Chapter 2

Back in my little apartment I shared with Asa, I stripped naked and untaped all my thiefy gadgets from my thighs. The dragon fire between my legs turned me into a breathless mess, desperate for release. Clothes hurt my sensitive, scorching hot skin. Everything hurt, from the roots of my dark brown hair to the bottoms of my feet. The only thing that didn’t hurt was when I touched the spot I’d spilled the dragon fire, where it seemed to have focused its deadly power—the slick, aching part of me between my thighs.

I didn’t have time to keep masturbating. I still had to rescue Asa before the dragon fire burned me up from the inside out. But I couldn’t focus on anything else until that need, that seemingly unquenchable desire to fuck, drained out of my system.

But it wasn’t. I’d already come twice since I’d gotten home thirty minutes ago and currently had my vibrator and two fingers firmly planted between my legs. I lay on my bed, the cool sheets on my back giving a whole new level of pleasure against my hot skin, while my hips rode the air. A tingling pressure sank low in my belly. Maybe this time would be enough so I could focus on other things besides myself. I moaned as the pressure intensified, twitching its way outward, while I sank deeper inside myself, pressed harder. Then I broke from reality with a loud cry. Yes. My whole body pulsed, pulsed, then sighed.

Even before my limbs stopped shaking with the orgasm, I bolted from the bed to the pocket watch and what I’d already learned from it on the nightstand. The dragon fire wouldn’t give me much time between riling me up to the point where I couldn’t see straight, so I couldn’t waste any time.

I’d already written down the last of the coordinates etched into the back of the watch, so now I just needed to plug all sixteen numbers in as latitude and longitude in the order I’d found the magic-holding items into my phone, and I’d have Asa’s location.

Boom. There it was, a little red dot in a city called Evenza. Which was about five hundred miles away. Shit.

I had no transportation, the dragon fire was already building a slow thrum between my legs again, and the full moon was tonight. I’d have to steal a car. That was a given. Then just jill myself off the whole way there and hope I could focus enough to save Asa. I’d deal with the repercussions after that. If I were still alive.

Time to get going. I grabbed a backpack to fill with supplies when a knock sounded at the front door. I froze while my naked body heated. A sound I’d never heard myself make before slipped between my teeth, a mix between a growl and a purr.

It was them. Here. I had no idea if I was right, but they had to want the pocket watch back. Dragon shifters never parted easily from anything in their treasure troves. Never.

I had to go, leave now through a window for the second time today, but my empty backpack fell from my hands. The tension swirling in my lower belly magnetized toward the bedroom doorway and the front door beyond. The tension crackling inside me sank lower, melting a painful need between my clenched thighs.

I had to fuck them.

Wait, no. No, I did not. I needed to be flinging myself out a window. They would kill me. I’d stolen from them, and I was sure the last thing they’d let me do was climb on top of them. But the idea of doing just that thrust my hips forward and slipped a moan between my clenched teeth. My nipples hardened, aching for rough hands to pinch them.

I glided to the bedroom door on a wave of desire, but forced myself to stop with my hand braced against the doorframe. No matter what was going on inside me, if I opened the front door, I would never see Asa again. The dragon shifters had killed people for a lot less than thieving. It was the dragon fire I’d spilled that was making me so horny. I could fight this. I had to in order to fight all my other battles that still needed winning within mere hours from now.

Still, I was so, so wet. My fingernails dug into the doorframe, resisting the pull, until slivers of wood sliced into my sensitive flesh.

Another knock.

How had they found me? Had they traced the watch or could they smell the dragon fire consuming my blood? Maybe both, because I sensed something else out there with them, a mirror image of the horny beast clawing inside of me. I didn’t know exactly how I knew that, but their behavior at their house had hinted at it, a sort of sexual urgency, a raw need that only someone named Mack could fix. My vacuum, or more accurately the owner of the vacuum. Me. I still didn’t really understand that whole thing.

Sex with dragon shifters… I hated their kind, wanted to kill every last one of them for thinking it was okay to steal human children off the street.

Still, though… I pressed myself against the doorframe, rubbing myself against the smooth wood for some kind of relief, my gaze trained on the front door. I should go answer it. Then, problem solved. Unless they killed me. But I was dying anyway because of the dragon fire. Maybe they could help tame the beast inside me long enough for me to escape them. I was fucking the wall for heaven’s sake. That was never a good sign in any situation.

I wrenched myself away from it and prowled toward the front door. The three shifters on the other side consumed my thoughts with their individual beauty and lit me up all over again. My body fevered. My breasts grew heavy with want. The ache between my legs throbbed. Yes, I was completely naked and about to open my front door, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was fucking, just enough to clear my head so I could find Asa.

I opened the door.