Ethan watched her go, surprised to find himself feeling regretful. What did he care what some young reporter thought of him? She was just trying to build up a name for herself, and she was using him as a stepping stone. In a week, she would have forgotten that she had ever been there.

But there was something distinctly different about her. She wasn’t a shifter; he could tell that much. She smelled completely human, a scent that he had grown used to since he was constantly surrounded by so many of them. Maybe it was just because she actually had the guts to argue with him. Nobody else was brave enough to do so, and she cast his attitude right back in his face. No, it was something else. Ethan had a fleeting idea of what it might be, but he dismissed it and turned his computer screen on.

Though his office was soundproof, he knew without looking that the rest of his staff had either left for the day, or was on their way out the door. Even in his human form, he could sense that the building was empty. Ethan let his workers think that he let them go home at five o’clock because he was a nice guy, but the truth was that he enjoyed having the place to himself. He liked not having to worry about someone walking in or calling and wanting an opinion on something.

He worked furiously on his idea for tracking down the hunters, but he ran into a wall every time. There was always something that stopped him, and it was making an anger that wouldn’t leave build up inside his body. He wondered how he had gone this long in his life without feeling so frustrated before, but there was no turning it away now.

His skin tingled, threatening to shift. Ethan slammed his computer shut and shoved himself away from his desk, charging out his office door. Kira’s desk was unoccupied, and she had left on only enough lights for him to make it to the elevator. He turned the corner and slammed open the door to the stairwell instead, flying up the steps as fast as his human feet would carry him. Despite the physical exertion on his body, he took deep breaths in an effort to keep himself calm. It was barely working. His true form not only called to him, but demanded to be let out.

Bursting out onto the rooftop, Ethan tipped his head back and flung out his arms. Wings pushed through his back, and he felt the breeze catch in the thin, leathery flaps. His skin rippled as it shifted from a smooth, pale surface to scales of deep blue, each of them reflecting the moonlight. His limbs extended, stretching muscles that he could never use in human form. Even Ethan’s face changed, his jaw and nose coming forth to form a menacing muzzle and his hair was replaced with spikes.

It hurt. It hurt like no other physical pain he’d felt in his life, either as a dragon or as a human. His bones and muscles stretched and pulled, sometimes yanking at his joints so hard that they felt like they would pop out. His skin burned as it expanded and separated, flipping over in segments to reveal the scales underneath. But it was a kind of pain that he craved. He knew the members of the Darkblood Society spend most of their time as humans; it was safer, easier. But Ethan didn’t think it was right or natural. They should be able to let their bodies burst forth as dragons anytime they needed to. He wondered, not for the first time, when the shifters as a whole decided to be more human than dragon.

Ethan stood there on the rooftop for a moment, his head tipped back and his nostrils flaring as he took in the scent of the city. It was sickening sometimes, with the thickness of the human population all around him, but there was so much more to it. He could smell the hot dog vendor three blocks away and the Chinese restaurant around the corner. There was something else, a faint whiff of perfume like someone had left a bouquet of roses near an open window.

His hearing, too, had improved. Anyone could hear the horns honking on the New York City streets below and the general roar of traffic. But Ethan heard the subtle sound of a transmission shifting, the squeak of a stairwell door opening, and the quick suck of air through human lips.

His eyes snapped open and he turned, hoping he wouldn’t see what his senses told him was there. She was hidden, almost invisible in the shadow of the door to the stairs, but she was there, nonetheless. Ethan cursed himself as he narrowed his eyes and curled his lips. He cursed silently to himself as he forced his body to return to the shape he had to fight so hard to keep during the work day. His face snapped back to smoothly sculpted cheeks and a strong nose. A raging itch took over his scalp as he hair regrew in an instant, and his legs slimmed and lengthened as he strode to the stairwell. The wings came last. He always regretted putting those away the most, because they felt so damn good. He allowed them to expand one last time before he folded them away and grabbed the reporter by the arm, yanking her out into the starlight. “What are you doing here?”

Resa Robinson’s eyes were wide and wild with fright. Her lips worked, trying to form the right words, but no sounds came out of them. She gestured at him, her hands alternately trying to describe the shape of his wings and the look of his other face. Even though she said nothing, Ethan knew exactly what she meant.

“You weren’t supposed to see any of that,” he growled. His fingers dug into the flesh of her arm. He had come here and shifted in the hopes of letting go of some of his anger. It hadn’t wanted to wait until he got to The Club. But now that his release had been cut short, he found that he was more furious than ever. Fire rippled in his veins and he battled himself not to throw her off the roof. “Now tell me, what are you doing here?”

“I—I was just trying to figure out the rest of the story,” she babbled. “I knew there was something more about you, that you couldn’t be just an ordinary guy. But, I had no idea.” She looked dazed, like someone had hit her over the head.

Ethan felt his lip twitch and immediately suppressed the smile that threatened to take over his visage. Resa was a smart woman, and one who weighed the words of an argument like the heft of a sword. But even she had nothing coherent or poignant to say about what she had just witnessed. He liked to see her reduced a little, even if it had come at his own cost.

“What, exactly, are you?” Resa was regaining her composure. The spark of curiosity had come back to her eyes, replacing almost all the fear.

That’s how Ethan knew he was in trouble. If any normal person had seen him shift, it would have been bad enough. It would be a mess, but one that he could handle. But Resa was a journalist, and worse yet a journalist who was in search of dragons. He was exactly what she had spent her entire life looking for.

He reached toward her bag. “Give me your phone.”

Resa stepped backward, but she didn’t try to run away. “Aren’t you going to answer me?”

“I think I’ve answered enough of your nosy questions. Now give me your phone.” He was losing what little patience he had left. Resa’s arm felt fragile and delicate in his grip, even when he was in human form. He didn’t like to think about what he might do to her. He still had to figure out how to handle the situation.

“Fine, but why?” The reporter dug the device out of her back pocket and slammed it into his palm. She gave him a dirty look, but Ethan didn’t miss the flicker of daring that still remained.

“Are you kidding me?” He tucked the phone in his own pocket without looking at it. “I’m not letting any picture or footage of this get out.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but shut it again and nodded. “Alright, I understand. I’m sorry I intruded on your…whatever this was. Now, since you don’t care to tell me anything about it, I’ll be on my way.” She turned toward the door and yanked at her arm, trying to free it from his grasp.

But Ethan closed his fingers more tightly. “I don’t think so. You’re coming with me.” He marched her to the door, his mind racing. What was he going to do now? There was no chance in hell he was going to let Resa go. He had her phone, and therefore, she had no proof of what she had seen; there was little chance that anyone would believe her, no matter how eloquently she wrote about it on her blog. But still, she had seen something that only a few other humans had witnessed.

As they made their way down the first few flights of stairs, he racked his mind for other ideas. He could take her to The Club. Mr. Cross would tear her down until he knew everything, and then he would make the decision of what to do with her. It would take the weight off Ethan’s shoulders, but he wasn’t interested in letting someone else help him. He could take care of a simple human by himself, and he wanted to know more details from Resa before he let someone else interrogate her.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She kept her head held high, descending the steps like a queen entering a ball instead of a prisoner heading toward an unknown sentence. She could have tried to break free and run away or steal her cell phone back from him, but the fact that she remained so calm unsettled him. What normal human would keep her bearings and stay so cool when captured by a dragon? He imagined they were few and far between.

Ethan knew what he had to do. His plan wasn’t perfect; it was one that would need to be adjusted as he went, and he knew he might very well regret the whole thing. But there were few other options. He no longer needed time to think, so when they reached the next landing, he turned and pushed through the door to the hallway. It was only a quick walk to the elevator.