2. Dakota

Dakota folded his wings precisely as his claws massaged the roof tiles under him. He perched himself in the suburb near the park, on one of the houses that lined the quad where he watched her crash and burn. His latest batch of vampires all died to her claws, again, but they managed to drive her skyward once more. And the moment he has been waiting for finally arrived. He has watched her fight and struggle and collapse. Fight and struggle and collapse. Over and over again. He knows he's obsessed with her and he isn"t afraid to admit it. She has some core strength that no other target has ever displayed. Six months of this now. He has driven harder men to kill themselves within a few weeks at most. If her body had not given up here in the park, she would still be flying. Struggling. Fighting. He was very impressed.

She consumed his thoughts constantly and he knew that he had drawn out this process just to see more of her. He spent extra time watching when she was unaware because something about her fascinated him like no one else has.

He had accepted other assignments to kill women in the past and he had a reputation in the right circles for finishing his projects cleanly quickly. Without hesitation. He doesn"t quite understand why he hesitated with her. There was something about her refusal to give in that tempts him.

He craved the fleeting scent of her dragon like an addiction. More than once he drove her to flee just so he could roll himself like a dog in the place she had been, letting his mind wander over the possibility of her. He had a dangerous urge to get closer, not to kill her as ordered, but to… to…

He growled deeply at himself, stoking the rage inside that never settled far from his heart. He was a dragon born of flame and violence. He could do nothing except tear her to pieces and bath in her blood. That was the only pleasure Fate allowed him.

Without a mate a dragon couldn't know love. Dakota had lived a lifetime without it and found his pleasures in claws and teeth instead. He would enjoy this one more than most.

Unfortunately the vampire master who hired him would no longer accept his delays and excuses. Dakota had probably pushed back a little too hard. It might cost to clients in the future. He didn't care. The opportunity to watch Alexandra struggle and continue struggling to the very brink of lethal exhaustion had been worth it.

It had been a beautiful, courtship, doomed from the start to end in brutal, bloody agony. Drool dripped from his hooked teeth.

He opened his wings, the black scales invisible against the dark sky and leaned gently off the peak of the house. His claws lift from the tiles with nothing more than a faint scratch.

He floated silently down to the trees and with perfect, elegant smoothness, shifted into human form as he touched the grass.

He wore dress slacks and a sport coat more suitable to a boardroom than a midnight stroll in the park, but he wasn't expecting a fight tonight. Alexandra had already lost. The next steps were merely formality.

He found her, filthy and ragged, sprawled under the picnic bench as if she had sought the only cover available and hadn"t quite made it underneath. He circled the bench, wanted to memorize the fall of her face so he could remember her for all of his days. Even under the grime and the tangle of her hair, the thinness of her face due to intermittent starvation, she was beautiful. She called to him, her spirit to his, and it was all he could do not to answer it. It wasn't often he came this close to another dragon, and a powyrful wave of longing unexpectedly struck close to home.

He snarled at the ghost of the future and stoked his rage, wiping out the whispers of powyr and the call of Fate. If She wanted him to follow Her will then maybe She shouldn't have enforced celibacy upon the dragons until they found their mate. Their one and only. Impossible in a world this big and with so few of them scattered across its surface.

With a resigned sigh that the game must end, he reached down to grab her ankle and pulled her free of the bench. He shifted his other hand into obsidian black claws.

Alexandra lunged upward to meet him. Her claws flashed toward his chest with the same brutal efficiency he had seen her fight the vampires he sent after her time and time again. He was not a vampire. He wasn't that fast. But Alexandra is also exhausted nearly to the point of death, and Dakota caught her wrist with his free hand as he leaned away from her strike.

A frisson jumped through them both at the contact of his bare skin on hers. Dakota"s entire body flushed with heat and then an arousal so unexpected that he staggered backward another step. His groin tightened. His cock, trapped in pressed slacks, tried valiantly to fill, pressing itself lewdly against the fabric in a rush that left him lightheaded.

He gazed down at Alexandra's wide-eyed face in a brand-new light.

He had been celibate his entire life, not through some monk-like self-control, but simply because dragons cannot respond to anyone but their fated mate. The one person on earth that he'd been dreaming about since he was fifteen. The woman he'd given up on finding years ago. The part of his soul that was missing forever.

Dakota realized with a shocked breath that Alexandra was his mate. And his obsession with her suddenly made complete sense. His need to be closer. His inability to drive her out of his mind. His complete fascination with her, even to the point of driving her to the edge of death itself.

Alexandra was his mate and the vampire master, Malik, who hired Dakota, can go fuck himself.

Alexandra"s mouth fell open and her face collapsed in a fresh kind of despair. This unexpected connection was the thing that would finish her completely.

"No," she whispered, and tried to take her wrist out of his hand.

"Yes," Dakota countered, firm, confident. And she was so weak that she didn"t even protest when he pulled her into his arms. She could barely stay awake long enough to protest again, which he blatantly ignored. She was too thin in his arms, unexpectedly delicate. But she fit under his chin and even if she collapsed against him out of exhaustion instead of desire, Dakota still hissed at the spike of need that flexed through him like dragon fire.

Thiswas the future Fate wanted for him and in a single moment he knew there was no other option. Not if there was even a chance she could be his and his alone.

Forever.

He shifted back to dragon form like a cold dunk of water and picked her up delicately in his claws. He lunged into the air with a single powerful thrust of black wings.

The vampires he collected around the park for this final showdown would run back to their master and report that Dakota had taken her. They"d claim that Dakota had betrayed him.

They'd be right.

As Alexandra passed out again, Dakota banked to the far edge of the city and started making contingency plans.

It wasn't just Alexandra who was a target, now. Dakota was too. And she was in no shape to fight by his side. He'd have to protect her until she could get back on her feet. Until she was strong enough to fly away with him. Until that fire he'd helped slowly smother could be stoked back into an uncontrollable blaze.

His claws tucked around her firmly. He could see the uphill battle he had to climb.

It started with one critical flaw in his plan: she didn't even know him.