The Dragon Shifter’s Duty

by Roth, Mandy M.

  He thumped his head against the wall, the collar around his neck so tight that the slightest of movements caused the silver-coated manacles to dig deep into him, searing his flesh. Had the chain been fully silver, it would have eaten through his neck already. As it stood, it simply ate at his skin as his natural healing ability worked overtime to repair the damage. At some point, he’d lose the battle. For now, he was still on par with it.

  He tried to reach the manacle on his neck, but the chains fastened to the shackles on his wrists did not permit that much leeway and movement. Even if he did want to eat the rotted food, he couldn’t. The chains didn’t give him enough slack to reach it or his mouth. Ezra sank back against the wall, his naked form covered in various wounds, bruises, and dirt.

  If the assholes holding him thought keeping him naked would humiliate him, they were wrong. He’d been alive for well over fifteen hundred years. His naked form didn’t bother him. The chains he wore did. He’d once spent nearly a hundred of his years shackled and stuck in his shifted form. He’d been kept as a pet by a sick immortal who’d found great amusement in possessing his own pet dragon.

  Those holding him did not know his history or what he’d endured at the hands of sick individuals. They didn’t know his resolve. If they thought this was torture, they were sadly mistaken. This was mere child’s play compared to what he’d endured.

  Stupidly, he’d permitted himself to be discovered while working undercover as a Shadow Agent for PSI. He’d gotten caught because he’d gotten careless, and because he’d gotten emotionally involved. He knew better. Knew the consequences. He didn’t make a habit of making mistakes.

  There were only two times in his long life, before recently helping two people escape a trafficking ring, that Ezra could recall becoming emotionally invested. Once had been when he’d been working a case in New York City, trying to bring down an arms dealer.

  Holland, the woman he’d met on the night of her birthday, had called to him on every level imaginable. He wanted her like he’d never wanted another woman before. It wasn’t as if he’d even known what it was like to be with her, to bed her, to find release in her. His time with her had been brief, but it had been enough to sear into his memory for eternity. How could it not?

  He’d nearly lost control and claimed her.

  It had taken everything in him to keep from sinking his shifted teeth into her tender flesh while his cock had been buried in her. He’d said the words and she’d agreed to them, but then she’d begged him not to do it—that she wasn’t ready.

  You’ve had forever.

  Her words echoed in his head. They were words he’d thought of daily since then. He thought of her daily, too. Ezra wasn’t sure why he was obsessed with her. At first, he thought she might be his mate, but then he dispelled that theory after he’d spent so long searching the city for her with no success.

  If they were mates, she wouldn’t have just vanished. She’d have felt as drawn to him as he was to her. Bhaltair had even helped him search for her, but her trail had gone cold quickly. The only thing Ezra had was her discarded panties from that night, and he kept them like a prized possession in his main home, near his bed. He wasn’t proud to admit that he jerked off often while smelling them.

  While his dick had been kick-started that night, he’d had no urge to seek out another female. The only way he alleviated his manly needs was by masturbating.

  He couldn’t blame her for taking off and not waiting for him to return to the club. His dragon side had won the battle that night and he’d nearly done a full shift in front of her. Hell, for a moment he’d feared he’d shift forms while inside her.

  He’d been forced to rush off into the night, fully change forms, and take flight. He gone to the rooftop of the building and watched as Holland had come out into the alley, searching for him.

  The sound of her cries still haunted him.

  He thought about the only other time cries had affected him so. It had been when he’d rushed into a home engulfed in flames, to retrieve the little girl who didn’t burn.

  As his mind wandered back to the little girl, he kept accidentally seeing Holland in place of her. Where there had been a little girl, his mind changed her to the woman from the club. Holland was doused in gasoline, flames surrounding her. Large brown eyes stared up at him, scared, lost, and unsure of what was happening.

  Whatever drugs his captors were giving him must be causing him to hallucinate. He wasn’t sure why the fantasies were picking now to manifest. He just wanted them to go away. The cruelest torture he could imagine was thinking about Holland and the little girl who didn’t burn.

  They were his two greatest regrets.

  He knew he wouldn’t survive being held if he spent all the time thinking of the woman he couldn’t have, and a little girl he’d let down.

  Another certainty was that he’d gotten himself caught trying to do the right thing again. He was now a prisoner. He’d known better. Known he had to be extra vigilant, especially with as deep as he’d fallen into the clandestine lifestyle. Yet, he’d let his guard down and his punishment was before him, coated in maggots and flies, the meat moving on its own from the sheer number of things wriggling within it.

  His stomach churned at the idea of eating. He’d continue to starve a while longer before ingesting it. If he had to, he would eat. He’d eaten worse in his life. But if he knew the people behind the food—and he did—the meat was laced with more drugs. Medications that he could only hazard a guess as to what they would do to him.

  Sedate him.

  Increase his desire for sex.

  Make him hallucinate more.

  The list was endless and the bastards pulling the strings were ruthless enough to try anything. They were already injecting him with something that was preventing him from being able to fully shift forms in either direction. He didn’t need to compound the problem.

  Stuck in the start of his shifted form, his senses were on overdrive. His hands were partially shifted, talons starting on his fingertips. His jaw was partially formed into that of his dragon side, his eyes already shifted fully. But the rest of him was still in his base human form. Being locked between forms was dangerous. That was probably why the assholes holding him had done it. They’d wanted him pushed to the brink of breaking. They wanted him unable to fight back properly.

  No matter how battered and bruised he was, he’d still kill any who got close to him.

  He turned, trying to find a comfortable position to rest in. The heavy silver-coated chain around his neck made it difficult for him to do much. It didn’t help that his wrists and ankles were chained as well.

  If you’d been smarter, you wouldn’t be in this jam, he thought, unable to form words in partial dragon form. That was neither here nor there, as he had no one to talk to other than himself. He snorted, remembering a film he’d watched once, several years back, where a dragon spoke to tiny men who had come to take the dragon’s treasure. Ezra had found the entire movie hilarious and far from accurate.

  It didn’t surprise him.

  Humans didn’t know of the existence of supernaturals, and they certainly didn’t know dragons were real. He doubted very much if humans would take the news calmly. And as for dragons guarding treasures, that was also a myth. Though, he did have a great uncle who once sat at the mouth of a cave rumored to be a fountain of youth, and ate anyone who attempted to enter. It was more out of the fact it was an easy food source than any need to guard something. That was as close to such foolishness as he’d seen.

  And you won’t be seeing much else from the looks of things, he mused silently, letting out a smoke-tinged breath. He’d lived a long life and had stopped fearing death long ago. It was almost welcomed now.

  Something to look forward to.

  A final end.

  Though he’d always thought his end would be more spectacular than starving to death in a cargo container on a ship, chained—held prisoner by a psychotic vampire, of all things. I
f anyone in his family found out, he’d never live it down. Vampires weren’t exactly well-respected among his kind. Dragon-shifters often thought of themselves as better than all their counterparts. They only seemed to regard the Fae highly. Anything else in the supernatural community and you were considered slumming it.

  Ezra cursed himself for being careless enough to be captured to begin with. He’d been doing well with his latest assignment, and had been deep undercover long enough to gain the trust of the supernatural trafficking ring he’d been assigned to. Felix, the vampire who ran the ring—though Ezra had serious questions as to whether the pasty-ass goon was actually the man who owned everything—had trusted Ezra so much that he’d moved him up the ranks quickly. That was probably why the punishment for the betrayal was so steep. He’d made a fool of Felix, and that didn’t happen often.

  I should have just eaten him, he thought, even though in the past he’d learned vampires had a horrible aftertaste. Ironically, their flavor was similar to garlic. Last time he’d eaten a vampire it had taken him a month to stop burping up the taste of twice-baked dead guy. His dragon didn’t much want a repeat performance. But for Felix, he’d make an exception, and he’d skip roasting the asshole and jump right to eating him.

  Next time, if you get out of this, remember to just eat the bad guys. Screw gathering intel.

  He’d let his head and conscience have a war, and in the end it left him shackled in a cell that only just managed to contain him, and with meat that was moving across the tray on its own as if it had legs.

  Yummy.

  One of the guards appeared in the doorway and peeked in, his gaze finding Ezra before it found the revolting tray of decaying meat the other guard had only just delivered.

  “If you don’t eat, you’ll die,” said Felipe, a guard Ezra found somewhat tolerable, considering. He’d been the one to bring the stale bread earlier. Felipe had been a decent enough guy during the time Ezra had worked with him. He was one of the few guards who didn’t get off on torturing the prisoners. It was just a matter of time before Felix’s crew found a way to rid themselves of men like Felipe. There was simply no room for the kindhearted in the line of work they did.

  No one with compassion was welcome.

  Ezra lowered his head. The smell of his own blood filled his nostrils and he knew he’d broken open the already raw wounds on his back. One of the guards had taken great joy in flogging Ezra right before sunrise. When he’d been held as a pet for nearly a century, he’d been lashed almost daily—while in dragon form. Even when fully returned to his human shape, Ezra still had the faint scars from it all. He always would. The new marks would simply add to them.

  The gouges were deep and taking longer than normal to heal because his body continued to have to counter the effects of the silver-coated chains.

  Chapter Five

  Holland kept her chin down, the black scarf she’d been given covering her head. Where she was, women who were out and about in public didn’t leave their heads uncovered. It was against the law. Though, unlike in other countries, the women here were not required by law to veil their faces.

  Her permits for travel were safe with her guide, who was just ahead of her, talking with a member of the security detail. The guide seemed nice enough, but he’d been acting strange all day. She’d not been able to put her finger on anything specific, but her gut said something was off with him.

  Giving him the benefit of the doubt, she’d not expressed her concerns to the security detail. She was fast starting to suspect that was a bad decision. The guide wiped his hands on the front of his shirt and then ran the back of his hand across his brow, glancing nervously in her direction.

  “Ms. Sandoval,” said Donnie, the head of her security detail, as he eased up alongside her, armed to the teeth. She didn’t think Donnie was his real name, but rather a nickname. She’d asked him about it already, but he’d artfully dodged her question and changed the subject. He did have something of a slight Irish accent and she’d been dying to ask him more about it. “You all right?”

  “Donnie, please call me Holland,” she replied, offering a wide smile. He’d been calling her Ms. Sandoval the entire time she’d been there. “I’m sweating in places ladies shouldn’t discuss, and I’m pretty sure it’s somehow hotter than it was this afternoon but the sun is down. Other than that, I’m good. You?”

  He eased closer, his attention on the surrounding building, not on her. He’d been on edge throughout the day as well. “Uh-huh. I’m good.”

  She nearly laughed at the lack of attention he was paying her. She’d have taken offense if she was like some women she knew—like Louise, from her college days, who was always wanting attention from the opposite sex. Holland wasn’t like that. She was secure with herself, and didn’t need a man to affirm anything.

  Besides, she still didn’t trust herself to be with one intimately. Not with what had happened to her the one night she’d dared to have sex. She’d given herself over fully to Ezra, only to find herself fighting her darkness, and then being abandoned in the office of a club. She had no craving to repeat the performance with anyone else.

  And truth be told, she’d not desired a man again since him.

  She also didn’t have time for a man. Work kept her too busy to bother with having a relationship. She was always traveling. This was not her first time in the Middle East, and she knew better than to walk about without a head cover or armed escorts in the area where she was currently—a rough section after-hours. The life of an investigative journalist was never easy, especially if you were the type to get into the story and hunt down a lead, which she was. When she caught wind of a possible breaking story, she was much like a dog with a bone. She couldn’t let it go.

  She’d been in the area nearly a week, and had finally gained access to someone high enough on the food chain to help blow the lid off what was happening. Desperate for an interview, she’d agreed to meet him under the cover of darkness.

  Something she was fast starting to regret.

  He’d been active in the trafficking of humans and had only recently started trying to cut ties with it in order to reform himself. He’d agreed to speak with her to give firsthand insight into the underground workings, but it had taken much in the way of negotiations to get him to meet. Holland didn’t trust him, and for good reason. While digging into his past dealings, she’d found evidence that more than once the man had betrayed others and backed out of deals.

  He’d turn on her in an instant if it suited his needs or the price was high enough. The best she could hope for was that he was serious about getting out of the business of trafficking humans, and wanted help. More than likely, he wasn’t. But the cause was too important for her to pass up the chance to try to speak with him, though, so she’d brought protection.

  She only hoped it was enough.

  Her armed escorts had all served time in the military, and now worked as private contractors. Her employer had procured their services for her and so far, they’d proven worthy of their expensive price tag. They were also really good at poker and passing the time. They weren’t bad on the eyes, either. Each one of them looked to be in peak physical shape. Some were bulky with a lot of muscle mass and others were sinewy, but all seemed very capable of being a badass, should the need arise.

  Although, several had questionable tattoos. One had more naked women on his arms than Holland could count. A few had tattoos that were well-placed and made them look even sexier. She may not have time for a man, but she did have eyes.

  Hard to miss hotties.

  Donnie, the head of her security detail, and a man named Russell were both very appealing to the eye. While Donnie was tall and very muscular, Russell was a more streamlined, less bulky version of Donnie. Both men had dark hair that was long. She’d always been a sucker for guys with darker features. All the men on her security detail were hunky. If they ever decided to make a calendar, it would get a ton of buys.

  Russell was on th
e other side of the road, standing guard, his pet near him. He swore to Holland it was just a dog, but the thing was giant and she was sure it was at least half wolf. Echo was fiercely loyal to the man. The way Russell overreacted each time she’d tried to play fetch with the dog was odd. And the men on the team each shared secret glances every time she tried. As if they knew something she didn’t.

  Echo trotted along next to Russell and then stopped, dipped his head, and began sniffing the ground. He tried to head away from Russell, but the man whistled, calling him back.

  “Could he train my next boyfriend?” she asked, not really expecting an answer from the men.

  She was greeted with laughs.

  They seemed to get along well. Though she did pick up on the newer member of the team—Joey—not really fitting in. He reminded her of a movie version of what a private contractor would be—a man who had never actually served, came to work geared-up like he thought he was on a special-ops mission, and constantly talked in acronyms for everything. She had to wonder if the action he’d seen prior to joining up with the security firm came by way of video games.

  She seriously hoped she was wrong.

  After all, her life was in his hands.

  The rest of the men on the security detail were much more low key in their day-to-day dress and activities. They didn’t run around every day in ops gear. However, now each was dressed a bit more like the part. She suspected it was because they felt it, too—that something with this entire thing was off.

  She’d been gathering information on human trafficking for nearly a year and had finally gotten a big break that landed in her lap two weeks back. The lead had been anonymous, but on the surface it all checked out. She’d flown overseas and was now doing her best to safely navigate the seedy underbelly of a place that was considered a source country for sex trafficking, bringing in victims from the Horn of Africa and Gulf nations in the region.