Iron (Rent-A-Dragon Book 2)

by Terry Bolryder

“Should I go get her?” he asked, knowing the dog wouldn’t answer. But he’d come to love the little animal, and he definitely loved her owner, and he couldn’t imagine life without them.

  He decided he couldn’t wait any longer and got in his car and drove to the garage, cursing himself for not insisting on going with her the whole way.

  When he got out at the garage, he saw her car parked out in front, but no Lindy in or around it.

  Hadn’t she said she was just going to sign something and come home? He hopped out of his car and jogged to the front door, relieved by the hope that maybe she’d just gotten caught up in something at work and stayed with Mike.

  She should have called him, but…

  As he entered the garage, he saw her phone on a nearby counter and no Mike. He took a few more steps in, scenting something odd and unfamiliar, and his eyes narrowed to slits.

  There was a pair of legs sticking out from behind one of the cars he and Mike had been working on, and Magnus’s heart hardened to iron as he rushed forward and knelt beside his fallen co-worker.

  He lifted Mike’s head and checked for a pulse, then sighed in relief when he found one.

  Mike groggily opened his eyes and ran a hand over a bump on his head. “I’m fine. We gotta find Lindy.”

  “What happened?” Magnus asked.

  “They ambushed us. One second they were waiting for us to sign for the order, and then when Lindy came in…” He squinted. “Dammit, I should have seen it coming.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Magnus said. It was his, for letting her come here, even for a moment, without him. When he knew as mates they should always be together.

  He was never going to leave her side again, no matter what she said about it. No matter how she felt about his failure the night the storm had sunk his boat.

  He ran to Lindy’s phone, looking for clues. It dinged and lit up as he got there, and he grabbed it, glad it wasn’t locked.

  Come to the junkyard at Riverstone and Dyson. That is if you want to see Lindy again.

  An icy chill shot through Magnus like a blizzard. He hadn’t felt this cold, this panicked, since the night he’d almost died.

  But he wasn’t helpless this time. No wave, no matter how big or crushing, was going to take his mate from him.

  A second set of dings went off, and he looked at the phone again.

  Come alone, or your mate is done for.

  The word mate struck him instantly. Whoever this was, they knew he was a shifter. They knew about mating. Shit. That meant it couldn’t be Roscoe. Shit. Who was it?

  Still, Magnus didn’t care what he was headed into. When it came to his mate, he’d face hell itself for a chance with her. He ran to his car, jumping in and making the engine roar to life as he floored the gas and sped off toward the location he’d mapped on his own phone while running.

  It wasn’t that far, and he could get there in half the time if he was reckless. Which, right now, he was.

  As he palmed the wheel, taking a turn at breakneck speed, he called out to Titus in his mind, apprising him of the situation.

  Titus, it’s Lindy. They have her.

  Who has her? he responded.

  I don’t know. I’m headed there now. Can you get Citrine? I asked him for some info on some guys at Roscoe’s shop, but whoever took Lindy knows I’m a shifter. They know she’s my mate.

  Shit, Titus responded. One second. I’ll get Citrine.

  A stop sign was up ahead. Magnus looked both ways and ran it completely, not even slowing. His mate was in danger. Human road laws were less important right now.

  Citrine says he did some digging. It seems the head of the operation, Roscoe, is a smalltime drug dealer that operated out of this suburb’s largest auto dealership and scrapyard.

  The one on Riverstone?

  Exactly.

  Is he a shifter? Does he know about them?

  Let me ask, Titus said, going quiet.

  There was silence for a few tense seconds, and the pervasiveness of it was frustrating as Magnus ran through a yellow light with abandon.

  I spoke with Citrine. He doesn’t think it’s likely that Roscoe would have any knowledge about us.

  He said he has my mate, dammit. What’s going on? Magnus demanded.

  Citrine just says be careful if you’re going there now, which I can only assume you are because I’d be doing the same. We’ll be right behind you.

  Keep your distance for now. He says I need to come alone.

  There was a prolonged pause. Then Titus spoke. All right, brother. Be safe. Go get your mate. We will stay where they can’t hear us until you call us in.

  Then there was silence in his mind, just as his phone chimed that he was nearing the destination.

  Magnus screeched to a halt as he stopped in front of the place, kicking up dust and smoke as he did. In front of him was a large, almost warehouse-sized building, with rows of auto repair bays off to one side and a sprawling, fenced-off junkyard on the other that appeared to stretch out far behind the property. Behind the fence, piles of cars and scrap metal were heaped in rows, adding to the forlorn, dilapidated look of the place.

  The gray sky overhead didn’t help.

  Magnus hopped out and ran for the front door, made of reinforced glass and hanging slightly open, as if inviting him in. To the right, he noted what appeared like a normal delivery truck with several letters on its side.

  As he stepped inside, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. The lights were off, leaving the hallway he’d entered full of shadows. It was only then that he realized he was standing in stark silence. No sounds of car repair or pneumatic tools. No men talking. No keyboards clicking.

  Everything was oddly, alarmingly still.

  Regardless, Magnus could vaguely scent that Lindy had been through here not too long ago. Wherever she was, she was nearby, and rage bubbled beneath his skin, the dragon inside him roaring for vengeance and to find its mate posthaste.

  Following the scent, he ran down the hallway, glancing through glass doors that led into offices and workplaces but ignoring them as he went to the very end of the corridor. At the end, there was a door with the name “Roscoe” on it, hanging slightly ajar. Just seeing the name now made him livid, and without caring what was behind it, he pulled the door entirely off its hinges, throwing it into the hall as he stepped into the room.

  Inside was a large desk with a leather office chair behind it. The room itself was in poor repair, with cracks in the tiles on the floor and chipped paint that revealed broken drywall around and above him.

  There was a man in the chair, fingers crossed in front of him. He had pale skin with ruddy cheeks, short brown hair, and a well-trimmed beard, which didn’t obscure the smuggest smile Magnus had ever seen.

  Magnus was going to fucking kill him.

  “Where is she?” he roared, only one thing on his mind.

  “She’s safe. For now at least,” the man, who Magnus could only assume was Roscoe, said, unfazed by the enraged dragon.

  Magnus wanted to rush forward and pluck the smug bastard out of his chair, but he needed to know where Lindy was first.

  “What do you want? Tell me where she is, and I won’t disembowel you,” Magnus growled.

  Roscoe just sat there. Magnus thought he could hear a quiet laugh, and the almost-noiseless sound in eerie silence was pissing him off. And giving him the creeps.

  He couldn’t take it anymore and ran at Roscoe, plucking the bastard out of his chair and shaking him furiously.

  “Fine, I’ll just squeeze it out of you, then,” Magnus snarled.

  But as soon as he’d said it, Roscoe melted out of his hands like water, changing from solid human flesh in a liquid, silver-colored metal. Magnus stepped back in shock as the substance disappeared into the ground completely, leaving him alone.

  A second later, he heard a laugh and whirled around to see Roscoe again, leaning on the wall, arms crossed, seemingly amused by what was going on.

/>   In frustration, Magnus rushed at Roscoe again, picking him up and slamming him into the wall. But just as soon as he’d grabbed the man by his collar, he dissolved into the silvery substance and disappeared even more swiftly into nothingness.

  What the hell kind of sorcery was this?

  “Where’s my fucking mate? I know she’s here. Stop playing games with me, whoever… whatever you are!” Magnus yelled, furious and annoyed and desperate to find his mate.

  This time, Magnus saw the silver liquid seeping through the wall in front of him, shaping into a large man before his very eyes. Only this time, it wasn’t Roscoe. He was tall, almost as tall as Magnus and his brothers, as well as muscled. His skin was pale, almost translucent, and he had long, grayish-silver hair that was swept to one side, almost covering his right eye.

  His eyes glittered in dark silver, just the substance he’d reformed from, and his perfect white teeth were bared in a sinister grin. His robe was shimmering silver, lightly draped and tied with a belt, only adding to his unearthly appearance.

  What. The. Hell?

  “It’s so hilarious watching you get so worked up over something as inane as a fragile human,” the man before him spoke, his voice amused and menacing. “You’re all so gullible. So easily manipulated that way.”

  “Who are you?” Magnus asked, wanting to pummel whoever this was into the ground.

  “Don’t you know me? I’m one of your kind.”

  “One of my kind? I don’t think so. My crew doesn’t kidnap innocents for fun.”

  “Innocent,” Mercury said. “What a joke, thinking any of you is innocent. But I am indeed one of you. A dragon. Mercury is what I think humans would call it.”

  “Poison,” Magnus snapped, scowling.

  “Ah, still prejudiced,” Mercury said. “Regardless, I’d be careful. I’m the one with power now.”

  “What do you want?” Magnus grated out.

  Mercury clicked his tongue, watching with almond-shaped eyes beneath dark, furrowed eyebrows. “Such a dimwitted dragon to think I would reveal that. For now, let’s just say you and your so-called ‘brothers’ represent everything I hate about dragons and their kind. And you’re going to be the first to go.”

  Like hell.

  “I’m only going to ask one more time. Where. Is. Lindy?” Magnus said, fury growing stronger with each passing second.

  “Well, since you asked…” Mercury said with a shrug, reaching his hand to the side and pulling the blinds of the darkened office open.

  Light poured in, blinding Magnus for a second. But when his vision cleared, he saw outside into the center of the junkyard out back. A large crane was parked in the center of it, and lifted high above the ground was an old, beat-up car, perched precariously at least thirty feet above the ground.

  Inside it was Lindy, pressed against the window, hands tied, mouth gagged.

  Oh, this fucker was so dead.

  12

  “Makes you angry, doesn’t it?” Mercury asked with a snicker. “Beholding evidence of your failure to protect those you care about.” His eyes narrowed menacingly. “Again.”

  Magnus charged forward, summoning his ancestral axe instantly and bringing the huge blade down at his enemy. Mercury slid to the side, and the ax sliced into the wall, cutting down the center with a loud crash that sent wood and drywall flying.

  “Such anger. I love it,” Mercury said, stepping backward. In a flash of gray light, a sword appeared in his own hands, a long, curved blade with deep serrations that reminded him more of a giant saw than a sword.

  Before Magnus even knew what hit him, Mercury flew toward him, springing off the ground and slashing with the horrific blade. Magnus held up his axe with both hands, blocking the strike as sparks flew in all directions from the impact.

  Whatever else this Mercury guy was, he was definitely a dragon, judging by the way he fought and the sheer strength he possessed.

  Magnus pushed off, slashing wide in the hope of catching Mercury. Mercury was surprisingly agile, though, and he jumped backward, then came back with a flurry of downward strikes, keeping Magnus on his toes as he struggled to block each attack, backing him into the opposite wall.

  When their weapons clashed again, both struggling for the upper hand, Magnus reached out and grabbed the bastard by his neck, hoping to strangle the guy one-handed if he had to.

  Mercury just smiled, and Magnus felt his hand slip through Mercury’s skin as if he’d been trying to grab water itself.

  “Stupid dragon,” Mercury said as Magnus felt Mercury’s fist connect with his jaw, sending him reeling to the side.

  How could someone who could take on a shapeless, liquid form punch so damn hard?

  All Magnus knew was he had to end this so he could go save Lindy. Nothing else mattered right now.

  Summoning his strength, Magnus raised his axe high above his head and brought it down in a crushing blow. Mercury tried to block the attack, but it came so swift, so hard that it knocked his sword to the side, slicing into Mercury’s arm in the process.

  Mercury backed away, and Magnus noticed not blood, but a silvery substance seeping from his arm where he’d been wounded.

  Mercury looked at the cut more with annoyance than pain, then shifted his gaze back to Magnus.

  “I guess you’re not the emotional wreck I’d hoped, given that you practically killed all your precious ‘brothers’ all those years ago,” he said, thinly veiled contempt in his voice.

  “How the hell do you know about that?” Magnus challenged.

  “Oh, I know a lot of things. Like the fact that your supposed brothers, Titus and Liam, never actually forgave you for sending them to a watery grave. They still resent you for it, secretly hate you for killing them.”

  Magnus could feel ice on his arms, horror clouding his mind as memories of the past flooded into the present, icy and cold like the waters they’d sunk into. He tried to fight it off, focusing on his rage, his need to protect Lindy.

  “They just can’t say it out loud because they’re too scared to confront the truth themselves, you know. If they truly told you how they feel about your failure, I think you’d do everyone a favor and just off yourself.”

  The mercury dragon disappeared, and Liam took his place, looking saddened, disappointed. “You said we couldn’t sink,” Liam said, shaking his head. “How could you?”

  Magnus knew it wasn’t Liam. Knew it wasn’t possible, but it sounded like him, looked like him. Hell, even smelled like him.

  Liam disappeared, and Titus took his place, arms crossed, looking down on him. “You let us both down, Magnus. We lost centuries of our lives because of you,” Titus accused.

  It was like Magnus’s subconscious had taken shape before him, putting him on trial for the very mistakes he knew he deserved to be punished for. He knew it was illusion, terrible magic he never knew had existed, but he felt its effects all the same, his body going weak, as if surrounded by frigid ocean water.

  He closed his eyes and thought of Lindy, the only good thing he could cling to at a moment like this.

  Her face when she smiled. Her blushes when she was drunk or aroused. The way she laughed at his bluntness. The ecstasy of making her come.

  No matter whether he deserved it or if he should be punished for his past failures, he had to fight because of Lindy.

  She needed him.

  Magnus hefted his axe once more, but before he could move, Titus melted back into Mercury as the dragon sprang toward Magnus, sword once again in hand. Magnus raised his weapon to block but felt pain lance through him as the sword tore into his shoulder, barely deflected from piercing his heart.

  Magnus grunted as he held his ax firm, watching Mercury grin in amusement at his pain.

  “So weak. So very, very weak,” Mercury hissed, reaching forward to grab Magnus by the throat. Suddenly, Magnus felt air, then crashing glass around him, then hard earth as he was thrown through the window and into the scrapyard.

  He looked up
and saw the muted noonday sun, veiled by thick, gray clouds, and also, just above him, the car Lindy was in.

  He turned to catch his bearings, just in time to see Mercury spring through the gaping window. Magnus scrambled to get back on his feet but felt his entire body crushed into the ground as Mercury launched into him.

  Then Magnus felt the jagged blade at his neck.

  “You fool. So caught up in self-doubt and guilt that cripples you, even while your mate is in danger. So very human, even though you call yourself dragon. Didn’t ever even occur to you that someone could have sabotaged your design back then. So eager to blame yourself.”

  “What are you saying?” Magnus gasped, feeling the blade push harder into his throat.

  “I guess I can tell you now, before I kill you. I want to see your face when I tell you all of this. The self-blame, the nightmares, all pointless,” Mercury said with hideous satisfaction. “There are so very many ways to weaken wood, chemicals that can be used, tiny cracks that can be worsened that will make even the most durable of structures fail. But the fact that you blamed yourself, put the responsibility on your shoulders, was more hilarious than I could have ever imagined.” Mercury finished with a cruel laugh.

  “Why?” Magnus asked. “Why would you do that?” And didn’t that still make him a failure, to know he hadn’t protected his crew or noticed their craft had been sabotaged?

  “You don’t need my reasons,” Mercury hissed viciously. “You just need to despair and die.”

  As Magnus struggled for breath, feeling blood and life leaking out of him, he was distracted by a crash high above them.

  Looking over Mercury’s shoulder, he saw Lindy pop her head out of the window, gag still in her mouth, hands still bound. “Magnus, read my thoughts,” she screamed, enunciating each word as well as she could around the gag.

  She’d remembered that he’d said he could read her thoughts if he invited her. But what could she possibly want to say to him now? Was she going to castigate him as he deserved for once again being too weak to save what he cared about?

  But the minute he heard her soft voice in his mind, he felt instantly calmed.