Dragon Battling (Torch Lake Shifters Book 10) Read online

  He was ready, too. With another deep growl, he grabbed her shoulders and turned her around, then pushed her toward the patio, walking along behind her. He opened the sliding glass door, and the balmy night air hit Vicki’s skin, tickling it. She was so turned on right now that every little sensation felt a thousand times stronger than it normally would have.

  Mitch nudged her forward until her hands were on the patio’s railing. The ground sloped away sharply in his backyard, so being on the patio made you feel like you were on the second floor of the house, even though you weren’t. Vicki breathed in deeply, letting the night air fill her lungs even as pure, passionate desire filled her body.

  Her back was still to Mitch, and he reached around her to grab her breasts. In response, she reached back to grab his dick. She could feel it poking at the small of her back, but that wasn’t where she wanted it. It took some maneuvering, since she wasn’t used to reaching behind her back like that, but she soon managed to guide his erection down until it was positioned right behind her dripping wet entrance. Then she pulled her hand forward again so she could grab the patio railing with both hands. She bent over slightly, pushing back against his manhood, which was on the cusp of her entrance.

  He took the open invitation, and slammed into her. She gasped as his warm thickness filled her. He continued to hold onto her breasts, using them as anchor points to grasp as he thrust deeper into her body. Every thrust sent a fresh wave of tingling warmth throughout her being. A deep pressure built in her core, and she was trembling so violently that she wondered how she was still managing to hold onto the patio railing. Her whole body was screaming out for release.

  It didn’t take long. As Mitch thrust and growled, the pressure quickly reached a breaking point. Her whole body filled with what felt like fire, and then, the release came over her in waves. She screamed out at the top of her lungs, forgetting that she was outside in the middle of a neighborhood. She couldn’t think about details like that right now. All she could think about was the way every square centimeter of her being was tingling with pure bliss. Her inner muscles squeezed around Mitch again and again, and she gripped the railing tighter than ever as she rode the waves of her release.

  A few moments later, Mitch joined her in her reckless pleasure. He roared, not caring any more than she had about who might be listening. And then, he thrust into her deeper than before and stiffened, roaring again as his erection began to pulse. They stood there, connected and panting, for a long time before Mitch finally pulled out and reached to turn her around. His strong hands were so tender that it gave Vicki the strange sensation of wanting to cry. She pushed the urge away, of course. Mitch would think she was a freak if she got all emotional during a one-night stand. But she was overcome with the realization that she’d just had the best sex of her life. There was no contest. No one else had ever come even close to making her feel the way Mitch just had.

  “Was that fun enough for you?” he asked in a low, gravelly voice. His eyes were so intense as they looked down at her that she started to tremble once again.

  She nodded, not able to make any sounds other than a happy whimper.

  “Good. Because I’m just getting started.”

  Vicki thought she might die of happiness right then. She was going to be an exhausted zombie at work tomorrow, but she didn’t care. A night with a dragon was worth it.

  Chapter Four

  Mitch Reeds blinked his eyes open as the first rays of bright morning sunlight streamed in through his bedroom windows. He groaned and rolled over, trying to cover his head with a pillow. Why hadn’t he closed the blinds last night? He had room darkening shades for a reason, and the reason was so that he could sleep in without being woken up at the literal crack of dawn.

  In the next instant, though, Mitch sat straight up in bed. His pillow fell to the floor beside him, and he looked over at the right side of his bed, almost afraid of what he would see.

  Yup, she was there. She was real. His window shades were all open because he’d been too busy fucking the hell out of Vicki last night to care about how much light would be coming into his room at the crack of dawn.

  Well, dawn had cracked, and he was going to have to face the day. He was going to have to face the fact that his night with Vicki had turned way more serious than he wanted it to. He looked over at her again, admiring how peaceful her face looked while she slept. How was she not waking up, with the sun blazing in her face like that? He’d always been jealous of people who could sleep through anything. He was a light sleeper, and he knew there was no way he was going to be able to get back to sleep now. He could close the shades to block out the sunlight, but he couldn’t block out the reality of Vicki.

  Despite himself, Mitch leaned over and kissed Vicki gently on the forehead. He held his breath, wondering if she would wake up. To his relief, she didn’t. She merely smiled in her sleep and snuggled deeper into the blankets. Mitch watched her a few moments longer, then stood up to head to his kitchen.

  He brewed a huge pot of coffee, then took a large mug of it out to the back patio. The strong black liquid helped him clear the last vestiges of sleep from his mind, and he knew what he had to do.

  He had to tell Vicki she was his lifemate. He just needed to tell her and get it over with. He had a feeling she wasn’t going to react well. Not after they had both agreed that last night would be nothing more than a night of fun. And Mitch would have sworn on his father’s grave that he had meant it back at the Winking Wizard when he said that he wasn’t interested in a relationship right now.

  He hadn’t been interested. He’d been interested in continuing his party boy lifestyle, which had been working pretty damn well for him thus far. When he’d moved to Torch Lake, he’d been amazed at how easy it was to find pretty women who were interested in him. Unlike his last clan, everyone here was dragon-obsessed. All Mitch had to do was drop the fact that he was a dragon shifter into conversation, and women would be falling all over him.

  Not that he’d been intentionally trying to woo Vicki last night. He’d ended up sitting by her by complete accident. Nothing about that had been planned at all. The Winking Wizard had been so crazy last night that he’d just been trying to get a beer and go back to his table. But he’d never expected to sit next to a woman as breathtaking as Vicki. There were a lot of beautiful women in Torch Lake, but she outshone them all. The decision to stay at the bar for a while had been an easy one.

  He’d been relieved when she said she didn’t do relationships. He didn’t either. Until now.

  Mitch knew enough about the lifemate bond to know that his days of playing the field were done now. Once a lifemate bond was formed, your heart wouldn’t be able to stand it if you tried to love someone else, or sleep with someone else. And the strange thing was that he was actually happy about that. When his buddies talked about finding their lifemates and how wonderful it was, all he could think about was the fact that he wouldn’t want to be stuck with one woman for the rest of his life. That sounded awful. Where was the fun in going to a bar if you couldn’t spend the night scanning for the prettiest girl to take home?

  Now, he understood. Vicki would always be the prettiest girl. It didn’t matter which bar he went to. She would always be the most beautiful woman in the room. He would never get tired of her. And all he wanted to do was to talk to her, for hours on end. For days on end. He wanted to listen to the musical sound of her voice and hear her ranting about everything under the sun, like she had last night. She was so adorable when her face scrunched up in concentration. And he was surprised at how similar her views were to his on many things. Most of the time, wizards thought quite differently from him about whether the High Council was approaching the threat of the Dark Warriors correctly. But, with a few minor exceptions, Vicki and he were on the same page.

  They were not on the same page about love, though. At least, not anymore. Last night they had been. But unless she had also changed her mind drastically over the last several hours, s
he wasn’t going to be happy when he told her how he felt about her. She was probably going to accuse him of lying to her last night when he said he wasn’t interested in anything more than one night. He had to find a way to make her understand why everything had changed.

  “Morning.”

  Her voice was so unexpected that he jumped, nearly dropping his mug of coffee in the process. Thankfully, the mug was so empty by this point that the liquid sloshing around inside didn’t slosh out and burn him.

  Vicki laughed, the sound of it making the morning feel instantly lighter. “What’s the matter? Did I scare the dragon?”

  Mitch gave her a teasing glare. “I wasn’t expecting you to be up so early.”

  She had helped herself to a mug of coffee as well, and she came out to sit on one of the other patio chairs. That’s when he realized that she had also helped herself to one of his t-shirts and a pair of his gym shorts. She looked damn sexy in his clothes, and he felt himself starting to stiffen between his legs. He loved the way she felt so at home here that she’d gone searching for mugs and clothes. She had an effortless air of self-assurance that he admired.

  If only he could convince her to make herself at home here every day, not just today.

  “I’m not up early,” she said, lazily stretching her legs out in front of her. “I’m actually up late. I should have been at the flower shop an hour ago.”

  He raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Really? I though the store didn’t open until nine.”

  “The store itself doesn’t open this early in the morning. But there’s a lot of prep work every day. To be honest, I’m kind of over it. I thought it would be fun to have my own flower shop, because I thought I’d be making arrangements for weddings and special events by now. Turns out all I’m doing is making bouquets for guys to try to impress their girlfriends with.”

  “You really don’t like romance, do you?” Mitch asked. He was trying to keep his voice light and joking, but really, he was probing. He hoped she would say she was exaggerating, and that she didn’t really think love was all that bad. But the sour look on her face before she answered didn’t give him much hope.

  “It’s such a ridiculous game. One I’m not interested in playing.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes while she finished drinking her coffee. Mitch knew he needed to say something, but he was having trouble formulating the words. He’d never been good with words. Not when it mattered. He was starting to understand why so many guys turned to flowers when they needed to say something important to a woman. It seemed like it would be so much easier to buy a bouquet than to try to express the jumble of emotions currently filling his heart.

  “What’s wrong?” Vicki asked. “You look like you swallowed a bee or something.”

  Mitch took a deep breath. He needed to just say it and get it over with. Even if it didn’t come out exactly perfect, it was better than letting her leave today without being honest with her.

  “Vicki, I think I’m in love with you.”

  Her jaw dropped. Then her eyes darkened.

  Okay, that definitely did not come out even close to perfect.

  “What the hell, Mitch?” She was already standing to leave. “I thought we had an understanding last night. I’m not interested in a relationship.”

  “We did have an understanding. And I meant what I said at the bar. But once I got you home and made love to you I realized that…you’re more than just a one night stand Vicki. I don’t want this to be the end of things between us.”

  She still looked angry. “Great,” she muttered. “Next thing I know you’re going to be telling me that you think I’m your lifemate.”

  The pained look on his face must have given away the fact that this was exactly what he thought.

  “Great. Just great. This is why I never have any fun. Because it always has turn into some big deal. And I don’t have time for that sort of thing.”

  “Vicki, please,” Mitch said. She was storming back into the house now, and he chased after her. She had already grabbed her phone, and was calling a cab. She wouldn’t even look at him as she asked for a taxi and then went to his bedroom to gather up her clothes. She went into the bathroom and slammed the door shut without a word. She wasn’t even going to change in front of him, he realized. She didn’t want him to see her naked anymore.

  His head had started pounding, and he rested his forehead against the wall. Desperately, he tried to come up with a way to fix this, but he couldn’t think straight. This was entirely new territory for him. He’d never even suspected before that a woman might be his lifemate, so he’d never had to think about how he would handle a situation like this.

  Before he could even wrap his head around the problem, his phone buzzed in his pocket. On autopilot, he pulled it out to look, but he quickly came off of autopilot when he saw the message. It was a text from Blaise Morgan, who was the Head Councilor of the Torch Lake High Council.

  S.O.S. All dragons and council members report to headquarters ASAP. Serious problem at hand.

  Mitch nearly threw his phone across the room. An S.O.S. from the Head Councilor meant he needed to get his butt to the High Council building right now. Even if he could think of a way to convince Vicki to stay and talk to him, he had no choice himself but to leave now. The timing for an emergency could not have been lousier.

  A honk outside sounded, and Mitch realized that Vicki’s taxi was already here. A cab driver must have already been in the neighborhood when she called. She stormed out of the bathroom without a word to him, and he let her go. There was no point in saying anything else right now. He’d have to regroup and come up with a better plan later. Maybe he would ask his friends for help. The whole rest of the dragon crew except Hugh had lifemates at this point. Surely, one of them would have an idea for how to make Vicki listen to him. They would make fun of him mercilessly if he admitted to finding a woman he wanted to settle down with, but none of that mattered to him. All that mattered was fixing things with Vicki. It was crazy how quickly she had won his heart. He’d known her less than twenty-four hours, and he was already consumed by an obsession for her. Outside, he heard the roar of an engine as the taxi drove away, and he felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest.

  “So this is love,” Mitch said as he walked to his closet to pull out a Torch Lake uniform. “Now I get it.”

  He’d never understood why anyone would ever want to settle down, until now. Until Vicki.

  With a heavy heart, Mitch grabbed his keys and wallet and walked out to his garage. That’s when he remembered that Vicki’s car wasn’t the only one still at the Winking Wizard. They hadn’t taken his car home last night. They’d both come in a cab. He slapped his forehead. How had he forgotten that? He wasn’t thinking clearly at all. With a grunt of frustration, Mitch stripped out of his clothes and put them in a small backpack that he would be able to easily carry in dragon form. Then he went to his backyard, completely naked, and prepared to shift.

  He didn’t have time to call a cab and wait. Odds weren’t good that another one would be close by, and he’d likely have to wait much longer than Vicki. And Councilor Morgan wasn’t going to be impressed with him if he took an hour to show up to the S.O.S. meeting because his car was at the bar thanks to his over-drinking last night.

  Luckily, no one cared if you shifted when you lived in a shifter-wizard town. That was one of the best things about being in Torch Lake. Mitch never had to worry that a human might see him shift and freak out. There were a few full humans here—lifemates of some of the shifters and wizards. But those humans were obviously well aware of shifting and magic.

  Mitch made his way toward the back of his yard. One of the reasons he’d bought a house with such a huge yard was so that he could easily shift back here if he needed to. Now, he took a deep breath and then let his dragon form take over. His human flesh began to grow and thicken, transforming itself into iridescent dragon hide. He grew larger and larger, and his head became the
fearsome head of a large dragon, with sharp horns and razor teeth. Claws appeared on his hands and feet, which were now covered in dragon hide and were changing into the feet of a dragon. Wings sprouted from his back, and a spiked tail stretched out behind him. When there were no traces of his human form left, he breathed in deeply and let out a long stream of fire into the air. Somehow, the angry fury of the flames made him feel better. He grabbed his backpack with his front claws, and began to flap his wings. Within seconds, he was high in the air above Torch Lake, rising into the early morning clouds and sunshine.

  A dull ache persisted in his heart. He had never known a feeling like this. He felt forlorn, longing for a woman who didn’t long for him back. He wanted nothing more than to fly straight to her flower shop and make her see how much she meant to him. But duty called. He needed to get to the High Council. He had half-expected an S.O.S. call every morning when he woke up, knowing that the Dark Warriors were pushing to establish themselves against the forces of good.

  Mitch breathed in again, deeply, letting the air fill his lungs and revive him. Somehow, he felt calmer now that he was in dragon form. The world seemed clearer and less complicated whenever he soared above it on his dragon wings, and he had never needed that calm reassurance as much as he did right now.

  He told himself to relax. If Vicki truly was his lifemate, as he believed she was, then he had a lifetime to show her what she meant to him. Everything didn’t have to work out perfectly right this second. He just needed to have faith that it would work out, eventually.

  Mitch took another deep breath, and let it out in a long roar. Then he turned and headed toward the High Council building as fast as he could, on the wings of faith.

  Chapter Five

  “I won’t mince words. We have a serious problem.”

  The High Council room was so silent after Councilor Morgan spoke these words that Mitch could hear his own heart beating. Everyone seemed to be collectively holding their breath, waiting to hear what Councilor Morgan would say next. Mitch tried to ignore the sense of dread that filled him. Surely, things couldn’t be that serious, could they? The Dark Warriors had shown themselves incapable of organizing into one unified army. Contrast that with Torch Lake’s strong, disciplined army—which was ready to work with the strong, disciplined armies of other shifter-wizard cities—and it was hard to believe that the Dark Warriors could do more than be an annoyance. An expensive, war-causing annoyance, yes. But they would never prevail against the forces of good. They didn’t have the resources to do so, no matter how badly they wanted to take over the world with darkness.