Agony tore through him. It was too soon to transform back, too dangerous for both his existences, too soon for his injured human body, but he had to. The broken bones of his human shoulder—on their way to being healed—snapped again, scraping against each other, gouging into his muscles as the retransformation began.
A shower of brick dust and mortar peppered down on him as a crossbow bolt speared into the wall near his head.
Ari screeched, the sound becoming a scream as the change from dragon to human tortured him.
And then he stood human again, naked, bleeding and disorientated.
He staggered sideways once, bare feet tangling, his body fighting for equilibrium. His heart—human once again—thumped fast and hard in his throat. His shoulder burned in pain.
“Goddamn it!” Colin snarled behind him, a heartbeat before the unmistakable thawk of a fired crossbow pulsed through the air.
Ari spun, shoulders bunched, teeth clenched, and deflected the bolt as it skimmed his temple.
“Crap!” Colin yelped, scrambling backward.
Ari ran at him.
With another yelp, the dragon hunter turned and fled.
Ari caught him, slamming his broken shoulder into the small of Colin’s back. Black pain erupted through him and his head swam with swirls of agony as they hit the ground.
“Get off me!” Colin wailed, bucking and thrashing.
Ari lurched up and staggered back a step, head still a swirling fog of pain, as Colin jumped to his feet and swung the crossbow about like a sword.
Ari blocked the wild blow with a grunt, pain lancing from his broken bones down his arm and rib cage.
Shutting it out, he smashed his other fist into the frantic dragon hunter’s jaw, his nose, his mouth. Driving him to the ground, pinning him there with his weight.
Colin gibbered and squealed and bucked, legs and arms flailing. The limb of the crossbow connected with Ari’s shoulder, and he roared, white-hot pain clouding his vision for a sickening moment.
Ari!
Jilly’s scream splintered his mind.
His vision cleared, just as Colin slammed the foregrip of the crossbow up into his chin.
Ari reeled backward, but immediately threw himself at Colin.
The dragon hunter may have been a woeful archer, but he was a scrappy fighter. He punched at Ari, smashing his crossbow into his head and shoulder over and over. It took Ari every ounce of control to stop shifting again. His dragon wanted nothing more than to turn the hunter to ash.
The wet smack of flesh hitting flesh bounced off the towering walls. The coppery scent of blood—Ari’s and Colin’s—tainted every breath Ari pulled. Beyond the alley, traffic moved, car horns sounded.
“I’m going…to kill you,” the dragon hunter snarled, eyes wild and wide as he fought against Ari.
“I’m going to fucking eat you,” Ari growled back, blocking another frenzied blow of Colin’s crossbow.
Terror flooded Colin’s face. He bucked. Thrashed.
Drawing on his inner fury, Ari smashed his fist into Colin’s nose, striking him with an inferno blast of concentrated rage at the same time.
Colin went limp on the ground, breaths shallow, eyes rolling, skin blistered.
“Stay down,” Ari muttered, planting his palm on the unconscious man’s chest and shoving himself to his feet. Rubbing at his shoulder, he scanned the alley, hoping to hell they were still alone.
Yep. Good. No one had wandered near. Hopefully they were deep enough in the alley’s bowels that their fight had gone unnoticed from the street.
Turning his gaze to his bike—lying on its side a few feet away—he bit back a groan. The Harley’s front wheel and axle were twisted into an obscene pretzel, gasoline leaked from the ruptured tank, and the clutch lever was completely AWOL.
“Fuck.” He loved that bike.
Scowling at Colin, he shook his head. “You’re a lucky fucking bastard.” He reached down to snatch up the unconscious Extraho Venator’s crossbow. “I haven’t got time to finish this properly, or you’d be in a world of pain. But I will. Later. Once I’ve found Jilly.”
As his Fire Mate’s name formed on his tongue, the ravenous sexual hunger of the mating fire flared within him.
They were running out of time. He needed to find her. They needed to be together before any hope of him controlling his dragon was destroyed.
He let out a ragged breath, glancing back at his bike. His clothes had been shredded in the wild shift from human to dragon. He could see the scraps of his leather pants and vest scattered on the ground near his broken hog.
“Fuck,” he repeated. “Again.”
Bile broiling through him, he dropped Colin a quick grimace. “Gonna need your clothes.”
He stripped the inert dragon hunter of his jeans and shirt with inhuman speed. Colin’s jeans stretched to their limits over Ari’s legs and the shirt didn’t fit. Not even close. Neither did Colin’s shoes.
Ari grunted, tossing a loafer over his shoulder. Okay, so he was going shirtless and shoeless.
“I am so going to make you pay for this,” he growled, staring at Colin for a heartbeat before lifting his face to the sky. “After I save Jilly.”
Jilly. He needed to find her.
The faintest hint of golden life and warmth danced on his awareness. He heard her voice whisper his name.
Ari.
Good. Garrison hadn’t been able to hide her from him again.
Lowering his gaze to the alley, he scanned the ground for his mobile phone.
There. “Thank bloody God for small favors,” he muttered, striding over to where his iPhone sat amongst a pile of litter. Its screen was cracked, but that seemed to be it. Luck was on his side. He’d carry Colin back to the safe house, throw him into the lockdown room, let Tyson Conley know what had gone down and then—
“The druid,” Colin mumbled behind him.
Ari swung around, heart wild.
The hunter looked up at him, eyes unfocused. “She’s the dru…”
The word dissolved into silence as Colin’s eyes closed.
Ari grabbed his shoulder. “She’s the druid’s what?” He shook him, grinding his teeth when Colin stubbornly refused to regain consciousness. “Where are they? Where—”
“Hey!” a shocked male voice shouted. “What’s going on down there? What are you doing to that guy?”
“Damn it.” Ari straightened to his feet, scowled at the two men gaping at him from the mouth of the alley, hauled Colin up onto his non-shattered shoulder and ran.
Faster than any human could run.
He’d get his bike later.
Arriving at the safe house what felt like an eternity later, aching, exhausted and angry as all hell, he deactivated the lock with a press of his palm on the bio-scan security panel.
The urge to find Jilly, to get to her now, burned through him, as did the rising urgency of the mating fire. He fought against it. These precious minutes would allow him to rein in some of the instability of his violent shifts and give his shoulder a chance to heal.
Whatever Garrison was planning, the bastard wasn’t going to be just sitting around twiddling his thumbs. Ari had no doubt he’d need to be fully healed and in control before the confrontation.
If he wasn’t, Jilly’s life could be in jeopardy.
He stepped into the building, locked the door behind him and hurried to the lockdown room. Wincing at the pain in his shoulder, he dumped the unconscious Colin on the floor, tapped out a text to Tyson on his slightly damaged iPhone, and then hurried to the bathroom and the lockers kept there. In them were a variety of items any dragon shifter finding themselves away from home and in a perilous situation might need. For Ari, that was a pair of boots and clothes in his size.
He knew they were there because he kept Sydney’s safe houses fully stocked for just such an occasion. He never would’ve thought he’d be one of the dragons using the facilities.
“I’m never going to live this down,�
�� he muttered, opening one of the lockers.
The second word got out, every dragon shifter in Sydney—and quite possibly Australia—would give him a hard time. The jokes would be coming for years.
Changing into a pair of black camo cargos, army boots and a plain black T-shirt, he thought of every one of the dragon shifters he’d rebuked in the past for their indiscretions and dangerous behavior.
A wry chuckle tore at the back of his throat. Yeah, he seriously wasn’t looking forward to this getting out.
Damn it, who was going to clean up his mess?
“If Conley gets Windemeer to do it,” he growled, snatching up his phone, “I’m going to spit.”
Sydney’s beta Cleaner would dine out on this for years. Centuries. Ari was never going to live it down.
Ever.
Windemeer was a nice buy, but he’d been gunning to be the area’s top Cleaner ever since he’d moved to Sydney. Finding out Ari was responsible for—
Ari’s phone burst to life in his hand; the theme from Jaws reverberating around the cavernous safe house.
“Great.” He flicked a glance at the image of Tyson Conley now on its screen and then jabbed the Deny button.
No doubt, the alpha had discovered things were going…awry. No doubt he wanted answers.
Grinding his teeth, Ari shoved his phone into his pocket and let out a shaky sigh. He didn’t have time for answers. Tyson would have to wait. All that mattered now was finding Jilly and Garrison.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated on his Fire Mate’s existence. Focused on the thread of life and warmth and golden heat she’d awakened inside him.
It flared hot. And close. Closer than he’d hoped. Or expected.
An image of Garrison filled his mind, the druid’s face bloodied, one eye blackened and bruised.
The dragon’s not coming for you, Jilly, his voice snarled in Ari’s head, the words thick with rage. I made sure of that.
Ari opened his eyes and grinned. “Wanna bet, fucker?”
He turned and sprinted for the safe house door.
5
She really needed to go back to karate lessons.
Squirming against the ropes binding her wrists and ankles together, Jilly kept her gaze on Derek.
He paced back and forth in front of her, muttering under his breath. Oh boy, she’d never seen him so riled up.
The fact she’d quite possibly broken his nose in her wild attempt to stop him from blowing that weird dust shit at her again probably hadn’t helped. It was, however, a salve of sorts to the fact said attempt to stop him had failed. Spectacularly.
Karate lessons were definitely in her future after this.
Of course, that was assuming she had a future after this.
The bleak suspicion her short and far-from-illustrious life was drawing close to its end tormented her. She ground her teeth, drawing in a long, slow breath.
Seriously, just what the hell was going on?
The peculiar chanting that insisted on filling her head had fallen silent. And she also felt strangely calm, despite her irritation with the situation.
She should be terrified. She should be a blubbering mess, begging Derek to not hurt her, pleading with him to let her go. Promising she would do whatever he wanted if he would only untie her.
Instead, she sat on the hard wooden chair he’d placed her on, pondering the tension in the rope around her ankles and wrist, and vexed by the fact she sometimes heard chanting in her head, that she still had no freaking clue who Ari was, nor why every fiber in her body told her that he was the reason for her existence.
If Derek was correct about her pagan ancestors, it must have something to do with that. Surely?
Maybe her contact with Ari had awakened some kind of past-life memory in her?
Or maybe she was just going insane.
Her stomach knotted, and she strained against the ropes again.
Throughout her surreal imprisonment with Derek, she could have sworn she kept feeling Ari in her head, the man who should be a stranger to her but for some reason wasn’t.
More than once, she felt rage not belonging to her. She’d heard his voice snarl something that sounded like Latin. Extraho Vene-something or other.
Then, while in the middle of smashing her fist as hard as she could against Derek’s nose—a nose she’d covered in ice cream one afternoon when they were hanging out, just to make him laugh—the sound of screeching tires and crunching metal tore through her head a fraction of a second before her shoulder erupted in pain.
There had been no reason for the sudden agony in her bones, but it had incapacitated her. She’d fallen to the ground, crying out.
Derek had taken advantage of the moment and overpowered her.
If this thing she shared with Arriman Drake was responsible for that little moment of pain and weakening disorientation, she was going to kick his arse if she saw him again.
After she kissed him stupid.
Regardless of it all, she still hungered for him like he was her only source of life.
Although, to be honest, that craving seemed to be fading right along with her fear.
“I did not want it to come to this, Jilly.”
She arched her eyebrows at Derek, unable to stop her contemptuous grunt. “Really? This isn’t how you seduce all your prisoners?”
A scowl twisted his lips. “You are not my prisoner. You are my life. My love. My everything. We’re meant to be together.”
Jilly wriggled on the seat. “Ari told me the same thing.”
Derek’s jaw bunched.
“You know what the difference between you and him is?” she said. “I wasn’t tied up and convinced he was going to hurt me when he said it.”
Eyes dark with an emotion she couldn’t decipher, Derek touched the swollen ridge of his bleeding nose. “I would never hurt you, Jilly. The dragon? He will hurt you. I will worship you.”
“I don’t want to be worshipped.”
“Yes, you do. And if you don’t, you will.”
A disquieting tension curled in Jilly’s stomach. She chewed her lip, studying her best friend.
Friend? Really?
“Do you know what the other difference is between you and Ari, Derek?” she said, her throat tight and dry. Her heart slammed faster against her breastbone.
He looked at her, frenzied energy radiating off him.
“I wanted Ari to fuck me after he told me we were meant to be together,” she finished.
She didn’t know why she was goading him. Perhaps she truly had gone insane?
Derek’s nostrils flared. His hands balled into fists at his sides. That dark emotion in his eyes grew cold.
Without a word, he turned and strode from the room and into the darkness of the rest of the house. Was it a house? Jilly didn’t actually know. She’d yet to see anything beyond this one room, illuminated by its lone lamp.
The distinct sound of glass chinking wafted out of the shadows, followed by the sound of running water.
Although this time, Jilly noticed it sounded not like a faucet running and more like something else. Liquid being poured from one container into another, perhaps?
She tested the ropes on her ankles and wrists again.
Just as tight as before. It seemed Derek tied knots as well as he decorated cakes—better than anyone else in Sydney.
Closing her eyes, she let her mind drift, seeking out the connection with Ari. She knew so little about him, and yet he was more important to her than breath.
Fire Mate. He’d called you his Fire Mate. Said you were destined to be together.
She’d thought him crazy at the time, even as every word had rung true. She’d been scared of him, and of the sexual hunger for him that had consumed her.
Fire Mate. Her Fire Mate. Where was he? Was he looking for her? Could he feel her like she felt him? Was that part of the magic of which he spoke?
Ari.
She sensed him, or what she thought was him—strength an
d danger and ancient heat and a feeling of weightlessness.
“I can destroy the magic binding you to him.”
Derek’s declaration came back to her, cold and confident. She swallowed, the thought of severing the connection making her sick. Which was ridiculous, given how freaked out she’d been when it had first consumed her.
“If only I could really understand what the hell was going on,” she muttered, opening her eyes to glare at the ropes binding her wrists.
“You don’t need to understand, Jilly,” Derek said, his voice calm.
She looked up to see him standing before her, before turning her glare on the glass in his hand. “I’m not drinking that.”
It looked like water. She didn’t need to taste it to know otherwise.
Derek smiled, smoothed his palm up her throat and cupped her chin with firm fingers. He drew his head down to hers. “Yes,” he whispered. “You are. Trust me. It will make everything the way it’s meant to be.”
Before she could digest the threat in his statement, Derek dug his fingers into her cheeks and pried open her mouth with painful pressure.
She thrashed on the seat, flinging her head from side to side as much as she could.
“Stop it, Jilly,” he admonished, his grip on her chin growing tighter, more painful, until she couldn’t move her head at all. He pressed his knee to her belly, pinning her to the chair. His breath fanned her face in hot pants. The room’s cold air filled her mouth. “This will save you.”
He lifted the glass, his gaze moving to her lips.
She stared up at him, tears stinging her eyes, and fought to seal her lips together.
Oh God, please don’t, please don’t. Oh God, Ari, help, help…
“I love you, Jilly,” Derek whispered.
Warm liquid flowed into her mouth, over her tongue, down her throat. A steady trickle of vile, bitter fluid.
She gagged, writhing between Derek’s knee and the chair. Her stomach lurched. Tears burned her cheeks.
“And soon,” Derek drew his head closer to hers, shifting his grip on her chin to slam her mouth shut, “you’ll love me the way you’re meant to.”
He shoved her head backward, holding her that way.
She struggled against him, even as the foul drink flowed down her throat.
Dragon, Interrupted (Fire Mates Book 5) Page 6