Impatience gnawed at him. He suspected Garrison wouldn’t hurt Jilly intentionally—the words she’s mine rang too clearly in his head to believe otherwise. That, and the undeniable sexual longing in the druid’s eyes when he’d looked at her. But Ari sure as hell wasn’t happy about her being in Garrison’s possession. Nor about the building inferno of the mating fire once again surging through him. Time was ticking. He needed to find Jilly before that time ran out and he could no longer control his shift into dragon form.
“Arriman?” Tyson prodded on the other end of the connection. “Talk to me. What’s the deal with the destruction of the apartment?”
Ari bit back a growl. Shit, for a moment, he’d forgotten he was talking to the alpha.
“Someone barged in. Someone took her. Before we could—”
“An Extraho Venator?”
Ari planted his right foot on the road, staring at the red light. His heart smashed hard in his throat. The fact he still couldn’t sense Jilly flayed at him like a steel-rope whip. “No. Derek Garrison.”
The light changed to green. Ari shot through the intersection, his hog a roaring beast loud enough to make pedestrians on the footpath flinch.
“The druid?”
“The druid,” Ari confirmed.
Every Sydney dragon shifter knew Garrison was descended from one of the world’s most ancient druid lines. Every dragon shifter in the city also considered his surreptitious attempts to evoke the ancient magic quite twee and harmless.
That would change after today. What Garrison had done to Ari could never be described as cute and innocuous.
Anger once again battled with the sexual fire stoking inside him. He needed to locate Jilly soon. Real soon.
“So the bastard’s finally discovered how to use magic. I’m going to have to let Rick know.”
Ari let out a choppy grunt. Tyson’s Fire Mate, Sera, was also human—and her cousin, Yorick Hayes, was a reincarnated druid of immense power. Yorick, aka Rick, was a veterinarian who came in handy in the Sydney dragon shifter community, able to cure illnesses and injuries a normal doctor wouldn’t be able to believe, let alone tend to.
Rick also kept a close eye on Derek Garrison.
Garrison’s insistence on trying to be a practicing druid was an irritation to Rick, who could tap into the ancient form of magic with ease; he knew how dangerous and volatile it could be. Unfortunately, Rick was currently in Spain on a holiday, which meant there was no druid in town to deal with Derek.
A disquieting knot twisting in Ari’s gut. Too many coincidences were lining up for his liking: Colin tailing Ari out of the blue; Derek making his move on Jilly just as Ari had found her; and Rick Hayes being out of the country…
Yeah, way too many coincidences.
“So Garrison took your Fire Mate?” Frustration and confusion threaded through Tyson’s voice. “How the hell can a druid take a dragon?”
Ari balled his fist on the top of his Harley’s gas tank, his anger burning hotter. “Jilly isn’t a dragon.”
“Isn’t a…” Tyson let out a dry bark of a laugh. “Seriously? You too? Hey, welcome to the—”
Ari!
Jilly’s voice screamed in Ari’s head. Loud. Terrified. Furious.
Every fiber of his existence reacted to the mental connection. Protective need and sexual desire rushed through him at once, a tsunami of primordial fire, and for a dangerous moment, he lost control of everything—his bike, his body, his dragon.
Jilly, he called out, straining for her.
A flood of golden warmth crashed over him, followed by a confused chill.
He ground his teeth. Wherever Garrison had her, she—
A chorus of chanting filled his head. His dragon roared, the mysterious sound igniting something brutal and savage within him.
“I gotta go,” Ari gasped, and killed the call from Tyson.
The chanting in his head rose to a deafening song, throbbing through him. Louder. Louder.
His blood turned molten, no longer human but dragon. His heart hammered. His muscles, his bones, began to tear…
And then the connection to Jilly vanished. Gone again. Replaced with a void that stole all the heat in his body even as it fed the ancient creature he truly was.
Ari squeezed his eyes shut.
But it was no use. The shift had begun. And he couldn’t control it any longer.
4
“Where…” Jilly stopped the question before it finished forming on her lips. Her throat felt lined with hot gravel. Her heart seemed to be banging its way out of her chest via her ears.
She licked her lips, looking around the dimly lit room Derek had brought her to. She assumed it was Derek. The last thing she remembered was being in a taxi with him, confused as to why she was there. How did she get from the taxi to here?
Come to think of it, how did she get to the taxi in the first place? When had she left her apartment?
Movement in the shadows to her right drew her eye, a moment before a warm yellow light spilled from a table lamp, eating up the dark.
Derek smiled at her from his perch on a plastic chair. Worry swam in his eyes. “How do you feel?”
Jilly frowned. “My head feels…weird. Light. Fuzzy. Like someone has stuffed it full of cotton wool.” She licked at her lips again, parched. “I’m thirsty. And my eyes hurt.”
She looked around the room, seeing more of it in the lamp’s glow. It wasn’t a living room, more like an office of some sort. She could make out a desk in the dimness, a filing cabinet and what might be some sort of sofa. “This is not your place. Where are we?”
“Somewhere safe,” Derek answered, leaning his elbows on his knees. “The weirdness will go away soon. What do you remember?”
She frowned again, scraping at the fog in her head. What did she remember? She was in her living room, talking to Derek, making a cup of tea. He offered her a job…then she had a shower. Or thought about having a shower. Or maybe…something about a TV show…
“You told me about a
