Chapter 6

My fingernails broke. My knuckles split when I stuck them into brutally jagged handholds back up the hill. Or cliff, more like. Sometimes if felt as though I were climbing straight up into the night, allowing the rising full moon to pull me higher. My feet slipped. I almost tumbled backward when my next grip missed, and if I fell, my head would never be the same, especially if it splatted against the rocks below.

I was still two hours out from Evenza and the full-moon ritual. Still too far away to bury my fingers between my legs and quench the pulsing ache there. Already, I could feel it gnawing at me like so many sharp teeth, dueling almost as ferociously with my need to rescue Asa. But I couldn’t stop now to take care of it.

Finally, there was nothing left to grab onto except the lip of the cliff, and with shaking limbs, I pulled my exhausted body onto flat land next to the road. A car zoomed by fast enough to whip my hair into my face and stick it to the sweat clinging there.

“Hey!” I shouted in an effort to stop them, but my voice came out like a dying whimper.

Because I was dying. Or I would, soon, if I didn’t mate with Vance to put out the burn of the dragon fire. How the hell was I supposed to find him, fuck him, and rescue Asa in time? Why hadn’t I just jumped on him when I’d had the chance? Who had taken the three dragon shifters in the first place?

“Fuck everything,” I rasped as I dragged myself to my feet. Though that summed everything up, I wasn’t about to be defeated by a little dragon fire spill. As long as I was standing, I wouldn’t let myself give up quite yet.

I started down the road toward Evenza with my thumb jutted out. I just about yelped with glee when I found my phone in my backpack and it still worked. The screen wouldn’t focus no matter how hard I blinked, until I realized I had a steady flow of blood dripping into my eye from a deep gash on my forehead. With my hand shaking badly, I wiped at the blood enough to see and then dialed.

“Bad Mama,” I said after she picked up. “The full-moon ritual is in Evenza at a building called the Vivix. I don’t know if I’ll make it. Please. I need help.”

“Child’s alive, is that you, Booklet?” she squeaked out.

No idea why she always called me Booklet. Because I was small and filled with information? She called everyone else a jackass, so Booklet was a definite improvement.

“You found the key?” she asked. “Are you all right? You sound like death itself.”

“Listen, Bad Mama, I need help.” I glanced up at the moon, rising fat and full, and immediately wished I hadn’t. It was nearly at its peak. “I can save Asa. I know I can, if I can just get to Evenza.”

“How far away are you?” Her voice hardened and thickened, and I knew she was thinking about the night her daughter had been sacrificed to the dragon shifters. Rather than relive that night again through me, she would do anything to help. I knew it and I loved her for it.

“About two hours.”

“Two hours? I’m looking at a map now, and two hours is in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yeah.” I looked over my shoulder for any oncoming cars and grimaced. Already, the dragon fire churned deeper through my veins and trembled to my pussy, now wet and wanting yet again. “I was in a car accident.”

“Oh my word, Booklet.” She huffed a bewildered breath. “This is what you’re going to do. Get yourself to Evenza. I can’t help you with that because I’ll be coming in from the opposite direction as you since I’m not actually in Mission Hill right now. If I know anything about dragon shifters”—she spat the words like a curse—”you’re going to need to look like them to get into this Vivix building. I’ll help you with that part. Just get there, okay?”

“Yeah,” I ground out and then ended the call.

My phone tumbled from my fingers, and I followed it down to the roadside and landed on my knees. The heated need was too great. The urge set my back teeth on edge, flamed my blood hot, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I shoved my hand down the front of my pants, tearing my thong aside, and sank two fingers deep inside myself. Moaning, I worked them fast, in and out, while my palm rubbed against my swollen clit. I was so wet and growing wetter with each thrust. I rode my hips against my hand, already feeling the tight ball of nerves begin to unravel. Then it did, the tiniest of explosions, not nearly as satisfying as with Tavis and Calhoun. As soon as I rose to my feet again, a brand new heat spread between my thighs, pulsing in time with the seconds to the full-moon ritual.

I growled low, but the sound kept going even after I stopped. No, that wasn’t a growl from me. That was a car coming. I whirled around.

When it crested the hill behind me, its headlights pierced to the back of my skull. I blinked and swallowed bile that had splashed up my throat, wondering for a second if I might have a concussion, but stuck my thumb up anyway. 

Still not dead. Not even close.

The car, red and sporty, slowed and then stopped, and I wandered over to the passenger side’s lowering window. The driver was a middle-aged man, human because he didn’t light me on fire like the shifters did. Of course it was a man—a classy one with an air freshener of a girl bent over hanging from his rearview mirror—and he obviously sensed my horny broadcast and smelled the come leaking down my thighs because he licked his lips.

“Bad day?” he asked.

I pasted on my best flirty, ditzy smile. “You could say that. You headed to Evenza?”

“I can be.” He rubbed the dark patches of the facial hair on his jaw. “For you.”

“If you can get me there in an hour, I’ll...” I’d what? “I’ll give you fifty bucks.” Right. Because I actually had that.

An unsettling grin crossed his face. “Money’s not what I want.”

And yet that was all I would offer. Despite fucking two dragon shifters in one day, I wasn’t a whore, despite seriously thinking about that line of work to better support Asa. This creepy shit wasn’t part of the plan. But his car sure was.

I backed away with a haphazard wave. “Think I’ll catch the next ride.”

His eyes narrowed as he leaned over and popped the passenger door open. “Get in.”

I didn’t have time for this mouth-breather. We could’ve already been several miles closer to Evenza. But no way I’d get in that car if he acted like this, trapped with him in a confined space and speeding down a dark road with him in control. Not only was it a bad idea on a good day, it would slow me down. 

Best do what I always did, then. Be a thief. A damn good one.

“Okay, then.” I aimed for a smile as I peeled off my shirt, slowly, wiggling my hips a little as I did so. “Let’s get started right now.”

His hungry gaze raked over my skin, and he licked his lips as I undid the button on my waistband.

“What, right here?”

I nodded. “Get out of the car.”

He tore his eyes away from me and sat facing the road again. “Just get in the car. You said you wanted a ride.”

“I do want a ride.” I quirked an eyebrow as I wiggled out of my jeans, turning to give him an eyeful of my ass. When I stood before him in just my bra and underwear, I stuffed my clothes into my backpack and swiftly grabbed what I needed from the bottom. “No tricks. You can even check my bag if you want.” I dangled it in front of him like a dare he couldn’t refuse.

After a second of thought, he held up his hands for my backpack, and I tossed it through his open window. He searched it, finding no strings attached to my free roadside sex offer. All the strings were currently seeping into my loosely cupped palm in the form of glittery fairy corpse dust.

He shut the car off and got out, leaving both his keys and my backpack inside, and circled around the front with a predatory grin on his face. He was so mistaken about our roles in this exchange that I almost felt sorry for him. I’d been all-out feral since Asa had been kidnapped a month ago, so if anyone should feel like they were being hunted, it was this guy. Not me. Not when I was in control.

He stopped about four feet in front of me, smoothing his shirt like he was trying to hide his beer gut. “I guess it’s my lucky night.”

“I bet you’ve had luckier.” I brought my palm up and blew him a kiss. Fairy corpse bits exploded in a thick, twinkling cloud directly at his head. It funneled into him with his next breath, and he tipped back onto his heels, swaying dangerously. He blinked hard, a dreamy smile on his face, and then fell backward like a stiff board into a happiness coma. His smile seemed to grow bigger while the rest of him remained unmoving. “Way luckier.”

I hightailed it around him just as another car crested the hill behind me. Its headlights seemed to spotlight everything wrong with this picture--me in my underwear, dude on the side of the road most definitely not taking a nap. Shit. If it was a cop...

Panic squeezed my lungs together. I slowed and then backed up again, sorting possible excuses like I did to the bill companies who would not leave me alone month after month.

I seemed to have lost my clothes, Officer, and he’s trying to help me find them among the stars with his psychic abilities.

We’re doing this as a dare, Officer.

If you’d been together as long as we have, Officer, you’d understand our weird sex games.

Yep, I was shit for believable excuses. The bill companies knew that firsthand since I really had to get creative with them.

The car drew closer. I leaned through the open passenger window of the coma dude’s car to get my backpack, my crotch rubbing oh-so-nicely against the metal frame. Already, the dragon fire heat was starting up again, a distraction I was seriously running out of time for.  After snatching my bag, I ducked low next to the car to at least put my shirt back on, my ears burning to catch every sound the oncoming car made.

It wasn’t even slowing. Either the driver wasn’t really looking or men lying on the side of the road was completely normal, both of which were alarming. As soon as the car passed, I shot to the driver side, fumbled with the keys—and stopped.

The bluish green numbers on the dash clock blurred behind a crush of tears. One hour fifty two minutes until midnight, and it was at least two hours to Evenza.

No. No no no. I floored the gas pedal, making the tires kick up a wall of dust around me. Just no.  I wouldn’t admit defeat until I was really defeated. Still, frustrated tears burned my cheeks and dripped down over my breaking heart. Next month was Asa’s birthday, my favorite day out of the entire year because we made up stories, painted rocks, and did whatever he wanted while I tried my best to spoil him. His crisp fall smell and his bubbly laugh were everything.

He was everything.

Between glances at the clock and not bothering to slow in the tiny towns I passed through, I focused on my urgency, both with time and speed and the growing, painful need between my legs. Since I still didn’t have my jeans on, I took care of that while I drove, my cries of release filling the empty cab. But it wasn’t enough to sate me for long. The dragon fire would consume me from the inside out if I didn’t find Vance and the other two shifters, and soon. Already, I found myself fading, like my body and mind were preparing for my death.

Finally, Evenza’s lit-up skyscape stretched up in the distance toward the rising moon.

Thirty-five minutes to spare. Now I just had to find Bad Mama January.

I found her via her text that said she was down the road from the Vivix building, a tall monstrosity in the heart of the city, parked in her insane van. A realistically painted man in a boat decorated the side of it, caught in mid-throw as he flung an anchor past the name of her company, Bullship Boats, toward the tail lights. Not very inconspicuous for one of the leaders of the underground resistance to dragon shifters, but hey. It worked.

Squealing to a stop next to her, I zipped up my jeans and double-parked on the crowded street to a chorus of honks and shouts calling for my speedy and painful death. It was already happening though.

Drenched with sweat, gasping for breath, I slid in next to her in the passenger seat, taking in a lungful of patchouli incense that puffed out from inside the air vents.

 And Bad Mama herself, it seemed. Curls of cigarette smoke floated around her, giving her bohemian skirt and floral top dizzying movement. Or maybe that was just me since looking at everything made me dizzy. Her long, silvery white hair stuck out of her head like wires. A big woman, she was maybe in her thirties with kind brown eyes that crinkled in the corners, and confined to a wheelchair which she sat in now behind the wheel.

“Child’s alive, Booklet, what happened? You look like death.” She dumped a plastic bag in my lap and pointed her lit cigarette to the back of the van where the windows were shaded. “Head on back and change.”

I did, nearly face-planting twice on the way there. “Thanks, Bad Mama.”

 ”Don’t thank me yet. I figure you have about thirty minutes left. I’ve seen a few folks who look like dragon shifters head into that big building, all decked out in their finest, but not a whole slew of them to make me suspect that’s it. I can’t believe you found it. You’re the first person who’s ever done so, but what are you going to do when you get in there?” She turned in her seat to gaze at me and took a long drag of her cigarette. “Booklet?”

I didn’t have the strength to change and talk to her at once, not when she was going a mile a minute. The strapless, bejeweled royal blue gown she’d lent me, complete with matching heels, clung to my sweaty skin, and I instantly regretted letting something so beautiful touch me.

“There’s a man lying on the side of the road,” I said between heavy pants. As quick as I could, I taped a number of supplies to my inner thighs. “Mile marker 158 coming into Evenza. I put him a happiness coma, and he’d probably appreciate someone picking him up. Also, the dragon fire. Do you have more of it?”

“Afraid not. You used all of it?” She gestured me toward her with a hair clip in her hand.

“I accidentally spilled it.” Careful of my dress, I crawled toward her.

When she touched my temple, she jerked her hand back. “Good grief. You spilled it on yourself? Booklet, it can kill you.” Her gaze skimmed over the skin the dress bared while she arranged my hair to hide the gash on my forehead. “Where? I don’t see any burns.”

“In my…my nether regions.” It was a shameful thing to have to admit, but there it was, out in the open.

“In your what now?”

Frustration, already bubbling underneath the surface, surged. “My cooch, Bad Mama. My cooch.”

She gave a disgusted click of her tongue as she secured the clip in my hair. ”That is not where you’re supposed to put it.”

“I didn’t put— Never mind,” I said through clenched teeth. There was no time for explanations, especially since they were all crazy. “Do I look like a dragon shifter now?”

“Fuck no.” She took up her cigarette again from the ashtray. “You’re missing the hoity-toity attitude and the complete disregard for humans.”

“Close enough.” I clambered into the front seat and nearly fell to the ground when I elbowed open the van. Precious seconds flew past as I tried to get my feet underneath me, let alone take a step with these damn heels on. “Wish me luck?”

“You don’t need it, Booklet.”  She shook her head as her thick lips wobbled some, and she pressed them together. “I only wish I’d known you when my Ashley was sacrificed. I know you could’ve saved her.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. I just shut the door and slapped the van twice as a thank you.  I was terrible with those, mostly because I’d never had anyone to say it to. No one had ever done a damn thing for me except Asa. Until Bad Mama. Until the three dragon shifters.

As soon as I rescued Asa, I would learn how to say it properly.

My heart raced the dragon fire faster through my veins as I lifted my gaze to the clock attached to the tower of a nearby building. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes before the full-moon ritual in which my brother would be sacrificed.

On trembling legs that were only just barely supporting me, I started across the street toward the dragon shifters’ lair.