Crimson Moon Hideaway - Julia Mills Page 0,1

of the Chimera.

There hadn't been enough air in the room. Black dots danced before Ellie's eyes. Falling into the only chair in the room, the voice in the back of her head had repeated her father's low, ominous warning, "Three heads seen in the moon. Blood spilled by noon."

For as long as she could remember, her parents had been caring, loving people, who gave anyone the shirts off their backs if it would help, but things changed when the Chimera Tribe tried to settle in the desert not far from the back of their ranch. She'd never seen her father so furious, and her mother so worried. After a lengthy discussion over several days with the Elders, the Enforcers of the Council 'relocated' the Chimera, but things were never quite the same.

Her dad was always on alert, jumping at every sound, never able to sit and play his guitar like he had for all of Ellie's life. Even worse, her mom spent hours in the root cellar, drying herbs, creating new wards, and making preparations for what looked like war. The air was so thick with tension and fury, you could've cut it with a knife.

After talking to her sister and brother-in-law, Ellie went to the DIA - Dragon Intelligence Agency branch of their local Sheriff's department - with the information. She showed them her father's journals and let them make copies of his notes on the Chimera and the ancient black magic the Tribe was known to conjure. The officers assured her they would follow up, and they did. Not that it did any good. Being nomads, the Chimera were always on the run, never stayed in one place for long, making them damned near impossible to track.

That was what had always bothered her. Never made sense. What made a nomadic Tribe suddenly decide to put down roots? In the Chihuahuan Desert? Right behind the MacLeish Ranch?

Months later, seemingly out of thin air, an agent of the DIA office out of San Anton knocked on Ellie's door. Tall, dark, and handsome, Special Agent Ranger Evans explained that he'd been tracking the Chimera for almost six years. He told her of other cases in other towns in other states that mirrored her parents' murder.

The trail of dead bodies seemed endless. It only served to confirm what Ellie already knew – they were never going to catch the people who had killed her mom and dad.

Then Ranger showed her pictures from other crime scenes. The markings were just like the boot print found by her father's head. Some in the mud, some carved into trees, others painted in the victims' blood on whatever surface the perpetrator could find. It hadn't been a fluke. The Chimera had meant to tell the world that they'd killed not only Matthew and Gretchen MacLeish but many others who had gotten in their way.

Ellie was hopeful for the first time in a long time. Not only that, the person or persons who took her parents' lives would finally be caught, that they would be made to pay.

She was also sure that Ranger Evans was her Mate. Tall, six-foot-six if he was an inch, with dark, curly hair that refused to be tamed, light brown eyes that seemed to shimmer and shine no matter what he was talking about, and an olive complexion from being out in the sun for most of his life made the man irresistible.

He felt their connection, too, of that Ellie had no doubt. She'd seen the way his eyes glowed and his pupils went from round to elliptical as his Dragon shown through, but he never made a move or acted on their attraction.

Tired of waiting, her heart and soul longing for the connection of the one man the Universe had made for her, Ellie dropped hints. She even tried to flirt on several occasions during the three days Agent Evans was in Valentine, but nothing happened. He was holding back, keeping his distance, remaining professional. She could feel the conflict within him.

None of it made any sense. Everything she'd ever heard about Dragons said they were passionate, no-holds-barred, take-what-they-wanted, unstoppable beings, especially when in the vicinity of their Mate.

Chalking it up to bad timing or maybe a miscue in her magic or simply silly wishful thinking, Ellie waved goodbye, hopeful she would at the very least hear from him at a later date about the case. But that never happened.

Time dragged on, no news from Agent Evans, the Council, or the