Dragon's Challenge Read online

  “What is going on?” Stephen’s gaze was steady on her, his hands clasped lightly in front of him. “I thought all of this was supposed to be highly classified.”

  “It is.” Maura stared at the ragged cuticles on her fingers. The stress over the last couple of weeks had been getting almost too much for her to handle.

  A lot of things had changed this past year, and she hated it. The Academy was no longer the happy, bustling place she knew where she could look out her window and see the Blaze Ops training. More than once she’d spent the whole day watching Stephen out there.

  She’d never admit it, of course; it was highly unprofessional to do that and a little creepy. Considering that she used to be his boss, it was all the worse for it.

  Now, though… now the drills and training were full of shouting and insults, rather than the joshing around that Patrick and Fiona did with their men. More like Cooper and his Shadow Ops. The worst part about it was that Cooper was still around. Out of all the people she would have wanted to stay, he was not one. Not that he was a bad person, she just didn’t like him. Since he and Erica Bennet, the head physician for the on-site hospital, had started dating he’d only gotten more and more insufferable.

  Stephen reached across the table and laid his hand on hers. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “I don’t really know what is happening, either,” she admitted. Maura yanked at the ends of her red hair, wishing she did have something better to tell him. “Everybody in the Blaze Ops has been arrested. Only the Blaze Ops, though. I got a call about it. Information was leaked about some of the Blaze Ops’ missions.”

  Stephen’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “I was able to get my hands on a copy and take a look at it,” she continued. “And information about the Shadow Ops and other teams have been erased from it. This isn’t random, Stephen. Someone is targeting the Blaze Ops to get them in jail.”

  “Fu—” Stephen swallowed down the curse, clearly with effort. His hands clenched over his knees as he glared at a blank wall. “So, what you’re saying is that the Blaze Ops was betrayed. Who did it?”

  “I don’t know. And nobody seems interested in finding out who it was, either. My contacts have all said that they’re pulling back, fortifying their walls and preparing denials and condemnation of the Blaze Ops for undertaking such things off the books and without being sanctioned for it.”

  This time, Stephen let out the full curse. He got to his feet, hands clenching and releasing as he paced one end of the room to the other. Maura watched him.

  One part of her was concerned about this whole mess and what was going to happen next. The other part of her was concerned just seeing what sort of state he was in now. The short-sleeved shirt he wore revealed his tattooed arms, but they seemed oddly… thinner than they had been last year. Like he’d lost muscle mass. His skin was almost grey, his beard overgrown and there was a distinctive waft of alcohol around him. Not to mention his clothes were a mess.

  “Stephen?”

  He glanced back at her, jaw tight and eyes narrowed.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  Stephen looked away so quickly that she knew whatever he said next would be a lie. And when he grinned at her, that charming grin that she was all too familiar with when it came to these dragons, her heart sank. “Yeah, of course. I’m fine. You just caught me at a bad time.” She gave him a doubting look and he only smiled broader. “Worried? Maybe you’d like to come home with me and give me a sponge bath then?”

  Maura nearly choked. Where had that come from? Stephen had never acted like that before! She knew that he had a tendency to make sexual jokes with his teammates, but he’d never been anything but gentlemanly toward her.

  Seeing her expression, Stephen flinched. He glanced away from her. “Uh… Sorry. That was uncalled for.”

  Unfortunately, even as he spoke the image of him lounging naked on the edge of a stonework hot tub while she washed his body with a soapy sponge came to mind. The gleam of his muscles, his tattoos dark against his skin. It drained the blood from her brain, sending it to her nether regions as a fire blossomed there.

  Her leopard snarled in pleasure, stretching its paws. It would like nothing more than to tear the clothing right off of Stephen’s body. It had wanted him from the first moment she laid eyes on him, and it wasn’t shy about its desires.

  Maura sat there, staring stupidly as the images increased in her mind. His hands on her body, lips touching, her legs wrapping around his waist.

  “Sorry,” Stephen mumbled again, glancing away from her.

  Fuck. He thinks I’m offended.

  She didn’t trust her voice and so only nodded at him. Her leopard pushed at her chest, telling her to forget about the situations they found themselves in and just bone right here on the table. She hated how unconcerned it could be at times. While she’d love to be as sexually free as it wanted her to be, the fact was that there was such a thing as priority and decency.

  “Right now, we have to concentrate on what’s happening,” she said, more to herself than to Stephen, but he nodded all the same.

  “Right. Yes. You said the others have all been arrested. I guess that means that I’ll be officially arrested here soon, too.” Stephen sat back down. “Can you see the others, get messages to them?”

  Maura shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. Nobody else tried to get me to be their lawyer. Speaking of which, you need an actual, proper lawyer. I can’t help you; I don’t know enough about the law. I’ve been doing research for the others. I think if we can all band together and have a team all dedicated to the same case, we might be able to figure out what is going on and who betrayed the Blaze Ops. It’ll be expensive—”

  “Sorry, but I can’t.” Stephen’s cheeks flushed as he looked away. “I don’t have any money. I just… quit… my last job and I haven’t had a lot of luck finding somewhere that I fit in.”

  Maura knew exactly what that meant. She chewed on her lip, repressing the urge to let out a stream of profanities. She should have known this was going to end up more difficult than she anticipated. The others weren’t financially well off either. Some of them had decent enough savings accounts, but most of them had put a lot of money into schooling or other improvements to their lives.

  Nobody had thought this was going to come up and with ties to the Academy severed, there was nobody to pick up the slack, either.

  “It’s okay,” Maura assured him, even though she had no idea how it was going to be okay. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll figure something out. The cases are all intertwined, so I’m sure that I can get a discount for that.”

  If she knew who was behind this, she could potentially pull out her secret weapon. She’d thought about using it against the people who used to oversee Academy actions. Make them get involved, make them help the Blaze Ops out. Until she knew more about who was putting this on in the first place, though, she was too worried about causing more damage.

  “Do you have any idea who could be putting this together? Any of the Pack’s Betas that might have escaped? Someone maybe trying to get the Pack back together, maybe?”

  “They’re not a boy band, Maura,” Stephen snapped, then drew back. “Sorry.”

  It was a stressful situation, Maura knew that. But the fact that he kept doing things that required him to say sorry was starting to grate on Maura. He was the one who called her here, he should have known that she’d be asking questions. Unless he just expected her to swoop in and solve everything for him. She was going to do her best, but she wasn’t some damn miracle worker.

  The Blaze Ops had always had a slight problem remembering that. Thinking that they could just do whatever they wanted and she’d be there to clean up their messes. Of course, she had enabled them. Right from the start, she had been tidying up the problems they caused. Right from that first unauthorized mission Patrick pulled in order to save Fiona from the Pack.

  “If someone is trying to reorgani
ze the Pack, it’s not someone I know of,” Stephen murmured, sounding more subdued now. “I thought all of the Betas were either killed or arrested. And Karey assured us that there were no new Alphas to take over.”

  “Maybe there was someone who wasn’t taken in by the Pack’s false way of deciding ranks.” Maura shook her head. “You know, how they underwent trials and decided who was a Beta, who was an Alpha, who was an Omega?”

  “Yeah…”

  Maura shook her head. “That isn’t how it works. Wolves naturally have a hierarchical structure like that but it’s innate, inborn. Not something that they decide on. I don’t know how the previous Alpha became Alpha, but if there is someone who is naturally an Alpha, then they’d have no problem in rallying others to them.”

  “In that case, it could be anybody.”

  Maura shuddered. It was true. It could be anybody. And more than that… it had to be someone she knew. Someone who was part of the Academy in some fashion. Whether they were trying to restart the Pack and all its horrible philosophies was only one possibility. There was only one certainty in all this, and it was that someone was trying to get the Blaze Ops behind bars. It was only logical to assume that it had something to do with the Pack since they were the ones who were responsible for bringing them down in the first place.

  “And what about you?” Stephen reached across the table again, clutching her hand tightly. Whether to comfort her or seeking comfort, Maura didn’t know. She did know that it felt nice, though, and twined her fingers with his.

  “What about me?”

  “If they’re targeting the Blaze Ops, do you think they’ll come after you next? Everyone knows we were your favorites.” Here he winked, making her roll her eyes. “Could it be that they’re trying to get you to blow all your money on protecting us so that they can come after you and put you away all the easier?”

  Maura frowned. She had considered that but hadn’t wanted to think about it. As she allowed herself to consider the possibility, she shook her head. Maybe they were trying to get her to reveal her secret weapon. Maybe they were just trying to take out the Blaze Ops.

  “We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it,” she murmured. “In the meantime, I am going to do everything I can to get you out of here. I promise.”

  Chapter Five

  Stephen was allowed to go home after the interrogation, after being told exactly where the others in the Blaze Ops were being held. It felt so much like a setup that he didn’t go see them, as much as he wanted to. He just couldn’t risk it. Apparently, him not taking the bait was enough for Forsyth because two days later he showed up with an official arrest warrant.

  Half a dozen uniformed MPs were with Forsyth. Overkill if Stephen planned to go in quietly. Not enough if he planned to fight them off.

  “I want to see that warrant,” Stephen said as the MPs started forward with their handcuffs. “Otherwise, I’ll have to take this as an unlawful arrest and consider it my duty to resist.”

  He held his hand out for the piece of paper in Forsyth’s hand. Even though he had no idea what he was talking about, he hoped it would work. His fires flamed hot, anger burning through him as he repressed the urge to punch in Forsyth’s stupid, ugly face. He’d been expecting this. Part of him had wanted to just take off and take his luck before the arrest warrant was issued, but he had needed to stick around. For Maura, if nothing else.

  Now, though, how was he supposed to help her?

  Forsyth’s smirk made his hackles raise as the suit handed over the warrant. He was utterly relaxed, as though he had every confidence this was going to go exactly how he wanted. Stephen read the warrant, or at least pretended to.

  If he allowed himself to be taken in, he’d end up behind bars, just like the rest of the Blaze Ops. Maura would be the only one left outside. If she was likewise targeted? What then? She talked about lawyers, but what could they do, really? He wasn’t even certain if he was being arrested under military jurisdiction! Forsyth was no officer and yet he had all the MPs with him. So when it came to trial, would Stephen be faced with a court-martial? Would he have someone from the JAG corps defending him?

  “Well.” Stephen handed the warrant back. “It seems to me that everything is in order. Which puts me in a very awkward position.”

  “Oh, please resist arrest. You’re scum and it would give me all the more pleasure in ensuring you can’t use your slippery shifter abilities to worm your way out of this like the snake you are.” Forsyth grinned wider.

  Stephen narrowed his eyes. Calling dragons worms and snakes was not something any of them took lightly. It harkened back to the middle ages, when dragons were considered to be servants of the devil, men who kidnapped and raped virgins or women who gave birth to Satan’s spawn. “Was that an anti-shifter slur you just used?”

  Forsyth moved closer, his lip curling in disgust. “It’s only a slur if it’s not true.”

  A snarl burst from Stephen’s chest. The MPs reacted instantly, jumping forward to try to subdue him. Several nightsticks were brought out and smashed across his arms, chest, and back.

  Fuck this.

  If they weren’t going to play nice, neither was he. With a roar, he flung himself backward. He blocked a nightstick coming at his face, then twisted his arm around it and yanked the MP closer. Forsyth quickly pulled himself out of the line of fire. As more blows rained down on him, Stephen’s vision burst in spurts of black and white. A heavy blow across his head drove him to his knees.

  So he pulled his fires forward. He spread them through his body and pushed them from his pores. Most dragons could only breath fire. Most dragons wouldn’t attempt something like this, thinking it was too dangerous.

  But Stephen wasn’t most dragons, and he liked to laugh in the face of danger.

  He released his flames all at once. Fire sprang up along his arms, down his back. It wrapped his skull in blazes of red and orange. The heat made his skin sizzle. The scent of burning hair filled the air. His clothes caught fire and the MPs backed off, all shouting and yelping. Forsyth had a gun in his hand. His eyes widened, his jaw dropping to the floor.

  Stephen hurled the nightstick toward him, hitting him square in the face, then backpedaled into his apartment. The door caught fire where he touched it to slam it shut. The pain was excruciating but Stephen was used to pain. He concentrated, building his scales around the flames pouring from his body. Wings sprouted from his back and he charged for the window.

  He burst out, leaving a ragged, burning hole behind him. The sound of several guns went off, but Stephen ignored them as he beat his wings, taking himself higher. Several snipers on the rooftops of the buildings next to his looked up.

  Stephen wheeled about, knocking one over with his tail just because he could and fled the scene.

  The pain burning through him made it difficult to think as he ducked and wove through powerlines in the city. Then because the police would be after him now, he yanked a few of those lines; they snapped, and he dropped the broken pieces as streetlights and offices went black. Let the police deal with that instead of coming after him!

  He wheeled about, soaring over the hospital and toward the hotels on the upper side of town.

  Maura had told him which hotel she was staying at, and he landed on the roof. When he shifted back to human form he stumbled, a sudden pain pinching on his side. Looking down, he saw a dart in his skin. A series of expletives burst from him as his fires rapidly cooled.

  Blockers.

  Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of that? They’d have something to stop him from shifting! It must have gotten caught between his scales, not able to deliver the blockers until he shifted back.

  But no matter. He’d figure this out.

  Yanking the needle out, he kicked open the door, ignoring the pain from his blistering feet, and charged in. Maura was on the fourth floor. Room 406. All he had to do was get to her. Although now that he was here, he didn’t know what she could do…

  Stop. Just get
to Maura. Figure out everything later.

  He stumbled to the elevator, pulling off the melted scraps of his clothes before they could bind to his skin—shouldn’t have worn polyester. That was a mistake. Liam was right. Always wear cotton. It was easier to keep during a shift, for one thing.

  When he got to Maura’s door, she gasped at seeing him. Her hands flew all around, as though trying to decide where she could put them. Stephen panted with the pain searing through him. Nausea made his head spin, but he tried to push it aside as he reached for her wrist.

  “What happened?” she shrieked.

  Stephen tried to answer. His stomach rebelled and he turned his head, spewing vomit all over the hotel floor. He sagged and Maura caught him. It hurt like hell, so badly he couldn’t bite down on his reaction. Darkness washed over his vision as he let out a howl. Maura chanted over and over that she was sorry as she tried to pull him inside.

  “You need a hospital,” she gasped.

  “No.” Stephen shook his head as he grabbed her wrist again. “I’m… I’m abducting you, I guess. Oh, I’ve got a knife.”

  He patted at his waist, only to remember that he didn’t have anything on him anymore. He let Maura pull him into the room, leaning one hand against a desk. A smear of blood was left behind. Maura moved around, but he didn’t see what she was doing. Only when she wrapped a bedsheet over him did he look up again. She had a laptop bag slung over one shoulder and pressed a folding hunting knife into his hand.

  “Here’s your weapon to abduct me. We have to move fast if we’re going to get out of here. If you say no hospitals, I know where we should go. But I swear, Stephen, if you die, I’ll bring you back so I can kill you. Can you walk?”

  Stephen pulled himself up straight and pulled his lips back. “Sure thing. Now move it.”

  He wasn’t entirely certain how they got out of the hotel. He had her knife out the whole time, pressed against the small of her back. Even though he was terrified of stumbling and stabbing her, she wouldn’t let him remove it. If they were playing at him abducting her, she needed to look the part. Some part of his mind remembered that it was because she needed plausible deniability if Forsyth found them.