The Dragon's Wing: A Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance

by Lucy Fear

  “Where have you been?” she complained. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you all week. We need you to cut your vacation short and get back here right away.”

  “About that, Margot,” she said nervously. “I’m not interested in coming back. I’ve tried to tell you in many different ways, but I just can’t work anywhere near Todd anymore. If that means I’ll have to quit the Agency because you won’t allow a transfer, it’ll just have to be that way.”

  “Todd is the reason we need you back,” she said. “I’ll leave explanations aside for the moment and tell it to you straight. The man has been missing since the day you want away. We looked for you in Colorado but they said your plane never arrived. We’ve traced you as far as California, but were unable to determine exactly where you’re staying. Your brother tells me he hasn’t seen you, but I suspect you’re with him anyway.”

  “You’d be right,” Rhi said. “Rory asked for my help, but that’s no longer the reason. I’m in love, Margot, with the most amazing man in the world. Brendan Drake. We’re going to be married.”

  “Well, could you maybe figure out what happened to your partner before you start planning the honeymoon?” she complained. “There’s no way to run this operation if both of my key psychics are missing. I really need you to stay.”

  “Leave Todd missing and move the offices here, and you’d have yourself a deal,” Rhi said dryly.

  “California sounds like a nice place to play,” Margot replied. “Too bad I can’t do things your way. How soon do you think you could get here, kiddo?”

  “Quite soon, as long as you’ll work with my fiancé.”

  *

  “Tell me again why we’re trying to find the man who cheated on you, and you were so willing to never see again?” asked Brendan as he and Rhi sat straight across from Margot at her heavy oak conference table.

  “For me, of course,” Margot interjected before she could. “She knows that if Todd is gone, then she’s it. And I couldn’t possibly let my top psychic walk out on me.”

  “If you would just allow her to work from a branch facility, you wouldn’t have to lose her,” Brendan insisted. “It was never the work she had a problem with. Also, since we’re going to be having a child, I’m sure she’ll want to stick close to home more often than not.”

  “Rhiannon, tell me you didn’t let this charlatan impregnate you?”

  “He’s not a charlatan, Margot,” she defended him. “I’ve seen him transform on several occasions myself. And if it wasn’t for his meld with a dragon, he would be dead right now. It helped to save him from snake bites.”

  “Why don’t you prove it, then?” Margot scoffed. “I’d like to see this transformation for myself.”

  “He’s been avoiding shifts lately for reasons I can’t begin to explain,” Rhi said, then did a double-take when Brendan shifted right away. “Hey, I thought you didn’t want to do that.”

  “This building is not somewhere any sane dragon would come looking for a fight,” he pointed out in a deep, growling voice. “They don’t consider it safe.”

  Margot watched speculatively as Brendan briefly spread his wings, then shifted into his human form once again. “He’s got some big kahunas, shifting in here. I have to agree. Lucky for you, I don’t allow anyone to take films of this room or security would already be on the way. We tend to frown on allowing in creatures we don’t control ourselves.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Brendan reassured her. “I’m on your side in this, remember? The sooner we restore your boy, the sooner Rhiannon and I can be on our way. That’s the deal, or we’ll walk right now.”

  “I think if you can find Todd, I’ll be willing to negotiate,” Margot said. “Remote viewing can be done from pretty much anyplace, don’t you find?”

  “I agree,” Brendan nodded. “Glad you’re beginning to see things my way.”

  ***

  “This is our main viewing room within this facility,” Margot told Brendan as the three of them stepped inside. “As you can see, it’s completely sound-proof and free of any outside stimuli. Now Rhi, I know that you were intimate with Todd at one time, so you should be able to pick up on him without holding any of his belongings, but I’d really like you to connect with the last item that we know was touched by him. I think you may find there’s something quite different about it than the rest of his things.”

  “More importantly,” Rhi added, “nothing in this room is likely to harm us while we are astral. Nothing sharp ever enters here, nothing too hard which could be used as a blunt object either. The walls are padded, and the beds we lie on have no metallic parts. This room is probably the safest one to use to look for Todd.”

  “Mr. Drake, how skilled are you at psychometric search?” Margot asked.

  “I have the skill, of course,” said Brendan with a slight shrug. “I don’t use it a whole lot though, so it could stand to be improved.”

  “Any port in a storm, I’d say. I would like you to familiarize yourself with the artifacts as well. The emotional attachment won’t be there, but then again that may be a good thing. I’m fairly convinced that Rhi doesn’t really want to find the man at all.”

  “Not especially,” she admitted. “Only because finding him is useful for me.”

  “That’s one of the things about this woman I have always admired,” Margot said appreciatively.

  “Yes, I’ve been finding myself feeling the same,” Brendan agreed. “Well then, I suppose we may as well get started, if you have the objects we require.”

  “They are right here,” she said. “I know that Rhi has told you that no dangerous objects are allowed into the remote room, but one of the important items is actually a blade. I’ll have to ask you to examine it outside. I’m sure the impressions it gives you should remain for a time before they fade.”

  “I frequently can remember old impressions,” he said with a nod. “I should be able to do it now. Please, hand me the item so we can proceed.”

  “This way,” she said, leading him into another room nearby. Rhi followed along behind them, picking up a few of the other items while Brendan examined the knife.

  When they’d both examined all the items they wished to sense, Margot led each one into a different safety cell within the main remote room. Rhi already knew what was needed, but she had to let Brendan know the proper way.

  “Whatever you’ll be sensing, you must try to describe it verbally while the examiners record the results. Everything that you tell us here will be examined for possibilities that don’t immediately come to mind. So just go ahead and start talking, leave nothing out if you are able to provide.”

  “Okay.”

  Brendan didn’t like to be separated from Rhi, since he’d come along to be moral support more than anything else, but if using his rusty sensing skills would free her of her current obligations sooner, he was all for it. So, using the feeling he’d gotten from the knife more than anything else he’d touched, he reached out, even instructing his dragon to do the same.

  An uncomfortable feeling of being watched suddenly overwhelmed him. Worse, it was a very familiar sensation. He was completely convinced that his attacker and the presence he felt now were one and the same being. But the question then became, was Todd that attacker, or had he inadvertently picked up on somebody else?

  “I’m not sure I’ve found Todd, but I have found a being who has been wreaking havoc on my life for the past couple of months. Someone who more than once has tried to kill me using his mind. If this is your Todd person, he’ll definitely bear watching, to say the least.

  It does seem odd how his disappearance roughly corresponds to the time that Rhi came out to me. Rory has told me that he and Todd had formed an instant dislike of one another clear back when he and Rhi met the man. I wonder, would this guy attack me in order to get to Rory? But in my mind, all the pieces just don’t seem to fit.”

  In the other bay, Rhi had also reached out with her senses, though her impressi
ons did not come to her right away. “He’s been lying to me since the day we met. I can feel him—what he really is. He’s obsessed. But if he was so obsessed with me, then why would he have slept with somebody else? It doesn’t make any sense.

  Oh my, and there’s something else. It can’t be. It really can’t be. I know he was in France right when I left, but I would never have thought—can Todd and Brendan’s attacker be one and the same person? But why would Todd be attacking Brendan Drake? Maybe it’s not Todd in the room with me? Maybe the attacker has somehow got past the security!”

  An alarm sounded, loud and shrill, in Brendan’s viewing room. Rhi opened her eyes and saw that he was pounding on the glass door, trying to escape. Margot and three other men came rushing into the room, managing to pry open the door.

  “I can’t breathe!” Brendan rasped as Rhi ran from her own bay and over to his.

  “Either Todd’s made some really horrid new friends, or this situation is worse than we’d ever suspected before.”

  Brendan sucked in a breath, then said, “I begin to think it’s both.”

  THE FINAL CHAPTER

  “How would Todd and Allen know each other, though?” Brendan asked for about the fifth time since they’d returned to the briefing room. “Why would he be using Allen to get to me. I mean, I’m aware he’s known Rory for a few years now, but what does that have to do with me?”

  “I remember him making a comment once about how some shamans were telling trade secrets the world didn’t need to know about,” Rhi said with a sigh. “Obviously, he must have been talking about you. I wonder if that’s why he was so rude to Rory when the two of them first met.”

  “You think he’s attacking me because of my stores and seminars revealing too much?” Brendan asked her. “And it might also explain why he said he wanted to steal you from me.”

  “He always was a bit obsessive about us,” Rhi sighed. “That’s why I can’t figure out why he slept with that woman in the first place.”

  “He was on an assignment,” Margot admitted. “Sometimes ops would have him pick up certain girls to see if he could get any intel out of them. From what he told me, the two never even had sex. He said he’s been kicking himself for taking her home ever since.”

  “Well, I’m not the kind of girl who likes to share,” Rhi told her in a decisive tone.

  “No, I don’t suppose you are.”

  “All of this is pointless if it’s not helping us figure out where the bastard is,” Brendan grumbled. “At this point, he could be just about anywhere.”

  “We already know that energy is much easier to track than a solid,” Rhi said. “It doesn’t matter where his body is as long as we can find his energy signature.”

  “But if he’s the attacker, he’s likely to be watching for us, especially since he knows we’ve come to Langley and done a remote view,” Brendan pointed out. “If he wasn’t pissed off before, he’s sure to be pissed now.”

  “We can’t even be sure Todd was actually the one involved in those attacks,” Rhi reminded him. “Our boy may very well have followed us here and jumped into the middle of our session. I’m having a hard time believing Todd could have done something like this.”

  “Why is that?” Brendan asked.

  “I’ve known him for over two years,” she pointed out. “He’s a cheating jerk, yes, but trying to kill somebody he doesn’t even know just because he doesn’t like how he makes a living? I’d have to say that’s excessive.”

  “Yet, he apparently has been taking on all sorts of missions you didn’t know about, either.”

  “Brendan, we work for the CIA. Most of the time, we’re not even supposed to tell our friends or families where we work to begin with, let alone what mission we’re working on,” Rhi said defensively. “Of course, he was doing things he didn’t tell me about. But that doesn’t excuse what he did in any way. I don’t care what job you have, you don’t bring another woman to the bed you’re sharing with the person you supposedly love and make use of it for things you’re only supposed to be doing with her. Understood?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m feeling a bit jealous, and that’s really not fair to you. I know you didn’t choose any of this, and that if Todd is behind the attacks it was not at your instigation. I suppose I’m a bit outside my comfort zone here. Will you forgive me?”

  He stepped over and took her hand, drawing it to his lips to give it a gentle kiss. Rhi smiled at him and nodded before she turned to Margot again.

  “So, we weren’t able to locate him exactly, but I did manage to see palm trees,” she said. “Do you suppose he also went to California?”

  “If he’s been intent on messing with me, he’d want to be nearby in order to make it easier,” Brendan pointed out.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to agree with Rhi,” Margot said, shaking her head. “I just can’t see Todd wanting to attack you just for making a living off your skills. If anything, he would be impressed by the spin you’ve put on teaching people about the Craft and such. Have the two of you considered the possibility that he’s in the same place as your attacker because he was taken there against his will?”

  “As in, the attacker learned about me being with Brendan, and decided to kidnap Todd?”

  “Exactly,” she said with a nod. “They may not have known about your past relationship, but the two of you are still listed as partners within the firm, and still go out on assignments together. They may have believed kidnapping him would draw you back here, leaving Brendan alone again.”

  “It’s true that we’re a much stronger force together than we are apart,” Brendan conceded. “And after the snakes biting me, he’d consider me much weaker than usual, as well. This may very well have become a rescue mission if you’re right.”

  “Margot is a bit psychic, too, even though she doesn’t use it a lot,” Rhi said. “It comes with the territory, I suppose.”

  “We have absolutely got to determine Todd’s physical presence somehow,” Margot said then. “If Rhi says she saw palm trees, I guarantee you that she did. She’s never wrong. That’s why I’m so adamant about keeping her on my team.”

  “You ever thought about leaving the Agency and striking out on your own?” Brendan asked speculatively. “A team of psychic investigators could probably make a good living in Southern California.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Margot said. “They’ve been threatening more than once to close this division down. I’ve been fighting tooth and nail to keep it alive. In fact, there’s a new meeting about that very issue in two weeks, and it doesn’t look good.”

  “Maybe there’s a reason this is all happening right now, then,” he pointed out. “Life has a way of coming together to form new opportunities. Sort of like karmic effect. If they close your division, we should talk. Maybe I could front the money and you could assemble a private sector team, including my lovely bride-to-be.”

  “It’s a great idea, guys, but this isn’t helping us find Todd.”

  “She’s right,” Margot agreed. “I think the only thing we can do at this point is go to California and try to sense him again. I can easily come with you since most of my team has already been reassigned. I was hoping that Rhi finding Todd would convince them to give them back again.”

  “If they’ve already taken the team, your hopes drop dramatically, I’d say,” Rhi pointed out. “Anyway, there’s no better time than the present. Let’s go to California.”

  “We can use the private jet for a quick transport,” Margot suggested. “I may be going down, but I’m still in charge right now. Let me get Mike on the wire and have him prep the plane to fly.”

  About an hour later, the three got into Margot’s car and she drove them to the airport. They boarded the jet and headed for California. They landed at LAX and drove out to a secret facility near Twenty-Nine Palms, where they stopped short of the entrance when they spotted what looked like an excessive number of rattlesnakes covering the road.

&
nbsp; “It’s a fair bet somebody knows we’re here,” Brendan commented dryly.

  “Oh yes, that’s true all right,” Rhi agreed. “Don’t you feel it, Brendan? Todd and the attacker are very near. I can’t tell yet if the attacker is Todd, or if Todd is his hostage, but I definitely can feel the location of his physical form. Inside the facility.”

  “But how do we get in?” Margot complained.

  “I never thought I’d suggest anything so cruel, but keep driving,” Brendan told her. “We’ve simply got to get inside. There is no other way.”

  “That’s so unfair,” Rhi protested. “The snakes can’t help it if some jerk has them under his control. I wish we could find a way to make them go.”

  “Short of sending me out into the desert to lure them, I can’t think of anything.”

  Margot and Rhi exchanged a look that clearly told Brendan he shouldn’t have opened his mouth.

  “Let’s take a side trip,” said Margot with the gleam still in her eyes.

  *

  Near the facility they hoped to enter, Margot had remembered there was a sword shop in the mall. Though it wasn’t a sword she was looking for, she knew the place also had a suit of armor out front. She brought them inside and spoke to the manager. The guy reluctantly agreed to allow Brendan to use the armor to help them complete a mission.

  Now dressed in the heavy gear, Brendan grumbled as he tried to get back into the car. “This is completely crazy, Margot! I can barely even move in this stuff, and you want me to run away from an army of rattlesnakes so you two can get through the door? Have you not thought about what you’re likely to find when you actually make it inside?”

  “It’s you he’s after, remember?” Margot said, pointing to the side of her head and tapping it a couple of times. “We’ll be safer if you distract them, and then find a way in on your own. I’ll tell the gatekeeper to expect you, if the poor guy is even still alive. As long as you’re still in the armor, there’s no way he’d mistake you for anyone else.”

  “Rhi, I definitely can see what you mean about your friend,” he complained as she shut his door. He was laying across the back seat of the company car they’d picked up at the airport, his knees bent at an odd angle. “I hope I only have to use this sword to deflect things. I doubt the thing has a sharpened edge.”