstock with strokes of Liquid Paper.
Sera's Dragon Page 5
