He scented the breeze, catching a million different scintillating aromas. Wildflowers blooming out in the east pasture. Freshly cut wood from the pile at the back of the house. Someone’s attempt at an apple cobbler that was more char than dessert.
Something was changing. He felt it deep in his soul.
He just didn’t know what.
Harrison’s voice called to him from the house, though Dallas almost had a sixth sense about these things, and he was already halfway toward the main house at the center of the ranch before the words had even reached his ears.
After all, he’d known Harrison the longest. As the boss of Dragonclaw Ranch and the man who’d shown Dallas everything he knew about being a proper cowboy, Dallas owed everything to the surly dragon.
Harrison was at the top of the stairs that led into the house, looking even younger these days since he’d found his mate, Marian, a firecracker of a woman with enough kindness to melt even the boss of Dragonclaw Ranch’s heart.
Seeing Harrison and Marian happy just made Dallas happy.
“Got something to talk to you about,” Harrison said, and Dallas looked past him toward the door.
“Not inside. We’ll talk over here,” Harrison motioned toward the toolshed off to the side, and Dallas followed until they were positioned in front of the door.
Dallas found a small spot in the shade where he listened.
Harrison paced a moment, looking surprisingly pensive for how calm things on the ranch had been. After all, there hadn’t been a single basilisk sighting in weeks. Not since the day Clancy and his mate Billie had fought off an evil swamp dragon with—to everyone’s utter shock—the help of one of the aforementioned titanic creatures.
“I got a call this morning…” Harrison said.
Dallas just raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t tell you who. It doesn’t matter right now. But there’s a situation we’ve been asked to handle.”
Dallas nodded. This sounded like a mission.
He was good with missions.
“A reporter is coming into the area. Into Parson’s Creek, to be exact.”
He knew the place. A tiny town by most people’s standards, but the most populated area for a dozen counties around them.
What could they possibly be coming in to report on?
“There’s been stories floating around. And not just the usual ones, like the stories about the dragon’s talon. But stories about giant monsters rising from the earth. Sightings that people have had.”
It made sense. In this age of smartphones, it was difficult to keep a lid on anything for long when it came to human matters. And even though all shifters operated under the primal rule to never reveal themselves to humans, that didn’t seem to matter when it came to huge basilisks rising from the Texas earth.
But Dallas could take care of this. After all, he wasn’t just a cowboy.
He was a hunter. Born a tiger with the speed of a wolf, the strength of a bear, and the agility of a big cat. And though, with all his soul, Dallas hated the people who’d raised him before Harrison, they’d toughened and taught him more than enough things that made him more deadly than any shifter alive, save actual dragons.
If Dragonclaw was at the center of this trouble, he’d do whatever it took to protect his family from discovery.
“What do they want?” Dallas finally spoke.
Harrison continued. “They want us to keep an eye on the people coming in to do this story. Specifically, the reporter. He should be arriving…” He looked at a piece of paper produced from his back pocket. “Actually, it’s a woman. She and her crew should be arriving this afternoon. Just go into town and keep an eye on them. See that they don’t catch wind of what’s been going on.”
“Anything else?”
There was a metallic clang followed by an annoyed noise from Reno, a wolf shifter who was a genius with anything mechanical, and that was the only sound that punctuated the quiet yard around the ranch.
“Just make sure they don’t see or hear anything more than what the locals will already likely be telling them. Stories and rumors are one thing. But we can’t let them get their hands on any hard evidence.”
It made sense. Shifter rule number one.
“I’d normally try to take care of this personally, but I’ve got my hands full with managing the herds and making sure we make it through the summer smoothly.”
Among other things, Dallas thought to himself as Marian appeared at the window to the house and waved at them both.
Dallas wouldn’t want something as trivial as following some humans around taking Harrison away from his mate.
After all, they were family.
“This is all the info I have.” Harrison finished, handing over a small scrap of paper that only had a time, place, and the name and number of the news station so Dallas knew who to look for.
Even without this info, he could find this reporter and follow them like a hawk trailing its prey.
“I’ll take care of it,” Dallas said, stepping out of the shade and clapping Harrison on the shoulder as he passed. Harrison thankfully didn’t return the gesture, which Dallas appreciated because he hated the feeling of other people—even his best friend—touching him.
By the time he’d taken three steps, the information on the paper had been memorized, and he crumpled it up and tossed it into a trash bin as he decided the conveyance he’d use to get to Parson’s Creek.
It irked Dallas to think of these nosy humans putting their faces into business that didn’t involve them. After all, it was Harrison and the others that had fought off the basilisks and protected not only Dragonclaw Ranch but all the other farms that bordered their sprawling spread.
But even as that strange scent on the wind, that feeling of change, caught his senses one more time, Dallas
