His Scorching Desire

by Kyl, Celia

  “That’s enough,” said Charlie Volant, the elder dragon who owned Wildridge. “If we could get started—”

  He was interrupted by Alice Sinclair, the koala shifter who ran the pet shop next door. “Sorry to bother you…”

  Charlie gave her a warm smile. “What can I do for you this fine morning, Alice?”

  “I’ve got a bit of a, um, situation and could use your help.”

  Charlie chuckled softly. “What escaped your shop this time?”

  “A chinchilla named Randy,” she sighed. “Soft little bugger, but wily as heck.”

  “Okay, I’m coming,” he replied and then pointed at their group. “Nobody move. I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure thing,” Dyrk Fortis said as if he was Charlie’s second-in-command. As organized and uptight as he was, he really was a natural, even though there was no set hierarchy between the team members.

  As soon as Charlie disappeared, hulking Allon Wyvern gave Elektra a smirk. “Let me guess, you’re late because you were working out.”

  She shrugged. “So what if I was?”

  “Damn, Elektra. You train harder than I do.” He flexed one beefy bicep to prove his point.

  Of course her body wasn’t nearly as redonkulous as Allon’s Venice Beach-type physique, not that she aspired to such bulk. Her determination and focus were as strong as a soldier’s, which is exactly how she saw herself. After years of working with them directly, she’d learned a lot.

  Elektra smirked at her teammate as she took a seat two down from him. “Bro, you couldn’t handle my workout.”

  Thrett jabbed a red-faced Allon in the ribs as Wyntir and Ragan snickered.

  “Think so?” Allon asked, batting Thrett’s elbow away. “Maybe you can run me through it sometime. I need to stay in tip-top condition for my next hookup with Chelle. Last time, we met in the Rocky Mountains and boy did we melt some snow. But I think I also pulled something.”

  He rubbed his elbow and left Elektra wondering what acrobatic sex act resulted in a pulled elbow. Still, she could tell he was sincere in his request to train with her. Allon was the same arrogant and gregarious ass he’d always been, but since meeting his mate Chelle Calidi—another dragon bounty hunter who lived on the East Coast—something was different about him. He seemed more centered now, somehow calmer.

  Happy. He seemed happy. Elektra envied that.

  “That’s great, man,” Ragan said, smiling broadly from across the table. “Sounds like things are going well for you guys.”

  Allon grinned. “Not as well as you and Elissa. Chelle and I are still on opposite coasts, but you guys are already living together.”

  A sweet blush crept up Ragan’s cheeks at the mention of his lady love, a panther shifter who wrote for a shifter news site.

  “She just landed her first real investigative assignment, you know.”

  Everyone congratulated him on his mate’s badassery.

  The firm’s receptionist, Tessa Sinclair, sighed wistfully. “I just love how the universe brought your energies together in such beautiful, fluid ways.”

  Dyrk rolled his eyes and snorted. “The universe? Energies?”

  Tessa blinked rapidly with something that looked like pain flickering in her face momentarily before Charlie swept back into the room. The color in his cheeks was high and his eyes sparkling.

  “Now where were we?” he asked as he took his place at the head of the conference table. “Oh right. Now listen up because I have big news. A very dangerous dragon escaped custody yesterday afternoon, just after he was sentenced to life in human prison.”

  “A dragon?” Wyntir gasped, her grey eyes widening. “Really?”

  Charlie nodded. “I know, it seems unthinkable. We’re usually tightly bound to our sense of right and wrong, but sometimes…there are bad eggs. This guy is one of them. Name is Grizz Magna. He used to work for the Shifter Bureau of Investigation, but he was recently indicted for the murders of three SBI informants. So far, there’s no established motive, but there is a witness.”

  “A credible one?” Allon asked.

  “As credible as they come. Harlow Shelton, the head of the SBI. He witnessed the whole thing. Nail in the coffin. But unfortunately, Mr. Magna is a slippery fish. During transport to prison, he assaulted his guards and made a break for it. He’s been on the run all night, so who knows how far he’s gotten.”

  “Crap,” Thrett mumbled as he looked around the table.

  Dragons didn’t break bad very often, but when they did, they did it in a big way. Elektra’s heart picked up its pace, which wasn’t an easy task considering her resting heart rate. Her mouth practically watered at the prospect of chasing down a deranged dragon.

  “Before you ask, he had his collar on, but the guards hadn’t shackled him. So he can’t shift, but he’s still considered extremely dangerous, and it’s our job to bring him back.” Charlie turned his gaze on Elektra. “I’m sure no one will argue that Elektra has the most experience tracking down AWOL military criminals, so she’ll take lead on this one.”

  All eyes turned to her again. A fiendish smiled lit up her features and she rubbed her hands together with glee. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  Chapter Two

  Power and strength buzzed through Elektra’s veins as the team of six specialists walked across the parking lot toward their work van. She’d never chased down an errant dragon before, but she knew in her bones she was up to the challenge. Allon may be an intimidating slab of meat, but she’d watched him work out. It was impressive, by most standards, but he relied too much on bulk and not enough on endurance, as far as she was concerned. This was the kind of job she was made for.

  Charlie had informed them that Grizz Magna had been spotted on the east side of LA. Considering he was stuck in his human form as long as he wore the dragonsbane collar, Elektra had decided that a more subtle approach was warranted.

  “I still don’t like it,” Allon grumbled as he unlocked the work van.

  Elektra punched him in the arm, noticing how he tried to keep the wince off his face. “What, you’re afraid of confronting a human?”

  “He’s not a human. He’s a dragon. Common sense says we take our dragon forms to bring him in, just in case.”

  “The last thing we want is to attract undue attention,” she said as she took quick visual stock of the equipment in the van. “We don’t want this asshole’s bad choice to reflect poorly on our reputation as dragons. You know shifters are afraid of us already. We don’t need to alarm them more by descending on this guy like a blazing horde.”

  “I kind of like everyone being afraid,” Allon grumbled.

  “This isn’t about your ego, Allon,” she shot back and rolled her eyes. “It’s about keeping the peace as peacefully as possible. You know as well as I do how quickly things can go south when fear’s involved. So unless he somehow managed to get that collar off, we won’t shift to hunt him. There’s one of him and six of us. Between our combined manpower and this stockade of gear, I think we’ll be just fine.”

  The van was a jet-black Sprinter with blacked out windows and loaded with weapons, radios, eavesdropping gear, and a ton of other junk. Elektra used it all, of course, but she preferred hunting the old-school way. By scent. That wasn’t always possible, so she remained open to all the tools available to her, but damned if they were where she started.

  Dyrk climbed into the driver’s seat, as was his preference. He had the cleanest record of any of the specialists, which was no surprise, so he was the best choice for the job. Allon jammed himself into the passenger seat but only because his massive frame wouldn’t fit on the little jumpseats bolted to the back of the rig. Elektra was last to climb in, and as she reached for the back door to close it, she hesitated.

  Her gut fluttered. She froze and focused on the feeling, trying to locate the source. There it was again. Her first instinct was to not join the others, to take her own vehicle. There seemed to be no apparent reason for her unease, but
Elektra knew better than to ignore her instincts. After all, they were usually correct. If her body was telling her something wasn’t right, then something wasn’t right. Simple as that. She didn’t need to know what it was before paying attention.

  Instead of closing the door, she jumped out and leaned in. “You guys go ahead. I’m gonna drive myself.”

  “What? You don’t want to get cooties or something?” Thrett asked.

  “Exactly. Cooties. I’ll be right behind you in my SUV.”

  As Elektra slammed the door shut, Wyntir called out, “Diva!”

  A flicker of a smile passed over Elektra’s face at the irony of Wyntir calling her a diva. That girl made sure she looked more gorgeous than a supermodel every damn time she left her apartment. Dyrk fired up the engine and the Sprinter pulled away as she climbed behind the wheel of her own SUV. Her heart already pounded heavily, the intoxicating adrenaline flowing through her veins as she followed.

  Chasing down AWOL military fugitives was the most potent drug Elektra had ever encountered. Not that she’d ever tried any others. Once she’d had a taste, nothing else would ever compare. The hunt was what she lived for, what every cell in her body craved. It was the only thing that made her feel happy, even if just for a moment.

  Not that she was generally an unhappy person. More than most people she knew, her life trajectory was going exactly as she’d planned, which gave her a sense of pride. Sure, a vague sense of emptiness might drag her down every once in a while, but the accolades—not to mention the monetary rewards—she received for her exceptional work made up for it. The pleasure of knowing she did something so right, so perfectly, was the closest feeling to pure joy she’d ever achieved.

  Traffic anywhere in LA could be brutal any time of the day, but they were lucky to find the streets pretty reasonable as they headed east for San Bernardino, the location of the Magna sighting. With each passing block, the tension in Elektra’s body grew. At first, she thought the impending altercation was getting her so worked up, but as her knuckles turned white from gripping the steering wheel, she took a deep breath and cleared her head of what she thought.

  Her instincts were on edge. She just couldn’t quite figure out why. The nagging sensation in her head told her something wasn’t right. Not dangerous, but wrong. Focusing on the ball of yuck in her stomach, she realized it felt like a net tugging her backward, away from the others. The closer she moved toward San Bernardino, the farther away from the target she felt. Like her instincts were playing a game of hot and cold, and every minute she drove east, the colder she got.

  “Shit,” she muttered, pulling a quick U-turn as soon as it was safe. She had no idea where she was going. She just knew east wasn’t it.

  A voice crackled through the handheld radio on her passenger seat. “We lose you?”

  She grabbed the radio and spoke into it. “Go on without me. There’s something I need to check out on my own.”

  “What happened to the plan?” Allon asked.

  The others never understood her slavish need to follow senses, but they rarely argued against it. “If I’m wrong, I’ll catch up.”

  “Elektra, we’ve got three witnesses now placing Magna in San Bernardino,” Allon said with an annoyed tone.

  “Then I’ll be in the wrong and you guys will get all the kudos. Besides, I’m pretty sure the five of you can take down one human, if needed.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said, releasing the transmit button to no doubt confer with the others. “Fine, just be careful, okay?”

  “Roger that.”

  She took a deep breath and tapped into her instincts, allowing them to guide her movements. They urged her to drive this way and that, taking turns here and there, seemingly without reason. But inside, she felt as though she was getting warmer. Closer. She was on the trail now.

  No scent compelled her, nor any kind of inside knowledge. She’d never experienced anything like it—like a magnetic force drew her ever onward, homing in on a signal none of her senses could identify.

  She wound up on the Westside, not far from the high-rent homes crammed along the beaches. Of course, the neighborhood she ended up in didn’t come close to the fancy waterfront homes. Some might even call it seedy. Not dangerous, exactly, but a fair number of the older, one-story homes had been boarded up, like they were waiting for the inevitable gentrification of the neighborhood.

  Elektra pulled to the curb and hopped out, wanting to continue the hunt on foot. Her inner dragon was restless, not only giving her the usual twinge of instinctual guidance she relied on, but…something more. Something akin to butterflies flitting around in her tummy.

  The sensation wasn’t utterly foreign, but she had to search her memory for when she’d last felt it. It took several blocks of walking—the feeling growing stronger with each step—before she identified it. Colin Wentworth. She’d had a crush on him in the seventh grade, and every time she saw him in the lunchroom, her stomach would get all fluttery and she’d feel almost…happy. She took it as a sign she was close too to the bad guy, and Grizz Magna was one seriously bad guy.

  By the time she stopped in front of yet another abandoned house in a long line of them, her entire body thrummed with energy, nearly on fire from within. Inspecting the house from the sidewalk, she found the windows boarded and the weeds in the front lawn knee-high. But what really caught her eye was the front door. It was one of the only houses on this side of the street that wasn’t boarded up. She didn’t have to snoop to know the back door wasn’t either.

  Grizz Magna was inside that house. She felt him in there, lurking and hiding like the coward he was. Even if her normal instincts hadn’t picked up on it, this strange new feeling certainly would have.

  Thankfully there was no peephole in the door, and with the windows completely covered, there was no way for him to see her approach the porch with all the stealth she possessed. The ability to walk silently was a well-sharpened skill. Not a single board creaked as she mounted the stairs and stepped lightly to the door.

  There was no time to call for backup. The rest of the team were on the other side of town. Besides, she could handle this. She could handle anything. But if this Magna guy was half as dangerous as Charlie claimed, Elektra would need the element of surprise to get the drop on him. She had to act fast before he caught her scent.

  Pulling in a deep breath, she summoned a little of her inner dragon to swell with power as she raised one powerful leg to kick down the door.

  * * *

  It was easy to disappear in Los Angeles. With a population of over four million souls, many of whom were a whole helluva lot weirder than the average American, blending into a crowd wasn’t all that difficult. Especially considering everyone in the damn city seemed to want to be an actor. A dude running down the street wearing a bright orange jumper barely registered on most people’s self-involved radars.

  Only in LA.

  Grizz Magna’s first order of business after disabling the two ineffectual guards they day before had been to get his happy ass as far away from the courthouse as he possibly could. Fortunately, the courthouse rubbed shoulders with a commercial district, so he’d slipped into an alley behind a grimy strip mall and dumpster-dove until he scrounged up a set of ill-fitting and damaged clothes. At least they weren’t a bright orange jumpsuit. A raggedy scrap of fabric looked close enough to a scarf to fool passersby, but it by no means would stand up to even the smallest scrutiny.

  Then he’d begun looking for a car to…borrow. Easier said than done. Modern cars featured electronic locks that a pro could easily disable with a special gizmo, but for some reason the holding center didn’t think it wise to hand those out to the career criminals in their custody. He’d kept an eye out for older model vehicles, but even their door locks proved to be a deterrent. People might not give a strangely dressed guy acting oddly a second look, but they would pay attention to the sound of shattering glass and a car alarm. At the very least, they’d make
sure it wasn’t their car before they went on about their business. Best to find an older, unlocked car.

  Grizz had found the perfect candidate in the parking lot of a strip club a few blocks down—an orange 1969 Camaro Z28 with white racing stripes and a vanity plate that read RUDTF. The door had been unlocked and the steering column a breeze to crack open. While he was hot-wiring it, he tried to puzzle out the plate. It had hit him the moment the engine rumbled and coughed to life.

  Are you down to fuck?

  Grizz had known he wouldn’t lose sleep over this particular crime as he pulled into traffic, obeying every traffic law to compensate for the car’s retina-searing paint job. With a full tank of gas, he’d risked more time on the road to try and make it as far out of the city as he could. He’d made it as far as San Bernardino when his stomach growled.

  The car seats and glove box had yielded a couple of bucks in change, so he figured a quick stop at a convenience store for some chips would be safe enough. Wrong. He hadn’t even paid for the tiny bag of Sun Chips when an emaciated guy walked in and gasped. Grizz had locked eyes with his old informant, who cringed in fear. No doubt word of his convictions for murdering his informants had filtered down through the ranks.

  Before the guy could blink, Grizz had run past him and down the block to where he’d parked. Thank god he hadn’t abandoned his training and had the forethought to keep his ride out of sight. But that meant he’d had to double-back the way he’d come, which increased the chance of being caught exponentially. Couldn’t be helped. They’d expect him to keep moving in the same direction.

  The “they” in question were, of course, the dragon specialists of Wildridge Security. He had no fear of human law enforcement, but dragons didn’t take kindly to one of their own going rogue. He wouldn’t just be a fugitive to them. He was a traitor.

  So he’d jumped back onto the freeway and headed back into the city. But not for long. Side streets were safer, so he’d weaved his way west, hoping the diversion would be enough to give him some time to find a place to hole up for the night. He’d found it in a part of the city that was apparently waiting for gentrification with overgrown lots, abandoned houses, decaying businesses. After parking his stolen ride a few blocks away, finding a house to break into had been child’s play.