Scales of Justice

Steel Dragon™ Book Two

Kevin McLaughlin

Michael Anderle

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

Copyright © 2021 LMBPN Publishing

Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design

http://jcalebdesign.com / jcalebdesign@gmail.com

Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

A Michael Anderle Production

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The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact support@lmbpn.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

LMBPN Publishing

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Las Vegas, NV 89109

Version 1.00, November 2021

Previously Published as part of the megabook Steel Dragon 1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-68500-610-5

Print ISBN: 978-1-68500-611-2

The Scales of Justice Team

Thanks to the Beta Team

Erika Everett, James Caplan, Crystal Wren, Larry Omans, Kelly O’Donnell, John Ashmore, Chrisa Changla, Daniel Weigert, Mary Morris

Thanks to the JIT Readers

Jeff Eaton

Dave Hicks

Micky Cocker

Tim  Adams

Jeff Goode

Dorothy Lloyd

Peter Manis

Nicole Emens

Deb Mader

Misty Roa

Jackey Hankard-Brodie

If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!

Editor

The Skyhunter Editing Team

Chapter One

For Kristen Hall, facing hostiles and the real possibility of coming under fire felt like déjà vu. The entire situation seemed like an almost-duplicate of her first live action as part of SWAT, although with a couple of notable exceptions.

Exactly like the first time—which had also been her encounter with hostile fire—the criminals were in a pawnshop. Also like her first time, it was her job to sneak into the back through an alley. This time, she didn’t wear a bulletproof vest or a helmet. Her somewhat naïve rookie self hadn’t known what it felt like to kill someone. Now, she knew and didn’t like how easy it could be.

But the biggest difference was that her partner Jonesy was dead.

She had taken a bullet for him in that too-similar assignment, only to have him foolishly return the favor to save her life at the cost of his own. Except he hadn’t saved her life, not really, because neither of them had known she was a dragon—and not merely any dragon, but a steel dragon. If he hadn’t jumped in the way, Kristen’s powers might have activated and he’d still be—

Consciously, she dragged herself away from that line of thought. There was no point in dwelling on what she couldn’t change. Not now and not on a mission when she could damn well make sure nothing like that ever happened again.

“I counted two hostiles back here,” Keith murmured. “We enter. You take the one on the left and I’ll go right. Butters should be able to hold down the last guy in the front.”

Kristen nodded, even though she had absolutely no intention of doing what he said.

They stalked forward through the back of the store between rows of bicycles, lawnmowers, and work-out equipment people still hoped to buy back from the pawnshop before the items made it onto the showroom floor. At the end of the room, a door opened into a tiny armored airlock of a room where the pawnbroker usually worked.

Currently, the access was wide open and the two hostiles had their heads turned away from the SWAT duo to look into the store itself.

“We should have the drop on them—” Keith said but stopped when she sprang into action.

She rushed forward and tapped into the increased speed that being a dragon gave her. It brought her to the first guy before he so much as turned toward her. She caught him by the shoulders and hurled him overhand toward the back of the storage room she and Keith had come through. Fortunately for him, he collided with a punching bag rather than the wall, but the impact made enough noise for the other hostile to turn toward her.

He fired before she could reach him. The shot would have been wide but he was armed with a sawn-off shotgun, so a hundred mid-sized BB’s peppered her abdomen.

His gleeful anticipation of what he obviously considered the inevitable outcome faded to an expression of shock. “I hit you!” he whined and almost sounded petulant.

“You forgot to call no tag-backs.” She transformed her face and arms into steel to match the part of her body the hostile had tried to injure. He yelped and dropped his gun when she grasped him by the right shoulder and squeezed.

“I think technically, that makes me it,” Keith said and sauntered toward her.

“Hmm?” she turned to him and lifted the criminal off the ground at the same time.

“One of the BB’s got me,” her teammate said, wiped his brow, and showed her a bloody hand.

Kristen’s stomach twisted. Keith had gotten hurt—he was actually bleeding—and it was all her fault. Without thinking, she tightened her hold on the man’s shoulder. A bone crunched under her grip before she hurled him across the room. He catapulted into a row of bicycles that clattered on top of him. Although he groaned in pain, he didn’t move any more than the man she had thrown into the punching bag.

Keith approached. “Damn, Kristen, calm down. I’m fine.”

“Sorry. When I saw the blood, I… I won’t let anyone else on the team get hurt, especially not our Rookie.”

“I’ve been here longer than you,” he protested. It was true, of course. He’d been the Rookie since before she had joined the team, but a steel dragon—even one that hadn’t known what she was or the extent of her powers—could skip a few steps in the nickname hierarchy. “And besides, it wouldn’t have happened if we’d taken those goons down together.”

“I can’t allow that. Not after what happened to Jonesy.”

“I don’t like that he’s gone either, but we lost him in what was practically a war zone, not a pawnshop robbery.”

“There’s still no reason to risk your life when I can turn my skin into steel.”

Keith clenched his teeth and shook his head but he said nothing more to her. Instead, he spoke into his radio. “We have secured the back room. The hostile is holed up behind the bars. He’s not going anywhere.”

“Roger that,” Drew replied. “We’ll tell him to surrender and Butters will light up his location with a few warning shots if he doesn’t comply. I want you two stationed behind cover. Be ready to nab him if he tries to make a run for it.”

“The fool thinks broken glass and a few metal bars count for cover. I’ll shave his damn beard with a few rounds.” Butters laughed over the radio. Kristen didn’t doubt that the man could do it. He was the best shot out of any officer in Detroit.

“Roger. Moving behind cover.” Keith crouched behind a riding lawnmower that was near the back door of the storage room.

Kristen moved to stand directly in front of the door that led to the showroom.

“Kristen, Drew said to take cover,” her teammate protested.

“Then stand behind me. I won’t let this guy get away.”

“He won’t get away. We disabled his getaway vehicle and he’s lost his two cronies. He’ll surrender as soon as Butters fires his warning shots. And even if he doesn’t, we can catch him when he tries to run through here. I won’t even complain if you use your dragon speed.”

“I won’t let you get hurt twice in one day.”

“For fuck’s sake, Red!” Both the curse and the nickname sounded false coming from him. Those were Jonesy’s words. Keith couldn’t say them with the same casual vitriol. “The bleeding has already stopped and besides, I volunteered for SWAT. I’m here because I believe in being a police officer. Someone has to risk their life to keep our communities safe and I’m willing to do it, not hide behind my partner.”

“Things have changed, Rookie. I can’t let you get hurt for no good reason.”

“Protecting our city is a good enough reason to get hurt.”

She shook her head. On the one hand, she could understand what he was saying. After all, she had signed up for the police academy and spent her first few months on SWAT without knowing the extent of her powers. She had been willing to risk her life for the safety of others and she respected Keith for being willing to do the same.

On the other, though, those risks were no longer necessary. As a dragon, she could protect her friends—she had to protect her friends. She wouldn’t let one of her own die and didn’t have to, not anymore and not ever again. While she could understand Keith, she also could not step aside. Something in her gut simply wouldn’t let her.

“We have you surrounded!” Drew’s voice sounded odd, amplified by his megaphone but muffled by the brick wall between them and the showroom area. “We have the back covered and we both know you won’t come out the front with that damn rifle in your hands. Put your weapon on the counter where we can see it and your hands up behind your head, and the judge will be more likely to take a plea deal.”

“In your fucking dreams, copper.”

No sooner had the hostile yelled the words than Butters took his shot. Keith had overreacted by moving to the back of the storeroom. The bullet didn’t penetrate the brick wall.

Kristen retained her steel skin all the same.

Gunfire erupted from inside the pawnshop.

It wasn’t the singular shot Butters had made but a cacophony of blasts. The sound triggered a mental image of the man wielding his assault rifle in a wide arc to shoot from the hip like a stupid movie villain.

Even though it was unlikely he would hit anyone—they were all most likely behind cover—she felt immediate pangs of dread for the safety of her team. One of the shots might somehow catch someone in the neck or one of the major veins in the leg. She had to step in.

“You’re gonna need your fucking steel dragon to take me down,” the hostile bellowed before he resumed his indiscriminate fire.

Well, that settled it.

She kicked the armored door to the showroom open.

“Butters, hold your fire,” Keith yelled over the radio at the same time that a shot rang out.

The flash from the barrel was vivid, even across the parking lot, and she realized she was in the way. Rather than try to avoid it, she simply faced it stoically and took the bullet in the chest.

“Kristen!” Butters screamed from his distant vantage point.

Of course, she was fine. She had hardly even felt the high-powered round.

“Well, if it isn’t the steel bitch!” the hostile said and swung his assault rifle toward her. She made no effort to stop him.

The look on a criminal’s face when they shot her and saw that their bullets did nothing filled her with a perverse sense of glee. She loved the power she felt in that moment and how obviously terrified it made her adversaries.

He delivered six bullets into her chest before he stopped, panic in his eyes. Not only had his shots done absolutely nothing, but his gun had jammed. That was a good sign, which also might indicate that whoever had armed the men who’d tried to take Detroit over and killed Jonesy hadn’t returned yet. Those guns had been far more effective than the one the man in front of her now tried desperately to fix.

“I give up!” he said finally and flung the useless weapon aside.

“It’s too late for that,” she replied and moved toward him.

The felon screamed and tried to run—something that more and more of them seemed to do, which she thought was a good thing.

Kristen darted forward and caught him by the collar as easily as a snake catches a rat. She kicked his legs out from under him, slammed him to the floor, then put a foot on his chest to pin him in place with the weight of her steel body.

“I…surrender,” he wheezed as if he hadn’t fired at her friends at all. For all she knew, one of them could be dead or dying, bleeding out into the parking lot because of the pathetic, desperate actions of this worm. It would be so easy to stop him from ever hurting another soul. All she had to do was press a little bit harder with her foot—

She shook her head, knowing she couldn’t do that. Keith was barely hurt and the man she held trapped beneath her steel foot hadn’t been the one to hurt him. Her friends were probably fine too. But if they weren’t, she would be well within her rights as a dragon to— Angry at herself, she stifled the thought. She wasn’t above the law. In fact, she served the law, exactly like her father had done before her. Being a dragon did not mean she could kill at every opportunity—not unless she had to, she reminded herself—even though most dragons would completely disagree with the sentiment.

So, instead of crushing the man’s ribcage, she took hold of the steel bars that separated the showroom floor from the vault-like space. She bent them as easily as a child would bend pipe cleaners. Once she’d made a roughly man-sized hole, she picked the hostile up from the floor, stuffed him through the hole, and bent the metal back around his arms so he was splayed and trapped and escape was impossible.

Only then did she respond to her radio. Drew had yelled over it for a while now.

“Damn it, Hall, report. Did you take fire? Is the hostile in custody, injured, or dead?”

“It’s all clear in here, Drew. Is Butters all right?”

“For fuck’s sake, Red, that’s not your goddamn business,” Hernandez bellowed. Lyn Hernandez knew how to swear properly but of course, she was mistaken. Butters was Kristen’s responsibility. If he’d been shot, the guilt would rest on her shoulders.

“Yes, everyone is fine. We’re coming in now.” The team leader did not sound amused.

Drew, Beanpole, and Hernandez approached the front of the building. Butters shifted his bulk in his vantage point and continued to guard the team from behind his sniper rifle. It was unnecessary—she had told them she’d eliminated the hostiles—but she appreciated it all the same. Also, if he was still taking aim, it meant he was fine, which meant the man she had wrapped into the steel bars could live.

She shook the idea from her head. The inner conflict seemed to be ongoing. She didn’t want to be an executioner, but the urge to protect her own seemed to be growing stronger every day. Humans were simply so defenseless compared to her.

Kristen swallowed.

Had she actually thought that? Seriously, had she really thought of herself as something more than human?

Before she could explore this new revelation of how her powers were affecting her, Drew strode through what remained of the front entrance of the pawnshop with Hernandez and Beanpole on his heels.

Despite the fact that the front of the store was all shattered glass and therefore easy to see into—and her telling them it was clear—they still spread through the room to check every corner and cubby until they could verify for themselves that it was secure. It was protocol and made sense—unless you had a steel dragon on your team. Still, they did what they had trained to do and what had now become instinctual.

Only then did they look at her handiwork.

“For fuck’s sake, Red. Why not crucify the asshole and be done with it?” Hernandez demanded disdainfully.

Kristen opened the door that led from the caged-off area to the showroom and looked at the hostile. She snorted a laugh. Hernandez was right. “Okay, maybe that was a little too much.”

He was vertical, his legs in front of the counter and suspended about a foot above the floor. He’d tried to scramble across the counter after she had released him but he’d only made it that far before he realized his arms were securely trapped in the steel bars. Each one extended like he was ready to do jumping jacks, or—as Hernandez had said—he had committed a crime in Rome thousands of years before.

“You know, you do have handcuffs,” Beanpole said. That was the closest thing he had ever said to actual criticism.

“But what would the reporters say then?” Hernandez jerked a thumb toward the parking lot.

Three news vans and a handful of reporters armed with microphones had been joined by a small crowd of people with their smartphones up, no doubt recording Detroit’s most famous police officer. Some of the more desperate reporters were already interviewing the pawnshop clerk, but Kristen could be fairly certain he’d be edited out of the segment before it aired.

Drew sighed. “They’ll say what they always say—that SWAT’s dragon cop disabled another sack of criminals all on her own without letting anyone else get so much as a scratch.”

“The Rookie was shot,” Kristen protested.

“That’s bullshit. I’m fine,” Keith called and stepped through the doorway from the storeroom. “It hurts more to have a flu vaccine. You didn’t need to—holy shit, that’s awesome.” He pointed to the man held by the steel bars. “I cuffed the two goons back there. They’re fine by the way.”

Drew chuckled and shook his head. “It is…something else, Hall. The captain will be pleased that no one was hurt. But next time, you need to work with your partner and your team. We could have talked this guy down.”

“You can still get me down,” the hostile complained from his place on the wall.

“I couldn’t let anyone else get hurt,” she responded.

The team leader clenched his jaw. “Part of our job is getting hurt.”

“It doesn’t have to be, not anymore.”

At that, the rest of her team shared a glance. Obviously, they felt similarly to Keith.

“And is part of our job straightening metal bars after you’ve turned them into a one-man cage?”

Drew looked like he wanted to say more but Beanpole jumped in. “Not to mention media relations.”

The other man sighed at that. “Ugh, thanks for the reminder. We’ll talk later. Beanpole, Hernandez, I want you on the front of this building. Don’t let any of the media in here but if they want video of this asshole, I don’t see how we can stop them.”

The criminal struggled against his steel bindings but it was a futile gesture.

All business once more, Drew turned to Kristen. “Hall, you’re not to say a thing about any of this. We don’t comment on open investigations and all that.”

“What’s the investigation, sir? These assholes tried to rob a pawnshop and the security cameras caught the whole thing. Our dragon stopped them,” Keith said. He was undoubtedly the most excited to have her on their team. Despite his earlier protests, he loved taking pictures of her aftermath. The captain had already had to order him to stop posting images of her missions on social media.

“Okay, maybe you can take a few questions.” Drew relented reluctantly. “But seriously, Hall, you are part of this team. You can’t continue to run into every situation like a one-woman army.”

“Of course, sir.” She nodded, even though she damn well knew she could.

Still, he was at least right with the concept of teamwork. She found the media was the most impressed when she talked about the efforts of her team and let her work speak for itself. She had a feeling that the hostile trapped in the steel bars of the business he tried to rob would quite likely go viral. If so, those who wished to strike fear into the heart of the Motor City would have another reminder of who they’d face if they tried.

Chapter Two

The reporters came armed with ever more barbed questions. Kristen was certain they’d play the story about the criminal who’d tried to rob the pawnshop and ended up as wall decoration. Unfortunately, it seemed she was now famous enough that if they could get a good sound bite from her, that might be the bigger story. She tried to keep a cool head as the wave of microphones and cameras accosted her.

“Ms Hall, how does it feel to do more for the city than the Detroit police department has done in the last twenty years?”

“I think that’s a mischaracterization of the men and women who serve our community.”

The reporter looked disappointed at her textbook response.

“Ms Hall, does your team like knowing that they’re the most protected SWAT squad in the city?”

“My team protects me as much as I protect them.” It was a white lie but it sounded better than the truth—that over the last month, she had personally eliminated or apprehended every hostile armed with a weapon more dangerous than a letter opener.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

She shrugged. She’d already been misquoted dozens of times. What was important was that there was no sound bite.

“How does it feel to be the Lost Dragon?”

That was a new one. “Excuse me?” she asked, hoping for clarification. The reporters calmed, eager to get an answer.

“You grew up thinking you were human, only to discover you were a dragon while on the force. How did you find out you were a dragon, and do you think there might be another Lost Dragon out there?”

There was a moment of silence as every microphone pointed toward her.

Kristen knew she had to be careful with her answer. She didn’t want to explain what had really happened—that one night, Frank Hall’s sister had shown up with a baby, begged the Halls to care for it, then vanished, only to die that same night under mysterious circumstances. No one had looked deeply enough into her family to ferret out that Aunt Christina had worked for some kind of biology lab that was run by the dragons, and she wanted to keep it that way.

“I don’t know if there are other hidden dragons out there, but I will say I discovered my powers when pushing myself to the limit. Maybe the best way to find out if we have the heart of a dragon is to push ourselves past our comfort zone to inspire the ones we care for.”

“You’re saying kids should risk their lives and hope they have steel skin like you?” one reporter asked.

“No! No, not at all.”

“If there are more Lost Dragons, will you all work against the current dragon-dominated system?” another reporter asked.

Now that was a loaded question. Answering that one wrong would not only draw the ire of her team but maybe the dragon community.

Fortunately, before she could answer, two police cars arrived with officers to collect evidence and photograph the crime scene. They promptly pushed the reporters away, which only pissed off those who’d yet to properly record the man dangling in the pawnshop.

Drew put a hand on her arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

She nodded and seized the opportunity to escape. They strode quickly to their SWAT van, but before she could get inside, Hernandez thrust herself up close and glowered at her.

“Ms Hall, Ms Hall, how does it feel to be even more self-centered and stuck up than the average white girl?”

“Cool it, Hernandez,” the team leader said.

“No, fuck that. I worked hard for my reputation as a mean-ass bitch, and now—thanks to little miss Lost Dragon—everyone thinks I’m a goddamned damsel in distress.”

“No one thinks you’re a damsel in distress.” Kristen tried to smile and assumed the woman was joking.

“Oh yes they fucking do.” The demolition expert’s eyes were wide in disbelief “You’re not the only one the media’s been hounding. They only ask questions about you, of course, but it’s still pretty fucking annoying to be stopped every time I go to my damn car.”

“I didn’t know that,” she responded. She’d been so focused on avoiding the media herself she hadn’t really thought about her team.

“Yeah, well, no fucking shit you didn’t notice,” Hernandez snapped.

“That’s not what’s important, though,” Keith said.

“The Rookie’s right,” Butters interjected and his southern accent immediately cooled the heated conversation.

“I am?” The other man looked startled.

“I’m as surprised about it as anyone else, but indeed you are.” Butters chuckled. “I had that shot, Kristen. And Keith knows how to disable a hostile better than any Rookie. You can’t continue to act like you’re alone out there.”

She sighed. “I understand where you’re coming from, I really do, but how can I let you take a bullet when they simply bounce off me?”

“But what if they don’t?” Beanpole inquired. “What if there’s a limit to your power and you merely haven’t found it yet?”

That gave her pause because she knew there were limits to her power. She was faster and stronger, of course, but not fast enough to dodge bullets or strong enough to lift a van. Still, turning her skin to steel and back didn’t seem to take any effort.

“I guess I hadn’t thought of that…” she began tentatively while she tried to think of what could possibly hurt her considering she’d already withstood being shot with both a rocket launcher and a mounted machine gun. “I guess someone might try to crash a couple of busses into me.”

Butters and Keith laughed at that, and Drew and Beanpole smiled. Hernandez shook her head but that was positive coming from her. She didn’t laugh out loud unless someone was insulted with gratuitous curses.

A rich peal of laughter joined the voices of her team and Kristen turned to face the intruder. Her skin became steel in an instant, readying her to protect her friends from a new threat.

“Oh, beg your pardon.” The man bowed. He had blonde hair that fell to his shoulders, tanned skin, and a golden suit.

“Hey, buddy, maybe you’re new here, but once we go to the fucking van it means we’re involved with police business. Kindly go back to whatever pawnshop you came from. They’re paying good money for eighteen-carat these days.” Hernandez flashed her ‘go-fuck-yourself’ smile.

“Ah, you’ve misinterpreted my intention. I’m not a reporter you see, but a—”

“Dragon,” Kristen said hastily. She could sense his aura, although he tried to keep it neutral so as to not affect the humans around them, namely her team.

“Yes, Lady Hall, a dragon. And I come bearing tidings.”

“Will you talk like that soon?” Keith laughed.

When she felt the man’s aura surge with anger for only a moment, she had a sense of what he really was—a dragon with golden scales who was incomprehensibly old and immeasurably powerful. She wondered if he could sense her dragon form even though she’d yet to actually transform. While she didn’t want to piss him off, he’d also intruded and interrupted them.

“What are the tidings, good sir, and who—may I ask—the hell are you?” she asked with a wink at Keith in the hope that humor would defuse the situation.

Goldenrod looked at her team. His upper lip twitched with the faintest hint of disdain but he immediately became all smiles again. “I did not mean to interrupt official…ah, police duty, Lady Hall. Perhaps we can talk for a moment in private. I am Vincent Goldenrod, ambassador of the dragon council.” He bowed with a flourish worthy of his name.

“I’m on the job. Anything you want to say to me you need to say to my team,” she said, a little affronted by the way he looked at them.

“Very well.” The dragon nodded and turned so he faced the entire team instead of only her. “I wished to invite you to a party held in honor of all of your recent successes. It is a private affair arranged by some of the dragons who would wish to personally thank you for what you’ve done for our city. It will be held on the rooftop of the Detroit Marriot in the Renaissance Center tomorrow night, just before sunset.”

Hernandez laughed. “Do you expect us to fly up there?”

“I have arranged transport for Lady Hall.”

An extremely awkward moment followed, in which Goldenrod shot Kristen a glance so pointed it could have stabbed her. Obviously, the invitation had been intended for her, and her only. The venue itself screamed dragon. Part of her wondered if being up that high and surrounded by a number of dragons might help activate her ability to transform into her dragon body. But that really wasn’t the issue here. If the dragons of Detroit wanted to thank her for work, they needed to thank her team as well.

“We’d love to come!” she said and spread her arms in a wide gesture that encompassed her teammates.

Keith grinned and nodded like a fool and Butters seemed to already imagine the spread. Beanpole and Drew looked indifferent, while Hernandez couldn’t hide her shock.

“Ah, yes, excellent. We’ll have to adjust some of the festivities to account for your…ah, friends. But that is well within our power.”

“Sorry, Butters, that probably means no whole cow roasted by dragon’s breath,” Keith said and waggled his eyebrows.

“Dragon’s fire is not used for cooking,” the dragon reprimanded in a tone that was more a snarl than human.

When Kristen narrowed her eyes at him, he blinked, clearly unsure of what he had done to offend her.

“That is unless we wish to eat fresh meat.” Goldenrod laughed, a prim and proper sound that did little to assuage her or her team’s visions of dragons roasting human beings alive throughout history. Things weren’t like that anymore, though, or so she believed. She’d find out soon enough. If anyone could decide what to say to make sure they were burned alive, it was Lyn Hernandez.

Anyone living, obviously. Jonesy could probably have already made this dragon mad enough to roast all of them.

“We’ll see you there, then,” she responded and hoped it was the right thing to say.

Vincent Goldenrod bowed once more. He took a few steps into the parking lot and transformed into an absolutely gorgeous golden dragon—complete with a lion’s mane and a tuft at the end of his tail—and took to the skies.

The reporters pointed their cameras upward and recorded the dragon’s exit before they returned their attention to Kristen. They probably wanted her and the gold dragon in the same shot.

She sighed. At least she could be reasonably certain there’d be no paparazzi at a dragon party.

Chapter Three

Unfortunately for Kristen, she had over twenty-four hours to agonize about what to wear and how to behave at a dragon party. Fortunately, she already had dinner plans for that evening.

She parked her car in front of her parents’ house in Dearborn—a suburb of Detroit—and plodded inside, careful to avoid stepping on her dad’s freshly mowed lawn.

Part of her told her that Frank Hall wasn’t her father—not her biological one anyway. She had no clue, of course, whether dragons actually had parents or anything about their reproductive cycle for that matter. But whoever her dragon…uh, sire had been, he certainly hadn’t come forward or even made his identity known. On the other hand, Frank Hall remained the loving dad who still demanded his little Krissy come home for dinner once a week.

With her new schedule, she didn’t make it home every week, though. She often put extra hours in when someone from her team was called out on assignment—a habit her captain had yet to complain about—but she had to be home tonight.

Her mom was making lasagna. No Hall would miss that.

She walked up the front steps, removed her shoes, and stepped through the doorway.

Immediately, she was struck in the chest with a two-by-four. She turned to steel on reflex and the piece of wood cracked in half.

“Brian Justin Hall, you apologize to your sister this instant!” their mom roared. “You could have hurt her.”

Brian was already running out the back door and shrieked with laughter.

“No, he couldn’t, Mom.”

Marty groaned in a tone that clearly said, “You may think you’re tough because you’re all grown up but I remember when I had to kiss every boo-boo and ouchie for you to stop crying and I’ll be damned if anyone hurts you now.”

Kristen had heard that groan more frequently since she joined the police academy, but it was the number-one sound now that she was the so-called Lost Dragon.

“You know I can catch you, right? Super-speed, remember?” she hollered out the kitchen window.

“You’re a dragon, not a superhero. And I’m not afraid of you until you have fire breath instead of halitosis. I can smell your breath from here, by the way.” Her brother stuck his tongue out from the security of the very back of the yard. Despite legally being an adult, he had a long way to go before anyone actually thought of him as one.

“Mom, make him apologize. I do not have bad breath.”

Marty didn’t even glance at her as she took the lasagna out of the oven and carried it to the table. “Oh, so he can attack you with a board but if he says mean things you still need your mommy?”

“Uh…yeah? Obviously.” She held her hands up at the injustice of having a younger brother.

Her mom laughed and set the lasagna on the table.

“How about this. You can have a corner piece since he called you mean names.”

“Mom, there are four corner pieces. We can all have one.”

She pinched her cheek. “Look at my little clever girl. That used to work, you know, before you were all grown up. Now, set the table.” At least Kristen knew where Brian got his sarcasm from. Before she could protest that he should set the table because he still lived there, her mom cupped her hand to her mouth and bellowed, “Fraaaank! Dinner!”

Petty revenge would have to suffice. She busied herself with setting the table and made sure to give Brian a salad fork instead of a regular one because he hated it when his was too small. Her mother added the finishing touches—salad with feta cheese and olives and a Hall family classic, pesto garlic bread.

It was a recipe that was said to be fool-proof, yet Kristen had burnt it every single time she’d ever attempted to make it.

“Frank, put a shirt on,” Marty chided.

“I will honey. Give me a minute.” Kristen’s dad waltzed into the kitchen in running shorts that he’d obviously not actually used for their intended purpose, given the size of his gut. He planted a fat kiss on his wife’s cheek and vanished into his bedroom after he snatched a piece of pesto garlic bread.

Kristen reached for one only to have her mom slap her hand. “It is not dinner time yet. Oh… Kristen, I’m… Did I hurt you?”

“What? No, of course not.” She glanced hastily at her hand and realized she’d turned it into steel. “No, it’s only a reflex. I’ve worked on it to hone it so if anything hits me, I turn to steel automatically. It’s safer that way.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t have a boyfriend to surprise you.” She hadn’t noticed Brian come inside but she wasn’t at all surprised by his timing. “Can you imagine? He sneaks up behind you with a bouquet of flowers for his beloved, and you turn to steel and roundhouse kick him into the Detroit River.”

“You’re hardly one to talk about romance, Brian. When was the last time you asked out a girl? Fifth grade?” she retorted waspishly.

“Ninth grade, for your information. I asked a foreign exchange student out during my freshmen year,” he said rather snootily as if that did anything other than prove her point.

“It’s so great to know that your parents’ marriage has inspired a sense of romance in both of you,” Marty said sarcastically.

Her children both laughed. Neither had ever been very romantically inclined. She was too competitive and he wasn’t competitive enough.

“Frank!” their mom yelled once more before she sat at the table and proceeded to serve herself salad and bread.

Kristen helped herself to the lasagna so Brian stabbed her with a fork, which made her skin turn to steel.

“Brian, damn it. Stop that!” Marty snapped.

“Mom, it’s fine,” Kristen said, shocked at her mom’s outburst. Martha Hall did not swear.

“No, it is not! It is disrespectful and dangerous, and I won’t allow it in my house and especially not at my table.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He sniffed and acted as if he wasn’t the one who’d tried to stab his sister.

Fortunately, their dad appeared and the tension in the room evaporated. “Krissy! How nice of the Lost Dragon to grace us with her presence,” Frank said cheerfully as he settled at the head of the table. “So, tell us about who you busted this week.”

“Come on, Frank, at the table?” Marty wheedled.

“What do you want me to talk about? Edging the damn front lawn? I’m retired, your part-time job at the grocery store is hardly nail-biting excitement material, and Brian, well—”

“I’ll have you know I teamed up with a band of barbarians to storm the Necromancer’s Gate. We defeated over four hundred skeletons and I came away with the Golden Blade of Avalon. That gives a charisma boost to any allies within range and looks fricking sweet with my armor.”

“Right, see? That’s my point. I didn’t understand a word of that besides skeleton.” Frank rubbed his temples. He’d confided to his daughter more than once that he really, really wanted Brian to move out and get his own place.

“Well, earlier today there was this raid at a pawnshop—” she began but Brian cut her off.

“Yeah, that’s all over the Internet. You wrapped that dude’s arms in those bars? That was legit Kristen.” Brian took his phone out and showed their dad the picture of the hostile, his arms trapped in steel while his legs dangled above the floor. The photographer had caught the guy in mid-curse so he looked pissed rather than pitiful.

“Why did you have to do that? Did your handcuffs break or something?” Frank asked.

“No. I wanted to teach him a lesson.”

“Did you take any shots at that one?” her brother asked eagerly.

She shrugged. “A couple. Maybe ten or so. That guy shot me six times from three feet away. You should have seen his face when it all bounced off.”

Her mother almost choked “Ten or so? Kristen, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Mom, of course.”

“Is your team okay?” her dad asked, concern obvious in his voice even though he spoke around a mouthful of lasagna.

“Yeah, they’re fine. I moved in so none of them got hurt.”

“That is killer-bad. The Lost Dragon saves the day.” Brian pumped his fist in the air. “What else did you do? Any car chases?”

“Only one. The guys almost lost us too. They took an entrance to the highway and we missed it. Drew was going to turn, but I jumped and turned to steel. I crashed through the back of the car. I think maybe more than only my skin turns to steel because I get way heavier.”

“Cool, a cop with transmutation,” he enthused.

“Did Drew tell you to do that?” Frank asked.

Kristen shook her head. “No. He was on the radio, calling for backup. They would’ve gotten away if I hadn’t—”

“Risked your life?” Marty cut in.

“No, Mom, I didn’t risk my life. I can turn to steel whenever I want.” To prove her point, she made her entire body—clothes and hair included—transform before she reverted to her normal form. “What’s there to worry about?”

“Your team getting sick of your shit, for one,” her dad said.

“Frank! Language!” The woman corrected foul language—her words—on reflex. She was probably faster at it than her daughter was at activating her steel.

“Marty, I’m serious. Back when I was on the force, that was a huge issue.”

“Gee, Dad, I somehow don’t see you as the super-soldier.” Brian waggled his eyebrows and stared pointedly at Frank’s round belly.

“Ha-ha-ha, Brian, because you’re the spitting image of health.”

“Mom, Dad’s calling his son fat,” he whined.

“We all know your mom’s cooking is better than any of our willpower against seconds.”

“True that,” Kristen said and served herself another slab of lasagna. She saw the injustice of it because she’d probably be overweight too if she didn’t have a dragon metabolism.

“But I wasn’t talking about me,” Frank continued. Over the years, the couple had become adept at remaining on point despite their children’s constant interruptions. “I was a good cop, don’t get me wrong, but I was nothing like Raymond.”

“Oh, Raymond,” Marty said wistfully.

“Yeah, see? My point exactly,” Frank grumbled.

“Who is Raymond?” his daughter asked.

“He was the goddamn closest thing I ever saw to a super-soldier—well, present company excluded. He never lost a perp in a footrace, never lost his temper—not with the public and not with the captain—he was in shape, and he knew the drills. He was everything you wanted in a cop.”

“So, what was the problem?” she pressed. “He sounds like an inspiration.”

“The problem was he thought he was the whole damn force. He didn’t work with a partner, not the way we were supposed to. Any time there was a bust or a traffic problem or anything at all, he took lead. He always had to be the first inside and always the first to jump into danger.”

“And let me guess, he got shot,” Brian said with a nod.

“No, actually. He never did.”

“Again, Dad, I don’t see the problem,” Kristen said.

“He’s dead. That’s the damn problem.”

“I thought you said he didn’t get shot”

“He didn’t. They pulled a truck over on the interstate. Despite being in the driver’s seat, he hopped out before his partner could and was run over by a truck. That was it for Raymond.”

For a moment, no one said anything, and only the sound of silverware clinking on ceramic plates could be heard.

But Kristen couldn’t stay silent forever. “But that could have happened to anyone.”

“Of course it could, Krissy. I’m not saying it couldn’t. I’m only saying that if he had followed procedures or listened to his partner for five seconds, he’d still be around.”

“Dad, I can turn to steel. It’s a little different.”

“No, it’s really not. Look, I know you think you’re hot shit—”

“Frank!”

“Damnit, Marty, this is important. Krissy, I know you think you’re hot…uh, manure, and you are, but you’ve allowed yourself to become arrogant. As long as you’re part of a team, everyone needs to watch each other’s back. If you continue to take unnecessary risks, you’ll either make a mistake or someone on your team will.”

“But even if they make a mistake, I’ll be fine. I can protect myself.”

“You need to protect each other. Everyone on the team is safest when the entire team works together in concert. You can’t let your team rely on you because they’ll become complacent and make a mistake that might cost a life. They all have more experience, and even though you’re…uh, the Lost Dragon or whatever, they’re still SWAT.”

“I merely think the situation is different. I am literally bulletproof.”

“Don’t forget rocket-activated,” Brian added.

“I know you are, Krissy, I really do, and I’ve never worried about you, not even when you were still merely a puny mortal like us.” Frank chuckled at his own joke and tried to lighten the mood, but no one else joined him. “But you’ve also talked to Dragon SWAT, right? They said as your powers develop, they’ll want you on their team. I don’t see why they’d make you wait unless the threat level is that much higher there. It’s never really been a part of my world but damn, Krissy, what if you find yourself in a standoff with a dragon? I would think dragon fire could melt steel.”

The thought was sobering. When Kristen had met Dragon SWAT, they’d basically spelled out how they could stop her if they needed to. Even though she was faster, stronger, and in better control of her steel skin, she still couldn’t transform into a dragon.

Her dad seemed to sense his words were finally getting through to her because he leaned back as he continued speaking—that was basically Frank for “thanks for listening.”

“I don’t want you to become careless. As soon as people start acting like they always know what to do, people make mistakes. That’s simply how it goes. I know losing your partner was hard on you—it’d be hard on anybody—and I don’t want that to happen again.”

“But I can protect them.”

He shook his head. “Not by taking away their ability to protect themselves. Think about it. There’s no way you can protect every person in this city. Maybe if you could, I dunno—”

“Teleport? Fly? Make copies of yourself? Psychically control the entire city?” Brian held a finger up as he listed each impossibility.

“Right, yeah, one of those. But that’s not your power, and even if it was, you couldn’t protect the whole state or the whole country. The fact is that you’ll need help. This city needs help, and I for one will sleep better when I know people are helping to protect it.”

“Dad, I’m still a person.”

“I know you are. I wouldn’t eat lasagna with you if you weren’t, but your team is people too. And if you treat them like they’re children, they gonna start acting like children and they’ll make a mistake and there won’t be anything you can do about it.”

“He’s right, sweetheart.” Her mom nodded sagely. “Look at Brian. We treat him like a man-child and look where it’s gotten us.”

Brian stuck his tongue out, put a single olive from the salad on it, then snapped it out of the air like a dog performing a trick.

“Point taken,” Kristen said, which drew a sneer from her brother and appreciative nods from her parents. “I’ll do my best to keep all that in mind. I wouldn’t want my team to get sloppy.”

Frank looked like he wanted to protest further—like maybe that wasn’t his point—but instead, he asked for more pesto bread and began to complain about the Pistons not playing as a team either.

Chapter Four

Kristen very much enjoyed having dinner with her family. The sense of familiarity and comfort she felt was even more obvious when, twenty-four hours later, she arrived at the Renaissance Center with her team.

Everyone was dressed up. Well, almost everyone. Drew and Beanpole looked good. They both wore tuxedos that fit, anyway. Butters wore a seersucker suit with suspenders. He joked about wanting everyone to know he was from the South, but he looked nervous and more than a little uncomfortable. Keith wore jeans, a blazer, and a button-up, and was pissed that no one had told him to rent a tux. Hernandez, however, shocked everyone the most.

Her white high-collar dress sparkled with sequins. She had teamed it with gloves and white hose. Not a single tattoo was visible.

“Wow, Hernandez…er, Lyn. You look amazing,” Drew said.

“Can we calm down and not talk about it? I’ve never seen a tattoo on a dragon, and I wore this atrocity to my Quinceanera so I assumed it’d cover all the ink. Red looks pretty fucking hot too.”

“Hell yeah, you do,” Keith said as they walked through the parking lot toward the ground floor of the Renaissance Center. “Red looks great on you, obviously, and that necklace is…well…” He grinned, looked at her boobs, then realized that she looked at him looking at her boobs, so shifted his gaze to her legs. “Your legs look good too. Uh…healthy.”

Butters put a hand on the man’s back. “Do yourself a favor, Rookie, and stop talking.”

“Right, er, of course. Yeah, good plan,” he mumbled.

They entered the ground floor of the building and were greeted by a dark-skinned man with an elaborate pattern shaved into his short hair. He wore red robes trimmed in gold and a symbol around his neck that Kristen didn’t recognize.

“Lady Hall, I presume,” he said. His deep, rich voice held a touch of an accent that seemed to indicate that he had at least studied overseas.

“Yes, um, how did you know?” She couldn’t sense an aura coming from him so she didn’t think he was a dragon.

“Your face is all over the news, Lady Hall. Everyone in this city knows you, even those not working the door at the most prestigious party in the Midwest.”

Right. Of course. Kristen made a note not to ask any more stupid questions. Fortunately, Keith had that covered.

As they stepped into the elevator, he pointed at the whirls and lines shaved into the man’s head. “So, are you a dragon, then? Is that why you have those swirls?”

“Lady Hall is a dragon, and her hair has not fallen out in the pattern of runic spells,” the man pointed out dryly.

“So…you’re not a dragon?” the Rookie continued and his idiocy made every floor they rose to seem twice as awkward as the one below them.

“I am a mage.” The man bowed toward Kristen, not toward Keith. “You may refer to me as Enfuegus.”

“Wow, holy shit, Enfuegus, that’s quite a name. Did your mom give that to you when you were born or did you choose it later or what?” Keith grinned but no one else did.

“Dammit, kid, my real name’s Daryl,” Enfuegus said and his accent slipped away so he sounded exactly like any other Detroiter. “That breaks the feel of the night, though, which is something the dragons hate, so I use my mage name. You are way underdressed, by the way.”

“Aw, dammit, I knew it!” Keith protested.

“If you knew it, why didn’t you dress up?” Beanpole adjusted his cufflinks.

“Don’t worry about it. Consider this the blessing from Enfuegus,” the mage said and used his deeper, slightly accented voice once more. He looked at Keith, raised a finger heavy with jeweled rings, spoke an incantation, and suddenly, the Rookie wore a bow tie, slacks, and cummerbund under his jacket.

“Hot damn! Would you look at that.” He appraised his new digs.

“Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about interjections such as that,” Enfuegus said. “Please, be on your very best behavior. Remember, the guests of this party have practiced speaking correctly for centuries. Some leniency might be given to the dragon, but humans—especially rude ones—are not tolerated.”

“Are you saying we’re in danger?” Drew’s posture changed as the elevator came to a stop.

“I don’t know, man,” the mage replied. “It’s not like they’ve ever thrown anyone from the roof who can’t fly. They might remember to call me to escort your ass out first, but don’t count on it. Be cool. They never tip as well when someone causes a scene.”

“All right.” Drew nodded and slipped into SWAT mode. “Remember to watch each other’s backs. I’ll take the open bar with Beanpole. Butters and Hernandez, you’re on food. I want to know if we have tapas, if it’s serve yourself, or what. Keith, you’re with Hall—scratch that. Keith, you’re a damn liability. You stick with Butters. Hernandez, you’re with Red. The two of you look…uh, well, the Kevlar doesn’t do you justice.”

Everyone saluted.

Enfuegus rolled his eyes. “Good luck,” he said as the doors to the elevator opened onto the roof of the hotel.

They stepped out into the most decadent and elaborate party Kristen had ever seen. Obviously, their guide was not the only mage working that night. Golden globes floated above the roof, remaining stubbornly in place despite the breeze and the fact that nothing anchored them to anything.

Between these, strings of flames danced and threw bright sparks while they followed some invisible pattern she couldn’t quite identify.

Below this heady atmosphere were the guests and—despite wearing the most expensive dress she could find—she immediately felt out of place. Her clothes fit well enough but compared to those at the party, she might as well have worn a burlap sack.

Every woman on the roof had a form-fitting dress in fabrics and styles from through the centuries. Kristen wondered if the clothes were real or if they were simply projections of the dragons’ own bodies, that was how good everyone looked.

The men mostly wore tuxedos but few opted for a standard black jacket with a white shirt. Instead, they wore fabric in sparkling silvers, radiant golds, garish purples, fiery reds, and a dozen other colors. The cut of their clothing was unusual as well. Rather than simple collars, many of the men had fancy, elaborate additions that, to her, seemed very much like the tuxedo’s equivalent of horns and spines.

Other mages moved between the guests and levitated trays of food and drinks. When a dragon wanted refreshment, they didn’t have to glance at a server, only the drink. Kristen tried not to let her eyes bug out when a dragon gestured at a glass and it simply floated off the tray and landed in his hand without spilling a drop.

The pixies surprised her a little. She had seen them before but they were still a sight to behold—aside from the fact that she somehow hadn’t expected them there. They were short—the height of kindergarteners—with big eyes and huge black pupils that caught the light. Despite the range of skin tones, most were heavily freckled, and they all had long pointy ears and extremely long hair. They wore light, flowing clothing that did little to hide their skinny arms or legs and did nothing to conceal their wings.

For a moment, she simply stared at their wings. She was at a party with creatures with wings. It seemed almost incomprehensible. The pixie’s wings were all vaguely insectile. Some tended more toward butterfly and others were more translucent like a beetle’s. As she stared, one of the pixies fluttered their wings fast enough to make them appear as nothing more than a blur. It—she? Kristen couldn’t tell—elevated sharply and bellowed, “New guests.”

An instant silence descended and everyone on the rooftop—every mage, every pixie, and every dragon—turned to stare at the team.

All in all, it was the most overwhelmed Kristen had ever felt on stepping from an elevator.

“Uh… Hi, I’m Kristen,” she managed to say.

The pixies laughed, the mages returned to work, and the dragons turned to their conversations, which was both simultaneously depressing and a huge relief.

“All right, stick to the plan,” Drew said. He and Beanpole wandered away. Keith and Butters went in pursuit of a swarm of levitating shrimp, which left Hernandez and Kristen to mingle.

Almost immediately, a woman approached them. Her black hair had been arranged in elaborate braids and a purple dress with all its fabric sewn into the train left little to cover her chest. She smiled—and exposed perfect teeth with the exception of her canines, which were perhaps a little too sharp—and extended a hand gloved in black satin to Kristen.

“Well, if it isn’t the Lost Dragon. I am Marliana Seasdeep. Charmed.”

She took the proffered hand and shook it firmly. The woman barely grasped hers at all and she realized she’d probably made her first faux pas. Apparently, one didn’t try to crush someone’s hand during a handshake at elegant dinner parties.

“Tell me, how does it feel to still have to cram into human clothes?”

“Probably about as comfortable as it feels to cram your scaly dragon hide into whatever century you’re currently inhabiting,” Hernandez said with a smile.

Marliana hissed strangely through her nose. It took them a moment to realize that she was laughing. “Clever girl. Clever, clever. I didn’t expect humans to be so…sharp. Perhaps you’re right, though. It is time for an update.”

She grasped her hair, undid it, and shook it loose. Kristen was glad Keith wasn’t there. He would probably have fainted. Hernandez gasped audibly as the purple dress transformed into a more modern, form-fitting variation. It barely covered her thighs and had a window cut into the front that—despite showing less skin—even further accented her impressive cleavage.

“Is this more to your liking?” she all but purred.

Hernandez nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Lyn, you’re drooling,” Kristen whispered.

The demolitions expert snapped her mouth shut so fast her teeth clacked.

“It is a pleasure to have you join us. I know you’re new to the community but do let me know if there’s anything I can do to either of you.”

“Do to us?” Hernandez mumbled and sounded hopeful.

“For you. Pardon, a slip of the tongue.” Marliana winked at the woman, then excused herself.

“They have auras, remember. You need to keep your head,” Kristen said to her teammate as they pushed deeper into the party.

“It’s easy for you to say. You’re immune or whatever. She was… I normally don’t go for chicks, but damn, she made me happy to be bi.” She shook her head and tried to clear the dragon from her mind.

“Ah! I hoped you’d come to the party,” said Vincent Goldenrod, the dragon who’d invited her.

“Why’s that? Because otherwise, everyone here is a senior citizen?” That was Keith, who’d appeared through the crowd and currently crammed a floating deviled egg into his mouth.

“What? Of course not,” Goldenrod replied. “What would even make you say such a thing?”

“Well, isn’t Kristen here the youngest dragon in the room by a few hundred years or something?”

The dragon looked a little nonplussed. “We… Sir Trevor Lance won’t make his first century for another few years…and there…ah, are a few others, I’m sure. But by dragon standards, many of us are still quite young. Most of the room is less than five hundred years old.”

“Not really selling it, Grandpa,” Keith replied, which earned a giggle from Hernandez that was the most out of character thing Kristen had ever seen her do—besides wear a Quinceanera dress. The night was full of firsts.

“Keith,” Butters chided, “this gentleman is our elder. Some respect is owed.” The sniper gave Goldenrod his friendliest smile, but the dragon continued to look a little aggrieved. He blinked a few times and studied them as if to make sense of them. He was saved from having to comment when another dragon entered the conversation.

“It is as I said, Goldenrod, she has been with the humans too long.” The man who spoke wore a green suit that fit perfectly. Beneath it was a silver shirt with a rather elaborate waterfall of frills down his chest. He had a thin mustache that lent him an imperious demeanor.

“She hasn’t lived with people as long as you have, because…you know, she’s not a dinosaur,” Hernandez said to the man and earned her first scowl of the evening. She looked proud to have received it.

“She’s right,” Butters declared cheerfully. “After all, you’ve been with people far longer than she has.”

“And yet I have retained a degree of separation that your dragon has not,” the mustachioed man replied.

“She’s not ours,” Drew said as he stepped into their little circle, two drinks in each hand. He gave one each to Kristen and Hernandez, and one to Butters. Beanpole—tall and silent behind the team leader—had one for Keith. “People don’t think of each other that way.”

“Oh, they most certainly do.” The green dragon sneered. “After all, slavery was your invention.”

“And these mages you have here are free to do whatever they please?” He didn’t break eye contact with the man.

“And tell me, human, is that what you want? Magic to run unchecked? The powers these humans wield is far more formidable than even your most devastating weapons of war. Without dragons, you would beg at their knee for scraps.”

“How is living in a world serving dragons different?” Kristen asked, not sure if that would elicit an answer or get her chucked off the top of the building.

“It is precisely because of our longevity that we are fit to advise your leaders,” the dragon said. “We are able to see trends in your species—the invention and implications of electricity, or the political will to end slavery—and help you along those paths. We are not interested in despotic rule because we live long enough to achieve any freedom we need.”

“I think you live long enough because you don’t actually risk your lives for the people who provide you with air conditioning or the ingredients for these fancy drinks.” She held her glass up to emphasize her point.

“Which is precisely why I wanted to have this event for Lady Hall,” Goldenrod interjected. He looked nervous. Clearly, he was concerned about the conversation and probably envisaged the night as a whole slipping away from him.

“I see nothing noble in risking one’s life unnecessarily,” the green dragon replied rather snootily.

“I agree,” she said and earned a raised eyebrow from him. “But risking my life to protect the men and women of this city is definitely not unnecessary,” she finished icily.

He twitched his mustache in contempt, excused himself, and vanished into the crowd.

“Cheers!” Beanpole said, his voice ever so slightly slurred. “To making enemies who could obliterate us if they weren’t so proper.”

“Indeed.” Goldenrod nodded. “It’s considered quite poor form to eat a human when there are so many well-cooked hors d'oeuvres floating around.”

Hernandez raised her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

The team clinked glasses, then drank—after being reprimanded by Goldenrod for not making eye contact. Apparently, he’d spent a few centuries in Europe and still found the American habit of toasting while staring at one’s glass instead of looking into the eyes of one’s friends quite pointless.

The drink was—quite simply—the most incredible liquid Kristen had ever consumed. The first taste was the sweetness of molasses, but that brightened fairly quickly as alcohol and cinnamon battled for dominance on her tongue. It warmed her entire body when she swallowed, and a slight spicy burn lingered in her mouth to finish the effect.

From there, the team split up again.

Goldenrod followed her for a while, asking her questions about living with people and what it felt like to defend them. Even his questions seemed odd to her. She still thought of herself as human so defending people seemed natural, but as the night went on and he called for more drinks—the dragons seemed to be able to get the attention of the servers in a way the humans could not—her head spun and she began to feel less and less human.

The first thing she noticed was the auras that poured off the dragons. They didn’t use them to affect each other, not in the way they used it to affect the behavior of mortals. Instead, they used it to underscore points in conversation.

As she moved from conversation to conversation, she felt different shades of disgust directed at her—this aura often came from those who tried to politely tell her to stop wallowing with the humans. Others, however, simply found her fascinating. Goldenrod wasn’t alone in his interest in her. Many of the dragons were equally curious about her and their auras betrayed only that.

The worst encounter of the night came after a few hours and a few drinks, and she later wondered if the offensive dragon had planned it that way.

Kristen had separated from Goldenrod and stood near the edge of the room in conversation with Butters and a fairly short female dragon with a Spanish accent and an amazing ruffled orange flamenco dress.

They talked about travel and how the airplane might never have been invented without dragons to inspire flight—or, at least, the dragon in the orange dress held that opinion. Butters argued that people had been inspired not by dragons but by birds because most people saw birds every day of their lives, while few people ever saw dragons.

The woman obviously disagreed but she was polite enough about it. Kristen was about to pull herself from her drink-inspired haze and intervene when someone pushed through the crowd.

“Please, not now,” Goldenrod called from behind them, but the person would not be deterred.

A man—a dragon in man form—emerged from the crowd. He wore a slate-gray suit and an eyepatch, of all things. He strode toward Kristen over the continued protests of Goldenrod and came to a stop, swaying as he did so.

“Admit it. You’re a damn fake,” he said bluntly.

“Pardon me?” She turned to him, suddenly painfully aware of how far above the streets of the city she really was.

“Pardon the interruption, Lady Hall. This is Sir Thomas Ironclaw.”

Ironclaw raised the eyebrow above his normal eye and brandished a fist at her. It turned to iron—the dark, light-sucking black of cast iron.

“Sir Thomas believes—”

“Shut the hell up, Goldenrod, before I knock your damn jaw off. I can speak for myself.”

“Can you?” Butters asked mildly.

The newcomer faced him and his aura swept like a tidal wave. She realized that she was supposed to feel fear—no, terror—at being in the presence of this dragon. His purpose was that she would be so frightened, she would want to throw herself from the rooftop rather than face the ire of the god-like being in front of her.

Kristen, of course, didn’t feel that at all, and before Butters could react to his aura, she flexed her own. She’d never done that before but after being surrounded by dragons the entire night, she felt she had some idea of how it worked. Until that moment, she’d blocked their auras with her own sense of confidence so she simply tried to expand that feeling into her teammate.

It worked perhaps a little too well.

The sniper set his jaw and took a step toward Ironclaw. “I do believe you owe Lady Hall an explanation.”

A crowd hadn’t gathered—the dragons were obviously much too polite for that—but they didn’t ignore the exchange either. Every eye that could discreetly glance at the two dragons did exactly that, and every eye that couldn’t watched the faces of those who could.

“You’re a fake,” he reiterated.

“A fake what?” she asked and transformed her entire body into steel.

“You’re some mage’s little project let loose, or you have a piece of tech the humans invented. You’re not one of us. You’re not a dragon.”

“And yet, for some reason, I feel like my steel body would still beat your metal hand in a fight.”

Ironclaw threw his head back and laughed loudly enough to silence what little conversation continued. A chill nipped at her as a cold breeze cut across the rooftop. A few of the floating golden globes flickered while a couple of the threads of flame were extinguished.

“You wish to fight, girl? Fine, let us fight.”

Kristen raised her fists.

He laughed even harder. “Do you think I’ll fight you in this pathetic form? What will you do when I lift you from this roof and let you fall?”

“You couldn’t knock me off,” she said rather lamely. She lacked confidence because it had started to rain—only lightly, but enough to slick the surface and cause her hair to slump. Her and Hernandez were the only women whose hair was affected by the drizzle.

“You may weigh more with your shiny little shell but my wings have pushed my iron claw to such speeds as to make gravel out of stone mountains. I helped the Mongol hordes smash the great wall of China, girl. Do you think you can stand against me because you have stood against bullets? Only one dragon has ever been killed by a bullet, and it wasn’t the pathetic variety you humans so love to hurl at each other.”

A blinding flash sizzled when a bolt of electricity struck the lightning tower at the top of the skyscraper they all stood on. The crack of thunder was powerful enough to shake the rooftop and shatter glasses.

“I think that’s quite enough, Thomas,” a man said as he stepped from the crowd. He was difficult to see as the globes closest to him had all gone out and he wore a black suit that drank what light did fall upon it.

“Sebastian—please, I have this quite under control,” Vincent Goldenrod protested.

“I disagree. Thomas has seized the night and offended our guests in the process.” He was much taller than anyone else at the party and broader too and his large frame made even Drew seem slight. His black ponytail and goatee were the same midnight-black as his suit. As he approached, lightning struck another building and for a moment, he was fully illuminated. The only color besides his tanned skin was the blood-red of his silk shirt, tie, and highlights on his black gloves. Kristen had the sense that he was at least partly responsible for the lightning. Ironclaw’s scowls at the weather seemed to confirm her suspicions.

“Don’t tell me you feel differently now, Shadowstorm! When we spoke earlier—”

“I played devil’s advocate, you fool,” the dark dragon growled. “This is uncivilized, especially in front of humans. You owe our guest an apology—a proper apology.”

There were gasps at that, and she had the sense that simply saying sorry would fall far short.

“You insult me,” Ironclaw protested and wings unfurled from his back to the sounds of chains and gears clanking.

“You insult yourself. You challenge this young woman to combat despite knowing full well that might does not always equal right. Or shall we replay the events of the American Revolution?”

“Your actions weren’t sanctioned by the council. And the battle you fought wasn’t clean.”

“I don’t know. I think history and I tend to see things differently.” Shadowstorm winked on the same side of his face that the other man hid behind an eyepatch. Kristen didn’t think that was a coincidence.

“We fight, brother,” Ironclaw roared.

Lightning seared the sky again and blinded her. In the darkness that followed, Shadowstorm moved in front of Ironclaw and snaked one hand around his neck. She couldn’t tell if he had run there using his dragon speed or had moved somehow with the darkness.

“Kneel, brother, and beg forgiveness of our guest.”

“Never!” The other dragon spat in his captor’s face.

In response, Shadowstorm simply lifted him by the neck, caught his cummerbund, and threw him off the side of the building and into the strengthening rainstorm.

He plummeted for perhaps forty stories before a sound like a steam engine coming to life preceded a dragon’s sudden appearance in the rain. Ironclaw’s wings caught the air and he flew into the city and demolished the smokestack of an abandoned factory with his iron claw as he moved.

The party began to break up. The rain hadn’t actually made anyone wet but it had turned the floating hors d'oeuvres to mush and doused the strings of flame.

“Oh, dear, I do apologize,” Sebastian Shadowstorm said to her and bowed deeply.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she said.

“No, I do, really. For you see, I was talking to Thomas earlier about the peculiarities of your powers and he must have taken my curiosity too far.”

“And then, of course, there’s the rain,” Goldenrod added. He frowned at the other dragon.

“Yes, indeed, and I fear that losing my temper has caused the party to break up. Let me see if I can…” Shadowstorm closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. When he exhaled, great gusts of biting wind blew across the roof. So he could control the weather. She had never really wondered what dragons could do but now, she found it was the only thing her brain wanted to know.

The wind didn’t cause her still-steel body to stumble, although she was relieved it was Butters who stood with her near the edge of the skyscraper and not Hernandez.

Still, it was too late. Goldenrod was right in that the ambiance was ruined.

At least for some of the more well-behaved dragons.

A pixie flitted over to a small table she hadn’t noticed, put on some headphones, and began to spin records while he pounded out a deep bass beat.

“This is crazy,” Keith said as he staggered up to them, a drink in each hand. “Suddenly, I can get service!”

Kristen smiled. That was hardly surprising. More than half of the party had either retreated to the elevator or simply leapt from the edge of the building. Dragons of different colors flew away in every direction. She had never seen so many in one place. There must have been close to a hundred!

Drew and Beanpole arrived a moment later. The team leader looked moderately amused—which meant he’d had two drinks, the most she had ever seen him have—and Beanpole weaved a little.

“Give me back my fucking shoes, you damn pixie!” Hernandez screamed. “I need those to walk home.”

“Like, on the ground?” the pixie replied in a high, buzzy voice and tossed the shoes from the rooftop. It began to fly around and dance to the music with a few other pixies. Kristen didn’t think it was an accident the pixie stayed well above the woman’s reach.

Dragons joined the pixies on the dance floor—although they didn’t float above it—and soon, the rooftop was no longer a dinner party but a rave.

“Whatever. Those damn heels were killing my back anyway,” Hernandez grumbled and her wet feet slapped on the roof as she approached the group.

“Thank you for your help, Sir Shadowstorm,” Kristen said to the towering man.

“It was nothing. Ironclaw and I have been at each other’s throats for centuries. Really, I should thank you. I haven’t had an excuse to fling him from a building in decades. And please, call me Sebastian, Lady Hall.”

“Kristen’s fine. And…thank you, really. If he had knocked me from the building, I don’t know what would have happened. He’s right, you know. I still can’t transform into a dragon.”

“I’m sure that myself, Goldenrod, and half of the guests here would have thrown ourselves after you in a race to see who could be the dragon that saves the damsel in distress.”

Goldenrod nodded in affirmation but before he could speak, Hernandez hiccupped and spoke.

“Damsel in distress?” The woman laughed. She was drunk as well, that much was obvious. “How ʼbout we call her that instead of Red?”

“I’m so glad that you’re all still enjoying yourselves,” Shadowstorm said. “But neither flight nor transformation is something that comes easy for a young dragon. It’s true, most of us spend our first decades in their dragon form rather than human, but the process of changing shape is the same either way. I’d be honored to help you with it.”

“It’s not hard,” Goldenrod said and flicked his hair back. By the time his golden mane had settled on his back, he was a dragon and shook his tail to the beat.

“Nor is it easy, Vincent,” Shadowstorm said. Kristen had the sense that he could tell Goldenrod was drunk as easily as Kristen could tell Hernandez and Keith were.

“I don’t know how long you intend to stay. These parties can run fairly late, but please take my card and call me if there’s anything you need.” The dark dragon proffered his card. It was as black as his suit with his name and a phone number printed in dark red and nothing else.

“Thanks, yeah. I will.”

“Now, shall we dance?” He extended his hand like they were about to waltz to something composed by Mozart instead of the dubstep that pounded them with drums and bass.

She shrugged and took his hand.

Chapter Five

After dancing, Sebastian led the steel dragon to a lounge area and gestured for one of the mages to dry the sofas and bring them drinks. The mage obeyed hastily, blew hot wind over the seats, and bowed to him exactly as the little runts were supposed to.

“That was great,” his companion said and smiled at him.

He smiled indulgently in response. It was nothing short of amazing. This woman had unraveled months of his work. She’d almost unmasked his alias as Detroit’s hidden crime lord, Mr Black. He’d ordered men to shoot her with sniper rifles, machine guns, and even a rocket launcher. There was no person who’d done more to hinder his plans, and he now plied her with alcohol. But she wasn’t a human, was she?

“I thought that since…well, you know, you’ve been around for a while so this kind of music wouldn’t be your thing.” Kristen laughed.

But she was so very human. There she was, talking to one of the most powerful dragons in the western hemisphere—at least according to his own calculations—and she asked about his dancing? If the discovery that she was a dragon was an act, it was a very convincing one.

“Honestly, staying up to date on music trends isn’t the forte of many of my brothers and sisters, but—living in Motown—I find it enjoyable as well as essential to understanding the people who live here. Plus, it's easy. Simply ask the pixies what they listen to. They have the attention span of children so only like the newest musical groups.”

“Band,” the steel dragon said—Kristen, her name was Kristen, he reminded himself.

“Pardon me?” He didn’t know what exactly she was talking about. He accepted a drink from the mage and took a sip, hoping to feign intoxication.

“Musical groups are called bands…oh, never mind, it’s not important. Can I ask you a question?” She plucked the levitating drink from the air and actually thanked the mage for bringing it over. It was so quaint it was almost cute.

“Of course you may ask me a question—with the caveat that you will, in turn, tickle my curiosity.”

“That seems fair.” She sipped her drink. “This is good.” She smiled broadly. Ferreting out this enigma of a dragon’s secrets would be all too easy. “Are they all really your brothers and sisters? And if they are, does that mean I am too?”

“All dragons are brothers and sisters in that we’re equals, but our family tree is as complicated as humanity’s. Calling them brothers and sisters is merely an expression, I fear, and yet it does bring me directly to my question.”

“And that is?” she said after he paused. It was good to make people want to answer questions. It helped to assuage suspicion.

“I must admit, I’m terribly curious about how you came to be the Lost Dragon the media has gone on about,” Sebastian said casually. Guests had hopefully pumped her for information all night and she wouldn’t think anything of another dragon asking about her past.

“You and me both!” she blurted and giggled. The drink after their time on the dance floor had gone straight to her head.

“What do you mean?”

“I have no idea how I came to be a dragon or whatever.” She sipped her drink. “All I know is that some asshole shot a rocket at me and bam! Steel skin.”

“Yes, I’m afraid I’m quite familiar with that part of your story. But what about before that? Don’t you have any clues as to your origins?”

“My origins? You mean like Spiderman?”

“Pardon me.” He hoped he could recover. That sounded much too specific. “I simply meant that you cannot be born of the man and woman who raised you, for then you would not be a dragon.”

“Are you sure about that?” She waggled her eyebrows.

“Yes. Absolutely. Human women cannot birth a dragon, not without crushing the egg.”

“Oh. You hatched then?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, I guess I did too.” She shrugged and spilled her drink. He gestured for another. “Well, you probably heard what I told the media. Some lady dropped me on their doorstep when I was born. My mom had fertility problems so they saw it as a blessing. My folks pretended I’d been born overseas. I guess that’s maybe illegal or whatever, but I have my driver’s license so too late now.”

“And this woman who abandoned you—do you have any idea who she is?”

That question seemed to sober her. “No. No, I really don’t. Why? Is that important?”

He shrugged and assumed a wry smile. “I don’t know about important, but interesting? Certainly.”

Kristen frowned more deeply at that.

Perhaps she wasn’t as drunk as he’d thought. He would have to end this conversation soon, but he thought he could still recover. “You’re a steel dragon, something no one has seen before. That old drunk Ironclaw was the closest thing anyone has to your powers, and he earned that relic in a fight he lost to a mage. On top of your unique powers, you’re the media’s darling because you’re human, so therefore relatable. Plus, your powers manifesting must make many people think they might be a dormant dragon. Right now, you’re the most interesting thing in the world.”

“Well, thank you Sir…uh…Shadowstorm, right?”

“Yes, that is correct, but please, call me Sebastian. Or do you prefer I call you Lady Hall?”

“God no!” She laughed.

One of her little friends chose that moment to interrupt their chat.

“There you are, Kristen.” It was the large one, he noted.

“Hey, Butters. I was talking to Sebastian here,” she said.

“Do pardon me, sir,” the man said and bowed. At least this one knew proper deference to his superiors.

“Please, the apologies are all mine. I’ve basked in your friend’s attention instead of letting her enjoy the party. I really should be going, though. No rest for the wicked and all that.” He stood, nodded his head slightly at Butters—a gesture of acknowledgment that fit his higher station in life—and made his exit.

With his back to them, he didn’t have to hide his scowl when he heard the man begin to yammer about the other human trash who had attended the party.

“Beanpole got Hernandez’s shoes back from the pixie. I think he bet three pixies that he was taller than them combined, but Keith puked all over the shoes. Hernandez wants to go, and we should probably get Keith out of here.”

“Ugh.” Kristen groaned in response. “Can we get burgers?”

Sebastian shook his head as he transformed into his dragon form and leapt from the side of the building. Clouds of shadow enveloped him as he fell and obscured his body until a fully formed dragon burst from the clouds. Much like their appearance, each dragon’s transformation looked a little different. His clouds of blackness were anything but common. Once transformed, his scales were as black as coal, his claws like obsidian, and his eyes the color of molten lava.

With a single pump of his wings, he rose above the skyline of Detroit. Those below him would see nothing but shadow and feel nothing but a touch of dread as he soared overhead on wings as silent as clouds.

The girl had seemed genuine. He very much doubted that she was a dragon who had somehow created the deception. Instead, he believed she had actually been raised by humans—poor thing—and had only now come into her powers. And what powers they were.

In his hands, he could transform her into the most powerful weapon the world had ever seen. There had to be limits to her abilities, of course, but if she could withstand a rocket blast as a human, once she had unlocked her dragon form, she would be truly formidable.

Or a true threat.

She obviously had some sense of justice and was loyal to her human friends—a feeling he had always been careful to not cultivate for others, and especially not humans. Many a dragon had met their end after caring about a human and letting their emotions make their decisions for them. It was far too late to teach her such caution. Better to remember that she had a vulnerable family and use her emotions against her if it became necessary.

And it might. If Kristen unlocked her dragon form and was somehow capable of flight while in her steel skin, she would be close to unstoppable.

Still, he was excited at the prospect of finding out more about her and bringing her into his careful machinations that she’d ruined so completely once already.

The question was how best to obtain a hold over her so she could be manipulated. If he could somehow position himself as a mentor while simultaneously testing her abilities, that should serve his purposes. It would be difficult, but Sebastian Shadowstorm did so love a challenge.

He alighted in the back of an old car lot. It hadn’t been entirely a lie when he’d told Kristen he had work to do, but it would be far earlier in the morning than dawn.

Alone in the darkness, he transformed into his hulking human form. Size was one thing dragons couldn’t change about their human bodies but fortunately, clothes were. Rather than a tuxedo, he created a simple black suit with a red shirt. He retained his black gloves—how he hated getting his hands dirty. That was one thing he and his alias, Mr Black, had in common.

He looked around the lot but saw no one and checked his watch. It indicated that he was five minutes late, which meant the damn mercenaries had better be here.

“Put your hands up,” a man in black tactical gear and night vision goggles said, rolled out from behind a car, landed in a crouch, and trained an assault rifle on the disguised dragon.

“I told you I wanted to see what you were capable of. I’m hardly impressed.” He cracked his knuckles, his tone bored.

“Go.” The man said dispassionately from behind his night vision goggles. A bullet struck the ground a few inches from Mr Black’s left shoe. Another struck a few inches from his right, although it came from the opposite direction.

He immediately looked up—dragons could see in the dark, so he didn’t need night vision to see the snipers—and located one.

“Your man is in the cab of that semi-truck. I could end him before he drew another breath. The other—”

“Has orders to shoot you if you turn to try to identify him. We know your kind can see in the dark. That’s why you hired us.”

“I’m slightly more impressed. But surely you know I can transform in the blink of an eye, and bullets…well, they haven’t changed the balance much, have they?”

“Not lead bullets, no,” the man said. His smirk was the only visible part of his face under his night vision goggles. “But like I said, that’s not why you hired professionals with our reputation.”

“Indeed.” Sebastian smiled. “Very well. You will have to do. It’s not like your target will expect anything anyway.”

“Do you want to accelerate the plan, then?”

“Not at all. Continue as we discussed. The targets I chose for you should make it look like some kind of a hostile real estate takeover for anyone who pays close attention. I have other agents buying that land up. Together, this should create quite a stir in the ranks of those who own these communities.”

“Very good sir,” the mercenary said and finally lowered his weapon. “And the news is correct about her?”

“As far as I can tell, it is. She’s yet to activate her full potential, but she might quite soon. Either way, you need to operate on the understanding that SWAT has a dragon and that successfully encountering that dragon will determine the size of your bonuses.”

“Oh yes, sir. I’d like to thank you for the opportunity. We can’t wait to meet her.”

Chapter Six

The next Monday, a new recruit arrived at the station—a replacement for Jonesy, Kristen thought bitterly. Their team Rookie quickly tried to brand the guy with the moniker before he arrived but no one was interested in calling anyone but Keith that.

She was in the lounge, arguing with Butters over who could eat the last jelly-filled donut when Drew walked in with the new guy at his heels.

“Everyone, this is the new guy. New guy, this is Butters and Hernandez. That’s Kristen, of course, although I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the Lost Dragon or whatever on TV.”

“Hi there. My name’s Jim—Jim Washington.” He was on the shorter side, African American, and looked fit, although he didn’t have Drew’s gym-sculpted muscles. He stuck his hand out.

Hernandez took it and promptly tried to crush it in her grip but was ultimately unsuccessful. “Welcome,” she said enigmatically. Kristen wondered if she was already thinking about playing against him in an airsoft battle.

Jim reached for her hand next, but it was covered in powdered sugar. She wiped it hastily on the leg of her uniform, then tried to shake but he didn’t look too pleased with the prospect.

“So you’re her, huh?” He studied her with open curiosity. “I gotta say, even though I’ve seen your picture, this isn’t quite what I expected.”

She wiped her hand more vigorously on her pants. Maybe he avoided shaking because of powdered sugar, although she was sure she’d removed it all.

“I’ve heard of you too. Wonderkid, right?” Butters interjected before she could ask what exactly this wonderkid had meant by not shaking her hand. Had it only been the sticky fingers?

Jim grinned. “Apparently, twenty-four years of age don’t count for much, even though I spent four years in the marines and another two working for Detroit PD. They still call me the kid.”

“It sounds like you’ve been in a few hostile situations before,” Drew commented.

“Oh, yes, sir. I spent some time in the Middle East fighting someone else’s war. I’m glad to be here where I can actually make a difference.”

“What do you mean by that?” Hernandez said. She’d lost a brother in Iraq.

“Well, quite frankly, our international system would be much simpler if someone besides the most powerful was in command.” His gaze drifted to Kristen as he said this and barely managed to contain a sneer.

“Do you think I have something to do with terrorists attacking our country because I’m a dragon?” she asked, not liking the hostility in his eyes at all.

“Not you, no, but your kind? Yes. If the ruling dragon class wasn’t so damn ostentatious with their wealth and power, maybe the common man wouldn’t be screwed so damn often.”

“You’re saying war is all the dragon’s fault?” Hernandez raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged. Kristen had the sense the gesture was extremely calculated. “I’m saying people in this country profit from war. Sure, some of those are regular people, I guess, but most of those at the top don’t care about regular folk. They’d as soon eat the poor.”

“Are you worried I’ll eat you?” She smiled and flashed her teeth.

“I’m saying if you try, I’ll be ready,” he replied.

Drew cut in. “That’s enough politics. Jim’s on the team because he was the best nominee for selection. You have big shoes to fill, Wonderkid, but your record says you should be able to fill them.”

“I certainly plan to.” Jim still didn’t take his gaze off Kristen.

“Well, all right then. Wonderkid, have a donut. We’ll go through some paperwork in a minute. I gotta talk to Captain Hansen.” The team leader left Butters, Hernandez, and Kristen alone with the newcomer.

“So, you said dragons started our latest foreign engagement, yet we have humans in congress who authorized the war. Discuss.” Hernandez smiled, obviously pleased with herself for tossing a lit match into a tank of gasoline.

“Look, all I’m saying is that I’ve seen what it looks like when the rich and powerful try to take wealth that doesn’t belong to them.” He raised his hands as if to show he had merely stated the obvious. “Most of the time, they get it and most of the time, regular people are shot in the process.”

“Except by the rich and powerful, you really mean dragons.” Kristen placed her hands on her hips.

“Well, for starters, every damn dragon I’ve ever heard of is rich and powerful. They’ve manipulated regular folk for all of history simply because they’re more powerful and think that makes it right to ignore regular humans.”

“Do you think I’m rich and powerful?” she snapped.

“Not yet,” he retorted. “But I also heard you made it on SWAT directly out of the police academy.”

“That was before anyone knew I was a dragon.”

“I read on the Internet that Dragon SWAT intervened in that promotion, though,” he retorted smartly. He’d obviously been sitting on that one.

“And if you read it on the Internet, it's true?” Butters asked incredulously. “Not exactly the most reputable of sources, the Internet.”

“It’s not true, then?” Jim asked her pointedly.

She shrugged.

Hernandez laughed. “You’d better fucking believe it’s true. She got here as green as her hair is red.”

“I’ve put in my time—” she protested.

“I’m sure you have, but not for six years,” Jim replied.

“So, you didn’t go to college then?” Butters asked.

“No, sir. But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I’ve seen something of the world when I was on tour. I chose to come back here to make my hometown better. I don’t want Detroit to become as bad as some of the places I saw when I served.”

“There are dragons here, though,” Kristen said. “Isn’t that a problem for you?”

“My job is to make sure dragons are not a problem.”

They locked gazes, then, and she could feel her aura begin to bubble up. She wanted to make this man feel scared, to feel regret for how he had judged Kristen Hall from news stories without even meeting her. Part of her wanted to make him feel terror for the woman who could walk through bullets, but the other part of her knew he was at least kind of right.

When the gangs had teamed up and tried to take over Detroit, a dragon had been responsible. When she—a dragon—had put down their little rebellion by killing damn near all of them, the dragons who’d come to stop the incident hadn’t cared about the loss of human lives.

But she wasn’t like that. She wasn’t raised by dragons but by people and had wept when Jonesy—a human, and a flawed one at that—had died. Despite what he thought, she wasn’t like the other dragons who cavorted and partied high above the city they ruled from the shadows.

She took a deep breath and silenced her aura. Using her dragon powers on him after just barely meeting was not the way to achieve anything worthwhile. She wanted Jim to respect her, not fear her.

“Look.” He shook his head to clear his mind of the aura she had unintentionally built and had deliberately silenced. “I’m from Detroit. I’m here to help the people of this city. So long as we’re all doing that, I don’t have a problem.”

Her intention was to say something about her keeping an eye on him as well, but Drew hollered before she could.

“We have a weird one,” he shouted down the hall. Footsteps indicated that Keith and Beanpole were out there too.

“What seems to be the problem, officer?” Butters grinned.

“Get this—we have a team of perps holed up in an abandoned building. There are no hostages and no demands, but apparently, they are heavily armed and Detroit PD has requested SWAT. I want everyone geared up and in the van in less than five minutes. That means you too, Wonderkid.”

“Yes, sir.” The shouted response was unanimous, and Jim followed Kristen to the gear room. She wondered if he resented her for walking down the hallway before he did.

Chapter Seven

They arrived to find an abandoned five-story building surrounded by police.

“Bring us up to date, officer,” Drew said to the cop who walked up to meet them as they exited the van.

“There hasn’t been any shooting for a while,” the officer said—Johnson, according to the name on his uniform. “We’ve maintained a respectable distance and kept our heads down. That’s what happened when we got too close.” He hooked his thumb at a cruiser behind him. The windshield was shattered and the hood of the vehicle was riddled with bullet holes. A few other cruisers had damaged windows as well.

“They must be well-provisioned if they’re taking potshots at your windows,” Jim said like he’d been on SWAT for years instead of for all of thirty minutes.

“Potshots? What the fuck are you talking about?” Johnson protested.

“Instead of simply destroying the one cruiser, they demolished the windows on a couple. That shows they have ammunition to spare and the skill to only hit the targets they want. This looks like a message to me.”

“Look, Wonderkid, just because you got promoted to SWAT doesn’t mean you get to act all high and mighty over your old force.” The man’s face said he’d had problems with Jim Washington for a long time.

“Tell us what happened leading up to the stand-off,” Drew commanded and ended the argument.

“Yeah, sure, but there ain’t much to tell. Someone noticed a B and E and we sent a cruiser in.” The man pointed again at the only cruiser with significant damage. “He took fire and called for backup. They tried again when there were three cruisers but were pushed back by gunfire. They tried again—despite orders not to—when there were six cruisers here, but with the same result. We pulled back, cordoned the building off to make sure those assholes stay inside, and called in SWAT.”

Drew nodded. Apparently, he knew all this already.

“Casualties?”

“Zero.” He half-grinned at that.

“I thought you said you took fire multiple times.”

“We did, but no one’s been hit. Believe me, it’s a fucking miracle. They have assault weapons up there too—cop killers—plus, they’re spread out. We located one at a window and shot it out but they were already at another one a few stories up. My boys have them bottled up, though.”

“This supports my theory that they’re trying to send a message,” Jim said. Kristen was learning quickly why everyone called him Wonderkid.

“I don’t know about all that,” Johnson started to argue but Drew began to issue orders and the man wisely shut the hell up.

“Butters and Beanpole, I want you in…” The team leader scanned the nearby buildings. “That one. Actually, on the roof. Beanpole, do you think there’s cover up there to keep our star sniper safe?”

The man held his binoculars up, scanned the rooftop briefly, and nodded. “There are quite a few air conditioners that need to be replaced. The old models are big enough to hide him.”

“I resent that, and thank you,” Butters said over his shoulder. He was already assembling his weapon.

“All right. The rest of us will go in under the cover of smoke. Wonderkid, if you want to sit this one out, that’s fine with me. I don’t want anyone to rush into this kind of thing on their first day.”

“This ain’t my first day. I’ve used smoke grenades before and besides, I’ve waited for a slot to open on SWAT for months. I’ve itched for action.” He strapped an assault rifle on.

Kristen frowned briefly at the idea that Jim had basically waited for someone to die, but she quickly shook that thought out of her head. That was unproductive nonsense. Jonesy was gone and nothing could change that. Her goal now was not to lose anyone else, and that included the Wonderkid. She’d protect him like she had everyone else on her team, and that would make him feel differently about dragons.

“Hernandez, Keith, if you’ll do the honors?” Drew said after he’d handed out gas masks.

“Let’s do it, Rookie. Remember to pull the pin and then throw.” Hernandez mimed pulling the pin and lobbing the grenade.

“I know how to use a grenade,” Keith complained but he did pay careful attention when Hernandez counted them down.

“Three, two, one, puff, puff, pass,” the woman shouted and she and Keith each hurled their devices at the building. Before they’d even begun to smoke, they each followed with another one. In moments, the parking lot between the police and the five-story building was filled with smoke.

“Let’s do this. Watch each other’s backs. On point, I want—”

“I got it, sir,” Kristen said before he could finish, turned her skin to steel, and led the way through the smoke.

Gunshots erupted from above. Mostly, she couldn’t see them but sometimes, one came close, pierced through the smoke, and left a swirling wake in the acrid clouds. She ignored the gunfire. Her self-appointed role was to reach the building first and force the hostiles to retreat so her team could enter safely and guard the exits while she cleared the building.

Something glanced off her chest and she grinned. It had been a bullet, obviously, but the interesting part was that it had come from ahead of her. There were hostiles on the ground floor, which meant she had made the right choice to rush ahead and leave her team behind. She had work to do.

Moments later, she entered the building. The ground floor had been stripped of its interior. The entire level was open with rows of concrete pillars that supported a roof that was about twenty feet high. Very little light came in through the windows, and every single pillar was large enough to hide anyone with the exception of Butters.

Whoever had fired at her through the smoke clearly didn’t want to give their position away because, at the moment, the interior was completely silent. She didn’t hear gunshots from the higher levels either. Maybe everyone had come down thinking they’d trap the SWAT team.

Too bad for them. They couldn’t stop the Steel Dragon.

It was dark—too dark for her steel skin to reflect much light—so Kristen moved into the cavernous space with her gun up so she presented an obvious threat. With any luck, she’d come across one of the hostiles hiding behind a pillar, he’d see her weapon and try to shoot, and it’d all be over for him. If that interaction sparked others to attack, she would be able to pick them off one by one while they panicked and failed to hurt her.

It worked. After less than a minute, someone broke cover near the far side of the room. The person—she assumed it was a man because those who wielded guns for power usually were—darted out, unloaded as many damn rounds as he could into her, and ran farther into the open room before he ducked behind another pillar.

She smiled. This would be too easy. Despite being shot by dozens of bullets, she was unharmed. Hadn’t these guys watched the news? Guns couldn’t stop the police anymore, not with Kristen Hall—the Lost Dragon, the Steel Dragon—on SWAT.

“Give yourselves up now and we’ll take you in peacefully,” she said and flexed her aura as she spoke.

It worked too well. Three men broke from cover this time, each paused to shoot at her, and all vanished through an open doorway. She had meant to make them afraid and thought she had, but maybe too much. Maybe she had overdone the idea of terror she had infused into her aura. Rather than make them surrender, she’d made them flee for their lives.

She sighed morosely—she really wished she could control her dragon powers better—and set off in pursuit.

“Hall! Damn it, Hall, hold up,” Drew yelled over the radio. She glanced behind her to confirm that the rest of her team had made it through the smoke. Drew and Wonderkid were in the lead, followed by the Rookie and Hernandez. Everyone was still moving fine, which meant no one was hurt. So far, so good.

“They went through here,” she shouted and ran toward the doorway the hostiles had taken.

“Hall! Stop! I repeat, stop! For fuck’s sake, that’s an order!” Drew bellowed as he sprinted across the open room.

Kristen ignored him. She reached the doorway to find the stairs leading up had been demolished. Her first thought was that there had to be another way up, but then she heard something from the stairs leading down into the basement—footsteps.

The idiots had given themselves away. Despite having snipers on the upper floors, they tried to hide out in the basement. They must have hoped she would try to climb the broken path or—and this was more likely, she thought—there was another set of stairs somewhere in the building that led directly into their trap.

They could spring that one in a minute, but right now, she intended to eliminate the assholes who thought they could outsmart a dragon by hiding in the basement.

“Dammit, Hall, don’t you fucking move!” Drew was halfway across the room now.

If she didn’t hurry, she might find him in the firefight with her, something she definitely did not want to happen.

She plunged down the stairs toward the darkness below.

Chapter Eight

There was sufficient light to enable her to take the stairs two at a time but she had to hold the railing for the last section. Each step took her farther and farther from the light and soon, she could barely see at all.

From what she could make out, the floor was essentially the same as the one above it. Although the ceiling wasn’t so high, concrete pillars ran in rows that vanished into the gloom.

Kristen took a step forward. Footsteps echoed through the room and something greenish bobbed through the dark. Night vision goggles, she realized. Maybe they had wanted SWAT to come down there, after all.

Of course, that meant she had already walked into a trap. But it also meant it was all the more important to make sure her team didn’t follow her down.

“Hall. I need you back on the ground level now,” Drew ordered, his voice crisp and cold over the radio. Her expression resolute, she silenced the device.

She heard more footsteps and peered into the gloom. Suddenly, it was as if someone turned a dimmer switch up. She could see—albeit not very well—someone’s shoulder protruding slightly from behind one of the pillars in the sixth row.

Her thoughts returned briefly to the dragon party. Hadn’t Shadowstorm said something about night vision when they were dancing? Was this another of her dragon powers manifesting?

Someone darted from one pillar to another. Movement seemed fairly easy to make out. Her eyes were adjusting but she didn’t have time.

From behind her, footsteps and the heavy breathing of people trying to move quickly reclaimed her focus.

She had to move and she had to move now if she wanted to prevent her team from getting hurt. They had night-vision goggles in the van, but the police had said the shots had been fired from above. She thought about alerting Drew but knew that would only encourage the team to join her. No one had thought about the basement. It was a stupid mistake, and she would not let it cost them. Not when she could end this before their trap hurt any people.

Her radio still inactive, she walked into the darkness, still in her steel skin, and tried to use her aura to dare these assholes to attack her.

After five steps in with no response, she paused and waited.

She continued to ten steps but still, nothing happened.

At twenty steps, she caught movement from the corner of her eye.

They’d taken the bait. Her senses deepened. With each passing moment, her eyes could pierce more deeply into the gloom. Her ears seemed keener too, and she realized she could tell fairly easily which way the people moved simply by the sounds of their footsteps.

Confident in her ability to succeed, she let them move into position until they had her surrounded. Perfect! This meant the hostiles were occupied with her, and that meant her team would be safe. Even Jim would have to admit that having a dragon working with people changed things.

One of the hostiles leaned out from behind a concrete pillar and fired at her.

She smiled and made no effort to dodge. It wasn’t like weapons could hurt her.

The projectile from the weapon struck her forearm. As expected, it didn’t hurt. It did stick, however. She looked down quickly. Two barbs wound with copper wire extended back to the shooter. For a moment, she could actually feel the tickle of the magnetic field from the little devices. A split-second later, electricity surged into her skin and for the first time since she’d known she was a dragon, she felt pain.

The sensation was excruciating—worse than the time she had tried to unplug the old clock in her grandfather’s garage and touched the live wire or the taser she had felt during an extremely unpleasant day of training at the police academy. It was even worse than being hit by a rocket—for her anyway.

Her teeth gritted, she fought the urge in her body to clench up. Her gaze followed the cables to the man who had shot her. It was harder to see now—apparently, severe pain didn’t do much for one’s concentration. She determined that the barbs were connected to some kind of high-powered taser rifle in the hands of a man dressed in tactical gear and equipped with night vision goggles.

By sheer force of will, she took a step toward him, followed by another. It was hard—damn hard—to make any progress with the electricity that coursed through her skin and made her muscles twitch, but she could do it. They obviously wanted her to drop her steel skin, but she wouldn’t fall for that.

That was what she thought until another two barbs fired from her left and stuck to her ribs. She tried to knock them away but between her twitchy muscles and the magnetic fields, they didn’t budge. Instead, they released more electricity into her steel skin. She took another step forward, even though she now moved away from one of her attackers. It was the hardest step she’d taken in her entire life.

A third pair of prongs struck her, this time in the small of the back. More electricity flooded her system like a forest that was already burning struck by additional lightning.

Kristen tried to take another step but fell to one knee.

When a fourth taser struck her in the neck, she could see the cords extending into the darkness—darkness that was much deeper than it had been moments before—and she tried to swat them away. Her arms were completely unresponsive.

She fell heavily, her steel body clanging and echoing off the concrete floor and pillars.

Desperately, she tried to stand—no, that was an enormous overstatement. She tried to think about standing and could barely manage even the idea of it.

Her body wasn’t her own. It was a twitching mess of pain. She felt like she was on fire, except this was far worse. Fire didn’t make someone’s muscles loosen so they pissed themselves. It didn’t make someone’s legs buck and kick while it immobilized them.

The sound of gunshots blasted into her awareness.

No. No! No, no, no, no, no, no! She was unable to even close her mouth. Drool trickled out and electricity coursed through it to sting her teeth.

She tried to turn to see what was happening, but even that proved futile. Still, she could think clearly enough to know that she’d failed her team. She’d tried to rush in to protect them and now, they were engaged with the enemy while she was reduced to nothing but a quivering pile of metal.

But she was stronger than that. She wouldn’t let this defeat her. After all, her dad was only human, and he’d been shot and survived. She was a steel dragon and could overcome this.

Somehow, despite all the twitching, she got her arms under her and pushed with every ounce of strength she had.

It wasn’t even remotely enough. The additional strain on her arms only made her twitch more, and she couldn’t raise her steel chest barely an inch off the ground. She collapsed into a writhing mess, completely powerless.

Kristen couldn’t even turn her head to see behind her. She didn’t know if the gunshots were from her own team attempting to rescue her or from the hostiles executing them.

Beyond her growing despair, she realized that the nature of the gunfight had changed. Instead of the quick bursts of fire—the regular exchange as two teams of combatants tried to pin the other down—it became the longer, steadier shots of one side pursuing another. Kristen could almost hear her team control their breath as the hostiles—cowards!—ran deeper into the room.

They’d done it. Her team had done it. Despite her running stupidly in to protect them, they’d saved her.

Kristen tried to turn her head to face them but that only sent shockwaves of pain through her body.

She closed her eyes, fought tears back, and opened them again to see the red digital numbers of a clock in front of her. Was this all a dream, then?

No, it wasn’t. She wanted it to be, but that wasn’t an alarm clock. It was a timer—and one connected to something attached to one of the pillars.

Oh. A bomb, her brain told her. Of course.

“Hernandez!” She tried to call out but her vocal cords ignored her.

Instead, her gaze traced a wire that ran from the timer to another pillar, and another and another. Many of the supports had bombs on them—maybe all of them.

The gunshots stopped and Drew and her team arrived. She tried to tell them what was happening, that she’d seen a bomb—no, bombs—but all she could manage was to stutter and drool while she stared at one of the pillars.

Hernandez waved a hand in front of her face. She blinked, looked hard at the woman—though even that motion was painful—then returned her stare to the bomb.

Her teammate caught the hint, looked up, and cursed. “We have a fucking bomb.”

“That’s not important right now. Get this shit off Hall,” Drew said and kicked away one of the magnetized barbs. Apparently, the hostiles had left their fancy tasers on the ground when they’d fled. He and Keith quickly kicked them all away.

Kristen sucked in a breath of air when the last one was removed. Her muscles no longer felt like they were controlled by a kid flipping a light switch, but she still hurt. It felt like she’d been cooked. Her muscles were hers once more but they were completely drained. She tried to speak but couldn’t even manage that.

“They escaped into the sewer,” someone said. Jim? That was the new guy’s name, Jim. Even her brain seemed to be barely functioning.

Drew looked her in the eye. His face was full of pity and concern. Was this how her team saw her when she rushed in somewhere to protect them? She didn’t like it. “Hall, you’ll be okay. Keith and I will catch these creeps and make sure nothing like this happens to you again—”

“Not a good idea!” Hernandez shouted before he could finish.

“You can’t disarm the bomb?”

“Not in the forty seconds left in the timer. Plus, it’s not one bomb. It’s a goddammed demolition rig, at least as far as I can tell.” She sounded as nervous as hell. Kristen didn’t think she’d ever heard her sound scared of anything.

She wanted to say something about how Hernandez was a chicken after all, but she only managed a gurgle in the back of her throat and more drool.

“How big are we talking?” the team leader asked as his gaze settled on the timer.

“They’re trying to take down the whole damn building, Drew.”

“Then we follow these assholes into the sewer. They’ll lead us to a safe place,” Washington shouted.

“There is no way we’re leaving Kristen,” Drew replied almost viciously.

“She has steel skin so she’ll be fine,” the man responded.

“There must be limits to her power.”

“But—”

“Damn it, Wonderkid, now is not the goddamn time. Get over here and help me with her.”

There was a moment—a second really, because she saw it run out on the timer—before Jim moved. That felt like an eternity. Even though she couldn’t see him, she could imagine his posture from his tone of voice. He itched to run into the sewer and catch these people, not because they’d hurt her but because that was his job. He saw her simply as collateral damage. She couldn’t help but wonder, if he had his way, whether he’d let the building drop on her because it would be one less dragon.

But he knelt in front of her and helped Drew to roll her onto her back.

“Hernandez, are you gonna be able to stop it?”

“No, sir. I don’t have the time or the tools. Shit, this thing looks good!”

“Then get the hell over here and help us with her. Keith, take her legs.”

Keith and Hernandez each grabbed a leg, while Jim and Drew took hold of her shoulders. Together, the four of them were able to lift her off the ground—barely.

“Red, if you can turn your fucking steel skin off, now would be a damn good time,” Hernandez said through gritted teeth.

She tried to explain that she couldn’t, that her body felt like it had been run over by an oil tanker and deep-fried, but she only managed another gurgle.

Her team dragged her toward the stairs while she watched the timer.

Twenty…

Nineteen…

They made it to the stairs.

Eighteen…

They hauled her up and cursed mightily all the while. She lost sight of the timer when her steel head clonked against a concrete step with enough force to chip a piece of the building off.

Seventeen…

Sixteen…

When they reached the first landing, she could tell they needed to catch their breath but they all knew there wasn’t time.

Fifteen…fourteen…thirteen.

At last, they heaved her onto the floor of the building.

Twelve…

Not speaking a word, they raced past the pillars.

Eleven…

Someone tripped and they lost their grasp. Her body struck the floor with a clang.

Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…

They scrambled and lifted her again to push on.

Five…

Closer to the door meant closer to safety.

Four…three.

They would make it.

Two.

The team pushed outside, their breathing labored

One…

“Get back. Everyone, get the fuck back!” Drew yelled between ragged, rasping breaths. He should have used his radio to tell the police there was a bomb, but he’d needed both hands to carry Kristen. His kindness might have killed dozens of men.

Zero.

The expected detonation failed to materialize.

They grunted with effort now and shuffled her along while her steel body dragged on the concrete but still, nothing happened. She heard nothing and the building was still intact. Had it been a distraction?

Dozens of explosions answered her unspoken question. The sequence started at the bottom floor and rippled up through the building. She had the perfect view as her team hauled her backward away from the warehouse. Obviously, her count had been off.

In a few seconds, the blasts were over and the structure began to fall.

To Kristen, in her pain-induced delirium, it reminded her of the magic trick where the wizard held a curtain in front of a woman before he dropped it to reveal that the woman had gone. Like a curtain, the building fell straight down. Nothing came from the perimeter of the five-story structure besides a scattering of gravel and a large dust cloud. It looked as if the structure had literally vanished into a cloud.

“Fuck,” Hernandez cursed. She dropped her teammate and panted as she watched the explosion. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“What?” Keith panted hoarsely. Her entire team was completely out of breath.

“Bombs don’t blow things up like that. That was definitely a professional demolition job.”

“Are you sure?” Drew asked.

“Yes, I’m fucking sure. Do you know how many times I’ve fantasized about wiring a building like that?”

“But who would take the time to demolish a building?” the Rookie asked. He stood, forced his hands into the small of his back, and tried to stretch after carrying her out from the building that was now nothing but rubble.

The team leader took a deep breath before he spoke. When he did, his voice lacked its usual stone-like resolve. He was shaken and tired, two things Kristen rarely saw in the officer. “Someone who hoped to drop every damn pound of it on the steel dragon immobilized in the basement.”

Chapter Nine

The drive back to the station was beyond awkward. No one talked much. Kristen still couldn’t. She managed to revert to her normal skin, but even that had been a huge effort. Everyone else seemed to be lost in thought—about her, no doubt.

By the time they arrived and unloaded, she was actually excited at the prospect of being yelled at. And she had no doubt that it would happen. It was written on every muscle of Drew’s face.

“Do you need a hand?” he offered and she took it.

“Thanks,” she wheezed.

“You all go on ahead,” he said, and everyone obeyed without even a backward glance. In moments, it was only the two in the parking garage standing at the back of the van.

“Are you all right, Hall?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m sore but it’s feeling more and more like I only had a really good work-out. I think Bruce Lee used electroshock to train.” Even as she said it, she knew it was a poor attempt at humor.

He nodded and continued to do so for what seemed like an unnaturally long time. All the while, the scowl on his face grew meaner and meaner. “Then what the hell were you thinking back there? You rushed ahead like you had a damn death wish. What happened to the months of training we did together? What happened to your team? And it was Wonderkid’s first day. What if he thinks that’s how we do things and he starts rushing in?”

“Washington is not a steel dragon.” She tried to keep her voice cool.

“So what? Now that you’re a dragon, you’re above the rules of us puny humans?”

“No, of course not. Drew, you know that. My dad was a cop for thirty years. I’m a person.”

“Well, the people on my team follow my orders.” He was red in the face and she had honestly never seen him this worked up.

“And what would have happened if one of those tasers had a hit another team member instead of me?”

“They’d be dead, most likely.”

“See? I had to go in.” She held her hands up to emphasize her point. Even that motion hurt after having so much electricity pumped through her.

“What would have happened if we didn’t get you out of there? Could you survive a building dropped on your head?”

She looked down.

“Hall. Hall! Damn it, Kristen, answer the damn question.”

“I don’t know,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know!” she finally yelled at him. The effort made her head hurt and she rubbed her temples.

“That’s my point, Hall. You don’t know your limits. I’ve seen you do some amazing stuff—we all have—but you’re not invincible.”

“Yes, I am,” she retorted sharply, surprised at the ferocity in her own voice.

“Are you? Are you really? And what if someone hit you with a rocket right now, like right at this moment? Could you survive that?”

Kristen clenched her teeth and looked away again. They both knew she couldn’t. The tasers had totally worn her out. “Even if I couldn’t survive, I would have to try. Like you said, those tasers would have killed everyone else. It had to be me.”

“You know, I’ve seen survivor’s guilt before but this is beyond that.”

“Survivor’s guilt?” She hadn’t thought much about the term, but the implications struck her in the chest like an arrow.

“You couldn’t have saved Jonesy. No one could. It’s not your fault he died. It’s not anyone’s fault except the hostile who pulled the trigger.”

“You’re wrong!” she shouted. “I have to protect my people. I must protect my people.”

There was a long moment in which he simply watched her, his arms folded and eyes narrowed.

“You’re still changing, aren’t you?” Drew finally said.

She sat on the rear bumper of the SWAT van. It collapsed beneath her weight with a dull crash. She hadn’t realized she’d turned her skin to steel again. It took some effort but she returned to normal, stood again, and began to pace. “I don’t know…yes? Okay, I know there are still powers I can’t use, but I don’t really know what they are. There are these feelings too, sometimes. I don’t have kids but, that’s what it feels like. Like you’re all these defenseless little children and I have to protect you because you’re mine.”

“We’re not yours, Kristen. We’re not anyone’s. We’re people. That means we’re our own.”

“I know. Believe me, I know! And the last thing I want is to treat you the way the other dragons treat people, but… Ugh, it’s different. I think there might be a reason dragons are all manipulative or aloof. It’s either to protect people or remove themselves from mankind and ignore that urge completely.”

“But you can’t protect us.”

“Yes, I damn well can,” she snapped without meaning too. She shook her head and put it down to weariness. This tired, some of her reactions didn’t even feel like her own.

“No, Kristen, you protecting us from every encounter will not keep us safe. These are adults you’re talking about. And probably the most capable adults in all of Detroit.”

“But they can’t stop bullets.” Kristen turned her hand to steel and gestured to Drew.

“But you can’t stop every damn bullet. What if things had gone differently today? What if, when you ran into the cloud of smoke, those snipers simply unloaded on the whole force?”

“But they didn’t.”

“No, they didn’t. But I’m saying that there are many situations where you can’t protect your team. Look, the fact is that we’re all SWAT. We’ve all been shot at. We all signed up for this shit. If you want to keep us safe, you need to do the same thing the rest of us do—work together and trust each other to do our job.”

“But—”

“Face it. You went on your own this time and that put us all at risk. We might’ve all been crushed today. How would you feel then?”

She clenched her teeth and shook her head. That was a low blow. “If the building came down I could have—”

“You couldn’t have done a damn thing. You were incapacitated. It was a damn miracle we got you out of there. When we busted that step with your head—” Drew snorted and uttered a single short laugh. Kristen knew the sound. It was the laugh you made in the face of death but also the one you made when death took someone from you for no good reason. It was a laugh of desperation, of looking loss in the face and being able to do nothing more. She’d laughed that way when thinking about Jonesy dying in her arms.

“Thank you,” Kristen said. The words drained some of the tension from her body she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying. “For saving me, I mean.”

“You’re welcome.” His red face lost some of its color and he actually smiled. “We saved your steel ass back there.”

It was her turn to laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you did.”

“And don’t make us do it again,” Drew yelled loud enough for it to echo in the parking garage, but he didn’t sound angry anymore.

“Yes, sir.” She nodded smartly.

“You weigh a goddamn ton. Why do you think I always keep Butters outside the perimeter?”

She laughed for real this time—An honest, that-was-actually-funny-and-kind-of-rude-laugh. “You know, I bet I could carry him if I needed to.”

Drew snorted. “That’s good to know. If I decide to use you in that regard, I’ll tell you. Those are the kind of skills we could use on our team. What we don’t want is you trying to save the whole damn world one bust at a time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re not our dragon overlord. Not yet. You’d better continue to take orders, watch our backs, and let us watch yours until you are.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, then. Now, let’s get inside. We have things to discuss.”

They walked to the lounge in companionable silence. Kristen could hear from the hallway that they hadn’t been the only ones having a heated discussion.

“Because, for fuck’s sake, I’m an explosives expert!” That was Hernandez, obviously.

“And that means you know their intentions?” That was the new guy, Washington the Wonderkid.

Drew stopped in the doorway. She peered around his massive shoulders to see Hernandez and the Wonderkid toe to toe. Both had bulging neck veins and her face was red, while Jim’s headed toward purple.

“Hernandez, Washington, sit down and have a donut.” Drew’s voice was like water on flames.

Both backed down immediately. Washington settled into a chair. Hernandez snatched a donut and crammed in beside Butters on the couch. Her scowl remained, but she always scowled so that was no indication of any continued aggression.

“Now, Hernandez, tell me what you’re arguing about.” The team leader sounded as if he had asked a fourth grader to explain their science fair project.

“I said it in the van and I’ll say it again—those were professional-level explosives. The way that building came down was absolutely perfect.”

He nodded. “It’s hard to disagree with that. Washington, what was your argument?”

“That if those explosives were so damn professional, why didn’t they use them to kill any cops? They had enough power in there to kill every damn officer, but they didn’t. How is that professional?”

“Maybe their target wasn’t your average cop,” Beanpole said from the wall. His arms were folded and he had remained completely silent and unmoving. Kristen hadn’t even noticed him.

“That’s what I thought too.” Butters gestured with a jelly donut and sprinkled powdered sugar on Hernandez. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice.

“What do you mean?” Drew asked the sniper even though he probably already knew exactly what he was getting at. He was simply trying to involve the entire team. Kristen had no doubt it was either for Washington’s benefit—it was his first day, after all—or for hers. Obviously, the man valued teamwork in all things.

“Well, the perps must’ve set that place to blow long before any officers arrived.” Butters’ accent made her think of a southern lawyer pontificating before a judge. “On top of that, they had weapons that could hurt a steel dragon. The Rookie said the barbs on those tasers were odd. Did anyone else notice them?”

Drew nodded. “They were magnetic. I noticed that too.”

So had she, what with them sticking to her steel skin instead of bouncing off.

“And then there’s the fact that they kept the regular cops away and didn’t even attempt to hurt even one of them.”

The sniper let the evidence linger in the room for a moment. She had a feeling that everyone had the same thought, so when she cleared her throat and spoke, she wasn’t surprised to see everyone nod with her. “The whole thing was a trap for me.”

“And we walked right into it,” Drew agreed.

“More like the dragon led us into it.” Washington glared at her.

No one said anything for a moment, and she understood that they’d all had similar thoughts about how it had played out. She was about to swallow her pride and apologize to the whole group but thankfully, Drew spoke first.

“We’ve already discussed Hall’s recklessness. She’s now on probation and we’ve agreed there will be consequences if she tries to play rescue the damsel in distress again.”

“Probation?” she whined.

Everyone laughed.

He hadn’t said anything about that but she realized he hadn’t intended to. His purpose was that he wanted her reaction to be genuine because it would remind the team that she was still one of them. He really was a good leader.

“Seriously, next time you want to pull shit like that, let me know so I can at least bring my magic fucking sword.” Hernandez snorted.

“And my ax,” Keith added.

Everyone laughed and some of the tension drained from the room.

There was a pleasant moment for a second before Washington effectively shattered it. “So, the question then becomes why are hostiles trained with straight-up military tactics and targeting Detroit’s Lost Dragon?”

“Do you think they were military?” Keith asked.

Jim shrugged. “Their movements were. I doubt it was an actual military force, of course, which means they were probably hired professionals, and—given their gear—not cheap ones.”

“Maybe it has something to do with whoever was behind the gang violence,” Kristen said.

Hernandez shook her head. “For fuck’s sake, Hall. I miss Jonesy too, but not everything’s about him.”

“No…no, I think she might be on to something.” Drew rubbed his chin and frowned in thought. “We know that whoever was behind the gang violence is still out there. Dragon SWAT said it was a dragon and we never caught one.”

“Neither did they,” Hernandez added.

“Right, exactly. Which means there’s someone out there who tried to take over the city and was stopped because of one person. The same person who was almost crushed today by a professional hit team.”

“Fuck,” the woman said and perfectly summed up how Kristen felt.

Chapter Ten

Captain Hansen was openly skeptical about the idea that a criminal mastermind was trying to maneuver their dragon into a position to hurt her. She still, however, ordered the team to spend their week training at the abandoned apartment complex where Kristen had first learned the many nuances of forced and dynamic entries.

Drew was far more committed to the idea of her being the target than the captain was, and he designed drills to reflect it.

Honestly, she was impressed with his creativity.

“Right.” He addressed them in a brisk tone that demanded they stand at attention despite running drills all morning. “We have a report of people’s cutlery sticking to the ceiling and TVs not working. We think it’s on the third floor.”

“Sir, I thought we were practicing entries, not solving episodes of the Twilight Zone,” Washington complained.

“In case you didn’t realize it, we live in a city a dragon used its psychic powers to try to attack. We need to be ready for anything,” the team leader replied, his voice terse.

“We wouldn’t if we didn’t have a dragon on the team.” He glared at her.

She very politely flipped him off.

“You know, that gives me an idea. Wonderkid, Hall, you two are together until further notice.”

“No way,” Jim complained.

“I agree with the Wonderkid, sir.” She tried to keep any emotion out of her voice, even though she thought this was ridiculous. “He’s perfectly capable. I need to be with Keith or Hernandez to make sure nothing happens to them.”

Drew smiled at that and shook his head. “And you were so close, Hall. So close.” He held up two fingers a hair’s breadth apart. “But you’re still too focused on keeping your team safe and not on the mission. Maybe if you’re with Washington, you’ll focus on the task at hand instead of babysitting.”

She groaned but didn’t argue further.

“Sir, it’s a waste of my talents to partner me with her.”

“See, the thing is, I don’t give a shit about your prejudices,” the other man said. “I don’t care if a dragon ate your grandmother, Hall is one of us and now, the Wonderkid is too. You both need to accept that.”

They raised their voices to protest further, but he simply put a whistle to his lips and blew it until they shut up.

“Now, like I said—hostiles inside, silverware flying everywhere. And…go!”

“Right, you take the east stairs and we’ll take the west,” Kristen said to Keith and Beanpole.

“Got it.”

“Drew, can we assume the power to elevators has been cut?”

“Elevators not working but the building still has power.”

“Is that important?” Washington asked.

Drew only smiled. That meant he was up to something. “Time’s ticking. If you do this in less than five, the next box of donuts is on me.”

“Let’s move, people,” Butters shouted, and everyone laughed as they ran into the abandoned practice building.

Jim followed her toward the west stairway and she made a conscious effort not to race ahead although it wasn’t easy. She was used to moving fast in these situations. To have to move at his speed felt like being in molasses.

“Here, I’ll get the door,” he said when they made it to the entrance.

She shrugged but let him do it.

He had to kick it three times before it opened. She tried not to let him see how much time she knew he had wasted.

They raced up the three flights of stairs without stopping. When they made it to the top, her partner had to suck in a few deep breaths to steady himself. Kristen wasn’t even faintly winded.

“Okay…I’ll take point,” he said between breaths.

“No way. You’re winded and I have better reflexes.”

“Because you’re a dragon.”

“So what? Do you want to get shot when you don’t have to?”

“Drew said—”

“Drew said he wants us to work together,” she reminded him sharply. “He didn’t say anything about you doing everything while I watch. Now, I’m taking point.”

“Okay… Okay, that’s fine, but don’t turn to steel.”

“Why not?” she asked and fought down the reflex to transform.

“Because Drew said the TVs are messing up and the silverware is sticking to ceilings. It sounds like a magnet to me.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Drew cares about you. I don’t know why, but he does. I’m telling you, don’t use your powers. Well, not if you can help it. Do you mind getting these doors?”

Kristen nodded and wiped her face. He was exhausting to work with. In one second, he told her not to use her powers, then he wanted her to use her strength to open the doors. It was inconsistent and annoying. Still, it was better than watching him tire himself out opening everything in the hallway.

They started down the corridor. The building was old so it wasn’t particularly appealing. Old tile, stained in a few places where water had gotten in, greyish walls, and cheap fluorescent lights all made the place feel decidedly grimy. Not that it was much different than how many people lived in the United States.

The only thing that set this apartment complex apart from any number of other aging structures that needed to be updated or demolished were the doors. SWAT chewed through doors, so they were constantly replaced. In this hallway alone were three bright red doors, a purple one, a green one, and—oddly—a screen door.

She made a point of trying each knob before she kicked them open. The first three rooms were abandoned but the fourth showed light under the green door.

“SWAT! Open up,” she yelled.

“Die, bitch! My mutants will rule this world in a way you have not,” Hernandez shouted in response. She played the hostile on this practice mission and apparently, her teammate was more into roleplaying than she had realized.

“I’m gonna force the door,” she said.

“Do it, but don’t turn to steel,” Jim reminded her.

“Like if I need to stop you from getting shot?”

He glowered at her but didn’t respond.

“I’m coming in,” she yelled and kicked the door in the middle, using her dragon strength despite her partner’s admonishment not to do so. It snapped and the pieces catapulted inward. Whoops, maybe she had overdone it.

She stepped inside the room, her weapon up, and moved to the left. Washington entered directly behind her and went right. It felt sluggish to have to move at human speed, but she could do this. She could work on a team.

“I have you now, you stupid fucking dragon. I will smash your eggs and extinguish your flames,” Hernandez shouted from the other room. Apparently, she was playing a Russian mobster or, at least, that’s what the accent suggested.

They followed the voice down a tiny hallway and into a bedroom.

Hernandez waited there, armed with a gun. She held it up and fired at Kristen’s face.

“You forgot your helmet, Red,” the woman chided as Kristen held up a hand to block the airsoft.

“Hall, don’t.”

She ignored Washington. If he was such a great partner, he should have told her to put her helmet on before they entered the building—not that it would have mattered. The face shields on the helmets were hardly bulletproof.

Her hand blocked the airsoft pellets easily. They stung, though, so she turned her hand to steel.

“Gotcha, dragon capitalist pig,” Hernandez crowed and stamped on some kind of foot pedal from which black wires ran to the wall behind her.

A hum was immediately followed by a strong pull that drew her steel hand back.

“Change, Hall,” her partner yelled.

She resented him for telling her what to do. That tiny ping of anger plus the sensation of her hand out of her control made her act reflexively. She transformed her body to steel. There was no way that whatever force dragged at her would be able to move a steel body.

Unless, of course, it was a bank of electromagnets.

Their power was immediately apparent when her body turned to metal.

They pulled on every inch of her and hauled her inexorably backward. She tried to lean against them and fight her way free from the force using her muscles that could lift her tremendous weight, but the magnets were too strong.

She was yanked into the back wall.

“Bang! Bang!” Hernandez said and pretended to execute her, then Washington. “Democracy dies in darkness, you stupid Americans.”

Kristen tried to pull off the wall, but she couldn’t. She was stuck until the other woman stamped on the foot pedal that had activated the magnetic contraption. It killed the power and she was free once more.

“How’d they do?” Drew’s voice asked over the radio.

“Not good. Kristen turned to metal and was trapped.” The demolitions expert sneered somewhat smugly.

“I told you not to turn to steel,” Washington said.

“Oh, whatever. You merely don’t want me to use my powers because it makes you look bad,” she retorted.

“I said there was something magnetic. The silverware and TVs were a damn clue.”

She clenched her jaw. Dammit, he had said that.

“You could have simply changed back to human,” Hernandez said, obviously quite pleased with herself and her wall of magnets.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I guess if we have a fight in a garbage dump, I’ll keep that in mind.” She waved her hand dismissively at the other woman and started out of the building.

Her two teammates were right, of course. If she’d only turned her steel skin off, she would have been free to pursue Hernandez. The problem was, she’d spent every day since she’d learned that she was a dragon honing her reflexes to turn her steel skin on if there was a threat. It clearly wouldn’t be easy to unlearn that.

They walked down the three flights, collected Keith and Beanpole who hadn’t made it to the room because Hernandez had locked the door to their stairwell with a couple of chains, and went out to the van.

“We still have training to do,” Drew said. “Which means no donuts today.”

“I can buy,” Butters protested.

He shook his head. “Doggies don’t get treats when they can’t sit.”

“Come on, Drew, magnets? Really?” Kristen complained.

“You were literally stopped because of magnets.” He shrugged and looked way too proud of himself for her taste. “I’m not so thick as to think they’ll use the identical trap again, but we’d be foolish to overlook the possibility. This is a very specific threat to you. I think we need to be ready in case they try to use it.”

“But a wall of magnets?” She snorted. It was ridiculous.

“They were fucking slick, right? Those were mostly car speakers, plus like every volt of electricity running through that building,” Hernandez said smugly.

“Right, but who will have time for something like that?”

“The same people who demolished an entire building in hopes of eliminating you,” Washington said, his brow furrowed like it was obvious.

She sighed and finally accepted that it was possible.

“Plus, I may be handy, but I don’t know how to design a damn magnetic taser to practice with.” The other woman shrugged but looked disappointed.

“But we have their tasers,” she pointed out.

“The batteries are all dead and the tech is weird. I don’t even know how they charged them,” Hernandez explained.

“Can we go back to the station?” Kristen said. “I want a damn shower.”

“I bet. I had to cut the power to the air conditioning to have enough juice to run the magnet. You stink.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She was frustrated, tired, and yes, stinky. She thought they were supposed to be training to be on a team, and yet it felt like Drew simply tried to come up with ways to stop her from using her powers. It was exhausting and it felt petty and childish.

Did other dragons let humans do this to them? Test them for weaknesses? Boss them around? Hold them to a double standard? She doubted it and couldn’t exactly imagine that Stonequest guy from Dragon SWAT letting people chip away at him with chisels or whatever.

With a heavy sigh, she realized that she didn’t know if Stonequest’s last name meant he had different powers than a regular dragon. There was still so much she didn’t know, and her team wasn’t helping by limiting her powers. They should be embracing her abilities, not trying to find loopholes.

These thoughts filled her mind and distracted her all the way back to the station. When they arrived and exited the van, she was almost surprised that they were already there.

“Okay. Showers, then I want you in the lounge in twenty. I have more ideas for team building,” Drew sounded like he was really enjoying coming up with specific ways to torture her.

Kristen nodded and headed toward the showers. It had been a long morning and she simply wanted to go home. There were still hours of the day left, however, which meant time to review more tactics or whatever else their team leader would demand they look at until it lost all meaning.

She removed her bulletproof vest—Drew had insisted she wear it—her gun belt, and her boots and crammed them in a locker. Her uniform shirt drew a grimace of distaste when she noticed that she’d managed to sweat through her undershirt and through the outer one as well.

Gunshots echoed through the building as she was about to strip down and get into the shower.

“Code red. I repeat, code red! Hostiles in the—” Her radio began to blare feedback.

Instinctively, she turned her skin to steel and raced from the locker room.

As she ran—despite using her dragon speed to go as quickly as possible—she heard multiple weapons unload tons of rounds.

By the time she made it out of the hallway and into the main office space of the station, it was a mess. Bullet holes riddled the walls, computers were destroyed, and loose paperwork was everywhere. The hostiles were still at the doorway, all wearing ski masks.

No sooner did she stop to scan the scene than they began to shoot at her.

She ducked back—training to not use her powers had worked to some degree—and took a moment to assess the situation. She was unarmed, underdressed, without bulletproof armor or even shoes, and she was alone. It seemed like the perfect time to activate her powers and show these assholes what happened when they brought the fight to her territory.

Kristen flexed to confirm that her entire body was steel and prepared to race across the room when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Wait. Butters and Beanpole are almost in position.” Washington had made it farther along in his shower than she had, obviously. He was shirtless and smelled pleasantly of soap, but he hadn’t put his shoes or armor on either. Fortunately, he wore more than a towel.

“I can take them,” she said and turned away from him.

“Give your team a chance.”

She scowled but she waited.

A second later, Beanpole darted out of the lounge with a shotgun and fired it three times to force the hostiles to take cover behind the front desk. As soon as they did so, Butters emerged with a rifle.

He took two shots—and missed both times—before the intruders tried to flee out the front door.

One of the men slipped on one of the papers, landed hard, and pushed himself up. He slid again, then pulled his ski mask back to reveal a light-skinned face and a brown mustache.

“I got him,” Butters said.

“No, wait.” Washington stumbled toward the sniper and blocked his shot.

“Dammit, Wonderkid!”

Kristen glared at Jim. He didn’t return the look and seemed too distracted to notice. There was something odd in his expression, though. Surprise? Fear? Recognition?

The invaders used the opportunity created by the brief moment of confusion to race out the door and the advantage was lost.

“I got them,” she said. They’d barely cleared the front door and she could make it there no problem. If she put her steel skin on, she could even stop their getaway vehicle.

“No! No, wait,” Washington said and scrambled in her path.

“They’ll get away.” Kristen put a hand on his shoulder as a reminder that she could fling him across the room if she wanted to.

“Exactly. Even though they didn’t do shit besides make a mess, they’re already running off. This has to be a trap.”

“He might be right,” Drew said from down the corridor. “Hall, don’t pursue.”

She obeyed, but she also made a note to talk to their team leader about Washington later. Why had he stopped Butters from taking that shot? What had she seen in his eyes? Could she trust him?

In the moment of stillness that followed the attack, her mind raced. He had been there on that day in the demolished building. In fact, he’d wanted to leave her behind. Now, he covered for hostiles brazen enough to attack the station?

Given all that, she decided she didn’t mind having him as her new partner. At least this way, she could keep an eye on him and snap his neck if she found out he couldn’t be trusted.

Chapter Eleven

Kristen had the next two days off which, with Drew’s new obsession with them being a team, meant that she wasn’t allowed to come into work. Apparently, part of being a team meant letting her team do their jobs without her babysitting them. Captain Hansen might have still allowed it—she liked the publicity their dragon brought in—but she didn’t want to go above Drew’s head. She respected him too much for that.

So instead, she moped around her apartment, called her mom on the phone, and in a moment of true desperation, dropped in to visit her folks and play videogames with her brother.

After destroying her mercilessly in three different games, Brian threw his controller down. “You’re not even trying. You used to be good at Pro Skater.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry.” She put her controller down as well and stood to get a snack from the freezer. Despite the fact that her mom often joked that her brother was a man-child, they still fed him like one. She found a freezer full of ice cream sandwiches, corn dogs, and frozen burger patties.

“So, what’s up?” he asked as he loaded a one-player first-person shooter. He seemed to like that style of game more now that she was on SWAT.

She selected a corndog and put it in the microwave. “You know how in Pro Skater, there are some levels where you can’t use your special bar?”

“Yeah, the worst levels. I hate that shit. The best part of the game is using your cool moves, so why limit it?”

“Exactly! Well, that’s what it’s like at work right now. They don’t want me to use my dragon powers, even though I know that if I had more, I would be a bigger asset.”

He shrugged, his gaze still fixed on the screen. “It makes sense to me. Leveling up makes everything easier.”

“Right? And yet they act like that would make me vulnerable.”

“Well, you are vulnerable, right? For one thing, you found out that steel skin and electricity don’t get along. Or magnets.”

“Right. Or magnets, so my boss wants me to forego using my powers so I don’t rely on them.”

“That’s stupid.” Brian paused the game when the microwave beeped. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who wanted a corndog.

“I don’t know…I guess it makes sense. After all, there are levels without special, right?”

“Yeah, but not in real life. I guess if you’re fighting in a powerplant or something you’ll need to not use your steel power, but that only means you’ll need to be even better with your other powers, right?”

“I guess? I don’t even know what my other powers are.” Kristen sighed. It was so frustrating.

“Obviously not videogames,” he said, slid his corndog into the microwave, and fixed his special sauce—mayo and ketchup with tabasco.

“I don’t know if dragons can have powers like they do in videogames.” She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it. “Honestly, I don’t even know if dragons can really breathe fire. I’ve yet to see it myself. And they have these weird names. Like maybe they’re clues about their abilities. I simply don’t know.”

“You need a tutorial,” he said sagely.

“A what?” she asked around a bite of corndog.

“You know, like in fighting games? A tutorial shows you all the moves, the combos, how to block, that kind of stuff. You need to take a dragon tutorial.”

“Adults call that training, Brian.”

“Sure, whatever. You need training then. Dragon training.” Brian removed his corndog from the microwave and bit it as if that emphasized his point.

“But I can’t train with Drew and the others.”

“Right, that’d be like using a fatality in Street Fighter.”

“What?”

“You know, it’s a real shame you never got into fighting games. I simply mean…” He scratched the pathetic growth of peach fuzz on his chin. “You’re using the wrong move set is all. You need someone who can show you what it means to be a dragon. Which probably means—”

“A dragon,” Kristen said and finished his thought.

He nodded, his corndog already reduced to only the stick.

“Too bad you’re a huge loser who doesn’t have any dragon friends.” He selected a different game, loaded it, and selected a fighter. “I will show how you to kick someone’s head off, though.”

“I have dragon friends!” she said and immediately regretted it. If there was anyone who knew how to get under her skin, it was her brother.

“Yeah, I don’t know, Kristen. Does that Stonequest dude from Dragon SWAT really count as a friend? Didn’t he say to stick with SWAT until your powers fully came in? That doesn’t exactly sound like the kind of guy who has time to train a total noob.”

“No, no, you’re right. I don’t think Stonequest would help. Also, he didn’t give me his card or anything. I’d have to go through proper channels and that might piss Drew off.”

“So, you’re stuck then.”

She nodded, even though it wasn’t true. At the dragon party, the black dragon had offered to help if she ever needed anything. Sebastian Shadowstorm was his name. He’d been a real gentleman.

Thoughtfully, she finished her corndog, poked the stick in one of her mom’s potted plants, and dug in her purse for the card. She withdrew it and looked at the phone number. There was no address.

“Hey, Brian, I’m going to make a phone call.”

“Oh, yeah? Did some other dragon swipe right?”

Kristen ignored him and stepped into the back yard. She dialed the number. It rang three times before a man’s voice answered.

“How may I help you?” It wasn’t Shadowstorm.

“Hello. Maybe I have the wrong number. I’m trying to speak to Sebastian Shadowstorm. Do I have the right number?”

“Who is calling?” the man asked rather rudely and didn’t answer her question.

“This is Kristen Hall. I met Mr Shadowstorm at a party. He said to call if I needed anything.”

“Ah, yes. Lady Hall. The master has been awaiting your call. Would you like to come to his residence this afternoon?”

She glanced inside. Brian clenched his teeth as he pounded buttons, deep in the clutches of a fighting game. “Yes. That would be great.”

The man gave her the address and she wrote it down. She poked her head inside, said goodbye to Brian, and left through the side gate.

“Enjoy your hot date,” her brother called after her.

After a perfunctory and somewhat distracted wave in his general direction—which he obviously wouldn’t have seen anyway—she slid into her car and headed to the address.

The journey took her through a part of Detroit that, decades before, had been one of the wealthiest and most opulent. Every house was a mansion made of brick complete with a sunroom and tower. The street had been laid almost a hundred years before by the capitalists of the last century, although in the years since then it had fallen from what it was.

Still, she knew it was in better shape than it had been. It used to be that every third mansion stood crumbling with sagging roofs, broken windows, and overgrown lawns but now, it was more like one in ten was in disrepair. Before long, even those last few places would fall to the wave of gentrification that had swept the city over the last ten years.

She continued until she found Shadowstorm’s address. As soon as she saw the mansion, she knew it was his without the need to verify the address.

While most of the houses in this neighborhood—and compared to Shadowstorm’s residence, the mansions she had driven past were little more than houses—had gone through a phase of disrepair, his looked like he’d spent the last hundred years adding to the splendor of his property.

The house was in absolutely perfect condition. She wasn’t sure how, but the wood siding looked original—although the black paint might have been a more recent affectation—and the red brick chimney wasn’t sooty or crumbling anywhere along its towering height. There was another tower as well, this one ringed by windows.

The front yard was amazing. Perfectly trimmed grass pushed up against flowering hedges and well-manicured oak trees. She even saw a wisteria in bloom. Odd, considering they usually bloomed in spring and it was late summer, but whoever took care of Shadowstorm’s landscaping obviously knew their stuff.

Kristen parked, got out, and approached the wrought iron black gate that surrounded the property. Walking past the extensive gardens, she realized that there probably used to be more houses there. It looked like he had bought the properties and demolished them to create more space for a garden filled with marble statues of people and bronze sculptures of parts of dragons.

Here was a dragon’s head and there was the skeletal arm of a dragon that pulled itself from the earth. All over were people, done slightly smaller than life-size in bright marble, which only made the pieces of dragon seem all the larger. A woman crouched, protecting a child, while a man stood with a raised sword—although the stone weapon was broken—and terror on his face.

She didn’t think there were this many sculptures in the Detroit Institute for Art. And it was all so specific. Parts of dragons and people in various states of terror. Had Shadowstorm had it all commissioned? It certainly looked as if he had.

What did that say about him? Did he like people’s fear? Did he wish to protect them? Did he wish to see dragons torn to pieces? Did he find their anatomy fascinating and beautiful?

Impatiently, she shook her head. She was overthinking it. Her parents had a statue of a peacock in their front yard for years until she had caught a football and plowed into it. They’d bought it because they could afford it and kept it because they hadn’t known what else to do with it. Surely Shadowstorm had a reason for the specific collection of art, but it might be a reason that made no more sense than her parents’ peacock.

Finally, deciding she could wait no longer, she approached the gate and looked for the buzzer, only to be confronted by a guard, who asked to see her ID.

Kristen showed him her police badge—it was, after all, valid identification, and besides, Shadowstorm had met her because of her face being plastered all over the news. The guard studied it, glanced at her once more, then closed the window to his station and spoke on his radio.

Chapter Twelve

“Ahuman girl is here, flashing a Detroit Police Department Badge,” the guard said over the radio.

Sebastian Shadowstorm frowned. A human girl with a police badge? Who else could that possibly be? The damn guards could sometimes be incredibly dense.

“Is her name Kristen Hall, by chance?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“She’s not a human, you fool, but the SWAT’s Steel Dragon. Do you ever go home and read the newspaper or do you spend all your time in that guard shack?”

“Sorry. sir. My apologies, sir,” the man blubbered. Even over the radio, Shadowstorm could tell he was terrified. Excellent. Security needed to know what they were fighting for. “Shall I let her in?”

“You said she flashed her badge?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. We must not stand in the way of official police duty. Let her in, lock the gate behind her, and engage the moat.” If she was on police business, she might have discovered his secrets or be close to it anyway. But if she was alone? Well, he could take the steel dragon so long as she was stuck in human form.

“The…moat, sir?” the guard asked and broke into Shadowstorm’s thoughts.

“Damn it, you fool, you know what I mean. Not the moat but the…perimeter defenses. To stop any vehicles.”

“As soon as she’s inside, I’ll bring up the tire spikes sir,” he replied, obviously not happy at all to correct his boss.

“Yes, the tire spikes. Do that!” He growled his annoyance. Times changed so rapidly and humans could rarely see the long picture of their development. Call a car a carriage or even an automobile, and they looked like the foundation of their very existence had been questioned. Now with the invention of their infernal jabbering television, it was even worse.

His residence reflected what he thought of the revoltingly fast turnover of technology. He left his tower and walked down his carpeted stairs past oil paintings of kings he’d deposed and princes wise enough to swear secret fealty to him.

Various suits of armor stood strategically, still blackened from the knight being cooked alive inside. He passed treasure taken from five continents and furniture that had supported some of the documents that now governed the world.

Sebastian did have a telephone—he could see the value in that invention anyway, even if he couldn’t stand the cursed ringing of its bell—and he had electric lights, of course. That aside, he’d never purchased a television and didn’t quite understand the obsession with computers.

But none of that was important now. Incompetent guards merely had a way of reminding Shadowstorm of humanity’s priorities and why they needed to be usurped or at least guided with a stronger hand than the weak wrist of the Dragon Council.

He wondered again about this Kristen Hall. He’d invited her and yet she had waited over a week to come and visit. That didn’t exactly sound like a social call. It sounded more like a sheriff following up on unanswered questions.

But how could she have discovered anything so quickly? Still, it didn’t matter. If she knew, she knew, and that meant she would be destroyed. He considered taking a sword from the wall but decided against it. With her steel skin, his dragon form would be all but essential in defeating her.

But was that her purpose? To apprehend him? He couldn’t be sure.

If the whelp intended to challenge him in his home, he’d destroy her himself. Invading another dragon’s stronghold was quite improper, after all.

Shadowstorm considered meeting her in the garden to prevent any possible damage to his residence but decided against it. It would be better for her to come inside. If she turned against him, it might cost him a few walls but the collateral damage would be more convincing if other dragons questioned what might happen today. If it looked like a home invasion, no one—not even that moron Ironclaw—would challenge his decision to slaughter the little steel runt.

At a knock on the door, he gestured for his two servants to open it. Each took hold of one of the huge iron and oak doors and pulled them open.

Kristen Hall stood in the doorway, framed by the massive opening. In her jeans and t-shirt, she looked entirely out of place like a piece of modern art that had somehow made it into the renaissance collection.

“Mr Shadowstorm, hello,” she said.

He hid a smirk. She didn’t sound like a sheriff on a case, she sounded…perhaps intimidated was apt. “Ms Hall. I thought I asked you to call me Sebastian.”

Her nervousness cracked and she smiled. “Right, Sebastian. Sorry. It’s simply that this place is…well, it’s amazing.”

“Indeed, thank you. Please, won’t you come in? You honor me with your visit.”

Kristen nodded, glanced quickly at the chandelier, then at the polar bear rug on the floor, and stepped across the threshold and into his stronghold. “Well, you said if there was anything I needed, I should call you, so…here I am.” She tried to smile, but her nervousness made it a little shaky.

Shadowstorm, meanwhile, simply beamed. He could barely believe it as he’d all but given up on trying to build a relationship with the Steel Dragon. Humans, he’d learned, had the attention span of any of the lesser animals. Some had focus, true, but if they didn’t return a call within a day or two, they simply forgot about it. Apparently, he’d been on her mind.

“But of course, Kristen, but of course. Please come in and make yourself at home. Tyler, libations, if you please. Our guest looks like she’s in need of something to calm her nerves.”

The two servants closed the door behind her and one vanished to fetch drinks.

The other man—Shadowstorm could never remember his name, Mitchell? McDonald? Something like that—escorted his visitor across the spacious entryway to the sitting room.

Sebastian gestured for her to sit in the last chair Mussolini had sat in before he’d died, while he made himself comfortable on Napoleon’s couch.

“So, how may I be of assistance?”

“Well, to jump right to it, I want to unlock more of my dragon abilities.”

“Yes, of course.” It was time for a gamble, but he had always believed in playing the odds. “But hasn’t Dragon SWAT shown you some of our methods?”

Kristen laughed derisively. “I wish. They—or he, I guess, a guy named Stonequest—ordered me to stay where I am until my powers develop.”

Shadowstorm hid his glee. His gamble had paid off wonderfully! “Stonequest… Yes, I must say I am familiar with the gentleman. He’s quite committed to his job of bullying the rest of us around. I can’t say I’m surprised that he’s not taken the time to properly welcome you into our little community.”

She sighed. “So, what? He’ll simply keep me at arm’s length until I learn what I’m doing?”

He shrugged slowly and delicately like he wanted to avoid saying something against Stonequest although really, he only wanted her to ask more about him. “That might be his intention.”

“Oh yeah?” She raised an eyebrow. “Well, what else might it be?”

“Well, Kristen, I know you’re quite new to all this, but…well, how do I put this delicately? Not all dragons can be trusted.”

That seemed to startle her. Shadowstorm found it an actual challenge not to smile. How could she be so gullible? His effort to defund public schools might be paying off.

“So you think he’s…he’s been lying to me or something?”

Again, he shrugged delicately. He pushed himself to his feet and began to pace in the sitting room before he paused to admire the crossed swords hanging on the wall. “I don’t think he’s evil or anything like that, but…well, Stonequest works for the police, and police like stability. But you know that, of course.”

“Of course. But there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Of course not. But, look at it from Stonequest’s view. His job is to police dragons, beings that have been around for centuries or even millennia. Not all of them keep up with the times or like their motives questioned.” He snorted playfully. “Why, even I have yet to purchase one of the new portable phones.”

“Okay, but so what? I know how to play Xbox, but what does that have to do with ignoring me?”

He had no choice but to ignore the Xbox comment. It must have been some kind of amusement game like the pinball machines humans were so fond of. “It’s not that he’s ignoring you, it’s that he has a balance to maintain between many different powerful and stubborn forces. You—by your very nature of being raised by humans and being so young—will have a new set of ideals. And then there’s your ability. I’ve never seen anything like it and although Stonequest’s fingers reach farther than mine, he probably hasn’t either. From his perspective, it’s probably simpler if you stay a human sheriff who can stop bullets.”

“A sheriff?” She laughed.

Shadowstorm waved his hand at her tinkling laughter. This was honestly too easy. “Officer, keeper of the peace, whatever you call yourselves. I will help you, but you must promise not to drag me into this century. It’s too loud and far too bright.”

“You will help me?” she asked.

“Of course. Although, I wasn’t kidding about Stonequest. It would probably be better if you don’t tell him about this.”

“I won’t. He probably has—what did you call them? Fingers?—in our offices too. If you can train me to be a better dragon, I’ll let the results speak for themselves.”

In that moment, Tyler returned with the drinks. Shadowstorm took his and raised it in a toast to her. “A toast, to our new alliance.”

She smiled and raised her glass. “To new friends.”

They clanked glasses and a wave of satisfaction washed over him. It was so overwhelming he almost felt it himself. It was her aura pushing against him with the strength of a rising tide. Who was this girl? How was she this powerful? He glanced at his servants to see them both smiling as well. She had overpowered his own effect on them without even trying.

Yes, he decided, he’d done the right thing. By working with the Steel Dragon, he could get a feel for her powers, her strengths, and most importantly, her weaknesses. “Shall we begin?”

“What? Today?”

“Yes, right now. I’d love to get a sense of what you’re capable of…to better tailor my lessons. There’s no point in wasting time on developing your speed if you’re already faster than me.” Shadowstorm chuckled and Kristen smiled. He didn’t even have to lie about his interest in her strengths.

“Uh, sure.”

If she became an ally, he’d have to work on her manners, but that would come later. He took a sword from the wall and started toward the door. “Please, right this way.”

She followed him through his mansion and out to his garden.

They strolled past his sculpture collection. If it made Kristen uncomfortable, she did a good job of hiding it by jabbering away. “So, do all dragons basically have the same powers, or what? I know that one guy could turn his hand into metal, so is that more common than I realized? Are we all more or less the same strength, or can working out affect that? I guess I can’t imagine a dragon doing pushups or going to the gym, though. Do your two forms line up? If I’m super-buff as a human does that mean I’ll be extra strong as a dragon?”

“Kristen, please, calm yourself. There is much to learn but I can’t simply tell you everything.”

“Why not?”

Shadowstorm sighed and tried to sound endearing. She was such a human with no sense of patience or propriety. “To begin with, I have another engagement this evening and do not have the hours needed to fully answer all your questions. Beyond that, I simply don’t know all the answers.”

“What? But you’ve been around for like… Wait, how old did you say you were?”

He waved the question aside. “Old enough, my dear, old enough. I’ve been around long enough to know that we dragons are private beings. We could rule this world if we would only reach out and take it—there was a time when it bent to our will far more than it does today—and yet my brothers and sisters prefer to give their counsel from the fringes of society.”

“Well, isn’t that for the best? I find it commendable that human democracy has flourished considering only one of you could rule a state if you wished it.”

“Is it best, though? I understand that humans wish to oversee their own affairs, but surely some level of direction is needed. Look at Hitler and look at the brutal history of slavery in the United States. Democracy is only as good as its majority. Sometimes, I wonder if there would be less violence in the world if we simply had a ruler who did not allow it.”

She paused to consider that. “I never thought of it that way before. I guess, from your perspective, that might make sense.”

“From our perspective, Kristen. I know you’ve yet to feel fully comfortable as a dragon, but I’ve read about you in the papers. You single-handedly stop criminals from committing violence in your town. Tell me, how do your human peers feel about that?”

Shadowstorm left her to think about that as they walked out onto his training arena. It was a large sandy court that was often used for volleyball matches when he wanted entertainment—human games were always such fun to watch—but his servants had understood his intentions and removed the net for the two dragons. One of them was still raking the last corner of the sandy square smooth. The man would be punished later if he distracted his guest.

He stopped and turned to face her. She looked like she’d almost prepared an answer to his question, but he didn’t want to hear it. He merely wanted her to think about her new place in the world. If she was to become his ally, she would need to come to her own conclusions about what was best for the humans who claimed this planet for their own. He knew how he felt about the vermin, but many balked at such judgments of the wretchedly irresponsible beings who called themselves intelligent.

So, instead of letting her answer his question, he drew a line in the sand at his feet with the sword, pointed the blade at her, smiled, and said, “What’s important is that you learn your abilities, so please, try to cross this line.”

Kristen grinned. “That’s it? That’s how you want to train me? No theory and no guidebooks?”

Shadowstorm laughed indulgently. “We are dragons, not basketball players. Our power is inherent in our form. In answer to your questions about our strength, I do not know all the details of every dragon. I think that each of us has different levels of abilities, and yet few of my brothers and sisters realize their full potential.”

“And you wish to help me realize my full potential?”

Again, he laughed. “I think we should start with you crossing this line. Come, as quickly as you can. Use your speed.” He stabbed the sword into the sand and raised both hands in a defensive stance.

She nodded. No sooner had her head moved than she raced forward.

He had to restrain an instinctive gasp. Fire above, she’s fast! In a blink, she had halved the distance between them and in another, she was about to cross the line.

Shadowstorm drew the sword and swung it at her shoulder.

“Hey!” She turned her arm into steel and deflected the blow effortlessly. “You put the blade in the sand. I thought that meant it was off-limits.”

“I never said any such thing and besides, I didn’t expect you to be so fast.”

His praise brought a broad smile to her face.

“There were dragons at the party who don’t move as quickly as you do.”

Kristen shrugged. “You seemed fast and blocked me with no problem.”

He smiled and hoped it was a warm gesture. Most of his smiles were used to threaten, after all. “I have never taught a dragon how to use their powers before. Do not assume I am a teacher of such quality as to make you better than my own humble skills.”

She nodded and seemed to parse the deeper meaning of what he’d said. That was a mistake. His statement had been too close to the truth.

Hastily, he changed the subject. “Let us test your strength. We clasp hands and try to shove the other to the sand or pull them across the line.”

“You mean like pro wrestling?” She grinned.

Shadowstorm didn’t even vaguely understand the reference—wrestling was one human sport he found to be quite dull—but he nodded all the same. His instructions had been clear enough, even to someone raised by humans.

They stood on either side of the line, caught hands, and each tried to move their opponent.

The first two matches went to him quite easily. He was simply larger than her and had wrestled in both his human and dragon form for centuries. The first time, he simply shoved her back into the sand and the second, he pulled her toward him, lifted her off her feet, and threw her down.

In the third contest, though, before he could lift her, she turned herself to steel. He thought he could still lift her, but not with the hold he currently had and not with her pulling so hard.

Shadowstorm gave a few inches and when she slipped back, he readjusted himself, lowered his bulk closer to the ground, and yanked again.

She came toward him but didn’t topple forward. Instead, she maintained her balance and yanked back.

He used one of his most well-guarded secrets and turned himself insubstantial for only the briefest of moments. It was not easy to do so he rarely did the trick, but it worked. Kristen—unable to hold on to pure shadow—fell and tumbled through the sand.

“Again,” she said, grinned, and pushed herself up. “I don’t know how you broke my grip, but it won’t happen two times in a row.”

Shadowstorm saw the wisdom of that and changed activities.

Over the next hour, he tested her in every way he could think of. She was strong, fast, and had almost mastered her ability to turn into steel. He showed her a few tricks, mostly how to increase her healing speed and how to use her aura to affect his servants. While he didn’t wish to divulge anything, she already had a powerful aura that undoubtedly affected the people around her, so she might as well know how to use it properly. Besides, auras didn’t work on other dragons, so she wouldn’t be able to turn it against him if she decided to.

And she might very well decide that he was her enemy. He was forced to admit that to himself. She was a fast learner and smart. When she saw that her opponent would beat her, she tried to find other ways to win.

If she discovered that he’d rallied the gangs to attack the city—that dear old Sebastian was, in fact, Mr Black—he had little doubt she would turn against him. Yet she would be a potent weapon if she could be properly tempered.

In the end, he invited her back for more training. It would be a dangerous game of Dragon and Knight but he felt the risks were worth it. She had to see him as an ally and hopefully, a partner. Only then could he unleash her as a weapon upon this worthless city.

Chapter Thirteen

The next few days at work would have been relaxing if Kristen worked for anyone but Drew. There were no major incidents and no more of the odd baiting from the specters who’d attacked the station. None of the detectives were able to learn a damn thing about the hostiles who’d come in and attacked, though. They’d escaped in a car that had been found abandoned an hour later with no prints, no DNA, and no clues at all.

She would have worried over their escape if she hadn’t been so certain they’d attack again. All she had to do was wait and they’d target her once more. The thought made her both giddy and terrified.

The team leader used the opportunity to push them hard during training and obviously relished having Washington as a new recruit and Kristen working at being human again.

In an effort to adhere to the commitment she’d made to him, she kept her reservations to herself. She understood where Drew was coming from. He simply didn’t understand the extent of her powers, and—if Dragon SWAT was honest—she wouldn’t be with them forever. And yet, after meeting with Shadowstorm for another session, the training felt stifling. It was more like the team was adjusting to being themselves again and how to behave without a dragon on the team—which was a total waste of time, in her opinion.

While she didn’t know how long she’d be on SWAT, if they used her abilities—really used them—they could actually effect real change in the city.

They finished practicing non-lethal, hand-to-hand takedowns and Drew told everyone to hit the showers. She smiled as she turned the hot water on. Shadowstorm and her had been practicing the same kind of fighting, and he was a much tougher opponent. Working with regular humans was more of a challenge in control than it was in learning the skills.

After training with the much more powerful dragon, she fully understood that she could quite easily defeat any human in hand-to-hand combat, even without her steel skin. While she’d seen glimpses of it before, it had never really settled in as a certainty. She was much faster than a regular person and strong enough to crack bones with her bare hands.

Still, she decided to not tell her team these tidbits. As little as she liked to admit it, Shadowstorm was right. She was different than a regular person and she could see the wisdom of keeping some of these differences a secret, especially when her boss was so determined that she act human while at work.

Kristen finished her shower, dressed in her regular clothes, and went to join everyone in the lounge. There was a heated debate going on about what to do for after-work relaxation.

“I’m telling you, the finest hot wings you’ve ever tasted this far north.” Butters stood with his feet apart and pontificated to the room at large.

“Hear, hear,” the Rookie shouted. “Happy hour with beer and hot wings.”

“We can do that later,” Hernandez argued. “I’ll spring for the fifty cents you’re saving per beer if we do airsoft first.”

“I thought you were banned after what happened last time with—” Drew didn’t finish the sentence. They all knew that he was going to say, “with Jonesy,” but he didn’t. Sometimes, it was better not to scratch the wound.

“There’s a new course.” The woman’s eyes gleamed, which convinced Kristen that she’d hidden low-powered explosives and wished to bring another play fort down on her team’s collective heads.

The team leader considered that and shrugged. “Airsoft has my vote. We can practice with different partners and new strategies while we’re there. Beanpole, thoughts?”

“Airsoft sounds enjoyable. I’d like to show Butters what happens when I don’t have his back.”

“All right, three to two. Hall, do you want to push this into a solid majority?”

She thought back to the last time she’d played airsoft and shook her head. “Sorry. I’m with Butters and the Rookie. Beer and wings sound fantastic after all the drills you’ve made us run this week.” She didn’t mention that airsoft wasn’t much fun when she knew she could move faster than the plastic pellets. And that had been months ago. It wouldn’t even be a challenge for her now.

“Damn, three to three. I guess it’ll be up to the Wonderkid. Where is he, anyway?” Drew poked his head out into the hall. “Washington! You wanna shoot your friends or drink poison?”

“Shoot my friends, always,” he called in response.

“Hot damn,” Hernandez said. “Four to three. do you guys want to carpool or race there?”

The group left the lounge and headed to the front of the station and past the armed officers who were on duty at all hours now.

“Wonderkid,” the woman who worked the front desk called in a sing-song voice as they passed.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Did you piss the missus off or something?”

“Ma’am?”

“I’ve never seen a bouquet of flowers this big come for anyone unless a fight was involved.” There was indeed a huge bouquet of flowers on her desk.

“Or a funeral,” Hernandez quipped. Everyone laughed. Sometimes, gallows humor was all those who had lost still had against the world.

“I’m still single…and alive,” he said with a grin.

Everyone laughed at that too. It really had been a good week for the team. There really was nothing like training way too hard under Drew to make a team work together.

“Well, they’re still for you. You’re the only Wonderkid we have here.”

Washington furrowed his brow. “Are you sure? Who are they from?”

“It’s signed ‘your secret admirer.’ There’s a poem too. You never told us you were the romantic sort, Jim.”

“Let me see that.” He snatched the note as the woman was about to start reading.

“Yay!” Butters exclaimed. “A performance. Please, project. We’d all love to hear whatever sappy nonsense it takes to get in the Wonderkid’s pants.”

Everyone laughed except Washington, who read the note with his eyebrows drawn together and his lips moving slightly. He paused and read it again.

“Okay, Washington, you can dump those on your desk. We can carpool out and you can collect your fancy flowers in the morning.”

“Nah… Nah, you know what? I think I might…uh, take these home. Airsoft’s not really my thing anyway.”

“What? I call bullshit. You said you wanted to shoot your friends.” Hernandez sounded as if she’d been betrayed on her deathbed instead of having a friend back out of a few hours of fun.

Keith chuckled his rookie laugh. “Damn, man. Flowers and a poem and you come calling? I guess I would too. That’s not exactly discreet for a booty call.”

Everyone absolutely lost it at that one. He beamed at their laughter until Drew slapped him on the back. “Come on, you guys,” the team leader said. “Don’t resent the guy for getting some while the rest of us have to vent our blue balls by shooting each other with tiny plastic balls.”

More giggles ensued. It had been a long week but Kristen didn’t think that had anything to do with their teammate’s changed mind. Washington didn’t look like he was about to go get laid. He looked nervous—scared even—and he glanced constantly from the flowers to the rest of the team. He tried to hide it, but something was amiss with the Wonderkid.

“Now hold up!” Butters said. “The vote is tied. Three to three. There is no reason for us to go to airsoft without a proper debate or a recount.”

Hernandez put her hands on her hips. “Bullshit. Washington’s vote counts. What, you don’t believe in absentee voting?”

“No, I cannot say that I particularly do,” the sniper responded smartly.

“I still say drinks sound better than more airsoft,” Keith said.

“Either way, let’s load up,” Drew said and led the way to his car—an SUV that, although newer, wasn’t nearly as homey as Jonesy’s decommissioned SWAT van had been.

As they walked beneath the darkening sky, Kristen surveyed the Motor City. The SWAT station really was located on a prime piece of real estate. On the appropriately named Atwater street, it sat directly on the river with downtown at its back and a view of the water in front. She looked behind them to see the sun sinking between the buildings. And there was Washington, huffing down Bates Street toward the city center with his bouquet in hands, moving like he was on a mission.

Something about that didn’t sit right with her. She thought back to the team of assholes who had tried to demolish a building on her head. He had wanted to leave her to pursue them. At the time, she had thought he wanted to catch them but now, a different idea struck her. What if he had known the building would come down? What if he’d merely tried to get to safety and leave her behind? His dislike of dragons was no secret, and this gang of thugs also seemed to have their sights set on her.

Except they were not thugs. They were obviously professionals and most likely military—exactly like Washington.

And then there was the incident when they’d attacked the station. That had been a well-coordinated, precise strike, in and out with no casualties on either side. They must have known the layout of the station for their assault to go so smoothly. But it shouldn’t have, she recalled. She could have pursued them but someone had stopped her. He had stopped her and he’d also prevented Butters from taking a shot he could have probably made blindfolded.

What if Jim Washington, Wonderkid extraordinaire, was a mole?

“You know what?” she said as she watched him walk toward the lights of downtown with his bouquet. “I think I want to go home and veg out. If I hurry, I might be able to watch twenty whole minutes of TV before I fall asleep.”

“That means the vote is three to two again. Airsoft wins.” Hernandez pumped her fist in the air.

“What? No way,” Keith whined. “Come on. I want to drink a beer with the Lost Dragon and maybe put some money on some dude beating you in an arm-wrestling contest. I could watch his face when you turn to steel and make him buy me wings all night.”

“Gee, how could I miss the Rookie using my mysterious steel dragon abilities to win free hot wings? I’ll see you guys tomorrow morning, okay?”

Hernandez snorted and entered the SUV. If she was pissed, she’d take it out on the rest of the team. Kristen felt maybe a little bad about that, but she had to see where Washington was going.

The rest of her team loaded up in the vehicle. She dilly dallied around her car until they drove off because she didn’t want them to see her leave on foot. It would arouse suspicions she didn’t want.

Once they were out of sight, she jogged back and looked down Bates street. Despite it being a fairly long way before there were any turn offs, she didn’t see any sign of Washington.

“Damn,” she cursed quietly and sprinted after him.

Oh, it felt good to run at her full speed. She raced down Bates and her muscles pumped faster than they ever had before. Her training with Sebastian had helped her understand what she was capable of. She could move faster, her legs firing like pistons, but she could also leap farther with each step. It wasn’t that she had super-speed. She wasn’t the Flash and couldn’t vibrate her whole body so fast the world slowed down. It was more that if she learned to control herself properly, she could move somewhere in fewer steps than a regular human and make each step much faster.

She did that now as she sprinted down the road. The concrete walls on her left blurred and the iron fence with its tips bent toward the street flickered past on her right. She had a sense of how Sebastian moved. He couldn’t vanish into shadow—she didn’t think he could, anyway—but simply knew his abilities well enough to fully exploit them. She aspired to that level of control.

Obviously, she wasn’t there yet. When she made it to Jefferson and tried to stop, she almost careened all the way across the street. She slowed herself enough after one lane, which drew a blaring car horn and a few profanities from the driver who had to swerve to avoid hitting her.

Kristen cursed and scrambled back to the sidewalk. A young couple laughed at her. An old man shook his head, but there was no sign of—there he was.

Washington had already made it down Jefferson and now crossed the street. She checked for traffic and hurried across as he vanished inside Millender Center.

She reached the other side, checked for pedestrians, and ran with everything she had—fast enough to blow the newspaper out of someone’s hand. If she hadn’t been so focused on her need to see what Washington was up to, she would have been thrilled.

Moments later, she reached Millender center as Washington left Ashley’s Flowers, now without a bouquet.

There was no way he had hurried all the way there only to return the flowers. Who did that? She felt like her suspicion was proving to be justified. No one returned flowers so something was definitely up.

He didn’t exit the building but instead, took the stairs to the People Mover station two at a time.

“Shit!” The People Mover was a rail car that ran on a fairly small loop in downtown Detroit. Some people joked that it was faster to walk than it was to use it, but she had always found it endearing. Although she might miss her ride if she didn’t hurry. A train was moving over her head and would be in the station in less than a minute.

Kristen darted inside, hopped the turnstile—wondering if cops ever bothered to pay for civil services like that—and took the stairs three at a time, four at a time, then five at a time. She made it to the top not even slightly winded.

Which was good, because she had to throw herself behind a trashcan to not be seen. She held her breath until she heard the hiss as the doors opened, then stood and tried to act casual. It occurred to her that she had no idea what the man would say if he saw her now, but she knew that her plan to spy on him would be ruined.

He had been near the front of the platform, so she walked onto the rear car.

Her gamble paid off. While her teammate wasn’t on it, she could see him through the window. He looked around nervously but hadn’t noticed her.

The People Mover lurched into motion. He didn’t get off at the next stop, which was the Renaissance Center. She exhaled when he didn’t stand up to exit.

That was where the dragon’s rooftop party had been held. If he had gotten off there, she would have been certain that he was working with a dragon. He didn’t, which meant…exactly nothing. It didn’t mean that he wasn’t working with a dragon, only that he wasn’t definitely working with a dragon.

She shook her head and focused. There would be time for speculation later. Now was the time to obtain the facts. Hypotheses would follow when she had information.

They rode the People Mover past Bricktown and the stop near the Greektown Casino, then past the Cadillac Center and Broadway Street stations.

Kristen was about to give up and chalk his adventure up to merely another nostalgic ride on the elevated train—she had certainly taken her fair share of those—when he stood at the Grand Circus Park Station and exited.

Fortunately, he didn’t look around and she waited until the last possible moment, then darted through the doors as they closed. She leapt through them like a grasshopper. One moment she was inside the train and the next, she stood ten feet in on the platform, all in one jump. She looked to her right. Washington was already heading down the stairs. After a few moments to give him a little lead time, she followed.

He was easy to see as he crossed Park Avenue. He glanced back and she ran behind a bus and kept up with it easily enough. By the time she stopped, she wasn’t behind him anymore but a block over. She watched him move deeper into the park toward the Edison Memorial Fountain.

Her dragon powers were definitely growing stronger. Despite it being dark and Grand Circus Park being less than well-lit, she could easily tell him from the other late-night visitors to the park.

She darted across the street and wove in and out of the speeding cars with ease. One honked at her and she had to put on an extra burst of speed to get out of the way. She was glad she did. The close call had activated her steel skin. If she’d been struck by the car, she would probably have been fine but it would have destroyed the vehicle and her quarry would’ve seen her.

As it was, she thumped onto the sidewalk and her weight pulverized the already crumbling surface. She made a mental note to not complain about her taxes—after all, she’d done some damage to the city—and followed him into the park.

He was more nervous now and looked around almost constantly. In fact, he looked damned paranoid, which made him more difficult to follow but also convinced her that she couldn’t give up now.

Cautiously, she moved from tree to tree, trying to get closer and closer without being seen, but he suddenly stopped.

He stood in a bubble of light, illuminated by the Edison Memorial fountain and the lights in the park.

Kristen couldn’t get any closer without the risk of betraying her presence. She accepted that despite her impatience, waited in the shadows, and watched him.

It was a little surreal to be there on a stake-out. She had seen the fountain on dozens of postcards while growing up, always with the jets at full blast and a rainbow of lights reflected in the water.

It wasn’t quite as grand in real life as it was on the postcards, but it was still a sight worth seeing. She also noticed that pigeons—honest to God pigeons—were sculpted into the fountain itself, when someone stepped out of the gloom on the far side of the park and approached Washington.

The two men nodded and her teammate looked both uncomfortable and angry while the other man looked more guilty than anything else. She strained to hear what they were saying, but the fountain was too loud. Maybe that was why they had chosen it as a place to meet.

She squinted through the gloom and strained to hear but with little success. Her dragon abilities meant she had better sight than humans, but should she have better hearing too? She didn’t know and it wasn’t like she could call Sebastian and ask him how to activate more of her powers, so she resigned herself to the fact that all she could do was watch.

The stranger was light-skinned, had a neatly trimmed brown mustache, and seemed familiar to her. She could almost place him but not quite.

After a few minutes of conversation, Washington’s expression turned to anger. “That’s unacceptable and you know it,” he yelled at his companion.

The man scowled and ran a hand through his hair. The gesture triggered the memory and she recognized him immediately. She’d seen him do the same thing—rub his face with his hand and push his hair back—but the last time she’d seen the gesture, it was because he’d pushed a ski mask off his face.

It was one of the men who’d attacked the station—the one who had slipped on the papers and the man Washington had stopped Butters from shooting.

His outburst seemed to have ruined the conversation, though, because the man muttered something. Jim protested but whatever he said apparently had little effect as his contact mumbled something else and vanished into the park. Washington didn’t follow.

Suddenly, she didn’t care so much that she hadn’t been able to hear them. He was working with the enemy. Instead of arresting this man, he had chatted to him. What more evidence did she need?

Jim Washington felt like eyes were boring into the back of his neck, but he didn’t see anyone following him and ascribed the sensation to still working through PTSD. Sometimes, the worst part of being in a hostile situation was the waiting. At least when you were shooting, you knew where the enemy was. It was the rest of it that could make a man’s mind itch and eat itself alive.

Jim exited the People Mover and hurried off the platform, checking once more to make sure he wasn’t followed. He didn’t see anyone and hurried down the stairs before he heard the doors hiss shut.

He crossed Park Avenue and headed to the center of Grand Circus Park and the Edison fountain.

“Where the elephants play and the lights go away,” the poem had said.

Except it wasn’t a poem, but a rap lyric he and a buddy from Detroit had written when they were overseas together. It was supposed to be a dumb song about how nothing ever was what it promised to be when you grew up poor in Detroit—no elephants at the circus and lights that looked better on a postcard than in real life because they were out half the damn time.

That wasn’t the case anymore, of course. The city had changed.

So had his friend, apparently. Dwight Olsen was a noncommissioned officer Jim had met while serving in the Marines. They were both from Detroit but hadn’t known each other until they’d met overseas.

He had almost had a heart attack when he’d seen Dwight pull his mask off after the attack on the station. He had been a good man—not perfect because no one who grew up on the wrong side of the poverty line could afford to be perfect, but good all the same. Now, he tried to be a goddamn cop killer?

It simply didn’t make sense. Jim had reached out to him through back channels and hoped to meet at a bar where he could maybe get a few drinks in his old friend before he grilled him to discover his role in all this. Dwight, however, had seen right through that and sent the flowers with a note that only he would have understood.

Which meant that his friend was deep in this shit, deeper than he had wanted to believe.

Full of misgivings, he’d waited at the fountain and looked for the man he was supposed to meet. Part of him worried that he looked paranoid, but there were a handful of people waiting to meet someone, so he told himself he was merely being jittery.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Dwight sauntered out of the dark.

“Dwight, how are you, my man? What’s with all the cloak and dagger stuff?” he said, hoping to play on their friendship.

“I wanted to make sure you were still the Jim I served with.”

“I couldn’t forget those damn lyrics if I wanted to.”

“Oh, so you don’t want to?” Dwight smiled. It looked mostly genuine, although it was forced near his eyes.

He laughed all the same. The boot hadn’t dropped…yet

“So how long you been in the city, Dwight?”

“Jim, we can cut right to it, man. I know you saw me at the station—shit man, you saved my damn life back there.”

“Yeah, man, just returning the favor,” he said. The forced casualness of the statement worked as intended. Dwight flinched at the words. He continued. “The thing is, I now have all these other people who depend on me to protect them, and you came in there and tried to blow all their damn heads off.”

“We weren’t trying to blow all their heads off, Jim, and we both know I wouldn’t have let any of them go in there if I knew one of my old buddies from the Marines might get hurt.”

“The thing is, I was in there. And we both damn well know that when you bust in shooting, people get hurt—innocent people.”

“They’re cops, man.”

“So am I.”

Dwight simply stared at him for second as if sizing him up. “We won’t hit that place again. But Jim, man, you should really get out of town.”

“And why’s that?”

“That’s need to know information. The people I’m with…let’s say they make the Marines look like a gaggle of first-graders. Organization like you would not believe. You and that fat cop who almost shot me can’t stop them. And I tell you what, you talk to them for ten minutes and you wouldn’t want to.”

“Oh yeah? Are you offering me a meeting?” It wasn’t what he had planned, but if he could meet someone higher in this well-organized group, he would exploit that contact.

“Do you think they’re gonna come sit down with a cop? Come on, Jim. You’re supposed to be smart.”

“You’re the one who said I needed to meet with them.” He was getting frustrated. The man was giving him the runaround.

“What you need to do,” Dwight continued and put a hand on his shoulder, “is get the hell out of Detroit.”

“We both know I won’t do that.”

“We go back, Jim, way back. That’s why I’m here, man, because I don’t want to see you hurt. Get out of here, take your girl if you got one, and forget all about the Motor City. It’s gonna get messy for a while.”

“That’s unacceptable and you know it,” Washington yelled, losing his composure. He was reasonably certain Dwight had chosen to meet there because the sound of the fountain would make eavesdropping difficult, but anyone could’ve heard that.

His companion ran his hand through his hair. He used to do that when he was given an order he didn’t like. Shit. He had fucked this up.

“I gotta go, Jim. Nice talking to you.”

“Dwight, come in with me. I can get you immunity.”

“After trying to shoot a cop? Yeah, right. Plus, I told you it was a damn tight operation. If I’m not back in thirty… Well, I gotta get back or some of the boys I told you about are gonna get theirs.”

Jim nodded and let him go. He thought he could take him, cuff him, and bring him in if he needed to, but Dwight wasn’t one to lie. If he said the folks he was running with had threatened his friends, they probably had.

He sighed and looked around once more—he still felt eyes boring into his back—then shoved his hands in his pockets and headed home. He could get a cab or take the People Mover again, but he’d always liked to think when he walked, and he had much to think about.

Chapter Fourteen

It was Kristen’s day off, which meant she was at Sebastian’s training court.

The dragon had her doing weight drills. He’d set up a number of the sculptures in the sandy arena and she had to lug them around. At first, it had seemed impossible, but once she learned how to balance them, it was easier. Not easy, merely easier than impossible.

She was supposed to move the one she currently held from one side of the arena to the other without stopping. It was a sculpture of a woman carrying a bouquet of flowers. She had a look of pensive dread on her face, and she thought the frozen features suggested she was searching for someone.

The flowers made her think about Washington. How could he work behind their back? It was disgusting to think that he’d betray his own damn team. They were supposed to be working together, not—

Her foot slipped and the statue teetered out of her grasp.

“Kristen!” Sebastian yelled and rushed forward. He shoved one hand under the sculpture and prevented it from crashing to the ground. It irked her that he caught it as easily as she would’ve caught a can of beer.

Although he didn’t exactly look happy about it. “Kristen. I chose these statues to work with because I thought it would help you focus on not breaking them.”

“I am focused!”

His raised eyebrow told her exactly what he thought of her bald-faced lie.

“I am focused. Only…not on this.”

“Then on what?”

She hesitated. Washington wasn’t his business. It was police work, but she couldn’t exactly tell her coworkers she’d tailed him through the park, could she? She was certain Drew would freak out and the captain would—at the very least—demand a mountain range of paperwork. Still, she reasoned that she should probably tell them, but would it hurt to tell Sebastian? It wasn’t like he had made his feelings about regular people a secret. Some drama on the force was probably beneath his notice. Maybe it would be better to tell him first. She could present what she’d found to him, see how he took it, and use his reaction to do a better job of convincing the captain and Drew.

“I…I’m sure this kind of thing isn’t that interesting to a dragon, but… Well, I don’t think I can trust one of my teammates.”

He looked taken aback. “Trust is indeed important to dragons. And I can see with your profession and your alleged superior’s insistence on you not using your powers how this would upset you. Is it him? Is it the tall one you don’t trust?”

“No. Drew’s great. It’s a new guy. You haven’t met him, actually. He didn’t come to the party.”

“Ah,” he said.

Kristen almost let it drop. Telling him about it made her realize she should tell Drew and the Captain, but there was something about the man standing across from her, something about the way he looked at her… She couldn’t help herself and simply let it all out.

“There are these mercenaries in town. At least we think they’re mercenaries. They’re why I wanted to train with you, honestly, because they’re professionals. They used magnetic tasers on my steel skin before they tried to bring that building down on my head. Later, they attacked the station.”

“And what is the issue with this new fellow? Is he a coward?”

“No…no, I think he might be a mole.” She looked at him with guilt in her eyes. While she felt bad even thinking this kind of thing, she had to know the truth, which meant she had to share her ideas with others.

Sebastian’s expression was completely blank. “A mole?”

Her laughter cut the tension of the moment. “Right, that expression must still be fairly recent.”

He took a deep breath and seemed to study her. “No… No, I believe I know what you are talking about. Do you believe this new teammate is a spy? That he is undercover?”

“Yes, exactly. Sorry, when I said it you looked…uncomfortable. I assumed that you didn’t know the expression—like doing the dab or whatever.”

At the word “dab,” he only blinked. He really did live in another time decade, or maybe century. “You believe this to be the case because…they attacked the police station?” He scratched his chin.

“No. Well, yes, they must’ve known the layout, but that’s not all.”

He raised an eyebrow as if to encourage her to continue.

“Last night, I tailed Washington. That’s the new guy. He received a big bouquet of flowers with a note in it, and it freaked him out. He left in a hurry and I followed him using my dragon speed. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Sebastian nodded and waved his hand dismissively. “It’s nothing, merely your birthright as a dragon. Tell me more. The suspense is killing me.”

“He met one of the assholes who attacked the station.”

“How can you know?” he countered. “Weren’t these mercenaries masked?”

She paused and frowned at him for a moment. She had not mentioned that the mercenaries were masked. “This guy’s ski mask came up when he stumbled so I saw his face. But how did you know that? I didn’t say they covered their faces.”

Sebastian smiled. “Kristen, I may be an anachronism of a dragon, but you said these were professionals. Even I know enough of technology to assume your police station has cameras to catch photographs of their faces. Only a complete and utter moron would reveal his face there.” The way he had said moron gave her pause. He’d snarled the word as if the accused had insulted him and needed to be dealt with directly.

“Well, moron or dumb luck, I saw his face. Then, when I followed Washington, it was the same guy. The flowers must have been a code or something. Dammit! I should’ve taken pictures. Either way, talking to you makes me realize I should simply tell Drew. Even without photos, I think I have enough evidence to at least make them ask the Wonderkid some questions.”

He nodded slowly. There was something about his body language, though, that had changed. He seemed more guarded. Was he merely worried for her? If that was it, dragons had an odd way to show concern. “When did this all happen?”

“Last night.”

“At what time?”

“Why does that matter?”

His grin was disarming. “As you may have realized, I have rather formidable resources at my disposal. It bothers me to no end that a mercenary is fraternizing with a dirty police officer. If you tell me the time and the location of this clandestine meeting, perhaps I can ferret out more information about this…leak, in your organization.”

“I guess so. I think I’ll tell Drew, though, and we’ll go from there.”

“I don’t think that’s wise, Kristen.”

“I trust Drew with my life.”

“Yes, of course,” he said placatingly. “It’s merely that the police are police. There are procedures they must follow—procedures that might very well spook the target. If he is a mole—and at the very least it sounds like he is keeping secrets from his superiors—he will know how to escape into a tunnel and vanish if things go wrong. We must tread lightly, discover who his handler is, and perhaps we can unravel this thread from the tatters of these mercenaries. I assure you, I’ll be discreet. All I need to start is the time and place, please.”

“It was at Grand Circus Park, the Edison fountain, about eight in the evening,” she told him.

Sebastian nodded and his smile widened. He made her think of a cat that had caught a mouse beneath an ottoman and left it with nowhere to run.

“I still think I should tell Drew. I need to know who the assholes are.”

“You need to be careful. I’m sure you can trust Drew, but do you trust everyone he trusts? Besides, where would you tell him? If there really is a mole, they could have planted those infernal monitoring devices. They could fetch the tape and find out everything you know. Give me forty-eight hours. If I find nothing, bring them the mole. Does that sound all right?”

She nodded. “Should we keep training?”

“I think not. We’ll both be quite distracted. Let me get to work. I’ll be in touch.”

“Sure,” she agreed, but she didn’t think she could simply ignore Washington. Still, if he thought it was best for her to conceal the truth from Drew and Captain Hansen, there was obviously value in subterfuge. It might be better if the Steel Dragon came at this from a different angle than Shadowstorm—an angle she didn’t need to tell him about until she found out more or he gave her satisfactory answers.

Chapter Fifteen

An absolutely massive bouquet of flowers arrived for Washington the next evening. Kristen didn’t know much about flowers, but these looked expensive. Fortunately, she didn’t have to sneak around to see the poem because the whole damn station wanted to read the message from the Wonderkid’s secret admirer.

When she stepped from the lounge into the office space, Hernandez was already standing on a desk, brandishing the missive like she’d captured the flag. Judging from the Wonderkid’s scowl and ashen face, he seemed to think so too.

“Where the big cats roar, till throats are sore, I’ll see you from where I stand. Where boys and men play together, snatch them balls with your hand.”

The entire office roared with laughter.

“Nothing wrong with being bi.” She hooted to the crowd. “But no matter how you slice it, flowers and poetry is for princesses, not police. Plus, Wonderkid, this isn’t exactly discreet. Can you show some class, at least? You gonna go give a handjob or something? Even if it's consensual, you still can’t do that shit to little boys.”

Howls of laughter erupted from everyone except Washington, who only smoldered. Keith laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. Even Beanpole giggled at it all.

“Give me the damn note, okay?” Jim said.

Hernandez relented and handed it over.

“What does it really say?” one of the officers shouted out over the crowd of cops.

“Hey, Anderson, I’m in demolitions, not a goddamn poet laureate. Do you think I made that shit up?”

Everyone laughed again, Anderson the hardest of all. Kristen kept her eyes on Washington, who clenched his jaw so tightly she thought he might crack a tooth. So that was what the note really said, then.

“All right you animals, back to work! I’m paying you to protect this city, not listen to standup comedy and romance poems,” Captain Hansen ordered and the crowd dispersed, still giggling amongst themselves.

Kristen busied herself with paperwork. There’d been a convenience store robbery earlier that she’d busted. No, helped bust. They’d done it by the book with no dragon speed or using her steel skin as a shield. It had gone well—no one had died—but that didn’t mean the paperwork filled itself out.

While she typed the data in, she thought about the words of the poem. Obviously, they were clues about another meeting. If they contained actual information, Washington wouldn’t have gone to the park. Did that mean the poem told him the location?

If so, where did it point to?

“Where the big cats roared till throats are sore,” seemed to point to the Detroit Zoo. There wasn’t anywhere else in the city that had big cats, but the thing about the sore throats didn’t make any sense. There were lions at the Zoo, of course, and a tiger as well, but they didn’t roar until their throats hurt. Mostly, they only slept.

Then there was the part about boys and men snatching balls. Honestly, she was somewhat relieved that Hernandez had turned it into a sex joke. That would be at the forefront of everyone’s minds, not any other hidden meaning. But what did it mean? She didn’t think he was gay, and even if he was, he hadn’t met a clandestine lover in the park.

No, it was another clue. It had to be. But where would one go in the city to hear big cats roar and also catch balls? Maybe the boys and men was a father-son reference?

Finally, she slapped her forehead. “Duh!” She’d cracked it and she couldn’t believe how obvious the answer was. Her dad would have been ashamed that it took her more than a second to solve it.

Her teammate would meet his contact at Comerica Park, where the Detroit Tigers played baseball. Now that she’d found the answer, it seemed almost painfully obvious. Every single Tigers fan went home with a sore throat, and the line about catching a ball ruled out the Detroit Lions. No one ever went home with a foul football, but that was expected in baseball.

There didn’t seem to be a time specified, so she assumed he would simply head there after his shift.

An hour later, she followed him to the People Mover. This time, though, he was much more careful and watched the stairway where she crouched until the doors closed. Only then did he turn away, which meant it was too late for her to get aboard.

No matter. She was a dragon, and she knew where he was going.

As she sprinted down Randolph street, she moved faster than some of the cars. Her training with Sebastian had really made a difference. Not only had he helped her increase her speed but he also helped her use her reflexes better. That meant she could run faster simply because she wasn’t worried about tripping over every little thing.

She was actually surprised when Randolph turned into Broadway as she’d run so fast, she’d arrived there sooner than she’d realized. Broadway took her to Witherell, where she turned right and reached her destination.

And not a moment too soon. The People Mover had pulled into the station in almost the same moment. It amused her that she was virtually as fast as a train. She hid behind a dumpster and waited for Washington to come down the steps.

When he did, he looked around and immediately headed toward Comerica Park. She’d cracked the code, then. Missing the People Mover had made her nervous. If she’d misjudged and he’d stepped off somewhere else, she would have had to wait for the next bouquet and would have probably told Drew.

As it was, she’d brought a better camera than the one on her phone. She planned to get pictures and record audio if possible. It was too bad the stadium was so big and she couldn’t get ahead of him and set the phone to record. She’d simply have to tail him.

Washington hurried to the front entrance, then turned right. He followed the wall of the massive stadium for a while, almost to the back where the scoreboard was. As soon as the barrier gave way to a black, wrought iron fence, he removed his leather jacket—she had been wondered why he’d worn it as it wasn’t cold—and threw it over the spikes at the top. He took a few steps back, ran at the fence, vaulted up to grasp his jacket—and tore it in the process—and hauled himself over.

He left it there, presumably for a quick escape, and moved deeper into the stadium.

She considered taking the jacket and calling Drew but decided against it. If a number of cops arrived, Washington and the mercenary would get spooked.

No, it was better to get what information she could. Then, when he came to work in the morning, he’d walk into a trap.

Kristen stepped up to the ten-foot fence, crouched, and leapt over it. Apparently, a ten-foot vertical leap was still beyond her abilities, but clearing the fence wasn’t. As soon as she realized her feet wouldn’t make it over the top, she turned her hands to steel and caught hold of the spikes. She pulled herself over effortlessly, landed, and jogged into the darkness where her quarry had vanished.

It was a passageway to the stands—specifically, the part near first base and home plate. Foul ball country. What better place was there to snatch a ball?

Washington approached a man who sat in the stands with a hood up. All she could see of his face in the moonlight was a brown mustache. Everything else was in shadow.

She moved four rows back, dropped to her hands and knees, and crawled after him. Fortunately, he walked at a normal pace and she was able to keep up without too much difficulty. By the time Wonderkid sat beside his handler, she was behind them, albeit four rows back.

Once the conversation began, she crawled over a chair so she was only three rows back and close enough to hear him. She turned her audio recorder on her phone on and waited for an opportune moment to snap a picture.

“What’s up, Dwight? I thought I wouldn’t hear from you again.”

That was a weird thing to hear from a mole. Of course he’d hear from his handler.

The other man didn’t respond.

“Two times in a week is a little much, man. And that lyric? Shit, dude. It’s a little too obvious, don’t you think?” He uttered an odd chuckle she’d heard from him before and knew he was trying to ease the tension.

“I had no choice,” Dwight said and clapped a handcuff on Washington.

“What the fuck is this, Dwight?”

“I’m sorry, Jim, really,” his companion said, pushed himself up, and took two steps back from the man he’d fastened to a chair. “I told you they would kill my people. I told you that. Why’d you have to look under rocks?”

“I didn’t, man. I’m telling you. I didn’t lift a fucking finger.” He struggled against the handcuff. The rattle of the tiny chain sounded loud in the quiet stadium.

“I told him everything, Jim—about the lyrics, how we met, how I tried to save your stupid fucking ass. He has this effect on people. You simply can’t say no. He said he’d let me get my people out of town. That’s…that’s more than he does for most people.”

“And you believed him?” Washington demanded incredulously.

“Fuck, yes, I believed him. He knew about our meeting at the Edison fountain. He fucking knew, Jim. And I sure as shit didn’t tell him, which means you did.”

“No, I didn’t, Dwight. Someone must’ve tailed you. But it’s all right. I can get you to safety. With your intel, we can stop these assholes and protect your family and your friends. You gotta let me go.”

But the other man had no opportunity to respond. Instead, a bullet caught him in the temple and his brains exploded out the other side of his head.

“Shit!” Washington cursed and tried to drop in his seat. He couldn’t hide, though. Kristen could still see his hand. Now that Dwight had cuffed him to the chair, the mercenary had obviously served his purpose.

The shot had come from behind her, which meant the sniper would have to move to get Jim in his sights. Her teammate was crouched on the floor and struggled frantically with the restraint.

Kristen was about to sneak forward when a man darted up from the front row. Another appeared from the next stand over.

There wasn’t only one sniper, then, but a goddamn death squad.

She turned her skin to steel and sprang into action.

“Wonderkid, get ready to fucking move.” She leapt over the rows between them and thunked onto a chair that collapsed beneath her weight.

Shots struck her but did nothing to her steel skin. She dropped down so she was at eye-level with him while the mercs closed in.

Washington looked at her with terror in his eyes but the bullets that pinged off her seemed to sober him. “You followed me.”

“You’re goddamn right I did, and a good thing too. Are you armed?”

“With a pistol.”

“Not good enough. Get ready to follow me out of this place.”

“I’m cuffed.”

With a deft movement, she snapped the chain connecting him to the seat as easily as if it had been made of tissue paper. Gunshots rang out. One struck her in the back. “Change of plans. I’ll eliminate a few of these guys, then you’ll run to the field.”

“The field? There’s no cover.”

“There is in the dugout.”

“You can’t take these assholes on by yourselves. They are who tried to kill you.”

“These assholes are nothing if not well prepared, but they didn’t know I’d be here. Now, I’ll stand and they’ll shoot me. I’ll kill one of them and then I’ll move. That’s when you run. Got it?”

“But—”

“Do you understand the plan?” She hissed and flexed her aura. Jim was immediately compliant. He had no choice and felt what she felt—a desire to complete her plan.

She stood up to find that the mercs had indeed moved closer. They opened fire but their bullets continued to do nothing to her.

“We have you surrounded, steel bitch!” one of the men said. “You ain’t got no gun, so what you gonna do? Come at me?”

So, they did have tasers then. Idiots. She might have tried hand to hand, but not anymore. Not with one of them baiting her.

Instead, she ripped one of the chairs from its moorings and hurled it at the mercenary who’d tried to goad her.

It pounded into him and hurled him back. Her strength and accuracy training with Sebastian had dramatically improved her aim.

She ripped up another two chairs, one in each hand, and threw those at two other men. One managed to dodge but the other caught the projectile squarely in the chest. He sprawled and tangled in the seats.

“Washington, go!” she said, and he obeyed, sprinted down the stands, and hurdled over the guard rail to land on top of the dugout. He scrambled down and was lost from sight.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about him.

With him safely out of the way, she yanked another chair loose. Something pinged nearby and she spun and managed to catch the taser with the seat.

The assholes really had prepared for every scenario.

Kristen darted to her left, found a handrail, ripped it free, and threw it at him. It spun like a frisbee despite being a six-foot-long piece of steel.

The mercenary barely managed to dodge and therefore kept his head.

She paused, alert for the next attack, but her adversaries obviously decided on a strategic retreat. Three pairs of men each ran toward different exits. She considered following them but she had to assume each had a taser and that they’d know how to set a trap for her.

Plus, there was Washington. If she left him in the dugout and vanished into the bowels of Comerica park, she had no doubt that one of the teams would double back and execute him. That had been their primary goal—this time, anyway. She felt certain of that.

Rather than pursue, she jumped down onto the field, found her teammate huddled in the dugout, threw him over her shoulder like a damsel in distress, and got the hell out of there.

His jacket would be the only clue that they’d been there in the morning—besides the seats she’d had yanked out of the concrete and the bullet holes everywhere.

She shook her head. It really was a good thing they were cops. She wouldn’t want to be the detective tasked with discovering what had done that to the foul ball zone.

Chapter Sixteen

The duo took the People Mover back to the station. It would have been awkward, she thought, but nearly dying together had a way of making uncomfortable moments seem unnecessary.

“Thanks for saving my life back there,” Washington said.

“It was nothing,” she replied, feeling guilty.

“No, seriously. I’ve given you shit for being a dragon, and if you weren’t… Well, you saw what happened to Dwight.”

“Look, Washington—”

“Call me Jim, seriously.”

“Jim, sure, look. I…there’s something I need to tell you.”

He nodded. “For sure. We should probably call the team, though, right? I know I won’t be able to sleep after all that shit.”

She nodded, even though she wanted nothing more than to sleep. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll call Drew and the Rookie. You call Butters and Beanpole. The first one done calls Hernandez.”

“That sounds good.”

They spent the next few stops calling their team. By the time they stepped off the People Mover and made it back to the station, the others had assembled.

Except for Keith, who had apparently answered his phone without realizing it. He had been watching a romantic comedy and laughing uproariously. Despite her yelling at him from his pocket, he would not be distracted.

“Why am I out of bed right now?” Drew asked.

“Same here, and where the fuck is the Rookie?” Hernandez grumbled.

“Okay, I’ve followed some leads on my downtime,” Jim said and ignored the demolitions expert. Kristen found that she couldn’t help but think of him as Jim. Saving someone’s life after putting them in danger did funny things to the brain.

“Is that what you call it when someone sends flowers for a booty call?” Hernandez asked.

There were a few chuckles but the looks on Kristen and Jim’s faces silenced them quickly.

“The flowers were a code. Old lyrics from some raps me and a buddy made.”

“So…you’re a SWAT officer moonlighting as a gay rapper?” The woman looked incredulous. This time, no one laughed.

“No. The flowers were from one of the people who attacked the station,” he said.

For a moment, the words seemed to simply hang there while everyone let the weight of them sink in. Kristen still hadn’t told Jim everything, but he’d insisted on telling the team what he’d been up to first. Apparently, he felt guilty and wanted to come clean. She knew the feeling. While she also wanted to confess, she knew the team would need his information for hers to make any sense.

“Is that why you stopped me from incapacitating that clumsy asshole?” Butters finally asked.

Drew said nothing but the tightness of his jaw spoke louder than words. He was a moment away from tackling the man and throwing him in a cell.

Jim nodded and looked as guilty as hell. “Yes, sir. That was my buddy, Dwight. We were in the Marines together. He’s also from Detroit—was from Detroit.”

“So you chose your old team over your new one?” Drew snapped.

“Please listen, Drew,” she said placatingly.

“That first bouquet of flowers he sent me had a code for a location for us to meet. He told me to get the hell out of Detroit. I didn’t listen.”

“Why did he want you out of the city?” Beanpole asked.

“He was trying to protect me. The perps who’ve been running around are definitely mercenaries and highly skilled ones at that.”

“Yeah, no shit. I could have told you that the moment that building almost crushed us,” Hernandez said. She looked about as pissed-off as Drew did.

“What else?” the team leader asked.

“They’re working for someone, but Dwight wouldn’t tell me who.”

“Maybe he’ll tell us.”

“I doubt that,” Kristen said. “You need a head to talk.”

“What are you talking about, Hall?” he glared at her as if he tried to understand what her place in this was.

“Dwight is dead. I went to meet him again tonight, but it was a setup,” Jim interjected before Kristen could answer. “They used him as bait, then killed him and tried to kill me. I’d be dead if not for the Steel Dragon.”

“Baiting cops? That smells like the shit that went down with the gangs.” Hernandez rubbed her face. “Do you think that asshole Dragon SWAT was talking about is back?”

“I don’t know about that. In fact, I don’t know how they found out Dwight was the leak. Both meetings were on his terms, and he used lyrics that no one would know but me. It’s not like we released an album.”

“That would be me,” Kristen said, the words like knives of guilt in her chest. “I followed you the first night.”

“No way,” Jim blurted. “I know how to watch for a tail.”

“Yeah, well, not when they have dragon speed you don’t,” she said.

“That doesn’t explain—”

“Please listen, Jim.” She cut him off. The trust he placed in her was killing her. “I tailed you the first night, and tonight—well, actually, I worked the code out this time but that’s not what matters.”

There was a collective raising of eyebrows as everyone looked at her. She swallowed. “I told someone that I suspected you.”

“Not your superior officer,” Drew said angrily.

“Or your friend.” Butters sounded hurt.

“No. I intended to do that, but you’re right. I didn’t.”

“Then who?” Beanpole asked.

“Sebastian Shadowstorm.”

“I’m sorry, is that a cartoon character?” Hernandez snapped.

“That is that dragon I met at the rooftop party. The one who threw Ironclaw off the roof.”

“Keep talking,” the team leader said. Everyone else nodded.

“He offered to help train me, and…I took him up on it. It’s been tough at work, trying to clamp down on my powers. He offered to teach me about my dragon abilities. I know I need to be more of a team player, but…well, I couldn’t say no. It’s helped too. I’m faster now and know how to use them with more precision.”

“Damn straight,” Washington said. “Hall stopped six armed mercs from braining me using nothing but chairs.”

“That’s not entirely true,” she protested.

“Oh, that’s right. You ripped a damn handrail off too.”

“Now, that’s a story I want to hear,” Butters said.

“Oh, I’m sure Officer Hall will include all the details in the report she’ll write up and leave on the captain’s desk for the morning.”

“Yes, sir.” Kristen looked at the floor. It would be a long night.

“Why do you think it was this dragon? He sounds like an ally,” Beanpole said, ever the pragmatist.

“He said he would ‘look into it.’ That next day, the bouquet arrived.” She shrugged. While she’d wanted to trust Sebastian, it wasn’t like he’d made his disdain for people a secret.

“It could be a coincidence,” Beanpole suggested.

Drew shook his head. “I doubt it.”

Jim also looked unconvinced. “The last thing Dwight said to me was about the guy having some effect on him. Dragons can do that, right? Compel people to do stuff or whatever?”

She nodded. That was one of the skills Sebastian had helped her with. He was an expert in using his aura.

“We need to operate under the assumption that your friend Sebastian is Mr Black,” the team leader said.

Hernandez sucked a breath in through her teeth. “Shit. Do you really think so?”

Mr Black was the only name they’d obtained from the few remaining gang members after the assault on the city.

“Maybe he’s the real culprit, maybe not, but it feels like he’s a part of things.”

Kristen agreed with him. If Sebastian didn’t have a part in this, she’d be shocked. She simply didn’t know who else could have unraveled that there had been a leak and had the ability to manipulate Dwight into divulging the lyrics he’d used as a code.

“So…not to be a pussy, but this means we turn this shit over to Dragon SWAT, right?” Hernandez didn’t look proud of her suggestion, but there it was.

Drew scratched his chin. “Yeah. Yeah, technically, that’s what we’re supposed to do. Dragons are their jurisdiction.”

“That’ll leave the mercenaries loose, though, won’t it?” Butters asked.

“For a little while, at least.” He nodded, his expression grim.

“How fast will Dragon SWAT deal with accusations about Shadowstorm?” Beanpole asked.

Kristen shrugged. “That’s a good question. From what I understand, he’s fairly well known. He threw Ironclaw off that roof and no one even blinked. I don’t think Dragon SWAT will take an accusation at face value. Especially not if…well, especially not if it comes from humans.” She looked at her team and tried to hide her embarrassment at no longer being human.

“You’re saying we need proof,” Jim said. “Not circumstantial evidence.”

Drew, Beanpole, and Butters nodded at that. Hernandez scowled, stood, and began to pace. She cursed under her breath the entire time.

“Well, how do we get that? It’s not like we can send him a dropped pin and expect him to come into the station willingly,” Butters said.

“No. He wouldn’t even check an email,” Kristen said but the beginnings of a plan formed in her head. It would be risky—damn risky—but mostly for her. Given how this was all her fault, she found that more than acceptable. For it to work, a couple of her assumptions had to be true. If she was wrong, she knew it would go poorly, but she didn’t think she was.

“I was only kidding, Kristen.”

“But you gave me an idea. I think it’s time for us to lay a trap of our own.”

Chapter Seventeen

Drew burst into the lounge, despite having barely left with a cup of coffee. “Okay, people, get your asses in the van. We have a situation.”

“Our guys?” Butters asked.

He nodded. “It’s gotta be. An officer reported a perp who backed into his car and flipped him off for no apparent reason. He must have been baiting him. The officer called it in but still gave chase. He followed him to another abandoned building and tried to approach, but…” He mimed a gun being fired with his hand.

“It definitely sounds like our guys,” Jim agreed.

“Right, so stop staring at me and move.” Everyone bounded to their feet. It was an odd feeling to go willingly into a trap. They had the beginnings of a plan, but she felt a pang of dread in her chest. The people they pursued were hunting her. They would undoubtedly have a trap prepared and specifically designed to eliminate her, the strongest person on SWAT. If anyone on her team made even the slightest misstep, it would be disastrous. Weapons that could harm dragons would kill people. That was a given. But that didn’t mean they could stay home.

They ran pell-mell through the station, geared up, and were in the van in less than two minutes. Tires squealed and they were on their way.

After a minute of the tense silence that often led up to an action, Jim cleared his throat. “Hey, Kristen, I wanted to tell you, I’m sorry.” It was one of the most awkward sentences she had ever heard spoken aloud. He meant it, at least she thought he did, but there really was so much going on in the veteran’s mind. She wondered if maybe he’d seen a dragon when he’d served overseas.

All that didn’t matter, though. What was important was keeping her team alive and stopping these criminals who thought they could play games with the Detroit Police Department.

“No, Jim, you have nothing to apologize for.” She meant it too.

“I really do, though. I treated you like shit because you’re a dragon and lost focus on the dragon who’s actually trying to hurt our city.”

“I shouldn’t have followed you.” She wasn’t entirely sure she’d meant that. If she hadn’t followed him on the first night, his friend might still be alive. But if she hadn’t followed him on the second night, he would almost certainly have a bullet through his head already. What she regretted most was her dishonesty with the rest of her team.

“Bullshit. I would’ve done the same thing. That wasn’t dragon behavior—you tailing me—that was good police work. Besides, I’d be dead if you didn’t use your dragon powers.” Admitting that seemed to take something out of him, some nugget of resentment and vengeance he’d clung to.

“Welcome to working with the Steel Dragon.” Keith grinned. “Don’t worry, you get used to being saved by magic powers fairly quickly.”

“Are we done playing pat your back and hug it out?” Hernandez looked like she’d watched grandparents make out—mostly disgusted but slightly impressed.

The van halted a few moments later and Drew shoved it into park. “We’re here.”

Kristen climbed out into the parking lot of an abandoned motel. This one was only three stories high with concrete corridors and stairways on the outside. It looked like it had been left to the forces of nature for quite some time. The roof sagged in places and vines made a valiant effort to pull one side of it down.

A half-dozen police vehicles waited in the far corners of the parking area. Two of the cars had their windows destroyed, but that was the full extent of the damage. There were no fatalities reported, either.

“Jesus,” Hernandez grumbled. “This place is a fucking dump. It’s like they’re taunting us by attacking and destroying sites that are worthless. These guys are capable enough to probably fuck a bank up. But instead, they’re focused on a damn motel that even the rats don’t like.”

Kristen thought that was a good thing. As little as she wanted to admit it, these people scared her. At least by using these old buildings, there weren’t any hostages involved.

“Do we all remember the plan?” Drew said.

Butters and Beanpole nodded and pointed to the nearest building. They were eyes.

Keith pulled a tablet out. He had already brought up the floorplans of the building. “There’s an exit in the basement. It’s the old entrance to a steam tunnel.”

“That’s where the trap will be then, not to mention the control center for their bombs,” Hernandez said.

“Then that’s the last place you two go.” Drew looked pointedly at Kristen.

She nodded in understanding. There was no way she’d let anyone else get hurt, not by her trying to rush in and play the hero.

“Right, let’s do this,” the team leader said.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Keith sputtered.

“What?”

“Hernandez was right. They’re using wireless to communicate with their bombs or whatever.”

“Are you saying you can shut them down before we even go in?” Hernandez asked. A shot pinged off the side of the SWAT van. “Because I don’t think they would like that,” she finished.

Keith fiddled with the tablet but eventually shook his head. “No…no, I can’t turn them off, but I think I can locate them.”

“Excellent work, Rookie!” Drew said.

“You know, I only know how to do this because I’ve been on the force for more than a year—”

“What’s the plan, now?” Butters cut off his protests. He would always be Rookie.

“The same as before. You—Butters, and Beanpole—watch our backs. Hernandez and Keith, disable the bombs but don’t go near that entrance to the tunnel on your own. I’m with the Steel Dragon and the Wonderkid. We’re gonna make some damn noise and get these fuckers to run.”

They separated and focused on their roles.

Kristen turned her skin to steel—the enemy expected to face the Steel Dragon, so they’d make sure that was who they believed they faced—but she didn’t rush ahead.

Instead, she, Jim, and Drew hurried to the far side of the building opposite the entrance to the basement and the mercenaries’ escape route.

The anticipated volley was delivered and the bullets struck the ground in front of her, but none of them actually made contact. When she considered the situation for what it was, it seemed obvious that the perps didn’t want to hit them yet. The bullets wouldn’t hurt her and if they injured one of her teammates, there was a good chance she wouldn’t proceed into the building. Their actions were all designed to drive up the adrenaline levels in the SWAT team in order to rile them up and push them into doing something stupid.

They wouldn’t fall for it, however.

Instead, Butters would let them think they were. He opened fire on the gunman. Windows shattered and the cursory assault on his three teammates ceased for a moment. Having a sniper like him on the team had enormous advantages. While the plan wasn’t to simply shoot the hostiles, he was good enough that he could.

They reached the far side of the building and ran up the stairs to the third floor so they were as far away from the basement as possible.

“It’s time to make noise of our own.” Drew kicked a door open and fired inside. It was empty, but his shotgun was damn loud.

“My turn.” Jim mirrored his team leader at the next room and peppered the back wall with assault rifle fire.

“They heard you and want to come to the party,” Beanpole said over the radio. “Hernandez and Keith, move on my mark…” There was a long pause. It couldn’t have been more than ten seconds but to Kristen, it felt like hours. “Mark!”

They’d worked all this out beforehand, or something close enough to it anyway. When Beanpole gave them the cue and a hostile darted out from one of the empty rooms and fired his assault rifle at the trio, she wasn’t surprised.

She blocked the bullets with her steel skin.

“Funny, they didn’t use a taser despite having an open shot,” she said once the hostile had vanished into a room.

“Not with you on top of the building, they didn’t.” Drew grinned. So far, they were winning the mind game behind the actual firefight.

Jim cut the conversation short when he stepped out from behind her and fired at the attacker, who’d poked his head and the tip of his weapon into the hallway again. He retreated hastily into the room he’d emerged from.

They followed and found the door closed, so the team leader shot the doorknob, careful not to stand in the actual doorway. The force of the blast swung the door inward. A taser fired through the open space. It missed because the Steel Dragon hadn’t forced entry and didn’t stand in the aperture. The hostile inside cursed. They really had been right about this whole thing being a plan to eliminate her.

Too bad for them, it wouldn’t happen.

“Wonderkid?” Drew nodded.

Jim ducked, stepped into the doorway, and fired into the room. No shots were returned. “We’re clear, but I have no idea where the asshat went to.”

His teammates entered cautiously behind him. They searched quickly and found it empty, but something was odd about it. Kristen couldn’t quite place her finger on it.

“Hey, Drew,” Hernandez said amidst a crackle on the radio.

“Talk to me.”

“These aren’t bombs.”

“Then what are they?”

“Some kind of incendiary device. But I don’t get it. I can’t see them trying to burn the building on the Steel Dragon.”

“Roger that.” No sooner had he responded than one of the devices ignited in the room the three of them were in.

It had been hidden under the bed so they hadn’t seen it. Now, it poured enormous clouds of white smoke into the room.

“Get out!” Jim yelled and stumbled into a framed poster of a shitty painting on the wall. He fell right through it.

“Shit!” he shouted. “Secret tunnels.”

“Kristen—outside. I’ll get Jim.”

As little as she wanted to obey Drew, she left the room and stepped onto the outdoor walkway of the motel.

A moment later, the team leader dragged Jim out. Wonderkid coughed violently but pushed himself to his feet, so she assumed he would be all right.

“It’s exactly like we thought. This is all for you, Kristen.” Drew gestured toward the smoke that poured from the motel room. “The hostile in there was hiding behind that picture. He had sights on me and one of those tasers but didn’t shoot. I think they want to stun you, then suffocate you. Obviously, the insides of your lungs don’t turn to steel or you wouldn’t be able to breathe.”

“New plan?” she asked.

“Nope. It’s time to come up with a different strategy. We’ll follow them to the basement. Don’t go into any of the motel rooms. I bet they knocked holes in the walls of all the ones they’re in. If we stay out here, Butters has our back.”

“That makes sense,” Jim said and wiped his eyes. “That shit’s nasty, though, whatever it is.”

Drew nodded and activated his radio. “Hernandez, Keith, fall back and get gas masks. Are any of these devices at their exit?”

“Oh, yeah,” Keith replied. “That’s where they’re mostly clustered.”

“Then that’s where I want you to be. Hernandez, disarm as many of these damn things as you can. Keith, you know what to do.”

“Drop the pin.”

“That’s right. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have noise to make.”

Kristen grinned and started down the concrete balcony. She punched the next three doors open, careful to never stand in the doorway. In the third one, they found another mercenary, who didn’t make his escape as quickly as his ally had. He tried to vanish behind one of the shitty prints of a painting, but Jim shot him in the leg, and he cried as he fell.

She caught him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him out of the room.

“Gas mask,” she said to him.

He shook his head so she lifted him by the shoulder and dangled him out over the parking lot.

She returned him to solid ground when he hastily became much more compliant. He removed the gas mask and gave it to her.

“Drew?” She handed it to her leader.

“No, you take it.”

“Oh, come on,” she protested, unable to help herself. She didn’t want any of her people to choke to death while trying to save her life.

“No. They want you to choke on this shit. Let them know that won’t happen and it should speed up their exit.”

Kristen didn’t like it but she saw the wisdom of it. She was their target and their entire reason for using smoke instead of explosives. It made sense to render their plan obsolete so she put the mask on.

They proceeded along the balcony and opened the rooms as they went. The fifth one contained another hostile. He cursed loudly when he saw her gas mask but that didn’t stop the incendiary from detonating.

“Do you want to go get him?” she asked Drew.

“No, no. There’s no reason to be rude. Let him tell his friends what’s up.” He spoke into the radio. “Butters, let us know if you see movement. Keith, make sure you have Hernandez’s back.”

“Sir, it looks like migration season from over here,” the sniper responded after perhaps fifteen seconds.

“Shall we corral these assholes?” Jim asked.

“That’s the plan. Kristen, you take point. I want you with us. If any of these assholes are watching—and they’re pros, so I’m sure they have at least one guy on overwatch—I want them to know you don’t rush into shit anymore. We need to look like a team so they know their only option is to retreat.”

She nodded and the three of them ran toward the stairwell above the entrance to the basement. They encountered no more hostiles.

Butters, meanwhile, seemed to take great delight in shooting at those who fled from the second floor. She wished she could watch him work. Drew had said he didn’t want them to kill anyone and definitely didn’t want prisoners, so each of the shots must have been placed on the hostiles’ tails. The idea was to keep them moving.

There was still the guy whose leg they’d shot. Although they hadn’t cuffed him or anything so hopefully, he’d escape. She didn’t like the idea of him bleeding out so they might have to take at least one prisoner with them if he was left behind. They simply hoped it wouldn’t make whoever was behind all this skittish. But there was time to worry about that later.

“Here they come,” Drew shouted over the radio.

Kristen tensed when gunshots sounded from the first floor. That was part of the plan, she reminded herself, but she still felt a pang of dread in her chest when she thought about her teammates down there.

A moment later, Keith yelled and it was over. “Goddammit! They got away. Those motherfucking professional hitmen outsmarted us yet again and got away.”

Drew put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him away from the entrance to the basement. “Maybe a little ham-handed with the dialogue in the end there, but the delivery worked, Rookie.”

They retreated to the SWAT van and simply watched while smoke poured from a few more motel rooms and dissipated on the wind.

“We disarmed a good number of those things, but whoever goes in to take out the rest will need to be careful,” Hernandez said.

“It’s a good thing these assholes chose another abandoned building. I don’t want to think what that smoke would’ve done to regular folk,” Butters muttered as he joined the group.

“Or the Steel Dragon,” Beanpole added.

Kristen nodded. It felt damn good to have her team back. Although she’d never physically left, she now saw what they were talking about. They could never have accomplished what they had if they hadn’t worked together. The training they’d put in had them working as a team again. She had thought that would make her weaker, but after this operation, it made her proud that she hadn’t gone it alone. And then there was the fact that the hostiles had again used weapons that would’ve made steel skin an obsolete defense.

She only had one question.

“Keith?”

The Rookie grinned and stuck his tongue out. “Oh, not to worry. I dropped the pin.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Drew asked.

Keith opened the tablet. A map of Detroit displayed on the screen, and there—only a block from where they were—a red blip moved farther and farther from the SWAT team.

Chapter Eighteen

From a safe enough distance to keep their pursuit undetected, they followed the tracker to a warehouse. Along the way, Drew shared the location with every SWAT team in the Detroit Metro area.

They waited a few blocks distant from the target until enough teams were in place to surround the building. A dozen vans, each filled with at least six heavily armed members of SWAT was a good start, but that wasn’t all. Hernandez had watched the mercenaries’ retreat closely and located the steam tunnel they’d used to enter the warehouse.

She’d then—with perfectly understandable glee—collapsed it so they could no longer escape underground. The explosion was intended to be loud enough to cue the hostiles into this fact. If they tried to escape the way they had come in, they would find their path blocked with rubble.

Minutes later, another twenty or so police cars had joined the SWAT vans. Drew ordered everyone to close in, and they advanced like a pod of orcas hunting fish. They all reached the building within a minute of one another. There were so many damn official vehicles that Kristen didn’t think they’d even need officers to arrest the mercenaries. They could simply open the car doors and if they tried to flee, they’d be caught like fish in a net. It was another example of why teamwork was so important. The people inside obviously knew what they were doing, but against a force like this, even professionals would be intimidated. She had no doubt that if she had tried to face them alone, she’d have been defeated.

“We have you surrounded,” Drew declared over the loudspeaker once everyone was in position, obviously enjoying this bust. It was almost comically one-sided.

Still, part of her thought about how it could go bad. If the mercenaries were able to escape despite their exit being collapsed and every available police car and SWAT van in the metro area bottling them in, there’d be nothing they could do.

“Someone’s making for the roof,” Butters reported and gunshots responded from the tops of all the nearby buildings. Snipers pinned down the dragon who tried to escape. She was quite certain there was a dragon inside and could feel an aura. Plus, who else would try the roof except for someone who could fly? It wasn’t like there was a helicopter there or anything like that.

But whoever the dragon was, it didn’t have steel skin. The volley of sniper rounds kept it inside.

Drew waited about thirty seconds before he picked up the megaphone connected to the loudspeaker again. “By now, you’ve discovered that we collapsed your tunnel.” Feedback echoed from the megaphone for a moment and he fiddled with the controls, then held it up. “We’ll open the front door from out here. If you throw your weapons down and come out one at a time, you’ll actually get to talk to a damn lawyer. If you shoot, we’ll simply blow you to hell. Oh, and thanks for choosing an empty building by the way.” He sounded downright cheerful.

They waited perhaps ten seconds before they pulled open the larger hangar-style door on one side of the warehouse. About ten seconds after that, a hostile emerged, his hands clasped behind his head. He didn’t look particularly scared, only pissed.

Kristen thought that was good. If he was afraid, he might try something desperate or his boss might try something. Pissed meant he understood the gravity of the situation.

Five seconds after that, another hostile followed, then another. She was surprised when the procession stopped after only nine people. It seemed impossible that such a small force could have caused the city such a headache—which only served to indicate how professional they actually were.

Her surprise at that, though, was nothing compared to the shock she felt when Sebastian Shadowstorm exited the building with his hands raised and a smug look on his face.

At first, she thought she was mistaken. She wished that was the case, but she wasn’t. His hulking frame, ponytail, goatee, and black-and-red gloves left little doubt as to his identity.

They’d talked about him working with the enemy but to actually find him there with the mercenaries directly after a mission still felt like a true betrayal. She knew that he had played some kind of role in the attack on Jim, but she’d told herself that he must have poked around in the wrong places. Her assumption had been that he had asked questions that had alerted the real mastermind to Washington’s clandestine meetings. Now, however, she saw that wasn’t the case. Sebastian Shadowstorm’s presence could only mean one thing—he was Mr Black, the dragon who had already tried to destroy the city once.

It was Mr Black who had killed Jonesy—and who had been training her.

Everything she’d learned—her new abilities, her understanding of her dragon aura, the precision with which she could wield her dragon strength and speed—all came from the dragon who exited the building.

She simultaneously hated him and owed him a great debt. More than anything, she hated that he’d set up this contradiction inside her mind. She hated him for what he’d done and yet he had made her stronger too and showed her things about her true nature while the rest of the dragon community had ignored her. Had it all been part of a plot? Was she merely a pawn? The idea of being manipulated so effectively cut her to the core.

Kristen couldn’t help herself. She strode forward to confront the dragon. “You spineless lizard. I trusted you.”

Sebastian smiled. “Yes. I suppose you did. It’s unfortunate that this is how you found out about my training methods for the Steel Dragon. I must admit, I continue to be impressed. You’ve learned more than I realized, especially about your limitations.” She couldn’t decide if he meant to look vicious or endearing and assumed that was exactly what was so damn dangerous about him.

“Your…what?” She wanted to trust him but was that simply his aura? He’d said it didn’t work on dragons, but she obviously could no longer trust him fully.

“My methods. I apologize for killing your friend, Kristen, really, I do. I didn’t know there was a new dragon in Detroit and if I had, I would have been more careful not to take what is rightfully yours.”

“That’s appalling. You can’t talk about people like they belong to dragons,” she said icily.

“But of course we can. That’s why the world is stable, after all. No one likes it when our pieces are taken by another. If I had known at the time, I wouldn’t have done what I did.”

“Bullshit! You’ve tried to kill me!” she shouted, her face inches from his.

“I protest, Kristen. I’ve done nothing of the sort. Did you not notice that these mercenaries appeared around the same time as the party I threw in your honor?”

“You didn’t throw that party—” she began in protest.

“But I did. This is my city, Kristen, as much as it's yours—or as much as it will be yours once you fully come into your power. Nothing happens here without my knowledge. You were the first thing to surprise me in some time, and discovering that you were raised here only made me wish to help you thrive and grow stronger despite the muck and the filth all around us. I knew that training you wouldn’t be enough. You learned with me, yes, but the team of men I hired was to help you evolve and come into your powers. It is only in fire that steel can be tempered. I sought only to give you that which is rightfully yours—power.”

“People were hurt—”

“No, they weren’t—well, no one except the people you hurt in the baseball arena and the man you left behind at the last building. They were under orders not to hurt anyone.”

“Because they’re your people?” she challenged.

“Because they’re yours.” Sebastian smiled imploringly as if there was nothing more important in the world than that she understand the sincerity of his words.

“That…that makes sense,” Keith said and nodded.

She looked at her teammate. He stared at the dragon with wonder in his eyes like an older sibling had confirmed the existence of Santa Claus.

“Total fucking sense,” Hernandez added and also nodded, her expression one that suggested she was enraptured by his explanation of the events.

Kristen looked at Sebastian, this criminal mastermind who masqueraded as a member of society, and raised an eyebrow. He might have convinced her. He’d been right, no one had gotten hurt, but Hernandez? That had been too much.

She flexed her own aura and felt her team’s trust for the dragon seep away. Keith shook his head like he tried to wake up.

Hernandez’s look of shocked understanding immediately settled into her more typical scowl. “Fucking asshole.”

“Don’t listen to him, Hall. Like you said, he’s a damn snake,” Drew said to her, apparently oblivious to the fact that he’d been under the dragon’s control as well. She knew he was a snake, and the team leader felt that way as opposed to trusting him because she used her aura to influence her team.

She hated doing that because, by using her aura, she only confirmed that Sebastian was right. To protect people—her people—she needed to use her dragon abilities, and her ability to control her aura with any level of precision came from Sebastian. No, she couldn’t call him that. He was Mr Black or Shadowstorm but not Sebastian, never again.

“Indeed,” the dragon said. She could see that he understood what had gone through her head and that she’d recognized him using his aura and pushed back. He looked less than amused but turned away from her and faced Drew. “Don’t you have rights to read me or something? There will be lawyers and trials and all that, yes? I must say, it’s been quite some time since I’ve run afoul of human law. Don’t ruin your chances by insulting one of your captives.”

“Let’s go. asshole. You have the right to remain silent. I recommend you use it while you can.” He resumed reading Mr Black his rights.

Kristen nodded. Drew was right. He was a snake and had outmaneuvered her. Worse, she now realized that he knew everything about her—the exact limits of her powers and what she could and couldn’t do. All their training had been a ploy to learn about her and to find out how to hurt her. It was almost too much to comprehend. Compared to his Machiavellian plotting, she really was a child.

In response to her inner frustrations, she scowled at the prisoner and flexed her aura as she did so. The slight effort she put into it whipped the police around her into a frenzy of curses and jeers at the disgraced dragon. Some of those who hadn’t known about the operation and had been called away from lunch even threw their drinks at him.

She sneered at him. “Whoops. I guess I haven’t quite learned the finer points of control.” It hadn’t been her intention that the cops throw fountain drinks at him but rather that they simply feel her anger toward the man who’d lied to her and led her on for weeks. The police had taken that anger, combined it with what they knew of the man who’d tried to start a war inside the city and killed a number of their ranks, and this was their reaction.

The dragon didn’t even flinch when he was showered by sticky beverages and the curses of people she had no doubt he saw as beneath him. “You’re welcome,” he said to her and extended his huge arms to be handcuffed.

Keith did the honors, although the restraints barely closed around his thick wrists. They put him in the back seat of a cruiser and his massive frame barely fit.

Kristen swallowed. They’d won the battle and the mercenaries were now off the streets but obviously, Mr Black had another card up his sleeve. He could have snapped the handcuffs like paper—and, for that matter, probably shredded the car like cardboard. In fact, he could have simply flown away. She didn’t know the extent of the dragon’s powers—he had quite conveniently kept that information from her—but she did know that a dragon had never been shot and killed by a gun. Injured perhaps, but not for long, and never killed.

And yet, he sat in the backseat, slightly stooped, with a grin on his face like he knew the punchline to a joke he hadn’t bothered to tell them.

Chapter Nineteen

Mr Black, seated at the table in the interrogation room, almost looked like an optical illusion. He was simply so big. At well over six feet and with shoulders that brought the word “oxen” to Kristen’s mind, she didn’t see how the room could actually hold him. Even if he wasn’t a dragon, he looked like he could snap the handcuffs apart, although he’d made no effort to do so.

She almost wished he’d use his powers to trash the place. At least she would have known they had actually got to the bastard.

Drew paced in front of him and demanded answers, but the dragon made no response at all. The man tried every tactic he knew to intimidate the prisoner, but she knew none of it would work. Sebastian Shadowstorm was a master of controlling other people’s emotions with his aura. Less than a year before, he’d whipped every gang in the Detroit area into open rebellion. The team leader’s bluster about being locked away without a key simply didn’t make any impression on him—and especially because she had no doubt he could bend any bars they put him behind.

After ten minutes of this parody of an interrogation, Mr Black cleared his throat. Drew turned too quickly and she could see the desperation in the gesture. The dragon could have asked for a steak dinner and would most likely have been given it. Still, the officer retained a little of his bluster. “What? You want your damn lawyer?”

Kristen shook her head. He had probably compelled Drew to ask that.

“Lawyers. Pah. My lawyer isn’t versed in criminal law, only real estate. Those men who work with me, though, will all need a lawyer. You’ll find there’s a substantial sum set aside for their defense. You’ll also find that the people defending them are quite well-versed in how humans and dragons are supposed to interact.”

“Then what do you want?” Drew asked.

“I want you to shut up. I won’t talk to you, you insufferable simian simpleton,” Mr Black stated officiously. “I simply wanted to let you know that if you continue to blather at me, I will use my abilities to make you and everyone in this station piss themselves. You bore me. Your questions are dull and your posture is obvious. Ugh.” He waved a hand dismissively at the man like he was nothing more than a fly.

“This isn’t a time for puerile threats,” he retorted sharply.

“Puerile? What a clever word, human. You know, I remember when the English first adopted it from the French in the late sixteenth century.”

The team leader scowled, left the room, and slammed the door behind him. “I can’t believe this asshole.” He shook his head and moved to stand beside Kristen behind the one-way glass. Mr Black stared at them both. She wondered if his dragon senses empowered him to look through the mirror. The expression of contempt on his face certainly made it seem like he knew he was in control.

“I know you don’t really have the experience but, Hall, I think you should go in.” He didn’t sound too proud of the suggestion.

“Me? I’ve never interrogated anybody,” she protested.

“Yeah, I know. Most people on SWAT never do, but…well…” He uttered a strangled laugh. “The asshole said he won’t talk to humans, and, uh…”

“I’m not human,” she finished for him.

He shrugged and forced a smile. “I’d say try to get a confession, but he’s right in that our laws don’t exactly apply to him. Still, if you get him to admit to giving orders to the mercenaries, maybe that’ll prove he’s involved enough in human affairs to drag him down with them. They have crimes to answer for—destruction of property and possession of illegal weapons and hazardous materials. Maybe a conspiracy charge. If you can get him to talk about them, maybe you can bring up what happened with the damn gangs. Cops died. Maybe we can get a murder charge to stick.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked.

His expression didn’t look confident. “I don’t know, but dragons don’t normally hire teams of mercenaries. The world would be far more fucked up if they did. Maybe he broke one of their rules by doing all this shit. If you can get him to confess, maybe we can transfer him to Dragon SWAT.”

After a moment’s thought, she nodded. “Okay.” It was worth an attempt.

She got two cups of herbal tea—Sebastian had always been partial to jasmine—and walked into the room. She knew—and Mr. Black knew—that there was no way she could intimidate him. After all, he’d trained her and sent mercenaries to kill her. Maybe that meant he couldn’t kill her with his bare hands, but it also meant she didn’t inspire anything even remotely like fright in the dragon older than the city she’d been born in. He must see her as less than him. Then again, he probably saw everyone as less than him. Maybe she could use that arrogance.

“So you won’t talk to humans? Then talk to me. Dragon to dragon.” She pushed a cup of tea across the table and sipped her own.

Sebastian laughed. Mr Black, she reminded herself irritably, but it was hard to think of him as the criminal mastermind when he laughed in the same way he did when she told him stories about growing up human.

“So you are,” he said with a smile as he studied her for a moment before he picked his cup of tea up and took a small sip. He looked like a kid pretending to be tied up while playing cops and robbers. The handcuffs really were comically undersized. He closed his eyes, inhaled the aroma of the beverage, and set it down with a look of satisfaction.

Kristen wondered if he’d had the same look in his eyes when he’d ordered the rebellion that had killed Jonesy. Remembering her partner made it much easier to think of him as the enemy he was. Suddenly, she knew that any attempt to be the cliché good cop wouldn’t work. She was the Steel Dragon and definitely would not sit there and wheedle information from this asshole while he sipped his tea. “How long have you known the mercenary team that tried to kill me?”

“You mean those brutes who stormed into my abandoned warehouse? I think that maybe those thugs destroyed my property.” He said it all in a phony, saccharine-sweet tone that made the lie painfully obvious and took another sip of tea.

“Bullshit. You may not be talking to the cops, but your little cronies are. We have confessions from most of them and are working on the others.”

“A human’s words don’t carry weight against a dragon, Kristen. Face it. You have nothing on me. We’ve faced rebellions like this in the past before—a team of pathetic humans conspires together to try to oust their superiors. It always turns out to be a lie. Always. Their kind isn’t trusted, Kristen, not by our kind.” He put the cup down and raised his hands in a gesture of absolution.

“So you’re saying you didn’t have a part to play in the gang rebellion that almost burned this city down and killed my partner.”

Mr Black smiled indulgently. “What would you like me to say? That my aura affected those criminals? That somehow—without speaking, mind you—I inspired a horde of worthless criminals to show their true selves? Forgive me. You know I’m somewhat out of date, but are auras something that counts as evidence in your human courts?”

“We have multiple confessions from them as well. I’m sure some will identify you as Mr Black. You’ll pay for Jonesy’s death and all the other officers who died that day.”

He laughed. “Why do you think your criminal system hasn’t made laws that apply to the full range of our abilities? Why do you think there are jurisdictions that one can simply fly away from and leaves their crimes behind? It’s not a terribly convenient system for a human. It’s hard to flee a city, after all, but for a dragon? Come now. Surely you can see how this system wasn’t designed entirely for the people at the bottom. You say I’ll pay for your partner’s life. Tell me, how much is the life of your partner worth?

“More than yours.”

“Is it? Last time I checked, bullets were cheap and that was all it took to kill your friend, wasn’t it? A couple of slugs of lead you weren’t able to stop? Think about it. If you had worked with me sooner, I could have shown you how to better use your reflexes. That is so ironic it’s almost poetic—thanks to me, he might still be alive.”

“You bastard!” Kristen said and pounded the table so hard her fists made dents in the burnished metal. Both cups of tea clattered to the floor. She hadn’t realized she’d turned her hands to metal.

Mr Black didn’t so much as blink at her outburst. He only chuckled and lowered his cuffed hands to his lap. “Calm yourself. I simply meant that if I had made your acquaintance sooner, I could have helped you. You make a fair point about your friend’s life, though. Other lives were lost as well. A shame…a real shame.” He sucked a breath through his teeth and shook his head. “Perhaps a charitable contribution to the families of the deceased would fix things? It can’t be easy to lose the breadwinner. How about a hundred thousand—”

“That’s a goddamn insult and you know it.”

“Let me finish, please. Let me finish. How about a hundred thousand a year for the rest of their mortal lives? I imagine some of them even had kids. A hundred thousand dollars will cover their expenses for a long time. Therapy, college, housing, food—almost anything they could think of. This is what dragons do for people. This is what you do for people, Kristen. You help.”

“You’re the one who needs help. We have multiple confessions linking your identity to the criminal Mr Black. We have your fingerprints and those of your servants on unopened crates of weapons we found. We also have confiscated the payments you made to mercenaries. Spanish doubloons? Really? That doesn’t scream dragon at all.”

He paused as if to consider all this for a moment. “So those rats kept their nest right here in the city?”

“Those desperate men you exploited were more than happy to share what they knew when they saw the writing on the wall for multiple life sentences.”

“Which together would still equal less than mine.”

“Just because a human’s life is shorter than a dragon’s doesn’t make it less valuable,” she retorted sharply.

The dragon snorted at that and obviously found the comment ridiculous. “You know,” he said, raised his cuffed hands, and scratched his cheek languidly before he lowered them to his lap again. “For a human, you might have had enough. The evidence you have spoken of sounds compelling, even in this country with its ridiculous ‘innocent-until-proven-guilty’ laws. Maybe with one of your lawyers and a jury from this city, you could’ve made something stick.”

“There’s nothing to make stick. We already have everything. You’re going down, Sebastian.”

He clucked his tongue and shook his head again. Oh, how she loathed that sound. “Kristen, how can you be so naïve? For a human, this might have worked. But I am a dragon, so this has all been nothing more than a waste of both of our afternoons. Now, here’s what will happen. In a moment, a knock will come at the door. The person will say that a call came in and that you are to release me without charges. You’ll release me, return my gloves, and we’ll be done here.”

“Bullshit. You haven’t made any phone calls.”

Mr Black merely smiled. “When you so valiantly appeared at my warehouse to apprehend those terrible criminals, I might have had one of my chauffeurs call Tyler. He does more than fix drinks, you know.”

“Like I said, bull—”

A knock came at the door. She answered it and tried not to let herself turn to steel and trash the entire station when Keith explained to her that what the prisoner had predicted had indeed happened.

Five minutes later, she watched Sebastian Shadowstorm saunter from the station, transform into a dragon in a dark cloud of shadow, and fly into the approaching evening. She was so angry, she thought she would be physically ill.

“I can’t believe that fucking monster. I want to blow his goddamn brains out,” Beanpole all but snarled from where he leaned on the front desk. Kristen had never heard him talk that way before.

“I know what you mean,” Butters agreed fervently. “I want to rip him limb from limb.”

Reality kicked in and she shook her head and tried to calm herself. She’d let her aura get out of control and could see the ripple effect throughout the station. Everyone seemed angry and on the verge of violence. She tried to settle her own rage but only succeeded in bringing her aura under control. Beyond that, she was still utterly furious. Separating her emotions from her aura was an important ability—yet another she’d learned from Sebastian.

She returned to the interrogation room to find it empty and finally located Drew in the lounge, eating a donut and staring into the distance.

“This is bullshit, Drew. He’s the reason Jonesy is dead.”

Drew shrugged. It was a weak gesture, and in that moment, she hated him for it. “There’s nothing we can do about it right now. He’s a dragon and out of our jurisdiction, and we didn’t really gather much evidence. I liked the line about the fingerprints on the weapons, but he must have known you were bluffing. When we busted the asshole, he was wearing gloves. He even asked for them back.”

“The gold coins weren’t a bluff.”

“Yeah, but a few coins in a few pockets doesn’t unequivocally pin them to Mr Black.”

“He was there, Drew. Can you even hear yourself?”

“I know he was there, Hall. I was there too, goddammit. Do you think I like this shit? If we want to nail him, we’d practically need him to confess—and even then, I have no idea if that would be enough.” How odd it was to hear her own rage come back at her from another person. She’d let her aura affect him.

“Do you think a confession would work?” she asked, the gears already turning in her mind.

“I don’t know. Maybe? It’s happened before. I’ve looked into it. There have been cases where a dragon admitted wrong-doing and has been punished for it.”

“Then what’s the damn problem?” she said. “We have enough already.”

“Not for a human court, we don’t. They’ve been punished in the past, but not by us. He’s a dragon, Hall. Shit, the only reason he talked to you was because you’re one too.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are, goddammit, and if you weren’t, we’d all be dead a hundred times over already.” He looked so beaten, she could hardly bear it.

“So you think a confession plus our evidence would do it?” she asked after a minute.

“I don’t know if the evidence even matters. I think that if—and this is like the biggest damn if of all time—if he confessed to other dragons, maybe he’d be held responsible. At least I damn well hope he would be. Otherwise, we’ll know those monsters can simply wreak havoc on our cities anytime they want.”

Kristen sank onto the couch and rubbed her face. It was all so damn exhausting. She stood, snatched a donut, and sat again. Was this really how the world worked? Justice meant something different depending on who you were, on your connections, and how much money you had? It was disgusting—absolutely disgusting—that people rotted in jail because they’d been desperate and done something stupid like rob a convenience store while at the same time, the most powerful of all could get away with almost anything. If one was powerful enough, laws didn’t matter. All that mattered was prestige. And Shadowstorm had cultivated his for centuries.

He could do anything he wanted. Well, Kristen thought, not anything. He’d said he’d wanted to throw that dragon Ironclaw off a building for a long time, but he hadn’t. There was some kind of code dragons lived by. There had to be laws too—if there weren’t, why would there be a dragon SWAT?

“You know, I think… I think there might actually be a way,” she said in mid-bite of her donut.

Drew smirked. “I gotta say, I love that you don’t know how to stop.”

“No. No, I’m serious. I know, he learned about me during our training, but I’ve learned about him too. I think we could do it.”

“Oh yeah?” He raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to go to tell the captain to ready a cell for a goddamn dragon?”

“No, no, not at all. Listen.” She looked hastily around the empty lounge and lowered her voice. “For this to work, I’ll need a team.”

“Yeah, well, you obviously have one of those. I’m sure even Jim would fight for you now. You’re Detroit PD’s Steel Dragon. You know that.”

“Not for this. Are you willing to work outside our normal modes of operation?”

He inclined his head as he considered that. “Absolutely. If it means bringing down the shitbag who’s responsible for Jonesy’s death, you have my support.”

“Do you think the team will go for it?”

The question drew an immediate laugh. “Are you kidding? Hernandez would do anything for Jonesy’s memory, and the others would do anything to make the Steel Dragon proud.”

“Dragon or not, I want Black to know he’s not untouchable, not in our city.”

Chapter Twenty

The team took to Kristen’s plan far more quickly than she’d anticipated. Which possibly meant they should have spent a little more time developing it, but no one had wanted to wait.

Mr Black had said he was above the law, but if he left town, he really would be. Maybe he was nervous, too, although she couldn’t be sure. He had raised the matter of jurisdiction so perhaps he might consider running. At least, that’s what she had told her team. The result was that in less than twenty-four hours, they already began to put the plan into action.

She told herself it was because she’d convinced them and they’d seen the logic of acting quickly before he could adjust to the new status quo, but she really couldn’t be sure. It was preferable to believe it wasn’t her aura that had made her team agree so quickly, even though she knew she still didn’t have perfect control of the ability. She wanted to catch Mr Black so badly and knew they did too. He’d taken one of their own, after all, but for her, it was more than that. She wondered if her team felt the way she did because she forced them to. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling but she decided she could feel guilty about it when her city was no longer in danger from a monster who’d tried to compel it to consume itself with violence.

The team pulled up to the gate of the dragon’s mansion in a SWAT van disguised to look like a utility truck.

Kristen wasn’t inside. She waited a block away for the right moment with a radio on to hear the conversation.

“We had a report of a gas leak?” Beanpole said from the driver’s seat. It was amazing how completely disinterested he sounded—like every repairman called in for every false alarm ever all rolled into one dude who simply wanted to get home.

“We didn’t report any gas leak,” the guard said. She could practically hear him frown.

“Are you sure about that?” her teammate replied, his voice thick with sarcasm. “I told you this was another waste of our time. If we’re outdoors and can smell it, that normally means it’s already at a dangerous level.” He turned to Butters, who was in the passenger seat. “Do you smell anything I don’t?”

“Of course, I smell it. You can’t miss the stink. And I also told you that the gentleman who lives here wouldn’t waste our time.” His mock outrage at his companion slighting Mr Black seemed to work. The guard cleared his throat and sniffed loudly enough for her to hear him over the radio. If he had to side with one of the repairmen, the thinking was he’d go with the one who called his boss a gentleman.

“You know, now that you mention it—”

Part of the fence exploded in a shower of white sparks. They had hoped the guard wouldn’t be able to recognize different kinds of explosions and it seemed the gamble had paid off.

“Holy shit! Holy shit—what do we do?” he shouted so loudly it forced feedback.

“Let us in! We need to shut the mainline off before this whole place goes up. Do you guys have a control switch in there?”

“I…I don’t know!”

“That’s fine,” Butters said. “Let us in and we’ll take care of it.”

The guard turned to his controls and opened the gate.

When he looked down, Hernandez and Kristen snuck in through the hole in the fence the demolitions expert had created and ran through the garden, keeping the truck between them and the guard.

Kristen had never learned the full story behind Sebastian’s collection of cowering human sculptures. But she found that she no longer particularly cared about them either. She knew she didn’t like them, so when they began to blow up, one by one, from the explosives her teammate dropped at each of their feet, it filled her with nothing but a sense of pleasure at seeing those tortured faces freed from their master’s gaze.

At the third explosion, she felt him. Either he’d heard the explosions or the guard had told him. His aura—normally so calm and controlled—had ignited with rage.

The servants poured out of the house but Mr Black wasn’t with them. That suited her perfectly.

She’d given her team a plan, but she didn’t know if she would stick to it. While her purpose was to defeat Shadowstorm—she had to defeat him—if she had an opportunity to do more, she would take it. If she saw an opening to kill him, she would do so. She’d killed the men who’d worked for him. Why did their leader deserve anything different?

There was no way to be sure how all this would play out, but as she raced across the manicured grounds that now erupted in flames and used her dragon abilities to quickly outpace the rest of her team, she became sure of one thing. She would make the dragon pay for what he had done to her city and she would make him answer for what he’d done to her friend.

Chapter Twenty-One

Her body already transformed to steel, Kristen barreled through the mansion and tracked the other dragon’s aura. It led her through his home and she followed the direct route and simply pounded through walls as easily as football players ran through paper banners.

She bulldozed a path through room after room and crushed treasure after treasure until she thrust through the final one and found Mr Black outside.

He stood on his sandy training court, wearing nothing but black pants and black gloves trimmed with red. She hated those gloves.

His posture stiff and rigid, he glared at her. “I knew you were coming, Steel Dragonling. I’ve waited for you outside, in the obvious place to have this fight.”

Thunder cracked, and an eerie darkness gathered on the horizon. She never had asked him if he could control the weather, but it looked like she had her answer.

“Oops? Did I track mud through your house?” She stepped onto the sandy court and kicked her shoes off.

“You do understand that I didn’t teach you everything I know, correct? That for you, this will be the fight of your life, and for me, this will be but another demonstration from a student destined to live in my shadow.”

She snarled her defiance. He had taught her a considerable amount, this was true, but he hadn’t taught her anything about her steel abilities that she didn’t already know. And one of the things she’d learned from him might be his downfall. After all, it was Shadowstorm who had delivered the lesson of what it felt like to lose a friend. She wasn’t so naïve as to think she could make him feel the pain of it but she could still take something from him. The arrogant look on his face would be a good start.

Without warning, she raced forward and her steel toes propelled her through the sand until she moved at a blur.

He anticipated her, clasped his hands together, and raised them above his head. She veered at the last moment, but he had anticipated that too and twisted his body so he could still strike. His fists caught her on the shoulders, and she catapulted out of the court. Her steel body scraped a groove into his manicured lawn.

Kristen stood. She’d hardly felt the blow. Being made of steel had advantages, after all. She attacked again and this time, leapt into a flying kick. Something about being in the air felt right. She had a moment of exhilaration like a foreshadowing of that other still-elusive dragon part of her as it tried to break free.

But the feeling was a distraction. Shadowstorm caught her leg and hurled her away with a roar. Once again, she careened away and the feeling of weightlessness was quickly replaced by the knot in her stomach from momentum she couldn’t control. She impacted a marble statue that shattered in the collision.

Unperturbed, she picked a broken hand up and threw it at him, followed by a woman’s crying head and a torso.

Her adversary deflected the first two, but she could tell they hurt his forearms all the same. His skin wasn’t steel and she had thrown chunks of marble at him as fast as most of the pitchers for the Tigers could. The third piece—the torso—caught him in the shoulder with sufficient force to make him stumble.

She had already begun to sprint when that thunked into him. He recovered quickly, though, and she only managed to land a few punches to his gut before he grasped her by her throat and threw her across the sandy arena.

Shadowstorm was breathing hard. Obviously, tossing her around wasn’t easy for him. So much of her training with him had been focused on using her speed and strength rather than her steel abilities. He obviously hadn’t taken into account how much heavier it really made her. She realized that she might actually be able to win the fight.

While she wasn’t stronger than him, she carried far more bulk and weight. If she could use that difference in their bodies, she could finish this.

Encouraged, she took a few steps back until she stood near one of the metal dragon statues that looked like it was rising from the ground. She caught hold of the clawed hand and pulled it loose. While she didn’t quite have the strength to lift it directly, her adversary had taught her how to use leverage.

It took effort but she managed to yank it free and swung it as he launched himself onto her. She powered a blow across his head with the arm and he tumbled with a curse.

He stood and spat blood. The grass ignited with hissing flames where his spittle touched it. She swung the arm again. He dodged, darted forward, and kicked her in the groin.

The strike accomplished little except to hurt his foot.

Kristen tried to swing the arm for another assault but she was too slow. By the time the weapon arced toward him, Shadowstorm had clamped a hand on her forearm. He squeezed hard and despite that it wasn’t particularly painful, the pressure was still enough to make her drop her impromptu weapon.

She tried to kick him and thought she managed it, but the blow went past him. Or through him? She couldn’t be sure but she felt certain it should have landed.

Her opponent used her confusion to his advantage. He caught her by the neck and tightened his grasp.

Although she was made of steel, it wasn’t exactly rock solid. She could move, after all, which meant his grip on her neck compressed her flesh exactly like it had when he’d squeezed her forearm.

The dragon grunted and lifted her from the ground. Veins bulged in his neck and his arm flexed so tightly, she thought it might burst. Still, he didn’t drop her to the grass and instead, lifted her higher and squeezed.

Involuntarily, she choked around the crushing hold around her throat and began to hammer on his shoulders with steel punches and kick his chest with steel feet. He really was a huge opponent. Her feet were nowhere near the ground.

“Enough of this!” Shadowstorm bellowed and dropped her. She landed hard and managed to keep her feet under her, but he simply shoved her to the left and over his outstretched leg. Her ass hit the sand but he didn’t release her. Instead, he followed her down and drove her throat to the sand as he did so. He tightened his hold and dragged her by the neck toward the outside edge of the training court.

“You still don’t understand leverage,” he said while she gagged and tried to cough. The advantage didn’t come without a price for him, however, and he panted with the exertion required. The weight of her steel body was considerable, even for the hulking man. If she could go back on the offensive—if she could only breathe and fight back—she could do this.

Kristen found it more and more difficult to believe those thoughts.

When her adversary heaved her over the edge of the training court, his hand faltered and she struck him in the thigh. He cried out in pain and dropped her. Instead of a punch, she’d tried a karate chop. The smaller surface area of the blow had worked well and magnified the force of her blow. Given that her skin was made of steel, it didn’t hurt her at all. Funny, he had never shown her that.

She rose, her hands held like knives in front of her and told herself she could do this. Truthfully, she had no choice. If she lost, she knew he would slaughter her friends in a heartbeat and it wouldn’t even matter to him. They were only people, after all.

Shadowstorm roared and attacked. She lashed out with chops and tried to get inside his greater reach and work his torso. He adjusted his attack and attempted to grab her, so she retaliated in kind. For a moment, they simply pulled at each other, each dragon trying to displace the other and seize the upper hand. In the end, the victory was hers.

Her greater steel mass worked to her advantage and she threw a shoulder against him and managed to unbalance the taller man. As soon as one of his feet lifted, she wound her arms around his torso and pulled back with every ounce of her dragon strength. She managed to hoist both his feet up and used the full power of her weight to pound him into the sand. Before he could recover, she simply fell on top of him and he gasped from the abrupt force and pressure.

It really was odd how effective wrestling moves were when one’s body was made of steel.

The other dragon struggled to escape from beneath her bulk, but he couldn’t. Brian had made her watch enough wrestling that she knew the real holds from the fake ones.

“Give up, Sebastian. It’s over. You’ve lost.” Kristen hissed her annoyance at his obduracy.

“Foolish…girl,” Shadowstorm wheezed between breaths.

In the next moment, her hold on him was gone and she lay in the sand.

A dark mist drifted around her like a cloud. Flashes of lightning cracked and she narrowed her eyes against the flare of brightness. For a moment, she thought the storm on the horizon had descended onto the battle.

The roiling mass of shadowed cloud resolved itself into her adversary’s dragon form.

He was utterly enormous—bigger than an elephant or even two—and was covered in black scales that looked as hard and impenetrable as her steel skin. Red, angry eyes glowered with hatred above white, pointed teeth. Spines covered his back and jutted from the joints of his knees. His claws were like butcher knives on the ends of hands bigger than her torso. He might not be able to use them to slice her steel skin, but then again, she didn’t actually know what dragon claws were made of. She knew they were capable of punching through suits of armor, though, and had seen a relic in his house that bore marks of exactly that.

She couldn’t beat him. Not like this. He was too big and too powerful, and he could fly. He knew her limitations better than she did. Panic surged in her chest and she realized he’d simply toyed with her.

Kristen pushed herself up to run. She made it perhaps four steps before a bolt of lightning struck her.

Everything went white-hot for a second before she tumbled into the sand, her shoulder aflame with pain that made the tasers feel like nine-volt batteries. It felt like someone had stabbed a sword through her shoulder, attached a powerline to it, and turned on all the electricity that powered Detroit.

The pain was so intense that she couldn’t even writhe. It took everything she had to merely stay conscious.

She had no idea if the lightning had come from the approaching storm or from Shadowstorm himself. It confirmed to her that the dragon could definitely either control lightning or create it and either option was equally as terrifying as the other. She had no idea if he could do it again or if it had been a lucky strike.

It very quickly became a moot point, however. Before she could scramble to her feet, a claw lashed into her back and pinned her to the ground.

The sensation of being crushed was almost a relief compared to the lightning. At least she had some recourse against that. Against lighting…well, steel skin certainly wasn’t an advantage.

It took every ounce of strength she possessed and she managed a push up—at least she thought she did—but as soon as her chest raised off the ground, his tail whipped into her and twisted her onto her back. She understood then that the only reason she had been able to get her face out of the sand was because he had allowed it.

Before she could attempt to move again, he drove a claw down onto her chest. He began to apply pressure to pin her in place and force the air from her lungs.

A great gust of wind buffeted her—a harbinger of the storm that had finally reached them—and was immediately followed by only stillness.

Kristen couldn’t feel much besides the increasing pressure on her chest from Shadowstorm’s claws. She saw nothing but the red eyes, the ridge of spikes, and the gaping mouth of his true form.

“You’re a shitty teacher,” she sputtered.

The dragon merely laughed.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“What’s the matter, Lady Hall? Have you not learned how to transform yet?” Shadowstorm roared with laughter. Thunder boomed above him as he did so and echoed his amusement.

“Like I said, I had a shitty teacher.”

“Most of us learn the full extent of our powers when we must. But apparently, being raised as a human instilled their sense of worthlessness in your psyche. I had thought that even now, in this fight, I might release your true potential and we could take to the skies together. Then you would see that we could be allies, but I realize now how much of a liability your past truly is. Although you may not be a pathetic human, your heart will always belong to them.” He laughed and again, the thunder boomed.

Kristen struggled against his claw but couldn’t move. She hoped it would rain. Perhaps the slickness would enable her to slip free, but given that the thunder mirrored her captor, she seriously doubted that would happen. “You’re a monster,” she managed to say in a voice ragged from her exertions.

“No, my dear. I’m a dragon. I thought you were too, but I begin to doubt that. I thought I could make you into one of us, but I was wrong. My only regret is that a mongrel like yourself was the one to disprove me after so much time. I think I might have preferred it to be a human instead of a runt trapped between worlds. At least then, I’d know these creatures were learning.”

“Whatever I am, at least I fight for something besides myself. You care about nothing except this pathetic palace and your own stupid machinations.”

Shadowstorm threw back his head and laughed hard at that. His throat swelled and collapsed with each breath. He really was huge—like swallow-a-person-without-chewing huge. When he brought his face back to hers, a gust of wind came with it and blew sand into her eyes and mouth. His aura affected the weather then, or had he planned that?

Even for someone with steel skin, the sand was irritating. It also served to emphasize how much more powerful than her he was. Given his enormous stature, the sand hadn’t even reached his face.

“Do you hear yourself, human?” He pitched his voice in a crude impersonation of her. “You only care about your own stupid machinations.” He laughed again. “Only a human could say that. My machinations will give me this city, this country, and one day, the world.”

“Bullshit.”

“Lady Hall, my machinations already killed your friend. I was there, you know, at the top of the warehouse, and tried not to laugh while he bled out in your arms.”

“Fuck you!” Kristen hissed her fury and struggled against his claw. She thought it might work as she felt it raise but then realized he had merely picked her up.

He wrapped his taloned fingers around her steel body and held her above the sand. If the weight bothered him, it didn’t even vaguely show.

“Even now, I feel your aura trying to make me feel terror or fear.” Shadowstorm chuckled. “But you’re so weak I don’t even feel nervous. My aura, on the other hand, inspired the gangs of this city to come together and fight against the yoke of their human oppressors.” He tightened his grasp.

“I stopped you,” she wheezed. She would have said more if she had enough oxygen but his hold crushed her like she was nothing more than an insect. Dimly, she wondered what would happen if he applied more force. Would her organs simply rupture inside her or would her steel skin crack like a peach to release her blood?

“Once, yes, you stopped me when your powers were so weak, I could hardly sense them. But my mercenaries led you on a merry chase through the city to an abandoned warehouse, did they not? You even managed to catch us. And yet, here we are, on my land. How clever you must feel.”

“None of your friends will ever see the light of day.”

“Friends?” Shadowstorm laughed so hard the rain began to fall—a slow drizzle that didn’t loosen his grip at all but only irritated her eyes. “Do you think those pathetic humans were my friends?” He hurled her into the sand and leaned on her with the weight of his dragon body. “Have you really learned so little from me? I will shed no tears over the loss of human lives. They’re worthless to me. Less than worthless—insects or ants. No, that’s not quite true. Humans can be useful tools. They’re worth at least a little more than simply poisoning them. After all, once I snap your neck, they’ll give me the city.”

“And that’s what you’ve been after this whole time? This city? Detroit and the people you lord it over? You want it to be yours instead of whichever dragon runs it now?”

“I thought that was obvious, Kristen. You were to rule it at my side.”

“Like I said, fuck you.”

Shadowstorm smiled, a predatory gesture. “You are true to the pathetic moral cloth that raised you, I’ll give you that much. But unfortunately for you, I have no place for short-sighted human morals. Do you wish to turn back to flesh so I can snap your neck quickly or shall we see how flexible steel really is?”

Kristen clenched her teeth as he brought his other claw closer and wound it through the steel filaments that were her hair.

“I wonder if your hair will come out or the vertebrae in your neck will snap first.” He tugged her head to the left. “It’s an interesting question that I haven’t been able to answer despite our training together. How deep does your steel skin really go? If it’s all the way through, surely your hair will come out first. But if it's only skin-deep—that’s my hunch, by the way—your neck will probably snap before you lose any hair.”

She tried not to let him see how much pain she was in but that was impossible.

In the next moment, her tormentor flinched and released her hair, although the clawed hand that pinned her to the sand remained firmly in place.

He looked up.

“Hey, lizard breath. Let our partner go.”

“Yeah, asshole. Or else!”

Kristen craned her neck, thankful it could still move at all.

Drew and the team had arrived.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Shadowstorm laughed and the rain fell harder.

“Was that supposed to hurt me? My scales are as strong as steel, you fool, and my flesh has power greater than any creature that walks this earth. I cannot be harmed by your tiny weapons.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know all that. I merely wanted to get your attention,” Drew said almost casually and lowered his handgun.

In response, lightning struck the tree closest to the team. The thundercrack was deafening and in seconds, the tree was engulfed in flames.

“You have it,” the dragon said.

“You missed,” Kristen snarked. Maybe the lightning had only struck her because she was made of steel. He could direct it but not completely. Otherwise, she had little doubt Drew would be dead right now.

“Don’t interrupt, child,” he said and struck her across the face. His claws didn’t actually hurt her skin, but the force of the blow twisted her neck and that was beyond painful. She realized the folly of her plan. The dragon really could crush her insides like jelly. He knew this, obviously. That was why he’d trained her.

Another shot rang out. Even though she saw the spark of the bullet striking his chest, he didn’t flinch in the slightest.

“I told you, your weapons are useless.”

“Guns, maybe,” Drew said and strolled away from the burning tree before it collapsed—which, given the roar of the flames, probably wouldn’t take long. “But humans do have weapons that can hurt you, Mr Black.”

Shadowstorm grinned. All his expressions were terrifying in dragon form but this smile was especially malicious. “You amuse me, human. What weapon could you have that could possibly hurt me? I have outlived empires and turned castles to rubble with my own hands. Tell me, did you get one of those tasers to work? You’ll find they don’t particularly bother a dragon who often soars amongst the clouds that breed lightning.”

“It’s all about values, right?” The man took another casual step forward. “Humans are vulnerable because we care about each other. You only value yourself and your power.”

“Neither of which can be taken from me,” the dragon responded dismissively. “I grow tired of this. You are stalling. Did you only stop me to get a better vantage point before I kill your friend?”

“We stopped you because you already confessed,” Keith said and held a cell phone up.

“We have it all on video, Mr Black,” Drew explained. “In Hi-Def too, but of course, you’re a dinosaur who probably understands that less than my Nana does.”

Shadowstorm chuckled and the thunder rumbled. “Yes. Video. This was one invention I paid attention to. When you’re working in the shadows, one can’t have people shining lights and filming.”

“Okay, cool. So you understand that you’re fucked, then?” Hernandez said.

“Such crude language.” He shook his head and sucked a disapproving breath between his teeth. “I won’t feel bad about roasting you alive and destroying your little video strip with you.”

He inhaled and leaned even more heavily on Kristen.

“Yeah, except I’ve actually live-streamed the whole thing.” Keith grinned. “We tagged Dragon SWAT. Stonequest seems really pissed, and Heartsbane? Dude, her comments have been hilarious.”

“Stonequest?” The dragon balked. It was the first word he’d said since Kristen had confronted him that wasn’t laced with confidence.

“Yeah. Although he hasn’t said anything in a minute. I guess dragon hands can’t hold a phone? I dunno. They should be here… Hold up, let me close the app.” Keith frowned slightly and tapped the screen of his phone. “Sorry, I couldn’t see the clock. Yeah, really soon. I’d say he’ll be here really soon.”

Washington smiled at Shadowstorm. “In other words, fly away little birdy.”

“You can’t expect me to believe this—” he began and stopped abruptly.

Kristen had felt it too—the slightest tinge of another dragon’s aura. Stonequest was still far away, but he was moving closer by the second and he wasn’t alone. Other dragon auras pushed into her consciousness.

She also felt Shadowstorm’s aura change from confidence to anxiety rather rapidly. One day, she told herself, she’d thank him for the ability to sense such things. Maybe a day when her throat wasn’t crushed by his giant hand. Maybe when he was chained up in a hole he couldn’t crawl out of.

“Cursed humans.” The dragon raised his claw high enough off the ground to pound her into the sand, then pumped his wings and was airborne and she was free.

“See you around!” Drew shouted after him.

“Indeed, human! This isn’t over, and now that I know where the Steel Dragon’s alliances lie, she will pay.”

He pumped his wings, gained speed, and fled in the opposite direction from which the other auras were approaching.

When he left, the storm followed. In a moment, it had stopped raining and in another, a rainbow appeared.

“If that’s not like the fruitiest damn thing I’ve ever seen outside of Keith’s apartment, I don’t know what is,” Hernandez said.

Everyone laughed. Kristen pushed herself to her feet and limped over to her team. Every inch of her hurt except for her skin. She didn’t know that bruised bone could be so painful.

“So, this is where you’ve trained, huh? What was the end game here? To become a chunk of a dragon or a tiny scared white woman?” Butters gestured at the sculptures around the mansion. “It seems like a lose-lose situation to me.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but the garden décor kind of screams super-villain,” Beanpole said.

“You trained here in the sand? Too bad he doesn’t have cameras. That would’ve made for a sick Steel Dragon training montage.” Keith scanned the house for security cameras and found nothing.

Hernandez apparently thought that was hilarious because she laughed so hard, she snorted.

Jim stepped out in front of the team, his head hung in shame. He cleared his throat. “Hall, I’m sorry about all that anti-dragon shit. We couldn’t have done anything to that guy without you,” he said and raised his chin so he could look her in the eye with his shoulders straight. He really was the Wonderkid and even apologized like a professional.

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry for tailing you. And I’m sorry about your friend back there. He…that was my fault.”

“Hall, you were supposed to learn that it’s not always about you,” Drew said. “Don’t let this be Jonesy all over again.”

“Yeah, share the load with that guilt.” Jim forced a laugh. Everyone else laughed too. It was the kind of thing you did for each other when part of your job was trying to stop people from killing each other and inevitably failing sometimes.

The screech of a car’s tires caused the team to all turn toward the driveway.

A car raced away from the mansion. Either the butler was still under Shadowstorm’s aura or the dragon had actually inspired some degree of loyalty.

“Do you want me to shoot his tires?” Butters had already raised his sniper rifle. He sounded like he could have made the shot even if he was half-drunk.

“It might be smart to let him go,” Keith said with a shrug. “Shadowstorm’s untouchable but his henchmen might leave a trail.”

“I say aim higher than the tires,” Washington said.

“Drew?” Butters said.

“Take out his brake light,” the team leader said.

The sniper did and everyone laughed when it shattered and the man cursed loudly enough to be heard all the way across the grounds.

“Thanks, you guys.” Kristen grinned sheepishly. Despite having been almost killed by the most powerful being she had ever encountered in her entire life, it still made her feel silly to have asked for help. Even as a kid, she’d detested needing help. She wondered now if that was an inherent dragon trait or her mom’s stubbornness raised into her.

“No problem,” Keith said cheerfully.

“Seriously, Kristen, the pleasure was all ours,” Butters assured her. “I get to put ‘shooting a bitch-ass dragon’ on my resume!”

There were few chuckles before the weight of the joke settled around them.

“You probably shouldn’t actually include that,” Jim said. “Kristen’s cool, but most of them probably won’t like it at all.”

“Yeah, I know. Dragon jurisdiction,” Butters said glumly.

“How will those assholes react, Red?” Hernandez said to her. The nickname finally felt fine coming from her.

“I have no idea. Dragon SWAT will be here soon.”

“You weren’t bluffing?” Drew asked.

She shook her head. “They answered our call. I can feel their auras getting stronger, which means they’re getting closer, I think. I don’t know why they’d come unless it was to help us with the job.”

“Gee, I don’t fucking know.” The other woman’s words positively dripped sarcasm. “Maybe they’re less than thrilled that some uppity Detroiter the media’s obsessed with took on one of their own in combat and showed the whole damn thing on the entire Internet.”

“I thought you said you would only share it with Dragon SWAT,” she said.

“Whoops?” Keith shrugged. He didn’t look regretful, though. “The only bummer is I didn’t get his human face. Only the brawl, then him, uh…”

“Pinning Kristen like a cat with a bird?” Butters asked.

There was a moment of silence in which they all thought about how the world might react to a dragon beating the crap out of one of the most famous people in the world right now. She was a dragon too, so the dragons said, but she’d yet to actually transform. It could quickly spiral into a PR nightmare.

“Hey, everyone, I had an idea. How about we get the hell out of here?” Hernandez suggested.

Everyone agreed. Suddenly, standing on a dragon’s estate waiting for more pissed-off dragons to arrive didn’t sound so great. While those approaching were supposed to be pissed-off at the same people the team was, something about an angry being that might or might not be able to breathe fire wasn’t that appealing.

They scrambled into the van, Drew started the engine, and they left without seeing any sign of the dragons.

“Do you think there’ll be repercussions, Red? You can be straight with us.” Hernandez stared at her from across the back of the van as if she actually knew anything about any of this.

“I have no idea, but I don’t really care. We did the right thing. If they don’t see that…” She sighed and tried not to sound despondent. “I’ll hold them off long enough for you guys to get out of here.”

No one laughed.

“That was a joke!” she said.

That still didn’t make anyone laugh.

“Look, whatever happens, happens.” She shrugged. “All I know is that I want a beer.”

“I know a wings place,” Butters added quickly.

“The first round’s on me,” she said.

“Rookie mistake,” Keith said. “Butters will buy out every damn wing in the place as soon as a waitress looks at him.”

They laughed and fell into companionable silence after the sniper told Drew the name of the place.

Tomorrow was another day, but for now, she had her friends and a cloud that loomed over her city had blown away. For that, she was thankful.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Kristen hadn’t thought she was too badly hungover. That theory was sorely tested when the captain bellowed for her to get in her office.

She pushed herself from her desk, hurried down the hallway, and wished she wasn’t hungover at all. This meeting with the captain was inevitable, but she’d have preferred it to be after lunch. A fool’s dream, obviously.

When she passed the water fountain and had an irresistible urge to drink water, she succumbed and no doubt drew the ire of the captain even more. When she drank, the hangover simply vanished. One second, she had a headache and felt like a sheet hung between her eyes and her brain and the next, her world was clear and her headache gone.

It was her healing power at work, a skill she learned from that traitor Mr Black. She was simultaneously thankful and furious at the idea that her dragon powers would always feel like they’d come from him. While she really had learned from the dragon, there was obviously much he hadn’t shown her either.

The captain’s door was closed so she knocked. It sounded gentler than she’d intended—like she was scared, which was way too close to the truth. She didn’t want to lose her job but couldn’t exactly fault the woman. Their escapade had involved an officer dragging a SWAT van and a team out on an illegal bust, after all.

When she entered the office, it wasn’t Captain Hansen who made her heart pound in her throat.

Stonequest was the first person she saw. The captain of Dragon SWAT nodded at her, his orange eyes with their black slits unblinking.

“Hall. Thanks for finally joining us. You’ve met Stonequest, correct? I believe he was the one who laid into you the last time you acted completely outside protocol.” Captain Hansen glowered from behind her desk.

“That’s putting it strongly, Captain,” Stonequest said mildly.

The woman calmed immediately.

“Don’t use your aura on her,” Kristen snapped and flexed her own aura—anger and surprise and a trace of indignation. It struck the woman like a slap in the face and she immediately scowled.

“Whatever you two are doing to me, cut it out.” Hansen shook her head and tried to push the residual effect from her head.

“Yes, sir,” she said and let the aura drop. She’d wanted the captain to be free from outside influence but had used her aura to enable her to do so. It was deliciously ironic that her superior officer was only able to get angry because she had intervened and removed Stonequest’s aura, and that the captain had taken it out on her as well.

“I’m sure you want to know why I’m here,” Stonequest said and his orange gaze leveled on her. It felt like being watched by an anaconda.

“More like how long until you haul me off to dragon jail,” she replied. She had meant it as a joke—one of those that are only funny because they have a ring of truth to them.

He cracked a smile at that. “Dragon jail?” He snorted. “There are no little boxes that can hold our kind. The penalty for those who won’t heed the dragon council is death.”

She swallowed and glanced at Captain Hansen, who also looked nervous.

“Which is what we’ll do if we ever catch Shadowstorm.”

Relieved, she released the breath of air she’d held. Okay…so at least she wouldn’t die today. That was nice. “You’re…not mad?” she asked.

Stonequest frowned a little. She thought he might have looked curious but it was damn hard to read his eyes with his slitted pupils. “I’m a little upset that you abandoned Shadowstorm’s home before Dragon SWAT and I arrived and shared that stream on the inter-network—which isn’t exactly the best for publicity—but my displeasure isn’t why I’m here.”

Oh…well, that was good. He smiled when her aura of relief reached him. “So then… I’m not in trouble?”

His smile broadened. “You’re a dragon and didn’t do anything wrong. You felt Shadowstorm had wronged you, so you challenged him. That’s been legal for dragons for millennia.”

Another relief, she thought. “So you believe Shadowstorm’s confession then?”

Stonequest smiled even more broadly and this time, it even reached and softened the weirdness of his eyes. “I’ve felt your aura. It’s powerful, but Shadowstorm was a master of subtlety. No one who has met him believes that he could be coerced by anyone. I believe the confession was his own.”

“And my team?” She asked the question of him but it was really for Captain Hansen.

He shrugged and dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. The subtext was clear. The concern was beneath him. “The humans acted under your orders. You had a legal challenge against a dragon so, by obeying you, they did not act outside the law. In fact, technically, humans who swear fealty to a dragon must obey. At least that’s how it works in dragon law. I understand there are different rules amongst your kind.” He nodded at Captain Hansen as if he were giving her permission for something.

“So they won’t be punished, Captain?” Kristen asked and hoped she understood the gesture.

The woman only shrugged. “Hazy legal grounds are better than breaking the law. I’m with Sir Stonequest here about the live streaming, though. That was unprofessional.”

Again, the dragon shrugged. “It was…embarrassing, but it might ultimately be for the best. My kind often ignore technological developments. There have been big ones, recently, of course—electricity, the photograph, automobiles, and whatnot—but most dragons have failed to see the difference between television and the Internet. Television is easy enough for us to control. The hierarchical power structure of the major companies allows us to…filter that which we believe to be too disruptive, but the Internet is a different beast. A decentralized network of uncensored content creators is dangerous in a way television was not.”

Stonequest chuckled. “Ugh, sorry, you got me monologuing. Let’s forget about it. That kind of talk is for the Dragon Council,” he added with a gesture toward the captain. Kristen felt his aura like a surgeon’s blade. A knife of forgetfulness sliced into the captain’s consciousness and she shook her head.

She was awed and once again realized that there were many things Shadowstorm hadn’t shown her. Still, she didn’t like that he’d manipulated the woman and wanted to protest but before she could, he stood.

“To make things very clear, Dragon SWAT is thankful for the help of your officers, Captain,” Stonequest said to Captain Hansen.

“You’ll go after him then?” she asked, oblivious to the little trick that he had played on her mind.

“Oh yes. We haven’t caught him yet, but we will. Now that his slight against the Steel Dragon is public knowledge, quite a few dragons have come out against him as well. Enough have taken offense that we’ll investigate him. There will be a list of grievances brought to the council, of this I am certain.”

“Wait…a list of grievances?” Kristen was dumbfounded. “Are you saying the only reason you’ll pursue him is because other dragons have filed complaints?”

Stonequest looked surprised and his orange gaze bored into her. “That is how dragon law works. I take it Shadowstorm told you nothing of our ways?”

“No, not really. But am I really supposed to believe that him riling up a horde of gang members into trying to blow Detroit up and hiring mercenaries to literally blow it up is fine?” She felt anger curdling in her gut like hot bile.

“No, of course not. Damos and Lyra—the two dragons in charge of this region—have taken offense with him for those very reasons. The people in this part of the world are theirs to protect and punish. Shadowstorm can’t usurp a city for no good reason.”

Her fury began to escalate and it took considerable concentration to not become steel. “But there’s no law against slaughtering people?”

“No. No, of course not.” Stonequest seemed amused “Dragon laws don’t apply to people. We operate on another level of power. That would be like your kind making laws to protect the birds or the fish.”

“We do have laws to protect the birds and the fish.”

The dragon chuckled. “Do you really? How curious. I really am looking forward to you coming into your powers, Lady Hall. There is much the dragons can learn from one who grew up amongst humans. Do humans actually respect these laws of fish and birds?”

“No…not always, but that’s not important right now. Shadowstorm killed dozens of people. He could have killed hundreds.”

“And do your politicians go on trial when they go to war? There was a time when dragon kind had killed more humans than you had each other, but as we’ve moved into the background—of our own accord, I might add—humans have been more than willing to take up the mantle of committing atrocities on each other. The atomic bomb, the world wars, firearms, and swords are all things your kind have perpetrated on itself.”

Her skin rippled to steel and quickly reverted. This was…this was disgusting. Dragons thought of people as little more than fish? Except there were dragons like Shadowstorm who manipulated people from behind the scenes, and Stonequest thought these manipulative ones had simply decided to sit out the entirety of human conflict? That was like absolving a politician for a war they’d called for simply because he hadn’t been the one to fire the guns. It was absurd.

“So, because I complained, Shadowstorm’s in trouble? If I hadn’t, he would have walked free.”

“The information you shared is more than enough to infuriate quite a few dragons,” Stonequest said. He still seemed rather oblivious as to how angry she was at his thoughtless carelessness. “Lyra and Damos want his head, obviously. Many of the other North American dragons had sworn not to harbor him as well. As I said, his shadow is a long one.” He chuckled at the pun as if they were discussing some celebrity’s gaff instead of the potential slaughter of innocent human lives.

“So, to be clear, if Damos and Lyra decided to simply burn Detroit to the ground, that wouldn’t be doing anything wrong?”

He frowned at her and looked genuinely appalled at the thought. “Of course that would be wrong. There would be no reason for such slaughter. So many of us would call their ability to rule into question and besides, it would represent a huge loss of resources. If Damos and Lyra burned the city, many of the dragons in North America would turn against them.”

“Because of a loss of resources?” She sneered.

“This is how it’s done, Hall,” Stonequest stated and his voice lacked emotion. “We have no laws about humans because we don’t wish to interfere in every decision their kind makes. With autonomy comes the freedom to hurt each other.”

“This is unacceptable,” Kristen retorted. “You know there are dragons interfering with human affairs. There are dragons paying off politicians and piloting corporations from behind the scenes. You turn a blind eye to the fact that because of the power you wield, you’ve influenced mankind from the beginning.”

“Maybe that’s true but we’ve taken steps back,” he snapped. Apparently, she had struck a nerve. “No one agrees with you more than I—although it is perhaps not wise for me to admit that—but it can be difficult to change minds that are literally hundreds of years old.”

“So why bother?” She couldn’t help herself. By now, she was furious.

“We struck a blow today. Shadowstorm is lying low. Already, many of the leaders on this continent have sworn not to harbor him, and as the news spreads, others will probably do the same. He will pay for his actions—for what he did to you and yours.” He paused, his expression inscrutable, but she sensed a slight softening, a hesitation that suggested he might not entirely be the uncaring, emotionless dragon she assumed him to be. “There are dragons—not many, I concede, but a couple—who believe that humans have…unexplored potential. It may be that more and more will respond to that idea. And yes, it will take time, but I think progress can be made. What we’ve done with ousting Shadowstorm proves that.”

“And what do you want me to do in the meantime? Sit on my hands while I wait for justice?”

“Honestly, we’d like you to stick to human issues for a while.” Stonequest smiled. It seemed genuine because his aura matched the expression, but it was still hard to read him with those eyes.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to interfere with human affairs,” she said and wished it had sounded less petulant than it had.

“That’s been the arrangement for a long time, but our ways are not set in stone.” He smiled at the pun on his own name.

Kristen wondered for how long and in how many languages he’d made inappropriate plays on words.

Stonequest continued. “Your situation is unique, and the world is beginning to watch the Steel Dragon from the Motor City. You are aware of human issues in a way no other dragon is, simply because of your upbringing. Even the most…liberal of us often have difficulty empathizing with your kind. For example, I’m in law enforcement and had no idea that you actually made laws for the fish.

“On top of that, you are an adult by human standards, and a sheriff, as most of my kin still calls the police. By dragon standards, you’re a whelp, but you are certainly old enough to make judgments on humankind.”

“Make judgments?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seen what you’ve done to some of the humans who threatened your city. The thief you left hanging in the bars he tried to hide behind was especially poignant.”

“And especially outside what SWAT is supposed to do, Hall,” Captain Hansen added. She sat at her desk, her arms folded, and Kristen had almost forgotten about her.

“Of course, ma’am. It won’t happen again.”

Stonequest smiled. “And you defer to human judgment. That alone makes many of us think that you continuing to work on human affairs while you wait to come into your powers fully will give you a wisdom most of us lack.”

“Fine. It’s not like I have a dragon teacher right now anyway. I’ll keep working on making this city safer. But you need to understand that if I hear about a dragon hurting people, I won’t send in a complaint and wait for some kind of consensus. I’ll protect the people in my city. If that’s a problem, take it up with me. You’re not as big as Mr Black was and you saw the video.” It was more of a threat than she had intended, but now that she’d said it, she didn’t regret it.

He sighed although he didn’t sound particularly upset. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from the Steel Dragon, and I’ve told Damos and Lyra as much. You’ve proven yourself capable of causing headaches on a scale I thought impossible.”

“You call injustice a headache?”

Stonequest chuckled. “No, but invading a dragon’s home rather than coming to me was problematic.”

“If I’d come without the confession, would you have raised a finger against Shadowstorm?”

“Perhaps. As I said, many have already sworn not to shelter him. That doesn’t happen unless there was already resentment there. However, you’re correct in that coming to us would have taken longer. Shadowstorm is tricky. If his network had obtained the information, he could have taken action we’d have been unable to stop.”

He rubbed his head. She had seen the gesture from every superior she’d ever frustrated—which, when she thought about it, was virtually every boss she’d ever had.

“You should do what you feel you must. I’m sure you will anyway. But please, let us know before you blow another dragon’s house up next time.”

She left the meeting feeling strangely vindicated. That aside, she’d learned something of dragon culture and how unjust it was toward humanity, but she couldn’t do anything about that…yet. She could, however, continue to protect her city, and that was exactly what she intended to do.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Afew days later, there was enough normalcy in the air for Hernandez to bug everyone about airsoft again. “Come on, you punk-ass chumps. We haven’t gone since Jonesy died. If we don’t go soon, we’ll never go.”

Kristen sighed. She hated to admit it, but him not being there made airsoft simply sound less fun and she said as much to the other woman.

“That’s fucking bullshit, Red. Jonesy loved airsoft. Shooting us, watching us complain about our welts, shooting Keith first, again and again.” The demolitions expert sighed wistfully. “We owe it to him to keep playing. Every time we shoot the Rookie, Jonesy laughs about it, wherever he is.”

“I’m in,” Keith said. “But only so I can shoot your ass, Hernandez. You never win either.”

She laughed. “Right, we’ll see about that. Although I’m not sure if that’s the best plan.” She winked and Kristen felt the beginnings of a conspiracy start to stir.

“I’m in.” Butters sauntered into the lounge. “Those wings gave me heartburn.”

Beanpole looked up from his coffee. “I’m there too.”

“Washington?” Hernandez asked the Wonderkid.

“Absolutely. I’d love to try some new tactical maneuvers.”

Kristen shook her head. “Leave it to the Wonderkid to make a game sound like work.”

“Are you guys talking airsoft?” Drew entered the lounge—or tried to although Butters still blocked the doorway.

“Yes, sir,” Hernandez said quite formally. “Would you care to join us, sir, or are you still a fucking pussy?”

Everyone laughed but Drew. He turned a shade redder and gritted his teeth. “I’ll meet you all there. I’ll bring someone else too—is that cool? I’d like to even the odds. I heard about what happened last time. It sounded like a massacre,” he added with a pointed stare at Kristen. Oh, so he wanted to team up against her too?

“You can bring whatever bimbo you want to watch me take you down,” Hernandez said and glanced at Kristen. “Or to show the power of teamwork. But don’t be pissed if she wants to go home with me instead of you when it’s all done.”

Keith looked put out at the idea of her taking another woman out after the game, but he didn’t say anything.

“Great. We’ll meet there at six.” The team leader nodded. “Now, my whole damn team needs coffee at the same time? That paperwork won’t complete itself. Get to it!”

The rest of the workday passed uneventfully. Captain Hansen was marginally less furious with them after Stonequest’s visit, but there was still a ton of forms to fill out to put the entire investigation in Dragon SWAT’s hands and out of hers. Unsurprisingly, she wanted this paperwork done even more thoroughly than usual.

When the day finally finished, Kristen actually looked forward to airsoft. If they all decided to team up against her, she’d have no choice but to use her powers to show them what happened when you messed with the Steel Dragon.

She drove to the location Hernandez had given her and stopped only once for burgers. They’d probably go out to eat after the game, but being the Steel Dragon and a Hall meant she had a killer appetite.

Apparently, no one else had her appetite. When she reached the airsoft course, the team was already there, huddled together and talking in hushed voices. They grew even quieter as she approached, which meant she knew exactly what they were talking about.

“So it’s the humans versus the dragon, huh?” she said.

Hernandez, Beanpole, and Butters actually blushed. Keith only grinned and stuck his tongue out.

Drew raised an eyebrow but didn’t look embarrassed at all. “We’ve been practicing tactical maneuvers with you on the team but now, you can try going solo.” Obviously, the idea of airsoft being fun totally escaped his mind.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’m excited about putting a dragon in her place.” Jim grinned at her. “Although everyone needs to be careful if she picks a chair up. I’ve seen her stop a professional death squad with nothing more than that.”

Kristen rolled her eyes at her friends. “You know what? Bring it. I’ll keep my skin normal so I can feel if any of you actually hurt me but if it’s the six of you, I won’t slow down.”

“We wouldn’t dream of it, Hall,” Drew retorted. “Now, mind your sightlines. We’ll come at you from every angle.”

Oh, wow, it really was no wonder he didn’t come on these little excursions.

A shadow fell upon them as something massive flew between the setting sun and the ground.

“What the shit was that?” Keith stammered, held his hand up to block the sun, and tried to see whatever had flown over.

Wingbeats generated great gusts of air. Beanpole and Butters looked at each other, then aimed their airsoft guns like they were assault rifles. Hernandez only squared her jaw and glanced toward her bag. There were explosives in there, then. Jim sneered. He seemed to understand that if a dragon chose to attack them, airsoft guns and firecrackers wouldn’t do a damn thing against it.

Only Drew looked unalarmed.

Another flap of wings was followed by the smell of powdered limestone and a cloud of dust, and a dragon landed before them.

Kristen sighed a breath of relief. It wasn’t Shadowstorm. She had panicked, thinking it was him, but now that it wasn’t, she was merely curious. This dragon was smaller than him, with mostly orange scales with touches of black here and there, almost like a tiger. What was most unusual, though, were his scales. They reminded her of the marble in the Fisher Building’s lobby and looked like they were made of stone. Marble maybe, as they had flecks of crystal in them and sparkled in the setting sun.

The dragon took a step forward, then another, and flapped its wings to release another burst of dust that smelled of limestone. The cloud billowed, but when she was about to hold her hands up to protect her face, it dissipated and a man stood in its place.

“Stonequest.” Drew grinned like he’d completed a perfect bust. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“This is your guest?” Hernandez demanded in a strangled tone.

“I thought we could use some help on the team,” the team leader said and caught the woman’s eye.

Kristen understood before she did. They would all go against her, Stonequest included. Everyone else finally seemed to understand as nods and grins passed between her team. Not my team, a group of chumps who are about to learn what’s what.

Stonequest was oblivious to this communication of nudges and glances like the humans were oblivious to the auras exchanged between her and the newcomer. Her aura was one of surprise, then confidence, and finally, challenge.

His aura attempted to make her feel outnumbered while he simultaneously drummed up courage in the humans. A useful ability that, she thought, to be able to make an enemy feel one thing and allies another. She realized he was smiling at her. He wanted her to see what his aura was capable of.

“Neat trick,” she said.

He nodded, impressed. “I know you went to Shadowstorm for additional training. I had assumed he taught you something about auras after the captain’s office.”

She held his stare, unsure of what to say, and simply went with, “Sorry.” She wasn’t able to put any emotion into the word at all, so it sounded hollow and fake. “If Shadowstorm hadn’t trained me, I’d never have been able to take him on.”

“I understand. Dragons usually learn their abilities under the supervision of a senior…although it’s been a while since anyone’s needed to learn the basics.”

“So, you’re not mad I worked with him?” Kristen had wondered how all that worked. In a political system that rested on reputation like the dragon’s world seemed to, she had wondered if learning at his wings would have been disastrous to her reputation, fresh as it was.

“I understand why you did it. We shouldn’t have kept you at arm’s length, but your position as a human is…interesting. We wanted you to learn how they enforce their laws,” he explained.

“She didn’t exactly go by the book,” Jim interjected.

“I know, and I don’t like that Shadowstorm knows more about you than I do. From here on out, I’d rather you work with someone I trust.”

“Great.” She tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice and failed spectacularly. “Who is this Mary Poppins of the dragon world you’ve found to babysit the Steel Dragonling?” She hadn’t intended all the sarcasm, but Marty—the queen of sarcasm—was her mom. Sometimes, she couldn’t help it any more than she could help taking seconds at dinner.

Stonequest hesitated, then scratched his head. “I’ve been called a lot of things over the centuries, but what is a merry popping?”

Everyone laughed, Kristen included.

“When do I meet the coach?” she asked again.

He looked confused. “We start tonight.”

“Oh,” she said rather dumbly when she realized she’d been talking to her new teacher for a while now.

The dragon—noticing that she finally understood—held his airsoft rifle up. “Are you ready to see what a dragon can do with one of these things?”

Drew also held his rifle up. So did Butters and Beanpole, who barely hid their grins. Keith and Hernandez looked downright diabolical.

“So…seven against one?” she said and studied her team and the dragon they now surrounded. “That sounds good to me. Maybe, just maybe, now that you all have a ringer, you’ll last more than a minute against me.”

“This is what you’ve wanted, right, Hall? A chance to test your dragon powers?” Drew asked.

“Well…I guess? You guys are so whiny when I beat you, I’m merely not sure it’ll be any different this time. I’m not sure I can stand the blow-back if I beat all of you by myself.” She laughed. If there was one thing she’d learned on SWAT, it was how to talk shit.

“Then let’s even the odds,” Jim said and left the team to stand at her side.

“I thought I was a dragon and you didn’t like my kind,” she joked.

“I still don’t like dragons much.” He eyed Stonequest as he said this. “I think history shows what they’ve done with their power to people and that many of them are callous and cruel, but it’d be foolish to keep acting like all of you are the same. You saved my life, Kristen, more than once at this point. I’d be a fool not to fight on your side.”

He lowered his weapon and reached out for a handshake. She could see the respect in his eyes fighting against his own prejudices. But whatever he felt internally, he did his best to treat her respectfully and that was what mattered.

But a handshake? What was he, her boss?

She wrapped him in a great big bear hug, lifted him off the ground, and squeezed, flexing her dragon strength to do so.

“So…we’re cool then?” He wheezed from the crushing hug.

Kristen put him down and shook his hand anyway.

“That all depends on if you can take down that dragon over there.” She gestured to Stonequest.

“He’s mine. You handle all the puny mortals.” Jim fake-sneered.

“Who are you calling puny?” Butters laughed louder at his own joke than anyone else.

The speakers in the arena came to life. “All right, all right, all right. Tactical teams into position. Round one of the evening is about to start.”

Kristen and Jim ran into the arena and prepared to defeat their friends.

“I really do owe you,” he said as they took cover behind a canvas tarp stretched between two trees.

“You can start your debt by pretending to shoot the folks who saved my life.”

He grinned wickedly. “Sometimes, I really fucking love being a cop.”

She found that, hard as it was, she really liked it too. There was nothing she’d rather do with her life or her abilities than protect the people around her.

Especially if that meant giving all your friends welts and making them buy you a beer afterward.

The klaxon blared for the match to begin.

The Story Continues

The story continues with book three: Dragon Rising, available now at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

Books By Kevin McLaughlin

Steel Dragon

(with Michael Anderle)

Genesis Draconis (Book 1)

Scales of Justice (Book 2)

Dragon Rising (Book 3)

Dragon’s Daughter

(with Michael Anderle)

Never A Dragon (Book 1)

Dead Dragon New tricks (Book 2)

Thicker Than Blood (Book 3)

Dragon Fire and Pixie Dust (Book 4)

The Cult of Tiamat (Book 5)

The Sum of All Magic (Book 6)

Adventures of the Starship Satori (Space Opera blended with military SF)

Finding Satori - prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

Book 1 - Ad Astra: Book 2 - Stellar Legacy

Book 3 - Deep Waters

Book 4 - No Plan Survives Contact

Book 5 - Liberty

Book 6 - Satori’s Destiny

Book 7 - Ashes of War

Book 8 - Embers of War

Book 9 - Dust and Iron

Book 10 - Clad in Steel

Book 11 - Brave New Worlds (2019)

Book 12 - Warrior’s Marque (2020)

The Ragnarok Saga (Military SF)

Accord of Fire - Free prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

Book 1 - Accord of Honor

Book 2 - Accord of Mars

Book 3 - Accord of Valor

Book 4 - Ghost Wing

Book 5 - Ghost Squadron

Book 6 - Ghost Fleet (2019)

Valhalla Online Series (A Ragnarok Saga Story)

Book 1 - Valhalla Online

Book 2 - Raiding Jotunheim

Book 3 - Vengeance Over Vanaheim

Book 4 - Hel Hath No Fury

Blackwell Magic Series (Urban Fantasy)

Book 1 - By Darkness Revealed

Book 2 - Ashes Ascendant

Book 3 - Dead In Winter

Book 4 - Claws That Catch

Book 5 - Darkness Awakes

Book 6 - Spellbinding Entanglements

By A Whisker (short story)

The Raven and the Rose - Free novelette for email list fans!

Dead Brittania Series:

Dead Brittania (short prequel story)

Book 1 - King of the Dead

Book 2 - Queen of Demons

Raven’s Heart Series (Urban Fantasy)

Book 1 - Stolen Light

Book 2 - Webs in the Dark

Book 3 - Shades of Moonlight

Other Titles:

Over the Moon (SF romance)

Midnight Visitors (Steampunk Cat short story)

Demon Ex Machina (Steampunk Cat short story)

The Coffee Break Novelist (help for writers!)

You Must Write (Heinlein’s rules for writers)

Books By Michael Anderle

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www.lmbpn.com/ma-books/

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