Nevada had seen him weak. Weak, weak, weak and it was because of the dragon and the silverback. He needed an outlet so he didn’t burn up from the inside out. Dad had struggled with the same his whole life. Looking for outlets to tame the savage animal inside of him. Thanks for the cursed genetics, Dad.
He could feel her watching before he saw her. His mate. Mine. My Nevada. He slid her a glance from where he sat gripping the wheel in a stranglehold. She stood in the open doorway of her apartment, spine straight, long dark hair whipping in the wind, eyes blazing gold as the snow fell in front of her. She looked like a fucking warrior. “Everything is not okay,” she said. The window muffled her voice, but he didn’t miss the steel there. “Don’t do it.”
Oh, she had his ticket punched. She sees too much, way too much.
Nox revved his engine and gave her a devil-may-care smile. Get used to this, Mate. He wouldn’t ask her to be tamed, but he wouldn’t be tamed either. The blood on his claiming mark hadn’t even dried yet, but it was for the best she saw him for what he really was.
“Nox!” she yelled as he spun out of the parking lot.
He would make it up to her later. Probably. If Vyr didn’t eat him. He would give her a hundred dandelions and eat her out, make her scream his name and forget why she was mad, rinse and repeat until she forgave him for what he was about to do.
He sped through town, skidding on patches of ice with each turn. The snow was falling harder. If he hadn’t been seeing red right now, maybe this place would have been pretty. Picturesque woods blurred by, and the creek he splashed through had chunks of ice in it already. Snow season was here to stay. Bad weather. He could smell it. Smell the storm. Feel it in the aching shin he’d broken falling off a water tower he’d vandalized as a teen.
Nevada. Nevada. Pretty, perfect, curvy angel. She was good. Good to her soul and back, and he was a mess. He would always be a mess, and now they were bound and he was going to drag her down. Nox couldn’t get the look on her face when he left out of his mind. He cleared the last of the trees and skidded to a stop in the manicured yard of Vyr’s mansion.
Asshole dragon was waiting for him, sitting on the edge of his roof, one leg dangling down, the other knee bent, resting his arm on that one, staring at him with those dead blue eyes.
As Nox got out of the car, pulling off his shirt as he did because, hell yes, this was going down, Vyr jumped from the second story and landed with no impact. Show-off.
“I could hear you calling me out from two miles away, Ob-Nox-ious,” the red-haired fire-breather called as he strode toward him. “You gotta death wish today?”
“I told you to stop calling me that, you micro-dicked lizard.”
“What’s your problem, man?” Vyr barked out. “I gave you an out. Why the fuck are you still here?”
“Because I can’t go back home until you’re in the cage where you belong, you motherfucking fuck-fuck!”
“Torren’s not here to save your ass this time, Ob-Nox—”
Pop-pop-pop-BOOM! Nox let his beast break his body into a bear before Vyr even got the rest of the insult out.
Claws digging into the earth with the desperation to rip that chode’s throat out, Nox barreled toward Vyr. Time slowing with every step, he lunged closer. The dragon shifter skidded to a stop and clenched his fists, a look of pure hatred on his face. His body was vibrating, blurring at the edges, and his face was contorting into something monstrous, but Nox was already too far gone in his rage to stop now.
Cursed with this temper.
Cursed with loneliness.
Cursed with being different. With being unacceptable.
Cursed with this bone-deep instinct to fight.
Cursed to let Nevada down. Fuck. Fuck. Cursed to let her down.
Vyr arched his neck back and roared a deafening challenge that shook the earth, and a blast of fire shot into the air. He squeezed his eyes closed as if it hurt to spew fire as a human. But when he opened his eyes again, they were silver with elongated pupils. He shot a fireball across the clearing. Behind Nox, there was an explosion that blasted heat against his back.
My truck, my fucking truck. He burned my truck! Kill, kill, kill.
“Don’t Change!” Torren bellowed. “Vyr, don’t you fucking Change!” He was in gorilla form. Freak shouldn’t be able to talk as an animal, but he always could. Damaged. Monster. Just like Nox, but they couldn’t see he could’ve been a good friend. A good ally.
From the corner of his eye, Nox could see the massive silverback charging at him from the woods, but he was too late. Nox was about to shred Vyr before he could Change into the Red Dragon.
Three beasts, one collision, and Nox was gonna survive this. Why? Because he had an anchor. He had a reason to live. He had Nevada.
He finally, finally had someone to come back to.
But first…there had to be pain.
Chapter Thirteen
She wasn’t going to make it in time! Nevada pulled into the clearing just as a redheaded man near the sprawling house blew fire into the sky. No dragon shifter in human form should be able to breathe fire. Horrified, she slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop. There was a silverback Charging Nox, whose enormous grizzly was at a dead run right for the dragon shifter. Nox was so much bigger than he looked on the video.
Nevada was out of time. She kicked her door open and didn’t even put the car in park before she was out. Inside of her, something awful was happening. Her Changes were gentle. They always had been because her fox was docile and always tried for maximum comfort. But right now, she was shredding her way out of Nevada. She yelped as she pitched forward. Her body snapped, burned, and broke in a second of agony so blinding she had to close her eyes and hope she wasn’t dying. She landed on all fours, and she was off, completely out of control of her animal for the first time in her life.
Ours. He’s ours, and he’s going to die!
Vyr shot a fireball directly at Nox’s truck, and with the impact of the explosion, the entire thing lifted off the ground and flew backward until it smashed into a tree.
“Don’t Change!” the silverback yelled, desperation in his inhuman, gravelly voice. “Vyr, don’t you fucking Change!”
Nevada was lightning fast in this body. She might not be able to heal as quickly as other shifters, but foxes could book it, and she was running faster than she ever had in her life. Her paws were barely touching the ground as she bolted for the trio of monsters converging in the middle of the clearing.