Page 68 of The Night Hunting

Ontario? Where the hell were we?

Paimon turned the scale in his hand. “You brought only one?”

Kaz shook his head. “I brought a bag full. It’s upstairs.”

Paimon nodded. “Good. However, our timetable seems to have tightened. I’ll pay you double what we first agreed if you can capture the dragon in the next twenty-four hours.”

Kaz’s brows knotted. “I’ll do my best. Just … I’m parched. Do you have water?”

Ivy looked at Paimon. He shrugged. Ivy gestured to where Roman was with a drink in his hand. “Here.” She walked past me with Kaz, toward Rotgar and Roman.

As he crossed the witch’s circle, Kaz looked at me for a brief moment, his expression hard.

Ivy grabbed a bottle of water from the cabinet and handed it to Kaz. “Thanks.”

My eyes shifted to Paimon, who still stood where the others had been, holding the dragon scale in his hands. He smiled, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. The dark scale shone for a moment, and then its magic was gone. Paimon exhaled. “This feels—” He dropped the scale. His hands shook, his brows curled down. His eyes met mine, full of anguish.

I took a full step back.

“Father!” Ivy shouted. She ran to him. Paimon fell to his knees. She looked at Kaz. “What have you done to him?”

Kaz didn’t answer. Instead, he threw his bag and his crossbow to the side, took off his vest, exposing his chiseled chest, and flexed his arms.

And then he shifted.

He gained at least another foot and his shoulders widened. Tiny dark scales covered his torso and arms, and large, dark webbed wings sprouted from his back.

My mouth fell open.

Kaz was a dragon shifter!

He pushed from the floor, his wings taking him up. He turned his head up, opened his mouth, and a thin jet of fire raced to the ceiling. It exploded with a boom, the wood and concrete pieces falling to the floor.

Then four people jumped in.

20

SHANE

Evelyn,Ash, Ariella, and I jumped through the hole. We landed on the floor in the basement and I found Raika in the witch’s circle. Her eyes met mine and the recognition in them brought relief to my muscles. They hadn’t recast the spell yet. She hadn’t forgotten what had happened in the tunnels and in the goblin village.

She might not remember everything yet, but I knew she was remembering more and more.

“Watch out!” she shouted.

I glanced to the side as Dot ran from a side room, her hands up and dark magic at her fingertips. Evelyn threw her magic at Dot, a huge bolt that hit her in the face, knocking the witch to the side. Dot wasn’t down, but she would be dazed for a few seconds.

Ariella sent bolts of light at Ivy, Rotgar, and Paimon, but Ivy raised a wall of darkfire in front of them both. Ariella increased her attack.

Kaz turned to Roman, who had shifted and lunged at the dragon shifter. Kaz dodged Roman’s attack, taunting him.

When Ariella told us her plan—to have Kaz call Ivy and say the dragon had moved to another state and he had a gift for Paimon, a gift with magic that would counteract his dark one and weaken him—we all agreed to it. Kaz called Ivy and she didn’t hesitate to tell him where they were hiding, and to my surprise it wasn’t even that far away: an abandoned office building on the outskirts of Montreal.

When hashing out the plan, Kaz revealed what he was. We were all in shock. We had all thought dragons and dragon shifters were extinct, and now we were seeing both.

“We aren’t extinct,” Kaz said, “but we were close to it.”

I gawked at him. He was impressive. His frame had enlarged, his skin had become tiny scales, and his wings … by the moon, they were huge and dark.

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