Chapter 2
TWO
PERCY
“Our ladder truck predates indoor plumbing.”
“Their engine's newer, though,” Briggs said after he'd recovered. He was our engineer, the one who drove and operated the pump, and he paid attention to equipment the way other people noticed sports cars.
“Newer doesn't mean better.” I slathered mustard on my hot dog, making sure it reached both ends. There was nothing worse than a dry bite. “You won the cup two years ago with that engine. You had the same rig and same crew, minus me.”
“But with a different nozzle tip,” Briggs corrected me.
“And this year I’m going to drag two hundred feet of charged hose and hit the target.”
“Hope so.” He shoved the rest of the hot dog in his mouth.
I loved this. The barbecue, the verbal sparring, and the sense of belonging to a crew that had my back both on calls and at competitions.
Station 9 was home, and the Lennox Cup was our Super Bowl.
I'd been running with a weighted vest for three weeks, hauling hose on my own time, and doing grip work until my forearms burned.
This year, we weren't just winning, we were going to humiliate Station 12.
You're showing off, my dragon observed.
It’s called manifesting these days.
My dragon had opinions about everything.
Since adolescence, he'd never once had a thought he didn't share.
If I ate something he didn't like, he told me. If I wore a shirt he thought was ugly, he’d let me know.
If I was about to do something silly, which was often, according to him, he'd narrate it, making it sound like a wildlife documentary.
And here we have the omega approaching the barbecue, unaware that mustard is dripping on his shirt.
Damn. I wiped the yellow streak off my chest and hoped nobody noticed.
The park was filling up. Both stations were staking their territory on opposite sides as if we were conducting a turf war with folding chairs.
Station 12 was across the field in their red shirts, looking annoyingly well-equipped even at a barbecue.
Their captain had one of those fancy coolers that kept ice frozen for a week.
Ours was a foam box from the gas station.
“I heard their lieutenant has been drilling them every day for a month.” Hallie wandered over to steal my chips. She was our newest firefighter and she was still in her probationary year.
“Good for him.” I swiped the chips back. “Drilling doesn't mean winning.”
“Have you seen him, though?” She craned her neck toward Station 12's side. “He’s tall with dark hair and dimples.”
“And he’s the competition.” I cut her off because I didn't need to hear about how attractive the opponents’ lieutenant was. “Keep your eyes on the prize.”
The prize is a dusty trophy, my dragon reminded me. And the right to brag for twelve months.
I was halfway through my second hot dog when a scent cut through the smoke and grass and sunscreen and hit me so hard in the chest, I stopped chewing. It was deep and warm, like woodsmoke, and it made the hairs on my arms stand up and my belly flip.
My dragon went from lounging to standing at full attention, and for the first time ever, he was speechless. That lasted about three seconds.
Mate, he bellowed inside my skull, and I flinched. Briggs gave me a look.
“Cramp.” I pressed a hand to my side.
Mate, mate, mate, mate!
I get it! I scanned the crowd, as my beast insisted I find him.
He was by the drinks table, an alpha in a Station 12 shirt and with a jaw that appeared to be made of granite. He was holding a water bottle and staring at nothing, but his body was rigid as if he'd been hit by something he didn't see coming.
It was Station 12's lieutenant. The universe had to be kidding me.
Go to him, my dragon demanded. Right now. Walk across this park and claim him.
No way was I going to claim the Station 12 lieutenant in front of both crews at the Lennox Cup kickoff barbecue.
My beast was doing the dragon equivalent of pacing and snarling. That translated to a buzzing sensation under my skin and an urge to abandon my hot dog and sprint toward an alpha I'd never met.
I shoved the rest of the food in my mouth. That was my version of staying calm. My heart was thudding so loudly I was sure Briggs could hear it, and a flush crept over my face. Briggs gave me an odd look.
“The hot dog went down the wrong way.” I thumped my chest and coughed.
I risked another glance at the alpha. He was still by the drinks table. He was pretending to scan the crowd, the way you do when you're trying not to stare at someone. But his gaze was on me.
I'd heard about the fated mating connection from other shifters and the pull that was supposed to be undeniable. I'd always figured it would happen somewhere else, but not here and not with him.
“I’m going to get ice.” I stood up so fast the picnic bench rocked, and Hallie grabbed her drink before it toppled.
“Where's the fire?” she asked, and Briggs groaned because that was how we all reacted to that joke.
“We’re low on ice.” I pointed at our sad foam cooler. There was plenty of ice, but I needed to move and put distance between me and the pull that was making my hands shake. But the ice was at the drinks table where he was standing.
I walked toward the drinks table because I was out of options that didn't involve running to the parking lot and driving away, which would raise more questions than getting ice. My legs felt weird as if they belonged to someone else, and my dragon was narrating again.
He’s ten feet away and he’s looking at the water. Now seven feet. Oh, he's gorgeous up close. Four feet now.
I reached for a water bottle at the same time he did, and our fingers collided. The jolt wasn't subtle or gentle or any of the poetic words people used to describe the mate connection. It was a lightning strike, and it traveled from my fingertips up my arm and into my chest where it detonated.
He yanked his hand back. His expression suggested he was someone used to being in charge but he’d just lost the reins. His eyes were darker than they'd appeared from across the field, but I shivered under the intensity of his gaze.
“Sorry,” he kinda croaked.
I shoved the bottle toward him because if I held onto it, he'd see my fingers trembling. “All yours.”
Up close, his scent was devastating. Deep and warm, with a smokiness that wound through me. I stuffed my hands in my pockets to keep them from reaching out and touching him again.
“Good turnout this year.” He glanced around the park.
My brain latched onto that mundane comment, and I clung to the version of myself that wasn't falling apart inside. I was the competitive guy who’d roasted Station 12. That was me, not whoever this was.
“You say that like you're hosting. Is that a Station 12 thing? Taking credit for stuff you didn't organize?”
His eyes widened, registering shock, maybe because I'd come out swinging.
He was taller than me by a few inches, and his posture screamed military or officer training or both. “You're the lieutenant.”
“Larkin.”
“Percy.” I didn’t shake his hand because if I touched him again, I wasn't sure what would happen, and I couldn't afford to find out in front of sixty people. “I’d say good luck with the cup, but I don't want you to have any.”
Ask him to meet us later, my dragon begged. Or just drag him behind the equipment trucks. I'm not picky.
The guys called me from across the field. Something about ice, which was ironic since that was my cover story. I grabbed the bag from the cooler, grateful for the excuse to leave before my dragon staged a hostile takeover and took his scales.
I brushed past Larkin as I walked away, and that shoulder-to-chest contact had me shivering.
“See you out there, Lieutenant.” I didn't look back. If I did, I'd stop walking, and if I stopped walking, I'd turn around, and if I turned around, my dragon would do something we'd regret.
I jogged to my crew and dumped the ice bag on the table.
“You were gone a while.” Briggs took a swig from his water bottle. “Did you get lost?”
“Long line.”
There was no line, but there was a lieutenant with dark eyes and a scent that had turned my insides to mush, and a dragon who wouldn't stop saying the word mate.
There was also a six-week competition that I was supposed to win against the man, a fellow dragon shifter, the universe had apparently decided was mine.
I picked up my abandoned hot dog and took a bite, but it tasted of nothing.
Hallie studied me. “What’s wrong with you? You’re all jumpy.”
“Nope.” I plastered a grin on my face.
When we packed up and I climbed in my truck, I sat in the parking lot for ages with the engine off and my hands on the wheel. Eventually I pulled out toward Trenton while the alpha’s scent clung to my skin and I pondered what I was going to do.
I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel and groaned. My dragon was replaying the moment our fingers touched. The worst part wasn't the pull, the heat, or my shaking hands, it was that I wanted to march back across the field, find him, and kiss him. And I didn't even know his last name.