by Liv Rider
Griffith hadn’t realized how much tension he’d been carrying until it started to release. “Thank you.”
“So…we have to stay away from each other for a few days, so that the bond won’t form? And we can’t, because there’s a crazy dragon shifter out there who wants to suck my life force?”
“Something like that,” Griffith said wryly. “As much physical contact as we can avoid, the better.”
“That’s disappointing.”
Griffith looked over swiftly to find Noah grinning at him. Noah stood and stretched—and that was a sight, those long limbs on display, the hem of his t-shirt hitching up just enough to reveal bare skin above the waistband of his jeans. “Thanks for lunch. I wouldn’t mind catching a few hours of sleep, if that’s okay.”
“Sure,” Griffith said, every part of him blazing with heat. His dragon was insisting that he go over and consummate his claim immediately, and it took all the will Griffith possessed to resist it. “You can use my bed. The guest room is covered in boxes. Last door past the living room.”
“Thanks.”
Noah walked by, carefully not touching him, but Griffith still felt him as if they were skin to skin.
If they didn’t catch Madoc soon, he was screwed.
Chapter Five
Noah closed the door to Griffith’s bedroom behind him and looked around. The room was as quietly masculine as the man himself, the furniture dark wood, the bedding cream and tan and brown. From the outside of the cabin, Noah had expected something more rustic, but the inside had clearly been recently renovated to more simple and clean lines. Griffith had sophisticated taste.
He touched his abdomen through his t-shirt. The mark still burned. It wasn’t painful, but he was acutely aware of it. A claiming mark; was that what Griffith had called it? Even the word itself, claim, sent a rush of arousal and uncertainty through him. It was so…primal. Which he supposed made sense for a group of animal shifters, but Noah had always thought of himself as a cerebral guy; it was hard to reconcile that with the surge of heat he felt at the thought of Griffith claiming him.
But from what Griffith said, it could become permanent if they weren’t careful. Griffith had made it clear that wasn’t on his agenda. Noah was bemused by his own disappointment. Would he really be willing to attach himself for life to a man he’d known less than a day?
Maybe.
He stepped out of his jeans, folding them on a chair near the bed. He kept his t-shirt on and slid between the sheets. They’d been recently washed, but he could still smell Griffith underneath, the scent triggering another flare of heat on the skin under his ribs.
He groaned and gripped the sheets in his fist. It was going to be hard as hell to resist going after Griffith. Maybe it was the smart thing to do to avoid contact with him, but every part of him screamed to do the opposite. He didn’t think it was just the mark, either—Griffith could have abandoned him back at his apartment and let him fend for himself against Madoc, but he’d been willing to let Noah stay in his house, to protect him and help him figure out what he was. Griffith didn’t owe him anything, but he’d stuck by him. In Noah’s experience, there weren’t too many people who would do that.
Not to mention he’s gorgeous.
A day ago, Noah wouldn’t have said Griffith was his type. There was too much raw masculinity in him; no polish or artifice. But something about Griffith kept pulling him in. Griffith called to a part of Noah he’d never been aware of before.
Apparently the side of me that’s a dragon.
It was hard to wrap his mind around the absurdity of it. How could he be some kind of mythical creature and not even know it? It didn’t help that he didn’t feel any different. If he was a dragon he should be able to tell, right?
And if his parents had been sun dragons too, and as powerful as Sofia seemed to think he was, why hadn’t they been able to save themselves?
He fell into a fitful sleep, his dreams filled with fire and scales. When he woke a few hours later, the room was dark and the soft blue of evening filled the window.
Griffith was on the couch, a laptop resting on his knees, when Noah dressed and emerged. He looked up, and Noah’s heart did a little flip. Something about that studious expression on top of Griffith’s rugged features and masculine presence made him devastatingly attractive.
“Uh, hi,” Noah managed.
Griffith gestured for Noah to take a seat. Noah took the leather armchair across from the couch, not sure he could trust himself if he sat any closer.
“I spoke to a couple of hunter friends of mine who work in the area. I told them we’d meet up with them tonight.” Griffith asked seriously, “How are you doing?”
“Okay.” Noah knew that Griffith wasn’t just asking out of politeness. “It’s a lot to take in. I mean—I don’t feel any different. Apparently I’m a sun dragon, and I have this shifter life force you keep talking about, but I just feel normal. I don’t know what it means to be a shifter, or a dragon, or any of this. Do you actually turn into a dragon? Is that what’s going to happen to me?”
Griffith sat back, his voice slipping into the patient tones he’d been using all day to answer Noah’s questions. Noah was starting to find it a turn on. “The ability to transform usually begins at puberty, and even then, only in stages. But yes, I can actually turn into a dragon—though for obvious reasons I don’t make the full shift often. It’s not as big an issue for other shifters as it is for dragons. We moved to the country as soon as my brother and sister and I were old enough to start shifting. Dragons need space and a place where humans can’t see us when we fly.”
“Wait, you can fly?” Noah still wasn’t sure how he felt about all of this, but to be able to fly? That would be pretty freaking spectacular.
Griffith looked amused. “Yes, we can fly.”
Score one for being a dragon. “So when you turn into a dragon, are you still, you know, human inside?”
Griffith wagged his hand in a yes-no gesture. “That’s a more complicated question. Our animal instincts are part of us, but they don’t define us completely. They’re more at the forefront when we shift—we may react in ways we wouldn’t in human form—but we’re still aware of ourselves as human beings.”
“I still don’t get why I’ve never felt any of this.”
Griffith shrugged. “Maybe the shift is just a little late with you, or maybe it won’t happen at all. If Sofia is right and your body is trying to protect itself, that could be the best-case scenario.”
“Sure,” Noah said, unconvinced. “But I’d rather know, you know? I can’t live my life not understanding what I really am.”
“You’re still you, Noah, whether or not you can shift.”
Maybe Griffith was right, but Noah still felt like a part of him was missing. He wanted to know what that part of himself was.
There was something else bothering him. “I feel like I should have known what Madoc was doing, and resisted it somehow.”
Griffith shook his head. “Madoc has a powerful charisma, and he knows how to use it. It would even work on me if he dialed it high enough, and I know exactly what he is.” He looked at his watch. “We should go if we want to meet my friends on time.”
Noah still couldn’t help feel that he should have known—he should have sensed somehow what Madoc was. What was so great about being a shifter if it couldn’t protect him against predators like Madoc?
There was nothing Noah could do about it now except make sure Madoc never did it to anyone else again.
***
Noah didn’t expect Griffith to pull into the parking lot of a bowling alley. “This is where we’re meeting them?”
Griffith shot him a grin. “You don’t like bowling?”
“I, uh, have never actually been bowling.”
Griffith shook his head. “Don’t let Tse hear you say that.”
Griffith’s mention of his hunter friends brought Noah’s nerves back to the surface. He wanted them to like him. He wan
ted them to be impressed by him. Griffith’s not my boyfriend, Noah reminded himself. He’s not bringing me here so his friends can check me out.
He’d been overwhelmingly aware of Griffith the entire car ride to the bowling alley. The mark on his skin tingled from the proximity between them. He couldn’t help but glance over at Griffith’s large hand resting on the knob of the Range Rover’s drive stick, an image that conjured all kinds of scenarios in Noah’s head that didn’t help his general discomfort and nervousness at meeting Griffith’s friends.
Griffith parked the Range Rover and reached across Noah to lock his gun in the glove compartment. It was like a full frontal hit to Noah’s senses. Griffith even smelled intoxicating. Griffith turned his head, and he was so close that Noah could see each individual stubble shadowing his jaw, the rough luminance of his skin. The expressive lips that had Noah unconsciously tilting his head to meet them.
Skin brushed for one tantalizing second. He heard Griffith’s indrawn breath, felt Griffith’s hand on the back of his neck, angling Noah’s lips just right—then Griffith abruptly released him and sat up, his face flushed. With more control than Noah felt capable of at the moment, Griffith said, “We better go in.”
Every part of Noah ached to return to that kiss. He hadn’t expected resisting Griffith to be quite this hard. He fumbled the car door open, the crisp night air taking at least some of the edge off.
The crash of pins and rumble of balls met them when Griffith held the bowling alley door open and gestured him in. Noah hadn’t been entirely truthful—he’d gone bowling once, for Adam Gold’s twelve-year-old birthday party, and he’d guttered the ball on every attempt. Easier to say he’d never been.
Griffith led the way across the expansive room filled with lanes and bowlers, a half-filled bar near the back. The lane Griffith stopped at was currently occupied by a silent figure contemplating the narrow strip in front of him, bowling ball poised and stance perfectly balanced.
“Tse’s trying to find the perfect shot,” the lane’s other occupant said as Noah and Griffith approached. He was tall from what Noah could tell from his seated sprawl, African American, and head-turningly handsome. He assessed Noah, not bothering to hide what he was doing, and shot Griffith a pointed look that Griffith ignored.
“This is Zach,” Griffith said. “Zach, Noah.”
“Zachary Delane,” Zach said, standing and holding out his hand for Noah to shake.
“That’s his movie star name,” Griffith said dryly. “The rest of us just call him Zach.”
Zach shrugged. “Hollywood hasn’t come calling yet.”
Noah said, “Are you a dragon too?”
Griffith laughed. Zach raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like a dragon to you?”
“I don’t know,” Noah admitted. “I can’t, uh, actually tell.”
“Hang out with us long enough and you will.”
Noah was pleased that Zach thought he might be sticking around long enough to get to know them.
“Zach’s a panther,” Griffith said.
Zach certainly held himself with a panther’s grace, every motion deliberate, nothing wasted or unintended. Zach grinned, catching the gist of Noah’s thoughts. Dangerous too, like Griffith.
They looked over at the rumble of a ball. Tse was frozen in follow-through as the ball skimmed down the center of the lane and crashed into the pins.
“Strike,” Tse called, coming over to enter the score into the screen.
“Whatever,” Zach said. “When are you getting a new hobby? I’m tired of meeting here all the time.”
“It’s good cover,” Tse said, appraising Noah, the same as Zach had done. His black hair was just long enough to pull back into a tie at the nape of his neck, a few strands escaping it. “No one can hear us above the noise. No place for anyone to hide and listen.”
“Tse’s our security specialist,” Griffith explained.
“He’s also the kitty cat version of a panther, before you ask.”
Tse flipped Zach off. “Mountain lion,” he told Noah. “What are you?”
“You can tell I’m a shifter?”
Tse shrugged. “Either that or a more powerful human than I’ve ever encountered.”
“Noah’s a dragon,” Griffith broke in. Noah noticed he didn’t mention what kind. “But he can’t shift, and it’s a long story. What were you able to find on Madoc?”
“Haven’t heard anything back yet,” Zach said. “Tse and I are hitting the streets tonight, see what else we can dig up.”
“Madoc knows we’ll be looking for him. Sofia seems to think that he won’t be able to resist going after Noah again, so we’ve got that to consider.”
Noah’s gaze went sharply to him. Griffith had neglected to tell him that piece of information.
“Then we use the kid to draw him in,” Zach said.
“No.” Griffith shook his head.
Noah spoke up. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. It makes sense to use me as bait.”
“No,” Griffith said again. His gaze was fixed on Zach’s.
Something else was going on between the two of them. Noah was about to protest Griffith’s high-handedness when Tse caught his eye and shook his head. “You hungry, Noah?”
Noah was starving, actually, which seemed to be his default state for the day, but he wanted to push the issue. It was his choice, not Griffith’s, and it was his right to help stop Madoc however he could.
Tse tilted his chin toward the bar. It was a request, but Noah could tell Tse really wanted him to go along.
Reluctantly, Noah gave in and followed him. Caught in their current stare-down, Griffith and Zach barely acknowledged their exit.
“Better to let them work it out,” Tse said, grabbing a plastic menu from a stand at the end of the bar and sliding onto one of the barstools.
Noah took the one next to him. “Do they do that a lot?”
“Zach’s just pissed because Griffith doesn’t think he understands how much Madoc messed him up over Rafe.”
I went after him when he took someone important from me. “Rafe was Griffith’s…?”
“Partner.” Tse’s hazel eyes were flecked with gold, distracting and a little mesmerizing. Noah really needed to be on guard against this shifter charisma thing. “More than that, you’ll have to ask Griffith.”
The bartender came over. Tse glanced at Noah. “Burger and fries,” Noah said. “And a Coke.”
Tse ordered the same, but with a vanilla milkshake instead of a Coke. “This thing with Madoc goes beyond Rafe,” he said, once the bartender had left with their order. “Madoc used to be a hunter too. I wasn’t around then, but Zach was. Zach and Madoc and Griffith go way back.”
Thinking about how unremorseful Madoc had been once he’d gotten Noah where he’d wanted him—how much he’d seemed to enjoy it—Noah had a hard time imagining him fitting in with these three.
“When did he start hurting people?”
Tse shrugged. “The way Zach tells it, Madoc used it to subdue suspects—draw them in with his charisma, drain their life force enough that they’d come quietly. He’s not sure when Madoc started doing it outside of the job, only that bodies began turning up in circumstances too coincidental to ignore.”
“Griffith said he became addicted to it.”
“Sounds about right. When Rafe showed up dead, Madoc claimed that it was voluntary—that Rafe had consented to it. Apparently it can deliver a hell of an erotic charge.”
Madoc had relished the thought of killing him far too much for Noah to believe he was in it for consensual play. “Couldn’t they find any evidence otherwise?”
“Not enough to knock it up from manslaughter. Madoc did his time, got out on good behavior, and here we are.”
“It didn’t take him long to start up again.”
“Guess six years wasn’t long enough to wean him off it.”
Their burgers and fries came. Tse reached for the ketchup. “I’m telling you this so you know the his
tory between Griffith and Madoc, and why Zach is pissed. Griffith’s the best hunter I know, but he could be as much a liability in bringing Madoc back in as he is an asset.”
“So he can’t even be part of hunting him down?”
Tse grinned. “I didn’t say that. Seems to me he has the right to try, and to do it right. Just expect a lot of butting heads along the way.”
***
“Back off, Zach, I’m serious.”
Zach spread his arms wide. “I’m just calling it like I see it. You know you can’t be a part of this. You have your hands full protecting Noah, and from what you didn’t tell me, I can guess how Madoc got away.”
“I had to make a choice, Madoc or Noah.”
“Griffith, you’re a pretty good shot. Almost as good as Santiago. You could have incapacitated him long enough to fix the kid.”
“I wasn’t willing to take that chance. I was the one who put Noah in danger by not acting sooner.”
Zach shook his head. “First of all, Griff, Madoc’s the one who put Noah in danger, not you. Secondly, let’s talk about Noah. Is there some arrangement between the two of you? Because your mark is lighting him up like a shifter Christmas tree.”
Griffith grimaced. “I’ve already explained about the mark to Noah. It’ll fade after a few days. We just have to avoid excessive physical contact.”
“Uh-huh. I can see that going well, what with the way your eyelashes flutter every time you say his name, and how he looks at you like you’re Superman and Clark Kent rolled into one.”
“I thought they were the same person.”
“Don’t pretend you know anything about Superman, Griff, not to me. My point remains. Are you two going to be able to keep your hands off each other long enough for you to actually protect him?”
Griffith had forgotten what a pain in the ass it was to work with someone who was also your best friend. “Don’t worry about me doing my job. Just focus on finding Madoc. Besides, I would have thought you’d have enough drama in your own love life without trying to stir it up in mine. Are you and Santiago ever going to stop screwing around and admit how you feel?”