by Sophie Stern
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, but Holly told herself that didn’t matter. None of it did. The only thing she had to do was tell him what she knew. Then everything would be okay.
“My name is Holly Parcell,” she said quietly, and when Emerson shrugged, she spoke a bit more loudly.
This was no different than making her voice heard at work.
She’d been around big men before and she’d had no trouble bossing them around, telling them how to work their computer equipment, telling them what she expected from them. This was no different. She was going to speak up and they were going to listen to her because she was a fucking badass.
“I work for a technological company that designs flash drives,” she explained. “Sometimes people have trouble with a product and bring it in.”
“Like you work at Good Buy?”
“No, I don’t work at Good Buy. I work for the flash drive company that sells drives to Good Buy.”
“All right, all right. Get to the point,” Emerson said.
Colton and Anthony remained quiet. Colton’s eyes burned into her back, but she thought he was rooting for her. She thought he was supporting her. He thought she could do this, and that made her believe in herself a little bit more.
“Three days ago, someone came in with a flash drive they claimed had sensitive information on it. The drive had been water damaged. They’d accidentally spilled a drink on it and wanted me to try to retrieve the information as discreetly as possible before their boss found out. It was just a grunt who came in, just a messenger or low-level employee who was supposed to deliver the flash drive to another employee.”
“And were you able to retrieve the data?” Emerson asked, suddenly paying a bit more attention.
“I was,” she said. “The drive was for a man called Robin Barker.”
“Fuck!” Emerson said, standing up, slapping his hands on the desk.
“Um, did I miss something?” Colton asked.
“Robin Barker is the leader of Deragon,” Anthony said quietly, and Holly felt the air in the room shift. It changed. It got colder.
“I didn’t know what it was,” she said, “so I did some searching online, and I found out who they are. Poachers. They’re fucking dragon poachers.”
Holly took a deep breath because this was the part that scared her.
“The stuff that was on that drive, sir, it was bad. They have this company and they pretend they’re doing cancer research and maybe they are, but they’re using dragon blood to do it. They’re hunting dragons, and they know about Dragon Isle.”
“Do you have the drive?” Emerson asked. He looked like he was obviously trying to stay calm.
“I made a copy and deleted everything off the original,” she said. “I gave the original back to the client and told him I couldn’t salvage anything. I assume they’ll come after me at some point. He wrote down my name and I think he took a picture of me with his phone while I was working on the drive, but I had to try.”
She fished the precious flash drive out of her pocket and handed it over to Emerson.
“What else do I need to know?” Emerson said curtly. “Why did you wait three days to come here? Why didn’t you tell Liam at the docks?”
“I didn’t wait three days,” she said. “It took me three days to get here because I couldn’t figure out where the island was. I had to call all of my shifter friends and beg them for information. Finally, I was able to piece together enough information to find it. I didn’t tell Liam because I didn’t know him or trust him, and this is too big to risk. I had to tell you directly, sir. I had to tell you because they’re going to strike at Dragongala.”
“Okay, does someone want to tell me what that is?” Colton said. His voice was definitely a growl this time.
“It’s a ball the girls are hosting tonight at Kade’s mansion,” Anthony told him. “We’re planning on having another one at my place once the renovations at my dungeon are complete.”
“Dungeon?” Holly squeaked out, but Anthony ignored her.
“There are going to be a lot of dragons there tonight,” Anthony continued, “but I have to tell you, security is good. We have a good team. It’s solid. I picked every person myself.”
“But you didn’t pick all of the construction workers,” Holly said, turning to him. “And that’s how they’re getting in.”
“We haven’t started renovations at my place yet,” Anthony looked confused. “That’s why Colton is here. He came to advise me on what I need to have done and what the best options are for utilizing my space.”
“You haven’t, but Kade has,” Holly said. She pointed at the flash drive, which Emerson had plugged into his computer. “According to that, he had some workers come in and make additions to his place two weeks ago so it would be in perfect shape for the gala. They scouted around and made maps, took pictures, and came up with a plan to take five dragons tonight at the gala.”
“Why wait?” Colton asked. “If they’ve been hiding out for two weeks, why would they wait until tonight to take anyone?”
“Because they aren’t coming for full grown dragons,” Emerson said. His face was white. “They’re coming for the fucking kids. They’re coming for our babies.”
Holly turned and looked at Colton. Her eyes filled with tears. Was she too late? Could they stop the poachers? Could they stop the kidnappers? She had done everything she could to get here before the deadline, but she wasn’t sure.
“The daycare on Dragon Isle is impenetrable,” she said. “But there is going to be a childcare room at the gala, and the Deragon employees found out about that. I’m guessing there’s someone who lives here that feeds them information. I’m not completely sure. According to the drive, during the renovations, they made some adjustments that will make entering Kade’s house during the party undetectable. I didn’t understand everything in there. Maybe they modified the security system or maybe they did something else. I don’t know. I know they built in a couple of escape holes in the house that are disguised in the walls, like secret passageways.”
“Why the kids?” Colton asked. “Why would they go after kids?”
“Because the babies they want aren’t full dragon shifters,” Holly said. “They want the ones who are half-human and half-shifter. They want Emerson’s baby,” she said. “They want all the new babies.”
Colton’s jaw hit the floor and Holly turned back to Emerson. She pointed at the flash drive sticking from the computer.
“I think the construction workers never left the island,” she said. “They pretended to, but they didn’t. They’re still here and they’re making their move tonight. They’re going to try to take the children and we have to stop them.”
7
Maybe he’d been gone longer than he thought.
The last time Colton was on Dragon Isle, his grandparents were still pissed his mother had remarried a human. They were mad two humans were going to raise the little shifter in the human world. They were irate.
But maybe they were just worried.
Had he really never seen it?
Maybe they were just concerned that things could be dangerous for Colton. Maybe they were afraid he was going to grow up weird or isolated or get hurt. Maybe they were worried poachers would come after him the way they’d gone after Dad. Maybe they were worried about something like this happening.
Colton looked at Holly. She looked so scared, so afraid. She looked worried, but Colton thought she was brave. Her fierceness shone through. She had come all the way here to save the shifters. She had come to save the babies.
“What can we do?” Colton asked, but Emerson was already on the phone barking orders to people and yelling different things.
“We need to get to the other side of the island,” Anthony said solemnly. He didn’t look scared, but Colton could smell his friend’s fear. He was worried about the children. Colton was, too. He hadn’t considered that he might see poachers again in his lif
etime. Not like this. Not here. Not now.
Emerson shouted a string of obscenities, then hung up and stood, glaring at the people in his office.
“I can’t reach anyone at Kade’s place. Either there’s no power right now because of the storm on the other side of the island or he’s simply busy getting everything ready, but we need to get there now. We need to get there and stop this.”
He stormed outside, shouting to his secretary as he went, and the woman picked up her own phone and started making calls.
Apparently, the first step was to keep anyone with babies at home. They had to keep all of the shifter babies home where they would be safe and locked away. Emerson was ordering his men to go to anyone’s house who had a child, especially a half-shifter, half-human child. They would stand guard as extra protection while he, Colton, Anthony, and Kade secured Kade’s mansion.
“My kid is already there,” Emerson said, stripping out of his clothes in front of the office. “I’m going now.” Rain was beginning to drizzle lightly. Colton had seen the storm clouds on the way in from Nellenston, but he had been so smitten with Holly that he hadn’t paid them much mind. Now he wished he had actually been thinking with his head instead of dick and gotten them to the island faster.
She had told him it was a matter of life-and-death.
She had told him, warned him.
Still, Colton had taken his sweet time getting them to the island. He’d been delighted to hold her, to smell her, to touch her. He’d wanted to spend as much time as possible with his hands on her tiny body. He hadn’t been thinking of her mission or her destination.
He’d been thinking of himself.
Were the shifter children going to pay for his mistake?
Would he be able to live with himself if they did?
“Right behind you, brother,” Anthony stripped and tossed his clothes in the basket outside of Emerson’s office. Emerson shifted and was in the air before Anthony even finished undressing. Anthony shifted quickly, but waited. He didn’t take off right away. Colton knew it was so he could follow him. He’d never been to Kade’s.
“Coming, baby?” He turned to Holly and ripped off his shirt. Then he took off his pants, not bothering to worry about the fact that this wasn’t how he wanted Holly to see his junk for the first time.
No, he had wanted the romantic shit.
He wanted her to slowly undress him, wanted her to tease him and play with him. This? This was necessity, but it was fine. She wouldn’t get a chance to look at him closely right now, not this time, but there would be time later.
He’d make sure of it.
“I…I…I’ve never…”
“You’ve never ridden a dragon before?”
“Never.”
“There’s nothing to it,” Colton smiled. There was no time to waste, so he couldn’t enjoy the way she was quivering or the way she was licking her lips as she eyed him up and down.
“I’m not sure what to do.”
“I’m going to shift, honey. Then just climb on my back, okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”
He needed to force himself to hurry up and shift. He needed to force himself to move on, to change. He needed to force himself even though he didn’t want to.
The only thing he wanted to do was her.
This was important, though. This was life-changing. This was it for the dragons.
If this happened, if Deragon was able to take these dragon children, the world was going to change.
And not for the good.
It would be all-out war between the dragons and humans forever. It would be war and there would be nothing anyone could do to stop it.
The humans would use their newfound knowledge of the healing properties of shifter bodies and demand to use it for science.
It wouldn’t just be the dragons, either.
It was no secret that dragon’s blood had healing capabilities, but humans hadn’t quite figured out that other shifters had special abilities, too, and there were many, many types of shifters they could hunt.
The world already wasn’t a nice place, but this would turn it into an all-out battlefield.
This couldn’t happen.
Things had changed after Colton’s father died. Most shifter communities had implemented safety procedures and other things designed to keep the dragons, bears, and wolves as safe as possible. Most places had stopped letting shifters roam free without a plan.
The government had cracked down on poachers, but many of them had simply gone underground.
Well, it looked like they were burrowing their way up again.
Anthony made a noise, huffing a little bit of smoke from his nostrils, and Colton growled at him, then shifted. He heard Holly gasp as he changed. He was fast when it came to shifting: almost too fast. Other dragons had commented on it his entire life, but Colton never really had a good excuse. He was half-human, half-shifter, so he was too busy feeling grateful he was able to shift to care that he could do it fast.
Not all children born of a human and a shifter were shifters. Sometimes the kids were just normal. He hadn’t been. He’d been different. He’d never minded, never thought there was anything wrong with himself. Being part dragon had simply been part of who he was, and Colton had accepted that.
He’d never shifted in front of a girl he liked, though. Not like this. He’d been with human women before, but he rarely revealed he was a shifter. If he did, he never let them see him change. Why would he? It was intimate, personal.
Now Holly, whom he had only known a short time, had already seen him naked and dragon.
And she was climbing on his back, or trying to.
He hadn’t kneeled down. He’d been staring at her, but he hadn’t kneeled down. Now she was trying to jump up his side, but she kept sliding right on down.
Quickly, he lay down on the ground and he felt Holly climb up on top of him. She scooted toward his neck and naturally leaned against him. She seemed to know exactly what to do, how to move. Her arms wrapped around him and he felt a dash of joy rush through his heart.
If they did this thing, if they saved the day, maybe he could feel like this again.
Anthony leapt into the air and Colton followed. His wings worked just fine on their own; he didn’t even have to think about how to move. Flying was like running for him. It was natural. It was part of who he was. He soared through the air and felt the cool air and rain drizzling on his face, and he tried to push Holly from his thoughts.
They had bigger problems tonight.
The flight to Kade’s wouldn’t be too long, he thought. He should have asked before. Even if his home was on the opposite side of the island, they’d fly as fast as they could to get there before the gala began.
Once those children were in the daycare room and the parents were off dancing and drinking, all bets were off. They’d be in danger.
It was a miracle, he thought, that Holly had managed to get to Dragon Isle. She was a fierce little thing. Her heart raced as she lay against him, though, and he could sense her fear. Good. She should be scared. Poachers weren’t anyone to fuck with and he hated the idea they’d made their way back to Dragon Isle.
He hated the idea that another family was going to be hurt the way he’d been hurt.
He hated knowing there was so much evil in the world that it couldn’t be stopped. No matter how tonight ended, the evil would still be there, lurking. It would still be waiting for its shot to come roaring back to life. It would still be waiting for the dragons to make a mistake so it could strike again.
They had to save those children.
Colton thought of Liam, the harbormaster. He remembered what he’d said: Emerson was married to his sister. What would happen to Emerson and his wife if they couldn’t save their child? What would happen if they couldn’t save all of the little tykes on Dragon Isle?
The idea that poachers would come for the half-breed infants rubbed him the wrong way. If they were going to go after
anyone, they should at least have the decency to make it the adults like him. Of course they wouldn’t, though.
Children were more malleable, more easy to scare, more easy to keep locked away.
They were more easy to reprogram, especially if the poachers planned to keep them alive for a long time.
Colton wasn’t about to let another family go through the pain he’d gone through when his father died. He’d been scared when his dad passed away. He’d been hurt and lonely and sad, but today was going to be different.
Today, he was going to be brave. He was going to fight and he was going to fucking win.
They would find the bastards who were hiding, whether they were camping in the woods or hiding in the house somewhere. They’d find them, and they’d kill them.
It was a dragon’s way.
8
She felt the cold air rush over her face, but Holly didn’t shiver. She was wet and cold and her skin was clammy, but she didn’t shiver and she didn’t panic. There was no time for that. There was no time to feel cold or scared or worried. There was only time to focus.
She breathed deeply, trying to concentrate on hanging on, trying to concentrate on not falling off of Colton’s back and to her untimely death. Wouldn’t that be just her luck?
It was pathetic, really. She was a grown-ass woman who was swooning over a dragon. He could smell emotions, for fuck’s sake. She shouldn’t be feeling anything but fear for those kids, but somehow, she felt more than that. She felt safe on Colton’s back. She felt at peace.
She felt like, no matter what happened, he would make sure justice prevailed.
Why did she feel that way?
She barely knew him, yet Holly trusted Colton with all of her heart. She had been scared to tell him why she was there on the island. She’d been worried to explain what was happening. She thought he might sabotage her, at first, that he might not be trustworthy. She worried he wouldn’t believe her, but she should have given him a chance.
Maybe they could have gotten there faster.