Hunted by the Dragon Read online

  ”I want you to capture one of them. One of his daughters, ideally. Not quite the same as a wife, but it’ll do.”

  ”Are you going to kill her?” Worry started to bubble up in Noah’s chest.

  ”Of course not.” Reed looked offended. “God, Noah, what do you think of me? I’ve worked so hard to build this place—to make it a safe place for shifters like you, who had nowhere else to go—and you think I’d kill some innocent girl just to hurt her father? Of course not. No, I just want to scare him a little. I want you to bring her here, and I want to keep her for a little while—just until what was taken from me is returned. She won’t be hurt.”

  Noah nodded, but he still had his doubts. He’d taken prisoners before. He hadn’t liked it much. And those had been humans. “Are you sure you want me to do this alone? Dragons aren’t exactly easy to subdue. I’ve got the scars to prove it.” He touched his chest unconsciously, feeling for the lines of scar tissue that represented the last time he’d seen his family.

  “You won’t need to fight a dragon,” Reed said, bringing a briefcase out from under the table. “Just get one of the daughters on her own and put this around her neck.”

  He unlatched the briefcase and opened it, revealing what looked like a gleaming silver band. Noah stared at it. “What is it?”

  ”I’ll show you.” Reed got smoothly to his feet and drew the band out of the briefcase. Noah saw that there was a hinge at the back of it that allowed it to open, like a strange pair of curved jaws. And before Noah could react, Reed had stepped to his side and clicked the silver band around his throat. For a moment, the metal burned where it touched his skin—but then he wondered if he’d imagined that because all that was there was cool metal. He touched it with his fingers, unable to find where the two pieces of the collar joined—and therefore unable to remove it. Claustrophobia began to prickle at him.

  ”What does it do?”

  ”Try to shift.” Reed’s voice was low and excited, a tone in it that Noah had rarely heard before. “Go on. Try.”

  ”I’ll trash the place.” Noah blinked. “Are you sure?”

  ”I’m sure.”

  He reached inside himself, opened the inner door to transformation, braced himself to feel the scales rippling over his skin, the wings bursting out from his shoulder-blades… and then he stifled a scream as the collar burned hot against his skin again. He looked down at his hands—still stubbornly, resolutely human. He tried again and hissed at the heat in the collar. It was preventing him from transforming, he realized with a dizzy shock of nausea.

  “How—“

  ”It works, then?” Reed said, withdrawing a silver key from the briefcase and clicking it into the collar. The collar sprang open, and Noah massaged his neck where he could still feel the burning feeling of the metal, deeply grateful to be free of it. “Excellent. So, as you can see—just get her alone, put this around her neck, then bring her down here to me for a little while. Easy gig. And I’ll make it worth your while,” he added, clearly seeing some hesitation in Noah’s face. “I know you’ve been wanting to get out of that crappy one-bedroom of yours. I know of a nice little place nearby. Bring me the girl, the keys are yours.”

  Noah hesitated. He could feel Rory’s sharp eyes on him from the bar—he had a thousand questions about what was going to happen to this dragon if he brought her here, about what Reed had had stolen from him, about the dragon he’d met… But Reed never reacted kindly to being questioned. He settled for: “She’ll be safe?”

  ”You have my word. Hell, you can keep an eye on her yourself if you’re that worried. I just want to give her dad a scare, that’s all.” Reed tilted his head to the side. “Noah, I wouldn’t ask this of you if I didn’t trust you. You’re not going to make me doubt that trust, are you?”

  Noah swallowed. “No. Of course not.” If anything, he told himself, this was a good sign. Reed letting him in on a personal matter like this—it meant the guy trusted him. Reed didn’t trust anyone. This could be the first step to better working conditions—to maybe getting off shitty security details and doing some real work. Some second-in-command work. It was no secret that Reed liked Noah—he was the only dragon he had working for him. And Reed didn’t have any family, any kids. Maybe if Noah played his cards right, he might find himself next in line for running the place. Humans lived such short lives… and Reed had said he wasn’t going to hurt the girl.

  Reed grinned, shark-like in the gloom. “Great. Let me show you where you’re going.”

  Noah gazed down at the map that Reed pulled up on his tablet, curious despite himself about the trip he’d be taking. For all the misgivings he had about the mission, he had to admit, it might be nice to see what lay beyond the Florida border.

  He’d never been to Colorado before.

  Chapter 2 – Rosaline

  Rosaline looked out over the valley, smiling to herself a little as she listened to her siblings' bickering. It was a beautiful fall day, the air just crisp and cold enough to make her shiver when the winds came down the valley, but with enough residual warmth from the sun to keep her happy for a little while longer. Fall was her favorite time of year—the leaves changing color, the gorgeous weather, and the promise of snow lingering on the horizon.

  Fall always made her feel nostalgic and reflective. And this year, in particular, there were a lot of things to reflect on. Changes tended to come slowly to dragon society, especially in their isolated little valley—but over the last few years, that had changed quite a lot. Ever since their King had met his mate, it felt like things had just started accelerating and never slowed down again. A human woman, Lisa, had become their Queen, which had created enough controversy… then a couple of wolves had moved in with the royal family, followed by a bear, of all things! And with the King and his wife welcoming a beautiful baby daughter to the valley, too, there was no shortage of gossip to occupy the minds of the residents of the valley.

  Not that it was all sunshine and roses, of course. For Rosaline and her sister Olivia, each fresh event had brought a great deal of stress with it. Not because of the new residents of the valley, of course—Rosaline was yet to meet one she didn’t like—but because of their father’s reaction to it. William was a traditional old dragon, with a considerable amount of anger issues to boot, and for a long time, it had been hard going to keep him from doing anything drastically stupid. He’d almost started a mutiny when Art, the King’s sister’s mate, had moved into the valley. And last year, he’d finally been removed from his position on the Valley council… a blow that was still rankling with him. And something that they still hadn’t stopped discussing, Rosaline realized with a sigh as she tuned back into the conversation. It was almost enough to dull the good mood she was in. Almost.

  ”He says he’s okay with it, but he always says that before he has a huge blowup,” Olivia was saying, her eyes far away. Rosaline knew without looking that she was staring up the valley, towards the home she and her sister shared with their father. They were spending the afternoon down at the opposite end of the valley, where their brother David lived with his mate, on a patch of land that had—until quite recently—been abandoned.

  ”I don’t know. I think his friendship with Charles is really helping,” David said thoughtfully. “Ever since we moved here, they’ve been spending way more time together than I thought they would.”

  Charles was David’s mate Quinn’s father. About six months previously, Charles and Quinn had moved back to the valley after discovering that they’d been expelled on false pretenses as a result of William’s machinations—the old dragon had wanted to get hold of Charles and Quinn’s family’s ancestral land, not realizing that the thing that made it so fertile and beautiful was an ancient family heirloom that Charles and Quinn had taken with them when they’d left. Despite the bad blood between them, Charles had proved himself willing to forgive and forget, and he and William had forged a strange and rather unlikely friendship.

  ”I think it’s becaus
e of Mom,” Olivia said. Rosaline glanced over at her twin sister, absent-mindedly reaching out to pull a stray leaf from her thick mane of curly blonde hair. Though they were theoretically identical, in their human forms at least Rosaline and Olivia managed to look rather sharply different. Where Olivia kept her hair as long as her waist despite how wild and curly it was, Rosaline opted for a much more manageable buzzcut. Still, they had the same emerald-green eyes and fine-boned features. David had always been the only one who could always tell them apart, even when they’d had the same hair. Even their father had trouble telling them apart sometimes, to their eternal amusement.

  ”I guess it helps to have someone who understands first-hand what you’re going through,” Rosaline said thoughtfully, picking up on the subject Olivia had raised. Their mother had been absent for… well, for a very long time. Rosaline had to admit she barely remembered her. Even David didn’t have many clear memories of her, and he was older than them. Why she’d left was the subject of much discussion among the siblings, but they didn’t dare raise it with their father. He was still reeling from the loss, still deeply wounded and angry. Dragons mated for life, and the bonds between soulmates were legendary. To lose a mate… well, it was unthinkable grief. As a result, most of the residents of the Valley were quite understanding when it came to William’s moods. They knew what he was going through.

  And so did Charles. It turned out that Charles’s soulmate had disappeared, too, not long after he’d left the Valley with his daughter Quinn. Olivia was convinced that this was why the two dragons got on so well—they were both plotting to figure out where their mates had gone.

  ”I still think we should investigate,” Olivia said for what felt like the thousandth time. Rosaline sighed.

  ”I know, Liv. But where would we even start? Besides, you know what Dad’s like. He’d be useless at any kind of investigation… and we can’t exactly leave him here by himself. Who knows what kind of chaos he’d wreak?” They’d had this argument at least a dozen times, and Rosaline found herself repeating herself. She saw Olivia’s eyes narrow with vexation.

  ”Exactly. He keeps wreaking chaos. Everyone in the Valley has some reason to consider him an enemy… and that’s not even touching on the enemies he’s probably made outside of our community.”

  That was a new thought. Rosaline blinked, taken aback. But David was nodding. “True. I mean, I didn’t even know Charles and Quinn existed, did you?”

  Rosaline shook her head. “Yeah, but it’s not like Dad was super proud of what he’d done there…”

  ”I’m just saying, who knows how many other enemies he’s hiding from us, right?”

  It was a sobering thought. Rosaline stared out over the valley, gnawing at her bottom lip. “Surely he’d have told us. After all this stuff with Charles and Quinn…”

  ”I don’t know. William hates losing face, you know that,” David pointed out. “It was hard enough to get him to acknowledge that he’d done something wrong in forging that paperwork and getting Quinn and Charles thrown off their land. Do you really think he’d volunteer more information?”

  ”I’m going to go through his hoard of papers,” Olivia said decisively. “I don’t care if I have to wait until he falls asleep or comes down here to hang out with Charles, I’m going to go through it with a fine-toothed comb and figure out what else we have to worry about.”

  ”We could just talk to him,” Rosaline pointed out, a little timidly. David snorted, and Olivia rolled her eyes, but Rosaline persisted. “I know, I know—but he’s gotten better these last few months. Really, he has! Not all the way better, obviously, but…” She sighed. “I have hope, anyway.”

  ”You always have hope,” Olivia said, not unkindly. “It’s what I love and hate about you the most.”

  Rosaline grinned, reaching out to flick Olivia’s hair into her face—an old gesture of teasing affection. It was true—of the two sisters, Rosaline was the optimist. It wasn’t a conscious choice she’d made—it was just a much nicer world to live in if you believed the best of people and situations. Olivia, by contrast, was much more… well, she didn’t like being called ‘negative,’ but she was a die-hard pragmatist who was always working on a contingency plan for the worst case scenario. And Rosaline had to admit, that particular skill had come in handy pretty often. Sometimes she wished she was a little more like her sister… especially when her wildest dreams consistently failed to come true. Like the hope that her father would be honest with them, for once… would sit them down and apologize for his behavior over the last century or so. Maybe they could be a proper family again someday—not just two sisters working their hardest to make sure their father’s terrible moods didn’t ruin all three of their lives.

  “Tell you what,” Olivia said finally, interrupting her reflections. “You try to talk to him. He’s always had a soft spot for you, you’d be the most likely to succeed at it. If he gives you something useful, great. If he doesn’t… well, keep him busy long enough, and maybe I can find something in his study.”

  David was chuckling fondly at them both. “Teamwork. Your greatest strength.”

  ”Well, we can’t all fly off into the desert and find an amazing soulmate,” Olivia said loftily, shooting David a look out of the corner of her bright green eyes. “We’ve got each other, you’ve got Quinn.”

  ”She is amazing,” David said with a grin, a soft look coming to his face as he glanced back towards the cabin behind them. Quinn was a tall woman with gray-blue eyes and short black hair. Both Rosaline and Olivia had adored her from the second they’d met her, and she’d fitted in very well with their family—even with William, despite the tension between them.

  ”Is she joining us?” Olivia asked, tilting her head to the side.

  ”No, she’s down the hill, helping Charles finally build his cabin,” David said with a laugh. “I say helping. Bullying is probably a more appropriate term.”

  ”He still hasn’t built himself a house?”

  ”No, I think he was fully intending on staying in that tent until winter came. Thankfully, he couldn’t say no to Quinn any longer.” David was grinning. He was very fond of the old blue-eyed dragon—they all were, for all his quirks. He was more interested in tending the land and the growing farm that he’d established on it than he was in ensuring his own safety and comfort. Not that Rosaline minded much—the benefits for the Valley were already huge, with the introduction of a new supply of fresh, delicious food. But she was glad that the old dragon was finally building himself a proper residence.

  ”And how are you finding the cabin? You don’t miss the cave at all?”

  ”I love being able to see the sky,” David said, smiling. “And caves get cold.”

  ”I guess,” Rosaline shrugged. The majority of the dragons of the Valley lived at the other end, in caves carved out of the stone of the mountains themselves. It was unusual, though not unheard of, for dragons to build houses instead of carving them out of stone with their claws… but the more traditionally minded dragons of the valley found the idea of building a home out of wood ridiculous. Rosaline liked her stone room, though. She’d carved it herself with the ultra-sharp talons possessed by her dragon form. “I’m so glad you’re back home, David,” she said, struck suddenly by a fondness for her brother. “It’s so nice to be able to sit together like this so often.”

  ”It’s good to get out of the house,” Olivia agreed. “I get a bit stir-crazy sometimes.”

  ”No wonder,” David said, frowning. “What with taking Dad’s spot on the council, plus everything else you were already dealing with… you’re under a lot of pressure, Liv.”

  ”That’s what I keep saying,” Rosaline said, glad to have this particular subject raised. “It’s a lot of pressure. I can feel it, even if you can’t.”

  ”Oh, don’t start that joke of us being telepathic again,” Olivia said irritably. “I keep telling you, we don’t have some… psychic twin connection, alright? It was just a joke we used to mak
e to annoy you when you were younger, David.”

  ”I still think you can hear each other’s thoughts,” their brother said, raising his hands. “Nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.”

  Rosaline grinned, but there was still worry in her face. “Psychic connection or no, I can still tell you’re stressed, Liv. You’re under so much pressure… and it’s not like Dad’s making it any easier.”

  ”Everyone’s stressed. Stress is a part of life.”

  ”It doesn’t have to be,” Rosaline sighed. “Come away with me. Come somewhere on holiday. Just for a week or two.”

  ”Are you kidding? I’d lose my spot on the Council in a heartbeat.”

  ”You really think Alexander would begrudge you a week off? Come on.” Their new King was almost famously kind and tolerant—Rosaline would be shocked if he had any problem at all with someone as hard-working as Olivia taking a little bit of time for herself. If anything, he’d encourage it. “Don’t you want to go lounge on a beach somewhere for a week? Or a month?”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “No. I want our society to continue to function.”

  ”You can’t keep pouring from an empty cup, Liv,” David pointed out gently. “You’re doing a lot of good work, but you have to take care of yourself the same way you take care of Dad.”

  ”I know, I know,” Olivia said testily, in a tone that Rosaline had come to understand meant the end of the conversation. “I’m resting now, aren’t I? Sitting in the sun, having drinks… speaking of which.” She gestured with her empty glass. “Shall we refresh ourselves?”

  ”Yeah, let me go grab some more,” David said, rising to his feet.

  ”I’ll help you,” Olivia said, following him up the path that led to the cabin he shared with his mate. Rosaline was left by herself, looking down over the valley again with a contented smile on her face. For all the uncertainty over what the future held—especially when it came to their father—she felt good about how her little family was doing. Olivia was finally in a position of political influence, her father was finding some kind of healing in his friendship with Charles, and David, of course, had met the love of his life and was happier than she’d ever seen him. Rosaline felt like she was treading water a little in comparison to the rest of her family… but that was okay, wasn’t it? Something would come along sooner or later.