Chapter 24
Bryce
“Yes, of course,” I spoke urgently into my cell. “I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important. Yes. I’ll keep this between us. Come on, it’ll take you five minutes.”
Morgan sighed down the phone’s crackly line. “I’m not sure. Can’t you just call him?”
“Would I be asking you this favor if he was answering his cell?” I didn’t actually have Dagger’s number—he and I weren’t that close anymore—but Morgan didn’t need to know that. “So? Come on chief, you have the time. We both know your team is going to keep taking a pounding anyway.”
The chief, an aging lion shifter, let out a long sigh through the line. “Give me a few minutes. You owe me one though.”
Having arrived at Dagger’s precinct around twenty minutes ago, a quick check with the grizzled desk sergeant had made it clear Dagger had bullshitted me and whisked Serenity off somewhere else.
Now Police Chief Morgan, was having to tear himself away from the predictable outcome of his college football game—the New Lincoln Sentinels and their star quarterback, Jaxon Hemming, had been dominating Morgan’s New Grand Island Tornadoes from the get-go—and make a call to get Dagger’s GPS location.
Under human-made legislation, all New Nebraska cops had to consent to a microchip implant under their skin so they could be easily tracked in case of emergency assistance or disappearance.
Or, in some cases, if they were suspected of being on the take.
Really, if you asked me, humans just wanted to keep close tabs on any paranormals allowed to own guns.
The average civilian on the street was denied access to this top-secret locator information for obvious reasons. A crook’s wet dream would be knowing where all the cops were at any given time.
As I pressed my cell against my ear, watching from behind the safety of six-inch-thick bulletproof limo glass, three bulky shifter patrolmen dragged a handcuffed suspect from their cruiser and began wrestling him through the station’s front entrance.
He was hissing at the cops, lunging with a forked tongue and snake fangs.
Ugh, thankfully wrigglies were not that common.
I’d felt about as beloved as a wriggly myself earlier in the evening, when Serenity had abruptly ended our mind-blowing encounter, made fake yawns and see-through excuses about excess carbs before launching herself into her bedroom.
I should never have taken things so far.
But the heat of the moment had extinguished rational thought.
My rampant desire in that moment had ratcheted up my body’s unnatural heat to intense levels, stronger than I’d ever experienced.
The strange surges of power certainly hadn’t helped me keep my cool.
Tomorrow, I’d be sure to give another emphatic apology.
The odd thing was, Hunter had assured me that he’d smelled her arousal, and his shifter senses were sharp.
She’d apparently been into it… or at least parts of it.
I had a sinking suspicion that Hunter leaving the room had changed her mind. Or maybe I’d overwhelmed her—
Morgan came back on the phone. His grumbles over the NL Sentinels had stopped and he sounded serious as a heart transplant.
“Corner of Bullworth and Albany. That ghost town down by the river. But I don’t think anyone’ll have a problem finding Dagger’s location.
Just follow the sirens and the flames. Several cruisers have already been dispatched. Fire trucks and ambulances on the way.”
“Shit! What the fuck’s he done now? Okay, I’m on my way.” I’d given my word to be by Serenity’s side tonight, and now she really needed me to keep that promise.
Morgan’s tone turned stern. “Bryce, the last thing they need down there is your goddamn, twenty-five-foot stretch getting in the way. Leave it to the professionals. I promise I’ll keep you updated. Stay away from there, okay?”
“Okay, okay, understood. Thanks, Morgan. Keep me posted. And thanks.”
The screen between Gerald and me had been down the whole time. I rarely kept chats secret from him. “I take it you heard the location?”
Gerald’s wolf shifter hearing was as sharp as ever, despite his advancing years. “I did, sir. Corner of Bullworth and Albany, pedal to the metal?”
“Hell yes. Floor it.” There was no way I was reclining on a couch waiting for news when, thanks to that clown Dagger, Serenity could be in real danger. As the car revved, I tapped a new contact on my cell. Hunter was going to hit the roof, but he had to be told.
Hunter picked up on the second ring. “What’s he done?” he asked in grave growl.
I massaged my nose bridge, irked at Dagger for making Hunter’s irrational and immediate suspicion justified. “He pulled a runner with her, probably showing off.”
“‘Probably’ my ass. That fucking puffed-up panther’s taking her on a tour of Dagger’s Greatest Moments. Which means some shit-stained motel room where he shot up a murderer or—”
“A burning building?”
“WHAT?!”
I winced, ear ringing. “That’s all I know, but it came from the chief’s mouth. I’m heading there now. I’ll text the address. Cool off and come meet me—”
“Oh, I’ll be there all right. And as soon as I’ve got Serenity safe in my car, I’m kicking off that shit-eater grin of his and putting his head through the wall of that burning building.”
Click. The line went dead.
I looked toward the driver’s seat. “Gerald, I’m more than prepared to pay a fine for every traffic violation in the book if necessary.”
He got the message.
The limo’s engine roared like never before as we sped toward the location.
Hunter beat me there. Gerald dropped me near the disaster and parked down a quiet side street to avoid obstructing access to any much-needed fire trucks.
The firefighters wouldn’t have any doubt about where to go, though, when they finally arrived.
A large, dilapidated old house blazed with flames so fierce they lit up the ghostly neighborhood. A toxic plume of churning charcoal smoke billowed thick and high into the starry night.
A circus of sirens wailed as Hunter grabbed me with such force that I stumbled backward, bracing myself with my legs in a boxer’s stance to stay steady as he shook at my shoulders.
Thank God he’d touched me somewhere I was covered.
He seemed in such a frantic state, I wasn’t sure he’d even thought of my condition as he’d approached.
The acrid stench of smoke swirled around us and random pops of molten wood flew overhead as he shouted over the fire’s bellow. “I can’t get to him. I can’t take the heat!”
Agonized screams drew me to Dagger. The vast roof had been eaten away and collapsed, pinning him under a pile of burning beams the weight of which even his outstanding strength couldn’t budge.
His upper body was clear of the flames but red-hot timber pinned his legs as he scratched at the unkempt grass, trying to drag himself free.
About ten cops had just arrived and stood in a rough ring around him, arms thrown up to block their redden faces from the unforgiving inferno’s shimmering heat waves. A news crew was standing behind them too. Where were the damn firetrucks? No one here could get close enough to grab him.
But I could.
I clasped Hunter’s cotton-clad shoulders. “All right, brother, stand back. I’ll get him, I promise.”
Stepping out of my loafers, I threw my jacket and pants on the floor, ripping off my shirt in one, the buttons spitting across the grass as I slipped my socks and underwear off and ran toward the fire.
My body was immune to heat, but my clothing would have erupted like cigarette paper, welding itself to my skin.
I knew damn well my naked pictures would be all over the internet tomorrow.
But I didn’t give a fuck. Clown or not, I’d loved Dagger once, and I’d be damned if I’d let him burn alive.
I rushed to him, grasping the nearest burning beam and pulling it upward, hopeful I could get enough of the collapsed roof free that he would be able to drag himself out using his massive arms. The plank’s weight was colossal, and I pulled with every muscle I could muster. No dice.
“This wooden floor’s gonna collapse any second,” he rasped at me through a contorted grimace. “When it does, it’ll drag me down with it. This is the end for me. Go, now. Save yourself!”
“Fuck that. Play martyr with someone else, you dumb, macho fuck.” I picked up another, much smaller loose plank and shoved it between the beam and the charred grass. “Get ready to crawl on my mark.”
“Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fast!”
Then—even by New Nebraska standards—something unbelievable happened. As I shoved down on my makeshift lever with all my might, straining tendons in my shoulders, the wood began to splinter. I let out a cry of pain and frustration… and exhaled blue fire.
The sapphire tongues glittered like frost, dowsing the burning wood around Dagger as effectively as a fireman’s hose.
Unlike my usual fire powers, which ignited with the speed and intensity of napalm, these blue flames drowned out the beams’ heat.
They hissed a sigh of relief, steam sizzling from their fibers.
I stepped back and outstretched both my arms toward the destroyed house.
The same electric-blue fire cannoned out of my fingertips.
I breathed in deeply and exhaled again, my hands and mouth swamped the inferno with a ceaseless torrent of energy until all that remained was charred wood and rank fumes filling the air.
Drained, falling back on the scorched lawn with a bare ass, I watched as a crowd firefighters and paramedics, who must have just arrived, surged forward to drag Dagger from the ruins. At their head, heaving and cursing as the beams were steadily lifted to free Dagger, was Hunter.
Hunter wrapped his twin’s arm round his shoulder and led him away from the dilapidated house—now nothing more than a blackened shell—saying, “I gotcha brother, I gotcha.” A powerful-looking tiger shifter paramedic took the strain on the other side.
I staggered to my feet, still stark naked but too overwhelmed to worry about it. I tumbled across to them. Dagger’s eyes were woozy as he gripped Hunter’s polo shirt and garbled, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Serenity. I fucked up.”
Hunter jerked their three-man operation to a halt and forced Dagger to face him. “What happened?” he rumbled. “Where is she?”
“Two vamps. Conrad. He took her.”
“Conrad took her?” Hunter’s face was a mask of panic and distress. My own heart started jumping jacks.
Dagger managed a nod, seeming to summon every last ounce of speech left as he mangled Hunter’s shirt collar in his trembling fist. “Armand too. Serenity shot his ass…”
The paramedic pointed to a nearby ambulance. “We need to get him in there, right away.”
Sure enough, Dagger’s eyes rolled back, and he went limp in their grasp.
I turned to be met by the whizz and dazzle of camera flashes. More news crews had arrived. Including mine.
That icy bitch Monique was standing there, her mouth agape.
She and all the other female staff from my station fixed bulging eyes on their boss’s cock.
I was going to fucking strangle Dagger. But first, I had to find Serenity.