by Abigail Owen
Slowly, as if careful not to spook a wild animal, she pivoted. And blinked. The years had not been kind to her enemy. When she’d seen him last, his body had already started rotting, having passed into that age when an unmated dragon’s body broke down, becoming susceptible to disease, deterioration, or insanity. Sometimes all of the above. For Pytheios, disease had taken his body in the form of skin decay.
The flesh hung from his bones as though gravity had dragged at him so long, the tissue lost elasticity. His eyes were sunken into his head, the reddish-brown irises, the hallmark of a red dragon, now milky and faded with age. Even the king’s brand, the symbol of Pytheios’s house, appeared faded where it marked the flesh on his hand between his thumb and forefinger.
How was he still alive?
Despite his now-decrepit appearance, she knew she’d never overpower him physically. She’d be willing to bet he no longer did his own fighting, though, and likely hadn’t in a while, which might make him slower, easier to surprise.
Serefina lifted her chin, ready to buy herself time. “You look like shit.”
His lips pulled back in what she guessed was supposed to be a smile. “How very…American. You are as lovely as ever.” He sniffed the air. “And you smell like ambrosia.”
Again, she had to hold down the bile threatening to spew from her. Serefina focused the fire inside herself, the gathering power undulating under her skin. If she wasn’t visibly glowing yet, she would be any second. She directed a small amount of energy into a single thought that she sent to her daughters.
The time has come.
They knew what those words meant. They knew what they had to do. Since the day of their birth—a day of joy devoured by a despair so deep she’d hardly been able to push her babies out of her body—Serefina had been preparing them for this eventuality.
Pytheios, still so arrogant he hadn’t yet restrained her, continued his demands. “Time to give me what you denied me more than five hundred years ago.”
“My duty was to Zilant, my destined mate,” she spat. “You will never be my king.”
Pytheios’s neck worked as though he were swallowing back his rage, the column of his throat moving like a serpent was trapped inside. “I no longer need your submission or your body.”
An icy shard of terror pierced her heart at the words and the sneer curling his lip. What did he mean?
“I’ll take your power and your life.”
Take her power? Could he? She’d never heard of such a thing, but his threat lent urgency to her next steps.
“I’ll die before I give you an ounce of my power,” she snarled. Fisting her hands, Serefina threw her arms wide. Her skin came alive with dancing flames, and her vision changed to one alight in a reddish glow.
Before she could use her strongest gift—the ability to transport her body anywhere with a single thought—Pytheios leaped forward and wrapped his hands around her throat. He squeezed hard enough to cut off oxygen, but not enough to kill. As a dragon, her fire didn’t harm him…couldn’t harm him unless he tried to force her to mate.
Serefina wouldn’t risk teleporting him with her. She needed to reach her daughters ahead of him—alone. But she’d learned a few tricks in the centuries she’d been hiding. In a simultaneous move, she brought her hands up to strike at the back of his thumbs, dislodging his grip from her neck, while at the same time kneeing him hard in the balls.
Pytheios dropped to the ground, clutching his groin, and she sprinted for the door. She didn’t make it more than three steps before he reached out and snagged her by the ankle. Serefina went down hard, slamming her head into a tabletop as she fell. Ears ringing, she turned on her attacker like a feral animal. She kicked him in the face, not that she’d ever damage a dragon’s harder bone structure, but the move surprised him into releasing her.
Serefina scrambled to her feet and rushed outside into the gravel parking lot. In the struggle with Pytheios, she’d lost her fire. She closed her eyes, gathering the necessary force from deep inside. She had seconds at best.
As her enemy’s bellow of frustration sounded from inside the diner, the fire ignited, pouring out of her skin. With another small burst of power and a whisper of resolve, she disappeared.
But not before the long blade of a hurled knife pierced through skin and bone, lodging in her spine with a sickening thud. Agony screamed through her body, even as her legs went horrifyingly numb.
Serefina accepted the pain, let it fuel the fury whipping the blaze inside her, and pictured the small clearing behind the unassuming house where she’d kept her family for the last twenty years. The image formed clearly in her mind—rickety white siding that needed replacing, dirt-covered screens, and the field with its tall, dry grass almost silver in the light of the full moon. Her daughters would be gathering out there now. Waiting for her. Probably terrified.
Using more energy than she’d wanted to expend, she accessed her gift of teleportation and pulled her body from the diner parking lot through the silent darkness of empty space, to appear in that familiar field in less than a heartbeat.
She hit the ground hard, crumpling to her knees, which no longer functioned. The knife had done its job, severing nerves and removing control over her own body. No matter. She could do what she had to do from the ground.
“Mother!” Her daughter Kasia’s voice pierced the sweltering night air.
Serefina raised her head to find all four of her daughters gathered about twenty feet away, their faces pale and stricken.
There wasn’t enough time.
The house where they lived was located only ten miles from the diner. Pytheios would eventually see the fire she was about to unleash, and not be far behind. She had only a few minutes to complete her task, if that.
Serefina focused on her children—grown women now, each as different from the other as the moon from the sun, each a reflection of both their darkly exotic mother, born of the red dragon king and a phoenix, and their blond-haired, pale-blue-eyed white dragon king father.
A cry of agony burst from her lips as she forced the crackling energy inside her to manifest. All around her, the grass burned, tinder to her flames, catching quickly. Her body began to shift, long, gloriously soft feathers bursting from her arms for the first time in her life. It was a bittersweet sight—the one time a phoenix ever turned into the bird was when she passed her powers to her daughter—or daughters, in Serefina’s case—either in death or by choice.
She couldn’t send her babies away without a final message, so she spared another precious ounce of her energy. “I love you all, and I am so proud of you. You are women worthy of our phoenix legacy, but don’t let history control you. Find your own way in this world.”
A colossal roar reverberated across the land behind her. Her daughters ducked, covering their ears. Pytheios, in his true form, lured by the flames, was coming for her.
No time.
She ignored the anguish racking her body, focusing on what she had to do with all her might. Her last act as a mother was the most important thing she’d ever do on this earth.
Picturing each of the four separate locations she’d predetermined ages ago, Serefina directed her gaze to the youngest of her quadruplets.
Tears streamed down Angelika’s heart-shaped face. Her pale blond hair whipped in the wind. “I love you,” her sweet daughter mouthed. And then, she was gone. Forced to another place, a safer place, by her mother’s will alone.
Serefina’s core trembled, her power depleting exponentially, but she pushed through, focusing next on Meira. More angular and serious, with her bouncy strawberry blonde curls at odds with her personality, she held her body rigidly, dark eyes closed as though unable to watch her mother’s last moments. Another burst of power, another push, and Meira was gone.
Her strength faltering, breath coming in panting bursts, Serefina felt smaller now, lighter, a
s her bones became hollow. Most of her had completed the shift, but she didn’t care about that. She refused to succumb to the dark spots dancing before her eyes.
Skylar came next. Her midnight hair, so like Serefina’s own, hung in a long braid over her shoulder. Even from here, those glacial blue eyes, her father’s eyes, so filled with defiance, pierced Serefina’s heart. Again, she focused her resolve and her waning control, and Skylar disappeared.
Flames poured off Serefina’s body, raising her dark curls around her head and eating up every inch of the land around her. The one tree in their yard exploded with a thunderous clash of sound and light as it ignited. Divergent with the blaze, a deep cold ached in Serefina’s bones, spreading insidiously through her body from within.
Did she have enough fire left in her? Enough for one final act?
Kasia stood before her, calm and steady. Dark red hair waved around her, lit with gold from the flames that crept nearer and nearer to her, but not yet licking at her feet.
Serefina looked closer. Was that fire in her child’s eyes? Was the power of the phoenix already passing from mother to child? Serefina knew she had mere moments until her body would be consumed by her own flames. She had to get Kasia away before that happened, or Pytheios would take her.
The blistering flames around her swayed and danced as a draft of wind pushed down from above, and the shadow of a massive beast high overhead loomed.
Pytheios.
Had he seen all four of her daughters? A crimson claw reached for Kasia, who dove for the ground. Her brave girl didn’t even scream, instead looking to her mother, waiting for the deliverance she trusted would come.
Serefina reached out to Kasia, her hand now a wing of deep red and gold feathers, and shoved every last ounce of the raging storm inside her at her daughter, and with iron will forged in fire and pain, she sent her child far away from the monster above her, to a safer place.
Finally, she could let go. Let death consume her, sending her home. To rest. To peace. To Zilant.
The furious roar of the dragon was the last thing Serefina heard as her body disintegrated to ash, starting at the tips of her wings and working toward her center, the fine powder drifting away in the wind.
Chapter One
Brand pulled his 1970 Plymouth Hemi Cuda into the empty parking lot and rolled into the space nearest the frosted glass door sporting a tiny sign. MEDICAL SERVICES.
Right place. The fact that it appeared deserted didn’t faze him, not for this kind of facility. With a flick of the key, he cut off the deep rumble of the souped-up classic car’s engine but didn’t get out immediately.
“Why the hell am I here?” he muttered under his breath.
The fifth place he’d been sent in the last year looking for gods knew what—having visited the traitors in South America, the Huracán Enforcers in California, a witch in Alaska, and a chimera in Toronto. Now Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The Blood King was searching for a woman. That’s all Brand had pieced together, though suspicion had started to itch at him.
He pulled out the satellite phone he carried with him when working for the king and punched in the private number he never stored in the device’s memory, just his own. Immediately a low male voice answered.
“Have you met her?” came the immediate question. No intro or greeting necessary. The man on the other end already knew who he was and why he was calling.
“No. I’m parked outside.” And this is a colossal fucking waste of my time.
He’d traveled halfway around the world on a goose chase for something that didn’t exist. Brand kept that last bit to himself. Ladon Ormarr wouldn’t appreciate having his obsessive quest questioned again. Not that he’d rip Brand’s insides out next time they crossed paths or anything, but Brand needed the other dragon to stay on his side. Serving as a mercenary for Ladon, the Blood King of the Blue Dragon Clan, doing every job no one else would take, was all for a purpose—survival and revenge.
Ladon was a major key to a plan centuries in the making—one that involved killing Uther, the King of the Gold Clan. Something that had turned out to be a lot tougher than Brand had ever expected, so Brand had no intention of pissing off his only ally.
“Call me when you’ve seen her.”
Click.
Brand stared at his phone and held back his irritation with effort. Looked like Ladon had zero intention of letting this fixation go.
Fine. He’d get this over with, get paid regardless, and move on to trying to figure out how to get to Uther before he died of old age.
Brand swung himself out of the car and stalked into the facility.
And immediately froze.
Smoke. The noticeable scent of it hung heavy in the halls of the private medical clinic tucked discreetly into a series of warehouses in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The campfire aroma had a sweet undercurrent, sort of chocolaty, and was strong enough to mask the antiseptic smell that inundated most medical facilities.
Brand stopped inside the doors and studied the flavor of the odor, letting it wash over his senses of smell and taste, trying to identify the source. Only a handful of creatures dealt in fire. A dragon shifter himself, he should be able to easily identify this one.
The fact that he couldn’t pinpoint a species landed on the “pay attention” scale of his give-a-shit-o-meter.
That small suspicion that had been creeping up on him grew deeper roots.
Brand controlled his reaction, determined to give no outward sign of his tension. He’d trained himself long ago to never respond so others could see. Reaction was weakness that could be exploited, and weakness for a rogue dragon meant certain death.
Instead, he walked up to the receptionist, a woman who gave a low growl deep in her throat. Polar bear shifter. He’d expected no less at this clinic. From what he understood after checking this place out, Dr. Oppenheim dealt only with special cases. Supernatural medical needs. Having reinforcement in the front office in the form of a large predator shifter was only smart.
The polar bear wouldn’t have been able to help the growl or the way her canines elongated in her mouth. Predators didn’t like it when more dangerous predators showed up. Dragons were as dangerous as anything supernatural got, and they didn’t play nice with others.
Strike that. They didn’t play. Period.
Brand ignored the growled warning. He’d already sized her up in one glance. This woman was an alpha and unmated, which could make her dangerous. Good thing he didn’t care.
He whipped out the credentials he used in situations like these. “My name is Brand Astarot. I’m a private investigator.”
The lie about his job tripped easily off his tongue. He’d been using the PI cover for his own purposes for a long time. It tended to open doors faster, or at least give him a reason to be in unusual locations and circumstances. “Dr. Oppenheim should be expecting me.”
The bear shifter took a moment to force her teeth back to human size. “My apologies, Mr. Astarot,” she murmured. “We don’t get much traffic during daylight hours.”
Not completely at ease, she eyed his form, taking in his six-foot-five, muscled frame, the breadth of his shoulders, her gaze finally dropping to his right hand.
Every dragon shifter sported a brand signifying the clan and king he owed allegiance to—Blue, Gold, Red, White, Green, or Black. Even in the Americas, supernaturals knew to check.
Brand had no such mark on his hand. Which left only one option—he was a rogue dragon, abandoned or exiled by his people, or one who’d deliberately left his clan.
A rogue who hadn’t already been hunted down and killed by his own kind tended to be batshit crazy and unpredictable with it. Crazy wasn’t his style.
Yet.
But the receptionist didn’t know that, and the general perception was a tool he relied on to stay alive.
“We don’t ge
t many dragons in here, either,” she finally said.
Reading between the lines, and knowing his extremely secretive people, he doubted this clinic got any. Dragons had their own healers. “I understand.”
She nodded, then picked up the phone. “Dr. Oppenheim? A private investigator named Mr. Astarot has arrived. Shall I have him go on back?”
After a long silence, a calm voice answered. “I’ve been expecting him. However, our patient is about to supernova again.”
Supernova?
Dr. Oppenheim continued. “I guess if he’s investigating her, he’d better see what he’s dealing with.”
Even the shifter grimaced. She hit the button to hang up and pointed at a set of double doors to her right. “Through there. End of the hall.”
Brand paused at the doors. “What does supernova mean in this context?”
She grimaced again. “Let’s just say we’re lucky we have a fireproof room, or we would’ve burned down twice in the last month.”
Fire. The same symptom he’d been tracking all over the damn planet. Brand couldn’t see Ladon bothering with any of the lesser fire creatures, and he was too smart to mess with a hellhound. He’d initially assumed Ladon was searching for a dragon mate. A queen would stop the aging process for the king, as well as help solidify his claim to the throne. As a new king, Ladon could use all the support he could get.
But no. The scent mingling in the smoke wasn’t dragon. This was something…different. And if his suspicions were right, something impossible.
Adrenaline-fueled curiosity mixed with a certain amount of dread as Brand made his way down the long corridor. About the length of a football field, the walls were painted white, matching the white tile floors, all illuminated by overhead lights that gave off a low buzz that aggravated his sensitive hearing and cast a bluish hue over everything.
He passed several doors with various labels. Normal ones like exam rooms and surgery. A few not-so-normal ones. He held in a sneer as he passed a room geared toward newly made werewolves—no windows, dragonsteel bars that he’d bet were electrified, magically warded, or both. Not that a dragon’s first time shifting was any easier, but they had their own process for that.
