by Zoe Chant
Just steal it?
Keeley grimaced. Wow. Doesn’t take much to make you fall back into bad habits, huh? Even her inner voice was bitter.
She sniffed and gritted her teeth, bracing herself to push down on the surge of rage and helplessness she knew was coming. Damn it, she’d tried so hard. For years.
All she wanted was to be someone else. Someone better. Someone who deserved even a taste of the love and happiness she’d seen in that family she’d almost bowled over back at the hotel. Was that too much to ask?
She closed her eyes, stretching her imagination as far as it would go. No point imagining herself as someone with a happy mom and dad. It was a bit late for that.
But this new, imaginary Keeley—the one she’d dreamt of when she left home ten years ago, the one she’d spent the last decade trying day after day to become… In her most secret dreams, she would have a man who looked at her like the guy with the fancy watch had looked at his new fiancée. As though she was the most wonderful, most important person in the world.
Someone that Keeley could look at like the woman had looked at him, smiling and giggly and pretend-tripping so he would catch her. Like she trusted him so much it wasn’t even a question.
Like she couldn’t wait to start their life together. Be a family. Have a family, have kids who would grow up surrounded by that much love…
Keeley shook her head. Well, it hadn’t happened, had it? No chance of a boyfriend when she spent her evenings scrubbing floors and changing sheets instead of out clubbing. The most action she’d had in the last few years was dickheads like the guy tonight leering at her ass.
No. New Keeley, old Keeley, it didn’t matter. She was stuck with the hand she’d been dealt. No way she would ever have anything like—
*—Curiosity, warmth, hello?—*
Keeley spluttered and blinked. That… wasn’t her. It had been in her head, but it wasn’t her that had thought it. Or felt it. It hadn’t even been words, just a strong… feeling.
“Now I’m going crazy as well,” she muttered. She wiped her eyes and checked the next stop. “Oh, shit.”
The train had nearly arrived at the station where she was supposed to leave the backpack. She needed to put the rock away. Make it look like she hadn’t tampered with it.
Keeley wrapped her fingers more tightly around the stone.
Her fingertips tingled and she stopped, eyes wide. A moment before, the stone had been cool to the touch. Well, it was rock, after all. But now it was warm. And growing warmer by the second.
Keeley looked at it more carefully. It was still just… well, a fancy rock. It sat heavily in her hand, its polished surface reflecting the light unevenly.
It shouldn’t be this warm just from her holding it for a few seconds, should it? She turned it over in her hands, looking for a seal or join. Maybe it was some sort of electronic gadget?
Something moved inside the stone, and Keeley almost dropped it.
It felt alive.
Keeley held her breath. There it was again. The stone shook in her hands. A short, soft movement—like a heartbeat.
Thud. Thud.
“What is this?” she breathed, eyes fixed on the stone.
A bright, fluttery excitement burst against her mind. Not her excitement. She wasn’t excited, she was freaking the hell out. So what is—
Crack!
A hairline crack appeared in the stone, so thin Keeley could barely see it. She ran her fingertips over it, just to make sure she wasn’t imagining things.
“Oh, shit. Now it’s breaking?”
The stone rocked at her touch.
Crack! Crack!
The hairline crack widened and another one appeared. And another. Keeley’s pulse thudded in her ears. Was this part of the test? She opened the case, and the goods started breaking—was it some sort of failsafe?
A fragment of rock the size of her palm fractured and fell away, and Keeley gasped.
It wasn’t a failsafe. Because this wasn’t a stone. It was an egg.
A long, scaly nose poked out of the hole in the egg. Tiny eyes blinked, then peered up at Keeley, bright gold and shining with curiosity.
“Oh, my God,” Keeley breathed.
The little creature poked its head up, staring straight at her with golden, cat-slitted eyes. Another piece of shell fell away, revealing—No, that’s impossible—a pair of folded, gleaming-gold wings.
As Keeley watched, the hatchling flared its wings out, its eyes narrowing with pleasure as it stretched free of the confines of the egg for the first time in its life.
She knew it was pleasure the creature was feeling, because she could feel it too. In her head. A little sunburst of satisfaction.
The hatchling opened its eyes again and stared at her.
“Prrp?” it trilled.
Keeley stared back.
So this is what Sean wanted you to move. Not money, or drugs. Not a stone. A living creature.
“What are you?” she whispered, tentatively lifting her hand towards the hatchling. It sniffed politely at her fingertips and nibbled experimentally on her pinky finger.
The world seemed to whirl around her.
No, she thought, desperately clinging to reality, that’s not the world spinning. It’s the train slowing down.
Keeley licked her lips. Drop the case in the backpack in the last car and leave by the rear door. That was what she was supposed to do.
And fuck knows what Sean will do if you don’t. No way he’ll stop at getting you fired. Remember what happened last time.
The scars on her fingers ached.
The tiny winged lizard-thing blinked up at her with its huge, innocent golden eyes. Something shivered deep inside Keeley. A warm, gentle feeling she hardly recognized.
And this time, it wasn’t from the hatchling. It was all her.
What sort of a person are you, really?
Lance
“Are you sure this is the best route? Briers?”
“Best I can do, sir. Traffic’s all backed up the other way. If you take the next left—”
Lance cursed. They were still a block away from the intercept site. If Briers’ intel was correct, then this was their best shot at recovering the egg.
Or it was a trap. That was always an option.
Either way, if they didn’t get there in time, they’d never know. And they’d lose their chance.
“There’s no time,” he barked. “We’ll do it on foot.”
“Sir, even with the re-route, it’ll be faster in the car—”
“I know a shortcut.”
Lance paused, his hand on the car door handle.
There were four agents in the van with him. Tori Bradford, one of the night-shift meerkat shifters from the office, was in the driver’s seat. In the back with Lance were Parker, Yelich—and Zhang.
*All of you, follow me.*
Zhang might be a green recruit, but for this mission, he needed trackers. And no one tracked better than a shark. She’d be more useful on the front line than providing backup from the van.
*Shields up!*
The other agents obeyed his telepathic order immediately, flickering out of sight. Lance grinned and reached for the dragon-scale shield strapped to his upper arm. The scale pressed down onto his skin, and the world around Lance shimmered as he dropped out of sight.
So long as the scale was touching him, no one would be able to see, hear or smell him, unless they were shielded, too.
It was dragon magic. Julian Rouse’s magic. The same magic that whoever had stolen the dragon egg wanted to exploit.
Lance jumped out of the van, signaling for the others to fall in behind him as he ran into the building the car had been stuck outside.
He knew this building. At least, he knew it ten or fifteen years ago, when it had been a burnt-out shell, and he’d been friends with the woman who bought and restored it into a glitzy hotel.
He’d thought he had known her, too. Francine Delacourt. But he hadn
’t, not in the end.
Lance shook his head, dislodging old hurt. He’d seen the blueprints for the new build, and now he navigated by them, slipping invisibly past guests and staff into a warren of employee-only corridors that eventually burst out in an alleyway near the station entrance.
He glanced at the station clock as he ran down the stairs to the nearest platform. The train should just be arriving. Motioning for Parker and Zhang to fall into position behind him, he raced down the final few steps.
The platform was almost empty. A dozen or so wilted late-night travelers were slumped at intervals along the platform, waiting disinterestedly for the train to stop.
Lance mentally filed the facts as he noticed them. Their arrival time. The rush of air that heralded the next train’s approach.
The presence of civilians. If this all went wrong, they might be at risk.
He slowed, all senses on high alert, and six figures at the end of the platform caught his eye.
They were all wearing heavy dark fatigues, standing poised for action as they waited for the train to arrive.
Lance’s snow leopard snarled as he took in the grim, impassive looks on their faces. They reminded him of his time in the military, but they didn’t resemble soldiers. More like mercenaries, well-equipped and ready to jump for whoever was paying their fee.
None of the other passengers seemed to notice them. Which meant they must be shielded, same as Lance and his team.
Briers’ lead had paid off. The enemy hadn’t set a trap with those poorly forged video feeds; they just hadn’t covered their tracks properly.
*What the hell’s this? They’re here already?* Yelich’s psychic voice trumpeted in Lance’s mind.
Lance shook his head. The black-clad figures were watching for the train with predatory intensity. *They’re backup, or our thief’s been double-crossed and we’re dealing with more than one group. Either way, we need to get in there.*
Six enemy agents. Oh, and however many of the enemy were waiting on the train that this group was here to meet. And Lance had two agents, one green recruit, and Briers’ eye-in-the-sky support once he reset the security cameras.
“Sir.” Briers’ voice crackled in his ear. “I’ve lost the feed for the station. I’ll do my best to get it back online, but—”
Make that two agents and one green recruit.
Lance cut Briers’ excuses short with a brief order, then sent a telepathic message to Zhang and Parker.
*There. At the end of the platform. Move out.*
Six to four? He’d faced worse odds, and with less hanging in the balance.
The train appeared at the end of the platform, and the other late-night commuters started to show some signs of life. The enemy agents didn’t so much as glance their way.
They hadn’t seen Lance or his agents yet. Which meant they had the element of surprise.
Lance unholstered his gun and led his small team down the platform as the train slowed to a stop. A hydraulic hiss told him the doors were about to open, and the six enemy agents’ laser focus told him that his target was in that final car. If they could take out the platform team before whoever was on the train joined them—
He was expecting more mercenaries. A small, tactical team, who had taken out the driver and grabbed the egg and were now rejoining the larger group.
Instead, a woman appeared in the car door, directly in front of the enemy forces. She glanced up, her face tight as she checked the platform.
Even from twenty feet away Lance saw her eyes, stormy gray-blue and bright despite her clear exhaustion. She had dirty-blonde hair, pulled back into a strict bun, and was wearing a long coat that looked several sizes too big for her.
Head down, arms wrapped around herself, she stepped down onto the platform. Straight into the group of mercenaries.
Lance’s snow leopard rose up so fast Lance felt claws burst from his fingers. He swore, corralling his snow leopard’s form but keeping its heightened senses.
Danger! his snow leopard snarled.
Lance was already running. His snow leopard urged him on, faster, faster.
He was still ten feet away when one of the mercenaries shrugged, knelt, and tossed something under the car. As he stood up, the others closed in on the woman.
And the world turned to fire.
Lance’s human brain put the pieces together as his snow leopard braced his body for the blast. The mercenary had thrown a grenade. In the middle of the goddamn city. If there had been any other passengers in that car—
Help her! his snow leopard snarled.
The far end of the car had exploded. The air was full of fire and shrapnel. Smoke billowed from the blaze in thick, noxious clouds that clawed at his lungs.
Lance plowed into the mercenaries, all his senses focused on the woman who’d stepped off the train a moment before the explosion. She’d been knocked to the ground by the blast and was kneeling with one hand on the ground, the other wrapped around herself. Alarms went off in Lance’s head.
She’s hurt. Get her out of here. Now!
He didn’t know whether the voice in his head was his leopard screaming at him, or the other way around. Moving with feline grace, he knelt and pulled the woman into his arms.
Lance shouldered a mercenary out of his path as he rose and turned back towards the stairs. He could smell the man’s scent even through the smoke, a rank combination of old meat and sweat that made his snow leopard puff up defensively. The mercenaries were shifters. Some sort of predators.
Lance didn’t stick around to find out more. Under the smell of smoke and the shifter merc’s stench, another scent was dancing across his senses, and his world shrank down to the warm body pressed against his chest.
Smoke choked Lance’s lungs as he raced back up the platform. He was dimly aware of Parker and Yelich falling on the six mercenaries and Zhang leaping into the smoldering car, but the knowledge was distant, like some small part of his brain was taking notes for later.
The woman in his arms coughed, her whole body shaking. Lance swore. If the smoke was burning his shifter lungs, it would be all the worse for her.
He ran up the stairs six at a time, not slowing down until clean air hit his lungs.
Above ground, a crowd had gathered, half commuters still coughing up smoke, half interested onlookers. Every time a new figure emerged from the station entrance, which was still belching smoke, the crowd surged forward, gathering up the newcomer and pulling them back to safety.
The crowd stayed put as Lance carried the coughing woman out onto the sidewalk. He was still shielded and, since she was touching him, so was she.
The woman clutched white-knuckled at the front of his shirt.
“What the fuck just happened?” Her voice was serrated with shock. Stormy blue-gray eyes burned into his, bright with terror and—
Danger, his snow leopard had told him. Understanding struck Lance like a bolt of lightning. Danger was right. The woman in his arms was his mate.
Lance had spent every waking hour since the Diaz affair feeling like the ground was crumbling under his feet. Now the whole Earth seemed to tilt under him. If I’d been there a second later…
“It’s all right,” he said, his voice rough. “You’re safe.”
“Huh?” The woman shook her head. Her eyebrows shot together, making her eyes look even stormier. “I—the train—oh shit—”
She broke off and started to cough uncontrollably.
Lance carried her to an empty bit of sidewalk away from the crowd and set her gently on her feet, holding her until she stopped coughing and caught her breath.
“There was an explosion,” he started to explain, and she glanced up at him, her eyebrows drawing together.
“What?” she asked sharply.
She was still holding onto the front of Lance’s shirt with one hand. Lance’s snow leopard preened. Either she was just steadying herself, or… was it possible she felt the connection between them, too?
A
cool night breeze was whisking away the smell of burning metal and plastic from the station explosion. Under it, he could smell his mate’s own scent, like sun and salt and the smell of cut grass.
“There was an explosion at the end of the platform,” he repeated. “You were close to the blast. Are you hurt?”
“What?” She stared at him, and then released his shirt to rub the side of her face. “I can’t hear a thing!”
Ah.
Lance closed his eyes briefly, feeling like an idiot. His shifter healing meant his ears were barely ringing any more, but she was human.
*Boss! We need backup! We’ve found something, but—shit!*
All at once, the rest of the world reappeared. Sirens blasted, and his mate’s scent was joined by the gunpowder crackle of dragon.
He made a split-second decision. His mate was safe, and alive; and he had a mission to complete.
“I need to go,” he said reluctantly. “There are ambulances coming. Get them to check you out. I’ll…”
He trailed off. I’ll find you, he wanted to say. But right now, he couldn’t let himself think that far.
“Seriously, I still can’t hear you!” his mate shouted back. She licked her lips nervously. “Look, I’m sure there are other people who need help, okay? I’m all good!”
And I need to go. Lance gave her a reassuring smile and, every atom of his being screaming at him to stop, turned and loped back down the stairs to meet up with his team.
I’ll find her again. Later. When all this is finished. When the ground under my feet is solid again, he reassured himself.
The fight was over quickly. Lance’s team had backed the mercenaries into a corner of the station, but there were too many of them. They broke through Yelich and Parker’s defenses a moment before Lance joined the fray.
Heavy-duty sprinklers turned the smoke and flames into steam, and as the air cleared, the enemy disappeared like sea mist.
Lance bit back a curse and ordered his team back to the van.
“Tell me we’ve got good news,” he barked as he slid into his seat. Zhang and Parker turned to him, while Yelich ground her teeth in the corner.