Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,171

her to take them both to the ground as the top half of the building came away completely and architectural materials went flying everywhere. He felt his partner stiffen in fear beneath him, her heart hammering, her breaths fast and terrified. On the other side, debris battered his back, some pieces as large as basketballs. They would have killed him if he’d been human.

He shut his eyes tight and whispered the words of a shielding spell as he waited out the shower of metal, concrete and glass. He’d no sooner whispered the final words than the mighty war-cry bellow of a dragon filled the night, so loud that it caused the ground beneath them to vibrate.

Lightning speared into the ground somewhere nearby, riding the coattails of the roar, and thunder simultaneously slammed over them like a metal blanket of tangible sound. For a beat, James wondered whether he’d actually been hit with the bolt. But once he determined it was only close, he grabbed his partner’s chin and forced her to look into his eyes. He knew they were glowing, but it couldn’t be helped. He would have to hope she would think this was all a dream.

He hesitated, his gaze getting lost in her wide, hazel-colored eyes. He’d never before been this close or held her this tightly in his arms. Here, her scent washed over him like a primal call. To make matters worse, it had been a while since he’d hunted. She was entirely too much of a distraction.

When a second bolt of lightning hit close enough to raise the hairs on his arms, James claimed his partner’s lips with his own, sending werewolf magic coursing from his body into hers. Werewolves had always had this strange ability, the ability to render their victims unconscious with a kiss. He had no idea why and he’d never heard any feasible theories. He only knew it was something they wound up having to use quite often, as he did now.

He felt his partner go limp beneath him, her breaths slowing, her heart rate quieting to something less frantic. She tasted wonderful…. A growl of frustration escaped him as he was forced to pull away. But again – this was something he could deal with later.

The detective’s ears were ringing when he rose off his partner and bent to lift her into his arms. He strode quickly to her truck. She weighed next to nothing in his unnatural embrace, so he was able to open her door with a free hand. Once he had her settled onto the bench seat, he shut her door and then kept pushing until the metal was warped. It would not easily open again.

He stepped back, vaulted over the truck to the other side, and did the same to the passenger-side door. Then he peered down at her through the window. His safety shield lay over her, and hopefully she wouldn’t think to kick out a window in order to run into the fray.

James turned to the torn-apart building and looked up. Above the building, at the storm’s center, a massive shape was forming. Wings. A tail. A dragon’s maw. The smell of fresh-fallen rain permeated absolutely everything, pleasant but highly unnatural. Storms of this magnitude normally smelled like ozone and dust.

Lightning struck, illuminating the beast within the gale’s eye. A storm dragon, James thought, bewildered. He had never seen one. They were supposed to be mythical.

There was a flash, and James shifted into his wolf form. The mighty black wolf lunged across the street to disappear into the chaos of the building beneath the dragon’s fury.

Chapter Fifty-eight – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Sterling had made it to the second floor when he heard another man’s warning call out. “Get down!”

Jarrod’s head whipped in the direction the voice was coming from. It was none other than Randall Price, looking disturbingly whole and healthy and obviously having been lurking in the shadows like the creep he was, just watching the two girls move through the building. But now the serial killer stepped out of the shadows to warn the girls, and Piper Maddox met his be-speckled gaze.

Sterling’s lips pulled back in a sneer of disgust. “Mother fuck-”

And then the top half of the building tore completely away from the bottom and Sterling found himself bolting toward the girls. One of the women screamed, but the sound was mostly ripped from her and sucked into the spinning void overhead. In the next hyper-instant, Sterling was diving for cover as debris