by Abigail Owen
After a moment’s debate, she gave a low growl of frustration with herself, then hustled to the bedside table where she’d seen a pad of paper and pen in the drawer. She scrawled a note and left it under her pillow. They’d find it when cleaning the room.
Guilt assuaged, Kasia returned to the window and studied the layout. Her room faced the back of the building—a paved lot, industrial trash bins, loading docks, with pools of yellow-tinted glow cast by a series of lights attached to the building roof.
She grimaced at the thirty-foot drop from the third-floor room where she stayed when she wasn’t on one of her flaming benders.
“You can do this,” she muttered with less conviction than she would’ve liked. “Thirty feet is cake.”
She may have inherited her mother’s ability to teleport, but erratic aim and limited distances were the best she could do so far. As in, she’d never made it more than ten feet, and who the hell knew where she’d end up. Frustrating, but she’d get better eventually. She did her best to ignore the mental image of slamming into the ground and snapping her leg bones. She could already hear the crunch.
Kasia gave herself a shake. “Quit stalling, you wimp.”
Then she scowled. Talking to herself had become more of a thing in the last year of solitude, a gap filler for her sisters’ constant chatter. That time of isolation, especially in the winter when she’d hardly left her cabin, nearly had her doing a “Here’s Johnny!” a la The Shining. Clearly residual effects lingered.
Focus.
Closing her eyes, Kasia thought about fire, picturing the red and gold flames licking through her. Immediately, a pleasant warmth bloomed inside her belly. At least she could control the fire when it didn’t involve her unexpected and uncontrollable visions.
The warmth spread until she could no longer contain it. With a snap of her fingers, Kasia gave the flames a way out, holding her palm face up, almost cradling the dancing light in her hand. Then she pictured herself standing on the pavement outside, below her room. She stared hard, aiming all her concentration at that spot.
“Now,” she whispered.
In an instant, a blink of silence, she disappeared from the room and reappeared outside in the back lot.
Too high.
“Shit.”
She hung in midair for a millisecond before gravity took hold of her rematerialized form and yanked her down. Flailing, she hit the ground hard and with a sad lack of dexterity. Kasia grunted as her knees buckled, and she tumbled forward on her hands. Her backpack flipped up and smacked her in the back of the head.
“Ow.” Thankfully no witnesses were there to laugh at her shame.
Please don’t let anything be broken.
No sickening crunch was a good sign. A quick check showed the only battered parts were her knees. Her jeans sported new rips on both sides, and she’d bet money the right one was bleeding if the sharp sting was anything to go by.
“That’s going to leave a mark,” she half groaned, half grumbled.
But she didn’t have time to examine the wound. With a scrambling motion, she shoved back up to her feet, brushed her hands off on her jeans, and teleported as quietly and quickly as she could, in ten-foot hops aiming for the corner of the building where the lights didn’t reach. She just hoped she was disappearing fast enough that the cameras she was sure had to be out here didn’t catch her.
She cautiously poked her head around the corner, checking for anyone else skulking around random buildings in the dead of night. Sticking to the shadows, she continued to teleport down the ridiculously long side, passing several other buildings as she went, pausing every so often to listen or check an alleyway off to her left.
At the next corner she paused again, before cautiously taking a peek. Parking lot. Good. Bright lights, not so good. Worse, only one car sat there. Some kind of ancient American muscle car men seemed to drool over, but also tended to be obnoxiously loud.
Seriously? No other options? She scanned the area. Not one other vehicle.
Why couldn’t she have stumbled across one of those electric things that ran blessedly silent? Didn’t fate realize she was trying to escape unnoticed? Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
The car was parked directly in front of the doors leading into the medical clinic, so Kasia took her time searching for any sign of someone coming out of the building. She couldn’t do anything about the cameras except hope she was gone before anyone caught her. As sure as she could be that she’d have enough cover and time, she extracted the wire hanger from her backpack, then hurried through the harsh parking lot lights to her getaway vehicle.
Untwisting the wire hanger, she formed it into a J and slipped it between the driver’s side window and the rubber seal. It took a few tries, but she managed to jimmy the lock. She slipped inside the car and bent over to reach under the dash.
The good thing about these older cars was how much easier it was to access the lines to hotwire the suckers. After stripping back the coating, she touched the ends together. The engine roared to life, vibrating the car under her ass.
“I still got it, Mom.” She sent the words out into the universe, hoping her mother, who’d taught them all these survival skills—skill sets that changed over the centuries from riding horses and scaling walls to hotwiring cars and hacking computers—was somewhere smiling down.
After twisting the ends of the wires together, Kasia popped up in her seat, shoved the car into reverse, and got moving. She didn’t relax until she’d made it to the highway and could open up the massive engine.
With a grin, she patted the dashboard. “You may be loud, but at least you’re fast.”
And in mint condition. Another stab of guilt had to be shoved aside for whomever loved this vehicle. She’d have to find some way to get it back to the clinic. Later. For now, her one goal was putting distance between herself and Brand Astarot.
Despite her apparent success, Kasia kept checking the skies, because that freaking dragon shifter might catch up to her any second. She ignored the dull ache of disappointment that settled in her chest as she lumped him in with all of his kind.
I wanted him to be one of the good guys.
Her visions had never shown her what Brand was. And, okay, so maybe she’d developed a bit of a crush on the nameless guy she saw over and over. Along with a minor obsession with finding out what the rest of the tattoo on his right arm looked like.
More than a crush, she mentally argued with herself. Another new habit from her year of solitude.
After all, his was the face she pictured every time the visions came over her, whether or not he was in the images flashing through her mind. The things she’d pictured him doing to her… Kasia gave a little hiss of frustration and shifted in her seat as her body reacted to her thoughts.
Damn, she was in trouble. Those same visions that made her feel safe around him, protected, were tainted by the fact that dragon’s blood ran in his veins. Granted, a dragon king’s blood, her father’s blood, ran in her own veins, but that didn’t make Brand any safer to her. With Pytheios still alive, and most likely the puppet master over the five other dragon kings, just as her mother had feared, she couldn’t trust any of those shifters. Even when the Rotting King died, she still might not trust them. No matter what her heart told her.
So she kept going. Hopefully, he wouldn’t find out about her vanishing act until she was long gone and in the wind.
…
Talking to Kasia’s doctor had taken longer than Brand would’ve liked, but getting Dr. Oppenheim to destroy all records relating to a phoenix had been critical. At least she’d agreed in the end. All it took was a painfully large transfer of cash into her account from one of his own. He had plenty to cover it. The solitary mercenary life had padded his pockets over the years. The King of the Blue Clan was his most frequent customer, and for good reason, but he’d still make sure Ladon reimbursed him later as part of his payment for this task.
Brand would rather have threat
ened the good doctor until she wet herself and never pulled this fuckery again. She was clearly the person who betrayed Kasia and leaked to all who might be interested that the facility was treating a possible phoenix. The problem with his preferred plan was getting out of here easily. He needed to be able to walk out that door unimpeded, or Kasia would never go with him.
He needed her to go with him. Everything he’d done in his life, every single step, every job, every horrible act, had been calculated to move him closer to one goal, and one goal only.
Revenge.
Revenge against Uther, who’d killed Brand’s entire family to take the gold throne. The Red King, Pytheios, might control the other five kings, but Uther had done the killing. Revenge also burned inside him for every dragon who’d helped that bastard or who’d looked the other way while it all went down. Helping Ladon take the throne from Thanatos, the previous Blue King, had been a big step in that goal.
Now, giving Kasia to Ladon, the only ruler he trusted, was the key to the next step, the one that would deliver Uther to him, eventually. Brand could do only so much as a rogue. Being exiled made him persona non grata among all dragon shifters. Half the time he was watching his own back. Bringing Ladon a phoenix would be big enough that the Blood King would finally let him become a member of the Blue Clan. With a clan behind him, revenge was that much closer.
So he’d paid the doctor off.
Brand strolled down the long hallway, into the lobby, and out of the medical clinic, intending to grab the duffel bag with his clothes that he had stashed in the trunk of his car earlier. The smug doctor had offered him a room to sleep in so he could stay close to the prize he’d just paid several arms and legs for. But as soon as the doors whooshed open on a cool blast of early autumn air, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the empty parking spot where he was damn sure he’d left the Hemi Cuda.
“Where the fuck is my car?”
Cold logic followed hot on the heels of instant anger.
Kasia. Shit.
Her campfire and chocolate scent lingered in the air out here. He’d know that aroma anywhere after being surrounded by it while she went up in flames in his arms. The question was, had someone else come and stolen her out from under his nose? Or had she pulled a runner?
Either way, he had to confirm she was gone before he went off half cocked. With another expletive, he hauled back inside. The polar bear shifter looked up, her raised eyebrows frozen at half mast as she processed his expression, which Brand had no doubt was grim to the point of scary.
“What happened?” she asked.
He appreciated that she skipped straight to the point. “Send someone to check that Kas…um…Mariska is still in her room.”
Rather than pick up the phone, she grabbed a walkie-talkie, relaying his instructions to whoever was on the other end. Less than a minute later, his fear was confirmed.
“She’s not here,” the male voice came back. “Smells like smoke in here.”
Damn it. That could mean any number of things. Brand grabbed the walkie-talkie from the bear shifter’s grasp. “Do you see any ashes in the room?”
“Who is this?”
Rather than answer himself, Brand held down the button and shoved the device in the bear shifter’s face. She didn’t even blink. “Just answer him, Jace.”
“No ashes,” the guy called Jace came back.
“Are all her clothes there?” Brand barked his next question.
“There’s a hospital gown on the bed. A few clothes still in the drawers and closet. I’m not sure if anything is missing.”
So she’d taken the time to get dressed, but a kidnapper would probably have her do that, which meant he was no closer to knowing for sure what happened.
“Any other scents?” Brand asked.
“Not that aren’t normal for this place.”
Brand glanced at the receptionist, who understood his silent question. “Jace is a wolf shifter,” she said.
Which meant a sense of smell that would catch even subtle scents.
The receptionist snatched the walkie-talkie back. “She came in with a backpack. Do you see it anywhere?”
“Looking.” Another minute later. “No backpack.”
Brand leaned his weight onto his fisted hands on the top of the desk and debated his next move. Taking her backpack likely meant she’d run. Since he was the only new variable in her world, that meant she’d run from him.
Why?
Brand racked his brain, going over and over the conversation they’d had when she’d woken up. How she’d acted. Sure as shit, she had no idea of Dr. Oppenheim’s duplicity, or she would’ve been terrified. Had he done or said anything that would’ve scared her badly enough to leave these people who were supposedly trying to help her? He didn’t think so. That had to mean she was running from what he was—a dragon shifter.
Didn’t a phoenix seek out dragon shifters?
As creatures who dealt with fire, dragons were uniquely equipped to be a phoenix’s mate. As the biggest, baddest shifters on the planet, they were also natural protectors for the delicate creatures. Not that he knew for sure, since no one had seen a phoenix in over five centuries.
Then again, no one seemed entirely sure about what happened to the last phoenix all those years ago. Rumor had it, she’d picked the wrong mate—Zilant Amon, the King of the White Clan, rather than Pytheios—and both Zilant and the phoenix had died during the mating process. Some said she’d killed the White King with her flames and taken her own life out of sorrow.
Didn’t matter. He needed to track Kasia down. Double time.
Brand had no doubts Ladon hadn’t been the good doctor’s only call, and other paranormals would want to claim a phoenix for all sorts of reasons. To try to ally with a dragon king by bringing her to one, or as insurance against dragons. Some might believe the myths that possessing a phoenix would make them invincible or bring them unimaginable fortune. Vampires, in particular, believed that if they ingested a phoenix’s blood they’d absorb her powers.
No matter the reason, everything that crawled, slithered, ran, or flew would be after Kasia now.
If that phoenix was the ticket to his revenge, losing her would cost him his head, regardless of his history with the Blue King.
Brand didn’t stop to dwell on the underlying dread twisting up his insides that came dangerously close to concern. Concern for Kasia? No way. He didn’t worry about anyone but himself. He didn’t know the phoenix. Didn’t plan to.
The question was, could he track her from the sky?
Brand threw his backpack on, then hastily pulled a business card out of his wallet and tossed it at the bear shifter. “Call me if you find her or if she comes back.”
“Where are you going?” she called out after him.
“To track her down,” he yelled back.
If he could.
The bigger problem would be controlling his dragon once he found her. He didn’t think he’d hurt her, but unleashing the feral creature he could turn into was always a risk. Especially when he was already angry. Pissed didn’t begin to cover the emotions pumping through him.
Then again, someone getting to her first was a bigger risk. With no choice left to him, he’d have to try.
“We’ll keep searching from here.” The polar bear shifter’s voice followed him out the door.
Luckily the parking lot was as deserted as it had been when he’d arrived earlier in the day. The space was also large enough, though he might knock out a few power lines in the process. The wide-open field across the way was better, but he didn’t have time to run out there.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and called forth the dragon from within. In a silent rush, his body changed. His soul stayed in place as his physical form shifted around his essence—everything human about him, including his clothes and backpack, absorbed into his new shape as he grew to massive proportions. He hunched forward as legs and arms adjusted and aligned to stand on all fours. Eyes
open now, his perspective changed, allowing him to see over the tops of the buildings.
His sight sharpened, and he could make out details on the cars on the highway miles away. He unfurled the wings tucked against his back, and before the full transformation had completed, Brand launched himself into the air, his claws gouging long marks in the pavement with the force of his leap.
He finished the details of his shift as he flew—golden scales both malleable and hard as diamonds, long tail trailing behind him like a rudder, razor-sharp teeth, spiked ridges along his back.
In this form, his sense of smell honed to a greater degree, and that chocolaty campfire scent of Kasia’s, blending with the unique combination of leather, metal, and gas from his car, provided a trail that was practically a blinking neon sign.
The creature half of him, the half currently in charge, relished her aroma. A concerning wave of possessiveness coursed through Brand, something he couldn’t control. Something that came from pure instinct.
Thoughts like those weren’t useful. He needed to focus. A deep breath revealed no other scents mingled with those of the woman and the vehicle, which added to his reasoning that this wasn’t a kidnapping.
I can’t believe she snuck out under my nose and fucking stole my car.
No way would he admit that under the teeth-grinding frustration, a small spark of respect for her ingenuity lit inside him. The woman was no easy mark, and he’d been an arrogant son of a bitch to have assumed she would be.
She’d seemed so helpless and naive, lying in that hospital bed pretending to have no clue about who and what she was. Had that grateful, batting lashes gaze all been an act to stroke his ego merely to get him out her door? Had he been a fool to admit his species to her? Not to mention what it meant for his reputation as a skilled mercenary if this ever got out.
He’d find out when he caught up to her.
If he caught her before someone or something else did. How the hell had she lasted this long without protection?