Dragon Fever: Limited Edition Holiday Romance Boxset

by Serena Meadows

  “Everyone, head for the top floors,” Kane suddenly bellowed. “Snowman and Nasty are using this as a distraction, to cut us from one another, throw us into chaos.”

  “They sure did a damn fine job of it, too,” Jude snarled.

  Again, Neil heard clicks in his ear and froze. A voice he had never heard before chilled his blood. His heart raced, thudding against his ribs. He recognized that accent, oh, yes, that thick Russian accent he knew he would despise for the rest of his life.

  “You assassins will stop now,” Snowman said calmly, clearly. “We have your women hostage. You leave now, and they will not be harmed. You let me and Mr. Moon go, and they will not be harmed.”

  Neil stared into Jordan’s eyes, seeing the blood lust replace the fear, the terror. He expected Ronan to scream invectives, threats, but he remained silent, as did the rest of Neil’s friends.

  “Do you hear me?” Snowman went on. “Acknowledge, please.”

  “We got you, you Russian filth.” Kane’s voice, low and thick, promised death. “You harm them, and you will not leave this hotel alive.”

  “I do not wish them harm,” Bobrovsky replied, still weirdly calm considering he faced dragons who wanted his blood. “You retreat, I leave them unharmed at the airport.”

  “We will comply with your wishes.”

  “I have eyes in the lobby,” Snowman continued. “They must see you depart. Once I am told you have left the Burj Khalifa, my comrades and I will also leave. With your women.”

  “We need time to get our things.” Kane’s voice sounded defeated, small even. Neil shivered to hear it.

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Everyone.” Kane’s voice came brisk, steady, over the airwaves. “You heard the man. Retreat. Back off. We lost the game.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jude

  We lost the game.

  Through Drake’s wild cursing, Jude remained strangely calm, thinking clearly despite the threat to Natalie’s life. Ignoring Drake’s attempts to punch holes in the walls, he realized that Kane certainly had not given up. We lost the game. This was never a game to Kane, nor would he ever back down from a fight.

  He had a plan.

  “Shut up,” Jude hissed, glaring at Drake. “Where was Kane’s last location?”

  Drake groaned, a grieved sound, and leaned against the wall. “One floor down from ours.”

  Jude punched the floor number in the elevator. “We aren’t done yet, brother mine. We’ll get our mates back, and Snowman will burn.”

  Drake clenched his fists, his face tight with pain and anguish. Yet he nodded. “Okay. We’ll get them back.”

  “You and me. We’re gonna do this. But you gotta stay calm, focused. You can’t go flying around without a plan in mind, flaming anything that moves. Are you with me?”

  For a long moment, as the elevator slid smoothly down, Drake drew in a deep, ragged breath. One after another until he visibly relaxed, and his fists unclenched. “Yeah. I’m with you, bro.”

  “Good.”

  When the doors opened, Jude and Drake stepped out cautiously, expecting Snowman’s goons to start shooting. Kane, his clothes bloody, his face grim, stepped out from around the corner, Taylor’s hand in his. Ronan and an equally bloody Daryl, her face tight with pain and determination, strode out behind them.

  “We go back up, get our stuff,” Kane said, his voice grim. “We walk out, get in the limo waiting for us.”

  “But—” Drake began.

  “Do as you’re ordered, soldier!” Kane barked.

  Jude stared, now certain that Kane had something in mind, and that Snowman was still listening. His eyes met Drake’s in a weird sort of humor, then they entered the elevator again. Kane’s expression gave nothing away as they rode up the single floor to meet up with Neil and Jordan. Neither Neil nor Jordan spoke as they went back to their rooms.

  “Pack up,” Kane ordered. “The man gave us ten minutes.”

  Neil and Jordan peeled away to grab their things, while Jude and Drake watched as Ronan and Daryl did the same. “I don’t know where security is,” Kane muttered. “They should be all over this place.”

  Even as he spoke, his eyes met Jude’s, then shifted to Drake’s. His fingers moved in a weird sign language. Yet, it grew clear what he meant. You two fly up to the top and scare them down. Rescue Emily and Natalie. Then join us as we drive these bastards into the desert and burn them.

  “I got everything, boss,” Neil said.

  Jude noted that he carried his pack, as well as the high-powered rifle case. Jordan, her expression grimly humored, also watched as Neil received his instructions via finger and hand movements. He nodded, then kissed Jordan.

  “Good,” Kane intoned as Ronan and Daryl also reappeared, both carrying their packs and a satchel each. “Our time is almost up. Let’s go.”

  As Kane led the others to the elevator and punched the down button, Jude went to another, and punched the up. Meeting Kane’s eyes again, he caught his approving gaze and his nod. Then he mouthed, Burn them. Pulling his earpiece from his ear, Jude dropped it to the floor and stepped on it. Then he handed Kane his radio.

  Drake, his expression fiercely exultant, followed suit. “We’ll give you time to get to the limo,” Drake whispered. “If we succeed, they’ll be running for their lives, and we’ll follow you.”

  Kane gestured as the elevator doors slid open. Good luck.

  Seeing their elevator going up had arrived, Jude walked toward it as the doors hissed closed behind his friends. Drake joined him inside, and Jude punched the button for the very top. “I want sooo much to tear them apart,” Drake snarled.

  “I know.” Jude smiled gently. “But think of the terror they’ll feel as we chase them into the desert. To see dragons flying behind them, knowing they cannot escape.”

  Drake grinned.

  Drake

  Scare them, don’t kill them. Scare them, don’t kill them.

  Repeating the mantra over and over, Drake calmed the urge to taste Snowman’s blood in his mouth, to feel his hot, wet gore splashing over his muzzle as the man’s dying screams were choked off between his jaws. Only Emily is important right now.

  “Drake?”

  Opening his eyes, Drake eyed Jude. “I’m all right, don’t worry. I’m in control, brother.”

  “You had me scared.”

  “Sorry.”

  Raising his eyes to the numbers of floors ticking past, he found they had a few more to go.

  “How do you want to go in?” Jude asked.

  “We break the glass first,” Drake answered. “That’ll freak them out.”

  “And will give them time to shoot Emily and Natalie.”

  “Not if I go in headfirst and flaming.”

  Jude frowned. “That’ll cut you to pieces.”

  Shrugging, Drake watched the numbers pass. “Here we go.”

  The doors whispered open, and Drake took a long look at the maintenance equipment lying around, the crates and boxes along with the gear needed for the maintenance crews to attach themselves to the spire without being killed.

  “So just anyone can get up here?” Drake snorted in annoyance, then headed for the small door that was still open from Kane and Ronan’s escapade less than an hour past.

  “I imagine there are blocks on the elevators,” Jude replied, walking toward the doorway, “but either we got lucky or Kane’s pal did something extra for him.”

  Drake went to the door and looked out and down. The ground was very far away, the cars on the roads below the size of ants. The fierce wind tossed his hair into his eyes, and he impatiently threw it back. “How long do we wait?”

  Jude stood beside him, looking at the vast expanse of empty space below their feet, the wind forcing him to sway back and forth. “You ever flown this high before, dude?”

  “Nope. Not that I remember, anyway.”

  “Me neither.”

  In silence, they waited, giving Kane and the others time
to get into position. Once they dropped from that incredible height and shifted into winged beasts, they needed only a few minutes with which to rescue Emily and Natalie. “If they hurt those girls…”

  Drake’s voice trailed off into a low growl.

  “Then they are dead. Right now. I want you to pull a Ronan, and cling to the ledge. See if you can see where the girls are in relation to the others.”

  “You got it.”

  “We fly.”

  Jude threw himself into empty space, his arms spread wide, and then he fell, dropping like a rock. Drake watched for a moment, wondering why he waited before changing. Then Jude shifted, and his dragon soared around the tower to vanish from Drake’s sight.

  The wind blew tears into his eyes as Drake flung himself from the tower. He, too, plummeted several stories before shifting, his dragon wings carrying him safely upward, beating strongly to fight the wind at this altitude. He found Jude circling the topmost spire, who then pointed with his talon at the windows below.

  Also circling, Drake counted down the stories until he reached the suite where he, Emily, Jude, and Natalie had laughed and dined not long before. The drapes were closed. Good. They won’t see me coming. Clinging like a bat with his talons, his wings spread to help him remain balanced, Drake peered under the drapes.

  He saw feet.

  Women’s feet as the women who owned them sat in chairs to the right of his position. He recognized Emily’s sneakers. Good. A man’s pair of black shoes with trousers paced away from them, and he saw no others. Listening hard, he tried to hear what was being said.

  Shit, they’re talking in Russian or Korean or alien gobbledygook. Does me no fucking good. Drake heard nothing from either Emily or Natalie. Okay, girls, cover your eyes. Drake dropped from the narrow lip into freefall, then beat his wings until he climbed higher and met up with Jude. He signaled that he was going in, and dove.

  With Jude on his tail, Drake lined himself up at the window and folded his wings. At the last second, he closed his own eyes to protect them from the shattering glass, then hit the tower hard enough to rock the spire. The glass shattered, yet he felt gashes open up on his head, shoulders, wings, and flanks.

  But he was in.

  Charging forward, hissing like a demented serpent, Drake sent a long thin streak of flame at the nearest man with a gun. His fire struck the guard’s hand, forcing him to drop the gun before he could shoot either Emily or Natalie.

  Screams met his invasion.

  Hissing again, Drake watched as Bobrovsky and Moon panicked. Their eyes bulged from their heads, their flesh paling to a pasty white, and they clutched one another like frightened children in a thunderstorm. He advanced toward them, hissing, his reptilian forked tongue lashing from between his jaws.

  Shrieking in terror, they bolted for the door, their lieutenants and bodyguards behind them.

  It hurt Drake to let them go. Yet, he did it.

  Turning his head, he saw Jude land just inside the suite, the billowing drapes covering his back half. Drake looked further to his left, and his gaze met Emily’s.

  Tied to the chair, a gag in her mouth, her eyes crinkled upward in a muted grin. Behind the gag, he heard her smothered laughter and paced toward her. Jude beat him to the women, towering over Natalie as she stared upward into his face, and Drake thought he heard her laughter as well.

  Drake shifted at almost the same time as Jude.

  He untied the gag first, and his mouth pressed down on Emily’s with a savage hunger. He kissed her with all his pent-up feelings, his rage, his relief, his grief at the thought of losing her. For her part, Emily met his passion with her own, her returning kiss as hungry as his.

  As he untied the ropes that bound her to the chair, smiling into her beautiful blue eyes, he murmured, “You laughed, eh?”

  “I just adore how you make an entrance.”

  Freed from the chair, Emily threw her arms around him. Behind him, he heard Jude untying Natalie, and Natalie’s long groan as she hugged Jude tightly to her.

  “I knew you’d blast through the window,” Natalie murmured. “We tried to make sure we were out of your way.”

  Emily suddenly retreated from Drake, staring at first him, then at the blood on her hands and arms. “You’re hurt. Drake, what—”

  Drake shushed her with another kiss. “I’m all right,” he murmured. “Don’t worry about me now. Jude and I have to fly in a minute, so get yourself back to our rooms. Stay there. You have your guns?”

  Emily glanced around, but it was Natalie who plucked them from a table on the far side of the suite. “Now we do.”

  “We’re going after these assholes,” Jude said, his hands in Natalie’s fiery hair. “Be cautious going down, but go to Emily’s room, and do not answer the door. Not for anyone except us.”

  “I wish we were going with you,” Emily said softly.

  “I wish that, too,” Drake replied, equally quiet. “But the risk of you getting killed from falling from my back isn’t one I’m going to take.”

  “Be careful,” Natalie said as Drake and Jude edged toward the shattered window.

  “Come back soon,” Emily added.

  Without answering them, Drake and Jude dove out the window side by side.

  Neil

  Hustling across the lobby behind Kane, Taylor, Ronan, and Daryl, Neil held the rifle case in one hand, Jordan’s in another. Though they no longer had radios that Snowman could listen in on, none of them spoke. He guessed that Drake and Jude had done their work, scared Snowman, Nasty, and their men into fleeing the hotel. But they were still being watched.

  Outside in the hot desert heat, Neil peeled away from the others and headed for the hotel across the street. He regretted not saying goodbye to Jordan, but as they’d be separated by only a few minutes anyway, he didn’t regret it. He watched them stride quickly toward the waiting limousine a short distance away, the driver leaning against his door with his arms crossed.

  Neil didn’t see them get into it. He crossed the busy street at a jog-trot that hurt his head, but he ignored the pain as he entered the hotel’s parking structure. He rushed up the steps, fearing he was too slow, he’d not get there in time. Panting, out of breath, he reached the top and loped across to the edge nearest the Burj Khalifa.

  The limo was still there, the driver walking back to the hotel entrance with his hands in his pockets. People in flowing traditional robes, in the garb of different countries, in simple American t-shirts and shorts, came and went from the front doors amid the bellhops, chauffeurs, and hotel greeters. Opening the case, Neil assembled the rifle and attached the scope.

  Then he plugged in several shells. Lifting the big gun to his shoulder, he peered through the scope. The people down there appeared as large in his sights as if his eyes were inches from them. Scanning the crowd, he didn’t see his targets.

  A moment later, he did.

  Neil hoisted the rifle, staring down into Snowman’s frantic face as he yelled for something, a car perhaps. Nasty’s half-moon birthmark showed up clear in the scope’s sight. The lieutenants appeared nearly as fear maddened as their masters, and the bodyguards looked ready to shit themselves in Neil’s amused opinion.

  “Bang,” Neil whispered.

  A black limousine pulled smoothly to the curb, and one of the guards ran around to the driver’s door to yank the liveried chauffeur out. The man protested, yet Neil could not hear what he said. But before the guard could take the driver’s place, Neil shot him through the head.

  Like a watermelon dropped from a height, his head burst in a shower of crimson blood. The chauffeur bolted, and then Neil sighted down the rifle to the North Korean bodyguard. His face suddenly shattered, his blood spattering on Snowman and Nasty as their mouths dropped in shock and horror.

  All around, people scattered. Neil heard their distant screams as he gazed at the dictators through the scope. They gaped, as though having no idea what to do. Neil wanted so much to kill them right then and there
, but he had done what he was supposed to do. He would assist in their deaths, but it would not be by bullets.

  Snowman lunged into the front seat while Nasty crawled into the back. One of the lieutenants ran around to the open driver’s door and got in while the other hurled himself across the limo’s hood to get to the other side and through the other rear door. He had barely gotten inside when the limo screamed from the curb and roared down the street.

  Neil took the rifle apart and returned it to its case. A quick glance below showed him that Kane’s limo also roared in the wake of the other. Clipping the hasps closed, Neil stared upward, shading his eyes with his hand. He saw them easily. Two winged shapes against the blue sky wheeling away from the Burj Khalifa’s tall spire.

  Shifting his form, Neil picked up the rifle case and launched himself skyward. Somewhat hidden by the Dubai Mall and other skyscrapers in the vicinity, he rapidly gained altitude and followed the speeding limos.

  Kane

  “And they’re off.”

  Putting the limo in drive, Kane sped on the tail of Snowman and Nasty, keeping them firmly in sight. Forced to dodge slower vehicles, he tossed his passengers about the big car like dolls. “Sorry.”

  “Y’all have your seatbelts on?” Taylor asked from the front seat beside him.

  “Is he planning to wreck?” Daryl returned tartly.

  “You know, he hasn’t driven much, especially at high speed.”

  Daryl fastened her seatbelt and glowered into the rearview mirror. “Step on it.”

  Kane did.

  Catching up to the other limo, Kane drove at its side, trying to peer into the heavily tinted windows. “I hope they know it’s us,” he commented.

  When the limo containing the two dictators suddenly made a right turn down a wide lane almost empty of cars, Ronan replied, “Yup. They do.”

  “Oh, good. Does anyone see Drake, Neil, or Jude?”