Taya’s words crashed over him in a stormy mix of relief and despair.

Rationally, he knew this was for the best. The sooner she got away from him and his kind, the safer she would be. And for some reason, the safety of this soft, sweet human female meant a lot to him.

Which explained why his dragon immediately railed against the injustice of it all.

He had saved her. He had watched over her. She belonged to him, and dragons kept what was theirs. Logical or not, he wasn’t ready to give her up. But her decision was made, and it was a sound one.

He forced his face into an inscrutable mask and tipped his head in a clipped nod.

“Drake and Willa can escort you back home.”

Willa came into the room as if on cue, and offered Taya a gentle smile as Drake let Etienne know with a reassuring clap on the shoulder that he would treat this job with the seriousness that it deserved.

Etienne released Taya’s ice-cold hand and rolled to his feet.

“Please don’t give them any trouble about staying with you.” He framed it gently, like a request, knowing that pushing the issue too hard would backfire. “It will only put them in an uncomfortable position. Listen to what they tell you so they can keep you safe. As soon as the men who hurt you have been dealt with, I will contact Drake and give him the all-clear.”

“What about you? Will you be okay? I don’t want them to hurt you, Etienne…” Her haunted, confused eyes went shiny with tears, and he had to look away.

“They can’t hurt me. Especially now that they’ve been separated. One on one, they stand no chance against me. I promise, it will be fine. Now go.” Willa helped Taya to her feet. Even with her hair a tangled mess, wearing last night’s clothes, she still looked so beautiful that his heart stuttered.

He gave Drake and Willa a silent nod of thanks as they led Taya toward the massive, stone door, ignoring every instinct blaring at him.

Chase her.

Don’t let her go.

He didn’t stay to watch the door close behind them or to see if she looked back. Instead, he silenced his enraged dragon and turned toward the staircase that led to the wine cellar below.

The man in his custody was going to pay for hurting Taya. For scaring her and for putting her in this position in the first place, but also for making Etienne’s dragon want something he could never have. A debt of vengeance was owed, and he was going to make sure the bastard paid in full.

He cracked his knuckles and his neck and strode across the room, hot blood pumping through his veins. He yanked the door open and took the steps leading down two at a time. When he reached the bottom, he peered around in the total blackness to hone in on the eyes that glowed like two hot coals in a pit of tar.

“All right, you twisted motherfucker. Time to play twenty questions.”

He flicked on the light and stepped closer to the chair that held his captive, noting with satisfaction that the thick chains had held, as Drake had promised.

The man looked a whole lot worse for wear, but not because of his injuries. Like all shifters, he’d healed fast, and the cuts and bruises he’d sustained from the fight with Etienne at Taya’s house the night before were nearly invisible now. But his gaze was fevered, his skin slick with sweat and pale. Etienne made a mental note to ask Willa if wolf-shifters were susceptible to some sort of disease that he’d never heard of. Dragons didn’t get sick, but that didn’t mean that weaker animals could say the same.

“You can’t keep me here,” the man said softly, his hot gaze tracking Etienne as he moved. His voice was low and hoarse, and his words were garbled, like his tongue was too thick for his mouth. “I’m the son of an alpha. This will start something that neither of us will be able to stop. Is that what you want?” His thin lips curved into a ghoulish facsimile of a smile. “To drag our people into a civil war over a slab of meat? A two-legged steak dinner?”

Etienne fisted his hands at his side and let the words wash over him and incinerate the last of his sadness, replacing it with cleansing, white-hot fury.

He took a slow, deliberate step toward his captive and then another, before finally stopping a few feet in front of him, and squatting low to meet his gaze. “Do you know what I am?”

The man’s smile wavered but then went steady again as he nodded his head, sending his long, greasy locks fluttering.

“You’re a dragon-shifter. I’d never seen one before the other night, but what they say is true. You smell like a fucking campfire.”

“And you smell like a pile of hot garbage wrapped in dog shit, so suffice to say, I know what you are too. Here’s the thing. Even knowing what you are, I’m not afraid of you. Can you guess why?”

The smile faded for good now and the man’s chin went mulishly stiff as he looked away.

“I’ll help you out on that. It’s because I’m a dragon and you’re a dog. I’m the king of the sky. You are a court jester. If I choose to bring the pain, there is nothing in the world you or any one of your kind could hope to do to stop me.”

Even now, the urge to do exactly that was so strong, his whole body quaked with it. Then he thought of Taya, and steadied himself.

“So now that we’ve established rank, here’s what you need to know. If you refer to Taya as food again, I’m going to rip your arm off. Then, I’m going to rip your other arm off. I’m going to tear you into little pieces and then I’m going to roast you like a Boston Market chicken dinner. Nod if you understand what I’m saying to you.”

The man looked like he wanted to argue. He even opened his mouth for a second, but something in Etienne’s expression must have made him change his mind, because a few seconds later, he nodded.

“I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer them. If you answer them honestly, I will let you live.”

That part wasn’t entirely true. He had no immediate plans to kill the man, at least, not until he was sure he’d given him enough information and Etienne had managed to capture his cohort. But he couldn’t imagine a world where he could allow him to walk away from this. Not after what he’d done to Taya.

The memory of her scream that night in the forest cut through his brain like a knife, and he closed his eyes to fight back his bloodthirsty dragon. When he finally opened them again, his captive was eyeing him warily, and the smell of fear, sharp and metallic, filled the air.

“Question one: How do you know Taya?” he bit out through gritted teeth. The other man stayed mute, and Etienne stepped closer.

The move made the wolf-shifter jumpy, and he drew away, plastering himself against the back of the chair. “I don’t. Is that her name?”

Etienne forced down his rage at the casual response. This POS had planned to snuff out the amazing, bright light that was Taya without cause or even a second thought. “If this wasn’t about her personally, then why did you go through the trouble of tracking her and trying again? Why didn’t you just go find someone else instead or forget the whole thing?”

“Mik—” He broke off and cleared his throat before starting again. “My partner was concerned she saw something she shouldn’t have. He was worried she was going to make waves.”

This guy might not be the sharpest pup at the kennel, but his friend was clearly a little smarter. He was right. Taya had seen something she shouldn’t have. It just hadn’t been enough to make her one hundred percent sure she’d seen something out of the norm. Going back for her had been the larger mistake, and in truth, a lucky break for Etienne. He hadn’t needed to hunt them down. They’d come to him.

“So why did you attack her in the first place? What were you after?”

The man stared at Etienne through his glassy eyes and shrugged. “Food. Fun. We were on a hunt in that little patch of woods. She was there. Why not?”

More than anything so far—more than the meat comment, more than the threat of civil war, more than even that stupid smirk—that was the thing that made him lose it.

He let out a roar, straightened, and snapped out a punch so quick, the cocksucker never saw it coming. It upended him on his chair and cracked one of the wooden legs and, if the other man’s howl was any indication, several ribs.

Etienne rolled his shoulders and stepped toward the pile of chair and man, setting them both upright again, albeit slightly askew, before stepping back.

His captive’s face was bloodied, and his chest heaved with outrage and fear. “Jesus, man. Look, I told you, I don’t even know the b— ” his throat worked as he swallowed hard, “her. She was walking home, we were hungry and horny. That’s it. That’s the whole story. You chased us off and I would’ve been done with it but Mikhail wanted to make sure she didn’t talk.”

Etienne kept his expression neutral, but inside, he wanted to howl with satisfaction.

He had a name.

Mikhail.

He repeated it silently until it was branded into his brain, but he kept talking, in hopes that his captive didn’t realize his slipup. “You say your father is a pack alpha. What pack?” And if that were true, then why hadn’t he already mentally called on his dog buddies to come help him? Willa’s theory that these two were rogues who had been ousted from their packs was making more and more sense. According to both Willa and Drake, a true break from their brethren would’ve left both men unable to tap into the pack’s telepathic type of communication. Another lucky break for the good guys. Less wolves to deal with was always a good thing.

The man rolled his shoulders and winced.

“Look, man, I’m in a lot of pain. You got anything to take the edge off? Probably I could think better if I had something.”

Etienne narrowed his gaze, noting the other man’s dilated pupils.

“Drugs? Is that why you’re sweating?”

His captive broke eye contact and looked away, but there was no mistaking the pounding of the pulse in his neck.

That was it. This guy was a junkie and he needed a fix. Standard street drugs wouldn’t put him in this condition. Shifter metabolisms just moved too fast for them to offer more than a fleeting high, and certainly not one that would become a rampant addiction. Which meant this guy was an Amp-head. Usually, the fact that disreputable shifters took advantage of their own and distributed the shit for free until their customers were addicted made Etienne furious. Today though, it definitely worked in his favor. This guy might be acting tough now, but it wouldn’t be long before his addiction to Amp would do Etienne’s job for him. When the need got bad enough and the pain of detox came, he would tell Etienne whatever he needed to know.

“DT’s are coming soon, so why don’t we let you get a taste of that and see if you feel more in the mood to talk a little later.”

Etienne needed some time to cool off, in any case. Then, he needed to call Willa now that he had one of their names. He didn’t doubt that this guy was, at one point, the son of an alpha. Odds were that wouldn’t matter if they were rogues and had severed ties, but if not, there were political issues here that couldn’t be ignored. To not at least seek her counsel and use the one asset he had in the wolf world would be silly.

Wars were costly for his kind. It had been a hundred years since the last one. The death toll across all the shifter breeds had been high and the commotion had garnered far too much human attention. Nowadays, with every kid in the world armed with a smart phone tied to the Internet and drones filling the skies, they were already on constant high alert. A full out war would have them in the public eye in no time.

He had to tread carefully, or risk not only Taya’s safety, but the safety of his kind.

He ignored his captive’s escalating pleas and headed back up the stairs. He’d make some calls, then spend the rest of his day in the air, tracking this “Mikhail”’s scent. If he could pin him up before dark, this would all be over, no muss, no fuss. If not?

He had some work to do.

Work that would hopefully keep his mind off the fact that the only woman who had ever roused the deepest passions of his dragon had walked out the door.

Then, when it was all over, he’d sit down alone and try to come to terms with the fact that he would never see Taya again.