1. Patten

“Patten!”

I lift my pounding head, take in the utter devastation of a ruined building and immediately lie back down, closing my eyes. “Oh good, I’m still alive.”

“Patten! Can you hear me?”

I recoil from Shep’s yell rattling around my head. “I hear you,” I mutter.

Something is poking me in the kidney. A piece of crumbling stone or whatever the fuck Atticus Chira, AKA the collector, built his compound with. The second my migraine eases, I’ll roll off it. Until then, I think of it as a rock version of acupuncture.

Footsteps crunch toward me, then I’m off the rock, massaging my kidney and face to face with the big, blond, naked shifter holding me up.

“You look like shit.” Shep’s brow furrows in concern.

“And you look naked. You can put me down now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m good,” I assure him, squinting up at a gray sky through bleary eyes. It’s darker than I remember. “How long have we been out?”

He shrugs. “Not sure. I just woke up.”

He sets me on my feet and lets go.

The ground stretches toward me.

A hand grips the back of my shirt, saving me from the white brick I was on my way to head-butting.

Shep raises a blond brow.

“Yeah, maybe my legs are still a little wobbly,” I concede.

“Not surprising. Where’s Jade?” Shep returns me to my upright position, keeping his hand on my shoulder this time as he sweeps his eyes over crumbled white stone, shattered glass and burned brick.

“Never mind Jade,” I mutter, frowning even as I look for her. “Where the hell is the dragon who flattened us?”

And then I see him.

Brennan is like an alien fallen to Earth, face down amid a pile of ruin, naked ass pointed to the sky with a silver bolt through his side. Jade’s dad had been a dark red dragon, felled by what seemed like a flimsy, piece-of-shit silver bolt.

“Who’d have thought a bolt could do that?” I mutter. His hide or scales or whatever the fuck dragons have had looked way too thick for anything to puncture it.

Shep lets go of my arm.

I smack into the ground.

“Sorry!” Shep calls back, busy digging something out of the ground. Or someone.

Grumbling, I briefly consider staying down until I remember Jade is still missing. I push myself up as Shep pulls a scowling, dark-haired, gray suited vampire free from the ruins. “Are you okay?”

Isaiah stares at him. “A dragon fell on top of us. What do you think?”

“Can you stand?” Shep asks.

“Of course I can stand.” Isaiah’s French accent is heavier than usual, a big indication he’s pissed off about something.

I watch him brush dust from his shirt. Figured it would be his clothes upsetting him. I snort as I shove myself to my feet and continue my search for Jade. If we’re all awake, why isn’t she?

“Jade?” I yell.

Silence.

“Jade? You okay?” My eyes probe the collector’s ruined compound.

Silence.

Seeing nothing and hearing even less, I turn to Shep and Isaiah. Both are studying me, brows stamped with concern. “She was right next to me when Brennan went down. Why isn’t she answering?”

Shep sniffs, then wrinkles his nose.

“What?” I ask.

“Ash and burned flesh.”

“Lovely,” I say sarcastically. After all the fire breathing Brennan was doing from the sky, I’m thankful not to have Shep’s sharp wolf’s nose.

It kills my head, but I drop to my knees and start digging through a pile of stone near where Shep found me. Maybe she’s buried and can’t get out?

“She’s not here,” Isaiah calls out.

“What did you say?” I curse when I jab my thumb on a piece of metal shutter. After sucking the blood away, I glare at Isaiah. “You’re not even looking.”

“I don’t need to look.” Isaiah’s eyes are on my thumb and his gaze is hungry. “I know her heartbeat and it’s not here.”

I pretend not to notice Isaiah’s hungry attention. Blood in the air must be the equivalent of waving a menu at a vamp while yelling, ‘free food, come and get it.’

Then I realize who else was here. Or should be here and isn’t.

“What about that dragon?” I spot a gun and stuff it in the waistband of my jeans before I get to my feet. I might need it later.

Shep and Isaiah stare at me.

“The dragon?” Isaiah echoes, his brow creasing in a frown.

Or firedrake, I guess. Right now, the name isn’t important. One thing is.

Jade is gone, and only one person could have taken her.

Atticus could have, but if he’d been around, none of us would be breathing.

“Yes, the dragon.” I abandon my search for Jade. I get the sense I know what happened and really fucking hope I’m wrong. “Dominik isn’t here, and neither is Jade. Could it be possible that he took her?”

Shep frowns. “We came here to save him. He wouldn’t take her.”

“Well, she didn’t just disappear into thin air. He’s gone. She’s gone. Makes sense they’d be together,” I glower.

“But how?” Shep’s frown deepens.

“Perhaps we could check if the hunter is still alive,” Isaiah suggests.

I wave him off. “In a minute.”

Jade was standing right beside me, pointing out that her dad was a dragon, which I admit, was kind of cool. A guard tried to grab her. I shot him, and then?—

Hold up.

Her dad was a dragon.

I turn to Shep. “That chain. While Atticus was busy gassing us, Jade sounded like she’d figured out how to get it off him. What if without that chain, dragon guy could suddenly be a dragon again?”

Shep returns my stare then slowly angles his head up.

I do the same.

A dragon blasted through the roof of the building, saving us from the trap Atticus caught us in—or that we walked right into. What’s to say another dragon didn’t take advantage of all that open sky to carry Jade away?

Thud.

A French curse rings out. I snap my head toward Isaiah.

He’s glaring down at a gray-faced Brennan who is slowly sitting up, looking, quite frankly, like fucking death. Blackened, smoking stone beside Isaiah suggests he was lucky to have avoided being turned into a crispy fried vampire.

“I was trying to help you,” Isaiah bites out.

“And see what you get for your trouble?” I cross over to Brennan. “Jade is gone. Would the other dragon guy have taken her?”

“He has a name, Patten,” Shep says.

“And I’ll remember to use it before I kill him for taking Jade.” I don’t look away from Brennan. “Hunter?”

“He might have. You’re sure she isn’t here?” Brennan moves to get up.

I lift my eyes because I have no interest in seeing Jade’s dad full-frontal.

Brennan slams into the ground before he’s made it up half-way.

“That doesn’t look good,” I say, my eyes narrowing when I spot something I missed before.

“What doesn’t look good?” Shep asks.

I point. “That.”

Right where the bolt punctured Brennan’s side are fine strands of silver that look like veins. And they’re spreading.

Shep bends to peer closer.

I grab his shoulder and pull him back.

Shep looks at me. “What is it?”

“Oh sorry, would you prefer a face full of fire?” I nod at the blackened spot that was very nearly Isaiah’s cremated remains.

Shep drops into a crouch beside Brennan. “He’s out cold. That bolt looks like it’s poisoning him. I should pull it out.”

So that’s how a crossbow bolt could take down a dragon the size of a tank.

Shep wraps a large, tanned hand around the bolt and pulls it out. I’d expected more blood to gush out. What little that does has flecks of silver in it. Something tells me that isn’t a good thing.

“I don’t think it hit an organ,” Shep says, tossing the bolt aside. “Rip some of your shirt so I can cover the wound. Maybe that’ll stop whatever is happening to him.”

Since I have no desire to look like I’m wearing a crop top, I snort. “Maybe we should?—”

“We need to leave. Now,” Isaiah interrupts.

“What’s the hurry?” I do another quick scan of the ruin. Nothing. It’s just us here.

Isaiah points. “I count twenty heartbeats heading right this way. I’d say the collector has returned with backup to collect us.”

“Shep?” I turn. He’s already lifting Brennan and tossing him over his shoulder with the ease of someone lifting a jacket.

“Let’s go,” I say.

We’re headed in the opposite direction to the twenty heartbeats Isaiah warned us about when I spot it.

“Patten?” Shep asks when I stop to dig something out of the ground. “We need to go. Now.”

I lift the metal chain the dragon was wearing, dangling it between my fingers.

“Jade gets the chain off him, and dragon guy thanks her for it by snatching her,” I bite out.

She wouldn’t have chosen to go with him.

Not after she saw her dad get hit by a bolt, and not when she would want to be with us.

“He’s dead, Shep, that dragon guy is dead,” I snarl.

Sheps eyes flash gold. “One thing at a time. Let’s get Brennan out of here, and we can deal with getting Jade back after.”

Once we figure out where she is.

My eyes settle on the unconscious Brennan draped over Shep’s shoulder. Dominik has wings, so who the fuck knows where he could have taken her?