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“W hen are you coming back?”

I blink at the warm, creamy yellow light that slides into the guestroom where I’m sprawled. I roll over and my wing flails drunkenly, falling over my face. I realize I didn’t even make it under the covers; I’ve just been lying on top of them all night—or a couple of hours.

What time is it, and whose annoying voice is grating in my ear?

“Hello?”

“Graham! When are you coming back to town?”

My brain is addled from last night’s excesses at Jax Alley, but the shady roadhouse has nothing on the bars in the CrossRealms. I played too much pool and drank too many whiskeys. There were no fights. No vampires trying to lure humans away. No succubi plying their trade in the parking lot.

I’m in halfling form, and I don’t know why. It’s unsettling, and it’s taking me forever to understand what the voice in my ear is asking or who it is. “Who is this?”

“This is Lawder.”

“Mr. Lawder, hi.” Mr. Lawder is my boss’ right hand man, a human who doesn’t know a damn thing about magic, even though it surrounds him.

“The new guy sucks. He got beat up on his first job, and the client legged it.”

“I’ll be back sometime in June. Sorry the new guy sucks. I don’t have any pointers for him.” Because he’s a human. I’m a dragon. Even in human form, I’m stronger. When things get bad, talons pop out, and switching forms is always an option.

I look at my arms, at the dark purple scales that are slowly returning to human skin. I never fall asleep in halfling form.

Because you’re not safe in the CrossRealms, ass. You hide who you are so that worse powers don’t find you.

“Well, the boss is pissed that you went without any warning, and he wants you to do him a favor, or he says you can’t come back on the payroll.”

I sit up with rage bursting in my chest. It's not wise to mess about with a hungover dragon at the best of times, but for some two-bit local crime lord incubus to threaten to take away my job when I've worked for him without complaint for months? No. Scales ripple as they burst through human skin and replace soft, smooth beige with a coating that runs from aubergine to lilac. My wings are no longer lazy sails but stand up proud and armored, living battle shields. I don't need to be threatened. I can't very well tell this puny human that an incubus has nothing on a dragon in terms of brute force, but it’s true.

Tell him to stick his threats where the sun don’t shine, that’s my first instinct.

And do what? Stay here and play the doting uncle?

Go home and admit you need help? Beg the clan elders to arrange a match for you?

I sigh. “What does he want me to do?” I ask.

“Nothing big. The boss has a friend, Joey Genovese, who is trying to get a little piece of the California market from the Argento family. You know them?”

“Nope.”

“Mafia, small time. Genovese’s son is supposed to marry the Argento girl, but she ran off, and it’s making Genovese look bad. In my opinion, it makes Argento look worse. What kind of man can’t control his daughter?”

My tail lashes. Dragon women would shred his hide for that remark. They’re never controlled. They act out of loyalty. Win a dragoness’ heart, and she’ll burn the world for you.

My cocks ache, both of them that I have in this form, both seeking the warm embrace of flesh on flesh, or the rough drag of scale on scale. Give me a woman who’s soft for me, but shows her tough skin and her claws to everyone else...

“What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Well, you know the boss has some friends in low places. The girl left Manhattan yesterday afternoon, and old Argento says she’s run away. What’s more, he’s not helping hunt for her. All his soldiers are suits and fronts, pudgy old men with cigars and deli bellies, smoking in the back rooms and cooking the books.”

I snort at the image he conjures up. I don’t like Lawder, but he has a way with words. “So Genovese asked our boss to help him find the girl?”

“Like I said, friends in low places. Best we can tell, this pretty young thing got cold feet and took a train into Binghamton last night. I made a couple calls, and nothing but regional rail departures went out last night or this morning. She has to be in the tri-state area, and you... Well, I think you’re useless. A repo man, just muscle. But the boss said you’re supposed to look for her using your special gifts. He said if she disappeared near your old stomping grounds, you’d find her. So get on it, or you’re on his shit list and off the payroll. Got it?”

“I got it.” I hang up, puzzled.

I know that my boss didn’t hire a private detective to track the girl. He’s using magic, calling in favors from beings that associate with him, probably none of them on the side of good. Binghamton is the local travel hub. Pine Ridge is too small to have an airport, but we have a train station, and we’re right on the regional rail line. If this little mafia princess escaped, and suddenly an incubus’ evil friends can’t “see” her? There’s really only one possibility.

That’s why he had Lawder call me. He knows she stepped into magical “protected” airspace.

Pine Ridge.

Pine Ridge, home of one of the smallest but most powerful covens on the eastern seaboard. Pine Ridge, where the monsters have united to form a Night Watch and go around playing happy suburbanites by day and warding, charming, and hexing the balls off of anything evil that sets foot over the city limits by night.

Shit, she’s here .

I’ll find her, talk to her, calm her down, and get her back into the arms of her mafia prince. I’ll keep my job and ask for—no, demand —a big fat bonus, too.

I wrap my fist over my amulet, slipping easily into human form. “I call upon the clan’s powers,” I mutter. My father would have been ashamed. The powers of the amulet are for protection, and calling on them for selfish needs would earn such a scolding, an entire sermon.

But I already do things a member of an honorable clan shouldn’t do.

Guilt nibbles, and I push it away. “I call upon the clan’s powers. Virtute Mac Catháin. Strength of the descendants of Kane, the warriors. Grant me luck instead of strength today. Help me find the girl.”

A voice in the back of my head scoffs. Like you believe in that. You’ve asked that amulet to help you find a bride, a mate, for over a year.

Not to find love. Just a mate, a different, bitter-sounding voice points out.

Well, I’m in Pine Ridge now. I’ll have better luck with all the Ley Lines singing underneath me, I think, hurling myself out of bed. I have to go to work, to the landscaping business I once planned on running with Ian. Put in an appearance and then go to the coffee shop. If anyone new has come to town, someone at The Pine Loft will know.

***

“I T’S BEEN A LONG TIME since you’ve been home,” Georgia, the bubbly blonde who runs the coffee shop with her brother, greets me with a smile and a wave. I notice that one hand now sports a glittering wedding band set.

This place ought to be named Noah’s Ridge—everyone pairs up, two-by-two.

“This isn’t home for me. Just filling in for Ian and Vanessa. One large, black.”

“Anything with that?”

“Are those scones in the case?” Ian’s money burns a hole in my pocket.

“With clotted cream and lemon curd, $5.50.”

“Damn it. I can’t resist that. It’s bloody difficult to get a good scone where I’ve been staying. Not that I crave them or anything.”

I don’t. I pull the coat of my collar up tighter and feel my amulet sting against my skin. Y ou could tell Georgia you miss scones. You could say that you remember having them with your mother, that she’d always make them on your birthday, and that you’d kill for a good Victoria sandwich with nice, light golden sponge and far too much whipped cream.

You don’t have to be tough here.

Well, rather... You don’t have to prove it. Here, people seem to rest in their softness a bit.

Which is rubbish. Not for me. What’s the point of being a monster if you can’t show it off?

“Just the one?” Georgia asks, setting a plate in front of me, a perfectly golden, shiny-topped scone with two little tubs beside it, one with sunny yellow curd and one with a dollop of cream.

“Yes, just the one.” Don’t get soft. Don’t get spoiled. “Seems to be a fair number of newcomers who can... see the sights,” I whisper, looking around the coffee shop. There’s a rusalka wrapped around some buff guy in workout clothes. Bryce Frobisher, the yeti who plays hockey for the local minor league hockey team, has a human girl in his lap and a tourist’s guide to Brazil in one massive, furry hand. And then there’s the thick, sexy piece of confection—a round little brunette with a bottom that I’d like to bite into—kissing the Orc chef on the cheek as he brings out a fresh tray of doughnuts.

“You’re not kidding. I mean, a few people a year. I suppose it’s surprising if you look at the world as a whole, but not at Pine Ridge. People who spend more time with the paranormal have more chance of getting up close and personal with it.”

The rusalka behind me lets out a breathy little moan that sends chills of desire up my spine. It’s been way too long...

“Some more close and personal than the others. Forgive Marina. She’s permanently set on high heat,” Georgia chuckles.

“Any newcomers who’ve arrived in the past day? I’m supposed to meet a friend of a friend—pretty, brown hair, expensive clothes?” I hold out my cell phone and show Georgia the picture that Lawder sent.

“Ooh, a special friend of a friend?” Georgia hints.

“Not even a little. Have you seen her? I know that this place has more news than cable.”

“I don’t recognize her, but—Claire, come here, sweetie.”

I groan inside as the delicious brunette who kissed the Orc comes up to me—and she’s even more beautiful in person.

“This is my sister-in-law, Claire. Claire, this is Graham Kane, Ian’s younger brother. He used to live in Pine Ridge and help run the landscaping business.”

I swallow and nod, trying not to drool, viciously reminding myself that I don’t want a human woman—and I surely don’t want this one. She belongs to Georgie Fenclan, a grumpy green beast of a man who would gladly skin me and serve dragon souffle if I made eyes at his gorgeous, plump little wife.

She’d be a perfect mouthful...

Claire saves me from death by irate Orc by catching sight of the screen I hold towards her. “Oh, Angie! We met her last night.”

“Angie Argento is a friend of a friend. I heard she was coming to town and might need help.”

“She didn’t say what was going on, but yeah, I get the feeling she was in a tight spot.” Claire nods. “Libby and Milo took her under their wings. I told her she’d come to the right town for a fresh start. I did, and look how it turned out.” She beams and leans against Georgia.

“That’s marvelous. Any idea where she’s staying or how I can get in touch?”

“There’s only one motel in town, Graham. Country Pines.”

“But humans...” I trail off, aware of a line forming behind me.

“Libby took her there. Libby’s husband is Milo,” Georgia says, and to an outsider, it wouldn’t make sense, but to me, it does.

Libby’s husband is a minotaur. She can see him, so she must be able to see the magically shielded Country Pines.

“I’ll see if I can catch her there. Thanks, ladies.” I bow and take my plate and mug to a window table. I’d love to savor this scone, but who knows how long my prey will wait in the trap?

And what am I supposed to do if she doesn’t want to go back to her boyfriend? I have a business to babysit.

Call Lawder. Have someone else handle “convincing” her. All I have to do is locate her.