Dragon's Guard

by Eva Chase

  All situations I’d experienced at least once.

  My feet pounded the grass. The warming air rushed past me. I burst past the first few trees and caught myself, spinning around. A grin split my face. That had been kind of fun.

  I walked back to the edge of the lawn, wiping my hands together. “All right, what’ve you got next?”

  I must have done all right. Marco, Aaron, and Nate all looked pleased in their own ways. And West looked pissed, which meant I’d performed better than he liked. I gave him a pointed glance. I hadn’t even broken a sweat yet.

  “How long can you keep that up for?” he said. “A thirty-foot dash is nothing. You need endurance too.”

  “Do you have a longer track for me to take on?” I said. “Or are you suggesting I just run back and forth like a crazy person?”

  He gave me a thin smile. “You’d better make do with what we have.”

  Oh, he’d like it if I backed down, wouldn’t he? As if I hadn’t been in situations ten times more humiliating than this in the last seven years. He had no idea what “endurance” meant. I wasn’t going to let his arrogance get to me.

  “No problem,” I said, keeping my tone breezy. “I wouldn’t mind giving my legs a good stretch anyway.”

  I took off without any preamble this time. I raced across the lawn to my starting point, pivoted on my feet, and zipped back the way I’d come. Once I fell into the rhythm of the thump of my feet and the heave of my breaths, the growing burn in my muscles was almost pleasant. I gave myself over to the sensation, not bothering to count repetitions. Just flying back and forth over the yard as if, if I pushed myself a tiny bit farther, I might actually leave the ground.

  I had worked up a bit of a sweat, slick under the silky shirt, when West leapt forward in the middle of one of my dashes. He swung out his foot as if to trip me. But my instincts had taken over the second I’d seen him moving. I was already dodging out of the way. I slowed and swiveled, folding my arms over my chest.

  “Really?”

  “We’re supposed to be testing agility too,” he said, looking not even slightly guilty.

  “And she’s having no problem showing you up in that area too,” Marco said.

  “We’re not done yet.” West pointed to one of the tallest trees at the back of the yard. “How high can you climb?”

  His smirk had come back. Probably thinking that in the city I hadn’t gotten much experience with trees. And maybe I hadn’t, but there’d been plenty of fences and buildings to clamber up.

  “Would the top work for you?” I asked.

  I marched over to the tree without waiting for an answer. All I got was an inarticulate mutter anyway.

  The pine’s lowest branches jutted from its narrow trunk about a foot over my head. Low enough that I could still reach them with my arms extended, but I bent my knees and sprang up so I could hook my elbow right over one. Hugging it, I walked my feet up the trunk until I could swing my legs over the branch too. Then I scrambled up and reached for the next one.

  Once I was in the tree, climbing was way easier than West must have realized. The branches were spaced so close together it was more like hefting myself up a ladder than any real challenge. I pulled myself along as quickly as I could without completely losing my breath. Sap was smearing the violet fabric of the shirt, but Marco had said not to worry about that. The pungent pine smell filled my nose. I drank it in with another grin.

  As I got higher up, the branches grew thinner. So did the trunk. A hot breeze whipped past me, making the upper half of the tree sway. I gripped the rough bark tighter and kept going.

  When my climbing material had pretty much run out, several feet from the tree’s peak, I wrapped one arm around the trunk and glanced down. I’d come a little higher than the roof of Marco’s house. In the yard below, Nate raised his hand to give me a thumbs-up. I couldn’t see West’s expression, but I’d bet it was even grouchier than usual.

  And I could make him even more peeved. My grin widened as the urge came over me. The fall was twice my leap from the bedroom window yesterday, but a little extra risk just made it more exhilarating.

  I stepped forward on the branch and jumped.

  The air whistled past my ears. The blouse’s sleeves billowed around my arms. For a second, I could imagine the wind catching them, lifting me up to soar toward the sky. My breath caught with a knot of longing beneath my sternum.

  Someone let out a worried shout. Then I was hitting the ground, balls of my feet first. Pushing off them, I bent my knees into a roll. I tumbled over on my shoulder and flipped back onto my feet, straightening up in one smooth motion. My feet stung a little and my breath was still ragged, but damn, that had been a delicious sensation.

  Aaron was giving me his usual quiet smile. “It looks to me like agility isn’t a concern. And I think between all those tests, we’ve also covered strength pretty well.”

  West’s jaw had clenched. Something flickered in his eyes, an emotion I couldn’t quite put my finger on until he opened his mouth.

  “In the real world, we don’t pull stupid stunts like that unless our lives depend on it.”

  His tone was snarky, but my ears picked up a faint tremor underneath. I paused with a retort on my tongue.

  He’d been a little scared for me, despite himself. And he hated that, didn’t he? Hated it so much he needed me to snark back at him so he could go back to being pissed off with me.

  Too bad. I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted. I’d give him the exact opposite.

  “I’m not going to argue with you about it,” I said, keeping my voice soft and even. “You’ve got to trust I don’t take risks without knowing what I can handle. And if you need to find some new reason to be angry with me, you’ll have to come up with it on your own instead of trying to pick a fight.”

  West’s lean body tensed. “Don’t start thinking you can read people’s minds, Sparks,” he said, but he looked more unsettled than angry.

  Nate rested his large hand on my shoulder. “Dragons see more than any of the rest of us can,” he said approvingly.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. I’d enjoyed the physical exertion while I was in the middle of it, but the effort was starting to catch up with me. Especially after all those failed attempts at shifting beforehand.

  Sure I was quick and strong, and I could take a stab at people’s emotions when I needed to. What good was any of that to the alphas if I couldn’t make the full transformation into a dragon? I still didn’t have a clue what Mom had been trying to tell me with the symbol in my locket.

  How long would these guys stick with me before they gave up and—

  A jolt of panic shot through me. I clamped down on that thought before my mind could finish it and pushed it away.

  “I think our Princess of Flames has more than proven herself for the morning,” Marco’s smooth voice broke in. “As host to this party, I say we give her a break.” He held out his hand to me with his crooked smile. Even with me tired and uncertain, it still provoked a flutter of attraction in my chest.

  “There are a few parts of this house you haven’t seen yet,” he said. “One in particular I think you’ll appreciate. Are you up for a quick tour?”

  Chapter 10

  Ren

  As soon as I stepped into the house with just Marco beside me, a weight seemed to lift off my shoulders. All the pressure of having the four guys watching me, thinking about me... and me thinking about them. Some part of me might like the idea that they were all meant to be with me, but the feeling was still overwhelming sometimes.

  How had Mom gone from that to having no male companionship at all for all those years, without ever showing she missed it? She must have. Maybe she’d just been too good at hiding it for me to notice.

  Leonard was in the main hall, dusting the frame of an oil painting hanging on the wall. So Marco really had put his lieutenant on cleaning duty. Marco shooed him away, I guessed realizing I still might not be feeling super friend
ly toward the guy who’d grabbed me in the bar. That was fine with me.

  “So what’s this part of the house you’re so eager to show off?” I asked Marco.

  “You’ll see.” He guided me past the kitchen and down a hall toward the south side of the house with a hand on my back. The light contact sent a pulse of heat over my skin. My thoughts slipped back to yesterday. To that kiss in the bedroom. Just remembering it made my entire body flush.

  Was the pull between us always going to feel this intense? Or did it ease off a little once the guys and I were officially mates? I had no idea how a relationship like that worked. But asking Marco directly felt way too awkward. He could probably already tell how much his presence affected me. The last thing I wanted to discuss with him was my out-of-control horniness.

  “Here we are.” He pushed open a door and ushered me through. The second I stepped inside, my jaw dropped. All thoughts of horniness went temporarily out the window.

  Or windows, maybe would be more accurate. The room we’d stepped into was walled on three sides by enormous panes, like a massive greenhouse attached to the side of the house. The late morning sunlight streamed in from between the trees outside, warming the place with a comfortable glow. The floor space wasn’t huge, maybe ten feet by ten, but the walls rose at least two stories into the air. Ledges and outcroppings in the shape of thick branches protruded from the walls at varying intervals. It was like looking up into a tiered jungle canopy.

  “This house is a way station for any of my kin traveling through these parts,” Marco said, looking pleased with my awed reaction. “There’s not much room to run around in shifted form outside. This gives us a place to exercise our feline selves in privacy.”

  It was easy to imagine tigers and leopards—and jaguars—leaping from branch to branch or sunning themselves on one of those ledges. But all those windows... The trees didn’t appear to provide total shelter. “Aren’t you worried about someone wandering by and seeing you?”

  Marco motioned to the walls. “That’s one-way glass. On the outside, it’s blank. We can see out, but no one can see in. We can get up to whatever we want without worrying about prying eyes.” He arched a teasing eyebrow at me. The one with the scar through it.

  How had he gotten that wound? A scuffle with another shifter? Or some other conflict I wouldn’t have understood yet?

  “Is it normal for shifters to live this close to a big city like New York?” I asked. “You must have to be really careful, even with a house like this.”

  Marco shook his head. “Maybe it’s feline obstinacy, but my kin don’t play so well by the rules. In theory, most of the country is divided up between the dominant supernatural groups. The cities are vampire territory, because they find it easiest to blend in—and they need a large supply of people to pick from for feeding.” He grimaced. “Shifters mostly stick to small towns and countryside, the middle-ground between civilization and wilderness. But my kin’s alphas have always liked to keep an eye on what’s going on even in the places we’re not supposed to be.”

  My eyes had widened. “Wait. There are vampires too? Living in New York?”

  “Not a lot of them,” Marco said, but his tone had turned more serious. “They like to keep their community rather... exclusive. But there are still more than enough of the bloodsuckers. If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to deal with them.” He shuddered, and then gave me a more typical smile. “So let’s not spend any more time talking about them. How would you like a proper climb?”

  Now that I’d accepted the existence of shifters, my brain had obviously recalibrated its threshold for belief. If werewolves—and werebears and werejaguars and so on—existed, why the hell not vampires?

  I looked up at the jungle gym above me, and my earlier fatigue fell away. Oh, yes. This was exactly what I needed.

  I clambered up a protrusion shaped like a jutting rock. From there, it was only a bit of a stretch to jump onto one of the thick manmade branches. Marco followed me as I roamed higher, staying in human form himself. Maybe he thought it’d be impolite to shift when I couldn’t? I was too busy exploring to care.

  Here and there between the branches and ledges, objects like huge bowls were wedged, stuffed full of plush cushions. I poked at one of the pillows as I climbed past one. “Cat beds?” I said, shooting Marco an amused look.

  He laughed. “Basically. We do enjoy our sleep.”

  He stopped on a ledge about halfway up the second story, watching me as I finished my ascent to the very top. The highest branch veered on an angle all the way to the vaulted glass roof. I scrambled up it and crouched where it bowed to take in my surroundings.

  I could see over the roof of the rest of the house from here, to the tops of the pines on the other side. To the south, the suburban road was visible between the trees, stretching off into the distance. A car puttered by below me, the driver completely unaware of me perched there watching him. The view of the long drop to the ground below made my pulse thump faster.

  If this was how cat shifters did things, I had to say I completely approved.

  I couldn’t jump through the window, but there were all sorts of possibilities for leaping my way down in here. I turned my gaze to the room beneath me. The shape and placement of the various protrusions made for their own sort of challenge. I fixed my gaze on a branch ahead of me and several feet below, bunched my muscles, and launched myself toward it.

  My feet hit the artificial bark smack in the center. I grasped the sides of the branch to hold myself steady, exhilaration rushing through me. Without giving myself much time to think, I spotted an appropriate ledge and pushed off again.

  The feeling of free-fall raced through me for an instant before I landed. So sharp and giddying. I glanced around and threw myself down toward one of those bowls of bedding. This time I let myself land on my hands and knees. I rolled onto my back and snuggled into the cushions.

  “Okay,” I said. “This is almost as good as the climbing part.”

  “And the jumping part?” Marco said, hopping onto a nearby branch. His indigo eyes glinted. “You’re a pretty girl, my Princess of Flames, but you’re spectacular when you come that close to flight. It lights you up.”

  The compliment lit me up in a totally different way. I pushed myself onto my feet. “Is this how you treat all the girls? Kidnap them and then seduce them with flattery and your awesome house?”

  His eyelids lowered, his gaze turning more heated. “Not at all, princess. This is only for you.”

  His tone was serious enough beneath the flirting that my pulse skipped. I craved that intensity, but at the same time it sent my nerves jittering. How could I be that important to him, to anyone here, just like that?

  I leapt away from those worries, up one of the other slanting branches. “Well, you haven’t caught me yet,” I called back to him.

  I heard a laugh in his intake of breath. “Let’s see if I can change that.”

  His feet scraped the outcroppings just beneath me. I threw myself forward faster, leaning over so I could pull myself along with my hands as well. As if I were an animal even if I still couldn’t turn myself into one.

  I sprang from one branch to another, dashed up that one to a ledge, and abruptly found I had no way to keep going up. I’d almost hit the roof again. Marco was halfway up the branch behind me, loping up it with perfect balance. He hadn’t shifted either, but the feline in him showed in every movement.

  “Ran yourself into a corner?” he teased, slowing a little to draw out his pursuit.

  Oh, no. I wasn’t letting him win yet. “No such thing,” I informed him. Then, as he reached the edge of the platform, I flung myself off it toward a branch at least a full floor below.

  The exhilaration of the fall burst through me—and tugged free a memory from long, long ago. Scrambling onto the roof of a wooden playhouse and launching myself into the air. Feeling my wings unfurl and catch the wind just for a second before my child’s body hit the ground. Rolling in
the grass and giggling, reveling in the glimpse of my future powers.

  Mama! Mama, did you see that one?

  My feet hit the branch hard. My knees jarred, and the vivid glimpse of my past slipped away. I held there, inhaling shakily, my fingers digging into the manufactured bark.

  “Princess?” Marco said, lowering himself onto the branch just above me.

  I shook myself, but my mind wouldn’t quite settle. Where had I been in that memory? Somewhere with my mother, obviously. But not New York. That had been before New York. In a shifter community somewhere? Was that where I was supposed to go now?

  I looked up at Marco. “You keep calling me ‘princess.’ Because my mother was pretty much queen of all the shifters.”

  He nodded, watching me curiously.

  “She must have had some kind of official home, right?” I went on. “That people would know to come to, if they needed... I don’t know, official guidance or something?”

  “There are four houses that are the official property of the dragon shifter line,” Marco said. “One near the center of each kin-group’s main territory. She’d have moved from one to another periodically or as needs required, usually with at least one of her alpha mates. Why?”

  I bit my lip. “I just wondered if maybe she might have gone back to one of those homes. When she left New York, I mean. I guess if that symbol had to do with any of them, you’d have recognized it, though, wouldn’t you?”

  “Most likely. And if she’d returned to prime shifter territory, she wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.”

  So much for that lead. But that line of thinking tickled up another question. “Aaron said you all knew me back then. When I was a little kid, before Mom and I left. Were we, like, friends, or...?”

  Marco’s crooked smile looked softer than usual. “We saw you around, here and there. I don’t think I ever spoke to you except a formal introduction after the last alpha chose me—which wasn’t long before you and your mother vanished. You weren’t much more than a toddler most of that time, you know.”