by Mina Carter
The building itself wasn’t set up like the office block it appeared to be either. Sure, there were offices on the ground and first floors, but several floors above were given over to locker rooms, leisure areas, and a large gym. The rest of the rooms contained accommodation and the roof had a landing pad. Not for helicopters… but dragons. Not many businesses in the city could boast that.
Right now, though, Rat wasn’t interested in what thread-count the sheets in the accommodation up top were. All he wanted was to get through the crowd of operatives milling about before they went out for a night on the town.
His immediate future contained a chest and arms workout with enough weight to bulk his muscles up for the night. Only a little. Just enough to make the white T-shirt hanging in his locker fit just right.
Of course, he didn’t really need the strength training. Half pixie/half-demon, the physical power he could muster had nothing to do with musculature. It came from within him, something not physiological, something…other. His demon form was heavily muscled, obscenely ripped and shredded. He didn’t need to work out to get it either. And he could push a little of that into his more human form whenever he felt like it.
He liked the feeling when he worked out though. Liked the pain and the burn when he worked his muscles so hard they screamed. He liked punishing himself with weights a dragon would struggle to lift. No one ever said demons were mentally stable. Him least of all.
Frustration filled him as the corridor ahead filled with chattering women—some PPA operatives and office staff. At this rate, he’d never get into the gym. Breath releasing in a hiss, he contemplated bellowing to get them to clear out of the way. But then they moved, the motion reminding him of a bait ball in the deep sea, and parted to reveal a tall, curvy, redhead at the center of the group.
His breath punched out, muscles locked into place and gaze riveted as the world stopped turning. Every cell in his body was attuned, yearning for the female in front of him.
Baby. His Baby…
His brain got with the program and he realized she was dressed for a night on the town. He’d only seen her in jeans and a T-shirt, her fiery hair scraped back from her face. Except for one time. When she’d first been freed, she appeared different. Her magic had dressed her in a dragon scale dress that draped and protected her form at the same time. She’d taken his breath and stolen what little heart he had at the same time.
She was the last shadow-dragon queen and far too good for the likes of a half-demon bastard.
Since then, she’d kept her dragon side carefully under wraps, appearing solely as a human with an interesting bloodline. He didn’t blame her. As far as anybody knew, there were only four shadow-dragons left in the world… so she was the queen of a very small and exclusive kingdom. Added to that fact was that historically shadow-dragons weren’t popular with other dragon races…so they were keeping her well under wraps.
A demon prince could protect her, the little voice in the back of his head whispered in temptation. He ignored it, even though it had a point. He gritted his teeth and put the thought from his mind in favor of admiring the woman who filled his dreams at night, forcing him to wake with a cock harder than steel and sweat-soaked sheets.
She was… stunning.
His gaze slid down from the utter perfection of her face, the unaccustomed makeup lending her exotic features a sultry edge that hit him right in the cock. That was nothing compared to the effect the rest of her ensemble had. The curves imprinted on his memory were poured into a little black dress that should have been illegal. It clung like a jealous lover’s hands, revealing nothing, but yanking every dirty thought he’d had about her from the recesses of his mind. He replayed every fantasy, every scenario he’d imagined with his cock in his hand, jerking off to thoughts of her.
Long legs shimmered in the light, and the edge of a stocking top played peekaboo with her hem. Her feet, delicate and finely boned with the toenails painted blood red, arched seductively in strappy sandals. Instantly he wanted to strip the rest of her clothing, leaving her in just those stockings and shoes.
His growl slipped loose before he could stop himself. Striding forward, he scattered the women around her, their cries of surprise ignored as he came to stand in front of Baby. He loomed over her, his darkness swirling around him and dimming the lights overhead. He hadn’t lost control that way since he was a teenager, but he didn’t care.
“What the fuck are you wearing?”
She didn’t shrink at his barked demand as another woman might. With no fear on her face, she looked at him, those golden eyes of hers unreadable.
“They’re called clothes. Try to keep with the program, Raterrenh.”
He loved when she used his real name. She was the only person who dared. The sounds rolled off her tongue like an auditory caress over his skin. He knew he was hard, erection easily visible in his jeans, and didn’t bother to hide it. Anyone ogling his groin deserved an eyeful. All his attention was on the woman in front of him.
The one giving him sass.
“Where do you think you’re going dressed like that?”
Another snarled demand. He couldn’t seem to just talk to her. Instead he growled, battling his rage and frustration. She seemed determined to drive him out of his mind.
She blinked and then smiled. “Out. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Jaw dropping as she swept past him, two friends in her wake, he couldn’t think of a comeback. Honor, a human mated to one of the three shadow-dragons, gave him a sympathetic look as she passed.
The door at the end of the corridor closed behind them.
“Fuck!” He turned, arm tensed to deliver a punishing blow to the innocent wall, only to find a claus elf watching him. It wasn’t Cole or Rhod…both he’d worked with in the past, but a new one. Probably just down from the Pole.
“Be a brave man who takes that one on,” he drawled, one shoulder propping up the wall. “If I were you, I’d pity the poor schmuck who ends up in her bed tonight.”
“What?” Rat didn’t think it was possible for his fury to deepen, but it did, red tinging the edges of his vision.
The elf shrugged and pushed off. “Heard them talking earlier. They’re planning to find a tame human to pop her cherry.”
Rat snarled wordlessly and stomped toward the locker room. Screw the gym and playing nice. If Baby was fucking anyone tonight, it would be him.
* * *
Baby had never been in a nightclub, not in the flesh, but so far it more than met her expectations. It was hot, dark, and sweaty… which meant she felt right at home. So she should. Dragons loved heat, and shadows were simply the little cousins of true darkness. As a shadow-dragon, she loved both in equal measure.
Sighing, she leaned forward on her stool and took a sip from her drink, scoping out the club over the lurid pink umbrella. The alcohol hit the back of her throat and burned all the way down to her stomach to leave a pleasant tingle.
That’s all it was and all it would be though. A tingle. She couldn’t get drunk. The substance that could inebriate a dragon hadn’t been invented. Such a substance, if anyone ever managed to invent it, would probably bend the laws of nature or cause the universe to fold in on itself.
After millennia of sleep, she’d take the tingle. Happily. She’d been locked in her dragonlet form longer than was natural, even for her kind. So long, that her developing mind had been forced to reach out telepathically and latch on to humans who lived around her resting place, riding in the backs of their minds as they went about their lives. Hidden. Experiencing everything they did—their lives, their thoughts, their emotions. She’d lived and died countless times. Become a mother… A father… A grandparent. She’d experienced the whole gamut of human experience, but she’d never lived. She’d never felt the sweet caress of air on her face. Never felt the sunlight or danced under the moon. Not in her own body.
Now she could. And it was… Glorious.
Shoving the memories of
her pseudo-lives to the back of her mind, she closed her eyes and gave herself to the heavy beat of the music. It throbbed through the club like a heartbeat, more felt than heard. She opened her eyes to look at the dancefloor where the club-goers were crammed in tightly—a sea of bodies writhing in time to the pounding music. An idle brush of their minds revealed that each of them was using the medium of dance to escape humdrum lives for a few precious hours.
She got it… Really she did.
“Chase, if you carry on glaring like that, no one will talk to us.” Honor’s amused voice drew Baby out of her trance and she looked at the other two women.
They couldn’t have been more different if they tried. Honor was a child of these times. Human, she was the bond mate of Baron, one of only two naturally occurring shadow-dragons for millennia. Before Baron and his brother Duke, the species was supposed to be extinct.
Something the other dragon species in the world had apparently celebrated. Of all the draconic races, shadows were the most dangerous. But they’d been hunted almost to extinction eons ago, and they were thought to be gone, relegated to myth and legend.
Until two brothers of unknown parentage had manifested draconic powers…but not like any the world was used to seeing. They’d been thought to be a new species. An evolution. No one had thought to look to the past…
“Chase?” Honor asked again. “Are you listening to me?”
Chase ignored her. Mated to Baron’s brother, she was also a shadow-dragon. Like Baby, she’d been born millennia ago and had gained notoriety as a legendary warrior. Selected by Baby’s mother to protect her only egg, she’d slept alongside Baby until they’d woken in this time. Then there had been some hinky crap with a wannabe Dragos magician that had ended in Baby manifesting more power than she’d ever handled, and Chase had ended up bonded to Duke.
Her lips quirked…
She’d been born to be a queen. The most powerful Shadow-Dragon Queen of all time. She supposed she was. But it wasn’t a great accomplishment since her “kingdom” consisted of three other dragons, and a human dragon mate. Go, Queenie.
She didn’t care. All that mattered was that, despite the odds, they were alive and healthy. Finally, she was awake and she had family. People who cared about her. Perhaps a little too much, she realized with amusement as she caught Chase glaring at a couple of human men who looked their way with interest.
She couldn’t blame them. She’d piggybacked on enough lives to know that dressed for a night on the town, the three of them looked good. She resisted the urge to tug at the tiny black dress Honor had assured her was suitable attire to attract a male. Since the last mind she’d occupied had been a couple of decades or so ago, she’d had to bow to the human woman’s greater knowledge and experience. Given the looks sent their way, and the outfits some of the other club-goers wore, little black dress was obviously the way to go.
Honor let out a sigh. “I thought the point was to get Baby laid?”
Chase cut a glance over her shoulder, disapproval of that plan evident in her expression. “Your plan maybe. I think it’s a stupid plan. She should wait for her destined mate.”
Baby closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. Sometimes the dragon warrioress was a stick in the mud.
Surprisingly, Honor came to her rescue. “Her destined mate? Supposed to be the biggest and baddest dragon warrior out there, yes?”
“Actually,” Baby cut in, “the prophecy just says biggest and baddest warrior, nothing about him being a dragon.”
“The queen’s mate, Baby, is always a dragon,” the words exploded from Chase’s mouth like bullets from a gun, her ire evident.
Uh-oh. She was in trouble now. If she’d had a full name, it would have been uttered in the same cutting tones. Although she was in her power now and didn’t need a bodyguard anymore, Chase still considered it her duty to protect her from anything, even a burn from a coffee mug.
Honor folded her arms, leaning back in her chair with a smug expression. “Okay, so how’s she going to manage that then? Since you and I are mated to the only two shadow-dragon warriors in existence?”
Baby chuckled softly at Chase’s expression. Leaning forward, she put her hand on the other woman’s arm. “Don’t worry. It’ll all come out in the wash.”
The warrioress lifted an eyebrow. “Are we doing laundry? Now?”
It was unfair, but Baby couldn’t help joining Honor as she chuckled. “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
Swirling her umbrella in her half-empty drink, Baby looked up again and caught the eye of a male human looking her way with interest. Pausing, she considered him. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had dark hair and pleasant features. She’d even go so far to describe him as ruggedly handsome.
Nowhere near as good looking as the demon, a little voice in the back of her head chose that moment to whisper. Instantly, an image of Rat formed in her mind. She had no idea why he chose to shorten his name to such an ignoble word. Even if the others at the agency couldn’t see, she easily discarded the illusion and glamor he used to shield his true nature. She didn’t understand why he chose to hide it though.
Not her problem. Even if the guy was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen on two legs. A demon and a dragon? The sky would fall… Surely?
“Oh, now he is cute.”
Honor edged closer, peering over the umbrella in her glass, bright green this time, with a look that was completely predatory. Perhaps being bonded to a dragon had imparted some draconic tendencies on the human woman. But then, humans were an apex predator too, so perhaps it was all natural.
“Oh shit, he’s coming this way.”
And so he was.
Baby ran her finger around the rim of her empty glass, watching her admirer approach. He was flanked on either side by two men of similar age, height, and build. Friends obviously. She could practically see the fraternal bonding between them. On instinct she reached for her powers and pulled the shadows from the corner of the room, twirling them around her to create a dark backdrop that she stood out against. A jewel set in midnight velvet for display.
“Hey, ladies.”
His voice was low with a pleasant enough timbre. She couldn’t help comparing it to Rat’s fire-and-brimstone-suffused growl. That man had a voice that made her think dark thoughts and yearn for erotic situations she had no experience of. Suppressing a growl of frustration, she put the demon from her mind and concentrated on the human in front of her.
“Hi, yourself. What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?”
His lips quirked as she turned the age-old saying around. Honor snorted and buried her nose in her drink while Chase was busy glaring as one of the friends rounded the table to stand next to her. Baby sure hoped he asked before touching. Chase had at least three concealed blades on her, and that was before her natural weaponry.
“It’s like that, is it?” He grinned and leaned forward, interest sparkling in his eyes. To his credit, his gaze didn’t drop below her shoulders, focused entirely on her face as though she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “So if I’m a good boy, does that make you a bad girl?”
She allowed her lips to curl into a matching smile, a hint of wickedness slipping free. “It depends.”
“On what?”
She stood and offered him her hand. “On whether you ask me to dance or not…”
Chapter 5
Rat was a man on a mission.
He stormed through the front doors of a club and hit pay dirt. There, whispering through the air and teasing his sensitive nostrils, was the exact scent he was looking for... Feminine allure wound around dry heat with a subtle hint of total-pain-in-the-ass.
Baby.
It hadn’t taken much to find her. People remembered a woman as stunning as she was. Plus the PPA only used one cab firm, so a quick call had gained the location they’d been dropped off at. Lower Easton Street. When he’d arrived, there had been the choice of two clubs.
Sector Five was th
e classier of the two, so he started with that. Plus, he was fairly sure the dried vomit on the wall next to the door of the other club would have put off the two dragon women, whose sense of smell was far better than his.
The doors slammed into the walls behind him and the bouncers wisely stayed out of his way as he strode into the club. It was a maelstrom of sound and packed bodies. Storming through the throng, anger radiated from his skin in waves. The air behind him swirled and super-heated, the drinks of people he passed bursting into flame. He ignored the chaos. It was all he could do to keep his horns and tail under wraps. Popping a tail here wasn’t an option…it would totally freak the humans out.
A trio of female shifters scuttled out of his way with frightened squeaks, and their terror filled the air. Hedgehog shifters. Not the biggest or the bravest of shifter-kin, and rare as rocking horse shit. He hadn’t even known there was a pack in town.
Boots clunking against the floor, the sound lost under the heavy throb of the music, he sought his prey. Baby. Since he realized she planned to get laid—to let some other man touch her—he hadn’t been able to think straight.
The moment he’d seen her, all fire and majesty as she faced off against a maniacal rogue sorcerer, he’d known he’d never find another woman to match her. Ever. His heart and body belonged to her in that instant, and even though he knew a demon wasn’t good enough to touch a hair on her head, he couldn’t…wouldn’t let her go. He’d give her time, had given her time… but she belonged to him. He’d kill any man who touched her.
Screw being polite. Screw playing the game. She was his.
Where the fuck was she?
Stopping in the middle of the club, he turned in a slow semi-circle. He could smell her, her scent playing havoc with his senses. She was here but he couldn’t see her.
Fuck. He scraped a shaking hand through his hair. His father would be laughing his freaking ass off if he could see Rat right now. He’d always urged his offspring to treat them mean and keep them keen. To be as ruthless as he was himself. Fuck and kick out was Lakai’s mantra, but what else would anyone expect from the King of the Seven Hells?
