Yep. Good. No one had wandered near. Hopefully they were deep enough in the alley’s bowels that their fight had gone unnoticed from the street.
Turning his gaze to his bike—lying on its side a few feet away—he bit back a groan. The Harley’s front wheel and axle were twisted into an obscene pretzel, gasoline leaked from the ruptured tank, and the clutch lever was completely AWOL.
“Fuck.” He loved that bike.
Scowling at Colin, he shook his head. “You’re a lucky fucking bastard.” He reached down to snatch up the unconscious Extraho Venator’s crossbow. “I haven’t got time to finish this properly, or you’d be in a world of pain. But I will. Later. Once I’ve found Jilly.”
As his Fire Mate’s name formed on his tongue, the ravenous sexual hunger of the mating fire flared within him.
They were running out of time. He needed to find her. They needed to be together before any hope of him controlling his dragon was destroyed.
He let out a ragged breath, glancing back at his bike. His clothes had been shredded in the wild shift from human to dragon. He could see the scraps of his leather pants and vest scattered on the ground near his broken hog.
“Fuck,” he repeated. “Again.”
Bile broiling through him, he dropped Colin a quick grimace. “Gonna need your clothes.”
He stripped the inert dragon hunter of his jeans and shirt with inhuman speed. Colin’s jeans stretched to their limits over Ari’s legs and the shirt didn’t fit. Not even close. Neither did Colin’s shoes.
Ari grunted, tossing a loafer over his shoulder. Okay, so he was going shirtless and shoeless.
“I am so going to make you pay for this,” he growled, staring at Colin for a heartbeat before lifting his face to the sky. “After I save Jilly.”
Jilly. He needed to find her.
The faintest hint of golden life and warmth danced on his awareness. He heard her voice whisper his name.
Ari.
Good. Garrison hadn’t been able to hide her from him again.
Lowering his gaze to the alley, he scanned the ground for his mobile phone.
There. “Thank bloody God for small favors,” he muttered, striding over to where his iPhone sat amongst a pile of litter. Its screen was cracked, but that seemed to be it. Luck was on his side. He’d carry Colin back to the safe house, throw him into the lockdown room, let Tyson Conley know what had gone down and then—
“The druid,” Colin mumbled behind him.
Ari swung around, heart wild.
The hunter looked up at him, eyes unfocused. “She’s the dru…”
The word dissolved into silence as Colin’s eyes closed.
Ari grabbed his shoulder. “She’s the druid’s what?” He shook him, grinding his teeth when Colin stubbornly refused to regain consciousness. “Where are they? Where—”
“Hey!” a shocked male voice shouted. “What’s going on down there? What are you doing to that guy?”
“Damn it.” Ari straightened to his feet, scowled at the two men gaping at him from the mouth of the alley, hauled Colin up onto his non-shattered shoulder and ran.
Faster than any human could run.
He’d get his bike later.
Arriving at the safe house what felt like an eternity later, aching, exhausted and angry as all hell, he deactivated the lock with a press of his palm on the bio-scan security panel.
The urge to find Jilly, to get to her now, burned through him, as did the rising urgency of the mating fire. He fought against it. These precious minutes would allow him to rein in some of the instability of his violent shifts and give his shoulder a chance to heal.
Whatever Garrison was planning, the bastard wasn’t going to be just sitting around twiddling his thumbs. Ari had no doubt he’d need to be fully healed and in control before the confrontation.
If he wasn’t, Jilly’s life could be in jeopardy.
He stepped into the building, locked the door behind him and hurried to the lockdown room. Wincing at the pain in his shoulder, he dumped the unconscious Colin on the floor, tapped out a text to Tyson on his slightly damaged iPhone, and then hurried to the bathroom and the lockers kept there. In them were a variety of items any dragon shifter finding themselves away from home and in a perilous situation might need. For Ari, that was a pair of boots and clothes in his size.
He knew they were there because he kept Sydney’s safe houses fully stocked for just such an occasion. He never would’ve thought he’d be one of the dragons using the facilities.
“I’m never going to live this down,” he muttered, opening one of the lockers.
The second word got out, every dragon shifter in Sydney—and quite possibly Australia—would give him a hard time. The jokes would be coming for years.
Changing into a pair of black camo cargos, army boots and a plain black T-shirt, he thought of every one of the dragon shifters he’d rebuked in the past for their indiscretions and dangerous behavior.
A wry chuckle tore at the back of his throat. Yeah, he seriously wasn’t looking forward to this getting out.
Damn it, who was going to clean up his mess?
“If Conley gets Windemeer to do it,” he growled, snatching up his phone, “I’m going to spit.”
Sydney’s beta Cleaner would dine out on this for years. Centuries. Ari was never going to live it down.
Ever.
Windemeer was a nice buy, but he’d been gunning to be the area’s top Cleaner ever since he’d moved to Sydney. Finding out Ari was responsible for—
Ari’s phone burst to life in his hand; the theme from Jaws reverberating around the cavernous safe house.
“Great.” He flicked a glance at the image of Tyson Conley now on its screen and then jabbed the Deny button.
No doubt, the alpha had discovered things were going…awry. No doubt he wanted answers.
Grinding his teeth, Ari shoved his phone into his pocket and let out a shaky sigh. He didn’t