by Jo Vanz
Dragon in the
Rough
Elder Enterprises
Book 1
By Jo Vanz
All rights reserved: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic, in whole or in part, without express written permission from the author.
All characters, places, and events in this book are fictitious or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events, locale, or organization is strictly coincidental.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my wonderful husband. You have been my rock though this crazy life. My sounding board when I was building this story. Most of all you are my real life hero. I love you.
Prologue
Paul stared down at the book under the protective glass. The leather binding made it look like any other old book, but this one held many prophecies of the dragon race. No one knew who wrote it or how it came about but what they did know was that everything that was written on its weatherworn pages had come true. According to the Elders, there was a prophecy about Paul written among its pages, the only issue was no one would tell him what it said. After screwing up so much in his life, he deserved to know. At least that was what he kept telling himself. It was his life after all. Without another thought, Paul raised his fist, bringing it down on the glass. He let out a sigh of relief when the glass rained down onto the floor all around him. As he reached to pick the book up, Paul heard a small click before an alarm sounded, alerting the Elders of what he was up to
Paul’s heart started to race as he stuffed the book into his bag and ran for the stairs. Sprinting up them two at a time, he made it to the roof in no time. Taking a moment to calm his racing heart, Paul thought about stopping and letting them find him here, but no. If he did that then he would never have the answers he needed. Tossing the bag on the ground, he called to his other half. His dragon. Magic swept through the air as his body changed, stretching and growing. His jaw extended, allowing his teeth to grow into sharp weapons. He grunted as his wings started to protrude from his back. Through all of his transformations, the wings still hurt as they grew. It didn’t take long for the transformation to be complete. Paul stretched, he loved being in his dragon form and felt a freedom that he could not reach in his human form. Paul knew that if he looked down, he would see the ivory white of his scales. He was a wind dragon and as such, he was one of the fastest fliers in the dragon race. He belonged in the air. He stretched his wings out in anticipation for the flight. Padding over, he grabbed up his bag in his massive claws, careful not to rip it to shreds. Then with a leap, he was soaring high above the New York skyline. He was not sure where he was headed, and really did not care, he just needed time to figure out what the book had to say. He let out a roar of pleasure as he flapped his wings, climbing higher into the air until he felt the pull of a jet stream. He relaxed then, just letting the air carry him along. Looking down, he was amazed at how small everything was. It was a feeling he would never get used to. Paul knew that eventually he would have to come back and face the music of his deception, but he would deal with it when the time came. Until then, he was free to do as he wished without anyone holding him back.
Chapter 1
Katie’s bare feet pounded against the hot gray cement of the alley. When she came to the busy street, she made a quick left, weaving in and out of the pedestrians making their way home from work. She looked around franticly, hoping to lay eyes on the man she was chasing. Paul Ivers was a wanted man. She never expected to see him standing across the street of the hole in the wall coffee shop that she had been visiting just ten minutes ago. Which is why she now carried her beautiful red stiletto heels in her hands as she made her way, quickly, through the mingle of people.
She had watched him make this turn, so where was he hiding? He was close, she could feel it. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, heart racing, breaths came in quick succession. She knew his face, had studied it every day for the past few weeks. The silver eyes were what made him stand out. The strong line of his jaw, soft curves of his lips, and the caramel color of his skin just made him striking. He was drop dead sexy, Katie had admitted several times, but that did not matter. Not now. She was tasked to bring him in alive. He had evidently pissed off someone.
Katie was unsure of what exactly he had done, and did it really matter? No. She did as she was told, even if it meant hunting down Mr. GQ with little to no information. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, bringing about nasty slurs from the people behind her. They pushed past her and kept moving. Katie closed her eyes and tapped into her own secret abilities, listening to her own gut to tell her where he had gone.
Everyone thought the only reason she was good at her job was because of the vampire blood coursing through her veins, but that wasn’t true. Katie never actually took the pills. She had tried them once but they had made her vomit for days. The truth was she had her own abilities, ones she was born with. Ones very few people knew about. Her eye’s snapped open and she started moving. He was just up ahead on the right.
Katie pushed past a group of horny teenagers as they catcalled at her. She turned and glared at them and they immediately stopped. She was on a mission and did not want to deal with them today. If it had been any other time, she would have stopped and put them in their place, but not tonight. Her only thought was Paul. To find him and finally bring him in.
She was getting close. She could feel it in her very core. Katie slowed down, looking around. There was a book store to her right that looked almost run down. Books were stacked in the window, a layer of dust covering the spines. A small part of Katie wanted to pick them up and run her hand over the soft covers, maybe take a few home. To curl up with a glass of wine and read the night away. But she pushed the need aside. It would have to wait.
Paul was inside. She took a slow breath to calm her nerves. Reaching out and pulling the smooth handle, the door creaked right before the bell over the door rang. Katie cursed, Paul would know someone was coming in. She had two options - close the door and wait for him outside or go in and search the place. Katie figured that if he had seen her open the door then he would make a dash for the back entrance, so she pushed all of her emotions and nerves into a small box in the back of her mind.
Hand on her side piece, the only human security she needed, Katie stepped into the book store, quickly looking both ways. She turned left, looking down each aisle. When she did not see him, she turned and made her way down the other way. Still nothing. She went back to the aisle right in front of the door, choosing to go down it so that she could keep one eye on the front door in case Paul made a mad dash for it.
At the end of the aisle, Katie stopped and looked around. Still no Paul. She could feel him here, but where? Katie spotted a young woman at the check-out counter. She had black hair with blue streaks, at least fifteen piercings, and headphones sticking in her ear. Katie walked up to her and cleared her throat.
The woman looked up at her with a look of annoyance, pulling out her headphones. “How may I help you?” she asked with a fake smile plastered over her face.
Katie glanced down at the name tag on her shirt before she pulled out her badge. “Tess, I need to know if you saw a man come in here just a few minutes ago. He is about six foot, silver eyes, wearing a black leather jacket.” She handed her badge over to Tess as she spoke.
Katie watched as Tess’s eyes lit up. “You work with the vampires?” she asked with enthusiasm leaking out of every word.
“Yes,” Katie nodded her he
ad. She knew Tess’s type. Vampire groupies, offering themselves up to any vampire that would look at them. Maybe if she offered to throw a guy she worked with at this young lady, then she would give up the information Katie sought freely. “If you help me, I may have one of my buddies come meet you. Would you like that?”
Tess nodded her head enthusiastically. “I would love to help you, but you are the first person I have seen in here in over two hours. Are you sure he came in here?”
Katie was sure, she was never wrong. So where was that sneaky son of bitch hiding? “Oh, all right then. Thank you for your time. I will see if my buddy can stop by in the next few days.”
“Thank you!” Tess squeaked.
Katie turned and made her way back outside. She closed her eyes again, searching for Paul. She was surprised when she got nothing. No direction to go or a feeling of him being close. She took a deep breath and released it slowly, trying again. Nope, she drew a blank. Maybe he had moved. Maybe she was no longer close enough to sense him. Yeah, that must be it. She started moving, walking around aimlessly, trying to get a fix on him.
She wandered around for another hour, stopping every so often to try and see if she could pinpoint his position. Zip. Nada. Zero. Nein. Where had he disappeared to? This had never happened to Katie before. No one could hide from her once she laid eyes on them. That was why she was the best. Yet here she stood in the middle of a busy New York sidewalk drawing a blank. Something was not right here. What had been written in Paul’s heavily-redacted file? What was the piece of the puzzle she was missing?
Katie did not know, but she sure as hell was going to find out. If hunting him down was not working, then she needed to come at him from a different way. Find what he loves. Hold it against him until he had no choice but to come out of hiding. He would come to her. The only problem was Katie did not know much about him, which just made her life harder. How was she supposed to track down a man she knew nothing about? The answer was simple - she wasn’t.
That was all about to change. One way or another, she would get into his apartment. Go over it with a fine-tooth comb if she had to. She needed leverage, but first she needed to get back to the station, write up her report, and get home. From there, she would start planning.
As she turned to head back to the station, Katie tilted her head down as if in defeat. She had a feeling that Paul was still watching her and she did not want to give away the fact that she was changing her game plan. The station was only a few blocks away but she walked slowly to add to the effect. She did not want to seem in a rush or excited for the next stage of the game. She needed to play things close to her chest from now on. One wrong step and she would be done for.
Katie wanted to laugh. Here she had baulked at the idea of taking this case. She said it was too easy, a waste of her talent. Oh, how she had been wrong. Paul Ivers turned out to be just the challenge she needed. She was willing to do just about everything to hunt him down, even if it meant breaking the law and possibly losing her job. It would all be worth it when she slapped handcuffs on him.
***
Paul looked around to make sure Detective Katlin Palmer was truly gone. Tonight had been a close call for him. He had read about her and knew she was the best, and he also knew that it would not take the Elders long before they passed the job of hunting him down on to her. So he had done what any other sane criminal would do - he used it to his advantage. He had stayed close to Katlin, watching her every move. Staying a close distance away. Until tonight.
He gave himself a mental kick. Tonight he had made a big mistake in getting too close. Thinking she was going to be in the coffee shop longer, he had stopped right across the street. The bright evening sun was warming him and he didn’t even try to hide himself from her. She had stepped out of the shop and locked eyes with him. His whole world had stopped for that one moment. The cars, the people, the smell of pollution – it had all fallen away. It was just her standing there, looking at him. His heart had skipped a beat and his body reacted to seeing her. The way her jeans hugged every curve, how her shirt dipped a little too low, her hair blowing in the breeze.
Paul moaned just thinking about her. She was perfect. A little sports car zoomed by, music blaring, pulling Paul out of his thoughts. He jumped down from the awning he had been perched on for the last hour or so, stretching before turning and walking toward his apartment.
The only thing Paul could not figure out was how had Katie gotten so close to him? After he had turned to run, he had pulled on his magic, cloaking himself from everyone. She should not have been able to sense him, even with the vampire blood that she took. His kind was far more superior to the vampires. They had tricks that no one could come close to guessing, yet he watched as Katlin had tapped into some kind of reserve to track him. It would have worked too if he had not been paying attention and pulled on his magic even harder.
He felt drained. The only time that ever happened was when he had to hide himself from his kin. Paul stopped dead in his tracks. Could she be of his kind? No, that was not possible. All of their new females had been dying within a week after birth and the only females they had were already mated. Surely she could not be one, but then again, there was that one that had appeared a few months ago. Paul shook the thought away. He did not want to remember how her life had been cut short, but it did beg the question - could there be a small chance that Katie was one of them? Yes! he wanted to scream. It may be small, but it was there. He needed to find out.
His feet started moving again, carrying him forward. After a few blocks, he stopped again, this time in front of the precinct where Katlin worked. He looked through the glass and watched as she typed away at her computer. From everything he had learned about Katlin over the past few weeks, he found the fact that she was always alone disturbing. She never seemed to have any friends or family over and she did not work with a partner.
This pissed Paul off. She should have someone to watch her back, to help protect her if things got a little rough. But it worked for her. Paul knew that if she felt the need, she could dig up dirt on the Pope, but he still did not like the idea of her being alone.
Katie turned her head as if popping her neck. The movement brought Paul’s attention back to the beauty sitting in front of him. A strand of hair fell down onto her face and Paul’s hand itched to go over there and sweep it back behind her ear. To feel it’s softness on his coarse fingers. To run his fingertips down her cheek. Tilt her head back and press his lips against hers.
A car pulled up behind Paul, knocking him out of his thoughts. He rubbed a hand over the crotch of his jeans, repositioning himself before pulling on his magic and walking away. He walked swiftly back to his apartment that he rented under an alias. He needed answers about Katlin. A plan clear in his head, he rushed through his front door and headed straight for his bedroom.
The first thing his eyes landed on was the old tattered book laying on his night stand. The book that had landed him here in this dump. A book of prophecies, and it just so happened that Paul’s name was written among the pages. He had grown up being told that he was destined for greatness. He laughed. Yeah, that was why he was holed up here running from his own kind. Paul was tired of hearing that he was destined, yet no one would tell him why. His parents had told him it was because they did not want it to impact his life. Ha! Yeah, that was stupid. They should have never told him. He had obsessed over it, every day and night, until he could not take it any longer. So he had stolen the damn thing.
Shaking his head, he got his thoughts back on track. He had come in here for a reason. Paul looked around frantically for his bag. There, in the corner, tucked under a pile of dirty clothes. He dug it out and laid it on his bed, reaching in and pulling out the object he was searching for. He held it up to the light to examine it. “Perfect.” He smiled as he tossed the shiny white rock up into the air and caught it again. He would soon have all the answers he needed.
Chapter 2
Katie closed up her com
puter, put it in her bag, and signed the last of her paperwork before heading out the door. She had been glad that the night shift seemed to disappear when she came back to the precinct. She really was not wanting to explain to everyone that after her perfect record, she had lost Paul. She had to force herself to relax her fist when her nails started to dig into her hand. Damn it pissed her off that he had gotten away. She again had the feeling that there was some big piece of the puzzle that she was missing, but what?
Katie thought about it as she walked down the sidewalk. Paul had to be something that she had never come across before. She had spent some of her night looking into some of the possibilities, googling mythical creatures, searching through the thousands of possibilities, only to come up short.
Without any more information, Katie was stuck. It helped to solidify the need to search through his apartment. To turn over every rock looking for him. To find out exactly what he was. Screw what the file and her boss said, she would uncover what exactly was redacted in his file. If nothing else, it would help give her some insight into his life.
Katie turned the corner as a slight breeze hit her warm skin, cooling her off. Katie sighed in relief. She had not realized that she had been sweating until then. After today, she was ready to get home, open a bottle of wine, and run a warm bath. She glanced at her watch as she stifled a yawn. “Well, shit,” she muttered when she realized how late it was. By the time she got home she would have just enough time for a quick shower and then go straight to bed. She had a lot of work to do in the morning and she did not need to be dragging because of lack of sleep.
Katie made it back to her apartment in record time. She fumbled through her purse, trying to find her keys. Once she found them, she unlocked her door and stepped inside. A familiar sensation washed over her. The feeling of being watched. At first it had freaked Katie out, but now that she had become accustomed to it, she actually found it comforting.