Taming the Beast

“You’ll see. Now, go and sit on that rock.” He pointed at the largest boulder, clearing his throat and waggling his eyebrows when I didn’t move.

“Fine,” I replied, grudgingly letting him go and dragging my feet as I made my way over. Brushing off the surface, I lowered myself down and opened my mouth to taunt him further, but what I saw took my breath away.

In the minutes it had taken me to walk across the grass, he must have ripped his clothes to have gotten undressed so fast, because staring back at me, regal head held high, eyes burning with a molten, silver flame, scales running from claw to tail, crouched a dragon. Burnished silver with wings so huge they spanned the clearing, tail curled around and spiked at the end. Steam huffed out of his snout, a low rumble sounding distinctly like a steam engine hummed through the air. And there was no mistaking the pleased smirk curling at his dragon … lips? Bastian’s smirk through and through.

“You can shift!” I gasped out, kicking myself mentally for stating the obvious, but I couldn’t help it. Happiness surged up inside of me, followed swiftly by suspicion. “How long have you known?”

Bastian tilted his head, one wing lifting in a pretty good approximation of a human shrug.

Sliding down off the boulder, I raced across the grass, pulling up short a hairsbreadth away from his sleek, scaly chest. “You … you … could have told me! I was so worried about you. I mean, I thought you might be able to, but when nothing happened I decided it wasn’t going to. And now this! You—”

Bastian lowered his head to meet my eyes, snout nudging at my shoulder with a look on his face that clearly said: shut up. Then he lowered his wing, giving me a nudge that sent me stumbling.

My hand landed on his side, warm and soft despite the scales. “What? What is it?”

Another nudge and his intention was clear.

“Oh! You want me to ride you?”

I could have sworn I felt his chuckle echo through the soul bond, the wave of heat he sent me had my knees trembling and thighs clenching. Both kinds of riding then.

He let out a soft cluck, throaty and hoarse, his head moving from me, to our favorite tree, then back again.

“Oh. Afterwards? I’ll hold you to that,” I murmured, scrambling up his back and giving him a scratch along his brow ridge. “Let’s see what you’ve got then, handsome.”

The wind whipped the squeal out of my mouth as he leaped into the sky, my arms wrapped around his neck and clinging on for dear life. His heart thudded beneath my chest, beating in perfect time with mine, his powerful wings carrying me up into the clouds.

My mate.

My heart.

My forever.

Part VI

Beauty & the Viking

Holley Trent

Chapter 1

Mary Nissen looked left, then right, and—seeing no one on the Fallon, Nevada side street in front of the neglected 1908 building—dropped to her hands and knees on the sidewalk. Tilting her head horizontally, she peered down into the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of, well, anything at all in the basement. Any sign of life would be more than she expected, but she would have been thrilled to see an actual person.

One person in particular, really.

She’d been tracking the slippery Andreas Toft for three weeks, and had run into dead end after dead end. If she hadn’t been so good at her job, she would have given up after a few days. Most paralegals didn’t go to such extents to conduct interviews, and Mr. Toft was a man who didn’t want to be approached. He had a reputation for reclusiveness.

The Toft family had a long history of eccentricity. A bit of oddness wasn’t unusual in a town with a population that was nearly five percent witches, but the Tofts were the weirdest amongst the weird. The most-whispered rumors were that along with their considerable wealth came lunacy.

Mary wasn’t put off by the rumors. Her father had exposed her to all sorts of unusual personalities when she was a child, and he—a private detective with thirty years of experience—had taught her that rumors were distractions. He’d impressed upon her to always be wary, but to also always verify.

All she needed from Mr. Toft was thirty minutes, maybe less, for an interview, and then he could move on with his life, and she could do her stinking job.

Seeing nothing beyond some stacked wooden crates and a hell of a lot of cobwebs, she pushed back up to standing and then wiped the dirt from her knees.

Sighing, she tucked back the swath of hair that had come loose from her bun. “Come on, guy. I’ve got two lawyers breathing down my neck here.” She clucked her tongue and tapped the toe of her right stiletto against the concrete.

She didn’t know where else she could look. The old store she presently stood in front of had been her last lead. The address Andreas had provided at the scene of the accident he’d witnessed had turned out to be bogus, but some of the bystanders had recognized him. After all, he was a Fallon native—and one of a certain sort—and the paranormal community was small. There weren’t too many telepathic psychics descended from Vikings living in Nevada. Or anywhere, really. Most of their kind, whom the Fallon psychics had splintered off from, lived in a community in New Mexico called Norseton. The two groups had once been friendly.