He's the competition.
My dragon considered this.Don't care.
I unscrewed the water bottle and drank half of it, willing my heart to slow the heck down. My hands were tingling, and there was a warmth spreading through my chest that had nothing to do with the heat of the day.
The omega hadn't noticed me yet. Or maybe he had and was better at hiding it. I watched as he threw his head back when he laughed and how he shoved his friend's shoulder while making a point, before forcing myself to look away.
I should walk back to my crew, finish my water, drive home, and pretend this never happened. We’d start the hose drag drills bright and early Monday morning and pour every ounce of energy into winning the cup. But the scent clung to me likesmoke, the kind that got into your clothes and hair and stayed for days no matter how many times you showered.
I moved toward the drinks table because I needed something to do and the alternative was standing in the middle of the park staring at a stranger like a creep. But as I reached for another water bottle, someone else's hand got there first.
It was the omega’s. We both grabbed the same bottle, and when our fingers brushed, heat tore through me and I yanked my hand back. I’d reacted as though I'd touched a live wire which was pretty damn close to how it felt.
The omega's eyes widened. His pupils dilated, and the easy grin he'd been wearing slipped away. He scented me. Recognition crossed his face, when his eyelashes fluttered and his lips parted, before he pressed them closed and frowned.
“Sorry,” I managed. My voice sounded like a cement mixer.
“All yours.” He pushed the bottle toward me and shoved his hands in his pockets.
Up close, his scent was even stronger, threading into my lungs with every breath. I searched for something to say that wasn't ridiculous.
“Good turnout this year.”
He glanced around the park, then back at me with one eyebrow raised. “You say that like you're hosting. Is that a Station 12 thing? Taking credit for stuff you didn't organize?”
Wow. So it was like that, was it?
My face was heating up.
He popped a chip in his mouth and studied me. “You're the lieutenant.”
“Larkin.”
“Percy.” He chewed as his gaze roved from my face to my collar where the rank insignia sat. “I’d say good luck with the cup, but I don't want you to have any.”
His crew called him from across the field about running out of ice, and he grabbed a bag from the cooler beside us. He brushed past me as he left and the contact sent another wave of heat over my skin.
“See you out there, Lieutenant.” He tossed the bag over his shoulder without looking back.
I stood at the drinks table holding a water bottle I'd forgotten how to open and watched him jog back to his crew. The sun caught those highlights in his hair, and he laughed at one of his colleagues. My dragon was paying attention and making my chest vibrate.
Gods. My fated mate was a dragon shifter wearing the enemy's colors, and he'd just told me he hoped I'd lose. This was going to be a problem.
On the drive home, I spent every minute with the windows down, hoping the air would scrub his scent out of my lungs. But it didn’t work. I could still smell wet earth and crushed leaves when I climbed into bed, and I lay there wondering if he was also lying in the dark, breathing in smoke that wasn't there.
TWO
PERCY
“Our ladder truck predates indoor plumbing.”
I got the laugh I was going for, and Briggs nearly choked on his hot dog. That was the thing about Station 9. We were scrappy, underfunded, and our equipment had seen better decades, but gods, we were funny about it. If you couldn't roast your own station, you had no business roasting anyone else's.
“Their engine's newer, though,” Briggs said after he'd recovered. He was our engineer, the one who drove and operated the pump, and he paid attention to equipment the way other people noticed sports cars.
“Newer doesn't mean better.” I slathered mustard on my hot dog, making sure it reached both ends. There was nothing worse than a dry bite. “You won the cup two years ago with that engine. You had the same rig and same crew, minus me.”
“But with a different nozzle tip,” Briggs corrected me.
