Charred Heart (#1, Heart of Fire) Page 4

  “Yeah,” Chace said with a distracted half-smile.

  “Mr. Nothing give you a date?”

  “No idea. Wrong girl.”

  Gunner frowned.

  “She’s got no ID or wallet, no birthmarks or tattoos, nothing,” Chace mused. “Guess we’re pulling up stakes and moving again.”

  “Maybe Max is right. Maybe we should stay and fight it out. Whoever these people are, they’re persistent,” Gunner said.

  “It’s not our way. Our shifters are dropping like flies. I know we’re pacifists, but do you ever get tired of running?”

  “Sometimes. Not enough to make a deal with Mr. Nothing.”

  “When you’re a thousand years old, you’ll think differently.”

  “I guess.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute.” Irritated with Gunner’s reminder about how little they knew about Mr. Nothing, Chace returned to his cabin.

  You’re destined to relive my heartache for the rest of your years. It was the last words he’d heard from the jilted lover who put the curse on him a thousand years before.

  He wished now he’d known to ask how many years that would be. He was devastated every time he let down his guard, and so he no longer did. His deal with Mr. Nothing was his business.

  Chace forced himself to relax, aware he was tense enough to snap. He pulled on a t-shirt and his riding jacket, gaze lingering on the woman in his bed.

  He really, really wanted to spend the day with her in bed. It was unusual to experience the depth of sensations he had with her last night. He’d been unable to do so since being turned immortal. While his senses were engaged with every woman he took to bed, he couldn’t really connect with them the way he had this stranger.

  It’s because she’ll probably be the last. This rationale made sense. He’d only been waiting for the appointment card to tell him where to meet the elusive creature offering him what he wanted most, when this girl arrived.

  Chace considered her. What made him want to stay when every fiber in his being knew it was a mistake? Just that she might be the last woman he ever slept with, since Mr. Nothing was probably going to kill him?

  He snatched his helmet and stormed out of the cabin, glancing upward at the bright morning sky as he went. There were only four bikes left in front of the quiet biker bar: his, Gunner’s, Luke’s and that of the other shifter that ran with them - Wyle. The other three were talking quietly, mounted up and waiting for him.

  Chace lifted his chin in greeting but didn’t speak, frustrated already with his day. He pulled on his helmet and buckled it, then gunned his bike to life.

  And then he became aware of something else. He listened to the low growl of his chopper while testing his body.

  His heart was beating. Racing, actually, and it made him almost ill. The sensation was one he hadn’t experienced in a thousand years. He didn’t remember it being so … awful.

  Had Mr. Nothing started to carry out their bargain, even though Chace missed their meeting?

  Or was something … wrong with him?

  He barked a rough laugh at the ridiculous thought. Although unpleasant, his heart was supposed to beat. It was what the bodies of normal humans did. His magic was still present, though, which left him even more confused. Worse, he was having too vivid flashbacks of his night fucking the strange woman, memories that made him want to drop everything to crawl back into bed with her and wake her with kisses. His dick was already hard, his position atop the bike uncomfortable.

  “Get a hold on yourself, Chace,” he snapped quietly. I gotta get out of here.

  Without waiting for the others, he roared away at top speed, not caring if he slammed into a wall or flipped the bike going over a rock.

  It wasn’t like he could die anyway and right now, he needed to get as far as he could from one certain woman.

  Chapter Five

  She was sitting in the backyard, under a huge maple tree whose leaves had turned dark purple with the changing seasons. She was about nine or ten in this dream. There was a Golden Retriever puppy in her lap with soft fur, a fat belly and a tongue that just wouldn’t stop licking her arm. Skylar balanced him carefully, attention caught between the wriggling pup and her mother’s daily lesson.

  “To find a dragon, you listen to your intuition,” her mother explained. “It will lead you to him.”

  “My intuition doesn’t say anything,” Skylar complained.

  “It will when the time is right.”

  “Mama, is it true dragons don’t have hearts?”

  “Yes and no.” Her mother fell quiet.

  Skylar looked up from the puppy and waited.

  “Dragons have a heart, but it’s not alive. It only starts to beat like yours and mine, when he finds his other half.”

  “That’s pretty. How does he find it?”

  “You bring it to him.” Her mother smiled. “And then he’s yours to protect.”

  “Then I’ll have my own dragon,” Skylar said in awe.

  Something thunked to the ground, yanking her out of the dream. Skylar stretched leisurely, comfortable in the satiny, warm sheets that smelled of smoky honey. The woodsy, sweet scent was addictive.

  I need air freshener like that.

  The errant thought jarred her, and she lifted her head, recalling she wasn’t at home in her own bed. Sitting up, she looked around for some sign of the stranger named Chace. She was alone in the peaceful, quiet cabin, well rested but too content to want to move much after the explosive night with the shifter. Her inner thighs were too sore for her to keep her legs together and her lower abs aching.

  The dream lingered, the odd conversation with a woman she’d never known staying with her the way the others had recently.

  A box from the far wall had been what woke her when it fell to the ground. Her attention shifted to the foot of the bed, where her clothing was neatly folded. The golden lasso and crushed tracker rested on top of her panties.

  “Dammit,” she murmured and sighed.

  The man she hadn’t been able to sense, who made love to her with the tenderness of someone who had a heart, ended up being the shifter she sought. Did he know who she was, and that’s why he decided to seduce her?

  If he hadn’t last night, he did now. Why did he leave the lasso? As a taunt? A reminder that he beat her at her game? Was this how he managed to outwit every dragon slayer for a thousand years?

  Skylar tossed off the sheet and rose, getting dressed with jerky movements. Not only had she had the opportunity to lasso him, but she’d had hours to do it. Right now, she didn’t know why she hadn’t, except being around him made her feel ...

  … like he belongs to me.

  Shoving the lasso in her pocket, she left the cabin.

  It was a warm midmorning in southern Arizona with clear skies. The steady thrum of vehicles on the nearby highway greeted her, but it was what she didn’t see that made her stop in place.

  The bar was gone. No sign of it was left. No parking lot, bikes, or building. Nothing. The only vehicle in the area was a familiar Ford Explorer with two men leaning against it.

  They both started forward at a jog when she stepped out of the cabin, and she walked to meet them, quickly creating some feasible story as to how she spent the night with the shifter they were after and still managed to let him get away.

  “You look like shit,” Dillon said, slowing when he drew near. His light eyes took her in critically. “We assumed someone crushed the ear bud.”

  “Wow. So he knew you were there and knocked you out or something?” the other man, Mason, asked. He frowned in concern, dark eyes on her.

  The two slayers were fit and lean, dressed in heavy boots and clothing like hers, stylish but practical enough for them to fight in. Mason’s skin was as dark as his shades while Dillon was the opposite – too pale to stay out long in the harsh southwestern sun.

  “Um, yeah,” she said at their expectant looks. “Guys, there was something really weird about that bar.” She rubb
ed her face and glanced at the mascara on her fingers. No wonder they think I look like shit. She was almost relieved she didn’t have to own up to sleeping with her target, especially to Dillon.

  “First, where were you? We searched this whole area twice this morning,” Mason demanded.

  “In the cabin behind where the bar was,” she replied, twisting. She fell into stunned silence.

  There was nothing behind her. Her footsteps started suddenly in the dirt a few feet behind her, as if she’d dropped out of thin air into that very spot.

  “I swear there was a cabin there!” she exclaimed.

  “This is how he’s evaded slayers for a thousand years,” Dillon said in a hushed tone. “He’s able to bend his magic.”

  “There’s no cabin, right?” Skylar voiced. “I’m not going crazy?”

  “No, you’re not,” Mason assured her. “The bar disappeared this morning. We never saw a cabin.”

  “Tell us exactly what happened,” Dillon directed her.

  She was staring into the space where she’d spent the night with a shifter.

  Had she imagined it all? Was she really knocked out and dreaming?

  A subtle shift in the wind tossed her hair in her face, and she smelled his smoky honey again.

  God he smells so good. Skylar drew a deep breath of the scent, reassured that she wasn’t crazy or dreaming about spending the night with a nonexistent man in a building that disappeared.

  “First,” she started. “There was more than one shifter at the bar. That place reeked of them. Almost got my head taken off by this huge one with a black beard. He crushed my phone in his hand. Like crushed it.” She held out her hand and squeezed it into a fist to emphasize her point. “There were these four guys at a table nearby. Three blonds, Dillon, no thanks to you for the help.”

  “We’re going off fourth hand information here. It’s not like I know who he is,” Dillon retorted.

  But I do. Intimately. Skylar shook the memories away. “One of them grabbed me while I was trying to figure out what to do with the big guy. And that’s it. Woke up in a cabin that doesn’t exist.”

  “You’re so damn lucky,” Mason said with a shake of his head.

  “That’s it?” Dillon crossed his arms, studying her closely. “Some guy grabs you and … boom. Done.”

  “Not some guy, Dillon,” she continued smoothly, aware of her ex-boyfriend still felt jilted about being dumped. “A shifter. I couldn’t move let alone grab the lasso.”

  “I still can’t believe that place was crawling with shifters,” Mason mused, focus on the spot where the bar had been. “We had no idea they congregated like that. All our training says they’re solitary creatures.”

  “I’m telling you. This place was filled with them,” she insisted. “Maybe they managed to find a magic refuge or something.”

  “Or it’s all that’s left of the shifters, and they banded together for safety,” Dillon said.

  Skylar frowned, uncomfortable with the thought of the man she slept with just disappearing into the rehabilitation center – called The Field – like the rest of the shifters who were caught. Something more than his scent was staying with her. The memory of his warm gaze, perhaps, or the way his touch sent trickles of fire through her. Or the talons that scratched her with an erotic mix of teasing and pleasure, the bite at the back of her neck that made her feel as though his fire magic was racing through her.

  She touched the back of her neck, where he’d bitten her. It itched. He didn’t break the skin, and she debated why he’d started off with her facing a wall with her eyes closed, unless he was accustomed to women freaking out when they saw his talons start to form or the flare of fire in his eyes.

  Why hadn’t she been freaked out? Because of her training? If so, then why didn’t she do what she was supposed to and bring him in?

  She’d been nearly incapacitated by desire at that point, drowning in the sensations of his body and hers. If he morphed into a building-sized creature, she was too besotted to have cared. Was it purely physical attraction?

  We are the dragons’ protectors, the woman in her dream had told her. Maybe this was why she somehow chucked all the slayer training she’d ever received out the window?

  “Earth to Skylar.” Dillon snapped his fingers in front of her eyes. “You need some coffee?”

  “Yeah,” she managed, irritated to feel the desire in her belly and the moistness forming at her core. Something about that shifter really got to me.

  “Now that we know we’re looking for a bar that magically appears and disappears, we can find him again, right?” Mason asked, upbeat. “I mean, how many of those are there?”

  “How do you suggest we search every highway exit in the country for one?” Dillon replied acidly. He started back towards the SUV.

  Mason hung back with Skylar, unconcerned with Dillon’s moods. Skylar captured her hair and tied a scrunchie around it, eyes going again to the spot where she’d last seen Chace.

  “You like that opening I gave you not to admit you slept with him?” Mason teased warmly.

  “What?” She faced him, surprised.

  “Um, yeah. I’m not an idiot. I know Dillon is still convinced you’ll change your mind about him. Thankfully, he’s in denial or he’d notice that you’re glowing like someone who spent eight hours getting fucked good and hard.”

  Her face grew warm. “If you say anything, Mason …”

  “I won’t.” Mason smiled. “All night?”

  “Insatiable,” she replied. “Just … bam. Under his spell, sprawled out on the bed begging for it. I even saw his talons and was still just … what is wrong with me?”

  “Nothing. I had a run in like that with a female shifter once,” he admitted.

  Walking towards the vehicle with him, she waited curiously to hear his story. Mason was quiet for a moment then shook his head.

  “I get it. Best night of my life.” He gave her a secretive smile. “That’s all I’ll say. There’s a lesson there, though.”

  “Don’t get that close?”

  “Yeah. And …”

  She held her breath, hoping he’d say something that made the dreams and weird events from the night before make sense.

  “It made me see things differently,” Mason said cryptically. “I’ve been doubting myself a lot lately. I hate it.”

  “Hurry up!” Dillon called curtly from the driver’s seat. The SUV was rumbling softly and his window was down.

  “Coffee first, Dillon,” Mason replied cheerfully. “Then we figure out how to find a magic bar.”

  And a certain dragon shifter who just rocked my world then threw it all in my face. Skylar hopped into the back seat. The more she thought about it, the more foolish she felt. She’d fallen straight into the shifter’s lap, and he’d had his way with her then walked away, probably giggling about how he pulled the wool over her eyes.

  “Actually, can you take me home first? I need a shower,” she told them, unable to escape the effects of the smoked honey scent on her skin. It was making her body fevered and her attention too scattered.

  Mason was right. She knew better now. If she got a second chance at the shifter, she wouldn’t fall under his spell again, no matter how sexy he was.

  The other two talked strategies on the way to her apartment while she stared out the window, unable to get her thoughts straight after her night with Chace.

  Everything felt … off today. Dream-like. Or maybe, like she was a stranger in her own world. She’d been uncomfortable since the strange dreams started, sensing she was missing something without understanding exactly what.

  The night with Chace only seemed to make her instincts more restless, as if his magic did something to her.

  Lost in her thoughts, she got out of the SUV without saying farewell to the guys and went to the stairwell leading to the third floor of the apartment building. She mechanically unlocked the door and walked in, pausing in her living room.

  Everything was in it
s place. She wasn’t a clean freak, but she at least kept things straightened up from stacking the books she kept on her kitchen table to the basket that held the four remote controls to the shoe rack by the doorway. The kitchen counters were free of excess appliances and the furniture of the living room neatly arranged in front of a wide screen television.

  She went to the pictures on the walls, wanting to find one of her mother, whose face was clear in her dreams. Her consternation grew as she walked down the hallway lined with pictures. None of them were of her family or even of her before six years ago, when she turned thirteen.

  The pictures were of her growing up as a teenager with most of them being more recent. Mason was in some and a few other slayers she met at the rehab center in several.

  She’d seen the pictures every day she’d lived here. Why did they suddenly not seem … right?

  “What did you do to me, Chace?” she grumbled and shook her head to clear her thoughts.

  She crossed to her bedroom and glanced around.

  If I picked out the furniture, it’d be a sleigh bed in natural wood. None of this dark wood stuff.

  Skylar paused once more, startled by the thought. Hadn’t she picked out her own furniture in the first place?

  “Why does this feel like someone else’s apartment?” she asked the dwelling.

  It didn’t answer, and she went to take a quick shower, no longer comfortable in her own home.

  Chapter Six

  Two weeks later

  Chace looked over the bar and its patrons. The classic rock blared like usual, but it did nothing to ease the tension in the faces of those within the only refuge for shifters left. Their numbers used to fill a space four times the size of this one. Now, there were half a dozen tables empty within the small bar, a sobering indication of how quickly they were dwindling.