Page 9 of Tease Me

“That curvy chick you were practically fucking in the kitchen? She’s was a hot piece of ass. I wouldn’t mind getting some of that action.”

Steele grabbed Dax by the throat and threw him up against the side of the car. Both of their dragons rose to the surface, ready for a fight. Steele snarled. “Don’t even think about her in that way. She is mine.”

Dax glared at him, studying his face. Then he raised his hands, surrendering. “Holy shit. Fine, you’ve got dibs. I was way more into the redhead anyway.”

Steele released Dax, surprised at his own vehemence. It wasn’t like he couldn’t get any number of women he wanted. She was just another woman.

His gut clenched at the thought. Fuck that. She was a hell of a lot more. He didn’t know why, but she was.

He snatched at his shirt and pulled it over his head. The material felt rough against his skin. Nothing like Fleur’s soft lips. The stupid fireman pants went into a pile, and he pulled on his jeans.

Dax did the same, and slipped the cord with his red soul shard over his head. It glinted briefly, its internal fire shining for a brief moment when it settled against Dax’s skin.

Steele reached into his pocket and pulled his own soul shard out, anxious to reconnect with the gift from the White Witch that allowed him to shift from man to dragon. It blazed like a lighthouse beacon into the night, filling the darkness with its green light.

He and Dax stared at the green crystal-like talisman. “What the fuck, dude?”

What the fuck, indeed. Had something happened to his shard while they’d been dicking around? He’d never seen any dragon’s shard do anything but hang around their necks and occasionally glow with a bit of colored light.

Steele put the pendant on and tucked it under his shirt. The second it hit his skin a pleasure-pain shot through him, so great it brought him to his knees with its power.

He cried out and grabbed at the bumper of the SUV to steady himself. He crushed the metal in his fist, his claws extending from the ends of his fingers. His dragon shimmered across his skin, stretching, pushing its way out.

The beast part of him wrenched control and roared into the night, taking him fully into the shift. He clawed at the ground, reveling in the new power pouring through him.

Then as suddenly as it had taken him over, the power faded and the dragon receded, leaving Steele in his human form, gasping for air.

“Well, we’re not getting the deposit back on the rental, that’s for sure.” Dax stared at Steele, crouched in a fighting-ready stance. He glanced to the right then back.

The SUV lay upside-down, it’s windows shattered, and the bumper ripped clean off.

“You want to tell me what the hell just happened?”

“I...don’t know.” The shard at his chest faded to a soft glow, like the light from a firefly, and warmed his skin beneath it.

Dax’s voice dropped low and his red scales flickered across his skin. “Can you stand? Can you fight?”

Steele got to his feet. “Yeah. I can. Why?”

“Because we’ve got company.” Dax growled and jerked his chin to the shadows building around them. Danger brewed in that darkness. Damn it. This was supposed to be a vacation.

Dax didn’t wait and shifted into his dragon.

The shadows grew and formed into the shape of half a dozen black winged creatures, like Steele’s own form, only twisted and dark.

Demon dragons.

What the hell were they doing here?

Steele called his dragon back up, the transformation moving through him faster and easier. The world around him shrank as shifted, his dragon form grew larger than ever before. He roared at the black demon dragons approaching. Power flowed through him, waiting for him to call upon it to battle these disgusting blights on the world.

The snakelike creatures with their sooty scales and wings were pure evil. They came from the darkeness to spread plague and chaos on the world and it was every dragon warrior’s job to send them back to hell.

He and Dax had trained and fought together in many battles. They could work together on instinct. They’d need all their skills to defeat the demon dragons amassing around them. It might be two against ten, but Steele would still put the odds in his favor. He was twice the size of any of them, maybe more now, and Dax was ruthless when it came to killing demon dragons.

The black death moved as a unit, coordinated in their attack, surrounding them on three sides.

Dax breathed out a swath of fire, stymying the demon’s first attempt to get to the two of them. They were not dissuaded and one spit its black smoke and fire back at Dax while its kin jumped together to attack Steele on two sides.

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