Page 4 of Her Enemy Dragon Captor (Dream Team Shifters #5)

CHAPTER 4

A lex slouched in his chair at the back of the conference room, watching as the other Dream Team members filed in. The morning's recruitment session had left him irritable and distracted. One recruit in particular kept invading his thoughts.

Lucy Watkins.

Gecko girl.

With her defiant eyes and that ridiculous little ponytail flip.

His dragon stirred again, sending a wave of heat through his chest. The sensation had been happening all day, a persistent buzzing that intensified whenever he thought about her.

He tried to fight it, but even as he thought about thinking about her, his cock shifted in his jeans.

Get a grip , he told himself. She's just an annoying human.

But his dragon disagreed, rumbling with interest whenever her face appeared in his mind.

Which was constantly.

And what about that insect comment. Was she daring to imply that he was an insect? That her gecko might hunt?

Of course not. A laughable thought .

He tried in vain to tear his thoughts away from her, but he was failing miserably.

And that hair flip...

And that ass.

But it was more than that.

Where is she now? Is she alright?

He almost fell out of his chair at that one.

Is she alright?

What do I care if she is safe?

Maybe I need to shift and take flight? Or perhaps I have eaten something that is off...

Jack caught his eye from across the room and raised an eyebrow. Alex quickly looked away, focusing instead on Dylan, who had just returned from his emergency trip to Oncara, the jaguar planet.

"Everyone here?" Jack asked, closing the door. "Good. Dylan has an update for us."

“That was fast,” Brian, the wolf shifter quipped.

Dylan ran a hand through his hair, looking unusually serious. "I thought it important to get back as soon as possible. Portal in, portal out. Unfortunately, it's not great news. The separatist movement is gaining momentum. Several of the larger jaguar clans are threatening to withdraw from the alliance entirely. I don’t know how much longer my clan can hold things together."

"Damn," Jason muttered. "Just what we need."

"It's not just the jaguars," Brian added. "We're seeing similar stirrings on Lupinari. There is no talking sense to these isolationists. They just don’t get that these mutants are coming for us all. They won’t stop with earth."

“Well in all fairness, the peoples on our various planets are just getting used to the idea that they aren’t alone in the cosmos. After thousands of years of isolation, we can’t expect everyone to just instantly jump onboard an alliance with strange shifters from other planets,” Dylan interjected.

“You speak truth, Dylan, but that changes nothing. We need to get this handled.”

Alex straightened in his chair. "So, what are we doing about it?"

Jack looked at him pointedly. "You know exactly what we need to do, Alex. Or rather, what you need to do."

The room fell silent as all eyes turned to him.

"For fucks sake," Alex growled. "Not this again. Look I can’t make a mate just appear. You know it doesn’t work like that."

"Oh, it doesn’t?" Jason said, leaning forward. "Look, we've all done our part. Every single one of us has practically bent over backwards to secure our mates. Except you."

“Do I seriously have to tell a big bad dragon warrior that he is not a helpless baby? I found a dating coach...and then for the sake of the team I paid Sierra to pretend to be my mate... you think that was easy?” Jack stood with his hands on his hips.

“And do you think I liked searching through online dating profiles to secure Cindy?” Dylan erupted. “Me, a proud Jaguar warrior reduced to looking online for a mate! But I did it!”

“How about the torture of finding out your mate is the one female you are forbidden to touch?” Brian spit.

“Or your nanny!” Jason adds.

“Okay, okay, I get it...”

“Do you?” Jack asks. “Look, we need you, okay? The planet needs you! The galaxy for that matter. I am just saying... be open to possibility. Do you think any of us expected our mates to show up like they did?”

“I’m guessing that would be a ‘no’?” Alex managed.

“That would be a ‘hell no,’ Dylan finally spat. “You think I ever imagined in my wildest dreams that my mate would be a deer shifter? A DEER shifter!”

“At least she’s not a rabbit!” Jason quipped.

“Very funny,” Brian quipped as he delivered a solid elbow to his teammates gut.

“Point is Cindy IS my true mate, and the best thing that ever happened to me. But we would have never met had I not put myself out there!”

“That was fate,” Alex shot back, maybe a little more defensively than he intended.

“Absolutely, it was!” Jack said with conviction.

“You ever think you have to do your part to give fate a fighting chance?” Dylan added.

"I'm working on it," Alex muttered. He knew full well they were right.

Dylan snorted. "Are you? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're doing everything possible to avoid it."

"Maybe he needs help," Brian suggested, his tone softer. "We could arrange some introductions. I know the mating ways don’t necessarily come naturally to a warrior. There are plenty of female shifters who would jump at the chance?—"

"I don't need a matchmaker," Alex snapped. "I need time."

"Time is exactly what we don't have," Jack said firmly. "I got another message from the Dragon Council this morning. Your unmated status is becoming a major issue. You heard the others. The jaguars aren't the only ones threatening to pull out. Some are suggesting the dragon planet—your planet—isn't fully committed to the alliance."

Alex's dragon roared inside him, bristling at the implication. "It's absurd. What the hell does my mated status have to do with our mission?"

"You know perfectly well that it is crucial,” Jason said. "We did not create the old ways, but we damn well have to follow them. Tradition is everything in the politics between our peoples. The fact that the dragon champion—the representative of the planet that initiated this whole alliance—remains unmated sends a message. If you can’t even hold to this most basic historical convention then how are they to trust you in an alliance where so much is at stake?"

“We did not make the rules Alex, but we must abide by them. You know this,” Jack said in a tone that ended all debate.

“Fine, I get it,” Alex stood up abruptly, towering over the table. "So what do you suggest? That I grab the first female I see and claim her as my mate? That I?—"

A sharp knock at the door interrupted his tirade. Cindy poked her head in, her expression apologetic.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said, glancing between them.

“Speak of the devil!” Jason quipped. “Or should I say ‘deer?”

“Huh?” She gave them a suspicious look.

“It’s nothing honey,” Dylan said, dismissing Jason with a searing look. “What is it?”

Cindy, having recovered her poise delivered her message. "Lester sent me to get you all. He says it's urgent—something about the portal readings."

Jack sighed and nodded. "We'll be right there." As Cindy withdrew, he turned back to Alex. "This conversation isn't over. But Lester's news may take priority for now."

Alex followed the others into the hallway, relieved for the interruption but still seething with what amounted to frustration. Dylan fell into step beside him.

"You know they're right," Dylan said quietly.

"No comment," Alex growled.

"I've been where you are, Alex. You know I have. Fighting it doesn't help." Dylan lowered his voice further. "Look, when I first met Cindy, I tried to deny what my jaguar was telling me. Almost lost her because of it."

Alex frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Cindy told me how you reacted to the new recruit," Dylan said. "The gecko girl. Your dragon responded to her, didn't it?"

Alex felt his dragon instantly roll over and get to its feet. Instantly on guard at the very mention of his... of her. Lucy... A complicated storm of emotions and sensations threatened to overwhelm him again. Desire. Annoyance... heat... and danger...

With a herculean effort he suppressed it all.

"My dragon ‘responds” to a lot of things." Alex muttered. "Most of them aren't worth listening to. He’s like a dog constantly ready to chase every squirrel he sees."

Dylan shook his head. "That's where you're wrong. Our beasts know —sometimes before we do. Yes, they can be restless. But when he knows he knows. And so do you."

They found Lester and Jessa in the monitoring room, huddled over a computer terminal, arguing in hushed tones.

"The energy signatures are consistent," Jessa was saying. "But your interpretation is premature."

"What else could it be?" Lester countered, adjusting his glasses. "The pattern matches exactly what we saw before the last portal breach."

"What's going on?" Jack asked as they filed in.

Lester spun around, his face lighting up despite the apparent gravity of the situation. "Ah! Good, you're all here." He gestured to the monitors displaying pulsing waveforms. "As you know, I've been tracking anomalous energy signatures across multiple potential portal access points. The patterns suggest the Krita might be locating additional points of entry."

"Additional portals?" Alex asked, his earlier irritation giving way to concern. "How many?"

“And where?” Jack added.

"That's the problem," Jessa interjected. "We can't be certain. The equipment is experimental, and the readings are... difficult to interpret conclusively."

"But if they find a way to open multiple portals simultaneously," Lester continued, "they could attack in several locations at once. Our forces would be completely overwhelmed."

“Oh, is that it? Glad there’s no bad news.” Dylan said dryly under his breath.

The implications hung heavy in the air. They'd been planning their defense based on controlling the known portal locations. If the Krita could bypass those...

Lester slumped in his chair, actually looking tired for once. The man had boundless enthusiasm it seemed. “By all that’s holy, could you imagine if after all the effort the Shifter League went to first just finding, and then reactivate each of the portals to your planets ... not to mention helping to forge the alliance... and then all the effort each planet has gone to send you here to organize the defense of earth ... It would be catastrophic to have it all undone because I can't make this blasted equipment work properly."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Lester," Jack said, his tone softening. "Without you and the League making that first breakthrough, none of us would even be here. We'd all still be isolated on our respective planets, oblivious to each other's existence. And then the Krita would most certainly be picking us off, one after another, destroying all in their path as they went.”

Lester adjusted his glasses with a small nod of acknowledgment. "Still, the stakes are rather high, wouldn't you say?"

“That is one way to put it,” Alex allowed.

"What about our recruitment efforts?" Jack asked, turning to Cindy. "How are the humans progressing? It would be nice to have some more bodies."

She exchanged a glance with Dylan before answering. "We're making progress with the furries. Though their connection to their animal personas gives them an advantage over other humans, it’s still slow going."

“I still don’t know what you all expect from a bunch of what are they called?”

“Cosplayers” Lester supplied.

“We know the Krita’s magic renders the earth’s standard weapons totally ineffective. Shifters are our only hope.”

"That may be so, but most still can't complete a full shift," Dylan added. "They can feel their inner animal, but the physical transformation remains beyond their reach. And what do we have... maybe a few hundred if we are lucky?"

“Look we can’t just roll over. We all know what we are up against, but we have to at least try.”

"Fine, but we need them combat-ready," Alex said. "Like yesterday.”

"We're doing everything we can," Cindy insisted. "But you remember what I said, belief is the real key. That can’t be rushed or faked. It’s a process to build it up. Usually, at least. Once they really know who and what they really are and what they can become – through and through - then and only then, the transformation becomes possible."

"And most humans have spent their entire lives being told that shapeshifting is impossible, indeed that many things aren’t possible..." Lester added. "Overcoming that mental barrier isn't always so easy."

"Easy or not, it’s time we may not have," Alex muttered.

The meeting continued, strategies proposed and rejected, contingency plans discussed. Throughout it all, Alex found his mind repeatedly drifting back to Lucy Watkins. There had been something about the way she'd defended her gecko identity—a fire that seemed at odds with her otherwise eager-to-please persona.

It wasn’t just that she seemed to be a rather inconvenient point of fascination for his dragon.

Something else just doesn't add up with her.

His dragon rumbled at the mere thought of her, regardless of context.

As the others filed out after the meeting concluded, Jack caught Alex's arm. "We need to finish our conversation."

Alex sighed but nodded, following Jack to a quiet corner.

"The mate situation is becoming critical. The Dragon Council is getting impatient. Everything is riding on this Alex. You’ve had as much time as the rest of us. We need results."

"I'm aware," Alex replied tensely.

"Are you? Because I'm starting to wonder." Jack crossed his arms. "Every other Dream Team member has found their mate. Meanwhile, you find excuses at every turn. Everything depends on it, Alex. Everything. And Alex, you are putting me in a very awkward position having to constantly remind you of your duty."

The weight of Jack's words hung between them. Alex knew he was right, but admitting it was another matter.

"I'll handle it," Alex said finally.

"See that you do." Jack gave him one last meaningful look before walking away.

Alone in the corridor, Alex's thoughts drifted again to Lucy Watkins. For a fleeting second, he imagined what it might be like if she...

That's ridiculous , he told himself firmly, shutting down the thought before it could fully form.

And wasting precious mental energy. He needed to focus on real possibilities for securing a mate.

Lucy Watkins is another matter.

And she's hiding something.

He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. That’s how it was with shifters at times.

She's a potential threat. And I let her in.

Great, as if he didn’t have enough to worry about - he had to find a mate, and keep an eye on this little gecko.

This troublesome gecko.

By sheer force of will he shut down his dragon before it could roar a complaint.

But he couldn’t prevent the rush of electricity that surged to his core as he remembered the way they had locked eyes...

Or the curve of her hips...

He felt his manhood begin to swell again...

Damn it.