Fury of Seduction (Dragonfury Series #3)
Read Fury of Seduction (Dragonfury Series #3) Online
Authors: Coreene Callahan
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 Coreene Callahan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612182964
ISBN-10: 1612182968
To Mom and Dad: As always, thank you for being You.
Sleep always eluded Mac. Night, day...it didn’t matter. A solid eight hours of REM never made it onto his schedule. He’d tried everything: swapping his firm mattress for a softer one, kitting the thing out with silk sheets and the best pillows money could buy. Stretching out in his La-Z-Boy recliner. Hard-core sex before bedtime. Nothing helped. No matter what he did, the most he ever got was three hours in a row.
Which explained a lot.
Like why he stood by himself in the gymnasium he shared with the other Nightfury dragon warriors instead of tucked in his bed getting the recommended number of Zs. Seven stories belowground, their lair, Black Diamond, boasted the best of everything: state-of-the-art workout equipment, a basketball court, and a room full of tools used to sharpen dragon claws. The fact he was alone said it all. None of his brothers-in-arms suffered from insomnia. All were no doubt deep in la-la land, laid out under feather down, getting hot and heavy with an imaginary dream girl. Which...
Made Mac the sole patient in the sleep deprivation department of chez Nightfury.
Damned annoying. And even more of a problem today.
Combating a boatload of pissed off, Mac rolled his shoulders to work out the kinks. He couldn’t afford to screw up. Or let his new family down. Not again. The other warriors were counting on him. Trusted that he’d learn to master the magic he commanded as a Dragonkind male to become a solid member of the Nightfury pack. Did it matter that he’d only just learned he was half dragon? That the magic encoded in his DNA had jump-started the
change
—allowing him to shift from human to dragon form and back again—just over a month ago?
Not even a little.
Time didn’t wait for anyone or give a shit about ability. And neither did Mac.
To fight alongside his brothers, he must prove he belonged with them. So, yeah. He needed to pull it together...right now.
Too bad the plan was goat-fucked six ways to Sunday.
His dragon half was AWOL, getting in his face, fucking up his flow, denying his will to control it. Cajoling didn’t work. Neither did babying the bastard. And threatening it? Shit, he’d gotten zapped with nasty-ass energy shards the handful of times he’d tried that approach. So what did that leave him?
Begging.
Mac blew out a long breath. Just the thought gave him a raging case of
no can do
—the obstinate SOB belonged to him, after all, not the other way around—but desperate times called for desperate measures. If he continued to screw the pooch, he wouldn’t get what he wanted. Hell...
make that
craved
. He needed the Nightfuries’ acceptance. Without it, he wouldn’t get his warrior status rubber-stamped in the war against the Razorbacks, a rogue faction of Dragonkind whose endgame included the extermination of the human race.
He glared at the weight machine nearest him. Steel rattled, picking up the vibe he threw off, and shifted against the rivets that kept it bolted to the floor. As the calamity got going, clanking out a rhythm, industrial-grade fluorescents flared above his head, crackling through the quiet. A second before the lightbulbs exploded, Mac shut the energy overload down, more disgusted with himself than ever.
KOing gym equipment wouldn’t get him anything but more attention. The kind he didn’t need from the crew still asleep upstairs. He snorted. Now there was an understatement. Bastian, his new commander, would deep-fry his ass if he wrecked anything else this week. Especially since he was still on the hook for putting his fist through a wall.
Raising his arms, Mac cupped the back of his head and pressed down, pushing his chin toward his chest. Taut muscles pulled, and pain screamed up his spine. As agony slammed into his skull, he frowned at the real estate between his bare feet. The Velcro of the exercise mats lined up, connecting the whole, not even a millimeter off as each clung to its counterpart. Any other day, he would’ve appreciated the precision. Enjoyed the tidy corners and neat edges. Today, the sight just made him sick.
So together. So on the same page. So perfect in every way.
Unlike him. He was a total frickin’ catastrophe. The only guy in Black Diamond who didn’t have his shit together.
Mac’s headache morphed into a full-blown throb, pounding between his temples. The whole thing was a total mind-fuck. The failure. Each defeat. The fact his magic defied him. And as fear and uncertainty came calling, he shook his head. It shouldn’t be this difficult. He’d always excelled at everything—school, sports, the military, and martial arts. Nothing had ever pushed him to the edge of what he could endure...until now.
Why was he having so much trouble? Was it the water angle? Most dragons hated water and spent their lives avoiding it. Not Mac. True to his water dragon roots, he preferred to be in the ocean. The deeper the better, but any body of water would do. Give him a lake, river, or Olympic-size swimming pool, and he was good to go. The difference between him and the other Nightfuries, though, didn’t explain why his magic refused to obey him.
He frowned, turning the questions over in his mind, searching for answers. None came. No clever explanation. No aha moment. Just another big doughnut hole in an information string full of them.
Inhaling deep, Mac filled his lungs to capacity, getting back in the game.
Surrender
wasn’t a word he ever used, and as he held the breath, relishing the burn, he prayed the last time was the charm. He needed to connect with his dragon side like he needed legs to stand on. Letting the air go, he drew another lungful and released it.
Draw. Hold. Release.
Mac repeated the sequence over and over, using the breathing technique he’d learned in the navy. After a while, his heartbeat slowed. His body calmed. As the chaos in his mind receded, a sinking sensation grabbed hold and pulled him deep. A snick echoed as something unlocked inside
him, releasing a flood of energy. The Meridian. Mother of God. He’d found it, tapped into the electrostatic current that fed Dragonkind.
And, oh man, it was beautiful.
Power personified, magic rushed through his veins, making his muscles contract and his heart thump, lighting him up from the inside out.
“Come on, beautiful,” he whispered, nursing the fragile connection. “Stay with me.”
His words swirled through the quiet, echoing in the gym, reminding him he was alone. Good thing too. He didn’t want anyone witnessing the train wreck if he failed again. Call it pride. Call it ego. Call it a severe allergy to ridicule. Whatever. It didn’t matter, just as long as he caught hold of the magic and mastered the cloaking spell. The ability wasn’t optional. If he couldn’t cloak himself—go dark and invisible against the night sky—he couldn’t fight alongside his brothers. And if he couldn’t contribute as a warrior, he wasn’t worth the space he occupied.
Deep in the zone, Mac closed his eyes. As he shifted mental focus, he drifted toward the energy stream, afraid to lose the thin thread if he moved too fast. On the brink, he reached out with his mind, eager to touch and taste it while—
“You still at it?”
The rich brogue startled him, and Mac flinched. His dragon recoiled, turning away, causing the magic to whiplash. With a curse, Mac struggled to hold on, clinging to the fragile connection as he coaxed it to stay with him. The magical tether fractured, then faded, leaving him standing empty-handed in the darkness. Opening his
eyes, Mac glanced toward the main entrance and snarled at the newcomer.
One shoulder propped against the doorframe, Forge raised a brow. “Not going well?”
“Son of a bitch,” Mac gritted between clenched teeth. His hands curled into fists, ready to open a can of whup-ass on Forge for interrupting. “What does it look like?”
“It looks tae me like you need a break.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Forge leveled a no-nonsense look in his direction. “And some sleep. When did you last eat?”
Good question. Mac didn’t know the answer. Didn’t much care, either. “Motherfuck. You screwed me up. I was seconds away from—”
“Touching the Meridian?”
“Yes, goddamn it.”
“You’re not ready for that, Mac.”
He threw his new friend a load of fuck you.
“I’m not saying it tae fuck you up,” Forge said, sounding so sincere Mac wanted to rip his head off. “You’re rushing things...pushing your magic tae dangerous levels. ’Tisn’t safe, lad. You went through the change just over a month ago. No way you should be trying to conjure a cloaking spell. You’ve a shitload to learn before we get to that. Need to be a helluva lot stronger too...which is why you should be eating and sleeping between training ops.”