by Angela Foxxe
“Who is the bird-dog?”
“Kaden.” His smile was infectious. “We’re going to wait for him to get the dragon on the run, and we’re going to swoop in and catch him before Kaden gets his hands on him.”
“Do you think that’s really going to work?”
“It might.”
“So we’re heading this way because the dragon should be here and Kaden might flush him out for us? Do you see anything wrong with that plan?”
Ty shrugged.
“If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Kaden’s eyes were grainy and bloodshot from lack of sleep when he finally pulled into the entrance of the Gila National Forest drive thru shack.
“That’ll be five dollars,” the ranger working the booth said.
“I’d like a cabin,” Kaden said. “As close to the entrance of the scenic drive as possible.”
“I have one at the end of the row. There’s a short dirt road that leads to the scenic drive; will that work?”
“Sounds perfect,” Kaden said, giving the woman a tired smile. “I drove all night from just outside of Odessa. I’m pretty beat.”
“That’s a pretty long trek in one haul.”
“I’m used to working nights,” Kaden said, flirting with the woman and trying to keep her off her guard.
“Really?” she said, leaning over and putting her hand under her chin, her large bosom spilling over the sill of her sliding window. “What exactly do you do?”
He had her, and he knew that she wouldn’t give him a bit of trouble, which was exactly what he wanted.
“I hunt creatures of the night. The winged kind,” he said.
“I hope you don’t kill them,” she said in a seductive voice that was more suited to pillow talk than talk of wildlife and their conservation.
“Not unless they are a problem. I follow at a safe distance and keep track of where they’re going, and I catalogue their hiding places so that I can come back later and do what I need to do.”
“So you like bats a lot?”
“Yes,” Kaden said, purposely misunderstanding her. He’d wanted her to draw her own conclusion, and she’d fallen right into his trap. “They remind me of little dragons.”
She chuckled, leaning back as another car pulled up and got into line.
“You’re something else. You have a great day,” she said, lifting the arm and waving him through after giving him the paper with his cabin assignment.
Kaden blew her a kiss and drove away. He hoped he didn’t get a visit from the woman later, but the ranger’s shack at this entrance was open until dusk, so he doubted it. She wouldn’t get off until just before dark, and by then, he would be long gone.
He tossed the paperwork on the seat beside him and smiled. The front was blank. The space for his name, driver’s license, phone numbers and home address hadn’t been filled out. The ranger had been so busy flirting that she’d forgotten to write all that down. He’d paid in cash, so they would have no tangible record of Kaden having ever been there. He would be untraceable. Just like he liked it.
He hummed to himself all the way to the cabin, then drove the truck onto the yard that surrounded the cabin, maneuvering until he could back it in between two trees and out of sight. He got out, jogging to the narrow street and looking back at the cabin.
It blocked the view of the truck, and unless someone knew that it was there, they would never see it. If the locals had sent out an APB on his truck, no one would happen upon it here. He could sleep in relative peace, and that’s what he needed. Just three or four solid hours of sleep, then he would start preparing for twilight and watching for his prey to emerge.
He walked into the cabin with only the backpack on his shoulder that carried his essentials and the case file on Ethan Smith. He scoffed at the name. Everyone knew that there wasn’t a dragon alive with the last name Smith, yet they kept using the common human surname over and over to hide their heritage. It was one of the many things that made Kaden angry about the dragons that ran amok in the states. They had no respect for their status in the world, and that was something that Kaden could tolerate. The ten-million-dollar payday didn’t hurt either, but Kaden was putting in that much effort and more. Hunting dragons was exhausting, even if he was better equipped than most to handle it.
He left his shoes on and grabbed the bed linens out of the plastic tote in the living room as he walked by. If all went well, he would shower and eat when he woke up. But right now, his sole priority was sleep. He couldn’t hunt if he wasn’t rested, and he wasn’t about to lose such a large payday because he was careless. That wasn’t how he operated. Ethan had gotten away from him the night before, flying out the hotel window with the hotel clerk screaming like a frightened child on the way out. If Kaden had been able to back his truck up quicker, he might have netted the dragon right then.
But the truck had hung up on the metal framing of the bulletproof glass that twisted beneath its undercarriage. After multiple failed attempts, it had finally let go and squealed backward. Unfortunately, by that time, Ethan was already several miles down the road and cutting a straight path that made it almost impossible for Kaden to follow him from the highway. He’d done his best, but even with all his fancy equipment, he’d eventually lost the trail.
After running the projected path analysis through the computer, both he and the truck’s onboard system agreed that Gila was the natural choice. But it was an educated guess at best, and he could be miles off.
He sighed, closing his eyes and willing his thoughts to quiet down. None of this mattered. He was here now, and he was going to find the dragon and the woman he’d kidnapped. If he was lucky, he’d make a little money off finding her, too.
The problem was that he’d failed so miserably, and the hotel clerk should have been a dead giveaway, but she wasn’t. He’d looked her over, checking her eyes and movements for signs of dragon enchantment. There hadn’t been any, yet somehow this woman had been willing to risk her own life to warn Ethan that there was a bounty hunter looking for him. Why? Ethan was handsome, but no more so than Kaden. People were drawn to Kaden, but his charms had been useless on the clerk, and she’d lied to his face without a twitch of remorse. He had almost believed her, but he knew that truth.
He threw his arm over his eyes and groaned.
“Let it go, Kaden,” he chastised himself with a thick growl.
It was going to bother him until he was face to face with her, and she could explain why she had chosen a stranger over the law. Maybe she wouldn’t know the answer. Or maybe Kaden wouldn’t like her answer. But he was dying to know, and try as he might to ignore it, it was weighing heavily on his mind. He didn’t like loose ends, and he didn’t believe in coincidences. The hotel clerk was in on it somehow, but Kaden didn’t know how. There was a chance that he never would.
He lay like that for almost an hour, arm blocking out the light, body stiff at the aggravation of the unknown. Kaden preferred to be in control, and the unknown clawed at him, but there was nothing to be done, and he needed sleep more than he needed answers. The answers would come; he had faith in that respect.
When his conscious mind finally gave up, his subconscious stepped in and dreamed out every bitter detail of his failure at the hotel. He tossed and turned, but he eventually quieted and fell into a deep sleep.
His dreams quickly turned into nightmares, and like an angry queen rising up from the fires of hell, the female ranger he’d flirted with appeared. She laughed, spreading her arms and turning into a dragon, her head still inexplicably human, her features distorted as only dreams could be and still make sense.
She mocked him, and he ran, but she appeared in every direction. She threw her wings up to block him, and thousands of bats trapped in the leathery wings pulsed and churned just beneath the surface. They broke loose and took flight, swirling around their dragon queen and diving toward Kaden. He covered his head and ran in the darkness. The bats gav
e chase, and the ranger took to the sky, breathing fire. Her shrieking laugh filled the air and bounced off the mountains that rose in the pitch-black night, nothing more than tall shadows blocking out the millions of stars painted across the sky.
Kaden ran even though he couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. What was behind him was scarier than anything that might be ahead. Frantic hands checked his various pockets, but none of his weapons were in their normal places, and the dragon was gaining on him.
He ran faster, his heart pounding frantically, his thoughts racing. How had he gotten here? Why didn’t he know she was a dragon when he’d flirted with her earlier in the day? What was going on?
“It has to be a dream,” he said.
He repeated the mantra in his head, willing it to be true. But he could feel the weight of the beasts chasing him in the darkness and his feet pounding on the ground beneath him. The danger was real.
All at once, the ground dropped out from under his feet, and he began to fall. He was too shocked to cry out, too scared to do more than allow his body to fall like a stone. The dragon stopped at the edge of the cliff, looking down on him, her mouth spread into a cruel smile.
Fire spilled from her mouth as she laughed, igniting the trees that grew sideways down the canyon. Kaden continued falling down, his descent impossibly drawn out as everything unfolded.
When he finally hit the ground, his body jolted and he sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard, his heart pounding painfully in his chest. A scream of terror caught in his throat so that he made an odd, strangled sound when he jumped up and looked around in terror.
The cabin was dark. Not the gray light of the early evening, but completely dark. He pressed the light on his wristwatch and cursed. It was eleven o’clock. He’d been asleep almost twice as long as he should have been, and he knew without a doubt that Ethan was already gone. The summer sun had set completely by eight, and total darkness would have happened by nine or nine-thirty. Without a known direction and with a ninety-minute head start, Kaden was screwed.
There was no way he could catch up.
He kicked out in the darkness, his steel-toed boot connecting with the wall, the impact jarring him to the bone. He’d been running on fumes and caffeine for days, and he’d paid for it. The dragon was cornered, and Kaden let him slip away.
Slip? Who was he kidding? He had slept through his job, and he had no one to blame but himself. If he missed out on this payday, it was going to be his fault.
And that nosey hotel clerk, he thought angrily. Who did she think she was getting in the way of justice anyway? He’d never had a woman choose the fugitive like that unless they were enchanted. Most law-abiding citizens expected the same from other people and were all too eager to turn in the bad guys for a cut of the reward. Kaden didn’t mind handing out a few thousand dollars to tipsters. It made them happy, and compared to the money he raked in for taking down rogue dragons, it was chump change.
But not this hotel clerk. Carla was either a bad boy junkie, or she was in on it. If that was the case, then she was going to get what she deserved when this was all said and done. Kaden knew that he wasn’t going to go out of his way to protect her during the inevitable battle once he caught Ethan. And there was no way that Ethan was going to care enough about Carla to put his own life on the line. She’d messed up, and Kaden hoped that crappy choice came back to bite her in the end.
It only seemed fair.
There was nothing left to do in the park, and Kaden was too angry with his failure to stay in the cabin a minute longer than he had to. He grabbed his change of clothes out of his bag and took a quick shower, then packed up and left the cabin.
His truck was still hidden in the trees, though in his paranoid state, he half expected it to be gone or at least tampered with. Still trying to shake the uneasy feeling that had lingered after his nightmare, he climbed into the cab and turned the engine on. Bright displays came to life, but the radars were clear, and Kaden saw no activity on the monitor, paranormal or otherwise. It only showed a few miles in every direction, but it had been a game changer. With targets that could blend into the human population, the expensive piece of equipment had helped him find shifters in the most unlikely places.
And he was the only hunter that had one. The technology was new, and he had the only working prototype. Even the shifters didn’t know he possessed it, which leveled the playing field a bit. He was one man looking for countless criminals. He needed all the help he could get.
He sighed, pulled out of the parking spot and went down the road in the opposite direction he’d come from. He didn’t want to risk running into the ranger, even though he was certain that she had gone home hours ago.
The street was dark, but the lights from the display emitted a soft glow that chased away most of the darkness in the vehicle, and his headlights took care of the road. He saw a small blip on his map that showed a shifter nearby, but the size was all wrong, and the bio signature ruled out dragon. Whatever it was remained in human form and was nowhere near Kaden. It was probably some WereLion, taking advantage of the dense forest that was rarely travelled by humans leaving for the day. This area was known to be a haven for shifters that needed to let loose and run in the animal state, and this wasn’t the first time that Kaden had picked up some kind of shifter driving away in the late evening after spending a day or longer getting back to their more natural state. He didn’t have time to deal with whoever it was unless they were a paying job.
He turned on the radio and sang along as the road stretched before him and the unknown shifter fell off the edge of his map and disappeared for good. Now, the map was empty, a testament to how Kaden felt at this exact moment.
Empty.
Worthless.
A complete failure.
CHAPTER FIVE
The sun was starting to set when Ty slid the truck to a stop and smiled at the ranger in the small guard shack that reminded Senora of a toll booth.
“We’re about to close,” the woman said. “Unless you’re camping or renting a cabin, you don’t have time to get in and out before we close. There’s no tent camping on the mountain without a permit.”
Ty smiled at the woman, an expression Senora assumed made most women melt instantly.
The ranger wasn’t amused, but Senora was. Men like Ty got their way all the time just by turning on the charm. Senora struggled not to laugh as she witnessed Ty meeting his match.
When he heard her snort indelicately from holding in her giggles, he turned to look at her, then arched an eyebrow.
Before she knew what he was about to do, he reached into her front pocket, pulled out her FBI badge and handed it to the woman.
“I understand, Diana,” he said sweetly. “We’re here on official business, and I’ll need a way to access your fire roads so I can search for a wanted criminal.”
Diana gasped, and Senora almost choked. Ty was laying it on thick, and the woman in the crumpled, tan uniform was buying it hook, line and sinker.
“A criminal?” she said, leaning forward and whispering dramatically.
Senora did her best to keep her eyes from rolling in her head. This couldn’t be real life. It just couldn’t be.
“A dangerous criminal,” he added. “But we’re trying to keep it hush-hush, so I’m going to need you to keep it to yourself.”
The woman nodded, all too eager to help. Her complete change in demeanor was astonishing, and Senora found herself watching Ty work and admiring the easy way he talked to people. She’d always been comfortable with people, but nothing like the way Ty was. People, men and women alike, adored him. Even the ranger, who had been prickly because it was almost time to close up, had ended up bending under his smooth words.
It was enough to make Senora want to gag.
The ranger gave Ty directions, and after handing him a map with the fire roads in red and giving him all the inside tips to bypassing the gates, they finally drove away and headed into the park.
“It would be more impressive if you weren’t as good-looking as you are. An average-looking man couldn’t do what you do. Unless you lied about dragons being the only shifters who could enchant humans. It isn’t very fair if you’re using your powers to disarm people.”
“I thought you didn’t believe that we have those powers,” he shot back lightly, laughing at her when she frowned.
“Touché,” she said. “But you know what I mean. Even if you don’t have supernatural advantages, you do have other gifts that help you get what you want from people.”
Ty looked amused, his smile lighting up his dark brown eyes from within.
“So you’re saying if I wasn’t handsome, then I wouldn’t have been able to get that woman to let me on the fire roads?”
“Exactly,” Senora said.
“So you think I’m handsome.” It wasn’t a question.
“I guess I walked right into that,” Senora said.
Ty shrugged, but his expression was still smug. He’d laid the trap so smoothly, and she had given him exactly what he wanted. Senora made a mental note to be more careful next time, but the truth was that she didn’t really mind. After the awkwardness of their conversation earlier in the day, she was more than happy to go back to the easy, friendly banter they had enjoyed while working on the Glen Rose case. She still wished she was working alone, but if she had to work with someone, then Ty would do. At least she could count on him to protect her in an emergency and to bring valuable insight to situations that she was wholly unprepared for. The paranormal world was a far cry from the world she was used to, and having him there with her made it easier to navigate.
She would never admit to that last bit, because she was still not willing to believe that everything he said was true. Were there people on this earth with powers beyond her understanding? Yes. But were those people something other than people, and were they walking among the humans undetected since the dawn of time? Senora doubted it. She was a natural skeptic, and a big part of her would never accept it, even if she saw it with her own eyes. There had to be another explanation.
