by Abigail Owen
He lowered his Jurassic Park head, T-Rex teeth lined up in jagged visible rows, to within a foot of where she stood, regarding her with a single, unblinking eye.
Curiosity swamped her like a flooding river breaking its banks. Without thinking it through, she reached out and put a hand on a single scale—satin and steel under her palm, and almost soothingly warm. For some inexplicable reason, her heart settled—a trapped bird coming to roost on its perch. Like she’d been here before. Like this wasn’t new or a dream or a hallucination. This was real and…
She jerked her hand back as the word “home” ping-ponged around inside her mind. What am I thinking? I have a home. And a family.
People she needed to protect. Maybe from him. “What do you want with me?”
“To help you.”
“Help me? With what?”
He took a deep breath, his massive chest rising and falling with the action, and warm, smoky breath fanned across her in a gust. “There’s no easy way to put this. I am a dragon shifter. And you are destined to become a dragon shifter’s mate and become a dragon yourself.”
Cami frowned, trying to take that all in, but her mind landed on one word. “A mate? What time are you from? The dark ages?”
He ignored that comment. “Until you mate, the fires you set off will only escalate and get worse.”
Get worse? She glanced at the glowing spot. This got worse? Okay, that was bad. Her family had already lost too much to fire. Assuming she believed him— Of course she believed him. He was standing in front of her as a living, breathing, forty-foot dragon and only seconds ago, she’d spontaneously combusted a bush. Wait…
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do dragons cause wildfires?”
“They can.”
“On purpose?”
“The fire that destroyed your family’s ranch happened because of a dragon, a couple of them, actually, if that’s what you’re getting at. The one most responsible is dead now.”
Cami frowned again. Not because he’d confirmed her suspicions, but because there had been something in his voice. Something like regret.
Still, he’d been honest with her. Between the beast before her, the glowing like a tiny sun trapped inside her chest, lighting up her veins, and the sparks periodically emanating from her person, she had no choice but to believe him. At least about the dragon thing.
What did that mean for her? For her family?
Oh my God. I have to keep them safe. From me.
“I assume you have suggestions?”
Those wavy, desert-oasis lines crisscrossed his body again, and she witnessed the transformation in reverse order as he shrunk back to a man. A man who still towered over her petite five-foot form, but not by forty feet now, at least.
He gazed down at her, scanning her expression. “What you do next is entirely up to you.”
“I hear a but in there.”
A slashing mouth, pressed tight with lines bracketing it, tipped up at one corner.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “But you’re not the first dragon mate I’ve helped, and each of you reacts…differently.”
Part of her wanted to ask about the others, but right now she couldn’t handle much more, so she let it go.
He appeared to realize that and went on. “I can offer you sanctuary, help put out any fires you cause, but that means coming with me, staying with me, maybe for a long time until you find your destined mate.”
Uh-huh. Not the answer she’d hoped to hear. “And what’s behind door number two?”
“You stay here. Possibly burn down your home. In addition, other dragons not as…progressive…as I am will come take you away when they discover you. Force you to go through a mating process to find your mate. That might not sound so bad, but if you choose the wrong man, you’ll die when he tries to change you. The leaders of our kind don’t act too concerned about that result lately.”
Death was a way worse answer.
Neither of those options was acceptable in her opinion, but one was especially unacceptable. Cami crossed her arms in a defensive move. “Would they kidnap me?”
The man in front of her lifted a single shoulder in a shrug way too casual for this strange topic of conversation. “It didn’t used to be this way, but the kings are getting power mad.”
Dragon shifters had kings?
She regarded him with serious distaste for a long beat, trying to reconcile why she trusted anything he had to say. Beyond a seriously terrifying display of magical whatnot, she didn’t have any reason to trust him enough to go with him. That would put her in the same category as children who took candy from strangers. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Rune Abaddon.” He held out a hand to shake.
She glanced at it like it might be a poison apple and he dropped it to his side.
Raising his gaze to the sky with an expression that said she was being unreasonable—and she almost looked up to check that more dragons weren’t flying around up there—he put a hand in one pocket and brought out a card with a single phone number on it. That was it. “I’ve helped others like you. If you call this number, you can talk to them. Ask questions.”
“Right. Like I’m going to trust a faceless woman on the other end of a phone.”
His jaw flexed. “I can tell you’re going to be a pain in my ass.”
She warily took the card and stepped back slowly, the same way she’d backed away from that mountain lion once upon a time. “Honestly, I’d rather not see your ass again anytime soon.”
“Suit yourself.” He turned his back to her and walked away. Stalked away, more like. “You can also call that number if you change your mind and need me to come get you.”
He paused at the edge of a tree burned so badly only a black spike of what used to be its trunk remained upright. Turning, he speared her with a hard stare. “Don’t wait too long, though. I’ll only be around another few days. You aren’t the only one who needs my…services.”
With that, he disappeared like a silent wraith, a figment of her imagination. Not even a crunch of toasted forest under his feet. A ghost. Except for the card she held in her hand.
A jumble of emotions—fear, disbelief, and confusion—tangled together like three-day-old spaghetti in a mass that lodged in her stomach.
A rush of heat shot through her, blazing along the trail of her veins as though her blood had lit on fire, the glow following the sensation. It culminated under her breastbone which pulsed with a glowing light. No way would her family miss that if it happened around them. No sooner had that thought occurred to her than a spark shot from her again, this time igniting her jeans.
“Shit.” She beat at the cloth before it could burn her skin.
This can’t be happening.
Chapter Two
“Drop and give me fifty,” Drake barked at the “new recruits” lined up in front of him like toy soldiers.
The Huracán Enforcers were down too many men with the losses they’d sustained lately, and Finn had done what any good Alpha would do. He’d replenished the team’s ranks. But he’d lost his ever loving mind bringing in a new mate, a ragtag group of orphans, and Drake’s sister, Lyndi, even if they remained in the home outside the mountain Lyndi had made for them.
None of these shifters were remotely ready to be part of an enforcer team.
But Drake got it. Finn couldn’t leave the team vulnerable and both the Alliance and the kings of the clans had yet to send them replacements.
Hence the inappropriate recruits.
Which meant Drake was now stuck babysitting the rookies and his sister. At least he’d taught Lyndi to fight himself. Still, his job was to get their asses trained. Shove years of hard work and specific techniques into weeks. Maybe months if he was lucky and nothing new happened to rock the
current calm.
Not likely, but stranger things had happened.
They hadn’t heard much about what was happening with their kings lately. That the communication out of the clans in Europe and Asia had shut down completely wasn’t a good sign, but for now, it wasn’t his problem. The colonies would just have to fend for themselves until the kingdoms settled.
Still, if this calm that had to be preceding a monster of a storm could last a little longer, Drake could get this pathetic group of dragon shifters trained before he had to abandon his team.
A low murmuring of groans sounded even as the dragon shifters obeyed the order. Dropping to push-up position, hands on the cement floor of the gym in the Huracáns’ training facility, muscled bodies in plank position, they waited for his count.
“Was that a protest?” Drake demanded.
“No, sir,” they shouted in unison.
“Don’t you lie to me. Mike, shift and take to the sky. Your fellow pukes are going to execute textbook push-ups until you can get over that westward bank of trees without my seeing.”
“Shit,” Mike muttered. But he jumped to his feet and ran outside through the glassed garage door that opened up one entire wall of their training room to the outside, letting in the crisp, late fall breeze.
As soon as he reached the flat field, Mike shifted. Slowly. Drake made a mental note to get them shifting faster, riding that edge between controlling the beast and letting it loose. Clothes and skin disappeared, replaced by diamond-hard scales. Talons, teeth, the spikes along his back laid flat for now.
The second he completed the shift, Mike spread his massive wings wide, casting a shadow over the training building, and leaped into the air in a decently smooth motion. Dirt and leaves scattered under the onslaught of the wind his takeoff generated.
There was nothing wrong with Mike’s flying. However, the man in dragon form was an unfortunate shade of raspberry, which made it damn near impossible for him to camouflage in daylight hours.
As soon as Mike took off, Drake started counting. “One.”
The others, still holding their planks, executed perfect push-ups, exhibiting no strain.
“Two. Three. Four—” A flash of a barbed dragon tail—a lethal weapon rendered almost comical by Mike’s hot pink color—caught his eye from a good mile out. “I saw you,” Drake shouted, knowing Mike’s shifter senses would allow him to hear. “Again.”
The others had paused in their push-ups.
“What the fuck are you stopping for? Start over from one and let me hear you count ’em out.” Already his throat was getting sore from more talking than he liked to do.
As a team—a situation Drake was pleased to see coming together, not that he’d tell them that—the group started counting with each rep.
A crunch of tires on the gravel outside alerted him to someone’s arrival. Drake scowled. Every member of the Huracáns was already on location, so who the hell was visiting?
“Mike,” he snapped. “Take a position up top and hold.” Couldn’t have any humans seeing a hot pink dragon.
A few seconds later, a slightly weathered older man, black hair turning gunmetal gray with age, walked through the front door rather than coming around the side to the garage doors. Their old Alpha, Deep, smiled a greeting, dark eyes crinkling, as he walked down the narrow hall that led from a common room, past offices and other space, into the gym and locker area where he stood.
This building was created to appear to humans as the semi-dilapidated headquarters for a hotshot firefighter crew. Their team’s cover when they had to work fires with the humans.
Deep being here was never a good thing. After he’d retired from the team, he’d taken a position within the human firefighting ranks, eventually rising to the position of head Fire Marshall in California. An insider, set up to provide the Huracáns cover and information.
Damn. Drake had hoped the coming of winter would cool things down. Not that cooler heads were common among dragon shifters in general. Their natures were as blistering as the fire in their bellies.
“Drake,” Deep greeted.
He gave a silent nod of acknowledgment in return.
“Mike, you can resume,” Drake barked.
Deep’s eyebrows shot up, but otherwise he said nothing.
Another flash of color over the trees, this time of a hot pink wing that was as obvious as a flashing neon bar sign, had Drake whipping his head to glare out the garage door. “Caught you, Mike. Again.”
He dropped his gaze to the men and women starting to visibly tremble with effort. “Start over.”
Resentment lined their voices, along with strain, as the three started counting at one. None, however, complained or disobeyed.
Progress.
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit too hard on them?” Deep murmured as he passed through the room, headed for the bunk room and kitchenette where a hidden door led into the mountain cavern—the true home base for the team.
Drake put a booted foot on Lyndi’s back. “No.”
Lyndi shot him a scowl over her shoulder. “Asshole,” she mouthed, but she kept going.
Drake left his foot where it was and stared back at Deep, who had stopped to watch. His old Alpha shrugged and headed inside. Lyndi, meanwhile, kept going.
His sister was a shorter, more petite version of him, though prettier, more feminine, with her silky black hair, dark eyes, and sandy complexion, smooth and tawny with a rose gold undertone, reflecting their shared ancestry—an ancient Asian lineage going back millennia. She was also tough and stubborn as hell, traits they shared. Her arms were shaking harder with each rep, but Drake knew she could take it.
No way would the others let a tiny woman show them up, which was why he pushed her harder. He needed to push them all. Needed them to be ready for when he wouldn’t be here, either.
I’m leaving my team with inexperienced, untried rookies. The notion jarred, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The aging process had come early and had taken a grip over his body with cruel talons.
He was young to be going through it already. At around a thousand years of age, for most, an unmated dragon shifter’s physical aging would start speeding up again and he’d develop ailments that eventually killed him. Some suffered diseases of the flesh, others developed mental diseases, the condition attacking their minds.
Drake was only seven-hundred-seventy-five. He’d thought maybe he had another year, but the degenerative neurological disorder attacking his body like acid along the nerves was progressing faster every day. Not long before he’d be a liability to the team.
He had two options.
Option one: Tell the team and be sent back to the Red Clan to die. Not his preferred option. When he’d still been one of King Pytheios’s personal guards, he’d witnessed the king take out a teammate’s jugular simply because the man had informed them that he was dying. Pytheios had said he’d been showing pity on the man, ending it early. Like putting down a horse with a broken leg. That had been the tipping point for Drake, and he’d been more than happy to take a spot on an enforcer team in the Americas. Drake had no reason to believe Pytheios wouldn’t do the same to him now.
Returning to the Red Clan was out. Which only left option two. Leave the team.
But leaving the team meant abandoning his kind and the orders to be an enforcer, which meant he’d be a rogue. It was a death sentence, but at least he’d die on his terms.
The team would be protected, so long as they told the Alliance he’d succumbed to age. Those assholes who were supposed to be governing the Americas colony in the kings’ stead had been worse than useless. Hell, after he’d witnessed their attempt to separate Aidan and Sera—fated mates—for political reasons, useless was a kind word for them.
The problem was, unless they all wanted to go rogue and be hunted down, the team still answ
ered to the Alliance Council.
Yeah. These recruits needed to be ready before Drake left.
“I made it.” Mike suddenly appeared in the field outside, flaring his wings to land with a muffled thud, his massive talons gouging into the hardpacked earth.
Drake narrowed his eyes, lips flattening with his displeasure. Fuck.
No way should Mike have been able to do that. I’m a damn tracker. One of the best, or at least he had been. Deep might’ve been a distraction, but that shouldn’t have meant the rookie could get past him. No matter how hard he tried.
“Good job,” Drake said. “You’re done for the day.”
Immediately, the group struggling to keep doing push-ups collapsed with groans hovering between relieved and miserable. Exactly how they should be.
Lyndi levered to her feet and stumbled to the metal trash can in the corner where she proceeded to vomit, followed by a few more dry heaves. Then she turned and raised her eyebrows at Drake, clearly blaming him for her gastric pyrotechnics.
Drake ignored her.
His sister could kick every one of these guys asses and would probably be a harsher taskmaster if Finn had set her to this job. Probably why she was the only one of Drake’s seven siblings that he liked. He’d left the rest in Nepal when he’d been given the honor of this position by his king. Lyndi had followed. Something about not wanting to be forced into the poor aunt role. As a rare female-born dragon shifter, she was sterile, and would never have a family of her own.
With a careful maneuver, to hide how his left arm hung, numb and limp, at his side, Drake headed outside.
He’d been dealing with the way his body was falling apart long enough to know what came next. Flying usually knocked his body back into whack.
“Hit the showers,” he ordered over his shoulder. “Then help Delaney with dinner.”
“Oh no.” Delaney laughed. “Last time they helped, I had to cook my lasagna twice. I’m good.”
Drake really didn’t give a shit. “Right. Report to Finn, then.”
