Kurt looked around the dark bar, and hoped that this “underground network” wasn’t some sort of trick by the Dark Warriors to lure in unsuspecting wizards. The place didn’t seem to offer many escape routes, and the group of burly shifters and wizards sitting at the table in the back corner glared at them when they walked in. Natalie gulped so loudly beside him that he actually heard it. She was terrified, which was a little strange. He’d never seen her fear anything before, and earlier today she had taken out a whole group of wizards on a boat in the middle of Lake Michigan. Okay, so he had helped with that, but she could have done it herself. He was sure of that. Besides, he was here again to help if need be. She had been a dear friend when they both lived in Falcon Cross, and he valued old friendships. He wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her, especially not when he was the one who had dragged her here in the first place.

He reached over to give her a hand a reassuring squeeze, and she looked at him gratefully. Her smile made his heart pound faster, as did her hand against his hand. He shouldn’t have been surprised by this—there had always been underlying sexual tension between them. He’d never acted on his desires for her, because he’d always known they were going to go their separate ways after the war. But he couldn’t help but wonder if it meant something that they’d come back together in such an unlikely way. Was that fate? Destiny? Or just one of those weird, chance coincidences that life sometimes threw at you.

Kurt didn’t have time to think about it now. He needed to keep his attention on the room in front of him. If this network was some sort of trick, he needed to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice. He took another quick mental survey of the bar. The place was small, with no windows. The only obvious way out was the front door they’d just walked in through. An open doorway behind the bar looked like it led to some sort of kitchen, although this didn’t seem like the kind of place where any food was actually cooked. Kurt figured there was probably a back exit through that door somewhere, but he couldn’t be sure.

The bartender stood like a statue, watching him with a neutral expression. Despite the easy look on the man’s face, though, Kurt could see the biceps in his arms flexing. The man was ready to fight, if necessary. Kurt couldn’t tell by scent alone whether he was a shifter. There were several shifters in the room, so it was impossible to tell who, exactly, was responsible for each individual shifter smell.

The group around the table looked at Natalie and him with expressions that were much more menacing than the bartender’s. They clearly had not expected to be interrupted, and were wary of the two newcomers. Kurt counted silently. Eight of them. Not ideal, but he had no doubt he could take them all out if need be. There weren’t any dragon shifters in the bunch, so he didn’t have to be too worried. Still, he would rather not have to deal with another fight today. He tried to wiggle his toes, which were cramped in the too-small boots he was wearing. He would have loved to stop by his hotel and grab some of his own clothes and shoes that actually fit, but that would have made Natalie and him at least an hour late for the meeting. They weren’t sure how long these meetings went, and they didn’t want to take a chance on missing the meeting entirely.

“Can we help you?” one of the shifters at the table asked. Kurt squinted at him through the smoky, dim light. He would have bet, by the man’s burly appearance, that he was a bear shifter. He could have also been a lion. It was hard to say in this poor lighting.

“We’re, um, here for the meeting,” Natalie said. Her voice trembled a little, and Kurt reached to take her hand again.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, just loud enough for her to hear. “I’ve got you.”

She squeezed his hand, acknowledging that she had heard him, and then stood a little straighter.

“I was given a flyer about the special meetings here,” she said. “The meetings with the password mel ollam.”

The faces around the table instantly relaxed. The man who had spoken first stood and peered at them through the hazy light. He was definitely a bear shifter. “Natalie Batton? Is that you?”

Kurt raised an eyebrow in surprise and glanced over at Natalie. “Sounds like they’ve been expecting you.”

She looked surprised, too. Apparently her attempts at blending into the human world had gone even worse than she’d thought.

“Yes, I’m Natalie,” she said, her voice calm and confident. It seemed she decided in that moment to embrace the fact that she’d been outed as a wizard. Might as well roll with it.

“And who is your friend?” the bear shifter asked.

“This is Kurt. A dragon shifter. I think you’re going to be very interested in why he’s here.”

Kurt felt like all the eyes in the room were burning holes through him. The wizards looked quite surprised, the shifters less so. They had probably smelled the scent of dragon on him the minute he walked into the room. The bear shifter tilted his head and studied Kurt carefully. Finally, the man asked, “Are you here to fight against evil?”

“Yes,” Kurt said, relaxing a bit. These shifters and wizards seemed to be exactly who they’d told Natalie they were: soldiers for the cause of good. “I’m here to help bring the Dark Warriors down.”

“Then we’re very interested in what you have to say,” the bear shifter said. “Please, grab a drink and sit down.”

Kurt looked at Natalie and gave her an encouraging smile, then walked up to the bar and ordered two mugs of the Goose Island IPA. When he pulled out his wallet, the bartender waved him away.

“On the house,” he said. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see a dragon shifter show up at one of these meetings.”

Kurt thanked him, then threw a twenty dollar bill into the tip jar. It was nice to be appreciated, but he didn’t want special treatment because he was a dragon. The Torch Lake High Council paid him well for his work, and Kurt thought the bartender deserved to be paid well for his work, too.

When Kurt turned back to the table, the group had widened the circle by two chairs. Kurt took the empty chair next to Natalie and set one of the beers down in front of her. She was looking more relaxed by the minute, but he could tell she still felt uneasy. He hoped the beer would help calm her nerves, although, truth be told, she looked adorable when she was nervously chewing her lip. For a fleeting moment, the thought crossed Kurt’s mind that he would like to chew on her lower lip himself, but he pushed the thought away as quickly as it came. What was wrong with him? He was here to bring down the Dark Warriors, not to stir up old feelings for a woman he’d never even kissed. Although, looking at her now, he wondered how he’d been able to hold back from actually kissing her back in Falcon Cross. Natalie’s looks hadn’t changed much. Her wavy, dark brown hair was a little longer now, and she was no longer wearing glasses over her dove gray eyes. She’d either switched to contacts or gotten laser surgery to correct her vision. She’d been blind as a bat before, so he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d taken the first opportunity to get her vision fixed. He did miss the glasses a bit, though. They’d given her a sexy, intellectual look. Then again, she looked pretty intellectual now, as she furrowed her brow in concentration. Kurt realized that the bear shifter was talking, and forced his attention back to the conversation at the table.

The bear shifter’s name was Wyatt, and he seemed to be the unofficial leader of the group. Kurt explained to him who he was, and how he’d been sent from Torch Lake to help curb the slew of magical disturbances that had been occurring in Chicago lately. Wyatt had heard of Torch Lake, which gave Kurt instant credibility. Kurt was glad for that. He didn’t have the energy right now to prove to a bunch of wizard and shifter strangers that he was who he said he was.

Wyatt introduced the rest of the wizards and shifters, although Kurt quickly lost track of all the names. Natalie had furrowed her brow further, and seemed to be trying to remember who was who. Kurt wanted to laugh and tell her she was going to need several more introductions before she remembered, but he himself only smiled and nodded as Wyatt finished up the introductions. Kurt was glad when Wyatt finally finished with formalities and started talking about the purpose of the group itself.

“We’re a small bunch,” Wyatt admitted. “There are only two members who aren’t here tonight, so this is pretty much it. And we’ve worked the better part of a year to get even this many members. But all of us are committed to doing whatever we can to stop the rising threat of the Dark Warriors. So far, our efforts have been small. We don’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves, or cause more panic among the humans of Chicago than they’re already feeling.”

“It’s been slow going, that’s for sure,” one of the wizards piped up.

Wyatt nodded. “Our main focus has been on trying to find out where the Dark Warriors’ Chicago headquarters are. We know they must have some sort of base camp set up here, but we haven’t been able to find out where.”

“I thought there were rumors it’s somewhere out on the lake,” Kurt said, glancing over at Natalie for confirmation. She nodded.

“There are rumors, yes,” Wyatt said. “But over the last few weeks we’ve begun to suspect that the Dark Warriors have been planting information about a lake headquarters to distract us from their true headquarters. And that makes more sense to me. Keeping headquarters in the middle of the lake would require a constant stream of magical energy. The Dark Warriors would need wizards there at all times to keep their building magically afloat, as well as to keep it under an invisibility shield. It’s not like you can just put a building in the middle of Lake Michigan without hiding it.”

“True,” Kurt said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “But if you don’t think it’s out on the lake, do you have any other leads on where their headquarters might be?”

“No,” Wyatt admitted. “We’ve been searching, but we haven’t found much solid evidence of anything. We’ve been trying to recruit more shifters and wizards to help us look, but it’s slow going. Most of the wizards and shifters in Chicago just want to be left alone. It’s hard to figure out who they are, and even harder to convince them to join us and trust us. We had pretty much given up on Natalie here.”

Natalie blushed. “Sorry. I do want to help stop the Dark Warriors. I just wasn’t ready to out myself yet.”

Wyatt smiled. “No worries. We all understand.”

“Damn,” Kurt said, leaning back in his chair. “I was hoping you all would have the secret to where the Dark Warriors are hiding. They have to be stopped.”

“They do indeed,” Wyatt said. “And I’m sorry I don’t have more information. But we do have a good idea of how to search, if you’re willing to help.”

Kurt leaned forward. “I’m all ears.”

“Aerial surveillance.”

Kurt frowned. “You mean fly around in dragon form? You know I can’t do that in the middle of Chicago. That would cause an uproar!”

“It would cause an uproar if you were seen,” Wyatt said. “But if a wizard rode on your back and performed an invisibility spell, no one would be the wiser. You’d have to fly slowly enough that the invisibility shield wouldn’t be broken, but that shouldn’t be a problem when you’re just doing surveillance. You can go as slow as necessary. We’ve actually been wishing for a dragon, because dragons are easier to hold an invisibility spell over than a helicopter or any other method of flying we could think of.”

“They are?” Kurt hadn’t known that.

“Yup,” Wyatt said, grinning. “Because dragons used to be magical beings centuries ago, they still retain traces of magic in their DNA. It’s a complicated technical explanation that I don’t have time for right now, but basically it makes it much easier to keep a magical invisibility shield over you.”

“Provided, of course, you don’t fly too fast,” one of the wizards piped up. “Speed is the most complicated factor to overcome with invisibility shields.”

“Ok,” Kurt said slowly. “If you think it’ll help, and you really think a wizard can keep a secure invisibility shield over us, then I’m happy to fly one of you around. But I still don’t understand how that makes it easier to find the Dark Warriors headquarters. It’s not like there’s going to be some big sign on a rooftop somewhere that says ‘Here are the Dark Warriors.’”

“No there won’t be,” Natalie spoke up, her eyes suddenly shining with excitement. “But there will likely be a high concentration of magic around the headquarters.”

“Bingo,” Wyatt said. “We expect that the Dark Warriors have a lot of wizards in one spot at their headquarters. Since most of the wizards in Chicago are trying to blend in with other humans, it’s unlikely there will be many other groups of wizards gathered together. But a large gathering of wizards in one spot means that spot will give off a lot of magical energy. If we find the magical energy, we find the Dark Warriors. Simple as that.”

Natalie was laughing, now. “So that’s why you were trying so hard to recruit me.”

Wyatt gave a sheepish shrug. “Guilty as charged.”

Kurt looked back and forth from Natalie to Wyatt. “I’m still confused.”

Natalie looked at him with a wide smile. “I don’t know how Wyatt knows this about me, because I haven’t told anyone since my clan was disbanded by the war. But Wyatt’s obviously been stalking me and my past somewhat—”

“Guilty as charged, again,” Wyatt said.

“But before the Great Dark War I worked as a magical bounty hunter, if you will. I was hired by my clan to find hidden magical treasures, which are surprisingly common if you know how to look for them. A lot of the old wizard clans used to employ wizards to go searching for hidden magical treasure. Much of it was worthless, but every now and then you’d find something truly valuable.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Kurt asked. “Some of the Advocates in Torch Lake got really hurt recently by some ancient magical artifacts.”

Natalie shook her head no. “There are ancient artifacts that are very powerful that can cause great harm, yes. But those ones are protected by spells that are very difficult to crack. You need someone skilled in those high-level spells to find them, and then of course even once you find them you risk being harmed by them. Usually, you need an Advocate or someone skilled in Ancient Magic to find something like that. What I’m talking about is just ordinary, simple objects. They were everyday objects centuries ago so they weren’t considered important enough to protect with serious spells. But since they are so old, we consider them valuable and interesting today.”

“It’s kind of like a magical archaeological dig,” one of the wizards said with a chuckle.

“Yup, kind of like that,” Natalie said. “It’s tedious, boring work, but once you find something, it’s pretty rewarding. Anyway, the spell to detect simple magical energy works no matter what the source of that magical energy.”

Understanding dawned on Kurt. “So if you ‘scanned’ the city for magical energy, any large group of people giving off magical energy would show up.”

“Exactly. Doing it on the ground would take forever, but from the air you could do the whole city in a matter of days. Or less.”

“But won’t the Dark Warriors have some sort of shield up against that sort of thing?” Kurt asked.

Wyatt shrugged. “It’s possible. But I’m hoping they haven’t thought about it. I’m sure they have all sorts of invisibility and protective shields up. And they probably have shields up to hide dark magic or any powerful magical artifacts they might have. But it’s possible they wouldn’t have even bothered with a shield to block off all magical energy. It’s one of those things that is so simple you don’t even think about it.”

Kurt still felt doubtful, but Natalie was nodding enthusiastically.

“Wyatt is right,” she said. “His idea is actually quite brilliant, because the simple detection of magic is not usually used on people. It’s used on objects, and my job was considered a low-level, grunt worker type job. It’s just not something people really pay much attention to. That’s why I never told anyone that I used to have that job. It was so low-level that it was kind of embarrassing.”

Kurt nodded slowly. “I guess it’s worth a shot, then. Although it’s hard for me to believe that the Dark Warriors would ignore a method of finding them that is so easy and so simple.”

“It’s too simple,” Wyatt said. “That’s what we’re saying. It’s so overly, ridiculously simple that they probably didn’t even consider it.”

“I’m assuming you want me to do the search?” Natalie asked.

Wyatt nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind. The spell is simple enough that any of our wizards could do it, but since you were a trained bounty hunter, you’ll probably be the most efficient at searching.”

Natalie smiled, obviously pleased by Wyatt’s praise. “I could probably finish the search in one day.”

“Great,” Wyatt said. “And I’m sorry for stalking you, but hopefully you understand why it was so important.”

“I understand,” she said. “Although it’s kind of ironic that my former, low-level job is what helped you find me. I thought the less remarkable I was, the more I would blend in. That turned out to be wrong. Why me, though? Surely there must be other former bounty hunters in Chicago.”

“Maybe,” Wyatt said. “But you’re the first one I’ve been able to find. It’s a painstaking process, actually. I searched all the old records from wizard clans, looking for bounty hunters on the payroll. I search for each name in Chicago, seeing if there’s a match. There are literally thousands of names to go through, though. I was about to give up and just use one of the wizards already here. I would have already, if we’d had a dragon. But that search was taking a while, too.”

Kurt laughed. “You got awfully luck, huh? A dragon and a former bounty hunter, all landing in your lap in one day.”

“I’ll say,” Wyatt said, laughing as well. “When do you two think you could start the search?”

“I’m free anytime,” Kurt said. “My only job right now is finding the Dark Warriors, so it’s up to Natalie.”

“We can search tomorrow,” Natalie said. “I’ll call in sick to work. My human job isn’t nearly as important as this, obviously.”

“Excellent,” Wyatt said, looking relieved. “It sounds like we might finally make some progress on pushing back the Dark Warriors.”

Wyatt got another round of beers for the entire table, and the mood turned quite jovial. Kurt was happy for several reasons. For one thing, it was going to be nice to actually have something good to report to the Torch Lake High Council when he got back to his hotel room tonight. But more exciting was the fact that he got to work with Natalie tomorrow. He was going to get to fly above the city of Chicago in dragon form, and she would be on his back. The thought of her riding him sent shivers of delight through his body.

He was struggling to remember now why he’d ever let her get away. There had been practical reasons, yes. But none of that seemed to matter now. They had both tried and failed to stay hidden among humans. It seems like who you really were always caught up with you eventually.

Kurt was beginning to think that who he really was, was a man falling hard for Natalie Batton. He wasn’t sure how to deal with the rush of feelings that seemed to flood him every time he looked at her. But one thing he did know for sure was that he’d been an idiot not to kiss her years ago, when he first had the chance.

If he got another chance, he definitely wouldn’t make that mistake twice. And he was hoping that working together on this project was going to give him another chance. Tomorrow was going to be interesting.