* * *
“This isn’t how we do things, Ethan!” The news of an incoming dragon had spread through The Club quickly, and most of the members had met him in the courtyard in full-scale form. Mr. Cross was at the front of them, still very human. “You know you aren’t supposed to shift anywhere but here.”
“I don’t have time for rules right now. I need help. I know where the hunters are, and—”
Mr. Cross flung his hands in the air. “Here we go again!”
“They have a prisoner. I’ve got to get her out of there, and I can’t do it alone. I need my fellow dragons at my side.”
A dark green dragon Ethan recognized as Lance Rockland stepped forward, but Mr. Cross held out his arms as if he could bar the beasts from joining him. He narrowed his eyes. “Just who the hell is this prisoner?”
“It’s very complicated, and in the time it would take me to explain it, she could die. I’ll tell you everything you want to hear when this is all over, and you can punish me in any way you see fit, but I’ve got to go now. She’s a human, she knows about me, and she’s innocent.”
Mr. Cross shook his balding head stubbornly. “Ethan, you have pushed too far with this one. Don’t think you’re going to get away with it. I won’t condone this undertaking, but I won’t stop any members who are stupid enough to help you. They’ll be subject to the same penalties you’ll be facing upon your return.” He turned and stormed back toward the building, refusing to even wait and see who went with him.
Lance once again stepped forward, this time with Dirk at his side. The great orange wings of Garrett snapped out and pulled him into the air. Alexander, Chase, and Mark followed, heading up past the walls of the enclosed courtyard with their great wings beating. Ethan shot to the head of the pack. Panic still ruled his chest, but he felt far more confident with dragons at his back. It was dangerous to fly out over the city, and something that had always been strictly forbidden by the Darkblood Society, but Ethan was too far past caring about the rules. He guided his fellow dragons to the house on the edge of the city, staying high above the buildings in the hope of avoiding detection.
“That’s the one,” he finally said when they hovered above the old house. It looked different from above, but he could feel that Resa was inside. “There are at least a dozen hunters inside, maybe more. Resa’s in the basement, so we have to get in without harming her.”
“You said she’s a human?” Dirk’s teeth shone in the starlight, but his gray wings were barely visible.
Ethan glared at him. “Don’t get your hopes up. She’s already been claimed.” Perhaps he had no rights to Resa, but he knew how much Dirk enjoyed human women.
The other dragon smirked. “If you say so, but I’ll leave that up to her.”
Lance swooped closer. “There are seven of us. We can attack the building from all sides, splitting their forces and hopefully distracting them enough so you can go in and get her. Do we know what kind of weapons they have?”
Ethan shook his head, wishing he had gotten a better look around the hunters’ lair before they had found Resa out. For all he knew, the hunters had fireproof armor and scale-piercing swords. “No idea.”
Garrett nodded. “Let’s do this.”
The dragons plummeted toward the earth. Someone gave a cry of alarm before they reached the house, and a heavy spear with a razor-sharp head went flying past. It would have been enough to shred a wing and send one of the dragons crashing to the earth, but it missed Alexander by a claw’s length. He dodged to the side and went around the back of the house, lifting his feet and crashing through the back door.
“Smelled like poison. Be careful!” Lance took the front, and the others split up amongst the remaining windows. They roared and thrashed, sending fireballs rolling through the house as they clawed the siding off the building and ripped their way inside.
Ethan followed Garrett as he tore down the garage door. From what he could tell, this was the side of the house where he could most easily access the basement stairs. He had to get in, get Resa, and get her out of there before the other dragons did so much damage, she would wind up injured or worse. There was always the chance the hunters would kill her before any of that happened, but he wasn’t ready to think about it.
Garrett stomped over the top of the shiny car parked in the garage, his powerful claws digging into the metal and leaving great gashes in the paint. He flattened the hood on his way to the door that led to the kitchen, rearing his head back in the small space and preparing a blast of flame for whoever waited for him on the other side of the door.
Ethan wanted to cry out to him, to tell him to be careful, since he had no way of knowing if Resa was still in the basement or if they had moved her. He’d left Wade in the lab with the laptop, but there was no time to try to contact him. Besides, Ethan had asked dragons to help him. Once they started fighting, there was no holding them back. He followed Garrett through the doorway, stepped over the crispy body of a hunter, and found the basement stairs.
The sound above him was deafening. Dragons roared and fire crackled. The unmistakable sound of a weapon firing thundered through the building. But the basement was shockingly quiet, and it disturbed him. If he had come down here and Resa was gone, then he was putting himself in a corner.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around, seeing that while the basement was unfinished, it had been walled into separate sections. It looked as though, at one point, someone had planned to put bedrooms down there, but had never finished the job. It was dark and dingy, and Ethan’s chest grew hollow at the thought that she had already been removed. But he soon found her in the far back corner in a tiny room with only a bare bulb overhead. Someone had gagged her with an old rag and tied her hands behind her back on a moldy wooden chair. She was still shirtless, her breasts heaving as she watched her captor with tearful eyes. She gave a muffled scream when Ethan came into view.
“I had a feeling this was going to be so much more than a simple reporter looking for a story,” Kyle said as he sharpened a knife against a whetstone. He held the blade up in the dim light to examine it. “She’s a pretty thing, though, and it would be a shame to have to mess up her face.”
“Let her go,” Ethan growled. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this.” Resa looked so defenseless, her milky skin so easy to pierce. The knife in the hunter’s hand was made of dragonsteel, evident by the rippling waves of color in the metal. It would pierce his scales just as easily as it would Resa’s soft flesh.
“Doesn’t she? I admit that I never thought she was the minion of a dragon, much less a whole flight of them.” He looked up toward the ceiling and smiled. “At least it provides a little fun for my men. Maybe I should have a little fun, too.”
“I said, let her go!” Ethan growled and rushed forth, but Kyle had been smart. He’d put Resa and himself in a small corner, where stud walls enclosed them and left only a narrow doorway between them and the dragon. Ethan couldn’t just come in, and Kyle could easily slit her throat before Ethan had a chance to stop him. There was always fire, but it would burn her, too.
The blonde man looked down his nose with lidded eyes. “Why should I? Give it a few minutes and my men will have your force eradicated. We might not have the most sophisticated weapons compared to some of the other groups of hunters, but there are a lot of us and we’re all hungry for dragon blood. You know, I really ought to thank you. Working for you has given me quite the education.”
Ethan shook with rage inside. He had been betrayed by someone who he had considered to be one of his top employees. Kyle had never given any indication that he was more than a simple video game designer. If Ethan had been paying attention, he might have noticed, but he never bothered learning about the private lives of his staff.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on. You don’t think I would recognize the mascot of Cobalt Computers? I mean, I never had any real evidence of it before. I just had my suspicions. You’re not exactly a normal man, but here you are, in the flesh, scales and all. There’s not much point in denying it, Ethan.”
“What do you want?” Ethan hadn’t come into this prepared to negotiate. He was ready to tear the man limb from limb and watch his blood run down the floor drain, but it wouldn’t happen unless he lost Resa, too.
Kyle tapped his finger on his chin. “I think I want a pet. We need someone to test our new weapons and poisons on. In between tests, I can pick your brain and find out where the rest of the dragons are. You agree to stay here with me and do as I say, and I’ll let the girl go.”
Resa blinked back her tears and shook her head emphatically.
She didn’t want him to give himself up, but he didn’t see how he had a choice. Maybe the other dragons would be able to get to him later, if they survived this, but none of them would be able to get Resa out of this situation alive. Kyle knew his adversary well.
“Fine.” Ethan took a step back. He would be helping the very people he wanted to take down, but if it was going to save Resa’s life, then it was worth it. “How do I know I can trust you?”
Kyle grinned. “You can’t, not any more than I can trust you. But I’ll let her go, and you can watch her walk out of here. But if you make a move to get to her, I’ll have my men kill her before she ever makes it out of this house. You stay right where you are, and once she’s gone, I have a shiny new necklace for you.” The hunter held up a round ring of iron, the metal showing colorful ripples, even in the fluorescent light.
Ethan ran his thin tongue over his sharp teeth, wishing he could dig them into Kyle’s flesh. He didn’t doubt that the other hunters would kill Resa, but he knew the dragons would get her back to The Club. She would have to deal with Mr. Cross, but she would be alive and safe. That was all he could really ask for. He took another step back, making plenty of room for Resa to leave. He had to make sure he was as far away from her as possible, as it was going to be hard enough not to reach out and grab her. It was still a tempting thought, nevertheless, but he knew it would be almost impossible to get out of there with both of them whole.
“Let’s get it over with, then.”
The hunter smiled appreciatively. “You’re a smart man.” He turned to Resa, letting his knife flash as he held it up and grabbed for the ropes on her wrists. “I hate to let you go. I can just imagine all the fun I could have had with you. I’m sure Tommy will be sad as well.”
She moved so swiftly that Ethan almost missed it. The hunters had bound her hands, but they hadn’t bound her legs. One foot came up and plowed Kyle right between the legs. He bent forward in pain and raised his knife, but she shoved him away with her other foot. The force knocked her chair backwards, but it was enough to send Kyle reeling toward the doorway in the makeshift room.
The blade swiped through the air as the hunter fought to catch his balance, but Ethan shot forward. He reached through the opening, his shoulders crashing into the walls, and sunk his claws into Kyle’s back. With a roar of anger, he closed his fist, backed out, and flung the man across the main room of the basement. He hit the wall with a sickening thud and fell to the floor.
The noise overhead had increased. They still might not get out of there alive, and there was only one way out of the basement. Ethan grabbed Resa around the waist and shot up the stairs. The kitchen was ablaze, with several bodies of hunters dotting the floor. He dashed over them. The ceiling over the door to the garage had caved in, so he turned for the front room.
Chase met him in the doorway, his red scales reflecting the flames. “There you are! We were just about to come after you. This whole place is about to fall in. We’ve got to go.”
One of the dragons had knocked down the front door and then widened the doorway with his shoulders, so Ethan easily squeezed through with his burden. The other shifters were waiting for him in the yard, and they took off as soon as they saw him.
Ethan didn’t turn around to see the extent of their damage. The hunters’ lair could fall in or not; none of it mattered now that he had Resa back. But he had been horrible to her. He had made her his prisoner and sent her on a suicidal mission. He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t forgive him, but at least for now, they couldn’t speak above the wind.
When they landed once again in the courtyard, Ethan felt a rush of adrenaline shoot through his bloodstream; he had thought his body would be incapable of producing any more after the fight. He knew that it wasn’t the thought of talking to Mr. Cross that struck his nerves, but of talking to Resa.
Lance shifted as soon as they landed and darted inside the building. He came back out with Mia, who held a blanket in her arms and draped it over Resa’s shoulders. The reporter pulled it tightly around her body, her eyes wide but curious as she finally got a chance to get a good look at the dragons that surrounded her.
“That was fucking awesome!” Alexander roared as he morphed back into bipedal form. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had a good brawl? Those hunters put up a good fight, but we knocked them down easily. Thanks for that, Ethan.” He stomped off toward the bar with the rest of the men.
Regretfully, Ethan shifted as well. His wings needed a rest, and he would no doubt be summoned up to Mr. Cross’ office shortly. He would find time later to thank the men who had helped him, who had taken up his cause even when he hadn’t given them much reason to. The crowd dispersed until it was only Ethan and Resa left in the courtyard. They were more interested in hearing the tall tales the others were telling than in watching the two of them look awkwardly at each other.
Resa looked up at him through her lashes. “Ethan, I—Oh! You’re cut!” She reached up and gently touched his head, her fingers coming away tipped with blood.
“I’m fine. It wasn’t much of an injury, and he cut me while I was in dragon form. It’ll heal on its own.” Ethan looked down at his ridiculously human feet in their human shoes. The sight made him want to shift back, just so he could feel like himself once again. “Resa, I’m so sorry about what happened. I never should have let you get into that situation in the first place.”
She held up a finger to stop him. “It was my idea.”
“But I let you go through with it. More than that, I made it all happen. I let my need for vengeance blind me to everything else. I sent you on a suicide mission because I was so focused on getting information from the hunters. To make matters worse, we didn’t even get anything out of it.”
Resa pursed her lips as she reached into the pocket of her pants. “I wouldn’t exactly say that.” She held up a keychain with a USB drive. “I swiped this off our friend Kyle just before he bound my hands. I don’t know what it has on it, but I doubt he would have worn it on his belt loop like he did if it wasn’t important.”
Ethan pulled her close and kissed her hard. “You never stop surprising me.”