Alpha's Fire (Shifter Ops 4)

Even though the air is cool, I’m too hot in the heavy coat and layers. I tug everything but my original outfit off. My hands are warmer now. I flex them to get the blood pumping through them and wipe them on the coat.

With my movement, more lights have cut on, spotlighting the area twenty feet ahead of me–another raised platform with desks and mounted screens. Either an epic gaming setup, or Gabriel is building a superweapon to control the world.

Even though I'm trapped and cuffed in a cage, my sudden giggle echoes around the dark hollow space. “Seriously?” I say out loud because Gabriel must be listening. “You brought me to your evil lair?”

I sit up and grab the bars. “You just need a big fluffy cat that you can pet. Or is that Buttons? Is he a house cat shifter?” My burst of laughter bounces off the walls.

I let loose until I can get a hold of myself. My heartbeat drums under the gold cuffs. If Gabriel doesn’t come to me soon, I’m going to lose it and start humming the Goldfinger theme song.

“I know you're watching me from somewhere. You might as well come let me out.”

Brighter lights cut on, and I flinch. Beyond the large warehouse space is a wide staircase, half of it out of sight because of the low ceiling. Somewhere above them, a door slams.

Gabriel steps down, slowly coming into view, and I lose my breath. I've seen Gabriel wear a suit–no man ever wore a suit so well–but I've never seen him without a shirt. He's wearing black pants, this time loose black joggers that look casual but cost more than my car. His torso is bare, his bronze skin gleaming in the low light.

He prowls forward, his feet bare on the concrete floor. Even with the eerie greeny-white light straight out of a horror movie playing over his face, he’s beautiful.

I grip the bars and pull myself up. I'm not cold or tired or hungry anymore. My body is charged with adrenaline.

His incense-like scent surrounds me. I suck in lungfuls of it, and it charges my blood even more.

“You risked your life to get away from me,” he chokes.

I’m pressed against the bars now.

“I could have lost you.” He stops a few feet away, and there’s a hollow in my belly. I’m aching, not being able to touch him.

“You saved me, though.”

His eyes light with gold flame. Twin lines of gray smoke trail from his nostrils. Any second now, he’s going to belch fire.

“You’re the dragon,” I murmur in a dreamy tone. Without thinking, I reach for him.

His face is frozen, but he moves closer. I put my hand out and touch his face. He's just too beautiful to be real. Smoke caresses my face.

I cup his cheek. He closes his startling amber and gold eyes and leans into my palm, looking vulnerable. It does something to me.

Changes me, somehow, seeing him this way. Now that I equate him with the dragon that I’m so certain I can trust, I can’t bring myself to resent him. Not even when he has me locked up in this cage. He is one and the same as that ancient beast in the cave who wants to show me his treasure and rescue me from every danger.

I can’t stop touching him. His skin is warm, heated from inner fires, like the dragon scales in my dream. I mold my hands to the harsh planes of his face, scratching over his beard and around the firm line of his jaw and into his thick hair. I don't have to mess his black hair up, it's already wind-whipped and unruly. I love this look on him.

“You could have been hurt,” he rasps against my palm. His eyes are still closed, his dark lashes, long and silky against his bronze skin. “You could’ve died.”

“I know.” I'll admit that the second part of my plan was completely stupid.

“The rock climbing bit was a mistake. But the plan worked up until that point.”

His sigh gusts across my palm. “How did you even find the way out?”

“I had a dream.” Not sure why, but I don't want to mention how his dragon showed me in the vision right now.

“Your gift,” he mutters.

My hands have wandered down to his muscles. I can’t help it, they’re laid out in front of me in a mouth-watering display. My hands look so small against the bunched muscles of his shoulders and the broad planes of his pectorals. If I could find my voice, I'd thank him for coming to me before he bothered to put on a shirt.

When I plant my right hand over his beating heart, his eyes snap open. “Tell me one reason I should let you out of this cage.” His pupils are elongating, narrowing to the slits of a snake.