Page 4 of Claimed By the Sinful Dragon
“You will be silent!”
“I’m not a…pet. You can’t just give me away.”
“I am your alpha. I can do as I damn well please.” His eyes glinted coldly. “But it is not I who had the final say. The pack has spoken. You will abide by their decision.”
“Fuck the pack! You bunch of spineless—”
The enforcer clamped a hand over my mouth, cutting off the rest of my tirade. I tried to sink my teeth into his hand, but his grip was so strong I couldn’t even move my jaw. Bastard.
“I’ll be back to collect her in the morning,” Rook said coolly. “So that she has time to adjust to the shock, and say her goodbyes.”
“There is no need. She has no friends or family.”
Rook’s eyes narrowed. “But she is of this pack?”
“She is. Her mother was daughter of a beta.”
“So be it. She will return with me.”
I grunted my objections behind the enforcer’s hand, but it seemed like no-one was in a listening mood. Whatever. I’d just bust out of this guy’s car—he seemed the sort to own a vehicle—the second he turned his back.
Cold cuffs snapped around my wrists, locking them behind my back, and I yelped in surprise. Landon handed the key to Mr. Big Time Gangster, who slipped it into his pocket. Fine. SoI’d have to pickpocket the completely intimidating psycho who looked like he could snap me in half like a twig. No problem. That was just a little…complication, that was all.
With my hands cuffed behind my back. Sure. Why not?
Rook dipped his chin a fraction to Landon, which I guess was gangster for deal done—bastards—and then took a step back. The alpha wolf shifter scurried aside while I canted my head, trying to work out why my captor was backing away…because I was under absolutely no delusions that he’d suddenly and unexpectedly developed a conscience.
And then I saw Rook’s outline shimmer and blur, and my eyes widened. His frame grew and expanded, and the trees around him groaned. Several branches snapped with a loud crack and then abruptly, in the time between one blink and the next, I wasn’t looking at a man. I was looking at something large, reptilian, and winged.
I swallowed. He wasn’t a myth. He wasn’t a gangster. He was an actual dragon.
Fuck. My. Life.
He threw his green-gray scaled head up and loosed a reptilian roar, lashing his tail from side to side in the wrecked trees. Behind me, murmurs of shock, awe, and fear spread through the pack like wildfire, and even Landon had his head bowed respectfully.
The dragon pinned its wings to scaled flanks and stalked forward on four limbs, each tipped in deadly sharp talons. He stopped in front of where I stood rooted to the ground, and lifted one front claw. I could do nothing but watch as it stretched toward me and wrapped effortlessly around my torso, snatching me up to his chest.
Then he flapped his sail-like wings, and lifted us up into the air.
Well, shit.
Chapter 4
Rook
Shedidn’t scream. Small mercies, I suppose. Usually, they screamed. It wasn’t the only thing not right about the scrawny shifter, judging by the way her pack had been in such a hurry to get rid of her. And there was an odd scent to her…
I canted my head as I beat my wings, carrying us higher into the air. Was that…
Egg.
It was. The wolf shifter smelled ofeggs.Fuck sake, that alpha prick had given me some worthless mutt who couldn’t even handle her own food. She was going to be more trouble than she was worth, I knew it already.
Would you prefer we occupied our time with war?
Goddamn smartass dragon. What Iwantedwas a quiet, peaceful existence, on my own, without a sarcastic sidekick inside my own head.
You’d miss me.
