Mateo touched her wrist and powyr tingled along her skin. Calla let her breath out slowly. They were really going to do this. Sneak into the mansion. Find the files. Confront a man powyrful enough to put a bounty on the Delphina's First General. She narrowed her eyes and focused. Nothing would happen without information on the client first. She could organize everything else afterward.

Mateo moved with deadly silence. Calla wasn't so practiced in the art of stealth. Her tactics were more in line with smash and grab, but with the entire cognate on high alert, Mateo's approach was more likely to succeed. They approached the outer fence first. Mateo gestured up and to the left where a vampyr paced along the front of the gates. They were concealed in the brush for now, but it had been cleared away from the fence for security and Calla couldn't see anything to hide them between the fence and the mansion. Mateo's powyr had better be as good as he thought it was.

When the vampyr turned away from them, they moved as one towards the bars. Mateo gripped one. Calla gripped the next. They pulled away from each other, calling on the deep strength of their dragons to move the metal. The bars groaned, but bent and they were in. Mateo grabbed Calla's hand. The tingle of powyr grew stronger when he was in contact. Together they ran quietly across a perfectly manicured lawn. Did vampyrs mow the grass? Did they hire gardeners?

The mansion had several entrances. It was far more ostentatious than Calla would have chosen as a base of operations. There weren't enough bodies to watch the entire perimeter or keep an eye on the doors. What good was a hideout if they couldn't defend it? It seemed vampyr culture cared more about the wealthy look of a place than its practical nature.

Mateo lead the way, half stooped but his hand firm in his. If they encountered a vampyr they shouldn't be noticed, but Calla wasn't eager to try it. At the same time, the further they prowled, the more suspicious she became. No sign of any cognate members made even less sense. At the final turn of a hall, Mateo paused to glance first down a hallway. He leaned back against the wall, allowing Calla to lean around him and see the lay of the land. The corner turned into a dead end with a single door on the right and one vampyr standing at attention before it.

Calla made a skeptical face at Mateo. Was this really their only competition? It didn't make any sense. Estophen knew they were after information on the client. Why would he leave his mansion only lightly guarded? She smelled a trap. Mateo rolled his eyes and shrugged. What were they going to do about it? They needed the info.

Calla nodded. With a mental count of three, they ran hand in hand down the hallway, approaching as quickly as possible. As late as she could, Calla released Mateo's hand and struck low. With a sweeping kick, she dropped the single guarding vampyr down to the ground. Mateo followed with a burst of powyr in his fist, transforming his hand into vampyr claws. He punched the vampyr's stomach, wounding him, then bound him. Calla tested the door. It opened under her hand. Mateo entered first, his body brimming with powyr, but no one was inside.

Calla shook her head as she dragged the bound vampyr into the room behind them. This was definitely a trap and now they were in a room too small for either of them to shift. A small window on the far wall let in weak starlight. She didn't like it.

The door had no lock, which Calla found odd, so she wedged a chair under the handle. Not that it would stop a persistent vampyr, but she had to do something. Mateo tapped his fingers on a computer keyboard, hurrying through files and folders only he knew. Urgency sang in Calla's gut. She paced before the door, antsy and wound tight. This wasn't right.

"Got it," Mateo said softly, startling her. "Stephan Valek. North, in Sacramento. I have an addr—"

The window crashed inward. A vampyr woman Calla didn't recognize landed in a crouch. "Brother…" She was followed quickly by Kragen, who Calla bristled at the sight of. Vampyr powyr ignited in the room, blue and white, and oppressive. She couldn't breathe. Something crunched. The computer's tower crashed into the wall beside her and she saw five deep punctures in the side of it.

Mateo growled. "Run, Calla."

She dragged the chair away from the door and chucked it at Kragen. It was a weak attack, but it distracted him long enough for Mateo to lunge over the desk as he morphed mid-air into his vampyr. There wasn't enough room here for a proper fight. Calla wrenched the door open, surprising Estophen on the other side. The hallway that had been deserted only moments ago, was now packed with vampyrs. There was no room for one dragon to shift, much less two. There was no way out.

"Run, Calla!"

She slammed the door in Estophen's face and spun, heart hammering in her chest. Mateo snarled at the vampyr woman but Kragen had him pinned to the floor. They hissed at each other, fangs bright. Past their tangle of bodies gleamed the ragged edges of the broken window. She ran. Mateo used his dragon powyr to burst both vampyrs away from him, clearing the way. Calla dove through the window, turning in the air to ensure Mateo followed.

He didn't make it. Estophen and his cognate flooded into the room. Kragen grabbed Mateo's arm. He spun on his brother, drawing blood, but the fight was over. Estophen grabbed Mateo by the neck and Calla fell too far to see what happened next. She pulled her dragon to the surface and transformed before she hit the ground. She beat her wings hard, barely clearing the outer fence, and roared into the night. Her mate had been taken and no force in this world could stop her from getting him back.

* * *

Calla met up with Roku and his team as quickly as she could. Her heart yearned for Mateo, aching with distance from her mate. She was hot and cold with anger. Threads of fear threatened to take hold but she couldn't allow herself to freeze up. The flight seemed to take forever. She knew it was only minutes, but the pain in her heart spoke differently.

Calla stumbled to a rough landing, heartsick and struggling for a soldier's stoic calm. She transformed mid-stride as her support team rushed to meet her. Roku caught her before she could faceplant and held her up tight. She shook him off. "We walked into a goddamn trap." Her stomach felt sick. "I had to leave my mate."

"Mate, General?" Tanan asked, voice neutral.

The gathered dragons exchanged glances. Tanan, Roku, Ellie, Annika, Saria, and the others. She'd trained these dragons herself. They were hand selected for their intelligence, their strength, their wisdom, and level headedness. Calla felt her racing heart settle down and she took a big, calming breath.

Then Tanan said, "We were sent to retrieve you, General. The court—"

"Hang the court," Calla snapped.

"General," Saria said with that tone of hers.

Calla turned on her. "I'm not leaving Mateo. He's more important than—"

"More important than war?" Ellie asked. She put her hand on Calla's. "We need you."

Calla turned her hand over and held Ellie's firmly. "We've been at war for fifty years, Lieutenant. Another couple of days isn't going to change anything." She squeezed Ellie's hand, then dropped it. "I'm here to ask for your help. I can't order you to go against the Pythian's instruction. I know your mission is to bring me home safely. But there is a dragon in danger here and I won't leave him behind." She scanned their sharp eyes, trying to gauge where they stood with her. Loyalty to the court was one thing, but to go against the Pythian and Delphina and follow her? She asked too much.

She met Saria's eyes and was pleased to see the woman nod sharply. "Then we'll get your mate first."

"What's a dragon doing in LA?" Tanan crossed his arms, the dark tattoos on his black skin standing like a gate between them. Janek mimicked the pose, both of them suspicious.

"Mateo is also a vampyr. He was turned as a teenager and only discovered his dragon heritage recently. He's a warrior. I want to bring him back to the island with us. I believe he'd be a good asset."

"A vampyr?" Ellie said softly, exchanging a look with Annika. The women frowned.

Annika's eyes narrowed, "You mentioned a cognate. Just what kind of trouble is he in? Wait—Mateo? Mateo Guerin? The rock star?"

"Yes, that Mateo," Calla admitted. "He kidnapped me from the court,"—she spoke over the inhaled breaths—"and now we're working together to track down the man who issued the order."

"And you think you can trust him?" Annika shook her head.

Then Roku gripped her shoulder and said in a low voice, "First General, if you're going to ask them to follow you, they deserve to know everything."

Calla wasn't sure why she was trying to keep it a secret. Though she appreciated that Roku hadn't shared her personal details. Maybe it was still so unreal, even if the pain in her chest said it was as real as the dragon in her heart. Calla nodded. "I can trust him because not only is Mateo my mate—we believe he is a son of the Pythian and Delphina." She met their eyes again one at a time. "So, we can't leave him behind."

She'd shocked them, Calla could see it in their eyes. But as members of the elite guard, they took that knowledge and made their decisions. One after the other nodded. They would follow her. The mission was no longer to retrieve one First General—but a prince of the Dragon Court.

* * *

They arrived at the house in standard formation, ready to defend against a host of vampyr, but Calla could tell from a mile away they were far too late. Not only were there no vampyrs on the outer wall, but half the mansion had collapsed and the remains of what appeared to be a fire still smoldered near the back room where Calla had dived through the window to escape. That room was trashed, as was the hall. Huge claw marks had been gouged into the stone, either from vampyr or Mateo himself. Could a cognate take down a dragon? Possibly.

He wasn't dead, of that much she could be sure. The connection in her heart would have told her. Calla landed heavily at the edge of the destroyed mansion and shifted back to human. Her support team landed behind her. Some of them shifted and inspected the rubble. Others used their more astute dragon senses to canvas the property. If anything of interest had been left behind, they would find it.

Calla walked down the wreck of a hallway that lead to the back room. The rugs had been ripped to shreds, piled and tossed to the edges of the walls. Two statues were now little more than rubble and a large chunk of wall was missing, a spider web of fractures extending out in all directions. Clearly, Mateo had put up much of a fight since she escaped. She only hoped the cognate wanted him for something other than an example. Calla pushed the door of the back room open. It hung awkwardly ajar on one hinge. The computer tower was still propped up against the wall where Mateo had thrown it, destroying the cognate's files and any evidence she and her team could use to track him down. Still, it was a potential source of information and she couldn't let it go unchecked. "Annika?"

"First General?" Annika stepped through a puddle of dark blood. Mateo hadn't hesitated to fight dirty, but Calla noticed a lack of vampyr bodies. Had they been cleared away or was Mateo simply too attached to his cognate to kill what had once been family?

Calla gestured to the punctured machine. "Have that checked for anything useful. Mateo got the location of the client off there before we were attacked."

"Yes, General."

There had to be something else here. Some clue as to where Mateo had been taken. Calla pushed the desk up and shoved it into the wall, clearing some space in the middle of the room. A ringtone startled her. Faint. She growled, "Is that one of you?"

"No, First General," Roku said.

"No."

"Not me."

The ringtone blared again. Calla tilted her head to listen and made her way across the room. She lifted debris out of the way. A phone was wedged under what had once been the chair. She picked it up. It buzzed again. Kragen. Calla hissed. She answered the phone. "You can't hide forever."

"We don't intend to. Come rescue your lover," he said, and laughed long and hard.

The phone buzzed with a text. An address.

Calla bared her teeth at the screen and resisted the urge to crush the phone.