Page 10 of Dark Dragon’s Wolf

Whoa. Okay. That was not what he expected. Ghosts and spirits lived in the spirit world, but they’d recently learned that other creatures could exist there too—in physical or spirit form. Dragons. Ki-rin, which were horses with wings, serpent heads, and very powerful mojo.

But a dragon who left his human half to hang out in a spirit lair? That was a new one.

“Don’t you care about Mayah?” he asked.

“But?”

Hoard? Others? What the fuck?

“What is her hoard? Is it this?”

He started to walk towards one of the lumpy shadows, but the dragon growled. Smoke came out of her nostrils.

No argument there. Tristan put his hands out in a placating gesture. “I know I’m not. I’m sorry. Can’t we talk? I—”

And then something grabbed both sides of his head like a vise. Faintly, he heard someone call his name, and he felt a hard kiss on his lips.

As suddenly as he’d left, he was back on the roof. Still holding Mayah, who was kissing him like there was no tomorrow.

Her scent rose around him, making his wolf howl inside him. She was pressed against him—arms, breasts, hips, thighs.

And her mouth. So sweet, soft and yet demanding, making all the feelings he’d been burying and shoving aside rise up like a volcano.

He pulled her against him, cupping the back of her head with one hand, holding her against him with the other.

Tristan moved his mouth over hers, wanting to taste every corner of her, sliding his tongue over hers, feeling a growl rumbling in his chest.

He was instantly hard, feeling the sweet agony of her pressing against his shaft, the desperate wanting.

She gave a soft little moan, so sexy. This was everything he’d imagined and dreamed of. Paradise. Perfection—

And then it wasn’t.

White light flashed in his brain again, and once more he was somewhere else.

Not in the dragon cave. He was deep in his own mind, near the vault where his nightmares lived. His own private shed where the crazy went.

But the vault was broken, the door open, and ghosts were coming for him. All the people he’d lost, all the ones he hadn’t saved. The wolf pack from Winterhome in Alaska. His parents. The other prisoners…

NO!

He let go of Mayah and backed away so fast she stumbled. He pressed the palms of his hands against his temples and squeezed, as if that would put the ghosts back where they belonged.

Save us, they were calling, just like they used to do when he lay in in Alexander Grant’s cells, exhausted, his whole body throbbing in agony.

Just like they used to do after he got out, and he couldn’t stand the pain, and his wolf couldn’t, and the wolf would take over and bleed someone, anyone, because that was the only thing that drowned it out.

Running

Killing

Running

Killing