Burn For Me (Year of the Dragon)

by Winter, Nikki

  “No, no, no,” John murmured to himself as he opened his basement door, flipped on the light and headed down the stairs. He wouldn’t let that happen.

  He wouldn’t lose Catori. She was all he had to remind him of Calla, of how much his wife had loved him before she’d left him with nothing but a broken heart and bitterness. John needed Catori near him. He needed to see her face, her smile. He needed to know that not all of Calla was gone.

  There was only one way to assure that.

  He stopped as he reached the back wall of the room and stared at the many weapons lining it.

  “I’m going to kill that animal and get my girl back.”

  ***

  “Take off all your clothes,” Ryker demanded as they stood in a large, open part of the woods with very few trees around.

  Catori’s eyes bucked. “Come again?”

  One side of Ryker’s mouth curved. “I don’t wanna hear another complaint about ruined boots, so take off all your clothes.”

  “Ryker—”

  “To shift you have to be completely unencumbered or the process will be harder. You want me to play some strip music for you?” He waggled his brows.

  She bit her lip to stop from laughing. “I hate you.”

  “I know, baby. Now get naked.”

  Rolling her eyes, Catori did as he instructed.

  He gave a wolf whistle.

  “Focus!” she snapped.

  Grinning widely, he said, “Close your eyes.”

  Inhaling deeply, she did so.

  “Now I want you to think about what makes you the angriest.”

  “Huh?”

  “Think about what has pissed you off the most, what has hurt you the most. I want you to stand there and envision it. Then instead of pushing your dragon back, trying to control it, I want you to let it free. Don’t worry about the trees or branches. Your body will instinctively know what to do. Your beast will break free, and it will be the most amazing experience you have ever had in your life.” His voice was soft, soothing.

  Catori listened, then focused in on thoughts of John, what he had done, and how he had treated her. She thought of all the times as a little girl she’d wanted to crawl into his lap and be comforted. She thought of all the times she’d felt like a disappointment.

  Then she saw her mother’s face, and her real father’s face. She pictured the night they’d died and how John had taken her. She thought of the possibility that her adoptive father was the cause of death for the most precious people in the world to her. She remembered how she’d asked as a kid, out of curiosity, if maybe the fire that killed her mother had been her fault; if she’d done it accidentally, not fully understanding her abilities.

  Then she remembered the look on John’s face as he’d simply said, “We all make mistakes.”

  Rage like she’d never known enveloped her, but instead of fighting it, pushing it away, she embraced it. Catori allowed her anger to take over until she felt something else—something primal.

  When she opened her eyes again, she was staring down at Ryker. He grinned and gave her the thumbs-up.

  “Now it’s time to put those”—he pointed to her wings, which were resting against her back—“to good use!”

  ***

  She was gorgeous as a dragon. Her scales were an opalescent green that shimmered under the moonlight each time she moved. Horns smaller than his own ran from the crown of her head and stopped before they reached her snout. She was just like any other dragon, yet so different in his eyes.

  Excited beyond measure, Ryker stripped down and shifted. After years of doing it, he didn’t need an emotional push. He controlled it on his own.

  He nudged Catori’s snout with his own and motioned for her to follow his lead. Unfurling his wings, he spread them wide and flapped them once, then twice. She copied every move.

  Ryker picked up the pace until he began to hover over the ground. She did the same. He gave her a nod then went higher in the air, making sure she was with him every step of the way. Soon she caught the hang of what it took and flew higher. Prouder than anything, he went after his mate and felt contentment settle inside.

  Burn For Me

  Chapter Six

  “This was amazing. Thank you.”

  Ryker smiled as Catori snuggled into his chest when he helped her out of the truck. They’d spent the night on the camp ground, finally settling down in a sleeping bag after spending hours whirling through the treetops and over the mountains.

  It was like being a kid again for him. He kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for coming with me.” Taking a deep breath, he started to tell her to grab some clothes because they’d be spending the week at his place, but a familiar scent made him pause.

  “Tori,” Ryker said gently.

  She looked up at him. He motioned with his eyes toward her front door. He hadn’t noticed it when they’d first pulled up, but it was cracked.

  “He’s dumber than we thought,” she said softly.

  He nodded.

  “Will you go get him, please, while I call Jace?”

  “You don’t even have to ask.” Ryker let her past to climb back into his truck and headed for the front door. He stepped across the threshold.

  “John, you might as well—” The sound of a cocking shotgun barrel made him halt. Ryker turned slowly to find John standing behind him, a twelve gauge in his hands.

  “John—”

  “Shut. Up.” the other man commanded.

  “You do this and she’ll never forgive you.”

  John’s eyes lit with a sadistic intent, letting Ryker know he wasn’t all there. “I’ll make her understand.” Then he pulled the trigger.

  ***

  Catori’s heart stopped at the sound the gunshot. Dropping the phone, she hauled ass into the house just to see John standing over Ryker, who was lying in a pool of blood.

  “Fucking animal!” John shouted. “You thought you would do what he did, huh?! That you would take her from me?!”

  Arrogant. She and Ryker had been so goddamn arrogant that they’d believed he wasn’t that dangerous. She’d thought Ryker’s threats would be enough, but she hadn’t accounted for the fact that John was just too far gone.

  “John!”

  Her adoptive father swung around, a twisted smile lighting his face. “Let’s see where you can go with this motherfucker now. You won’t be able to do what your mother did. I won’t let you. Just be grateful that I didn’t kill you both. It’s going to be just us again.”

  Catori’s eyes went to Ryker. Blood was slowly trickling from the side of his mouth, a huge red stain on his chest. That was all the confirmation that she needed to know that the fire definitely wasn’t an accident.

  “He’s going to die soon.” John chuckled.

  “You’re fucking sick!” Catori yelled.

  He frowned, then sneered. “He got to you, didn’t he? He fed you bullshit about being like him.”

  “I am like him. Not just him, but my father too.”

  Something in John’s face changed in that moment. He raised the gun toward her. “Take it back.”

  “No.”

  “I said take it back!” John screamed. “Now!”

  “Fuck you! I won’t take shit back! All these years you’ve sat in my face and lied to me, and now you have the gall to try to take away what’s most important to me again. No, John! I’m not taking it back, but before this is all said and done, you’re going to beg me to have the mercy on you that you didn’t have for my parents!”

  He smirked. “And how is it that you’re going to accomplish that when I’m the one with the gun?”

  “Because, you dumb fuck,” Ryker suddenly said from behind John, having stood quietly as Catori and the other man yelled back and forth. “You shot me in my goddamn shoulder.”

  John swung around with the gun, ready to fire again, but Ryker yanked it from his grasp and hit him with the butt across his temple. Both Ryker and Catori watched him crumple to
the floor.

  ***

  An hour later Ryker was being patched up with the help of Jace as Catori paced the floor of her living room.

  “You’re gonna wear a hole in the carpet.”

  She flipped him the bird.

  “All done,” Jace said, snatching off rubber gloves. “They don’t pay me enough for this shit.”

  “You’re out team member. It’s about loyalty,” Ryker said.

  Jace snorted. “Sure.” He looked over at Catori. “What do you want me to do with him?” The Fae nodded his head to an unconscious John, who was lying in the corner of the room.

  Ryker’s mate finally stopped pacing, and he could see a depth of rage in her eyes that he hadn’t even witnessed during her first shift. They were no longer dealing with her human half here; it was all dragon. Sure, being shot had pissed him off. Yes, he had plans for the little fucker that consisted of a lovely state penitentiary cell and a roommate named Bubba who thought John had a “pretty mouth,” but Ryker knew she had decided on something else.

  “You leave him to me.” Then she walked across the room to grab the back of John’s jacket and dragged him out the front door.

  “Um…shouldn’t we be going after her?” Jace questioned.

  “Do you like having hair?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Have you heard the phrase ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Then I suggest we get a couple of beers from the fridge, find something sports-like to watch, and sit here like good little boys until she comes back,” Ryker advised.

  Jace nodded. “I’ll get the drinks, you get the remote.”

  ***

  His skull felt like someone had spilt it open, and his whole body was sore. John groaned as he tried to move his arms and legs. His eyes bucked open when he realized they were tied together. Panic set in when he saw that he was dangling upside down from a tree branch by his ankles.

  “Oh good, you’re awake.”

  He turned his head to find Catori holding the other end of the rope that he was hanging from. She slowly loosened her hold on it until he was only hanging a few feet off the ground, and then she wrapped it around another branch and tied it off.

  John wiggled. “What...what are you doing?”

  She smirked. “Come now, John. You’re smarter than that, right?” Pushing his chest, she let him swing back and forth like a piñata.

  “Catori, let me down from here!”

  Laughing, she stopped his swing and gazed at him with hatred burning in her eyes. “That’s not gonna happen, Daddy.” Catori sneered, then began to circle his suspended body like a shark. “You tried to take someone very important to me away again, John.”

  He swallowed.

  “That upsets me.”

  “I—”

  “Hush, hush, let me finish.” She walked around the front of him again, meeting his gaze. “You’re sick. You developed an obsession with me because I remind you of my mother, but guess what? Unlike her, I’m not gonna leave you to your own devices so you can come up with another plan to kill myself or Ryker.” She tsked. “Oh no. See, this ends tonight.”

  “It’s funny. All my life all I wanted was some form of approval or love or even a miniscule amount of affection from you. I never got any of that. What’s strange is that Ryker was right, after a while I just stopped giving a fuck.” One side of her mouth kicked up. “And then when I found out that I had a forty-foot monster living inside me, I had no doubt that it would be the last thing to endear me to you.” Her head cocked. “But shifters aren’t what really get under your skin, are they, John? It’s the reminder of him, isn’t it?”

  He remained quiet.

  “Answer me!” she bellowed.

  John jumped. “Yes! Okay? Yes! I hated him! He took what was mine!”

  “You wanted to control her the same way you tried to do me, and because you couldn’t you killed them! You know what that makes you, John?” She grabbed the sides of his head and squeezed. “It makes you a murderer!” Letting go, she paced away from him. “I can’t say that I know what my mother’s reasons for leaving you were, but I do know that if you treated her the same way you did me, then she was justified.”

  John glared at her.

  “Oh I’m sorry, Daddy, does that make you angry? Does it make you wanna kill?” Her brows winged. She was baiting him. He knew it, but it was still working. “Does the idea that you weren’t good enough for her, that you just didn’t have what it took, eat you up inside?”

  “Just kill me and get it over with! Stop trying to mind fuck me!”

  Catori grew quiet, and then she finally smiled. That smile sent a chill down his spine, worse than the one Ryker had caused when he’d threatened him just yesterday.

  “Oh, I’m not going to kill you, because that would give you the satisfaction of turning me into a murderer too.” She shook her head. “Can’t have that.” Spreading her arms wide, she looked toward the sky. “Do you know what this place is?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “This is an equivalent of a play park for shifters. Here we get to roam free. No rules. No limitations. No full humans.” She took a deep inhale and grinned at him again. “This is where we come to—how is it that you put it, John? Be. Fucking. Animals.”

  His stomach dropped, and he felt like he was going to throw up at any moment. Before she said it, he knew. He knew what she was going to do to him.

  Catori looked toward the sky again and pointed upwards. “See that?”

  He followed her line of vision.

  “It’s a full moon tonight. You know who loves full moons, John?” Her tone was so cool, casual.

  His eyes watered.

  “Wolves,” Catori stated, answering her own question. “And do you know what else they love, John?”

  He swallowed to keep the bile down.

  “Easy prey.” Walking closer, she rubbed the side of his face almost affectionately and looked into his eyes.

  “Catori…” he whispered as that first howl rent the air.

  She pressed her lips to his ear. “You, John, are now easy prey.”

  ***

  Both Jace and Ryker looked up as the front door swung open and Catori strolled in. She gave them both a smile; the normal light in her eyes had returned.

  Plopping down between the two men, she grabbed Ryker’s beer and took a gulp. “What’re you guys watching?”

  Ryker looked at Jace, who answered, “Uh…this show called Snapped.”

  Her smile brightened. “Oh I love that show!” Her head cocked. “I never know how these chicks get caught though. I mean there are ways to cover your tracks.” Standing, she shrugged. “Guess not everyone plans well.” Catori clapped her hands together. “I’m gonna order a pizza, any special requests?”

  Both men shook their heads slowly.

  “’Kay, I’ll be in the kitchen.” Then she strolled out, whistling.

  “Um…” Jace whispered. “Is it just me or did she smell like pine to you?”

  Ryker swallowed. “Yeah…she did.”

  “So…she left with John, went to the woods, but came back without him.” He looked at Ryker. “What does that mean?”

  Ryker pursed his lips as he stared at the doorway to the kitchen. “It means you’re stupid if you don’t know what that means.”

  Jace nodded. “’Kay...So do we say something?”

  “Do you wanna be next?”

  The Fae shook his head. “No.”

  “Then drink your beer, eat whatever the hell she orders and shut up.”

  Burn For Me

  Chapter Seven

  Three years later…

  He was tired, hungry and in desperate need of a shower. Ryker headed up the stairs of his and Catori’s four-bedroom home and tried to muster the strength not to drop on them. When he finally reached the top, he felt like thanking God but didn’t have the energy to open his mouth. Ryker had spent the night huntin
g, and damned if he wasn’t taking tomorrow off.

  He finally reached their bedroom and sighed in relief as he opened the door.

  “Right on time.”