Page 4 of Inferno (Drake Security Book 4)

VALENTINO

Montrose gives me a flirty smile, full of filthy promises that my dick is aching to cash in on. Then, he licks a hot stripe over the pulse point in my throat, singeing my flesh and drawing a gut-deep moan from me. I press into him so he can feel the throbbing outline of my cock against his, and between one blink and the next, he’s gone. Gone gone. I stumble into the brick side of the building with a muttered curse, and the sound of Montrose’s laughter echoes on the breeze as I blink away the haze the hot little demon managed to cast over me for a second time in twelve hours.

“Dude, where the hell did you go?” Mac calls out, and I huff through my nose, expelling a flicker of flame and smoke in an attempt to clear Montrose’s dizzying scent.

“I’m here,” I answer gruffly, pushing away from the wall and reaching down to adjust my cock so my erection will be less obvious, because I have a feeling it’s not about to settle down anytime soon. Not with the promise of meeting up with the demon again tonight.

Mac appears in the mouth of the alleyway with his head cocked, his eyes darting around the space and his nostrils flaring. Can he smell Montrose? I bristle at the thought of anyone else inhaling the pure sex scent of him. I want to rush forward and put a hand over Mac’s nose before he can get even a single whiff of my demon… the demon. Not mine. He wrinkles his nose and waves his hand in front of his face to clear the odor.

“Blech, it smells like rotting garbage and burning flesh. Did somebody torch a body back here or what?” He gags.

I look around, noticing the space itself for the first time. The alley sits between two businesses with apartments over each of them. Two overflowing dumpsters are obviously the source of the offensive smell Mac is talking about. I just didn’t notice them over Montrose earlier. As for the burning flesh smell, I think Mac needs his nose checked, because I can’t catch so much as a whiff of that.

I narrow my eyes as a thought occurs to me.

“Could your demon be here? Xazedose?” I look around, not exactly expecting some horned hell-beast to pop out of thin air and throttle my little brother, but not ruling the possibility out either.

He shrugs and rubs the back of his neck.

“Maybe,” he murmurs. “You think he would show up in the middle of the day, on a busy street like this?” He looks over his shoulder, then back at me, biting his lip and looking like more of a helpless whelp than I’ve seen him look in a century, when he actually was just a wee dragon still tripping over his own wings.

“That was kind of the point, bro,” I remind him, stepping out of the alley and slinging my arm around his shoulders. “We wanted to lure him out, remember?” I inhale deeper and shift my eyes for a better look at the street around us, studying every person who bustles by, searching for any signs that they might be a demon in disguise.

“Yeah,” he says, still not sounding as cavalier about the idea as he did earlier when he was safe and sound at the compound.

“You’ll be fine. I’m not going to let a demon lay his claws on you,” I promise, and Mac nods.

When I’m satisfied that none of the bougie shoppers with their overpriced coffee are actually Xazedose, I guide my brother through the front door of Timeless Treasures.

A barrage of odors hits me as soon as we step inside: dust, aged leather, decaying paper, and so many types of metal and precious stones that it would make your head spin. My dragon purrs, the sound rumbling deep in my chest, and Mac moans out loud. Same reaction, just a hell of a lot less chill.

“Pretty,” he breathes in a deep, reverent voice that’s pure dragon, his gaze snagging on the jewelry case.

I tighten my arm around his shoulders to hold him back.

“Easy,” I rumble. “You can’t loot Dempsey’s shop. Lake will hold you down while Hem eviscerates you.”

Mac huffs, and I chuckle at his youthful frustration.

As my dragon finishes sifting through the symphony of interesting smells, I pick out one in particular from the mess and scrunch my nose.

He seems to pick up on it at exactly the same time, making a similar face. “It smells like?—”

Before he can finish that sentence, Dempsey bursts out of a back room, his face flushed and his glasses askew. He’s tucking his shirt in with one hand and attempting to tame his messy hair with the other.

“Welcome to Timeless… Oh, it’s you guys.” He sighs in relief, and Hemingway saunters through the door behind him, looking just as disheveled, but without the hint of flustered embarrassment at getting caught.

“Excellent timing. Really, top notch,” he grumbles, and I bark out a laugh.

“After all the times you’ve cockblocked me over the centuries, bro, you’re long overdue for payback.”

Dempsey’s eyes go wide, and he pushes his glasses up again nervously. “You didn’t—We weren’t…”

While he stumbles through a pointless denial, the stairs at the back of the shop creak and Lake appears from the upstairs office. He’s ridiculously overdressed for whatever office work he was doing in the dusty old apartment over Dempsey’s antique shop. He has on a peacock blue suit with a ruffled lace shirt underneath it, and diamond earrings dangling from each lobe, no doubt straight from Nico’s hoard.

“Oh, are you two done fucking?” he asks casually, noticing Hem and Dempsey.

I let a slow, cocky grin spread over my lips, aimed pointedly at my brother.

“Don’t worry about it, Bijou, they’re just jealous.” Hem flashes a toothy smirk right back at me and I roll my eyes.

“Trust me, I get all the action I can handle.” I grab my dick crudely and waggle my eyebrows. I stop short of bragging about my hot date with a demon tonight. Under normal circumstances, I would happily rub his nose in every little detail, but for some reason, I don’t want him to know about Montrose. Maybe because we’re dealing with demon drama already, and it feels kind of tacky to nail one while our baby bro is hiding from another. Not that any amount of social faux pas is going to stop me from making it tonight, but apparently, it’ll keep me from gloating too loudly about it.

Speaking of Mac…

During our little verbal sparring, he slipped away from me. I whip my head around, searching the shop for him. I wasn’t kidding when I told him that he’d end up on shit lists he doesn’t want to be on if he lets his sticky fingers get the best of him in here. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the threat of disembowelment is enough to keep him in check.

I spot him over by the far wall, studying a wall of shelves containing an array of small statues and antique knickknacks.

“Mac,” I growl a warning, and he holds both hands up without bothering to look back at me.

“Just looking,” he says.

“Keep it that way,” Hem says with a growl of warning in his voice.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t—” Dempsey starts to say, and Hem and I both bark out laughter before he can finish his sentence.

Lake’s high heels click against the wood floor as he crosses the shop to sidle up next to Mac.

“Nico tells me you’ve got a bit of a problem with taking things that don’t belong to you, baby dragon.”

“All dragons do. I don’t know why everybody is so on my case about something that’s just natural instinct. Are you all giving Arson’s new mate shit for shedding on the furniture?” Mac grumbles and stuffs both hands into his pockets.

“Yes,” I answer blandly.

“And just because it’s instinctual doesn’t mean you don’t have to make an effort to control it,” Hemingway points out. “We all have urges, we just do our best not to act on them.”

“For the love of fucking fire, if I wanted a lecture I would have run to Mom and Dad instead of you guys.” He turns back towards us and grits his teeth.

Lake reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. Mac tries to shrug it off, but Lake is way too stubborn to be dislodged that easily. He tightens his grip until I’m sure his manicured nails are digging into Mac’s shoulder through his t-shirt.

“Your brothers love you. Sometimes that means getting a little bit of a lecture. Live with it,” he says sternly.

“Whatever.” Mac jerks his shoulder again, and this time Lake lets him go. With a childish scowl on his face, he stalks out of the store.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I forgot how moody we all were at his age.”

“That boy needs a daddy to put him over their knee.” Lake says. I sputter a laugh and Dempsey makes a choking sound. Lake shrugs and smooths his hands over his suit jacket. “What? We were all thinking it.”

“Uh, no. I definitely was not thinking about my baby brother playing kinky sex games. Thanks for the mental image though.” I give an exaggerated shudder. “I guess I’d better go after him, seeing as how there’s a pissed off demon hunting him and he apparently swings wildly between cowering like a whelp and recklessly flipping the bird at the concept of safety.”

“Good luck with all that,” Hem says, shaking his head and grinning.

“Thanks. I’m going to need it.” I start towards the door.

“Oh, by the way, I’m reading up on demons,” Dempsey calls out before I reach it. “I figured we should have a family meeting…”

He looks around at all of us and blushes. I get why Hem fell for the shy little nerd. There’s something sweet and innocent about him that begs for protection.

“Good call. Let’s all meet for dinner at Lord’s place to make a game plan.” I leave them to sort out the details and text our brothers. I’ve got a moody rogue dragon to track down.

MONTROSE

I figuredI would hang around while the dragons visited the antique shop and wait for an opportunity to mess with the thieving twerp a little. I didn’t expect him to make it quite so easy for me though.

I’m seated on the awning over the shop door with a mild glamour around me to keep anyone from looking in my direction, swinging my feet and enjoying the warm sunlight on the soft flesh of this form. Sunshine is one of the many reasons I prefer the human realm to the demon one. It’s not the only one, of course. There’s also the abundance of mortals with all their delicious emotions, freedom from bullshit demon politics, and much better fashion. But sunshine is in the top five.

The thief storms out of the shop, huffing smoke like he’s an overheated car and grumbling under his voice. He smells like a smoldering bonfire, the scaly lizard scent that distinguishes dragons from other species, and an absolutely mouthwatering jumble of emotions. Shame, rage, a hint of affection that comes with a tasty side of resentment…

I lick my lips and hop down from my perch, landing easily on the sidewalk below without a sound. With my glamour still in place, none of the humans passing by can see me, but they can feel me instinctually, and they avoid me. I savor the tiny pricks of fear that spike their heart rates even though they have no clue what they’re scared of—not consciously anyways. There’s something deep in their animal brain that recognizes danger… recognizes me.

I follow the young dragon, picking up my pace so I fall into step just a few paces behind him. I lift my glamour a fraction, just enough to let my scent start wafting out to reach him. He’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts that it takes nearly a block before he sniffs loudly and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He trips over his next step but catches himself quickly, straightening his shoulders and purposefully projecting an air of confidence that doesn’t reach his scent at all.

I smirk and greedily gobble up the morsels of fear that pulse around him.

I could reach out and grab him right now. I could drag him to the demon realm and back to my apartment where I could pluck one scale at a time from his body until he decides he’s had enough and wants to give back what’s mine. I don’t think his big brother would like that much though.

I frown at the thought. It would be a shame to make Valentino angry with me before we’ve had a chance for more fun. Besides, I don’t need to physically harm the twerp to teach him a lesson.

He looks over his shoulder and I project a terrifying image of my true form directly into his mind, with snarling teeth and glowing eyes that are sure to haunt his nightmares. He shouts and trips over his own feet again in his haste to spin around. The pants-pissing fear that rolls off of him is so delectable I nearly moan out loud as I lap it up. Every bit of his exposed skin ripples with scales and a burst of flames surges past his lips. Lucky for the out-of-control baby dragon, my glamour is strong enough to keep the humans passing by from noticing his little display. I drink in every second of it though.

“Just leave me alone. Please. I’m sorry, okay?”

I let out a deep, menacing laugh that he can hear, even if he still can’t see me standing over him.

“Sorry?” I tut with a hiss. “It’s not enough to be sorry, naughty lizard. You need to learn not to take things that don’t belong to you.”

He whimpers.

“Mac,” the familiar, sultry voice of my new favorite dragon interrupts what was gearing up to be a top-notch villain monologue. I swallow the rest of my words and lock my glamour down tighter so Valentino won’t know I’m here.

His footsteps thunder against the sidewalk as he sprints up to rescue his menace of a baby brother. Mac. Twerp suits him much better if you ask me.

“Tino,” he sniffles and scrambles to his feet, launching himself into his big brother’s arms as the other dragon looks around with a protective, ragey look that makes my cock perk up. Want to sink your teeth into me, dragon? I’ve been a very bad demon.

“Was he here?” Valentino growls, his voice several octaves deeper than usual. I wonder what he looks like with his scales out and his dragon close to the surface. I bet it’s glorious.

The twerp nods and then seems to realize that he’s crying in his brother’s arms like a small child. He wipes his hands over his face and steps away, putting on a brave face.

“I was about to roast him when you ran up. I just couldn’t see him.”

I snort a laugh, then slap a hand over my mouth when they both whip their heads in my direction. Oops.

Valentino narrows his eyes and sniffs the air.

“He’s still here,” he says through gritted teeth.

I’m here, gorgeous. I smirk, drawing close to him without touching, just barely resisting the urge to drag my tongue over his skin again for another taste.

Later.

“Come on.” Valentino grabs his brother’s arm. “We need to talk about why you shouldn’t run off on your own when you’re being hunted by a goddamn demon. And then we’re going to sit down for a family meeting and make a plan for how to keep you from ending up dancing in a cage with a collar around your neck at a demon strip club.”

Ooh, now there’s a punishment I hadn’t considered. Let’s call that plan B. The twerp would make a pretty pet, and I’m sure he would bring in enough tips to more than cover the cost of what he stole from me. Except that the cost of the item isn’t what’s important. Of all my things he could have stolen, he took the only one that actually means anything.

With a smirk and a sigh, I enjoy the sight of my dragon’s tight ass as he leads his brother away.