“I don’t know how people do things in Chicago, but around here we consider it a crime to leave beer behind.”

Russ looked up from his duffel bag and forced himself to smile. He had managed to avoid being alone with Jake all day, but now, the man was sauntering into the room with raised eyebrows. Russ knew he shouldn’t have left the bar without saying goodbye on Friday night, but he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of looking at Mandy anymore.

“Sorry, Jake. I was tired.”

It was a lame excuse, and they both knew it. But what else could Russ say? Jake came and sat on the bench across from Russ, thinking for a few moments before speaking.

“You were tired, or tired of trying to hide your feelings for Mandy.”

Russ shot Jake an angry look. “It’s not like that. I don’t have any feelings for Mandy, other than anger.”

“And why not?”

Russ zipped his duffel bag shut with far more force than was necessary. “I already told you why. Because she lied to me. I know you don’t believe me, but I’m not making this up. She pretended to be attracted to me so that I would follow her back to Torch Lake.”

“Actually, I do believe you.”

Russ looked up at Jake again, this time with surprise on his face. This was the last thing he had expected Jake to say. The last few times Russ had mentioned this, Jake had been adamant that the High Council would never do such a thing. What had changed Jake’s mind? Had something happened to show him that his precious High Council wasn’t as perfect and blameless as he believed? Russ knew it was petty, but he couldn’t resist taking a jab at his trainer.

“So, you admit that your dear old High Council doesn’t always take the high road, eh?”

Jake chuckled, not bothered by the taunt. “I know the High Council isn’t flawless. It’s made up of people, after all, and people are imperfect. But it turns out that the High Council wasn’t actually involved in Mandy’s orders to seduce you.”

Russ frowned at Jake. “You’re not making sense.”

“You remember Commander Hawkins?”

“Of course. How could I forget him?” Commander Hawkins had been in charge of showing Russ around on Russ’s first day in Torch Lake. The Commander was loud and showy, and proud of the Dragon Recovery Division over which he presided. He’d shown Russ the offices and training facilities, all while bragging about how much he had done to shape the training program. According to Jake, the Commander hadn’t actually done that much, but to hear Commander Hawkins tell it, he’d practically built the whole program from his own blood, sweat, and tears.

“Well, long story short, Commander Hawkins has a thing against women. He refused to give any of the female recovery agents a job, even though the women have worked hard and scored well on the tests used to assess a recovery agent’s job performance. Apparently, Mandy scored higher than any other agent, male or female. That’s when the High Council put their foot down and said Mandy was getting the next dragon recovery job, which was you.”

“Okay. But what does this have to do with the orders to try to seduce me.”

“Well, Commander Hawkins was angry that the High Council was forcing him to send a woman on a recovery job, so he decided to ensure that Mandy failed. His bright idea was to tell Mandy that the High Council had ordered her to try a new recovery technique that required her to use her ‘feminine charms’ to convince a dragon to come to Torch Lake.”

“Oh, come on. How could Commander Hawkins get away with making that up? I know the job briefings happen with all the other Commanders and recovery agents present. Mandy told me that much when she was explaining to me how the Recovery Division works. Commander Hawkins would never have been able to say those things in front of that whole group and keep a straight face.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “You wanna bet?”

Something in Jake’s voice gave Russ pause, but he still couldn’t keep himself from taking another jab at Jake. “Maybe I do. I have plenty of money to spare. At least I will once I’m done with this job. And everyone here in Torch Lake is obsessed with talking about honor, and holding back evil, yet you expect me to believe that one of the highest Commanders in the city is tricking the High Council and making up false orders behind their backs?”

“Wait, are you defending the High Council now? I thought you considered them a bunch of crooks.” Jake laughed again, which Russ found infuriating.

“I don’t necessarily think they’re a bunch of crooks,” Russ said, careful to keep his voice even despite the fact that he felt like tearing Jake’s head off right now. “But I don’t think they’re as perfect as everyone around her seems to think they are.”

Jake stood up and started pacing. “We do tend to engage in a bit of hero worship around here when it comes to our High Council, I’ll grant you that. But you have to understand that most of us lost everything in the war. Of course, losing family and friends was the worst part of everything. Losing homes was a close second. But losing our clan leadership was devastating as well. To have, in the midst of all that, a group of the finest wizards and shifters come along and offer us a new home, and guidance on how to guard against evil, well…to a lot of us that felt like being thrown a lifeline. I know for me it did.”

“And you don’t think Commander Hawkins fully shares your appreciation for the High Council?”

Jake shrugged. “Maybe at one point he did. But Commander Hawkins is a dangerous man. He’s the type of man who hungers for power, and the more you give him the more he wants. I saw the transcripts of all the meetings he had with the High Council. Not one of them mentioned anything about instructing Mandy to try to seduce you. You know what they did mention, though?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

“They mentioned how much Commander Hawkins hates women. He went into great detail for the Council about how under-qualified women are to work as recovery agents, and warned that any of his female agents sent on a job were sure to fail.”

“I’m not seeing how all of this relates to why I shouldn’t be angry with Mandy.”

“Dammit, Russ, you’re a stubborn one. Don’t you see? Mandy herself was coerced. She was tricked into thinking that the only way she could get the job was to try to flirt with you. She’s been an agent for years and she’s watched agent after agent get jobs while she had to sit in an office, even though she’s by far the most talented agent the Dragon Recovery Division has. I can guarantee you that she wasn’t happy about taking a job that required her to flirt, but she thought it was the only way she’d ever be given a chance.”

“If she’s such an expert on dragon recovery, she should have known that trying to trick a dragon by seduction would never work. Dragons are far too clever and have far too much honor for that.”

“I don’t think there was any section in her training about the pitfalls of trying to seduce a dragon, to be honest.”

Russ’s anger flashed. “Look, Jake. I like you well enough, okay? You’ve certainly been my favorite trainer while I’m here, although I still couldn’t tell you exactly what the point of all of this training is. And it was nice of you to invite me out to the bar last week. But if you came in here today to tell me that I should overlook what Mandy did, you’re wasting your breath. I don’t think it’s okay to lie, no matter how badly you want a job. What difference does it make whether Mandy thought it was the High Council giving her orders? She still agreed to trick me.”

Jake shook his head sadly. “You don’t understand what I’m saying, Russ. I’m not trying to convince you that what Mandy did was the right thing to do. But she herself was under a great deal of pressure to take the job and prove a female could do it. For all she knew, if she didn’t take that chance then none of the women in the program would ever have a chance to try their skills at dragon recovery. There was a lot of weight on her shoulders. You might even say she herself was coerced.”

Russ picked up his duffel bag and swung it over his right shoulder, glaring angrily at Jake the whole time. He didn’t have to sit here and listen to this. He’d completed his training for the day, and he was going to go home now and indulge in a pizza and some beer. But he couldn’t resist trying to get in the last word before he left. “She might have been coerced, but that doesn’t change the fact that she lied to me. Lying is not okay.”

“She never lied to you, Russ.”

Jakes voice was so loud and firm that Russ looked up in surprise. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Jake raise his voice. The other trainers did it all the time—they loved to yell and carry on like they were drill sergeants at a boot camp. But Jake was always levelheaded and calm, which is why it surprised Russ so much when the man got in his face.

“She might have gone into that bar with the intention of tricking you, but by the time she left, she had actually fallen for you, and you know it. Any fool can see the way she looks at you and know that she has feelings for you.”

Russ snorted. “She feels badly that she lied, but she doesn’t care about me.”

Jake sighed. “You’re not a dumb man, Russ, but you’re refusing to see the truth. She cares about you, and, more importantly, you care about her.”

Russ felt his heartbeat speeding up at Jake’s words, but he still shook his head. “I don’t have feelings for her, and I’ll thank you to stop making comments like that.”

Russ turned to go, storming toward the door and trying not to let the confusion he felt in his heart show on his face. Jake was hitting closer to the truth than he knew. If Russ was honest with himself, he would have to admit that he’d left the bar on Friday night because he was worried about how attracted he felt to Mandy. The feeling troubled him. Of course, he thought she was beautiful. He wouldn’t have kissed her back in Chicago if he didn’t. But her beauty only ran skin deep, it seemed. At best, she had failed to stand up to the High Council. Jake might be willing to forgive that, but Russ wasn’t.

Just as Russ reached to push open the locker room door, Jake called out to him.

“Stop, Russ. Hear me out. Mandy has been through a lot in the last few years—”

“We all have.”

Jake ignored the interruption. “Mandy has a good heart. She’s worked hard to prove herself, but she could lose everything she’s worked for if she accuses Commander Hawkins of defying the High Council. She needs friends who will back up her story, and you’re a key piece of that story. She needs you to be willing to testify to the High Council that her story about what happened in Chicago was true.”

“What does my word mean?” Russ asked, exasperated. “I’m an outsider.”

Jake looked surprised. “You’re a dragon. Your word means quite a bit, actually. Dragons are respected around here. Everyone knows that dragons are honest, and value honor.”

Russ considered this for a moment, but finally decided that it didn’t matter how the citizens of Torch Lake viewed him. “I’m not going to fix things for her. She’s the one who made a mistake.”

“And you’re about to make one, too.”

Russ rolled his eyes. “How do you figure?”

“For one thing, you’re missing a chance to help the High Council take down a man who is defying them. This is how evil wars are started, you know? When men grab too much power and it goes to their head, they start to think they’re invincible. After everything you’ve been through, I would think you’d be the first in line to stop a man trying to grab too much power. And for another thing, you can deny all you want that you care about Mandy, but the truth is written on your face. You’re letting your stupid pride get in the way of what could be someone really special for you.”

Russ laughed. “You’re overdramatizing the situation with Commander Hawkins. Even if everything you’re saying is true, that man doesn’t have what it takes to be a dictator. He’s an asshole, I’ll give you that. But he’s not going to start a new war. As for Mandy, there’s nothing special about her. She’s never going to be my special someone, so stop acting like I’m missing some big chance. She’s just an ordinary girl who couldn’t stand up to her boss. There’s nothing magical about that wizardess, so stop trying to make sparks fly where there aren’t any.”

Russ whirled around and pushed the door open, determined to leave before Jake could reply. To his surprise, he nearly slammed the large door right into someone standing on the other side of it. Thinking it was one of the other trainers coming back into the room, he started to mumble an apology, but stopped when he realized that it was Mandy standing there.

Instantly, Russ’s heart dropped. How long had she been there? How much of what he’d just said had she heard? He’d been talking in a loud enough voice that anyone in this hallway would have easily made out his words. If the shocked, hurt look on her face was any indication, she’d heard pretty much all of it. He should have made an attempt to say something nice and soften the blow, but instead he roared at her.

“What do you want? Why the hell are you over here in training headquarters?”

Mandy took a step backwards, her face turning pink. “I was just looking for Jake,” she said. “I thought he would be the only one left here by now.”

“Well he’s not,” Russ said, then pushed past Mandy. He could feel his own cheeks burning with embarrassment. He’d talked a big game with Jake before Mandy had shown up, but the truth was that Jake was hitting some raw nerves. Now, with Mandy standing right there in the doorway, Russ could feel his heart going crazy. It was doing flip-flops in his chest, and he could feel his whole body tensing up. He hated himself for feeling the way he did for her, and he hated eve more that Jake could so easily read the desire written across his face.

Russ kept walking down the hall at a brisk pace, not daring to look back. Dozens of troubled thoughts rolled through his mind. He wondered if he was indeed making some big mistakes here. Should he help bring Commander Hawkins down? Russ didn’t want to admit that a cause Mandy was championing was worth supporting, but Jake did have a good point. Men who gained too much power and abused that power were the greatest threat to a peaceful society. And even though Russ wanted as little as possible to do with the organized shifter and wizard communities, he did understand that preventing a repeat of the last war was important. Millionaire or not, he didn’t want to be dragged from his home in Chicago to be tossed in some shifter dungeon again.

But the most troubling thought crossing Russ’s mind was the way Mandy had looked at him when he opened the door. He could swear all he wanted that he didn’t care about her, but the look on her face had done a surprisingly good job of making his heart ache.

Russ cursed under his breath as he made his way out of the training complex. The High Council sure knew what it was doing, offering millions of dollars for dragons to complete their job assignments here. If Russ hadn’t needed that money desperately, he would have been hightailing it back to Chicago now, away from the confusing mess that was Torch Lake. The last thing he wanted to do was be close to a woman who drove him wild, especially when he had sworn that he hated that woman.

Russ gritted his teeth and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. He wished he had escaped from the locker room before Jake had come in and found him. All he’d wanted for tonight was to go home and enjoy a pizza and beer, but he didn’t know how he was going to enjoy anything when Mandy’s hurt, shocked expression was haunting his mind’s eye.

With a frustrated grunt, Russ pulled out his cell phone and started typing a short message to Jake. He started the message at least a dozen times, then erased it to start over. He didn’t want to admit that Jake was right about Mandy, or about helping to take down Commander Hawkins. But a tiny part of him already knew that he was going to be more involved in this situation than he’d ever wanted to be.

“Damn it, Russ,” he said aloud to himself. “You should have said screw the money and stayed back in Chicago.”

Now, he knew, it was too late. He would never get his old job back, and without that meager income he would be bankrupt in a week. He’d left himself no option other than to stick things out in Torch Lake, no matter how crazy the situation became. With another long sigh, Russ finally hit send on his message.

What is Mandy planning to do, anyway? Just show up to the High Council and accuse Hawkins of fabricating orders?

Russ slipped his phone back into his pocket as he walked through his front door, and vowed not to look at the damn thing until he’d had some pizza and beer. He had a feeling that once he saw Jake’s reply, he was going to cross the point of no return.

He was going to be more involved in the inner workings of Torch Lake than he’d ever wanted to be, but that wasn’t the scariest part. The scariest part was that his heart was pining away for Mandy, and he didn’t know how to make it stop.