“How indeed?” Drake asks.
Talyn's eyes narrow at him even more than mine.
“I'm sure you have a plan,” I comment with slow suspicion.
He grins. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Figures.
3
Narah
“Murphy!” I yell, falling beside him. He's pale. Well—paler than normal.
“He'll need blood, now.”
“Over my dead body!” Mollie spits, the co-worker from hell.
“That can be arranged,” Aeslin comments smoothly.
“Fuck it! I hate all the fangs in here, I'm leaving!” Mollie grabs her jacket and begins to stalk out.
I have a lot of hate to hand out today and she gets the first helping. I tear open my forearm with a sliding swipe of fangs and my blood wells.
Matthews grabs my wrist. “Narah—no.”
“I have to!” I yank my wrist from Matthews and place it on Murphy's chilled lips. “Come on!” I yell, working my opposite hand down from elbow to wrist, prompting my blood flow. It drips slowly at first, then it fills his mouth.
Murphy groans, choking then swallowing. He sits straight up like a propped plank of wood, his soulless gaze stares blackly at me. Gripping my body, he pulls me onto his lap, all the while siphoning my blood.
I rest my head on his shoulder as he takes from my vein.
“Get him off her!”
Matthews.
I feel sleepy.
Aeslin pulls at Murphy, trying to dislodge him without hurting me.
Impossible.
I'm getting lightheaded. “Murph,” I say.
He ignores me, staring and suckling.
Fuck. My scalp begins tingling. “Stop,” I say in a low voice full of command.
He shudders as though juiced with something abhorrent. His fangs release me, and I softly fall backward in the middle of our office floor.
Aeslin catches me. Then Matthews fist catches Murphy's jaw. “Fucker!” he roars.
Oh shit.
Aeslin cradles my body.
“Stop, Matthews—I'm okay.” My voice sounds like a croak.
“You're okay when I say you're okay.”
I roll my eyes.
Aeslin winks. The sane vampire of the three of us.
Matthews hauls Murph up and shakes him like a rag doll. It doesn't sound like much but from my perspective on the floor, jerking around a six foot plus dude who weighs over two hundred pounds is no small thing. Of course, Matthews is now vampire.
“Stop beating the shit out of my youngling, John.”
He growls until it becomes a hiss, dumping Murph on the floor. His ass lands with a bone-jarring crack.
I wince, covering my eyes.
What a shitty night. The guys find out I'm baby mama, then Murph gets his ass kicked by a rogue dragon, and my client's somewhere with a Changer—unwilling to be transitioned.
Marvelous.
“Help me up, Aeslin.” He scoops me from the floor, my arms and legs dangling. “No,” I sigh, “I'm not a fragile little girl, set me on my own two feet.”
Murphy smirks from the ground. “I live for these sights, love.”
I scowl but manage, “Fuck off. You cost me.”
He gives me a sullen look.
“Why did you let Dragon kick your ass?”
Murphy splays his fingers on his chest like who me?
“Yes you,” I answer out loud.
“He's a prehistoric, Narah. My fangs can't even pierce his ridiculous armor.”
“You managed!” I harp.
“Once!” he yells, standing and trying to dust off the seat of his pants.
“Watch it,” Matthews warns.
Murphy gives an irritated swipe of his nape. “Listen, the bloke had me wrapped and clocked before I could react. The only reason I'm not dead right now is that bitch Mollie walked in and distracted the wanker.”
I scab for patience from the vast trenches of my endless compassion.
Nope, don't have any—as per usual. “Murphy. Listen close—I want this guy. I need to get to Talyn. Hell, we need to. She's a client and if she's even still alive it'll be a miracle. Now the dragon is after her and she's with Merck.”
“It is problematic,” Aeslin says, stroking my arm.
“It's more than that, Aeslin.” I jerk away from him.
“She's really touchy with the babe and all,” Murph explains.
I glare at Murphy. “Don't try to help, Murph. Just tell me what you know.”
His broad shoulders slump. “I know as much as you know. He ran off after our client, using his wonderful beak to find their scent.”
“Great!” I say, waving my arms around. “He's probably already there and there's been a battle and who knows what else.”
“Do not borrow the worry, Narah,” Aeslin says, wrapping his arms around me. “You cannot save them all.”
“I want to though.” I don't stop the tears, but I don't let them dissuade me from my goal.
Talyn Phisher.
I wipe my eyes, ignoring the males as they stare at my hormonal meltdown.
I stalk out of the office and they follow.
Even with the hormonal upheaval, it warms a secret part of me I keep hidden.
No matter how prickly I am, they've got my back.
4
Noah
“What do you have on Drake?”
Jacob grunts. “Same old thing, nomad and loving it.”
I tap where the pulselocator beacon silently blinks red then nothing then red again. His dot is moving.
“Drake is not following the colony. His plan to ʻhide in plain sightʼ might not be working.”
“I never liked ʻthe planʼ. Drake's the one who sweet talked the council into allowing him this risky experiment.” Jacob paces away, hands on hips, his animal peeking out from his mouth. Though his tusks are a twentieth of the size they'd be in animal form, it gives proof of his agitation. If you can't keep your teeth human, emotions are in charge.
“Tone it down, Jacob. We'll find Drake, and when we do, he can tell us what the fuck's been going on.”
Jacob whirls, slapping his fist on the wood table. It's solid, one hundred year old oak. A crack forms, running like an escaped ice skater over the polished surface.
“I'll tell you what's going on. He's found a female, and he's keeping her for himself.”
I fold my arms. “Well we can't very well share, Jac.”
He straightens, his fist flexing and loosening. Jacob's not a believer in shaving, five daysʼ worth of stubble trying for a beard covers his square jaw, coal black eyes shifting back to mine. “That's never the point. He was sent out as a bridge between our clan and the other, lesser shifters in search of females. The other shifters are searching too. But them—pfft—they can find a few females a year. What about us? A couple a decade?” Jac shakes his head. “No—I say we find Drake and force his accountability.”
Jac's right. And he won't like what I tell him. “The colony of Mutables?”
Jac's black eyebrows sink low over his eyes. “What of it?”
“It's gone. Burned to the ground.”
“Drake,” Jacob inserts decisively.
I can't dispute it so I don't. “Probably.” My eyes meet his. “The human firefighters said some of the wreckage was burned to beyond three thousand degrees. They'd never seen anything so thoroughly incinerated.”
Jac grunts. “They've seen nothing—they know—nothing.”
I meet his eyes. “And I'd like to keep it that way, Jac.”
He nods. “I got you.”
“If—and that's a big if. If Drake has somehow stumbled on a female with prehistoric blood, she might know of others. You understand the rule of the circle?”
“How could I forget?” Jac asks with derision. “If any female is found to have prehistoric blood, females of like blood habitate together.”
“Correct. So even if Drake has found a compatible female, it gives the pr
ehistorics hope.”
“That's in short supply,” Jac mutters.
I agree. “It's the same for all the shifters. Just doubly for us. We've been hunted by our own kind—humans that were threatened with what they didn't understand. At least our births are smooth.”
Jac laugh is hollow. “When there is a birth.”
True.
“So what do you want me to do? It's dangerous for me to be out alone. I'm fair game as a nomad shifter.”
“Go mammoth, brother.”
His lips twitch. “Might get noticed.”
I chuckle. “Yeah. But you can just pancake anyone who gives you trouble. Even your half-form is pretty impressive.”
“But it's like Drake says, it's only impressive if the ratio is alright. If there's ten to one, I'm screwed. If I go full mammoth, the humans will gun me down like an elephant whose cheese has slid off its cracker.”
We stare at each other, a grim smile affixed to my face. “I don't have anyone else. We can't spare a single male who has a female. They have to hump to death if she's in heat. That's the priority.”
Jac smirks, clasping his hands behind his broad back. “Nice.”
I shrug. It's the truth. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as they say. “Find Drake. Help him with the female, if there's one in the picture. If he torched the colony's holding, he was desperate. Not only does it get us noticed by humans, but it gets other Mutables suspicious. How can we pass as Mutable when our dragons are torching houses?”
“I'm going to put my tusks up Drake's ass,” Jac mutters.
My lips thin. “If he has a female, if by some roll of the lucky dice—try to resist. If not, go ahead.”
Jac grunts a reply, walking to the pulse map.
He presses his thumb to the security pad and it comes to life. A single red LED dot blinks like a heartbeat. “He there?”
I nod. “Phillips Street, downtown.”
“Real inconspicuous, Drake.” His voice is disgusted, but layered underneath, is worry.
“Probably didn't have a choice. If the female's in danger, she might have gone wherever she could.”
Jac looks at me. “Or maybe she's in that mecca of shifters who soldier up together. We've got Turners, Changers and other warriors who are hard chargers. Going after females with one glaring goal. Find and acquire.”
I lift my shoulders. “Well yeah. No different than us.”
Jac scowls. “The moderns are way different than us, and you know it.”
My eyes slim down at him. “I can't afford to be elitist about this, Jac. We're only as powerful as we are able to perpetuate our species. If there are no females to claim, we die out. That's why our cousins are gone.” My fingers fling out, miming dust particles floating away to nothing.
“You have a way of hope-sucking, Noah.”
I nod, I'm a half-empty glass kind of guy. “I want to offer encouragement, but I'm never going to lie to a brother.”
“I know.”
I clap him on the shoulder, giving him eyes as troubled as his own. “Go.”
Jacob nods, heading for the door of our clan.
I stare after him for minutes after he's gone, lost in the thoughts of my species.
Or its demise.
5
Talyn
I stand, the water rolling off my skin like rain.
“I know you gentleman have seen me naked.” I throw a look at Merck. “You certainly have, and Drake here...”
My eyes dip. This is so awkward.
I thrust my hand out, cooling water dripping from my wrist to plop, plop, plop back into the tub. “I'd like a towel. I'm not listening to any grand plan without a little coverage.”
Merck silently stands, walking to a tall slim linen cabinet and plucks a fluffy cream-colored towel from its depths.
I turn bright red as Drake's eyes travel my body. I remind myself I wasn't embarrassed when his tongue was shoved up inside me.
“Do not be ashamed, Talyn.”
“I thought you were just like one of the Mutables,” I say, giving a small smile to Merck in thanks as I take the towel, wrapping it around my body.
Drake shrugs. “I had to play the role, Talyn. Even when no one was around. I have to protect all prehistorics.”
Merck's brow draws together. “What do you mean?”
Drake points at Merck. “I don't owe you any explanations, Lycan.”
Merck grabs the finger and yanks them together, their chests almost touching.
“What you do owe me are assurances about Talyn's safety. If you hadn't come here, she wouldn't have dragon's blood poisoning.”
“And I wouldn't have found her.”
“You haven't found her, dragon!” Merck shouts.
I cover my ears. “Stop,” I say urgently.
Merck releases Drake's finger in disgust.
“I won't share, sorry Talyn,” Merck says.
“That's what you told Arden,” I reply, proud that I don't burst into tears at the mention of him. “You also said your job was to change me. And here I am, a Lycan, Lanarre—whatever I am. Now you can go, leave me. I'll get back to my life as a therapist and you can go make some other woman wolfy.”
I clutch the towel more firmly above my breasts and glare at Merck. His beautiful blue eyes are remote. I can't read his thoughts, his anger toward Drake seems somewhat justified. After all, if he bothered changing me only to have me die because a dragon shifter bled all over me, how does that get his precious job done?
Suddenly, I'm tired. Tired of these dumbasses. Shifters. The entire thing.
I perch on the edge of the tub. Despondent. Fat tears brim and roll down my face. I don't have a place to put all my broken thoughts and emotions, they float around inside my head like shredded styrofoam on water.
Drake's hand lands on my shoulder. “I think the Lycan had better come clean with what's really happening here.”
My chin hikes, and I spare a glare for him too. “What's really happening? The part where you went down on me to save me from acid blood? Or the fact that Merck just loves ʼem and leaves ʼem?”
Drake's thumb traces a tear along my cheek, sucking the salt from his digit, he smooths the damp tendrils of hair from my temple behind my ear. “The reality of him claiming you.”
My face whips to Merck's. “What's he talking about?”
Merck gives the dirtiest look I've ever seen in Drake's direction. “Hate me if you will, Lycan, but she deserves to know.”
“Know what?” I stand again, my heart thumping. I think I'll keel over if I get one more dumb revelation.
“He's mated to you now.”
I face Merck. Actually, my eyes face his heavily muscled pecs. “What is he saying?”
Merck sighs, taking me by the shoulders. “What the dragon says is true. I have claimed you.”
This is an improvement. This sounds entirely better than him just screwing me into being a werewolf then handing me off to some Lycan I don't know.
And what the hell am I reduced to now? What happened to the intellectual Talyn? The one with a career and a beloved cat—a home without a man in it? I'll tell you what—this. But my mind is taking in all that he's said. “Wait a minute. You just failed in your job. You were supposed to transition me and hand me over to the Lycan den and be done with me. Move on to the next female. Now Drake is saying that I've been claimed.”
“Tell her.”
Merck glares at Drake.
“Don't get angry with him. If it weren't for him, I don't know when I'd ever hear the truth.”
Merck says from between his teeth, “I was planning to tell you after supper.”
As if on cue, my stomach growls.
Drake chuckles, squeezing my shoulder. I look between the two males. “Well?”
“Claiming you means I won't be a Changer anymore. I just forfeited by position.”
“It's more than that—he'll be excommunicated.”
I gasp, touching his hard chest. “You
will?”
Merck gives a curt nod.
My head's spinning. “Then why did you do it?”
Merck just softly shakes his head. “It was right. You were right—with me,” he answers, pressing his thumb to his chest.
I slowly look at Drake as he quietly stands there. “What's your story? I mean—thanks for saving me but Merck's right—if you hadn't crashed in here....”
“I have partially claimed you.”
I step back, where I can keep Merck and Drake in sight. “When?” I whisper.
A vague smile touches his lips and is gone.
The smell... that wonderful, delicious male-odor. “Your scent—I remember.” It'd made me feel drunk. In a great way.
I frown. I'm not thinking straight.
“I did it to begin the process, and also scent-mark you in case we became separated.”
I try three times to ask then finally spit it out, “And now?”
“I finish what I began.”
“Over my dead body,” Merck growls.
Drake says in a menacing voice, “That works.”
I step between them, hitting them both in the chest.
“Nobody's killing anyone.”
They're not looking at my face at the moment.
My towel dropped, and I'm naked.
Again.
6
Jac
This fucking reeks.
I kick a crumbling bit of cinderblock out of the way and sink to my haunches. I pick it up, sniffing delicately.
Mammoths aren't known for their great nose but I still scent track about five times better than a dog. Just a benny of being a prehistoric.
Our boy's been here. Drake had a lot to do with the pile of scorched rubble that was a colony hideaway for Mutables.
The scent of a female still lingers. If she were human, or a modern shifter, I'd not scent a thing.
But she's not.
She's some kind of mix. Lycan for sure... but dragon? Not sure.
I briefly entertain the fantasy of a female mammoth. There hasn't been a known female in twenty years. They're delicious in human form. It's what the humans call plus-sized. Whatever that means. As far as I'm concerned, a female where the bones are countable, is not sexy in my book. I want hips, ass and thighs I have to plow between like the bow of a wayward ship finding the perfect wet slip within a port.
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