A loud crack sounded. A sharp pain sank into the center of his palm.
“Oh wow, sorry to interrupt you, Kellan.” Stacey fidgeted on the sofa beside Mike, and waved a finger in the direction of Kellan’s hand. A nervous laugh fell from her lips and her eyebrows twisted into a frown. “But I think we’re having a furniture malfunction here.”
Kellan jerked his stare down to where he gripped the sofa’s armrest.
“Shit,” he burst out, jerking his hand away.
Tuffs of white padding came with it, falling to the floor as more padding spilled out from five ragged puncture marks and the great big bloody hole in the leather made by the splintered wooden frame of the armrest jutting up through it.
Kellan looked at the mess. At the fresh wound in his palm. At the destroyed arm of the sofa again.
Shit. He’d broken the armrest with his hand.
Deep inside, his dragon roared. Surged against the tenuous control he held over his shift. Pushed against it.
Straining for his Fire Mate. Needing her.
“Whoa.” Mike laughed, looking at the damaged armrest. “Think we need to have a word with our set designer.” He flicked Kellan a smile. “How’s your hand?”
“Cut to commercial,” someone yelled from behind the array of cameras.
“Thank fuck,” Stacey snapped, throwing up her hands. “Can we get someone here to fix-up Kellan’s—”
Kellan jolted to his feet—on fire, in pain—and unclipped the mic attached to his shirt front. “I’ve got to go. Sorry. I’m…not good with blood.”
He took off. Didn’t look back.
Through the studio, past security, and across the foyer. Out of the building, into the bright morning sun.
He had to get out of there. He needed to find Reece, he needed to find his Fire Mate. He needed to make physical contact as soon as possible. It was the only way he’d have any control over his form. If he didn’t, he—
Something warm slammed into him.
No, someone warm slammed into him.
Someone tall and warm and smelling of lust and honey and sulphur and perfection.
Kiss him. Kiss…
The frantic thought flashed through his mind—her thought, Reece’s thoughts—a heartbeat before her green eyes locked on his, her hands tangled in his hair and she yanked his head down and captured his lips with her own.
Her tongue swept into his mouth, demanding his. He gave it to her, growling into the kiss, his body igniting with lust and urgent want. A million pinpricks of fire traversed his skin, sank into his muscles, his bones, his soul. His cock throbbed, rigid and trapped in his jeans. Its length pressed to the soft plane of her stomach, the intimate contact detonating fresh heat in his groin.
Elemental desire lashed at him, his croi burning with the force of their fated bonding, the potency of their hungry kiss.
He grabbed her arse and squeezed, hauling her closer still to his body.
She whimpered into his mouth and rolled her hips, grinding harder against his erection.
Waves of heat rolled over him. His. Hers. Deep within his dual existence, his dragon roared and flexed and pushed for release.
He groaned and kissed her harder, his hands far from gentle on her butt cheeks as he held her exactly where he wanted her—pressed to him, his to taste and kiss and mark as his own.
She tore her lips free, her hands fisting his hair tighter, and rolled her head to the side, presenting him with the creamy column of her neck. “Do it,” she demanded on a panted breath. “Mark me.”
Cock throbbing harder, he captured the side of her neck with his mouth, his body burning at the smooth warmth of her skin under his lips and tongue.
Yes…
He sucked.
She cried out, clawing at his scalp, rolling her hips. “Don’t stop,” she rasped, as he began to pull away. “Please don’t stop! Keep going.”
He sucked again on her neck, every fiber of his body an inferno. Every molecule thrumming with the urgent need to take her, to fuck her—
Oh Reece, what are you doing…this isn’t…
Her tumultuous thought tore at his mind, raw lust cut by anger and frustration.
And fear.
Her fear.
He pulled away, head swimming, vision fogged by suffocating sexual urgency and pleasure. Hell, they were out in public, at her place of work. People mingled around them, no doubt watching. They needed to go somewhere private. Somewhere safe…
“Reece…”
Her name melted on his tongue and a hitching gasp left her, her pupils dilating as she looked up at him, fingers still tangled in his hair.
“I…” she whispered. “I’m—”
“Oi, Reece?” a male voice shouted somewhere in another world. “Reece, what the fuck is going on? The firefighter broke the sofa and took off and we need you back—”
She jerked away, eyes wide, chest heaving.
He stopped himself from grabbing her. Just.
Scared. She was scared. Her fear shone in her face and throbbed in her heat.
And yet, they were Fire Mates. They were bonded, the magic of their joined existence forged before they were even born.
She doesn’t know you. Just because you’re Fire Mates doesn’t make what’s happening easy to accept or surrender to. You should—
“Reece?” the unseen man shouted again.
“Gregory. My director,” she whispered, stumbling back a step. “I can’t…” She pressed her palms to her stomach, shaking her head. “I refuse to let this happen. It can’t. I can beat this.”
“Beat what?”
Her stare locked on his. “The mating fire. I refuse to let this happen.”
A shocked laugh tore from his throat.
Her eyes narrowed and she pointed a finger at him. “Screw this. Screw you.”
“Isn’t that the idea?”
He regretted the words the second they passed his lips—lips still moist from her hungry kiss.
“Coming,” she yelled over her shoulder toward the building, holding his stare.
He ground his teeth, skin once again burning with tiny needles of fire. “Reece, you can’t seriously think you can ignore the mating fire? You know that’s impossible.”
“Watch me,” she snapped. She spun on her heel and stomped back toward the studio’s entryway.
What the…
He closed the short distance between them, snagged her wrist and yanked her back to face him. “What are you doing? You know what will happen if we don’t—”
“Reece?” A man came running up to them, headset slung around his neck, confusion twisting his eyebrows. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we need you back inside.” He flicked Kellan a quick look. “Your bit’s finished, Mr. Donovan. We slotted in something else. You can go back to Newcastle. Thanks.”
“Sorry, Gregory. I was just making sure Mr.…Firefighter…man,” Reece scrunched up her face, pulled her wrist free of Kellan’s loose grip and let out a shaky breath. “I was making sure Mr. Donovan was okay.”
Gregory frowned at Kellan again. “He broke the on-set sofa.”
Reece’s eyebrows shot up, and for a second, Kellan sensed a wave of mirth rolling from her. And then a wall of sexual need smashed into him—hers? His? He didn’t know. But it was almost a physical blow, and his knees buckled, a thick growl rumbling deep in his chest.
“Holy shit!” Gregory yelped, looking around. “Did you hear that animal or something—”
“Donovan!” Perkins stomped over to them, fists balled and swinging by his side, glare locked on Kellan. “Do you have any idea how much you’ve just fucked up?”
“Thank you for your time this morning, Mr. Donovan.” Reece fixed her stare on Kellan, held it for a brief second. “If your services are needed again, someone will call.”
And with that, she spun on her heel and hurried away, Gregory tailing her, throwing glances over his shoulder at Kellan.
“What the fuck was that?” Perk
ins stepped into Kellan’s line of sight, eyebrows high on his forehead. “I thought you were supposed to be good at this kind of—”
Kellan growled. Locked his stare on the blustering man and growled.
Didn’t hold back.
Growled.
The blood leached from Perkins’ face, his mouth fell open, and the acrid stench of terror suddenly bit into Kellan’s nose.
Fuck. He needed to control himself. Terrorizing humans wasn’t part of his playbook.
Shit.
And still, it didn’t matter.
Still, all his body wanted, all his dragon wanted, all his soul needed was his Fire Mate. He needed Reece. Like he needed breath. And if he didn’t have her soon, if they didn’t surrender to the demand of the mating fire…
Hell, she’d actually denied the power of the mating fire. Spurned it.
He had no choice. He had to get somewhere safe, somewhere away from the public.
Home. Get home. Back to Newcastle. Now. Before Sydney suddenly has an ink-black dragon swooping around the skies above the harbor.
Yeah, like that was doable. How the hell could he suppress the need to shift for over two hours? It wasn’t possible. He was strong, had a reputation for his iron control over his dual existence, but this? He had no hope of controlling this.
“Tyson,” he growled, shoving his hand into his back pocket.
“Tyson what?” Perkins threw up his hands, eyes wide. Incredulous. “Do you have any idea how humiliating that was? How much shame you’ve just brought to the NSWFR service?”
Turning his back on the apoplectic media liaison manager, Kellan yanked his phone from his pocket, found Tyson Conley’s number in his contacts and hit dial, striding away from the studio building.
Sydney’s apex alpha dragon would be able to help him.
If nothing else, he’d be able to direct him to the best place to get his arse to immediately, so he could conceal his shift.
The guy owed him a favor anyway.
The bastard’s going to laugh himself silly when he hears what’s happened.
Gritting his teeth, the mating fire singeing his nerve endings and sanity, Kellan thrust his phone to his ear. Tyson could laugh all he wanted, as long as he also helped Kellan get out the other side of this before turning into a very horny dragon whose sole purpose was to track down his Fire Mate and fuck her.
“Donovan?” Tyson’s deep voice rumbled through the phone connection. “What the hell are you doing calling me? Aren’t you supposed to be on Sunrise in Sydney?”
“I’ve got a problem, mate,” Kellan ground out, coming to a halt. He’d ask Tyson later exactly how he knew he was in Sydney. When he wasn’t struggling to stay human. “A hot one. A fiery one.”
Silence filled the connection. For a beat. Only one.
“Fuck a duck,” Tyson laughed. “The infamous Kellan Donovan’s finally been hit by the mating fire? Congrats, mate! My commiserations to the poor female dragon stuck with you for an eternity.”
“Funny bastard.” Kellan gripped his phone tighter. Behind him, clearly not getting the cues to leave him alone, Perkins ranted about being ignored and being embarrassed and how he was going to get Kellan fired.
Huh, fired. If only the tosser knew how accurate he was.
“Here’s the deal though,” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm. Human. “The fire has taken off, mate. Contact’s been…delayed. And the shifting situation is tenuous.”
“Fuck a duck,” Tyson muttered. “Again.”
“Yep,” Kellan agreed with his own mutter.
He flicked the immediate area around him a look. Way too many people hurried around the building. Sunrise in Sydney filmed in a sprawling studio lot built on one of the historic, centuries-old jetties jutting out into Sydney Harbor. Worst case scenario, he could dive into the famous water, shift below the surface and resurface somewhere secluded.
The trouble was, he didn’t know Sydney or its harbor well enough to know where those secluded places were. Or how to find himself some clothes after the shift into dragon form destroyed the ones he was currently wearing. And his phone wasn’t waterproof, so he’d be up the proverbial creek getting any kind of assistance without making a scene—something he’d rather not do.
And what happens if Perkins jumps in after you, thinking you’re trying to drown yourself after the Sunrise in Sydney debacle?
Hell, that would be a great big fucking nightmare.
“Are you still at the studio?” Tyson asked.
“Yep.” He flicked a glance toward Perkins, now standing silent behind him, narrow-eyed and agitated, and then turned his attention to the deep harbor water a few feet away. “Just outside it. On a jetty. On the water.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
“But your Fire Mate isn’t with you?”
An image of Reece filled Kellan’s head, her green eyes holding his. Fresh heat erupted through him, the memory of her lips on his, her tongue, swelling through him. “No,” he growled.
“Is the person with you human?”
“Yes.” Damn it, words were already becoming harder to utter. If he didn’t do something soon, it would be game over.
“How long do you think you have?” Worry ate up Tyson’s question. “Before you’ll shift? Minutes? Seconds?”
“Mr. Perkins?” a male voice called. “Ian Perkins?”
Kellan jolted around, his gut clenching at the sight of Gregory hurrying toward them.
“Yes?” Perkins straightened, brushing at his shirt front, even as he slid Kellan an ambiguous glance.
“Can you come with me, please, Mr. Perkins?” Gregory stopped, extending his arm back toward the studio entry. “Our producer has a few things she’d like me to discuss with you.” He flicked a smirk at Kellan, and then smiled wider at Perkins. “But only you.”
Irrational jealousy sheared through Kellan, cold and tight, and then he let out a wobbly breath. Maybe Reece was doing him a favor. Getting Perkins away from him. Surely she was also struggling with the ramifications of denying the mating fire? “I think I just got a few seconds’ reprieve, Tyson,” he mumbled into his phone.
“If you’ve only got a few seconds before you can no longer control your shift, get your scaly arse into the water as inconspicuously as you can. If you can last a few minutes…well, I’m doing my best to get there ASAP. I’m not that far away.”
“What good will you getting here do?” Kellan clawed at the back of his neck, his chest as tight as his balls. “You’re not exactly my type, given what’s going on. And why the fuck are you ‘not that far away’? Are you tracking me?”
Tyson snorted. “Calm down, Kel. Since my own unexpected almost-public shift, I’ve made it my mission to find a way to dampen the forced transformation of the mating fire. But it only works for about an hour. Two at the max. And of course I’m bloody well tracking you. The second an apex alpha from another territory enters mine, I know. And as far as territorial threats go, Kel, you’re the biggest one for me.”
“I don’t know whether to be impressed or scared,” Kellan grunted, watching Perkins pivot around to sneer at him.
“Stay here,” Perkins ordered with a jab of his finger in Kellan’s direction. “This isn’t over.”
Kellan bit back a growl, watching as Perkins spun back to Reece’s director and followed him toward the studio.
“Okay,” he said on a shaky breath back into his phone, “I’m…”
…helped. God, I hope he’s going to be okay…
Reece’s disconnected thought whispered through his mind, faint and almost impossible to hold on to. But there.
“Ah fuck,” he ground out as his body, his croi, his lust, instantly responded to the gossamer-like tendril of connection with his Fire Mate. “Fuck, Tyson, I think I need to take a dip.”
“I’m about a minute away, mate.” Stress filled Tyson’s voice. “Not even that. I’m almost there. I can see the studio. Take a deep breath for me.”
“Nope, but if you have to throw yourself into the harbor, at least you’ve already got a lungful of air, right?”
Said lungful of air burst from him in a rough laugh. “If you get here in time, I’m going to thump the shit out of—”
A wave of want crashed over him, hot and desperate and panicked. Reece’s want.
Heat swept over him, a ravenous inferno of driving need. His cock throbbed so hard it ached. His knees buckled, and he hit the ground, phone clattering from his grip as his dragon surged for freedom.
No! he roared in his head, smashing his right fist against the ground as his bones began to unknit. No!
Agony ripped through him. His muscles and bones screamed in protest, the halted shift like an imploding bomb inside his very being. His dragon railed against the imprisonment. His body burned up, consumed with the mating fire’s force.
No! he silently screamed again, searching for the jetty’s edge through a fog of lust and need and pain.
A few feet away. Only a few feet away. And beyond that, the dark water of Sydney Harbor.
Hells bells, could he make it? Could he—
“Kel.” A strong hand wrapped around his upper arm, and the distinct scent of Tyson Conley flooded his breath. “I’m here, mate. I’ve got you. This is going to hurt.”
Vision blurring, he lifted his head and grimaced at the other dragon shifter, even as a hitching laugh fell from him. “More than this?”
“’Fraid so,” Tyson muttered—a heartbeat before a piercing point of icy pain stabbed into the side of Kellan’s neck, followed instantly by excruciating, stinging heat.
“Holy fuck!” Kellan roared. Or sighed. Or thought.
Agony filled him. His spine snapped into a severe bow and—as the world turned to a swirling black fog—he crumpled to the ground…
Kellan…oh my God, Kellan…!
Reece’s alarm swirled through the pain, whispered through his mind, and then the black fog consumed everything.
And there was nothing.
“What have you done?” Reece smashed her palms into Tyson’s chest. “What have you done to him?”
Enter the Dragon Page 3
