Chapter One

Lennie nudged his partner. “That’s her, comin’ down the steps.”

“Which one?” Tony peered through the gathering gloom.

Lennie glared at him. “The dame, ya moron.”

“My eyes ain’t so good after dark,” Tony said sulkily. “An’ anyway, she was behind the hulking giant there. I thought you was talkin’ ‘bout one of them dames over there by the sidewalk.”

“Them’s workin’ girls, numb nuts. Just get the damned trunk open,” Lennie growled, crawling out of the car as the petite redhead reached the sidewalk, bid the man who was with her good evening and turned in their direction.

She was a pretty little thing, Lennie thought as she came closer and he was able to make out her features … delicate … like one of them china dolls, but with curves in all the right places. It was a pure waste to whack a dame that looked that good. He didn’t like doing dames anyway. It offended him, almost as bad as having to whack a kid. He wondered what she’d done to tick his boss off.

Shrugging it off, he stepped away from the car when she came abreast of him. “S’cuse me, ma’am? I wonder if you could point me in the direction of 110^th street?”

The woman paused, looked him over curiously. “This is 110^th,” she said in surprise.

He looked around, saw no one was looking in their direction and grabbed her, covering her mouth with his hand as he hauled her off her feet and moved to the trunk of the car, which was open and waiting, Tony nervously fingering the lid.

The woman, Lennie noticed, had gone limp in his arms the moment he’d grabbed her. He wasn’t falling for that one though. Dropping her into the trunk, he stuffed a gag in her mouth, tied it with quick efficiency, and trussed her like a Thanksgiving turkey. The whole job took less than five minutes, but Tony looked like he was going to pee on himself as he danced around the rear of the car.

“You need to take a leak, or what?” Lennie snarled as he slammed the trunk lid.

“I don’t like grabbin’ her right here in the street. No tellin’ who might’ve seen it. We shoulda waited, like I said, till she was close to an alley.”

Lennie gave him a look. “Get in the car, moron. She don’t walk by no alley. She catches a cab at the corner and hits for home. I been watchin’ her for a week.”

“What’er we gonna do now?” Tony asked nervously, once they were settled in the car again.

“We go to the docks. Where else?”

“What ya got in mind?”

“Somethin’ quiet. I figured we could tie a brick to her or somethin’ and pitch her over the side. Boss didn’t say to get rid of the body, but he likes things tidy, so I figure he’ll be happier if we don’t leave it layin’ around.”

“She sure is pretty,” Tony said wistfully.

“Yeah? And how would you know? You didn’t even know which dame I was talkin’ about.”

“Think we got time to get a little honey before we snuff her?”

Lennie gave him a look. “Hey! She’s a lady. Didn’t your mudder teach you no manners? You don’t get fresh with ladies.”

Tony gaped at him. “But … but … we’re gonna snuff the dame!”

“That’s different. It ain’t personal. We’re just doin’ our job here. An’ our job ain’t about rapin’ and pilagin’. It’s about makin’ the boss’s problems disappear. Besides, foolin’ around is dangerous.” He shook his head. “We off her. We tie an anchor to her and we ditch her.”

* * * *

Khalia Peterson couldn’t decide whether the discussion, which was perfectly audible to her in the trunk, was intended to scare her or if they didn’t realize, or didn’t care, that she could hear them.

She was irritated, regardless. She was a lady. They had no business manhandling her in such a way. They’d ruined her coiffure! Her suit was probably ruined, as well, and she’d just bought it the week before. The trunk stank of chemicals and the lord only knew what else.

What really ticked her off, though, was that they’d put her in the position of having to complete the destruction of her lovely suit. She’d been thinking it over ever since they’d tossed her into the trunk. The big ox that had grabbed her had said they were headed for the docks, which meant she might have twenty minutes to come up with an alternative.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of one.

Sighing, trying to tamp her justifiable anger, she concentrated on shifting.

She must have concentrated for a full ten minutes. All the while, she was jounced unmercifully in the trunk as her kidnappers seemed to go out of their way to find every stinking pothole between 110^th and the docks, until she began to think she must know what it felt like to be a basketball.

Nothing happened and her confidence began to seep insidiously away as the sound of heavy traffic faded and they drew nearer their destination. Resolutely, she ignored the gradual siphoning of her assurance. She’d always prided herself on her clear-head in the face of disaster, her ability to calmly assess any situation and pursue the most logical course.

She had first learned that she could shift when she’d reached puberty. It wasn’t a ‘gift’ that she’d found a great deal of use for, however, and, if she were honest with herself, she wasn’t particularly thrilled at the ability to become a female of Amazonian proportions merely by willing it. There were certainly drawbacks to being a small person, but weren’t there always drawbacks with everything? And she rather liked being referred to as petite. In her mind, it made up for some of her other shortcomings--her garish, blindingly red hair, for instance.

She supposed now, though, that she might ought to have practiced her gift in case of need. She needed it now, if she ever had, and she couldn’t seem to recall how she’d summoned it before.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her mind to the tell tale thump of the tires over wooden planks that told her they’d reached the docks and concentrated once more, her mind focused on the discomfort of having her hands tied behind her back.

Even as the car slowed and abruptly rocked to a halt, she felt a tingle in her hands and arms, then the burning sensation as bones and muscle lengthened and stretched, bursting the sleeves of her jacket and then the rope around her wrists.

It was heartening, but hardly enough. Two huge arms weren’t going to be enough to fight off two men with guns.

As she heard the doors slam and the footfalls of the men coming around to the back of the car, she thought of the amulet she always wore next to her heart, the dragon’s tear.

They were after it. That had to be the reason behind this and ‘the boss’ they’d referred to none other than Clyde Hawkins. He’d approached her only the week before regarding the legend of the tear, hinting that he suspected she had it in her possession.

Digging it from her bodice, she clutched the tear possessively. It was all that she had from the mother she’d never known. She wouldn’t part from it for any price. She wasn’t about to allow these hooligans to steal it from her.

To her relief, as if merely holding the amulet tightly in her fist were enough to focus her gift, she felt her body growing, transforming, heard the tear of fabric and bursting seams. The moment the catch of the trunk clicked, she rolled onto her knees and thrust upward, exploding out of the trunk and bowling both men over.

She checked, tempted to make use of her size and strength to teach the men the error of their ways, but her size did not make her proof against bullet holes and the surprise hadn’t lasted long. She’d barely cleared them when the two men began scrambling for their guns. Whirling, she fled toward the edge of the dock, launching herself toward the water even as she felt the first barrage of bullets whiz past her.

She hit--something--even as she launched herself off the pier. Her mind, grasping to assimilate the unknown, produced the sensation of swimming through a chilled, clinging jell. Briefly, the air seemed to be sucked from her lungs. Sound ceased. Even as an unfamiliar sense of panic touched her mind, however, her struggle to gasp was suddenly rewarded by a sharp intake of breath. The sensation of traveling at high velocity was as instantaneous as the breath of air.

Expecting to feel the chill wetness of water, Khalia was so stunned when her fingers plowed the warm graininess of sand that that stunned her almost as much as the impact of her body against solid earth. Fortunately, she regained the ability to move at about the same instant that she was finally able to draw breath into her lungs again. Sneezing and coughing, she turned her head to try to drag in a breath free of airborne debris and finally managed to climb to her knees.

The belly flop in the sand dune had knocked her ‘shift’ out of her as well as the air from her lungs. The tattered remains of her clothing fluttered in the sharp breeze blowing over her, pieces drifting downward and settling to the ground around her along with the debris she’d plowed up from the desert floor.

It was a desert, she realized the moment she managed to wipe enough sand from her eyes to peer around her. She hadn’t imagined the sand, or the friction burns on her palms, her knees, and, in fact, pretty much everything in between. Her clothing had protected her somewhat in more tender areas, but, as she’d known would happen, shifting had pretty well shredded her clothing, leaving a lot more exposed skin than might have been vulnerable otherwise.

When she’d assured herself she was alone, she spat the grit from her mouth. Spitting in public was incredibly unladylike and ill-mannered, and she was embarrassed to think about doing it, let alone do it. On the other hand, she couldn’t believe it would be very healthful to swallow dirt and, since no one seemed to be about to witness the lapse, she was more interested in her health and comfort at the moment than a lapse in manners. When she’d expelled as much of the grit as she possibly could, she sat back and looked around a little dazedly, absently shaking the sand from a tattered bit of clothing and using it to blot her lips.

The glow of a full moon lit her surroundings. As far as she could see in every direction, there was nothing but rolling dunes. In the moonlight, the sand looked as if it had the color and consistency of brick dust.

Where was the city? And how had she come to find herself in a desert of all places? The city was surrounded by marsh and water, not desert.

Khalia was still trying to assimilate the indigestible when a dark shadow swooped above her head. Ducking instinctively, Khalia’s head whipped toward the perceived threat. She was arrested, however, by a sight that so took her by surprise that she could only blink at it, stunned, unable to think at all.

A pair of moons had just crested the horizon. Even as she glanced up to see what had produced the light overhead that she’d assumed was a full moon, a man landed in the sand barely two yards away from her.

He was the next thing to naked. For several horrifying moments, she thought he was completely naked, but even as her eyes dropped with a will of their own toward his genitals, a tiny bit of relief trickled through her. That, at least, was covered, not decently, for she could not consider that pouch that so obviously was only sufficient to hold his genitalia as decent, but covered in a way that prevented yet another jolt to her already overloaded sensibilities. Nevertheless, all that bare flesh was so shocking that her mind simply ceased to function for several moments.

Dropping to one knee, he struck his left breast with his right fist, bowing his head. “Your highness! We rejoice that you have at last returned to us. I am Damien Bloodragon, King Caracus’ champion, sent to protect you.”