Dragon Fever: Limited Edition Holiday Romance Boxset

by Serena Meadows

“They’ll bring the food to us when it’s ready,” she said, sitting down.

  Even as he sat, Ronan gazed around the small restaurant, watching the people as they dined or got up from their tables to leave. “May I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  He finally looked back at her eyes. “Why was Tank hitting you?”

  Because I stole a huge chunk of change from him and he wants it back. She couldn’t tell Ronan that, however, and shrugged. “I’m not doing drugs anymore,” she replied, “and he doesn’t like it that he lost a customer.”

  “What is this ‘doing drugs?’”

  Daryl felt an urge to laugh bubble up, but she swallowed it. “No hookers where you’re from and also no dope? You’ll have to let me in on the secret of your home town.”

  As he waited, patient, for her answer, Daryl finally shrugged. “My drug of choice was heroin,” she began, hoping the food would arrive quickly. She laid her arm on the table to show him her tracks, then pulled her arm back before anyone else could view them.

  “You see, when you start on that shit, whether its heroin, or meth, or crack, you get hooked. Addicted.” Daryl lowered her voice and her eyes. “Getting on it is easy. Getting off, not so much.”

  “How did you get off it?” he asked, and she recognized the kindness, the sympathy, in his tone.

  Flicking her gaze out over the deli, then back to the table, Daryl really wished he hadn’t asked. He saved your ass after all and deserves a little explanation. “I went to rehab,” she admitted. “A place where they help you get off drugs, or even alcohol. I knew I was screwing up my life, you see? So I got help.”

  Daryl scratched at her track marks, fighting the craving to get high, to feel the euphoria again, to lose herself in it. Her mouth dry, she went on. “They helped me get this job. I begged Hector to not rent my room out, to let me keep my things there while I was gone. He’s a good guy and did.”

  “That was kind of him.”

  “Yeah. So now I’m clean, and guys like Tank would rather see me back on drugs.”

  Ronan frowned slightly. “You say that these drugs are addicting?” he asked. “What happens when you don’t take them?”

  “Quitting cold turkey is difficult,” she replied, “and painful. When your body stops getting the heroin, or meth, it goes into a sort of shock. Not just craving it, badly; it can lead to all sorts of problems.” She smiled grimly. “The DTs are no fun at all.”

  “So, what does rehab do to get you off it?”

  “Other drugs that soften the symptoms make it more endurable. Then they slowly take you off those, and you’re drug-free. Except for the cravings. Those never go away.”

  Chapter Three

  Moaning in agony, Tank ran down the alley, fearing to look back. Intellectually, he knew the big dude with the freaky green eyes wasn’t chasing him, but his gut took no chances. Not in all the days since he’d joined a gang and fought his way to the top had he been this scared. It wasn’t just that he’d gotten his ass kicked—that had happened before, and he always got his own back.

  No, this was different. There was an inhuman menace about the green-eyed freak that made him nearly drop a load in his pants. The dude had broken Tank’s arm before Tank could even blink. And with a cold, almost casual attitude that he had never encountered before.

  His chest on fire, a stitch in his side, Tank finally stopped running. He had covered almost twelve blocks in his mad dash to get away from the terrifying guy who came out of nowhere and protected Daryl. “That bitch,” he muttered, panting, leaning against the wall of a building to catch his breath.

  Even as he quelled the stabbing fear in his gut, Tank realized he’d lose more than just face if word got out that he’d not just got his ass kicked, but he’d been disarmed and ran like a blubbering kid. Then every wannabe in town will challenge me. Even idiots like Flame will think I’m a pushover.

  Holding his throbbing right arm against his chest, Tank awkwardly pulled his cell phone from his pocket. There was one guy he trusted more than most—not with the knowledge that Tank ran away screaming, no one could ever know about that. But he could be trusted to get Tank to a hospital without risk of being stabbed in the back.

  Two-Bit answered on the second ring. “Hey, bro. Wassup?”

  “Dude, I’m in a fix.” Tank fought to get his breathing under control. “I need you to come get me.”

  “What happened?”

  “Hit by a fucking drunk driver,” Tank answered, sweat running down his face in rivers. He wiped it from his eyes on his shoulder. “I think my arm is busted.”

  “On my way, man. Where you at?”

  Tank glanced at the nearest street signs and told him, and then Two-Bit said, “Gotcha. Need t’ go t’ da hospital, bro?”

  “Yeah. Hurry, man.”

  “I will. See ya soon.”

  Tank clicked off, then shoved the cell back into his pocket. He closed his eyes, trying to get a handle on the horrible pain that still shot up from his arm to his shoulder and a sank a nasty spike in his belly. “I’ll kill you for this,” he muttered, “you and that silly bitch.”

  He planned to kill Daryl anyway; that little shit had stolen from him, and no one got away with that. But he couldn’t kill her until she told him where she had hidden the money. As he waited for Two-Bit, he spent the time speculating about where she might have taken it. If she was smart, and Tank knew she was, she’d have locked it in some public place like the airport or the bus terminal.

  “Grand Central Station,” he muttered. “Somewhere public. With tons of security.”

  That would make it harder to stop her if she were to go get it and skip town. That made sweat spring out of his pores again. He could have gotten the information from her that night had that freak not shown up when he did. “Sir Lancelot without his horse,” Tank sneered, watching the street for any sign of Two-Bit.

  Even at this hour, traffic hadn’t stopped or even slowed down, and people on foot ignored him as they walked past. A few hookers watched him nervously, but he didn’t pimp, nor was he interested in a blow job. Not right then, anyway.

  Two-Bit pulled up to the curb and leaned across the sedan’s front seat to open the door. Tank got into the passenger seat while Two-Bit eyed him with concern. “You look like shit, man,” he said.

  “Just drive,” Tank snapped, curt, closing the door awkwardly. “I’ll be fine once I get my arm fixed.”

  “You got it,” Two-Bit replied, not offended by Tank’s tone. “How’d ya get hit by a drunk?”

  Two-Bit pulled the sedan into traffic, heading down the busy avenue with his left arm cocked out the open window. “Saint Sebastian’s the nearest; dat okay?”

  “Yeah,” Tank answered. “I chased that bitch Daryl. She ran into traffic, and I got hit. Fucking drunk claimed he didn’t see me.”

  “Dat bites.”

  “She’ll get hers though,” Tank growled, sweating buckets from the pain. “She’s gonna die in agony.”

  “Get medieval on her ass,” Two-Bit said with a laugh.

  “Yep.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Two-Bit drove to the emergency entrance of Saint Sebastian’s hospital, and shortly after, Tank got X-rays taken of his arm. “Bad break,” the technician commented, reading the films on a lit screen.

  “Just get me fixed up,” Tank growled.

  At last, an ER doc numbed his arm, granting Tank much-needed relief. After it was set, the doc and a nurse plastered it in a cast, advising him on what to do and what not to do—advice Tank planned to ignore.

  “I’ll give you a prescription for some painkillers,” the doc told him.

  “Cool,” Tank replied, glad to not have to dig into his own product to alleviate his pain. Once the shot had worn off, he’d be hurting again.

  After paying for his treatment with the cash in his pocket and getting his prescription from the hospital’s pharmacy, Tank found Two-Bit where he had left him in the waiting room. Two-Bit, busy playing
a game on his phone, glanced up as Tank approached. “You good, man?”

  “Yeah. Run me over to Jack’s place.”

  “Sure.”

  Two-Bit put his phone away and walked with Tank out of the hospital. “Ya lose your piece?”

  “Had it in my hand when I was chasing Daryl,” Tank explained. “After I got hit, some yo-yo picked it up and ran off with it.”

  “Ain’t nuthin sacred anymore?”

  “Nope.”

  After purchasing a new but unidentifiable semi-automatic Glock from the weapons dealer, Tank had Two-Bit take him back to his apartment. “We got to find out where Daryl shacks up,” Tank told him, his pain creeping back in. “I couldn’t get to her while she was in rehab, too much security. Now that she’s out and clean, she’ll be harder to find.”

  “How’d ya find her tonight?”

  Tank barked a short laugh. “She was dumpster diving in an alley. I just scored a big sale, and there she was. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “If she just got out of rehab,” Two-Bit said thoughtfully, “they might’ve got her work somewhere. They usually do.”

  “Yeah. Spread the word. I want everyone we know keeping a lookout for her. Big reward for anyone who turns her over to me.”

  Chapter Four

  These drugs she’s talking about must be terrible if they can ruin a person’s life. Ronan observed her thinness, her gaunt cheeks, the near hopelessness in her blue eyes. Oh, he saw her trying to cover it with smiles, but deep down, he recognized how she walked a sharp edge between a chance at a new life and falling back into addiction.

  A young man in an apron arrived with their food and set it on the table in front of him. Ronan observed him gaze at Daryl with disdain, his nostrils flaring slightly as he smelled her rank odor, something Ronan had ceased paying attention to.

  But Daryl also saw his reaction to her and flushed with embarrassment, hunching her shoulders until she almost hid in her wealth of colorless hair. “I’m sorry,” she whispered after the young male had gone. “I should have showered first.”

  “Don’t apologize on my account,” Ronan told her with a smile. “Now eat. Don’t think I don’t know you haven’t had any food for a while.”

  She didn’t wait for a second invitation. Picking up her sandwich, she took a huge bite. As she gulped her meal, not talking, Ronan also began to eat. And he decided she certainly knew what she was talking about when it came to choosing what was good.

  “This is delicious,” he said, his own mouth full. “Good choice.”

  She nodded, smiling, and finally swallowed enough to ask, “How’d you know?”

  “I know hunger when I see it.”

  The side of salty chips was certainly new to him, as was the sweet drink she called Coke, and he liked them both. He noticed people at other tables watching her with disgust, and it made his already simmering anger rise higher. “What are you looking at?” he demanded.

  Perhaps they saw his size, the breadth of his shoulders, as well as the aura of menace he deliberately conveyed. One by one, they turned their faces away and focused on their food and companions. He glanced at Daryl, who didn’t meet his gaze and had stopped eating.

  “It’s okay, Ronan,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “They know what I am.”

  “Oh?” He refused to moderate his tone. “Are they looking at a nice young woman trying to get her life back together? Because that’s what I’m looking at.”

  Ronan didn’t care if his words brought the people some degree of shame, thus, he didn’t bother to look. “Eat, Daryl,” he told her. “You’re too thin, and I cannot abide by wasting food.”

  She picked up her sandwich but didn’t take a bite and finally met his eyes again. “I was dumpster diving when Tank found me earlier tonight,” she explained. “That’s why I stink. I was trying to find something to eat in the trash.”

  Clamping down hard on his rage, already close to an explosion, Ronan made himself count slowly to twenty. By the time he reached it, he felt calmer, but he couldn’t understand a society that couldn’t feed its own people. “I have a lot to learn about your New York, don’t I?”

  Daryl finally bit into her food again, gazing at him thoughtfully. “I think I’d like to learn about your home.”

  “I can’t tell you much.”

  “How come?”

  “It’s forbidden. I am—different, Daryl. Please don’t ask me to explain any more than that.”

  “That’s cool. If you hate waste so much, you better eat your own dinner.”

  Chuckling, he obeyed and finished his meal. “You will still show me around tomorrow?”

  “Sure. I’ll take you to the shops so you can replace the stuff that got stolen.”

  “Do you have a—vehicle?” he asked, suspecting he used the wrong word for the wheeled machines buzzing up and down the streets.

  Daryl made a face. “I did, but I sold it a while back. I have a bus pass, though, and we can take the bus. Or the train. I have to be to work at three, though.”

  “That’s fine.”

  He had no idea what sort of conveyance a bus or a train was, and decided not to ask. “What is your work?”

  “I restock shelves at a food market down the street,” she replied, picking up the last crumbs from her plate. “They treat me right and know I’m in recovery. I can’t ask for more than that.”

  Gazing at her, Ronan wondered at the tenacity it took to get clean, as she called it, to endure the suffering of withdrawal. To work to get her life back. “You must be very tough.”

  “No. If I were tough, I’d never have gotten in this predicament in the first place.”

  Leaving the deli, he walked beside her along the sidewalk, observing the vehicles passing along the street in either direction. He breathed in the noxious odor of their fumes, still unable to understand how humans could live this way.

  “Thanks for dinner,” Daryl said, gazing up at him. “You are really sweet.”

  He grinned. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been called sweet before.”

  “Believe me, you are. I know it when I see it.”

  Strolling back among the hookers, Ronan tried hard to hide his disgust and ignored their calls to him. What manner of male would hire their services? And why would they offer their bodies for sale? Females are to be cherished, not sold like chattel. They bring forth new life and keep the species alive.

  A skinny canine trotted along the walk toward them, pausing now and then to sniff in doorways and alcoves. It paid no heed to the hookers or other people sharing the walk with it, and no one seemed to be bothered by its presence. Yet, when it drew closer to Ronan and Daryl, it paused, staring.

  It clearly caught his scent, for the creature wheeled, yelping shrilly as though he had scalded it, fleeing in panic with its tail between its legs. The street women watched it run until it vanished, then their eyes gazed at Ronan with accusation.

  “That mutt sure didn’t like you,” Daryl observed, but she spoke lightly, without harsh judgment.

  “It’s scared of me.”

  “Because you’re different?”

  “Yes.”

  He expected her to ask more questions, but Daryl didn’t. In a silence that felt comfortable to Ronan, they entered the Saint George Hotel again. From behind his desk, Hector nodded politely, then went back to his reading. Out of earshot of him, Ronan asked, “Will Tank keep trying to hurt you?”

  Daryl glanced back at Hector as she climbed the stairs, then nodded. “Yeah. Once he gets his arm fixed up, he’ll start looking for us both.”

  “Does he know you live here?”

  “No, but it wouldn’t be that difficult to find me,” she answered, rubbing her arms as if cold. “If he’s determined to know where I live, then he’ll find it. He has contacts all over town.”

  Ronan jerked his thumb over his shoulder before they turned the corner to climb up another set of steps. “Folks like him would tell?”

  “Hector
might not, but Manny certainly would. But if Tank waved enough money under Hector’s nose, then he’d cave in, yes.”

  “Even he would have his breaking point,” Ronan commented.

  “Exactly.”

  Ronan opened his door with his key and glanced at Daryl. “I suppose this is good night, then.”

  “You supposed correctly.” She grinned. “Sleep tight, and don’t let the cockroaches bite.”

  “Thanks for that wonderful advice,” he replied, sardonic but smiling. “They may well have me for dinner.”

  “Somehow, I think you’re a match for any cockroach, Ronan.”

  She waggled her fingers at him, but he stayed in the doorway watching until she entered her room and closed the door behind her. Shutting his own, locking it, Ronan switched on the lights and tossed his key on the dresser. The gun taken from Tank followed it. With a sigh, he sat on the bed with nothing at all to do.

  Turning out the lights, he pulled the chair next to the window and opened the curtains. Staring out at the night, the vehicles driving by, with fewer and fewer pedestrians traveling down the sidewalk, Ronan considered leaving his room to fly for a while.

  “Too many out there who might see me,” he muttered. “I will, though. I will. I have to fly or go mad.”

  The lumpy mattress put an unwelcome kink in his back and an ache in his hip. Ronan hadn’t slept very well to begin with and relived his exile in his dreams. He and his four companions all ordered to leave the clans and fly south to live among the humans. Sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, he wondered where they were.

  “Good luck, lads,” he murmured. “May the moonlight shine upon your wings.”

  With a sigh, he stood up and padded into the bathroom. Clean towels hung on a rack, but their pristine whiteness had been tarnished with old stains, and he vowed to buy others. Under the hot spray of the shower, he stretched the kink from his back with an audible pop.

  He had barely dressed when a knock came at his door. Peering through the hole in it for that purpose, he found Daryl out there. Opening it, he looked at a very different girl than he met the previous night, and he gaped.