Page 18 of The Cauldronball Run (Outlaw Country #2)

J .J

The desert highway stretched endlessly ahead, but J.J. wasn't looking at the road. His attention kept shifting to the rearview mirror, where headlights had been steadily gaining for the last ten miles. Multiple sets. Moving in formation.

Cops? His stomach clenched. If Grizz had found him now, when he was this close to Farrah—

The CB radio hissed to life.

"Green Machine, this is Flame Rider. Don't panic, it's us. All of us."

J.J.'s hands loosened on the wheel. "What do you mean all of us?”

Engines roared, and in the sunset, J.J. saw the Cauldronball racers eating up the distance between them. “What are you all doing here?"

"Coming to help, obviously." Torch's gravelly voice carried through the static. "That bear bastard thinks he can lock up racers just because he's got a badge? Not happening."

"Nobody messes with the Cauldronball Run," Blaze added. "Grizz wants a war? He's got one."

The industrial area materialized out of the desert like a collection of metal boxes forgotten by giant children. No streetlights, no security cameras, just warehouses baking in the residual heat of the Arizona day.

J.J. pulled behind an abandoned building, killing his lights. The others followed, engines dying one by one until only the banshee's perfectly silent hearse remained running—though no one could hear it.

Through the partial bond, Farrah pulsed like a beacon. She was close, maybe a hundred yards away, her emotions a mixture of resignation and fading hope. She thought he'd abandoned her. The knowledge sat in his chest like swallowed glass.

"Two guards," Torch reported, returning from reconnaissance. "Frost demons, looking miserable."

J.J. almost laughed. Frost demons in Phoenix in August. They had to be questioning every life choice that had led them to this moment.

"They're standing by the main entrance, sweating through their uniforms," Blaze added. "One keeps trying to create ice and it keeps melting immediately."

The warehouse itself was exactly what J.J. expected—corrugated metal walls, no windows except for some dirty glass near the roof, single story. A temporary holding facility for Grizz's catches until he could process proper paperwork.

Through those high windows, shadows moved. The prisoners. His enhanced hearing picked up voices—the trolls arguing about something, Bondo complaining dramatically, and there, underneath it all, Farrah telling someone to stay calm.

His mate. Locked up. The rage that rose in his chest was pure orc, ancient and territorial. But Farrah needed him thinking, not just reacting.

"Ideas?" he asked the assembled group.

"We could burn the door down," Torch suggested.

"Set the whole warehouse on fire, more likely," the banshee observed in her otherworldly monotone.

"I could make them see things," one of the pixies offered. "Confusion magic. Make them think we're federal agents or something."

"Or," Blaze said with a grin that showed too many teeth, "we use their weakness against them."

J.J. looked at the dragon biker. "Which is?"

"They're frost demons. In Phoenix. In August." Blaze's grin widened. "What do you think happens when dragons breathe fire at creatures made of ice?"

The plan formed quickly. It wasn't sophisticated, but it didn't need to be. Frost demons half-melted from desert heat weren't going to put up much of a fight against determined dragons.

They moved toward the warehouse, keeping low despite the lack of witnesses. The industrial area was completely deserted, not even homeless camps in this heat. Just them and their targets.

As they approached, J.J. could hear the demons complaining.

"—absolute bullshit," one was saying. "Hazard pay doesn't cover this. I'm literally evaporating."

"Stop whining," the other replied, though his voice was equally miserable. "Job's a job."

"Job's a death sentence. I've lost ten pounds in water weight since noon."

J.J. positioned himself by the side door while the dragons flanked the main entrance. The pixies hung back, ready to add confusion to chaos. The banshee just stood there, which was somehow worse than if she'd been actively threatening.

He tested the door handle. Locked, but the lock was hardware store quality, not designed to stop someone with orcish strength. One solid pull and—

The door came free with a shriek of metal that echoed through the warehouse.

"What the hell—" the first demon started.

J.J. stepped through the doorway and roared.

The sound that came from his throat was the battle cry of his ancestors, orcs who'd fought dragons barehanded and won. The warehouse windows actually rattled, and both frost demons stumbled backward.

Then Torch and Blaze burst in, fire streaming from their mouths. The temperature in the warehouse jumped instantly, and one of the frost demons screamed. "I'm melting! I'm literally melting!"

The pixies' confusion magic hit next, and suddenly both demons were spinning in circles, swatting at things that weren't there.

"Bees! Giant bees!" one shouted.

"Those aren't bees, you idiot, those are—oh god, why are there so many?"

Through the chaos, J.J. finally saw the prisoners clearly. The trolls were chained to a support beam but seemed more interested in critiquing the rescue than participating.

"Bah," the first troll spat. "Should smash wall. Door is for tiny humans."

"Where is the crushing?" the second troll demanded. "Where is the breaking of enemy bones? This just fire and running."

"We do better smashing." the first agreed. "More destruction. More blood."

Then J.J. saw her. Farrah was standing near the back, watching the chaos with wide eyes. When their gazes met, the partial bond flared so bright it made his chest ache. She was safe. She was here. She was his.

She ran to him, and the moment she hit his chest, J.J.

's world righted itself. The bond snapped back into place with an almost audible click, her relief flooding through him along with his overwhelming need to never let her go again.

She smelled like metal and fear and underneath it all, like home.

His arms wrapped around her completely, and he could feel her heart hammering against his chest, matching his own racing pulse.

"You came back," she said against his chest.

"I never should have left," he growled, holding her tighter.

Four more miserable-looking demons in security uniforms stumbled through the door, already sweating.

"Finally," one of the frost demons said. "Backup.”

But then the demon priests came in and flung holy water over the new guys and pandemonium went on.

The trolls snapped their chains.

"Now we show proper rescue," the troll bellowed. "With punching, kicking and biting."

He grabbed a frost demon and hurled him at the other guards like a bowling ball. The demons scattered, one slipping on his own ice puddle and sliding into a wall with a wet splat.

"My turn," the second troll roared. He picked up a metal folding chair and used it like a fly swatter on a demon who was trying to create an ice shield. The shield shattered, the chair bent, and the demon went down with a whimper.

Bondo, freed somehow during the chaos, attempted what he probably thought was a sophisticated combat maneuver. "As you can see," he said to no one in particular while spinning, "my extensive training in Monaco has prepared me for—"

He tripped over his own cape and crashed into a demon.

"Precisely as I calculated," Bondo said from the floor, adjusting his cufflinks. "The Monte Carlo Stumble. Classic misdirection."

One demon tried to freeze Blaze, who simply breathed harder, turning the demon's ice attack into steam. The demon ended up in his own personal sauna, gasping and red-faced.

"This violates workplace safety regulations," he wheezed.

The pixies had convinced two demons they were fighting each other instead of the rescuers. They threw ice at empty air while shouting threats at hallucinations.

"Take that," a frost demon yelled at nothing, swinging wildly.

Through it all, the banshee stood perfectly still in the corner. One demon looked directly at her and froze mid-step, his expression shifting to pure terror. He stayed frozen like that, whimpering quietly.

One frost demon tried to take charge. "Form up! Defensive positions! We can—"

A troll picked him up by the ankle and used him as a club to hit another demon. "Troll way is best way."

The clubbed demon went sliding across the floor on a trail of his own meltwater, crashing into a stack of boxes labeled evidence. The boxes exploded, revealing confiscated racing supplies, and what looked like Bondo's collection of fake spy gadgets.

"My tracking devices," Bondo cried, diving for a box of what looked like regular car air fresheners with tracking device written on them in Sharpie. "Those are classified." Bondo dove for them and accidentally clotheslined a demon.

The demon spun, slipped on the energy drinks now rolling across the floor, and crashed into his partner. They went down in a tangle of limbs and melting ice.

That's when Smokie walked through the main entrance, Mr. Snuggles under one arm and his eyes wide at the carnage.

"Oh no," he said loudly. "What a terrible situation that I've walked into completely by accident."

He pulled out his key ring, fumbled with it dramatically, and flung it across the warehouse where it landed near the prisoners.

"Oops," Smokie said. "Butter fingers. Now I have to go get those keys."

He took one step forward and then fell flat on his face with a theatrical "Oof!"

"Oh no," he said into the floor. "I've been knocked unconscious. I'll probably be out for twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. Can't see anything that's happening."

He commenced the fakest snoring J.J. had ever heard.

The battle was winding down. Most of the demons had given up and were sitting in puddles of their own meltwater, hands raised in surrender. One was actually crying.

"I just wanted a summer job," he sobbed. "Mom said security work would be easy money."

"There," a troll shouted, pointing at a door marked Impound-Evidence . "Our rides!"

The rush for the door was immediate and chaotic. The trolls, of course, ignored the door entirely and went through the wall next to it.

"Doors are for humans," one bellowed as they crashed through.

"Wall-breaking is proper way," the other agreed.

The trolls' RV and Bondo's Astin Martin were there.

"My baby," one troll crooned, actually hugging the tire.

"Everything's still here," Bondo announced. "They didn't find the secret compartment."

"You mean the glove box?" Torch asked.

"Secret. Compartment."

As J.J. and Farrah ran past Smokie's still form, the deputy raised one hand in a subtle wave without lifting his head.

"Still unconscious," he announced. "Can't see which way anyone went. I might be unconscious for another hour."

Engines roared to life.

"Let's go!" someone shouted.

J.J. started the ambulance and pulled Farrah into the passenger seat. Through the bond, he felt her exhaustion giving way to adrenaline and joy.

The convoy hit the desert highway like a supernatural stampede. In the lead, the trolls' RV left grooves in the asphalt. Behind them, the dragons wove between lanes on their bikes. Bondo brought up the rear.

J.J. kept one hand on the wheel and reached for Farrah with the other. Her fingers laced through his, and through the bond he felt her exhaustion mixing with love.

“I love you,” he said to her.

“I love you too.” She kissed his cheek.

He felt like flying all the way to the East Coast.