Page 38 of Tempt the Dragon
“I’m bringing the party to you.” Aiken was talking, but she didn’t know to whom, and then he was putting the truck in Drive and pulling off so fast the tires screeched on the asphalt.
The force of the truck moving slammed her back against the seat and she dropped a hand down on the door handle. Her bodyshook with a motion she was certain wasn’t due to the speed limit Aiken was clearly ignoring. Something else was happening...something she hadn’t anticipated.
“Why are we running?” It was better to stay focused, to worry about the matter at hand. “We need to stay here until Duncan shows up. How do you expect to catch him if we’re always running in the opposite direction?”
“One, we’re notrunning and two, you’re the very last person to talk about going in the opposite direction.” She should’ve known he’d take the comment in that way.
“We have a job to do, Aiken. That’s all I’m trying to say. This whole meeting seemed counterproductive and you know one of them, probably Duncan, killed that witch.” A scenario she couldn’t get out of her mind. If she’d caught Duncan that firstnight, he wouldn’t have been able to kill that woman, or the other two.
“We’re doing that job!” he yelled and pulled the truck off the road. “The question is, when are you going to help us?”
He’d jumped out of the truck, slamming the door behind him before she could respond. Cursing, she opened the door and started to step out. Her legs wobbled and she grabbed the side of the door to steadyherself.
“What the hell?” Five seconds, that’s all she was giving herself to shake whatever the hell was happening and get her head in the game. Aiken had already disappeared down an incline into a wooded area.
She stared in the direction he’d gone, blinking because her vision had gone blurry. Red, fuzzy, blurred...and then crystal clear. Straight through the trees, Aiken ran at full speedtoward three others—Magnum, Steele and Reese. Slamming the door behind her, she ran toward the trees, ignoring the pressure in her legs and arms, the feeling of her skin tearing at her fingertips.
A gush of cold air whipped through the area, bending the trees until branches cracked and fell to the ground. She felt a vamp coming up behind her, knew he was going to knock her down, but when hedid, she rolled him over until she was on top. Fangs bared, he bucked beneath her, reaching up to flatten his hands at the back of her head. This one was strong. She strained her neck in an attempt to pull back from his grip. He was pulling her down to his open mouth and she was slapping at his arms in brief movements that weren’t going to save her life.
The pressure in her limbs came to afever pitch and she literally felt as if she would combust at any minute. Instead, she pulled back, jerking free of the vampire’s hold and landing on her hands and knees a few feet away. The vampire shot up from the ground and she lunged before he did, knocking him down, this time wrapping her hands around his neck and squeezing with what felt like minimal effort until he exploded into a cloud ofdust beneath her.
She fell to her knees again, cursing louder this time. What was happening to her? With a shake of her head, she stopped asking that foolish question. She knew exactly what was happening, and it was what Aiken had wanted to happen to her all along. Her body no longer felt like her own. It was inside, growing, standing tall, making its entrance. Uninvited, of course. Fire soaredinto the sky at that moment and she shot to her feet, breaking into a run in the direction of the magnificent bronze dragon she could see through the night.
“Mel!” Aiken’s voice echoed over the sound of the flames and falling trees. She kept running, heart pumping, legs burning with pain, she ran harder and faster than she ever had in her life. She was running to him and she didn’t know why.She didn’t know what was happening or what was going on around her, all she knew was that she had to run, faster and faster.
“Melody!” He was waiting for her. She could feel the urgency deep in her bones. “Melody!”
Her trek stopped abruptly when she slammed into something hard, breath whooshing out of her with the contact.
“I need you to shift, right now!” His face was inches fromhers, his arms wrapped tight around her waist as she huffed and tried to catch her breath. “Just let go. That’s all you have to do. We’re here and it’ll recognize us, just let go. Just this one time, Mel, I need you to shift so we can get out of here.”
What the hell was he talking about? Why was he even talking when the forest was obviously burning down around them? She shivered but damn,it was hot out here tonight. Too hot for a January evening.
“Just let go, baby, let go and welcome the shift. You gotta do it now, Mel! Right now!”
Her body hurt like hell, every part, even down to her teeth, was in excruciating pain and Aiken was asking her to do something. From the pleading tone of his voice she guessed it was something to aid him...or possibly her. She couldn’t thinkstraight. Her brain felt like it was being squeezed and pushed through a funnel. Everything around her seemed to be spinning and it was so stifling hot she could barely breathe. Her heartbeat was louder than she’d ever heard it before, with an echoing sound like there was more than one. Aiken was yelling to her again, but she couldn’t do what he was asking. Without even knowing exactly what thatwas, a small part of her fought to resist. That small part pleaded with the insistent power moving through her, because to do what Aiken said, to give in, would change everything.
She had to run this time and didn’t give a damn what anybody thought of her for doing so. Only at this moment she didn’t trust having enough control of her limbs for that. Her escape would have to be via cloak. Tosave all she’d tried to be, she desperately needed to find another shape to take. Looking past Aiken, she settled on a tree and willed herself to be there, to become it.
She failed.
“You lied to me!” Mel yelled in his face before planting her hands on his chest and pushing him away from her.
He stumbled back a couple steps, more because he needed the space between them, or he justmight shake some sense into her head. “You almost got yourself killed!”
More yelling. They’d returned to the Office less than twenty minutes ago. Bleu had been there in the yard with clothes for everyone who’d shifted in the forest, but Aiken had only grabbed sweatpants and running shoes. He’d had to be fast because from the moment his beast had touched the ground she’d jumped off its backand run toward the house. But she hadn’t gone to his suite, which would’ve been more private, and a lot more comfortable to have this fight...or, ah, conversation they were having right now.
“The next time I tell you to shift, that’s what the fuck I expect you to do!”
“You’re not the boss of me,” she shot back.
“That’s a real mature reply. You could’ve died in that fire. The heat alonecould’ve suffocated you in your human form because of your stubbornness. If you’d let your dragon take complete control, your body would’ve been prepared to withstand the heat.”
She would’ve known that if she’d accepted the Drakon part of herself. The part he’d said he wouldn’t push her to acknowledge. Dammit! How could this one woman make him so completely crazy?
His nostrils flared ashe fought to control his anger, fingers fisted at his sides while he watched her walk around the pool table. She grabbed a stick from the cue rack, holding it in her hands like it was a baseball bat and she was ready to take a swing. “You’re not in charge here, regardless of the fact that I’m outnumbered by big bad dragons. We’re supposed to be working together to bring Duncan in and that’s notwhat happened tonight.”
Okay, she wanted to talk about the parts of the plan he’d left her out of instead of her long-lost dragon that stood between them like a boulder. That was fine. As long as they didn’t talk about the stark fear that still had his heart thumping wildly because he’d thought he might lose her. Folding his arms over his bare chest, he leaned back so that he was sitting onthe arm of one of the recliners across from the pool table.
