Archie trained the crossbow’s bolt back onto Kellan’s chest. A mortal shot. “Fuck me, you’re funny, big boy.”
Kellan took another step forward. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
Archie gave the crossbow a tiny shake. “I’ll shoot you in that pretty face if you take another step.”
“What have I got to lose?” Kellan snorted. “You’re either going to kill me as a dragon or shoot me as a human. I may as well go out in style and take you with me.”
“Huh.” Archie’s eyes narrowed again. “Good point. Okay, what about this then?” He swung the crossbow a fraction, training it on Reece instead.
Kellan growled.
Reece’s gut clenched. Her dragon surged for release, craving to rip Archie apart. To burn him. Eat him.
Archie raised his eyebrows again. “I’ll shoot the bitch if you take another step, big boy. Or if she takes a step. One less dragon kill, for sure, but I was only hunting you anyway. When I kill you, I’ll be the youngest Extraho Venator to take down an apex alpha dragon. You’re the trophy we’ve been hunting after all, not the cunt.”
Reece rolled her eyes. “Why do males think that word is such an insult? Do you have any idea just how incredible and amazing and tough a cunt is?”
That mirthless laugh fell from Kellan again.
Archie sneered. “A feminazi dragon? Shit, you should be thanking me, big boy. I’m saving you from spending the rest of your life being stuck with her.”
“So your plan really is to wait for one of us to shift form?” Reece asked, shaking her head. “Then you’ll shoot whoever does it first?”
“Yep.”
“What do you think the other will do to you while you reload?” Kellan asked.
Archie jerked his stare to him.
A tiny smile pulled at Reece’s lips. Could the hunter’s knuckles be any whiter? And was that a slight tremor in his hand?
“I’ve got a fucking big knife in my back pocket.”
“A knife?” Kellan snorted. “Oh, well, in that case, I’m petrified.”
“Shut up,” Archie snarled.
“And if your aim sucks?” Reece asked. He snapped his focus back to her.
Yep, his hand shook ever so slightly. Good.
She cocked an eyebrow. “Do you really want to deal with not only an angry dragon, but a wounded one?”
Kellan snorted again. “You really didn’t think this through, did you, Archie?”
“Shut up!” Archie shouted, stabbing the crossbow toward Reece. “Shut up or I’ll shoot the cunt now.”
“You’re a pile of ash if you do,” Kellan promised. Menace laced his voice again, cold and hard. The promise of unending agony filled each vowel and syllable. “I’ll make you a deal, Archie—let Reece walk out of here now, untouched, and I’ll transform into my dragon form and you can shoot me as soon as I do.”
“Hell yeah!” Archie burst out. “Get out of here, cu—”
Reece moved. Fast. Throwing herself forward.
“Fuck!” Archie screamed.
And fired.
A solid thwak splintered the air.
She saw the blur of the bolt heading for her a split second before an inferno of pain detonated in her shoulder.
Ah shit, that hurts…
For a sickening moment, she registered cold steel piercing her flesh, scraping against the bone in her body, and then the force of the bolt flung her backward, knocking her into a lurching spin.
“No!” Kellan’s roar destroyed the world, although it wasn’t a word.
Nor was it a human sound.
Existence shuddered.
Fury and fear sheared through her—Kellan’s—a heartbeat before she hit the floor.
Agony devoured her. Suffocated her.
Existence shuddered again, and suddenly, the world turned hotter. The very air blistered. The safe house’s ground shook as massive wings tore through the burning air.
Pain and heat overwhelmed Reece. Smothered her.
And then…nothing.
5
“Thank God for Game of Thrones.”
Kellan squeezed his eyes shut, pulled his phone from his ear, and pressed it to his forehead. Counted to ten. Put it back to his ear. “I have no clue what you’re talking about, Drake.”
“The TV show?” Arriman “Ari” Drake said on the other end. “So-called event television. Huge all over the world. It had dragons in it. CGI dragons, at least.”
“Why are you telling me about a television show?”
He didn’t have time for this. He’d called the state’s best Cleaner for help, not to chat about a TV show. Reece was unconscious in his bedroom, Doctor Fields was on her way, and the mating fire was burning through him like an apocalyptic storm, turning every second into a nightmare battle of willpower simply to keep control over his fucking body, his horny dragon…hell, his very existence.
“Because,” Ari answered, laughter cutting his voice, “I’m going to work my magic, put out some sneaky fake social media posts, hashtag dragons in Australia, and hopefully anyone who saw you flying your big black scaly arse between here and Sydney will hopefully think the fucking great big black dragon they saw was a promo for the Game of Thrones prequel.”
“You’re kidding? You’ve reduced me to a…a…what? Dragon-shaped blimp?”
“When you say it like that, well, yep.”
Kellan let out a sigh, pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head. He had no problem picturing the other dragon shifter’s playful grin. The guy looked like a Viking cosplaying as a biker, but when he grinned, he made almost anyone with a pulse—human, shifter, male, female—suddenly get very interested in exploring things they may not normally think about exploring. Hell, even Kellan had found himself wondering what Drake must be like in bed more than once, thanks to that grin. And the guy’s mischievous sense of humor was infectious.
Right at that moment, however, the only thing on Kellan’s mind was what had happened in Tyson’s safe house in Sydney.
An image of Reece on his bed, Archie’s crossbow bolt still embedded in her shoulder, destroyed the picture of Drake in Kellan’s mind, and he bit back a growl.
“Is there any talk yet?” he asked, stomach churning.
Ari let out another short laugh. “Not yet. I gotta say, I never expected you’d be the dragon to present me with such a challenge. A full-on dragon flight in the middle of the day? You’re not making my job easy, Kel.”
“Sorry about that, mate.”
“It’s all good. I like a challenge. All us Cleaners do. But again, I say thank God for Game of Thrones.”
“I’m going to have to watch this show one day,” Kellan muttered.
“It’s good. You’ll like it,” Ari said, not a hint of stress or agitation in his voice. “I’ve got the whole series on Blu-ray. I’ll bring it up with me.”
Kellan blinked. “You’re coming up here?”
“Yeah. Told you, you’ve presented me with a big challenge. Most of the threat of discovery happened here in Sydney, but I just wanna make sure you’re going to be okay up there. ”
“I’m okay.” He was. Reece, however…
“It’s all good, mate,” Ari said, no doubt misreading the worry in Kellan’s voice. “This isn’t a challenge for territory. Promise. I’m not interested in being an apex alpha at all. You’re a friend. I wanna do right by you.”
A shaky breath scratched at Kellan’s throat. “Thanks, Ari.”
“Told you, it’s all good.” A relaxed chuckle rolled through the phone connection. “I’ll send you a text when I hit your neck of the woods. Catch you later, mate.”
Ending the call, Kellan tossed the phone—his old landline he hadn’t used in months—onto the coffee table and clawed his hands through his hair.
Cleaners were always good to have on your side, given how important they were to keeping the existence of dragon shifters from human knowledge, but they existed in an entirely different hierarchy. Cleaners answered
to no apex alpha, which made them an unknown quantity in a territory.
Kellan had never needed the skills of a Cleaner before, but he and Arriman had struck up a friendship when Kellan first moved to the state. Ari—for all his menacing, lone-dragon persona—was a great guy who wanted the dragon shifters in the area he covered to know he had their backs. As long as they didn’t do anything stupid, that was.
Shifting into a dragon in the middle of the day and flying over two-hundred kilometers up the most populated stretch of Australian coastline? That was almost the very definition of “stupid.”
Kellan let out another sigh. His shift into his dragon form had taken him by surprise. One second the ability to transform had still been repressed, the next…
He’d been a dragon.
A pissed-off dragon.
A very pissed-off dragon.
Staring down at the human—the hunter—who’d shot his Fire Mate.
And then the pissed-off dragon had done what any protective dragon would do when their fated mate had been shot by an Extraho Venator—incinerated the foolish human.
His gut churned again.
He’d turned Archie into a pillar of ash with a single blast of fire, had split the air with a roar of fury, and then had scooped up Reece in one talon-tipped claw and burst through the safe house’s roof. Had flown straight to Newcastle.
In full daylight.
Shit, Tyson was never going to let him live this—
…am I…
A wave of groggy confusion swelled through him, threaded with pain and anger, and he jolted to his feet, his heart slamming up into his throat.
Reece.
A prickling itch of sexual awareness crawled over his skin as the gossamer threads of their mystical connection ignited the mating fire’s urgency again. His cock throbbed.
“Not the fucking time,” he snarled at it, hurrying to his bedroom.
Another wave of Reece’s confusion and pain crashed over him, more potent than before, as his stare fell on her. Threaded through it, however…
Kellan bit back a groan. She was as sexually ravenous as he was. How the hell were they going to survive the next few minutes before the doc arrived without doing anything stupid with the mating fire burning through them both like this?
And making love to her while a crossbow bolt jutted out of her shoulder would be very stupid.
“Heya,” she mumbled, lips curling in a slow smile as her heavy-lidded gaze found him. “So we’re still alive, I see?”
He crossed to his bed, his blood roaring in his ears, his body thrumming with starved need, and settled his arse on its edge beside her. “We did.”
An image of Archie’s ashes scattering across the safe house’s floor flashed through his mind.
“That’s good. I’m partial to being alive.” Wincing, Reece lifted her hand and feathered her fingers over the inflamed skin where the bolt pierced her body. “Even with this sticking out of me.”
“The doc’s on her way. She’ll get it out soon.”
Eyes closing, she let out a shallow breath. “Okay. Not going to lie, this is not how I thought my day was going to go.”
Threading his fingers through hers, he laughed. “Me either. I was planning to go for a surf when I got back from being on your show.”
She groaned, another wince pulling at her face. “My show. Yeah, I’m probably sacked by now. Taking off like I did. Damn it, I liked that job.”
“You know Arriman Drake?”
“The Cleaner with the sexy grin?”
“Yeah, yeah.” A small jolt of jealousy sank into his chest even as he rolled his eyes. “Leave it at the door.”
She smiled up at him, mischief dancing in her eyes. “Only by reputation. Why?”
“He’s on the job. Tidying up my mess. He might be able to sort out the job situation. From what I hear, there’s not much he can’t fix.”
“Your mess? What mess?” She frowned, and then ran a gaze around the room. “Umm…where are we? This is not the safe house, is it.”
“No. This is…this is my house.”
She blinked. Shucked herself into a sitting position, wincing and hissing in pain the whole time, and then studied the bedroom again. “Your house. We’re in your house. And this is your bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“In Newcastle.”
“Yes.”
“How did we get here? What happened to Archie?”
A heavy pressure wrapped around Kellan’s chest. It was a fact of dragon-shifter life that if an Extraho Venator discovered your existence, it could come down to kill or be killed. But finding out your Fire Mate killed a human barely a few hours after you’d met them? It wasn’t exactly the best first impression.
Reece’s eyes narrowed. “Is Archie still alive?”
“No.”
“How did he…” She waved a hand.
“By fire.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You shifted?”
“I did. I didn’t plan to. Didn’t know I could. But he shot you, and then…I suddenly shifted and dealt with him, and flew us both here.”
“Flew?” She blinked again. “In the day? From Sydney to Newcastle?”
He swallowed.
She stared at him, and then let out a short laugh. “Holy crap.”
He didn’t move.
She frowned again. “So, you just flew up the coast and…what? Landed in your backyard? Hoped no one was looking?”
With a sigh, he rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’ve got two homes here. One a few minutes’ drive to the station house, and one on acreage forty minutes out of Newcastle itself. Isolated. Surrounded by lots of trees and bush.”
“Ahh.” She nodded, brushing her fingers over the skin next to the crossbow bolt. “So we’re at the isolated home. So the only people who might have seen you are the possible thousands who looked up at the sky as you flew up the coast.”
He grimaced, rubbed at the back of his neck again and let out a dry laugh. “Ever heard of Game of Thrones?”
“Oh, I love that show.” She grinned, green eyes shimmering. “So I take it Arriman Drake is going to somehow make it seem the dragon anyone saw today was part of that show’s promo?”
“How did you guess?”
She shrugged, winced, and rolled her eyes. “Idiot.” She touched his wrist with her fingers. “Me. I’m the idiot, not you. I need to remember I have an arrow sticking out of me before I shrug.”
“It would help.”
She grinned again. “I guessed because I’m in show biz, or I was. It’s what I would do if I was presented with the same predicament. Hey, maybe I should become a Cleaner? If I’m now unemployed.”
“You are incredible,” he said, unable to stop himself.
She smiled up at him. “I’m a control freak who doesn’t like not having a plan. Sorry. Life with me is going to be annoying.”
“I don’t care.” He smiled back at her, cupping the side of her face in a steady hand and brushing his thumb over her bottom lip. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”
“Or hornier,” she said, eyes flaring green fire again. “As soon as the doctor pulls this damn thing out of my shoulder, I’m going to impale myself on your—”
Loud banging bounced through the house from the front door.
They looked at each other. Reece’s lips twitched.
A warm wave of happiness rolled over Kellan—his and Reece’s—and he straightened to his feet. “If this is anyone but the doc…”
Reece grinned. “Hurry up. I can’t wait much longer.”
He turned to go, swung back to her and dropped a quick but gentle kiss on her smiling mouth.
Her hum of approval vibrated through him, making it hard to pull away.
But he did. Just.
Striding from the room, his whole body thrummed.
“Hurry,” she laughed after him.
He did.
Yanking open the front door, he let out a long sigh.
&n
bsp; The woman standing on the other side arched a dark eyebrow at him. “Not the greeting I was expecting, Kellan.”
With a wry grunt, he shook his head and waved her in. “Sorry, Emmaline. Until I saw you this second, I think I was half expecting to find a pain in my arse on the other side of the door.”
“Do I ask?”
“No. You’re here, and that’s what matters.” If it had been Perkins—as a dark part of his mind had suggested when he’d wrapped his fingers around the doorknob—who the hell knows what he would’ve done.
Emmaline didn’t waste any time chitchatting or making small talk. She strode to Kellan’s room, crossed to his bed and inspected the flesh around the crossbow bolt.
“This is the doc,” Kellan told Reece over Emmaline’s head. “Emmaline, this is Reece.”
“Is the Extraho Venator who did this dead now?” Emmaline asked without looking up from Reece’s shoulder.
“Yes.” Something dark—not guilt, not triumph, but something conflicted and primal—twisted through Kellan.
“Good.” Emmaline lifted her head, smiled at Reece, and then flicked Kellan a quick look. “It may be traitorous to my own kind, but I like to see the gutless chickenshits who call themselves Venators get their comeuppance.”
“Your kind?” Reece frowned, winced as Emmaline touched her shoulder a little harder, and frowned again. “You’re not a dragon shifter?”
Emmaline snorted, her attention once again fixed on Reece’s injury. “No, I’m human. One of those rare humans who know all about the existence of your kind and your unique biological physiology.”
She flicked Kellan another quick glance. “Kellan here saved me from a house fire once. As he was carrying me out, the roof collapsed. He protected me, shielded me with his body. Any human—no matter how strong or tough—would have died under that much burning debris. Of course, I needed to know why he didn’t.”
Reece’s eyes widened as she slid her stare to Kellan. “You told her?”
“Hell no. I found out.” Emmaline laughed. “Did a little stalking, a little investigation. I was a forensic doctor before I went into the private sector, so I know how to be sneaky.” She dropped a wink at Reece. “Suffice to say, I was impressed. And now, if any of the shifters in the area need medical care, Kellan gives me a call.”
Enter the Dragon Page 8
