Dragons For Hire: A Dragon Shifter Romance

by Sadie Sears

  I shook my head. It didn't make a difference if wizards were involved. Maybe they had a top-secret lab to protect cutting edge research from getting stolen before they had a chance to publish our findings. As long as we moved forward with the research, it really didn't matter who funded it. Finding a cure was more important.

  I tried to convince myself everything was on the up and up, but I couldn’t resist the urge to poke around some. I trusted my intuition and headed toward the refrigerator, but there was a low humming coming from another room. I crept toward it, passing the fridge, and continuing around the wall behind it.

  Glowing liquid bubbled inside a small cauldron on a worktable. Dragon’s blood. I stared in horror. There were about three quarts of it in the cauldron. If it was pure, undiluted dragon’s blood, that was almost half of what was in a human. Inside the cauldron, there were about ten crystals lying on the surface of the liquid, which meant the blood was dense enough to hold the weight of the stones.

  Using a ladle they probably had on hand to fill the vials that appeared every day on my workstation, I fished out one of the crystals. The crystal was filled with the same black liquid as the ones found at my sister's house, and I dropped it back into the cauldron. I didn’t know what any of it meant. Medical school hadn’t done much to prepare me for something like this.

  I took a step back and spotted a filing cabinet. No way was I walking out of there without some answers. The first drawer had copies of all my reports, but the second drawer was full of folders written in a type of scribble that didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before. In the third drawer, I found a file marked KIPLING. There was a sheet of handwritten questions and my answers from the interview, which wasn’t unexpected, but then I found copies of my college essays, a paper I wrote in high school on frog dissection, and a page from my college paper on pain management. There were copies of my handwriting, my signature, my birth certificate, medical license, driver’s license, the lease to my apartment.

  This was more than a background check. It was an invasion of my privacy. A smaller manilla envelope was attached to the back with the words weak spot written in bold black block letters. There were photos of Lila at home, in the yard, at the store with Zoe, walking out of the doctor’s office in Burlington. There was also a small notebook with notes written about me and how I handled Lila’s relapses. My actual emotional responses. Not a background check at all.

  I sucked in a sharp, painful breath and fished out another—details about experiments on dragons and the properties of their blood. It was obvious they weren’t trying to see how the blood worked for healing—they were trying to create weapons to bypass a dragon’s ability to shift and control the elements so they could be killed more easily. I continued to read, appalled as I saw reports on how much pain a dragon could endure under stress. Which I assumed meant torture. When I’d finished, I put the file back because I knew I couldn’t take it with me, and then I slammed the drawer shut and kicked the cabinet.

  Something in my memory nagged at me, like a name on the tip of my tongue, or a fact in a trivia contest that I just couldn’t bring to mind.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. They were using magic to make Lila sick, so I would work for them, using her to keep me in line. And this horrifying research didn’t have anything to do with finding a cure for MS. This was about dragons and nothing else.

  I shoved my and Lila’s files under my shirt and walked calmly back to the men’s room, where I hit the secret panel to shut the door. I left the light on, the way I’d found it, and then got the hell out of there. I had to get the evidence to Dr. Holt, but I planned to show Sam first and ask his forgiveness.

  My palms were sweating, and my heart raced, but I had to get to Sam, and I couldn’t get there fast enough. I’d treated him so abominably. And he’d been right all along. I should have listened to him, believed in him, trusted him.

  My bottom lip trembled as I drove through the streets of Spruce. If he didn’t forgive me, there was nothing I could do about it, and I wouldn’t blame him, but I had to warn him. I parked in front of his house, but before I climbed out of my car, I checked around me, certain I’d been followed—unless I was paranoid because I’d stolen a file from a lab I wasn’t supposed to know about.

  Pools of light from the streetlamps cut arcs into the darkness, but nothing moved, and I eventually plucked up enough courage to get out and climb the steps onto his porch.

  This wasn’t about getting him back, it was about doing the right thing and saving his life and the lives of his friends. I also needed to apologize while making sure he knew I wanted to help, no matter what it cost. I didn’t hesitate as I knocked on his door, but I held my breath. A full minute later, and I knew he wasn’t going to answer. Either he wasn’t home, or he was ignoring me. Hoping it wasn’t the latter, I scribbled a note telling him we needed to talk. Urgently. I stuffed the note through the mail slot then walked back to my car, deflated and numb. I’d failed him and myself. And Lila.

  I started the car and raced toward her house. I didn’t know everything yet, but I knew enough, and I needed to get her and Zoe out of that house.

  18

  Samuel

  I soared through the air following Taurus. His deep forest green scales caught the sunlight refracting the amber glow of his skin. Deeper shades of brown covered his body with only small smatterings of olive and deep forest green blending in to make a perfect camouflage effect, the telltale sign of an earth dragon. We flew over the mountain range north of Lila's house.

  Taurus had nearly beaten down my door and dragged me out of bed early with some ruse about something he’d found on a trail he’d been walking. He’d probably flown me out here so he could force a meeting between Gretta and me. I didn’t know how he proposed to do that but flying here was no coincidence.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the last time I’d seen her. I should have stayed and insisted she listen but all she’d been able to see was how the research position would let her help Lila. She was too close, had too high of a personal stake to be able to see the danger.

  Taurus doubled back flying south, closer to the outskirts of Lila's property. I extended my wings to their full width. Vibrant shades of red and orange shimmered in the sunlight as I flapped. Was it just a few weeks ago I’d told Gretta I wanted to claim her? I tried to imagine what she would look like as a dragon, sleek and strong. I’d felt the fire in her, the determination and defiance, the unwavering concern for others.

  When he continued to head toward the house, my dragon willed my body to follow. He wanted to see Gretta. And while I couldn’t trust he’d be happy with just a sighting; I didn’t think I would be either.

  The cold mountain air mingled with the smell of fresh pine. This was where I was meant to be. My real home. The air. In flight. It reinvigorated me. Gave me hope. Pride.

  That was when I realized I'd had enough. Gretta was my destiny, my mate, and we had to figure this out one way or another. I wasn’t born to be a mopey bitch dragon. I was a badass. I could breathe fucking fire. No way was I going to spend the rest of my life sitting under a tree and sulking.

  I roared a message to Taurus to let him know I would take it from there, but as I neared a clearing close to Lila’s house where I’d stashed a small backpack with jeans and shoes, Taurus landed with me. It seemed he’d stashed some clothes there too, so after we shifted, we got dressed, then he led me down a small path toward the tree line.

  “Last week, I was out here, flying, taking care of my business when I happened to look down. Which, as you know, I don’t do very often because when I fly, I like to keep the air under my wings and the sun on my face. When I look down—”

  “Taur.”

  “Right. Anyway, I looked down, and I found one of these. Actually, I found a lot of these. And I've never seen anything like them.” He stopped abruptly and pointed to a small crystal orb with a black oil-like substance inside, and then he pointed out a row of them on the fore
st floor, which seemed to surround the outskirts of Lila’s property.

  "The hell?” Maybe they were a protection crystal. Lila was some sort of mystic who believed in a variety of natural and supernatural cures. “Are they good crystals?”

  "No. See the way these crystals are laid out? It’s a specific pattern, and it reeks of dark magic."

  I had studied hard these last few years trying to keep up with all the advances in dark magic, all the ways they’d started using it to wreck the world. Son of a bitch.

  “It’s for ill health.” I stumbled backward. "The wizards have been here.”

  “Well, obviously.” He said it like he’d already known. “You said Gretta’s sister is sick, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you’ll need to get her out of her house until we can get these things safely picked up. I’m going to scout the area again and see if I can find who put them here. They have to be maintained to keep their pattern, so we might get lucky and catch one of the bastards.”

  Taurus shifted, shredded the pants he’d just put on. One wing-flap and he was airborne, flying the perimeter of the property. If there was a wizard hiding in the woods, he would find him. As Taurus blended into the foliage, I followed the line of round crystals.

  There were hundreds of them, maybe over a thousand or so, all around the house. There were even some peppered through her flower garden, in the landscaping, on front of the porch, and even under the windows at the side of the house.

  I tried to walk toward the house to get Lila and Zoe out of there, but some kind of energy knocked me about 200 feet backward onto my ass. I struggled for breath as white-hot pain seared my lungs. I lifted my head, but the horizon wobbled, and I fell again. My head bounced off the ground. My dragon spewed smoke and fire against my chest, willing me to rise and shift.

  I groaned and tried to get to my knees, but my limbs were heavy, and I felt like I was surrounded by a lead blanket—something that was rapidly draining me of energy. When I tried to shift, I barely managed to form talons and just enough of a snout to spit fire. I called out a warning for Taurus, but I couldn’t see him and had no way of knowing if he heard.

  I snorted and dug my talons into the dirt, clawing up chunks of earth, but my energy was draining fast. I fell to the ground and shifted back into human form just as I saw three ghost-like men in identical black clothing stepping out of the shadows. I glared at them. It didn’t take a genius to figure they were wizards, but I had no idea how they’d managed to incapacitate me. No spell of theirs could do this, but then I saw one of the wizards pull something out from around his neck, and I recognized the lump of black rock.

  Gadolinite—a rare mineral only recently found, and that in large quantities was essentially dragon poison, rendering us weak for short periods of time. I’d never felt the effects myself, but I’d never heard of it making a dragon powerless like they’d done to me.

  “If you hurt Gretta or her family, I swear I’ll kill you.” I didn’t have much strength for anything other than to make a promise I hoped I’d be able to carry out one day, and then right after, everything went dark.

  I opened one eye, then the other. My throbbing head felt like it was going to explode, and everything in the room was blurred. I tried to focus, but the full-body ache didn’t yield, and I blinked against it. I pressed my cheek against the cold, concrete floor. It wasn’t much, but it was a few moments of relief.

  Garbled voices whispered somewhere behind me as I pushed up to my knees, then to my feet. I was in a fucking cage.

  "How long have I been here?" It couldn’t have been long. A day. Two. Three, at the most.

  When they didn't answer, I growled. Not that I expected much, but I was in a room, mostly naked—what was left of my clothes were torn and didn’t cover a lot of skin—and feeling more foolish than I wanted to admit. And it made me want to attack. I charged toward the bars, summoning all my strength and speed, but the same energy from the yard knocked me back into the wall. If I did that a few more times, I would probably be able to break through the brick behind me. Not a really feasible plan since I had to wait for my lungs to fill with breath before I could even sit up again.

  One of the men from Lila's house snickered. Oh, yeah. He was gonna be the first one I tore apart. As soon as I had a plan.

  I sat still and took in the room. My military training kicked in, and I committed every detail to memory. The dungeon-like room was practically empty except for the three wizards, the cage I was in, and against one wall, large tanks. Dragon talons, wings, and several snouts floated inside a red-tinted liquid. Nausea churned my stomach, but I’d slit my own throat with a talon before I threw up in front of these fuckers.

  The three wore identical smirks. Smug bastards.

  I ran toward the bars again, managed to fling my arms through, but another blast of energy pushed me back. It was weaker this time, not so powerful. So, they were using up their energy trying to hold me here. “Laugh now, but I’m going to kill you.”

  I tried to summon my dragon, but he was silent, almost like he wasn’t there. I looked around for the gadolinite. The committee that monitored supernatural laws had made it illegal to mine gadolinite or use it to capture dragons. But they weren’t exactly here with their badges and copies of statutes. The black rock would keep me from shifting, keep my dragon down, but only until my body became used to it. The effects of the rock reduced the longer I was exposed to it, thank God, but I didn’t want to wait. I needed to get out now, so I punched the already dented brick wall at the back of the cage.

  I cursed as bones cracked and pain jolted up my arm. The skin on my knuckles had sheared off and blood oozed from my self-inflicted injuries. However, the physical pain was less than my burning need to break out, kill these sons of bitches, and find Gretta.

  I had to get it together, or we were all doomed.

  I focused all my energy on my mate and on my duty to protect her. A ferocious roar rumbled through my chest. My bones cracked and expanded, and scales partially covered my body. But I didn’t fully shift. I was caught between half man and half dragon.

  "Oh, look. He can’t even make his baby dragon," one spoke. All three laughed.

  "This is a much better outcome than we anticipated." Center fool’s grin was going to be his last.

  The asshat on the left stepped closer to the cage, but I had no chance of reaching him. Yet.

  He shook his head in mock sympathy. “We made him impotent. That’s gotta hurt."

  "Ah, the price of love is impotence and stupidity.” They all nodded.

  I stared and felt my bones and muscles sliding back into place, but my scales still showed.

  "Hey, do you think when we hand your girlfriend a new vial of dragon blood, she’ll recognize it’s yours?”

  The wizard on the left watched me but didn’t speak. I whispered low, just loud enough they could tell I said something but not what it was. The wizard on the right moved closer.

  "What did you say?" He stepped within reach of the bars.

  I shook my head and whispered again.

  "Louder!" He edged forward until he was just outside the cage.

  I lunged, and my fingertips caught the pocket of the jumpsuit he wore. I tightened my grip and yanked him toward me, slamming his face into the bars. I managed to punch through the steel slats and landed a couple, though I missed a few. Crimson liquid flowed from the wizard’s head, mixing with his hair and coating his face like a candy apple.

  The other two wizards jumped back with startled shouts. I released their partner then collapsed; my energy drained once again. I had no idea why they were keeping me alive, but I suspected their reason wasn’t going to last long. Though I didn’t want to, I gazed at the tanks filled with dragon parts. I needed to know if they were my friends, my brothers. Mitias. I squeezed my eyes shut and tamped down my rage. I was going to need it. But not yet. Right now, these bastards had the upper hand.

  “You’ll pay for this,” the
wizard I’d beaten said.

  I lifted my head, smiled like I already knew how this was going to end. “Back at ya’, bitch.”

  19

  Gretta

  I slammed my phone on my kitchen counter, pushing down a sob that threatened to break free. Sam still wasn’t answering his phone, and I was close to screaming. Frustrated, and with no other outlet, I paced the length of the kitchen, thoughts racing. What if the wizards had gotten to him? What if it was his blood they’d been giving me to analyze?

  My knees buckled. The thought sickened me, and it was more than just sobs I had to control. How could I have been so foolish? I should’ve listened, should’ve trusted the one man in my life who’d never lied to me, never treated me with anything but kindness and respect, and I’d shit all over that.

  My chest ached under the mental anguish, and worst of all I wouldn’t be able to help Lila at all now. And I was probably going to lose my job. I needed to find Sam and figure all of this out. Wallowing was going to have to wait.

  Grabbing my phone and the keys to my car, I drove back to his place once more, hoping he was home but just hadn’t seen my note. He lived only a few blocks from me, but it felt like an eternity to get there.

  I held my breath, craning to see if Sam's truck was parked in his usual spot. His vehicle wasn't outside. I pulled in front of his place. The front porch had a couple days’ worth of newspapers, and the window shades were pulled down, but I knocked anyway. I was getting desperate and on the verge of a stress headache.

  I sank into one of the chairs on his porch and called Justin. I didn’t even bother with niceties when he answered. "I need you to go with me to the hospital. It's important."

  "Oh, honey, I'm so hungover I can't even move." He added a pathetic moan for good measure.

  "Have you seen Sam? Was he at the party?"