Coreene Callahan: Fury of Desire

Preserve life. Protect the weak. Respect a female’s right to choose.

Drawing a deep breath, Wick let his magic roll. His exhale gathered, spilling into the back of his throat and—

The wren protecting Hamersveld whipped full circle. Yellow eyes met his, then widened. Baring his small fangs, the miniature dragon shrieked in warning. Thunderous sound erupted like a volcano, blowing sky-high, blasting Wick with debilitating shockwaves. Mind-bending pain hammered his temples. Pressure expanded, warping perception, ripping at his eardrums, making his head whiplash.

His vision dimmed.

The wren screamed again.

Auditory overload battered the inside of his skull. Wick roared in agony. His muscles spasmed. He lost control of the fireball. The blaze shot from his mouth and heat roared, eating through the frigid air. Mac cursed and dodged. Forge shouted as he got caught in the crossfire. But it was too late. The ravenous ball clipped him, hurling the Scot sideways. As his body whiplashed, the inferno slammed into a skyscraper behind him. A sonic boom rippled, spreading like poison over the cityscape. Lava splashed in a deadly arc. Glass and steel exploded. Shrapnel blew outward, ripping through Forge’s side.

Dragons—Razorback and Nightfury alike—screamed in pain.

The horror expanded, and Wick gave voice to his anguish, yelling his throat raw as he watched Forge fall from the sky.

Sitting cross-legged in the middle of a gym mat, J. J. flipped through another file. Worn by time, water stains dotted the dog-eared paper. Finished reading the page, she flipped it up, folding it over the top of the folder, and frowned. More gobbledegook. An equal amount of nothing special. Just like the last… hmm, let’s see. How many was that now? File number ten or eleven? She’s lost count a couple of hours ago.

Not that she was complaining. Busy was preferable to twiddling her thumbs.

Especially since Tania had abandoned her to the stacks. Probably a good idea, all things considered. Her sister’s mind wasn’t in the game. She was too busy dreaming big, drawing a new set of architectural plans. Ones that included an outdoor garden along with a swimming pool for Mac. Thumbing the corner of the page, J. J. smiled. Landscape design. The story of her sister’s life.

Well, that and being a worrywart.

An honorable pastime, really. Concern for another, after all, carried weight. Signaled caring… deep-seated love too. J. J. huffed. Ironic, wasn’t it? Before tonight she never would’ve qualified as a worrier. But over the last few hours? She’d done little else, so…

Bring it on. Pile on the paperwork. Make it last ’til morning.

Until Wick walked back through the door. Safe, sound, and into her arms once more.

Raking her hair behind her ears, J. J. shook her head. Such craziness. Her concern for him amounted to idiocy. He was a warrior: born strong, bred to fight, lethal beyond compare. She knew it. Had seen him in action and accepted the facts. Not that it mattered. Logic had nothing to do with it. Not while worry ruled, making her act like an idiot.

One with a terrible headache. And no sense.

Exhaling a pent-up breath, J. J. turned another page and scanned the typewritten text, seeing it, but not really. She didn’t understand it. The draw. The pull. The ridiculous yearning she felt every time she thought of him. Which, God help her, was a lot. She scowled at a dark smudge on the corner of the folder. Two days. A measly forty-eight hours of knowing him. Peanuts. A drop in the bucket on time’s sliding scale, and yet the bond she shared with him was irrefutable. Undeniable. So rock solid she couldn’t resist its tether. But the truly crazy part? As it tied her down and locked her in, she didn’t struggle. She submitted, allowing the magic to flow and the Meridian to have its way. Energy-fuse, love’s holy grail. A seductive elixir, the thing every woman searched for, but rarely found.

Hers. For the taking.

Just one problem. Fairy tales happened to other people, not her. Never her. Despite all the hoping and dreaming. Despite what she felt for Wick. Despite everything. It seemed too good to be true, and even though she wanted to believe, J. J. couldn’t help herself. She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

With an audible sigh, she flipped another page.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Surprise made her flinch. J. J.’s focus snapped to her right. Her gaze traveled across a sea of blue exercise mats. Serious hazel eyes met hers. She blinked and… oh, right. She wasn’t alone. Angela sat just a few feet away. File boxes stacked like Lego blocks behind her, Angela raised a brow. Unease hit J. J. like a hurricane, blowing the roof off the house where confidence lived. As it escaped into the ether, she nibbled on her fingernail and looked down at the file in her lap.

Alone in a gymnasium with an ex-homicide detective. Oh goody. Every convicted felon’s wet dream.

“You know I don’t give a shit, right?” The question came out soft, the meaning behind it didn’t. Acceptance and more rang in Angela’s tone. Strange—more than a little baffling—considering J. J.’s history with SPD. “Wick’s not the only one who read your jacket, J. J. I know what happened. Your ex was an abusive jerk.”

Disbelief made her huff. Hope made her ask, “So you don’t mind that I shot him?”

“I understand the necessity.” Propped against a table leg, Angela rubbed her shoulder against the wooden corner. Done chasing the itch, she crossed one foot over the other and shrugged. “And I’m not judging you for it. Besides, you did your stretch.”

“Paid my debt to society?”

“Something like that.”

“Right,” J. J. whispered, not quite believing it. If only it were that simple. If only she could forget. If only the pain would leave her alone, let her breathe, stop twisting the screws. Wishful thinking, she knew. Guilt didn’t work that way. It never went away. Like outstanding debt, it stayed until either it was paid off or forgiven. Two things that would never happen for her. “I still have nightmares about it sometimes.”

Angela threw her a startled look.

She didn’t blame her. Her admission surprised her too. Chewing on her bottom lip, J. J. frowned. What the heck was she doing? Bringing it up. Laying it out. Baring her soul. None of those things fit her usual MO. She never talked about it. Not even with Tania. But for some reason—instinct, the allure of sisterhood, and the need to be understood—J. J. wanted to tell her. Something told her the ex-cop would understand. Angela had seen things, been a part of that world… the one J. J. had inhabited the past five years.

Which, strange as it seemed, put them on equal footing.

Pressure banded around her chest. J. J. breathed through it. Go hard or go home. There were no in-betweens here. Just straight-up honesty or complete silence. Swallowing, she worked moisture back into her mouth. “Some nights, I wake up in a cold sweat unable to breathe. A scream locked in my throat. The feel of his hands around my neck… squeezing.”

“I’ve had a few of those too.”

And there it was. The detail intuition had told her was there. Unearthed. Deep in the vault. That place where secrets went to die. A shiver crawled down J. J.’s spine.

“I got caught in the crossfire a couple of months ago.” Haunted. No other word described Angela’s expression, and as J. J. met her gaze she tried not to flinch. To stay strong in the face of her pain. Her new friend wouldn’t accept pity. Didn’t want sympathy either, but… God. She recognized that look. Had seen it on her own face while looking in the mirror. “I was raped by a Razorback… imprisoned in one of their lairs. Rikar got me out.”