“Virginia. I’ll send you the details.”
After disconnecting the call with Clarence, Jess still couldn’t believe her assignment was simply to work in a coffee shop or bistro or whatever. There had to be a reason she was being sent there. Maybe she’d find something in the additional information Clarence was sending.
When she got to her apartment, Jess grabbed a beer from the fridge and opened her laptop. She signed into a secure server and got the message from Clarence. She read it three times.
There wasn’t much to go on. She was to go to the shop, apply to work like a normal employee using her real name, and work there for four months. She was free to fraternize with fellow employees and locals, her job with the firm had to remain secret. Lying was to be avoided as much as possible.
Her cover story was that she wanted to get out of Texas for a while. That was it. It was technically true because she did want to get out of Texas to get the money.
There was no way the favor for a family member was just to find a staff member for a bistro.
She supposed she was chosen for this assignment because she was single. She didn’t have to uproot a family to go to Virginia. She had no kids in school. Her parents died when she was a baby, so she didn’t have any close relations. She lived with her grandparents until she was eighteen and they died one after the other of influenza a few years later. Of course, that’s also the kind of background you’d want for someone who was at risk of dying on the job. Who would kill her in a bistro?
Nobody, that’s who. Jess was no easy target.
Jess stayed up late into the night coming up with a more solid cover story. She didn’t have to look far. It turned out that her family on her dad’s side was from Virginia a few generations back.
She tracked down the cemetery where some were buried, and it was only a thirty-minute drive from the town where she’d be staying. Why wouldn’t an orphan feel the need to get in touch with her roots? It was only natural. While she was there, she’d research her family.
She’d also try to figure out why she was sent, but that was a given. Even her employer had to know that.
Chapter 2
Ezzu, who changed his name to Wrath upon moving to England and kept it in America, was an old dragon shifter though he didn’t look it. He was likely presumed dead by most of his family since they hadn’t seen him in hundreds of years. Only his brother Alal tried to catch up with him. Each time, Wrath would move on before his brother could find him.
It wasn’t that he had anything in particular against Alal. It was that too much had happened between him and his dragon family for him to ever really be one of them.
He had his own family and enough treasure hoarded to last him for quite a while. The problem was, he was beginning to crave female company more often these days. That’s why he was leaving his home in rural Virginia and getting out more.
At his age, he knew his rhythms well. A little after a grand solar minimum, he’d get the urge to find a mate. Every dragon was different, but they all seemed to be guided by the sun to some extent while other creatures were more in tune with the Earth or the moon.
While the grand solar minimum made him want to settle down, that didn’t mean he abstained for the rest of the time. It was just casual sex, though. He’d resisted the urge to go mate hunting in the past, though his dragon side was always eager. Maybe too eager.
Many dragons waited for that one special day when their dragon instincts kicked in and they thought something like, “My treasure. Mine,” in reference to a special person. It was a once in a lifetime thing.
Wrath’s dragon instincts were broken. Just after the grand solar minimum, a woman just had to smile at him, and his dragon was declaring she was his mate.
It started around the time he lost his mate and the mother of his three boys about two thousand years ago. He supposed losing his mate must have made his dragon lose its mind. He knew he didn’t have much chance of finding his true mate. It might be impossible.
It was probably better that way.
He drove his Ford F-450 down Route 1 into the town of Ashland, Virginia. It wasn’t a great pickup spot for women, at least for humans. But, with his looks, women would try to pick him up while he was grocery shopping. He was an ordinary dragon, but human women found ordinary dragons extraordinarily attractive.
He kept his dark hair short as well as his beard. When he went out, he wore jeans and a t-shirt. Women like the way his clothes fit him, apparently. It was hard not to notice the way their eyes would linger in fascination. If he took the time to stare back, the encounter would often end with a wink from him and a blush and shy smile from her. Sometimes it ended something more fun.
Wrath had the body of a gym rat, but he didn’t have to work out as much as one. It was easier to build muscle as a shifter. That, and he only ate once every other day. His metabolism didn’t work like a human’s.
Even so, he didn’t mind a good cup of coffee every now and then. Not that he really needed it to wake up. He hadn’t slept in months and wouldn’t need to for quite some time.
He pulled into the parking lot of his favorite coffee shop which was now more of a bistro. As he stepped out of his truck, he saw a familiar face. Erin. She was an assistant
