Dragonfury 02 - Fury of Ice

part of the plan.
    Dunk. Hold under. Let the bastard surface. Listen to him beg.
    Mac repeated the roll over and over. When Jackass went limp and begged for death instead of life, he took pity and dove, dragging the rogue deep under the surface of the water.
    Jackass had wanted to play. It wasn’t Mac’s fault that he was now in over his head.

     
    The last rogue turned tail and ran, streaking across the night sky like a long-tailed comet. Rikar watched the Razorback bug out, wanting to go after him. Hunt the enemy down. Make ’em pay. That was his motto. But not tonight, apparently. He had bigger fish to fry.
    One that Bastian kept insisting was his responsibility—lucky him—but the addition to his to-do list was the least of his problems at the moment.
    He couldn’t see Mac anywhere. Had lost sight of the male in the cityscape while slashing the turquoise dragon’s throat. Hmm, such a nice memory. Too bad the here-and-now wasn’t as pleasant. Where the hell had their new boy gone?
    Rikar scanned the dark horizon where land met water. Worry twisted his gut up tight. It didn’t make any sense. He should be able to track the cop. Feel him from anywhere.
    He’d connected to Mac’s core energy while getting him through the change . Now he recognized the guy’s vibe as well as he did his Nightfury brothers’. Unique to the individual, each male possessed a signature, a signal they sent into the world like radio waves. Once a male linked to another, he could track a fellow dragon for hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles.
    Made it hard to disappear. Get good and ghost if a male close to you didn’t like the endgame. Shit. He should know. B had come after him a time or two. Of course, the opposite was also true.
    So, yeah. Getting a lock on Mac should’ve been easy. But easy wasn’t in the mix. The male’s signal was muffled by something, a thick barrier that distorted the beacon. But at least Rikar could feel him now, and that meant their boy wasn’t dead. Yet.
    That might change, though, when he got his hands on him.
    The male had disobeyed a direct order. Refusing to retreat when he told him to. Rikar frowned. Freaking cop. Mac had balls made of steel. And although he respected him for it, an equal and opposite reaction had him by the throat. One that wanted him to rearrange Mac’s face for scaring the hell out of him.
    Rikar shook his head and kept searching, mining Mac’s energy vibe. God, he’d almost lost the male tonight. One false move and Mac would’ve been nothing but ash. Another urn on a shelf. Another name carved into the wall inside Black Diamond’s Hall of Memories.
    Reveling in the night chill, Rikar exhaled long and smooth. Frost rolled between his fangs. The icy mist washed out in front of him, then blew back to coat his scales as he increased his wing speed. Wood smoke and the smell of furnace oil drifted on the autumn air, held high by the north wind drifting in over the city. In another month winter would come, settling over Seattle like a frosty blanket of mmm, mmm good.
    Man, he could hardly wait.
    As he circled over apartment buildings, Rikar scanned the alleys below. His night vision sharp, he cast a wide visual net, sonar pinging, sending out calls he hoped Mac would answer. But maybe the male was down. Or hurt. Unable to link in through mind-speak.
    Bastian flew by, thumping him with the side of his tail.
    The love tap brushed one of his bruised ribs. Rikar flinched. “Ow! Shit, B…that hurt . ”
    “Suck it up. There are worse things.”
    “Like what?”
    “The fact you’re about to get wet . ”
    Rikar blew out a long breath. The exhale started off smooth but ended on a growl. He should’ve guessed. The water. No way could Mac resist its allure for long. “Elliott Bay?”
    “Smack dab in the middle of it.”
    “Fuck.” Dawn was only three hours away. If he couldn’t talk Mac into coming out by then, he’d be forced to go in and pull a grab-and-go. With Mac fighting him every step of the way. “I hate my job.”
    Bastian laughed. “You got him through the change, my man. He’s one hundred percent yours.”
    Fantastic. Most males got a fire dragon as a sidekick. But oh, no. Not him. He landed a water dragon. Just his freaking luck.
    He only hoped Mac went the reasonable route. Otherwise Elliott Bay would end up as one big ice bath. Not something the human authorities would understand. Or get over quickly.
    “He’s got a rogue down there with