Fury of Seduction (Dragonfury Series #3) (6 page)

Seemed like a good plan. No time like the present to take a baby step and give it another shot.

Dropping his hand, Mac closed his eyes and retreated inward, looking for the thread of magic he’d lost in the gym. Energy sparked. He sank into the heat, fanning the ember into flame. As the ball of energy grew deep inside him, he nurtured it, held the power close a moment, then tossed his request out like a pair of dice. His heart thumped as magic rolled, whispering like static, filling the air around him. Machinery hummed, grinding into motion, obeying his command. His mouth curved. The elevator pinged a second before the stainless steel doors slid open in front of him.

Tears burned the back of his throat. Finally. Holy fuck...
finally
. He felt it. Wasn’t fighting to hang on or grasping for control. He was connected to his dragon, no longer less than half, but whole. Combating the sear of emotion, Mac inhaled smooth and exhaled long. With a respect born of time, he repeated the breathing technique, exorcising the stress as the fractured pieces inside him clicked together.

A heavy hand landed on the back of his neck.

Mac glanced over his shoulder. Giving his nape a gentle squeeze, Rikar nodded. The show of approval hit Mac chest level. Mother of God. That felt good. The surge of magic in his veins. The pride he saw in Rikar’s eyes. The hope both gave him.

Stopping alongside him, Forge nudged him with his shoulder. As Mac rocked sideways, bumping into Rikar, he met the male’s gaze. He tipped his chin, thanking him without words for his patience over the past month.

“No sweat,” Forge murmured, stepping past him and into the elevator. “Now enough of the bullshite. I’m famished.”

Mac’s stomach growled. Not a good sign. As a fledgling male, he needed to refuel often. Daimler wouldn’t be happy with him for pulling a disappearing act all day. The Numbai worried about the Nightfury crew, working hard to keep them in good eats and give each what was needed to thrive. But he’d shifted focus this past month, babying Mac...overjoyed by the prospect of putting him into the calorie overload his body required to endure the ongoing changes and the new abilities that each shift brought.

Good thing too. Mac didn’t know what he would do without the guy...and his monster triple-decker chocolate cake.

His mouth watering, he stepped into the elevator behind his comrades. The smooth ascent took less than a minute. Without making a sound, the doors slid open, dumping him into the aboveground lair. Hanging a right, Mac entered the double-wide corridor and beat feet, heading for the kitchen.

Antique doors marched like soldiers, trim, orderly, equally spaced on either side of the hallway. Paintings hung between them above the wainscoting, brightening the white walls with splashes of vivid color. Done by guys with names like Monet, Renoir, and van Gogh, the space was more gallery than hallway. A beautiful way to get from point A to B in the lair, the place would make curators and art connoisseurs the world over jealous.

Not that Mac knew anything about art, but...

Wow. The juxtaposition was appealing. Soothing, even. He’d never seen nineteenth-century landscapes play nice with modern, geometric pieces and charcoal etchings. The balance and flow was a big departure from the graphic art posters plastered on the walls inside the
Sarah-Jane
, his forty-seven-foot yacht and home for the last five years.

But not anymore.

He was 100 percent out of the human world. No more homicide squad at SPD or catching bad guys without a shitload of scales, claws, fangs, and the wherewithal to use them. And as surprising as it seemed, he was A-okay with the switch-up. Especially since it came complete with a crew who thought and acted just like him. The ultimate accessory
to his lifestyle makeover, though? Daimler. Hands down. The Numbai took culinary wizardry to a whole new level.

His stomach rumbled again. Mac picked up the pace. The smell of roast beef and fresh bread pulled him toward the kitchen, slingshotting him over the threshold into—

He stopped short. Ah, hell. Not again.

Mac shook his head, struggling not to laugh. It never failed. He always walked in when Bastian was in Don Juan mode. Kind of embarrassing. Not that B cared. He was a little preoccupied. Standing at the far end of the kitchen island with his arms wrapped around Myst, Bastian hugged her from behind, hands traveling as she tried to slice a loaf of bread.
Tried
being the operative word. It wasn’t going well, the uneven pieces, some thick, some thin, telling the tale.

“Would you quit that?” she said, exasperation combining with laughter. With a sudden twist, Myst bumped her mate’s chest with the back of her shoulders, searching for separation. The nudge made Bastian bolder. While she squirmed, he got busy nuzzling the side of her neck. “God, you’re a pain in the—oh, hey Mac.”

Meeting her gaze, Mac tipped his chin in greeting.

Bastian’s head came up. Green eyes lit him up like twin spotlights, then narrowed, taking inventory, cataloging his injuries, making assumptions. Not surprising. B didn’t miss much, but...shit. Mac could’ve done without the visual pat down. It made him feel fifteen again, caught behind the bleachers with a cheerleader’s legs wrapped around his waist. On the one hand, a great memory. On the other, not so much after the principal got hold of him. But like it or not, the Nightfury commander had that effect on him.

He hoped that changed when he got to know B better. Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, Mac went on high alert as his commander raised a questioning brow. Resisting the urge to hide his beat-up hands behind his back, he walked between the bank of wall cabinets and the island, moving toward censure instead of away. He’d always been like that...a take-it-in-the-teeth kind of guy.

Slowing his roll, he stopped beside the pair. As he leaned his hip against the island’s marble lip, he reached out and snagged a piece of bread off the bamboo cutting board. And oh man, it was still warm. Thick, fluffy, right-out-of-the-oven delicious. Shoving half of it into his mouth, he swallowed the load of umm-umm-good and met B’s gaze. His commander didn’t say a word, just waited.

Mac sighed. No time like the present. “So...had a little mishap in the gym.”

“Really,” B said, tone loaded with
yeah, right
. Mac didn’t blame him. Not after KOing a wall last week. “Anything broken besides your face?”

“Just my fist.” Cocky as ever, Forge slung his arm around Mac’s neck and held his hand up for inspection. Dimmed down, the halogens above their heads highlighted the damage, throwing contoured shadows across his beat-to-shit knuckles.

“You gonna show him your cracked ribs too?” Icy air rushing in his wake, Rikar pulled up beside them.

Mac stifled a shiver, combating the sudden deep freeze. It was always like that. Everywhere the guy went, the temperature dropped into single digits. Par for the course for a frost dragon. Though how Angela—his best friend, partner in the SPD’s homicide division, and now Rikar’s mate—handled the cold without turning into an icicle,
he didn’t know. Magic, probably. Hard-core, never-say-die love? Without a doubt.

His expression in neutral, Rikar reached around him to grab his own slice of heaven. After taking a bite, he umm-yeahed around the mouthful and said, “Forge’ll be walking with a limp for a while.”

“One word.” Releasing his hold on Mac, Forge spun and ass-planted himself on the countertop opposite them. Shitkickers dangling against white cabinet facades, he said, “Kung fu.”

“That’s two words, buddy.”

“Who asked you, Frosty?”

As Rikar threw his favorite words—
fuck
and
off
—into the ring, Mac laughed.

Bastian grinned and, after giving Myst a gentle squeeze, let her out from between him and the island. No dummy, she escaped Mr. Grabby-Hands, scooped up the cutting board—bread knife and all—and hightailed it into the dining room. B watched her go, then glanced from him to Forge and back again. “You boys work it out?”

Rotating his sore shoulder, Mac nodded. “All good.”

“Better be,” B murmured, turning toward the dining room. “Let’s eat before Daimler goes postal.”

Sounded like a plan. Especially if it meant getting another slice of homemade bread.

Moving in sync, Mac followed his commander, passing beneath the heavy timber-beamed archway into Café Nightfury. As he cleared the threshold, he glanced at the glass French doors leading out onto the patio. Imbued with magic, each pane rippled like black water, lapping at the window edges, cutting off the garden views...blocking out the orange glow of the setting sun.

A shame, really. He loved watching the sun sink beyond the horizon. But that wasn’t an option anymore. Not unless he wanted to go blind and get fried...in that order.

Dragonkind didn’t tolerate sunlight. Their eyes were too light sensitive, hence the need for enchanted glass on all the windows. The stuff served an important purpose, shifting from light to dark, protecting them from the harmful UV rays during the day, lightening at night to allow moonlight into the aboveground lair. But where sunlight stopped, candlelight took over; the golden glow bounced off the collection of covered dishes on the long table and antique sideboard. Like expensive jewelry, cut crystal sparkled alongside fine china and expensive silverware.

Mecca for a hungry male.

And he wasn’t alone. Wick and Venom had already made the trip. Per usual, the two sat side by side, Venom’s arm slung over the back of Wick’s chair. Wick growled a greeting. Mac nodded, making eye contact, getting plugged by the male’s golden gaze in return. Venom he ignored, doing the usual as he pretended the guy didn’t exist. It was either that or load a matched pair of Sigs and shoot the obstinate jack-off.

Ruby-red eyes trained on him, Venom followed his progress along the opposite side of the table. “About frigging time, fledgling.”

“Stow it, dickhead,” he said, resigned to the grind. Venom always came at him hard, like a sidewinder with fangs bared and poison rising. No trust. No faith. Just in-your-face aggression. Mac understood it to a certain extent. He was new and unproven, still unstable in a lot of ways and a potential minefield to the warriors Venom considered his to protect—the possessive SOB. “I’m here, so fuck off.”

Venom shifted in his chair. Wick grabbed his forearm, keeping him seated as B yelled, “Yo, Sloan...unplug, man. Time to eat.”

“In a sec,” Sloan said, sounding distracted.

Uh-oh. Not good. He knew that tone. And whenever Sloan—resident computer genius, hacker of impenetrable databases—used it, shit usually hit the fan. Mac changed course and headed for the living room. Chair legs scraped against the wooden floor as the wonder twins pushed away from the table. As he bypassed the massive double-sided fireplace separating the two rooms, Bastian rolled in on his six.

Sitting on the back of the couch, shitkickers planted on the seat cushion, MacBook on his thighs, Sloan looked up as the entire crew filed into the room. Shaved head displaying his mocha-colored skin, he pegged Mac with dark eyes and an intense look. “We got a problem.”

“We?” Mac skirted the ass end of the sofa. He wanted a sneak peek at what was playing on the computer screen. “Or me?”

“Both.”

Rikar’s eyes narrowed. “Put it on-screen.”

Fingers flying, Sloan remote accessed the lair’s cyber network. A second later the wall of plasma TVs flipped on. A few more keystrokes and...eureka. The six o’clock news started playing, pain-in-the-ass reporter Clarissa Newton front and center on-screen, talking about police corruption. And joy of joys, Mac’s sudden disappearance from the Seattle scene.

“Jesus help me,” Mac muttered.

“The little witch,” his partner said at the same time. Hazel eyes glued to the screen, Angela slipped beneath
Rikar’s arm, snuggled into his side, and scowled at the reporter. “Never could stand her.”

Per usual, Angela was bang on.
Witch
summed it up nicely. The powder-puff reporter had been a problem for them while working cases with the SPD. And now? Here she was again, poking her nose where it didn’t belong, smearing his good name, accusing him of a cover-up.

Him
, for fuck’s sake. The straightest, least corrupt cop on the entire frickin’ force.

Flexing his hands, Mac unclenched his teeth and forced tense muscles to relax. No sense getting bent out of shape about a reputation that didn’t matter anymore. So what. Big deal. Screw the humans and their idiot assumptions. Still, a mess was a mess, and this one needed to be cleaned up before the reporter got too close to the truth. He glanced at Bastian. “We need to find Newton—”

Glass shattered, splintering against the floor with a crash.

“Oh no.” One hand covering her mouth, a broken water pitcher at her feet, Myst stared at the TV.

Mac’s attention snapped back to the screen. His heart went jackrabbit. Caught fast by the image, he froze, hands and feet going numb, breath locked in his throat.

Mother of God.
Her.
His dream girl decked out by high definition, giving an interview to the cream-puff reporter.

“Tania,” he growled, sounding more animal than human.

And no wonder. His dragon half stood at attention, instincts rising as need dragged him toward her. The closer he got to the screen, the more powerful the longing became.

Mine.

The word—possessive, territorial, and...mind-torquing terrible—echoed inside his head. Desperation turned the screw, twisting him tight, and as yearning took hold, he struggled to stay even. To hold on to the self-imposed exile he’d clung to all his life and the emotional distance that insulated him from the inevitable pain of betrayal. But not anymore. The sight of her made detachment impossible.

“Bastian,” Myst whispered, fear in her violet eyes, face gone pale. “If we’re watching this, so are the Razorbacks. If Ivar gets a hold of her, he’ll...oh God, he’ll...you have to find her first.”

A quick about-face. Two long strides and Bastian reached his mate. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her close and held her tight. “I will. Don’t worry,
bellmia
. I’ll find her.” Nestling his cheek against the top of Myst’s head, B nailed Sloan with shimmering green eyes. “How much time?”