“Two and a half weeks, and we’ve got nada,” Mason complained, pushing away the notebook on the table before him.
Seated with her two partners at a Starbucks, Skylar’s gaze rested on the laptop and pile of paper alongside the venti sized cups of coffee they’d been nursing for an hour.
She automatically scratched the back of her neck, the same spot where the damn shifter had bitten her just over two weeks before. She began to wonder if dragons had some sort of rare bug that gave her a skin infection that wouldn’t go away.
Scale flu? She scratched harder, annoyed. It was worse today than it had been since the first day she got it. She’d slept horribly in her apartment since that night, too, plagued by the weird sense that she didn’t belong there. The dreams weren’t helping either. Each one was more vivid than the last, shedding more light on a life she didn’t recall.
“Would you stop?” Dillon snapped at her. “You’re being paranoid.”
“You know I get itchy when I feel someone watching me,” she grumbled. Or apparently, when I sleep with a dragon. “Maybe I’m allergic to dragons?”
“Like you are to commitment?” Dillon returned.
She glared at him. His dark eyes didn’t leave her, and she saw the latent anger burning deep within them.
“Oh, snap. Time for more coffee,” Mason interjected before she could retort. “Dillon’s turn to buy.”
The tall dragon slayer shoved back from the table and rose silently, stalking to the counter.
“Thanks, Mason,” she said, forcing herself to calm down. “What an asshole.”
“You saw something in him to date him for four months.”
She shrugged. “Hot body and I was bored.”
“I’m hot and you ignore me,” Mason pointed out. “You like ‘em complicated.”
“You are sexy,” Skylar said and then laughed. She made a show of looking him over. Mason was athletic and friendly, attractive, with a quick wit that never failed to make her laugh. “Think I learned my lesson about dating coworkers though.”
“Yeah. Never fuck a shifter and never date a coworker,” he replied. “You’ll regret both, but for different reasons.”
She glanced at him, unable to read the meaning behind his measured tone. She’d begun to think that no one was going to match Chace in the bedroom and wondered if Mason felt the same after his night with a shifter. She was about to ask when Dillon returned with their drinks.
“Americano for the lady, mocha for the wuss and double espresso for me,” he said, setting down the drinks one by one as he spoke. “Any breakthroughs while I was gone?”
“Not a one,” Mason reported soberly. “We’ve got people looking for guys that meet the description Sky provided.”
“I can’t take it anymore,” Skylar said, scratching the back of her neck until it hurt. “I’ll be back.” She rose and walked to the bathroom, automatically glancing through the windows to the busy sidewalks. It was midmorning in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix, where they’d met after a few days of exhausted, wasted effort attempting to find the elusive shifter bar.
A man standing still among the people strolling the streets caught her attention. He was taller than those around him, with wide shoulders, piercing blue eyes and blond hair.
Chace.
A ripple of warmth went through her, though she wasn’t certain if it was caused by the memory of their night together or the sense that warned her when a shifter was around.
Skylar backtracked. He was gone, a quick flash she wasn’t certain she’d seen. She lingered for a moment, searching the streets outside with her gaze. It wasn’t possible for him to disappear so quickly and there was nowhere to hide.
The itching was back.
Chalking it up to two solid weeks of nothing but trying to track the elusive dragon, she continued to the bathroom. Skylar locked the door behind her then crossed to the mirror. She lifted the low ponytail she sported this day to see the spot that was driving her crazy.
“What the hell?” She stared. Beneath the red scratch marks was a streak of black. “If that bastard gave me some sort of plague …”
Leaning forward, she hesitated then picked at the black. It was raised but didn’t scrape off under her nails. The skin around it, however, did. With trepidation, she peeled back the layer of itching skin and held it out in front of her, disgusted. She dropped it into the garbage can beside the sink and leaned forward again.
More of the black was visible, curves and straight lines too perfect to be some sort of horrible rash. It was beginning to take the shape of something, like a tattoo.
“This is the most disgusting … thing …” she drifted off and dug into the skin of her neck, pulling away small sheets of skin to reveal the black lines of a tattoo and the fresh pink skin surrounding it.
Finally, the itching stopped, a sign she’d reached the last of the bad skin. With dread forming in her stomach, she craned her neck to see the tattoo. It wasn’t big, about three inches across, but the sight of it made her world stand still.
Dragon. The black tattoo was identical to the one she’d glimpsed on Chace’s chest. He hadn’t just flaunted her and left, he’d marked her somehow, though why, she had no idea.
Panic stirred as she sought some rational explanation for the mark on her neck. It was at the back of her neck, easy for her to hide with her hair. But she’d still know it was there, even if no one else did.
“Okay. Maybe it’s his way of saying screw you, Skylar,” she reasoned.
Unconvinced, she pulled out her phone and texted Mason, asking him to join her in the women’s restroom. Dillon would tell her she was crazy, but Mason would do it. She unlocked the door and paced in the small space. A moment later, the door cracked open.
“Not that I care, but are you decent?” he called drily.
She yanked the door open and motioned him in then closed it and locked it.
“Girls’ bathrooms are always nicer,” Mason said, glancing around.
“Look at this, Mason,” she said pulling up her hair and turning. She looked down and arched her neck for him to see.
Mason was quiet for a moment then stepped close enough for her to feel his body heat. He touched the marking with a thumb.
“Weird,” he said quietly. “I, uh, take it he bit you there?”
“How do you know that?”
Stepping away, she heard the sound of his jeans being unzipped and turned. He’d pushed his shirt up high enough for her to see how flat his abs and lower belly were. Her gaze drifted downwards.
“You shave everything down there?” she asked, smiling.
“Yep.”
Her gaze went to the black mark he wore on the sensitive skin just above his penis. It was black, in the same simple design style as hers, of a great cat.
“I thought for sure my dick was gonna fall off when it started itching. Then when the skin fell off …” he shook his head. “Anyway, she bit me there.”
“But what does it mean?” she asked.
“Maybe they do this to everyone they sleep with?” Mason shrugged and pulled his pants up, zipping them once more.
“We would’ve seen that before, if so. Somewhere in the library or in all our training.” She sighed and touched the back of her neck. The new skin around the raised tattoo was silky soft. “I mean, is this gonna kill us?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve had mine for like two months.”
“We could ask Caleb,” she said grudgingly, referring to the oldest of the slayers and the head trainer who had brought in hundreds of shifters before retiring to teach new slayers.
“Or not,” Mason muttered. “He flips out when we fail to make quota. He’d ban us if he found out we slept with a shifter.”
“Especially me,” she agreed. “Pretty sure Dillon told his daddy that I dumped him. So, what do we do?”
Mason met her gaze, thoughtful.
“Nothing?” he guessed.
She sighed and nodded. “Does the itching stop now?”
“Should. Mine did.”
“Maybe we should drop by Caleb’s just to see if we can dig through the historical records. Discreetly.”
“Sounds good. Let me suggest it, though, or Dillon will think something’s up.” Mason winked and opened the door, walking out of the bathroom.
Skylar rolled her eyes and counted to ten before following him. She looked out of the window without seeing any shifters waiting for her. Dillon stood when she approached the table and gathered up their files.
“We’re going to my dad’s,” he informed her.
“Whatever you say.”
He ignored her. Mason gave a trace of a smile and handed her the cup of coffee.
Skylar trailed them out and down the street, reaching the car before the tattoo itched faintly again. She rubbed it and looked around, sensing that this time, it was a shifter making her itch and not irritated skin.
She saw no one following but couldn’t shake the sense someone was.
Climbing in the truck, she kept her eyes on the streets as Dillon took them a circuitous route through the downtown and suburbs towards the east, away from Phoenix. The housing divisions thinned out. Dillon turned down a gravel road leading to several large estates hidden past low, stone gates and desert landscaped front yards.
He pulled into the familiar driveway leading to his father’s home and drove to the sprawling Santa Fe style house. He stopped the car in the crescent driveway.
Skylar got out, grimacing at the heat of the late summer sun.
Not looking forward to the visit, she nonetheless suspected Caleb was the only one who might have the answers she needed in his library. She and Mason followed Dillon inside the house.
“Going to the library,” she said before Dillon could maneuver her into meeting his sour father. She strode down the hallway to the left, hearing Mason’s soft footfall behind her.
The library was quiet and empty. It was the largest room in the house, taking up one whole wing. Books lined the walls from ceiling to floor while a central glass cabinet displayed hundreds, if not thousands, of small stone animals and creatures. A black one caught her attention, and she walked through tables to the glass cabinet. One of the charms inside was of a black dragon that looked too much like the tattoo on her neck for her comfort. Her eyes swept over the cluttered collection. They were all animals or mythical creatures like dragons, unicorns and griffins. She’d seen the collection every time she entered Caleb’s house but never paid too much attention to it, assuming the man in his prime had a weird fetish for collecting animal charms.
Today, however, the collection was making her uneasy, and she didn’t know why.
“Where do you want to start?” Mason asked, standing a short distance away and looking around the massive library.
Skylar reluctantly left the case to stand beside Mason.
“Needle in a haystack,” she responded, overwhelmed by the size of their task. “So what if we just stop hunting these guys?”
“They burn down cities and attack innocent people, yadda yadda,” Mason said. “Like our instructors told us about the legends from our past.”
“Yeah. Powder keg. If we don’t keep them in check, no one will,” she recited the canned words her trainers used to tell her.
“We give them a chance to turn themselves in.”
“Sometimes I think it’s too generous, if they’re that dangerous.”
“Could be. Guess we gotta be fair.”
“Sometimes what we do doesn’t make sense,” she grumbled.
“Heaven forbid we question what we learn at The Field,” he agreed, referring to the training and rehabilitation center where all slayers and captured shifters went.
“I guess we don’t have a choice. Born to be what we are.”
“On that cheerful note, grab a book and start reading!”
Skylar went to the nearest bookshelf, aware the collection was arranged by topic. She breathed in the rich scent of books, admiring the different members of the collection. Some were hundreds of years old bound in wood while others were newer additions with modern dust jackets. Multiple languages made their search even more complicated.
“Tell me what you need, and I’ll tell you where it is,” Caleb’s smooth, low voice came from the entrance of the library.
Skylar turned to face him, not expecting to find the eyes of Dillon’s father on her. Dillon was built much like his father, though he lacked the hardness of experience that characterized Caleb’s features.
“We’re having trouble tracking them,” she said.
“Dillon should’ve given you everything I gave him about tracking, and you had a source giving you information. You found them, didn’t you?” Caleb asked.
“And lost them again,” she said. “What we did last time isn’t working this time. The source stopped talking.” She faced the shelf again, reading through the different subjects slowly.
Caleb was quiet. She held her breath, hoping he left them alone or at least, gave them a few references. She didn’t hear his silent step or register he was behind her until he lifted her ponytail.
Skylar started to whirl. The most experienced shifter slayer with hundreds of rehabbed shifters under his belt reacted faster than her. Bracing his forearm against her shoulders, Caleb shoved her up against the shelf. His other hand lifted her hair enough for him to run a finger over the tattoo.
“Interesting,” he said.
She slammed her elbow back, and he released her. With a glare, she spun to face him.
“He marked you. Did anyone else see him do it?” Caleb asked.
She gazed at him for a long moment, before deciding he was probably the only one who might have the answers she and Mason needed.
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “There were tons of shifters in the bar where this one grabbed me.” She touched the tattoo absently.
“There’s only one dragon shifter left and one dragon slayer in existence. The rest have been tracked and rehabilitated,” Caleb said. He crossed his arms. “I’d say he’s got a plan.”
That’s not good. “What does the mark mean?” she ventured.
Mason joined them.
“It means he can track you.”
“Why?”
Caleb shrugged. “Maybe so he knows you’re coming for his head?”
“So this Chace is the last dragon and Skylar is the last dragon slayer,” Mason said. “Now he knows when she’s looking for him.”
Skylar shifted, her instincts wriggling. She didn’t know why the idea of Chace being the last bothered her. Or was it the thought of killing him? She’d been trained for this, but she hoped that he’d come willingly. Her instructors at The Field assured their students that only one shifter in the past hundred years had refused to come willingly and been killed.
Chace hadn’t seemed like the stone cold, heartless killer that shifters were supposed to be but neither had he seemed like someone interested in being rehabilitated. He’d let her go after marking her. If he wanted to ensure his own life, why not end hers?
“You want to find him, make him come to you,” Caleb advised.
“How do you recommend I do that?” she asked, surprised.
“He marked you for a reason. It doesn’t just happen.”
She exchanged a look with Mason, who had grown pale.
“Sky!” Dillon’s excited voice came from the hallway. “We got your dragon. He’s setting fire to buildings west of Phoenix.”
For a moment, she was too startled to move. Adrenaline kicked in and she bolted towards the door.
“Don’t forget your tools!” Caleb called after her.
She waved to indicate she had the golden lasso and the slender knife made from a dragon scale, the only weapon that would kill a dragon, if he didn’t come quietly.
The idea of seeing him again filled her with a different kind of thrill, one that left her insides humming with warmth.
Dillon ran to their vehicle, and Mason was quick on her heels. The three of them piled into the SUV and within minutes, they were back on the highway, cutting across Phoenix to the western suburbs.
“So he just started burning shit down?” Skylar asked, leaning forward from her spot in the front seat.
“Looks like it,” Dillon said tersely. “Someone radioed it in. He’s targeting some sort of storage building or warehouse or something.”
“Wow,” Mason said. “I wonder why.”
“Maybe he snapped,” Dillon said. “Pops said when that happens, they’re beyond the ability to save.”
Her pulse raced.
“You up for this, Sky?” Dillon asked.
“Yeah, totally. I’ve waited my whole life for this.”
“Hopefully he’s in his human form. Otherwise, it might be hard to get him,” Mason said. “He’s gotta be the size of this SUV.”
“I told you he was big.” She swallowed hard. She hadn’t considered what she’d do if she had to corner him in his dragon form. Shifters were hard enough to work with as humans. She’d helped the others corral other shifters, but never anything as big as a dragon. The biggest they’d seen was a bear the size of a Ford Focus. But this dragon was old. Ancient even, which meant he was probably closer to the size of a VW wagon.
She began to pray her eyes had been tricking her when she first saw him flying over the bar, the night they met. She’d convinced herself he wasn’t as big as she initially thought. Mason’s words reminded her that she’d thought him far bigger than they assessed.
All her training at The Field was going to be needed to capture him.
“Not chickening out, are you?” Dillon bated.
“No. Never. You guys will be there to back me up anyway, right?”
“Definitely,” Mason replied.
Dillon was silent.
At least I have Mason. Skylar sat back, unease drifting through her.
They saw the smoke from the fire miles before they reached it. Local fire engines were already at the scene when Dillon pulled up, and they joined a few onlookers crowded near the truck.
Skylar engaged her extra senses, trying to pick up the elusive shifter’s essence among the sensations around her. The tattoo itched once more.
“This looks like a normal fire. Split up?” Dillon suggested. “Don’t engage, just look?”
“Yeah,” Mason agreed. He pulled a small case free from his pocket that contained ear buds and tiny microphones. He handed one of each to them.
Skylar placed her ear bud in then loosened her ponytail to hide her ears. She clipped the microphone to her bra strap then reached to the back of her neck.
“Would you stop scratching?” Dillon grumbled. “It drives me crazy.”
“Hey, at least we always know when someone is watching us,” Mason said cheerfully.
“Exactly. I’m like an itchy radar system,” Skylar agreed. She looked around at the warehouse area, trying to pick up some sense of where she should start looking.
A faint instinct guided her to the buildings on the far side of the compound, away from the fire and excitement. Just as quickly, the sense was gone.
“I’ll try that way,” she said, pointing. “Meet back at the car in like an hour?”
“Yeah. Stay in contact,” Dillon said.
She nodded, distracted by the attempt to track him. With a glance over her shoulder, she trotted towards the far side of the compound. Dillon was circling the fire to get to the buildings behind it while Mason headed towards the other building in this aisle.
She slowed when she reached the walkway between two buildings and paused halfway down, instincts unsuccessfully trying to locate the dragon shifter.
Hell, I slept with him and didn’t pick him up consistently. She shook her head, not wanting that memory to return.
“Nothing yet,” she said softly.
“I’m not even sensing a shifter at all,” Mason seconded.
“Nada here,” came Dillon’s voice.
She reached the end of the walkway and stepped out into the open area between the chain link fencing and buildings. Walking to the fences, she scanned the desert and the road just beyond a patch of saguaros and squat mesquite trees.
“Think he jumped the fence?” she asked.
“Or flew over it,” Mason said with a quiet laugh.
“You know what I mean,” she replied.
“Is it just me or is this shifter super complicated?” Dillon complained.
“Yeah, seems about right,” Mason agreed.
She rolled her eyes, reading Mason’s tone. With Dillon on the line, though, she couldn’t retort the way she wanted to.
Instead, she turned and stopped short of moving.
“Oh, shit,” she breathed.
Chace was leaning against one of the buildings with his muscular arms crossed, watching her like a hunter ready to pounce. His head was lowered, his dark blue gaze piercing, and his deceptively relaxed form a breath away from snapping. She knew how lean and strong he was from exploring his body with her hands, but seeing him in full daylight made her a little less sure about getting the lasso over his head. She wasn’t going to win in a wrestling match, not with his long, lean limbs, the thick biceps and thighs, and the width of his shoulders and chest. He’d have her pinned beneath him in seconds, the way he had two weeks ago in bed.
The sight of him sent a streak of cold fear and a shot of hot desire through her, and the tattoo on her neck grew warm. As she had the night they met, she sensed her desire to lasso him and drag him to The Field melting under his intensity. What was it about him that made a lifetime of training simply … disappear?
Not expecting to find him, it took her a moment to recover.
“I see you got my invitation,” he said when she didn’t speak. His honeyed growl was about as welcoming as his stance, and she had a hard time reconciling the bristling shifter before her with the tender man she slept with.
“So you wanted me to find you,” she said.
“You’ve been following me, haven’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“What now?”
“Well.” She swallowed, self-conscious under his direct gaze, and withdrew the lasso. “I’m supposed to bring you in.”
His gaze fell to the gold rope in her hand. “With that?”
“Yeah.”
“You can give it a try.”
“You’re coming in voluntarily?” she asked, not expecting his response.
“If that thing works, sure. Is it magic?”
How does he know nothing about slayers? “Wow, okay,” she said. “It goes around your neck.”
He lifted his chin in a silent summons but didn’t move from his spot or change his unwelcoming stance.
The idea of getting close enough to lasso him suddenly didn’t seem like such a good idea when he was regarding her like she was a wounded gazelle. After a brief hesitation, she approached him and stopped as far as she could while still being able to reach him.
“What happens next?” he asked.
“This controls your magic, and I take you in to The Field,” she replied, holding up the lasso. “May I?”
The arms dropped from their defensive position across his chest, and he straightened.
“If you can track me, why invite me here?” she asked, waiting for him.
“Track you?”
She frowned, gazing up at him. “You didn’t know that?”
“News to me.”
“And you know nothing about this?” She shook the soft rope.
“Nope. After you lasso me, what do you do?”
Something isn’t right here. She paused. The lasso would make him almost human, unable to shift or use his magic. She’d seen it used on the few shifters she helped Mason and Dillon catch.
“I take you to the oldest of my kind, and he resettles you when you’re no longer a threat to people,” she answered. “How do you not know this?”
“How can a dragon slayer not track a dragon?”
“We did. We just lost you again after …” she cleared her throat, face warm. “Let’s get this over with.” She stretched forward and draped the lasso over his head. It settled around his neck. “That’s it.”
She was close enough to draw his honey-bonfire scent into her senses, and she did so, ensnared by it like she had been when they slept together. Her body grew uncomfortably fevered.
“Hmmm.” His eyes narrowed, his gaze turning lethal once more. “So this takes away my magic.”
She nodded. “No more burning down buildings or terrorizing humans.”
“Interesting. What if it doesn’t work?”
“It’s never not worked,” she replied then stepped away. She spoke into the microphone. “Hey, guys, we’re ready.”
“Great work. Meet back at the truck,” Dillon replied.
“So, what happens if the dragon captures his slayer instead of vice versa?” Chace asked.
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not understanding the question.”
“Let’s say a dragon decides to capture his slayer. He lures her into a secluded spot, lets her think she’s won then just … turns the tables.”
His words made her pulse fly. Her gaze swept over his muscular body once more.
“Why would he want to?” she asked.
“Maybe he thinks there’s something weird going on. Like that you slayers aren’t who or what you say you are. Too many inconsistencies surrounding you.”
Why does this almost make sense? She wanted to ask him more, aware of the instincts that had been trying to tell her something similar over the past two weeks.
We are the dragon’s protectors, her dream-mother had said. It was the exact opposite of what she’d been taught at The Field.
“It’s not possible with the lasso on,” she reasoned aloud. “He would’ve had to act before that. And hypothetically, if she couldn’t get the lasso on, she’d have to kill him.”
“Hypothetically, how would she do it?”
Skylar’s gaze dropped to the lasso. It was the one Dillon’s father gave her, the one used by previous slayers to capture dragons almost as old as the one before her. There was no way it wasn’t going to work, and there was no way Chace could take it off, now that she’d placed it around his neck. Everything she’d learned at the field supported her belief.
Don’t be silly, Sky. You just think he’s sexy – that’s why you’re confused.
“With a dragon scale dagger,” she replied. “It’s the only way.”
“I’m assuming our hypothetical dragon killer has one with her.”
“Of course. She never leaves home without it.”
If the clench of his jaw was any indication, he wasn’t happy with her words. Aware she was staring too long into the dark blue depths that lulled her into a sense of security like the waves whose hue they shared, Skylar started away.
“No more questions. Let’s go,” she said curtly over her shoulder.
“What if the lasso doesn’t work?”
Exasperated by the barrage of inquiries, she turned.
“It’s not possible for …” she drifted off, gaze falling to the lasso lying on the ground. The scent of fire was in the air, and the golden rope lay half in ashes at the shifter’s feet.
“All right. My turn.”
Her eyes flew up to his face at his calm words. She braced herself and whipped out the scale dagger, ready for him to tackle her.
He didn’t. Instead, he backed away into the open area, his nails lengthening and eyes flaring with flames. His skin rippled, his body beginning to expand within his clothing until they were stretched taught around bulging muscles while fire curled out of his nostrils.
“I’ll give you a head start,” he offered.
“I’m trained for this. I’m not going to run.”
“Offer’s on the table.” He grunted then dropped on all fours.
The rippling of his body continued, and she watched with mesmerized horror as his body began to grow and morph. Scales emerged from his skin while small nubs appeared on his back behind his shoulders. They expanded rapidly, turning from nubs into feathers into wings.
He was growing at a rate that alarmed her. Within a blink, his body was the size of a small car. Seconds later, bigger than an SUV – and still rapidly changing.
Gripping the hilt of her dragon-scale knife hard, she nonetheless found herself stepping back.
“Guys, we got a problem,” she whispered, craning her head back to watch the shifter go from expanding width wise to height wise. “A really, big … huge problem.”
After a full sixty seconds, Chace unfurled his long wings and shook his head. Scales were still forming along his body, though his piercing blue gaze settled on her.
“How big?” Mason asked.
“I’d say building-sized,” she breathed, unable to believe her eyes.
Chace wasn’t large – he was massive, his feathered wingspan over half the length of a football field. His wings shimmered a dark, metallic teal, and his body was thick, solid, easily the size of a small building. He stood on four legs thicker than she was wide, each of which ended in a paw three feet across with razor sharp talons half that size. A large head with fangs longer than her thigh was perched upon a short neck while deep-set eyes were lined with lashes longer than her fingers.
The huge creature before her was magnificent, beautiful in a terrifying way. The sun made his wings sparkle as if with magic, and the mesmerizing hue of his eyes was only magnified by their size.
I’ve seen a dragon before. A great one with dark blue wings even larger than Chace’s. The image in her mind was nothing more than a flash of a great beast flying over her head belching fire. It’s not possible.
Chace’s growling distracted her from the errant thought. He tossed his head once more. Smoke curled out of one flared nostril, a warning sign that jarred her out of her transfixed surprise. She’d seen that before and innately knew it was time to run.
“I’ll take that head start,” she said, hoping he at least understood her words, even if he wasn’t able to speak. “So … like ten minutes? An hour?” She backed away as she spoke, praying he gave her enough time to escape being burnt into a crisp.
He shook his head.
Uncertain what that meant, she turned and bolted between the buildings. A whoosh of air made her look up, and she saw him hovering above the buildings, watching. Expecting him to fry her up good, she hunched her shoulders and ran to the end.
“Holy shit!” Mason’s exclamation reminded her that the other two were nearby. “He’s … he’s … what the hell?”
“Yeah and I think I pissed him off,” she said.
Rather than run out into the open, she stopped and tested a door leading into one of the buildings. It opened, and she hurried inside.
The storage building was only half full with an open bay opposite the stacked pallets. She tucked the knife away, at a loss as to how she was going to get close enough to use it against that large of a creature.
“Dillon, I really need to talk to your dad about now,” she said quietly. “He burnt the lasso to a crisp.”
“You’re shitting me,” Dillon responded. “It’s not possible.”
“We didn’t think he’d be bigger than a truck, either,” Mason pointed out. “Sky, he’s circling the building you’re in. Totally freaking everyone out.”
She looked up at the corrugated roof far above her. Scared yet furious at herself for running, she wished she’d spoken to Caleb more about what to do if she pissed off a dragon shifter.
“He’s torching the other buildings around you. You’re about to be trapped in there,” Mason said grimly.
“Shit, shit, shit!” she muttered. “I can’t get close enough to stab something that big!” She sprinted to the other end of the warehouse, to the side closest to the fence. Wrenching the door open, she was relieved to see no flames between her and the only escape route. About to make a run for it, Dillon’s next words stopped her.
“He’s cornered the people!”
Skylar’s hand stayed on the doorknob. The thought of hurting innocents made her sick – it was one of the reasons why she hadn’t fought her fate as a slayer too hard. She stared at the desert outside the fence. If the dragon was occupied, she had a chance to run.
I see you got my invitation.
He drew her here for a reason, and he’d had a chance to fight her or light her on fire. What if this, too, was a play to get her outside the building?
Even if he didn’t intend to let her live, how could she run instead of trying to help innocent people?
Knowing she couldn’t just walk away when she was the only one who could possibly fight a dragon, Skylar spun and searched the interior of the building. She had to get his attention somehow, and being stuck in a warehouse wasn’t going to help.
A metal stairwell on one side of the building led to a catwalk above and a door she guessed led to the roof. Skylar raced to it and ran up the stairs, reaching the roof door breathless but determined to try to distract the dragon from his quest of hurting people he shouldn’t.
Wrenching it open, she trotted onto the roof, eyes drawn first to the fires blazing on either side of her before she spotted the massive dragon.
He’d cornered a few people against a building and was pacing fluidly back and forth in front of them, as if trying to choose which one to eat first.
Mason and Dillon were at the SUV, Dillon on the phone while Mason stood to the side, as much at a loss about what to do as she was, since the lassos hadn’t worked.
Chace brought me here for a reason. Skylar told herself this over and over. She strode to the edge of the warehouse’s roof, heart flip-flopping almost painfully in her chest.
Let’s say a dragon decides to capture his slayer.
Then again, the idea he wanted to capture her was almost worse than being fried.
“Hey!” she shouted, waving her arms. “Chace!”
For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to respond. Mason looked up at her.
“What’re you doing, Sky?” he asked.
“Saving lives, hopefully,” she replied then yelled, “Chace!”
“You got an escape plan?”
“I don’t think he wants me dead.”
“That’s not a plan.”
“I’ll figure one out.”
The dragon paused in his pacing and swung his head around to see her. She waved her arms over her head once more. After a moment of consideration, he turned and bound once towards her then leapt deftly into the air, lifting his massive body like it weighed nothing at all.
The vision of a dark blue dragon tore through her mind again, too crisp and clear to be a dream. An ache went through her, an indication she knew – or should have known – why the blue dragon was so vivid.
Skylar’s heart pounded in her ears. She moved away from the edge of the building, silently panicking. The dragon hovered in place, staring at her. He didn’t spit fire at her, which she took as a good sign.
“You … you said you were going to capture me, right?” she called. “I’m here.” She held her arms out.
“Are you nuts?” Mason belted in her ear. “You can’t remember to put the lids on jars of peanut butter. You can’t handle a dragon!”
“I’m capable of taking care of myself, Dillon,” she replied. Hopefully.
Chace lightly landed on the rooftop, wings still outspread, as if he was prepared to fly at the drop of a hat. He lowered his large head to her level, letting her see just how sharp the long fangs were.
Skylar backpedaled until she hit a ventilation box and stopped.
Chace was growling again, a rumble deep in his chest.
“You invited me,” she reminded him. “If you plan on … eating me, just do it. Otherwise, let’s leave innocent people out of this.” Like I’m in any position to tell a dragon what to do.
Chace’s wings rippled in response. He lifted himself into the air, causing a small gust of wind to sweep by her.
“Or you could just fly away, and we’ll forget this whole thing happened,” she added, skirting the ventilation box.
Chace hovered closer, and she sensed he was about to act. Though far from the roof door, she decided to make a run for it anyway.
Skylar whirled and ran. Before she made it two steps, she was snatched up in a talon. She squeezed her eyes closed, waiting for him to crush her. He didn’t, but she was soon aware of another sensation: that of flying.
Opening her eyes, she stared at the warehouse area as the buildings became smaller, distant and the ground far, far away.
Oh, god. He’s going to drop me!
She waited for it, terrified of the dizzying height to which he took her before he began flying westward at a speed that made the terrain below pass as quickly as if she was in a plane. Wind flattened her hair against her head while his uncomfortably tight grip kept her arms pinned at her sides. She’d never gotten air sick before, but the knowledge that there was nothing between her and instant death except for an angry dragon shifter made her want to vomit.
Instead she closed her eyes and tried to focus. If she could get to the knife, she could stab him.
Then fall screaming to her death.
Okay. Maybe wait til on the ground. She tried to pretend she was hang gliding or standing on a cliff with the wind rushing past her or … something. Anything to take her mind off the dragon carting her off to some unknown place.
The images behind her eyelids were almost as distressing. The dreams were no longer constricted to her sleep.
Skylar stood on a hill overlooking a large farm that was ablaze, from the farmhouse where she’d spent her summers to the cornfields that ran in each direction as far as she could see. Her gaze followed the billowing smoke upward toward the sky, where she saw the great blue dragon circling high above. Sun glinted off his dark scales, creating small rainbows around him.
She was eleven or twelve in this vision.
“Mama, where is he going?” Skylar asked.
“C’mon, Sky. You have to get out of the open. They’ll see you!” her mother said urgently.
Skylar retreated from the hilltop to the car waiting down below on a dirt, country road. Her mother was shaking, her face covered in soot.
Skylar looked down at her hands and saw them, too, covered with soot and streaked with blood. The sight left her rattled.
“Are we going home now?” she asked anxiously.
“No, baby. We can’t go home. They’ll find us there. We just have to keep moving,” her mother said and got into the car. “Get in, Sky.”
Skylar sensed Chace turn and risked a peek below, more than happy to leave the disturbing daydream alone. The desert had given away to greener areas: mountains filled with pine trees. Chace was lazily circling one mountain, descending slowly as he did. Clearly, he wasn’t going to drop her, which left her insides tight and knotted not to know what his intentions were.
The circles made her nauseous again, so she closed her eyes, waiting for the horrifying ride to end. Abruptly, he released her. She didn’t have time to scream; the fall to the grassy earth was about a foot.
Her eyes flew open, and she quickly tried to get her bearings. It was cooler here than in the desert, the air clear and crisp. She was on a grassy plateau surrounded by pine trees and …
His cabin. The same one that had been behind the bar.
What the hell?
She hopped to her feet and faced the massive dragon, whose wings were folded. He lifted his head towards the cabin.
She wanted to refuse, but faced with what was outside, she decided against it.
Skylar fled, shoving open the door and slamming it shut behind her. The cabin was cozy and homey like she recalled, his subtle scent in the air. Shaking from adrenaline and fear, she sat down on a chair, eyeing the door fearfully.
“You guys there?” she asked.
“Oh, thank god!” Mason exclaimed.
“You’re alive? For reals?” Dillon almost managed to sound concerned.
“So far,” she said wryly. “No idea where I am. We flew west for like, ten minutes and are now on some mountain.”
“I’ll see if I can Google it,” Mason said.
“What the fuck is going on?” Dillon demanded.
“Damned if I know,” she admitted. Recovered enough to take in her surroundings, she stood and drew her knife, going to the door. “I’ve got one plan. After that, I’m out.”
“Knife?”
“Yeah.”
“If the lasso didn’t work, I wonder if the knife does.”
She looked down at the grey-black knife that looked like stone. “Dammit, Dillon. Can you be supportive for once?” There was a note of panic in her voice, one she hated to hear.
The screen door of the cabin creaked open, and she steadied her breathing. Her focus was all over the place, affected as much by emotion as the bombardment of sensations from flying.
“Be back, guys,” she whispered and crept to the door.
Skylar stood behind it, praying for all she was worth that the dagger would take out whatever came through the door.
It opened, and she waited.