Every day was worse than the day before, which suited Russ just fine. His body was being worked to the ground, and the only time his muscles had ached worse than this was when he’d been a prisoner in Saul’s jail. But the physical pain served to keep Russ’s mind quiet, so he threw himself into his training with complete abandon.

The first week of training had been like boot camp on steroids. The trainers put him through grueling workouts that tried the very limits of what his physical body could do. In fact, Russ sometimes wondered if they were indeed trying to find the limit. Perhaps they were waiting for him to collapse on the field. Then they would look at each other and shrug, saying, “Yup, that’s as far as we can push him.” Russ knew he’d have to be in decent shape to hunt down a dark monster, but he didn’t exactly have to be an Olympic level athlete. The dark monsters were large and strong, but they weren’t that fast. And if it was true that dragon fire could take them down, then the only difficult part about this job would be finding them.

Still, the physical training was a nice break from the office job life he’d lived for most of his working years. Russ almost laughed as his feet pounded the uneven ground of the trail, where he’d been running for the last hour. He’d lost track of how far he’d gone, but he didn’t care. He was a dragon. He could handle pain. And he was finding physical exertion surprisingly fun. If this was what it took to earn his million and a half dollars, he wasn’t going to complain.

“Enough!” one of the trainers called, then blew a loud whistle. Russ slowed to a walk and peered through the trees, trying to find where the voice had come from. At least one trainer was always close by, although Russ often couldn’t see them. After a moment of waiting, his favorite trainer, Jake, came crashing through the trees behind him. Jake was a dragon shifter as well, one of the few young ones around here. Russ wasn’t sure why they didn’t just send Jake after the dark monsters instead of making him into a glorified drill sergeant, but he supposed the High Council here had their reasons. Russ didn’t care what those reasons were, since the fact that they needed outside dragons was the only reason he had this lucrative job.

“Good work today, man,” Jake said. “I know it’s still a bit early, but it’s Friday. Let’s call it a day, huh?”

Russ shrugged. “Up to you. You’re the boss.”

Jake rolled his eyes, which surprised Russ. Everyone always acted so professional and stern. This was the first time Russ had seen any of them acting like anything other than a well-trained robot. “You’re more of the boss than I am, Russ. You realize that right?”

“Uh…no, I didn’t realize that actually. I thought I was being paid to do what you guys tell me to do.”

“Well, I suppose that’s technically true. But we have to keep you happy, too. If you hightail it out of here at any time, all of us trainers will have hell to pay. I don’t think there’s anything the High Council hates more than losing a dragon.”

Russ cocked his head sideways with interest. “Have you had dragons leave during training before? I was under the impression I had to complete the whole mission or I didn’t get any money at all. I can’t imagine someone coming all the way out here, starting training, and then throwing in the towel.”

“It happened once. Wasn’t one of my trainees, thank god, so I don’t really know what happened. All I know is I don’t want to have to deal with the fallout like those trainers did.”

Russ raised an eyebrow in surprise. He wasn’t sure what shocked him more—the fact that a dragon had quit before getting his payday, or the fact that Jake was standing here telling him about it like Russ was just another one of his buddies. Then, he had a sudden thought that might explain the previous dragon’s disappearance.

“Maybe that dragon wasn’t here for the money.”

Jake rolled his eyes again. “Oh come on. Don’t be daft. Everyone is here for the money.”

“Not, everyone, right? Some dragons are tricked into coming here for a girl. Maybe that guy was one of those dragons, and things with the girl went sour so he decided to leave.”

Jake looked at him like he’d grown an extra head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Some of the dragon recovery specialists, the female ones I guess, are instructed to try to make their dragon targets fall in love with them. That’s how Mandy originally tried to get me to come back here, but it didn’t work, so she had to offer me the money in the end, anyway.”

Jake laughed. “You must have misunderstood something. The High Council would never trick people like that. They’re careful about not doing anything that might appear to be coercion, because Saul gained most of his evil army by force, as you well know.”

Russ felt his stomach clench up the way it always did when anyone mentioned Saul, but before he could say anything else to Jake, more of the trainers were running up to them.

“Good work today, Russ,” one of them said. “Let’s get back to headquarters and do a quick debrief so you can get out of here and enjoy your Friday night.”

Russ didn’t think he was going to enjoy his Friday night all that much. He didn’t know anyone here except Mandy, and he wasn’t going to call her for a night out on the town. But he let the trainer’s comment slide, and dutifully made his way back to headquarters. He sat through the debriefing without hearing a word of what the trainers were saying. He was preoccupied with thinking about what Jake had said.

Jake must be mistaken about what methods the High Council would or would not use. Why else would Mandy have confessed that she had only been at the bar on official orders? He’d seen her face when she apologized, and she had looked genuinely sorry. He was still angry at her, but he knew she had, at least, realized that tricking a dragon into falling in love wasn’t a good idea.

Perhaps the High Council here wasn’t as perfect as everyone seemed to think it was. They might say they would never use coercive methods, but Russ had firsthand proof that they had, and the thought sobered him. The descent into evil was a slippery slope. Once you started making tiny exceptions to your principles, it became easier and easier to make larger exceptions. Things might start out small and innocent enough, but eventually you found yourself committing evil deeds that would have appalled your former self. And the High Council here held a great deal of power. Torch Lake was a large, well-connected town. If the High Council here started leading its people toward darkness, things would get out of hand quickly. Russ shuddered to think of another war. Everyone said it was impossible, and that safeguards had been put in place to prevent evil from rising again. But those safeguards didn’t seem to be holding as well as everyone thought.

Russ let out an audible sigh of relief when the trainers finally dismissed him. He saw Jake trying to catch his eye, but he ignored him. He liked Jake well enough, but Russ wasn’t in the mood to continue his discussion about dragon recovery or what Mandy may or may not have been told to do by the High Council. Russ slipped into the locker room and grabbed his duffel, then left without showering. He would shower at home, where he could stand under the steaming water for as long as he wanted without being bothered. If only the hot water could wash away all his worries as well.

But Russ had barely sat down in the driver’s seat of his loaner car when his cell phone buzzed. He swiped to open the text from an unknown number, and was quite surprised at what he saw.

Hey, it’s Jake. Since you’re new in town and spend all your time at the training facility, I’m guessing you haven’t had a chance to get out and make any friends yet. Want to come out with me and some of my buddies? We meet up almost every Friday night at the Winking Wizard Tavern for burgers and beer. It’s far away from the city center so it’s not pretentious like a lot of the fancy downtown bars. Totally laidback and casual. We’ll be there all night, so come by anytime.

Russ frowned down at his phone. He’d been all set to enjoy a quiet evening by himself, but somehow, the invitation appealed to him. He was already missing his nights at the Token Tap back in Chicago. Shouldn’t he at least check out this new place and see how it measured up? If he was going to be in Torch Lake for a few months, he should find a new watering hole. And Jake probably wouldn’t push too hard to talk about the High Council in the middle of a busy bar. He wouldn’t want it to get around that he was jabbering about town leadership with the new trainee. Besides, if Russ was honest with himself, he knew that a quiet night at home was going to turn into a night of constantly thinking about Mandy. As angry as he was at her, and as much as he knew that they would never be together, he couldn’t stop replaying their kiss outside the bar. If it had been fake, Mandy was a damn good actress. That kiss had awoken feelings in Russ that he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling, and it was pure torture knowing he would never be able to act on those impulses. His body lusted after Mandy, and his heart pined for her, but his head knew she was a bad idea. He had to forget about her. Maybe going out to a bar with some new friends was a good start.

Before he could change his mind, Russ sent a text back to Jake.

Sounds good, thanks for the invite. I’ll be there in about an hour.

Then he fired up the engine to head home, his mouth already watering at the thought of a cold beer and a juicy burger.