by Abby Blake
PUP Squad Alpha 3
Dragon’s Fire
Ava Seeton was just an ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill high school teacher. Fighting assassins in her living room wasn't supposed to be a skill she would need.
Nathan Hindle and Brody Carmichael have known each other for years. When they're assigned to protect the same young human, Nathan is sure that between the two of them they will succeed. What he hadn't planned on was for them both to fall for the pretty teacher.
Brody comes from a long line of bigots. He doesn't subscribe to the family belief, but he knows getting involved with anyone outside his species is probably a bad idea. Of course, with his family being estranged, it shouldn't matter what they think.
But with unstoppable assassins on one side, growing love on the other, and an unexpected surprise in the middle, it may take far more than Brody and Nathan imagined to keep their woman safe.
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 22,591 words
DRAGON’S FIRE
PUP Squad Alpha 3
Abby Blake
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
DRAGON’S FIRE
Copyright © 2012 by Abby Blake
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-707-7
First E-book Publication: June 2012
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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DRAGON’S FIRE
PUP Squad Alpha 3
ABBY BLAKE
Copyright © 2012
Prologue
Ava Seeton dropped into the chair closest to her and tiredly waited for the kettle to boil. It had been a very, very long day of teaching youngsters who didn’t want to be taught. The worst part was that she had at least three hours grading term papers ahead of her. Just the thought of trying to decipher the badly spelled, poorly worded, low-on-imagination, barely legible essays from a bunch of ninth graders who didn’t care if they passed or failed just made her feel even more tired.
She was sure there had been a time that she’d truly enjoyed teaching, but with more and more children coming into high school without the basic reading and writing skills required to complete the course she was supposed to teach, much of her time was spent dealing with kids too angry to learn anything. After years in a system that ignored their failures and removed incentives for them to even try, was it any wonder more kids than ever seemed unprepared for the challenge of high school?
The kettle finally boiled, and she levered herself out of the chair to make the cup of instant coffee that she so desperately needed.
The young blonde girl standing between her and her caffeine was an unwelcome surprise. She seemed to be about seven years old.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Ava probably should have been nicer, but the kid was trespassing and, judging by the smartass expression, didn’t seem to be lost.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” the child said in a voice that suggested way more maturity than her appearance suggested.
“Get out,” Ava said through clenched teeth. Normally she would be more sympathetic to a young child being somewhere unexpected, but there was something about this girl that seemed off, maybe even dangerous.
“But I came all this way just to see you.” The words sent a wave of dread over Ava’s skin, but it was the confident way the child walked toward her that had Ava lifting her hand in a signal for the girl to stop moving. Predictably the brat smirked and continued to stalk closer.
“Get the hell out of my house!”
The child grinned maliciously and leapt into the air. She would have landed in Ava’s arms if she hadn’t moved away, but when the girl went flying out of control in the other direction Ava just stood there with her mouth open.
“Bitch,” the girl said as she picked herself up off the floor and headed for Ava once more.
But it happened again. As soon as she lifted off the ground some unseen force threw her backward. This time she hit the concrete fireplace quite hard.
Her eyes on the child, Ava barely registered her front door being kicked open. What the hell now?
“Police! Don’t move.”
The child seemed to lift back onto her feet with very little effort and absolutely no sign of injury from a thud that should have at least broken a few bones. She simply smirked at the police officer who was, rather ironically, pointing his gun at Ava, and laughed in a high-pitched giggle. “I’ll be back for you later,” she said with a wink. “Enjoy the few hours you have left.”
And then right in front of Ava, and a stunned police officer, the child seemed to disappear.
“What the fuck was that?” the officer asked her as if Ava should know. She was pretty sure she managed to shrug a moment before her knees gave out and she landed hard on her ass.
Suddenly grading term papers seemed the least of her problems.
Cha
pter One
Brody Carmichael watched the pretty blonde while she read yet another book on her e-reader. He’d watched over her for four days now, and she’d barely put the electronic gizmo down. Thankfully there had been no sign of her attacker since Ava had met the assassin and had somehow held her off.
It had seemed incredible that a human could successfully hold off a pixie, but that’s what the woman had done. Unfortunately, four days after the fact Brody was no closer to understanding how she’d done it.
The only thing he knew for certain, thanks to his better-than-human sense of smell, was that the woman was reading books that she found rather inspiring. She gave no outward signs of arousal, but Brody knew what the woman was feeling. He just hoped it wasn’t some stuffy, older-than-dirt poetry or religious text that roused the woman’s libido. She was an English teacher after all.
“Any news?” Nathan asked as he wandered out of the bedroom and made a beeline for the coffee machine. It was the one thing he and Nathan had in common. They both liked to start their day with a strong, hot boost of caffeine. Judging by Ava’s happy smile when she’d seen the machine, it was something she shared with them also. Hell, he hoped it wasn’t coffee that got her all hot and bothered. He kind of liked his theory that she was reading erotic romance, and that under the prim and proper schoolteacher was a sexy vixen just waiting to rock his world.
That of course was wishful thinking. His own species might be short of females, but nobody had taken a human woman as their mate.
“Go get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a couple hours,” his mission partner suggested quietly.
“Maybe later,” Brody said as he glanced at Nathan before turning his attention back to Ava. His missions for PUP Squad Alpha didn’t usually involve being a bodyguard to a human, but with a pixie assassin trying to kill her it was wise to have someone close who could transport her long distances via dimensional jumping. Of course, Ava knew nothing about that. As far as she was concerned, he and Nathan were just bodyguards protecting her. He didn’t even think she’d related the experience with the pixie assassin, who would have looked like a child to her, with the official police warning that she was potentially a serial killer’s next victim.
“Whoa, did you see that?” Nathan whispered, sounding quite excited. For a human the guy was rather unusual. “That may explain how she survived a pixie attack.”
“What?” Brody asked, feeling grumpy that he’d missed something that seemed important.
“She reached for her coffee and the cup slid into her hand.”
“As in actually slid? Like it moved by itself?”
“Yep,” Nathan said with a broad smile. “Maybe our adorable, softly spoken schoolteacher isn’t quite as human as we thought.”
Brody shook his head. “I don’t think she even realizes she can do that.”
“How could she not realize?”
Brody shook his head again and resisted the urge to rub his eyes. Nathan might have been an experienced bodyguard—and from what Brody had seen, very handy in a fight—but it didn’t stop him from coming off as an overenthusiastic puppy at times. Brody dropped his head into his hands, despite his best intentions not to, and wondered for the hundredth time in the past few days if he was just getting old. He’d laughed at his squadmate’s early midlife crisis, but it was quite possible karma might just be ready to bite him on the ass. Even he couldn’t deny the cosmic justice of it all.
Shit. As soon as this assignment was over, he was going to apologize to Darian.
Although, considering his own midlife crisis seemed to include an infatuation for one sweet, softly spoken, gently curved, human female, maybe he’d stay right away from his squadmates for now.
“So should we tell her?” Nathan asked, showing the first hint of indecision Brody had seen from the guy. But of course, thanks to his overactive libido and excellent imagination, Brody was thinking on a completely different subject. It took a moment to realize Nathan was talking about telling her about her telekinetic ability, not the fact that Brody seemed to be fantasizing over her.
Finally he managed to force out what he hoped was a reasonable answer. “She’ll have to know eventually, but maybe it would be better to wait until the situation is more stable.”
Nathan just raised an eyebrow at him. The truth was that with a pixie assassin on her tail, Ava’s situation was never again likely to be stable. Not only were pixies impossible to kill, there was always another to take her place. Brody winced at the thought. He still couldn’t understand a patriarchal society where they sent their women to do the wet work. It just didn’t seem right.
“At least let me get a message to Alex first. Maybe he can get someone to dig into her past.”
“So you think it’s something to do with the Oracle’s murder? I mean, I know that’s why the women are being targeted by the assassins in the first place, but do you think that’s where Ava’s skill is coming from?” The guy grinned like this was very exciting news, but until they knew anything for sure Brody was going to reserve judgment. He’d never heard of an Oracle passing on her knowledge to anyone other than a paranormal child—and then only a select few species. As far as he knew, it wasn’t even possible for a human to receive the Oracle’s knowledge. Considering the seemingly small capacity of the human brain, he doubted they had enough room to store that much knowledge anyway.
“Anything’s possible,” he said with a shrug. Hell, considering that he was a dragon-shifter lusting after a female from a whole different species, everything was possible.
* * * *
Nathan watched Brody watching Ava. He’d known the guy long enough to know what he was thinking. Very simply put he was the kid looking in the candy store window wishing for things that were simply not good for him. Nathan had met Brody’s family once, but it had been enough to convince him that Brody was the odd one out in that group.
At the time, Nathan had tried to convince himself that Brody’s family members weren’t as dangerous or as fanatical as they seemed, but that was kind of like ignoring the guy who sets off the metal detectors at the airport—stupid and possibly deadly.
Brody Carmichael came from a long line of narrow-minded, elitist snobs who thought humans were nothing more than overabundant insects. If Nathan hadn’t been the guy to stop the assassination attempt on Brody’s father, he doubted he would have gotten any acknowledgment of his existence at all. There were times when he wondered if he’d even have gotten out of there alive under different circumstances. What would have happened if he hadn’t been so good at his job? He was very glad he hadn’t had a reason to find out.
“I’m going to jog to the pay phone in town and check in with Dave. Hopefully they’ve found some of the others by now.”
Brody nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off Ava. “If we’re not here when you get back, we’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.”
Nathan knew exactly how Brody would get Ava to their rendezvous point, and he felt his stomach rebel in protest. Dimensional jumping was only slightly less stomach churning than slip travel. Given a choice, Nathan would rather crawl across broken glass than choose either. The “bounce” travel favored by warlocks was less nauseating, but the landings were sometimes painful enough for him to want to avoid them permanently. He glanced at Ava and wondered how she would cope. The first time Nathan “jumped” with Brody he’d literally felt like he’d been slammed in the head with a brick. Things hadn’t improved much over time—for any of his transport choices—and it was a major understatement to say he preferred any other means of travel.
“I’ll be quick,” he said as he headed out. He entered the code to disengage the perimeter alarm for that door only and waited on the other side until he heard the system reengage.
The jog into town took less than five minutes and could barely be called a workout, but he waited anxiously for Dave to answer his phone. Even before the police officer got his greeting out, Nathan started talking over him.
�
��It’s Nathan. Any news?”
“Not that I know of,” Dave said in a strange-sounding voice. “I just got off the phone with Ronan. He wants a team meeting tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Nathan said, trying to sound like Ronan’s request was just routine. Whatever was happening, Dave clearly wasn’t comfortable telling him on the phone. He didn’t waste time asking questions. He said good-bye, hung up, and jogged back to the safe house, studiously ignoring the inclination to sprint back. If someone were watching him, the last thing he wanted to do was tip them off to a change in the case.
He dropped the feigned casualness the moment he stepped inside the house. Brody was waiting for him, arms crossed over his chest, looking every inch the soldier that he was.
“Sit-rep,” he said quickly.
Nathan smiled at the military lingo. He’d never been in the defense forces himself, but he’d spent enough time around ex-soldiers to know Brody wanted a report on the situation.
“Ronan wants to meet us at a secure location.”
Brody nodded. He’d crossed paths with Ronan often enough to know where that location was. Simply put it meant Ronan’s “housekeeper” was currently waiting in Ronan’s home office for the paranormal members of his team to “jump,” “slip,” or “bounce” into the house and collect the required coordinates to Ronan’s location. It was a very efficient and secure way of setting up a safe rendezvous.
It also meant something big was happening.