Authors: Coreene Callahan
Done with a shoulder roll, Rikar refocused on the cause of his condition. He blew out a long breath. Man, the male was big and…yeah. Unlike any dragon he’d ever seen.
Sleeping like the dead, Mac lay curled like a cat in the center of the large loft: his face tucked behind one wing, his tail wrapped around the whole. Blue-gray scales glimmered in the low light, the interlocking dragon skin polished to an almost shine, protecting the male like armor, the mean-and-hard outer shell a characteristic shared by all of Dragonkind. But the weird thing? His scales were almost perfectly smooth, lacking the ridges and valleys of most males. Rikar frowned, his gaze wandering along Mac’s sleek hide and muscled flank. Maybe all that smoothness helped him swim, made him more water-dynamic or—
“Jeez, Rikar,” Venom said, footfalls quiet as he paced another circle around Mac. Ruby gaze roaming, he studied the male, examining him like a scientist would a new species. Which, come to think of it, wasn’t far from the truth. “Blockhead’s got some serious blade. And get a load of all that ink.”
Bending one leg, Rikar propped his forearm on his knee, attention straying to Mac’s tail. “Blade” didn’t begin to describe it. Lethal was a better word, considering the nine-inch paper-thin ridge that started behind the horns on his head. Sharp as a razor blade, the narrow, steel-gray strip gleamed like a knife edge, running between his shoulders and along his spine before spreading to both the top and underside of his tail. And the tip? Dagger quality. Rikar shook his head. Nope…not the usual spikes for Mac. Christ, he could cut another male in half with that thing. A single sideswipe and…
Wham. Game over. Add that to the webbed paws, sleek skin, and Mac had water dragon written all over him. The magical tattoo, though—the Celtic-esque swirl of dark blue lines covering one half of Mac’s torso—baffled him. He’d never seen a male with ink like that before.
Chasing an itch, Rikar rubbed his back against the raised edge of a cabinet door. “Stop calling him a blockhead, Ven.”
“Feeling a little possessive there, buddy?” Meeting his gaze over the top of Mac’s shoulder, Venom raised a brow.
Rikar glared at the male, his message clear.
Back off
. So he was feeling protective? Big deal. Getting Mac through the change hadn’t been easy, and he’d been the primary: connecting to Mac through mind-speak, guiding him through seven hours of hell, through the energy shift and the physical change that came with it. Just like a sire would for his son. The fact he felt invested in the male’s welfare now didn’t make him a pansy. It made him normal. Right?
Man, he hoped so. His work with Mac was nowhere near done. As a fledgling, their boy was vulnerable right now and would be for a while…until he learned the basics. How to shift from human to dragon form. How to control his new body and curb the increased strength that accompanied it. How to fly and fight. So, yeah, Mac was headed into some serious training: boot camp, dragon style.
“Hey, that’s cool.” With a shrug, Venom turned his palms up in the universal gesture of
whatever
. “You got him through the change. You can feel however you frigging want.”
“Gee, thanks, buddy,” Rikar said, sarcasm dripping from each word.
“Lay off, Venom.” With a sigh, Bastian crossed his shitkickers, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. “Give our new boy the respect he deserves. He did well…came through strong.”
Pride filled Rikar’s chest to bursting and…fucking hell. Maybe pansy-ass pathetic applied to him after all. And as Rikar scrambled to plug the crack in his defenses—one Mac had slipped right through—he covered the breach by changing the subject. “We got…what? Four hours to sunset?”
“Give or take,” B said. “Get some sleep.”
Good plan. After the fight in the Port of Seattle, his search for Angela, and Mac’s transition, he was running on empty. All of them were, and sleep deprived was no way to start the new night. Not with a pack of Razorbacks on the loose. Not when he needed pinpoint focus to track, find, and kill the males who’d taken his female. After that? He’d retrieve her. Hopefully in one piece without—
Rikar murdered the thought. He refused to picture scenarios that might never come true. Facts. Strategy. He must deal in what he could control, whom he could pursue, what locations held the most promise. And as he stretched out flat on the floor, Rikar sifted through a list of possibilities. Nightclubs. The university. Outdoor concerts. All-night coffee shops. Art galleries. Anywhere a rogue would go to find a female and feed.
Interrogating the enemy wouldn’t get him what he needed…the location of the Razorback lair and by extension, Angela. The idiots were too afraid of Ivar to ever give up the goods. None of them would crack. So where did that leave him?
Nowhere. In butt-fuck country with only one option.
Tracking one of the rogues. A tricky play? Absolutely. The enemy was as aware of him as he was of them. Shadowing a male without being detected wouldn’t be easy. Hell, he didn’t even know if it was possible, but…
What other choice did he have? If he didn’t free her soon, Angela would—
A tingle slid over the nape of Rikar’s neck.
Sucking in a breath, he jackknifed off the floor. As his feet touched down, he squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated, struggling to connect. Static buzzed inside his head, washing in and out as he hunted for the signal. Christ, had he imagined it? Was thinking about his female making him feel her when—
His head snapped to the side. There it went again. Whisper soft, the sensation slid down his spine, lighting his senses on fire.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, gripping him through his leather jacket. “Whatcha got, Rikar?”
“Angela.”
Bastian’s palm shifted, cupping the back of his head. “You locked on?”
“Fuck.” Rikar flinched as the pinging beacon hammered his temples. “I can feel her…B, she’s out from under their shield. I can
feel
her.”
“Where?” Venom rolled up on his other side. “Where is she?”
Gritting his teeth, Rikar bowed his head, sifting through mental static. The telepathic flight took him out of Seattle toward the Canadian border. “North of the city. Somewhere in the redwoods.” With a full-body shiver, he tracked her elevation, coming up over mountain tops. “Shit…I gotta go. I need to—”
“Sun’s up, my brother.” His best friend’s hand flexed, tightening on his nape. Taking a step back, Rikar tried to shake off the vise grip. He should’ve known better. A move like that never dissuaded Bastian. Instead, his commander stepped into him, putting them chest-to-chest. “You go now…you get fried.”
“The rogues—”
“Are grounded until nightfall…same as us,” B said, his reasonable tone pissing Rikar off. “If you can feel her, she’s in sunlight where they can’t reach her.”
His hands flexed into fists, Rikar shook his head. Fuck him. He knew Bastian was right, but…God. He didn’t want to wait. Angela was out there, alone, vulnerable, probably half-frozen in cold mountain air. If he didn’t leave now, the Razorbacks might reach her first.
He swallowed, trying to stuff his fear for her down deep. It didn’t work. The worry kept circling, taking potshots.
“Rikar, man, we’re a team,” Venom murmured, jumping on B’s bandwagon. “We wait for sunset, then go after her.”
Applying gentle pressure, Bastian forced him to raise his chin. As Rikar opened his eyes, he got nailed by his best friend’s shimmering gaze. “You can’t help her if you’re dead. We’ll get her back, but we do it together.”
Together
.
The word—the show of loyalty—should’ve made him feel better. Stronger. More confident about staying put until the sun sank low and night took over. But as he ran his hands over his skull-trim, breaking B’s hold, a gaping hole opened inside him. One filled with hope and a raging faith that he’d retrieve Angela unscathed. And as both rose, clogging his throat, tying a knot around his heart, Rikar called himself a fool. Hope was for idiots, and faith for the dying. He clung to them anyway, like a drowning man would a life preserver.
Chapter Eight
The cold nipped, damp autumn air sinking bone-deep as Angela crested another rise. Thick forest behind her, more of the same in front, she suppressed a shiver and paused at the center of the bluff, appreciating its smooth, dome-like top. Big contrast, a welcome one from broken branches she’d stumbled over most of the afternoon. But even better than the smoothness? Sun-warmed granite beneath the soles of her bare feet.
God, that felt good.
Settling into a crouch, she pressed her palms flat against the stone, absorbing more heat, and searched the sky. Way off to the west, the sun sank closer to the horizon. Stupid Razorbacks. Trust them to build a bunker in the middle of nowhere. With nothing but rock and brush for miles around. She should know. Her sore feet told the story. Scratched, bruised, cut in places she didn’t want to think about, the tale was a sad one. A woe-is-me-I-need-to-kick-someone’s-ass kind, and it wasn’t getting any better.
Blowing out a breath, Angela pushed to her feet. She stood weaving a moment, the light breeze making her sway like a bulrush in the wind, exhaustion dangerously close. Temptation called, urging her to lie down and rest…if only for a second.
She shook her head. No time for that. Nothing to do but keep running. She needed more distance between her and the enemy.
The rat-bastard’s name skated through her mind. Angela picked up her feet and the pace, avoiding the bluff’s crumbling edges, and scrambled down the slope on the other side. As she rounded a boulder the size of her Jeep, she paused on a ledge. Seven, maybe an eight-foot drop to the ground below. Under normal circumstances the distance wouldn’t be a problem. But today she wasn’t looking forward to it. Her feet hurt like hell, and the landing wouldn’t be fun.
Angela leapt anyway. Her knees rebounded, slamming into her chest, knocking the air from her lungs on impact. With a curse, she lost her footing, went sideways and…
Crap. Another hill. Another spine-grinding fall down an unforgiving slope.
Her heart kicked, hammering her breastbone as loose earth crumbled beneath her heels and she fell backward. She dug her elbows in, protecting her back, desperate to slow her slide down the hillside. Good plan, one that worked like a charm until a raised tree root entered the game, smashing into her tailbone. As she gasped and fought forward momentum, she wished she was a little more mountain goat and a lot less human.
Yeah, hooves and a crapload of sure-footedness would be helpful right about now. ’Cause, man, she was running out of places to bruise.
Too bad there weren’t any trails to follow.
She’d given up hope of finding one hours ago. Of stumbling upon helpful hikers. Of catching a ride on a hunter’s ATV. The bush was too dense, a thick, inhospitable landscape only the most experienced would brave. And only then with the right equipment—warm clothes, food, water…a rifle. And as she continued down the never-ending descent, skirting tree trunks, tripping over rocks and sticks, she wished herself home for the thousandth time. Maybe if she prayed hard enough God would hear her…have mercy and teleport her inside her condo.
Or the nearest police precinct.
Definitely. The cop shop was a better choice. At least armed, she stood a chance. But here? Surrounded by forest and frosty air? She gave herself a two-in-ten shot at survival. Bad odds, but she had to try. The second she lost faith, she’d quit…find the prettiest redwood, curl up in a ball underneath it, and die. Or get eaten by a mountain lion.
And my, oh, my, what a lovely thought. Right up there with getting recaptured by Lothair, only over much quicker, with a lot less brutality.
Angela ground to a stop at the bottom of the hill. She scanned the terrain, taking cover behind a fallen log. Quivering with fatigue, white puffs of air sawing out of her mouth, she reached out to steady herself. As her hand settled on rotten wood and wet moss, she tilted her head and listened hard. Nothing. No sounds of pursuit, just bursts of birdsong and the creak of tree limbs.
She checked the sun again, using its position in the sky to gauge the time. An hour—maybe two—before the light faded, and she’d be forced to find shelter for the night.
“Keep moving…you’re doing all right,” she murmured, adding a rah-rah-rah-go-Angela to the mental mix. “Just keep moving.”
As the cheerleader inside her head got busy shaking her pom-poms, Angela rubbed her upper arms, wincing with each pass of her battered hands. Not that her fingertips hurt much anymore. Like a gift, numbness had set in, her body throwing out endorphins, easing the scrapes better than a pantry full of ibuprofen. Add that to the adrenaline rush, and…
Bam. She had a little more fuel in her tank. Enough, maybe, to get her to a highway. A rest stop. Somewhere safe.
God, she hoped she was headed the right way. Without a compass, she couldn’t be sure, but…yeah, south was the best bet. Civilization lay in that direction. She was almost positive. Wanted to believe it like she wanted her next breath. If she kept running, somewhere along the way she’d see lights through the trees, spot a lone house, run into a small town.
Which meant break time was over.
She needed more distance between her and the Razorback bunker. Lothair was a vindictive son of a bitch. No way would he let her go, not after she’d taken a chunk out of his pride and left him for dead. Too bad she hadn’t thought to check. If she’d just taken a couple more seconds…
But no. She hadn’t finished the job and slit his throat. And she knew—just
knew
—the lapse in judgment would come back to bite her.
Her hands curled against the rotten log, pushing moss under her fingernails. She couldn’t think about it. Not about
him
. Or the fact he’d left her alone all day. It didn’t make any sense. Why hadn’t he come after her yet? Was he playing some sort of game?
Probably. She knew his type. The bastard enjoyed the thrill of the hunt too much to pass up a challenge. Add that to his sadistic nature and…yup. Mystery solved. He’d let her run, hide, play cat to her mouse while she struggled to stay alive. Wait until she was half-frozen, out of gas, too exhausted to fight. And then? He’d hurt her again. Force her to—