every direction, making his blood boil, and he knew they’d come in unison. He thrust and rubbed against her, heard her gasp, felt her pulse leap...
And then she was gone.
Hadrian was alone, clutching at air.
She’d vanished again.
He rolled to his back and roared with frustration.
He was alone, naked, and two seconds from the biggest climax of his life. He clenched a fist and pounded it against the floor.
So close.
She’d planned it that way.
Why?
Rania was losing her edge.
How had she come so close to making love with a dragon shifter? Was she losing her mind, too? Why would she even risk the possibility of conceiving a Pyr son? Maeve would probably count that as nulling out Hadrian’s death—one more dragon shifter cancelled one less—and would insist that she fulfill another assignment.
She’d flung herself out of the lair and into the forest nearby, shifting shape so that she manifested there as a swan. She’d managed to seize her clothes on her departure, but not her dagger.
Rania felt flustered and chose the swan form on purpose. It gave her a moment to collect her thoughts. In swan form, her thinking was much more linear, so it seemed irrational that she’d forgotten her objective for even a moment. She groomed herself, smoothing her feathers into place with deliberate gestures. It was impossible to miss the cut wing feathers, which didn’t help her to dismiss her thoughts of Hadrian.
The sooner this dragon shifter was dead, the better.
Rania sorted out her clothes, hidden beneath her feathers. She had to be able to shift smoothly and not end up in her tights in a tangle. That calmed her, too. It was imperative that she retrieve her knife, and not just to finish the assignment. It was part of her collection and specially selected for this assignment. It was sharp and lethal, a beautiful weapon that she could rely upon.
She wasn’t going to start having doubts about the untimely demise of this dragon shifter. She’d chosen Hadrian, and there was no changing that now.
He was the one.
Rania realized that there was a car driving down the narrow lane that led to Hadrian’s lair. She moved closer to watch, curious, still in her swan form. The car stopped at the last curve and she could see that a woman was driving it. The woman studied the vehicles in the driveway as Rania watched. There were two Land Rovers, a blue one and a green one. The blue one had been there when Rania had first arrived, so the green one must be Hadrian’s. The woman’s indecision was as clear as her longing, and Rania wondered who she was—and what she had to do with Hadrian and the Pyr.
The woman was pretty, with long red hair that she’d tied up in a ponytail. She frowned at the house, seemed to wipe away tears, then shook her head with frustration. Was she a girlfriend? An admirer? Rania wasn’t sure, but she memorized the license plate for future reference.
The woman backed up the car and abruptly turned around, grinding the gears, then drove away from the lair so quickly that Rania had to jump back to be hidden in the shadows.
Once the woman was gone, Rania shifted back to her human form. The clipping of her feathers had followed her between forms: her fingernails on that hand looked as if they’d been trimmed shorter than the others. Rania wished she had a way to make the nails on both hands match.
Maybe she’d use Hadrian’s clippers once she’d finished her assignment. She smiled at the image of herself, fixing her nails over the body of her victim. No, she’d go straight back to Fae to collect the reward she’d earned. There’d be no more time in the mortal realm than was absolutely necessary.
Rania turned up the collar of her coat, shivering a little at the cooler air. Her resolve grew. It would be evening soon and she wanted to ensure that Hadrian didn’t live to see the dawn. This assignment would only get harder the longer it lasted, given the persuasive charm of this dragon shifter. As she walked toward his home, that white glow began to burn a little brighter and she steeled herself against the direction that it turned her thoughts.
She wasn’t going to think about being cheated of a second massive orgasm.
She wasn’t going to go back for more of that.
She’d wait until the Pyr went to sleep, then strike like a cobra in the night.