Page 21 of Darkhan

“I do apologize for our oversight, Miss Lace,” he said. “This is Agent Ryland, I’m Agent Muller. We’re with the SRA.”

As he dipped his hand into a pocket, Harmony planted hers on her hips and said pointedly, “What’s that, the Scoundrels Ravaging America?”

The one identified as Ryland actually balked, his dark brows arching high on his forehead.

Muller pulled out a wallet-like badge, reminiscent of every FBI ID she’d seen on television, and held it out and open for her inspection. He repeated the words even as her eyes read them, her brain not processing. “The Shifter Relations Agency,” he said.

Harmony stared until he pulled the thing she had no way of authenticating away, her mind spinning. “The what?”Shifter Relations…She could only think of two ways that could be interpreted, and in one of those ways, she failed to understand their issue with her under Zeno’s roof. But the other made even less sense.

Ryland blew out a breath. “It’s our job to make sure the shifters don’t abuse their strength, in a nutshell. Keep them from turning cities into cage fights, keep them from abducting innocent humans, all that.” He mostly glared at Zeno while he spoke.

“Yes,” Zeno said, “and I was hoping to have a word soon with your boss about what a fine job you’ve been doing.”

Harmony reached out, feeling suddenly unsteady, and grabbed hold of his arm. He was still shirtless—the hypocrite—so she couldn’t latch onto any fabric, just his skin. But it was more than enough to get his attention, though she didn’t wait for him to speak before she sought out his gaze. “Is that true? Is that … what they do?”

His brow furrowed and he inclined his head. “That is what they’re supposed to do, yes.”

“We are sanctioned by the federal government,” Muller said. “Our agency is smaller and less publicly forward than some others, but our authority is no less—”

Harmony spun forward, managing to do so in a way that edged her body closer to Zeno’s warmth, and when she spoke over the man, she did so at a shout. “Well, you suck!” Tears burned her eyes and she raised her bruised arm. “For my entire life, my family and everyone else in the whole damn neighborhood—neigh-bor-hood, not street—has been terrorized by some ragtag group of shifters drunk on their own stupid power. My parents pay protection tax and buy groceries for a honey badger that lives three houses down from us. There’s a wolf who patrols at night to make sure we all adhere to a curfew. And that honey badger? He’s been harassing and molesting me since I hit puberty.” She waved her arm almost violently, nearly smacking Muller in the face. “Hedid this, most of it. Yesterday, when my parents decided to dress me up like some hooker and shove me at him. My body was supposed to be agift, and theonly way I got out of it was sheer dumb luck. I ran away, and I ran into Zeno. Zeno saved me. You want to round up shifters who hurt people? Start with Patrick fucking Eades.”

Chapter Nine

Despite the raw emotion in Harmony’s outburst, the men from the SRA hadn’t listened. That was the first and last thing Zeno knew before the situation went to shit.

Before his senses and his memory scrambled.

Zeno had a lot of respect for his old friend, but Scott was going to be out two agents when he caught up to them. He had assumed they were from whatever apprehension group dealt with larger-breed shifters, but their hands had been free. Except he’d turned his attention away from the men during Harmony’s emotional ranting, his need to protect her and soothe her overriding his need to keep an eye on them. And the choice had cost him.

He’d known a split-second of searing pain, like raw electricity ripping through his blood. The pain was made worse by Harmony’s voice screaming his name somewhere beyond his shrinking line of sight. Then it had all gone black.

When Zeno regained consciousness, he was sprawled on the floor in his own penthouse. His body was heavy, lethargic, and the stench of charred flesh lingered in the air.

“Zeno!”Harmony’s remembered shriek, something like terror in her usually melodic voice, jolted him fully awake.

Zeno shoved up, his head spinning, and twisted around. He called for her but he knew she wouldn’t answer. He knew she wasn’t there. The clothes he’d purchased for her while he’d listened to her sob in the shower remained in bags on the floor just feet away.

Anger burned through him. Scott’s men had used a fucking specialized taser on him. He hadn’t even seen it before it hit him, and since nothing was dangling from his flesh now, he assumed it wasn’t one of those projectile types. Or at least, it was something they could easily retrieve. He hadn’t exactly gone onmissions with the SRA, he hadn’t watched them in action. Still, it pissed him off that one of his friend’s teams had gone so far as to strike him. It enraged him that they’d laid hands on his mate.

Zeno grabbed the bags, carrying them properly into the penthouse, and dropped them onto the sofa. He fully intended to retrieve her. She would need those later. Then he tugged his phone from his pocket and growled again. The device was fucking dead.

He dragged in a breath, smacked in the face with Harmony’s scent, mixed with the less prominent smells of the two men who’d ultimately taken her away, and the breakfast they’d shared earlier. The aroma of her long-faded arousal when he’d eaten her out on the kitchen island. The stench of his own burned flesh. That still hurt like a bastard, too.

Zeno ripped off his sweatpants, throwing them aside as he strode for the balcony.

It was too much. They’d pushed too far.

There was a reason it was ill-advised to fuck with dragons.

He would kill Patrick Eades for everything the bastard had ever done to Harmony. Then he would go to the SRA’s headquarters and take back his mate. As a matter of fact, if he could find them, he’d pick up Larry and Linda Lace along the way and bring them with him. They wanted to accuse him of plucking people up out of the sky, perhaps he should show them what thatreallylooked like.

The shift came over him hot and fast, a reflection of his mood. His wings stretched out as soon as they were formed, pulling his weight from the balcony before it became too much for the structure to bear. By the time he was above the building, the shift was settled. His flesh was gone in favor of thicker, armor-like scales. His body size had increased, his arms and legs thickening, claws sprouting where stubby nails had been. His tail swished freely, violently, through the air as he immediatelypropelled himself forward, aimed directly at Harmony’s old neighborhood. He let out a steady, almost hissing exhale, releasing a cloud of smoke to help disguise himself from anyone below as he moved.

He didn’t generally like risking daytime flights in populated cities, even if the smoke cloud technique worked nine times out of ten.

This wasn’t a normal situation. This time, he didn’t give a fuck. Let some human see him. Let some human post it on YouTube. They’d probably get rich or get ridiculed, it made no difference to him.

Harmony’s neighborhood came into view less than a minute later and Zeno’s focus sharpened. He’d failed her already once that day. He couldn’t show his face before her again until he had something to offer her as penance. He would not fail her again.

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