As inconspicuously as possible, Jason swept his gaze around the room where Nickelova led him, looking for anything sharp he could use to pry her heart out of her chest. There was a large bed dressed in oxblood linens and lacquered black furniture: including a dresser and nightstand, as well as a dressing screen decorated in a gold crane print.

“You must love red and black,” he said.

“It’s more than a preference. Red and black are the colors of my bloodline. They may not mean anything to you, but to me and my six siblings, they are the colors of home.”

“Six?”

“Brothers. Dragons always lay seven eggs. Seven young. Females are rare. It’s why there are so few of us.”

“What do your brothers think of your plan to shack up with a werewolf and rule the world?”

She scoffed. “They don’t understand. So few are evolved enough to look beyond their lineage.” She rolled her shoulders back. “I don’t want to talk about my family.”

She scanned his naked body. He was still smudged with dirt and blood from his failed attempt to climb the mountain. “You need a bath,” she said. With a pulse of her amulet, a tub of hot water appeared behind him.

Water. Ryker had said it weakened dragon fae magic. Jason hoped he was right. He stepped into the tub and lowered himself under the surface, mind racing. He needed a plan. Think.

She sat down on the upholstered bench at the end of the bed and crossed her legs, her spiky heel bobbing. “Now, tell me, Jason, why didn’t you come to me sooner?” Her voice was loaded with cynicism.

Jason grabbed the soap and started scrubbing his chest, his arms, in an effort to buy time. A lie. He needed a lie, and it better be a good one. “Silas’s friend is a witch. She detected your curse and broke it. After that, Silas locked me up. I’ve been on house arrest until now.”

“Lies. You came for the girl. I know you did,” Nickelova said.

“I was using the girl. I came for you.”

“Liar.”

Flashing a practiced smile, he looked directly at her and moved his hands to scrub his lower body. “You don’t think I’m here for you?” One thing about Nickelova, her personality was predictably narcissistic. She would prefer to believe he was there for her, undoubtedly hold herself above a woman like Selene, and he planned to use that to his advantage.

She tipped her head back slightly, her lips parting, her nipples pearling behind the red material of her dress. Her eyes focused on the place where he touched himself beneath the water.

“We had some good times, didn’t we Nickie? Those nights at Hunt Club?”

She uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, her cheeks coloring.

“You could join me,” he drawled. “I could use some help in here.”

She rose from her seat. Her arms slipped around his neck from behind. “You’d better not be toying with me, Jason Flynn. I won’t be as forgiving next time.”

“Next time. So you forgive me?”

She laid a violent kiss on his mouth in response. Suppressing the disgust that raged through his body, he nipped her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. Under the guise of reaching for the zipper of her dress, he lifted his hands to her neck.

“Mmm,” she moaned into his mouth.

He rose and forced her chest against his. The movement wasn’t delicate. So close to the full moon, it would have injured a human woman. But just like old times, she went limp in his arms.

“Do you want this body?” she asked, bending backward, her lips grazing his.

“Not just your body, Nickie. I want your heart.” He yanked the amulet over her head in one lithe move, tearing out a clump of her hair in his haste. She screamed. But by the time she could react, he was across the room and backing toward the door, the amulet dangling from his grip. He looped it around his own neck.

“You bastard,” she shrieked, coming at him. “Don’t you know that the amulet is useless unless I give you the power and the knowledge to use it?”

“I figured as much, but I’m more interested in keeping it from you than using it myself.” He lowered his body, hands raised between them, ready to fight her if he had to. “If you’re going to take me down, you’re going to have to do it without magic.”

Nickelova broke out in peals of laughter. “You fucking idiot. Do you know where the power of the amulet comes from? Dragon scale. And while I need it in my human form, scales are something I have all on my own.”

As if she’d been hit by an ax, her skin split and her blood sprayed toward him only to be sucked back toward her shifting body. Gruesome round segments transformed into scales. She grew and changed in the most violent and grotesque transition he’d ever seen in a shifter. But as terrifying as the transition was, the end result almost knocked him on his ass.

A full-sized adult dragon hissed at him as he stumbled backward out the door, terror gripping his chest like a vice. She was bigger, deadlier in this form than he’d ever imagined. Her razor-sharp teeth gnashed in his direction. No wonder her family colors were red and black. Her scales glinted like bloodstained obsidian.

Scrambling out the door, he tore through the winding tunnel that led to the main chamber, thankful for his superhuman werewolf speed. The only advantage he had was the natural design of the passageway, which was narrow enough to slow the dragon down. It also served to partially conceal him from her slashing teeth.

A whoosh like a fireplace bellow came from behind him. Oh shit! He sprinted faster. Fire, hot and blazing, sprayed against the wall behind him, singeing his back. When he emerged into the main chamber, he dodged behind a large stalactite and desperately searched for something to use as a weapon.

“Jason!” Selene called.

He searched behind the invisible force field that capped her cell, finally finding her tucked into the far corner of the alcove. She’d chiseled a hole the size of her head in the section of stone at the far edge. “I’m sorry,” he yelled. “I love you, Selene. It was the only thing I could think of.” He pointed to the amulet hanging uselessly around his neck.

Nickelova cleared the stairwell, her claws clicking on the stone, sounding eerily similar to the click-clack of her high heels.

“Crap, she’s big,” Selene muttered, eyes wide.

“And breathes fire,” Jason whispered back. “Got any ideas?”

The tapping claws stopped and the rushing of air started again. Jason pulled his shoulders in, trying to make himself as small as possible behind the stone formation.

Selene’s gaze darted to the dragon and back to Jason. “Catch.” She tossed a long, sharp bone through the hole. It skidded to a stop near his feet. He bent over to pick it up only to abandon that idea when fire blasted between them.

Head tucked under his arms, Jason avoided the worst of the flames, but still the smell of burning hair had him slapping out a spark near his temple.

“She stops moving when she blows,” Selene said. “She’s like a statue.”

So that’s what had given him the head start earlier. His werewolf speed was only part of his advantage. When she’d tried to fry him in the corridor, she’d had to stop to do so.

The flames abated and the clicking talons resumed. Selene jumped out from behind the stone and clapped her hands. “Hey you, hot mess! Yeah you, bitch. Over here!” She waved her hands. The dragon roared, advancing on Selene.

Jason rushed from his hiding place, sweeping the bone into his hand and skidding across the floor under the dragon. The dirt and grit bloodied his hip. He looked up from his place between her legs, the dragon huffing in air again, her chest glowing crimson as she readied another blast of flames. With all his strength, he thrust the bone between the scales along her breast.

And failed at breaking her skin. A single scale popped off her torso and clattered beside him. The dragon, otherwise impervious to the sharp length of bone, bellowed a Jurassic Park worthy roar that reverberated through the cavern. He stabbed twice in the exposed spot, horrified when the point bounced off the leathery skin. The dragon turned a tight circle, trying to reposition its slashing jaws to reach him.

“Hey!” Selene yelled, tossing another bone through the hole she’d made in her cell. It was enough to distract the dragon for a split second, long enough for Jason to race from between its legs and around the room. There was no good place to hide but he flattened himself against the wall beside Alex’s glass coffin.

Selene held up a meaty, rotting bone. “Come on. You want a snack? Come and get me!”

Nickelova struck at Selene, her snout bouncing off her own magical barrier. Jason’s eyebrows shot up. Nickelova’s dragon was not unlike his wolf. She was in there, for sure, but she didn’t have the same human consciousness.

Selene waved the bone while the dragon scratched against her own magic, then sniffed the edges of Selene’s cell, finding the hole she’d chiseled. Uh oh. The dragon dug its talons in, scratching and scraping at the opening until its snout could almost fit through the damn thing. If Jason didn’t do something, Selene’s might be the next set of bones on the pile.

Jason looked at the amulet around his neck, trying to will it to work. Nothing. He was on his own. “Hey, bitch! Anyone tell you that red makes you look bloated?” He waved his bone at the dragon. It worked. She turned from her Selene-under-glass dinner and stalked toward him, her wings flattening against her back.

Nickelova’s reptile eyes locked on Jason and she froze. He watched her neck undulate with rapid swallows, the space around her heart reddening with heat.

“Fuck me!” Jason ducked and ran just as the fire rained against the wall he’d been pressed against. Red heat swallowed Alex’s suspended body. A sharp crack marked a break in the barrier containing him, and Alex poured from the capsule onto the cave floor, slapping the rock like a dead fish. He did not move.

“Jason! This way. Climb through the hole,” Selene yelled, pointing at the opening to her cell. He ran for it, just as the fire stopped and the dragon’s wings pumped in an effort to pursue him. Nickelova’s dragon stepped over Alex’s body as if she didn’t even see him.

Jason dug his fingers into a crag above the hole and thrust his legs through, but his shoulders caught on the uneven surface. “Fuck, what a time to regret gaining the weight back!” He reached his arms out, trying his best to collapse his shoulders.

Selene yanked on his hips and jabbed at the stone around his shoulders. The dragon eyed him, jaws open. If Jason didn’t move, he’d have an upside-down, bent-backward view of his own death. He pushed against the stone, returning the way he’d come, and whirled to face the dragon’s teeth.

“Stop, Nickelova,” a low voice rasped from the center of the cave. The dragon’s head whipped around.

Alex glistened in the firelight, his long, dirty-blond curls wet and clinging to his shoulders. “Yeah, it’s me.”

The dragon roared. Nickelova seemed confused about the reunion. She scratched at the floor and sniffed the air around Alex. He held up his hands toward her.

“Throw me the amulet, Jason,” Alex said. “I’ll free you. Nickelova’s confused because I’m covered in her magic. She can’t smell what I am. But as soon as I’m dry, I’m dragon fodder and so are you.”

“Don’t trust him,” Selene said.

“Be reasonable, Jason. If she kills both of us, she’ll simply find another wolf to do her bidding. She’s always called the shots. She doesn’t need me to bring her plan to fruition and she doesn’t need you. I know how to use the amulet. I can save us both.”

“Bullshit. You’ve never cared for anyone but yourself,” Jason snapped.

Alex’s eyes drifted to him. “What about you? Do you care about that girl behind you? You may not trust me, but I promise you, the amulet is our only hope of survival, and I’m the only one of the three of us who knows how to use it.”

“And you promise to help us?” Jason said, eyeing the dragon.

The dragon snorted, a low growl rumbling behind the red and black glint of her scales.

“I promise. For the love of the goddess, our blood is my priority. We are both werewolves. We can work out our differences. Give me a chance to prove to you I’ve changed.”

Alex couldn’t be trusted. He was in league with the dragon, likely planning to give her the amulet in exchange for his own life. But as Selene crawled out of her prison behind him, Jason knew he couldn’t save her on his own.

And then the dragon stilled, its throat swallowing and its chest glowing red with burgeoning flames. “Jason! I’ve been locked in a jar for months. I’ll never outrun her. If you want to make it out of here alive, you’d best throw me that damned amulet!”

On impulse, Jason removed the amulet from his neck and tossed it to Alex.

“No!” Selene yelled from behind him. “What are you doing?”