Page 5 of Red Dragon’s Flame

“So, business as usual?” he said. “And I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

She rolled her eyes. “Hi, Mikah. How are you, fine, polite blah blah. My life sucks, thank you. Do you know where Tristan is? I can’t find him, and there’s no answer at Grandpa’s either.”

“They’re on a mission,” Mikah said. “Not sure when they’ll be back. Can I do anything?”

She gave an exaggerated teenage sigh. “Probably not. Unless you can make my father not be a fucking hypocrite who comes down on me for every little thing I do. Like he never got in trouble? He was the worst hellraiser in the pack growing up, but if I step one little toe out of line—”

Knowing Michelangela, she hadn’t stepped a toe out—she’d flung herself bodily to a place where she couldn’t even see the line.

“What did you do?” he asked.

She gazed at him warily. “You’re going to take his side.”

Yep. Waaaaay over the line.

“I’m not taking anybody’s side,” he said. “Call it the same curiosity that draws people to disasters and train wrecks.”

“I didn’t do anything! Hardly. Only we’re in Tennessee visiting the Bad Blood Crew, our whole family plus the Reillys. So Colt and Remy McCall and I got a little bored, and we kind of went to the Batman building in downtown Nashville and base jumped off the top.”

Holy shit. The AT&T building, affectionately known as the Batman building, was the tallest building in Nashville—over six hundred feet high. And they’d base jumped off it? A fifteen-year-old and two fourteen-year-olds. How had they even learned how to base jump? No wonder Rafe Connors was losing his shit. He had been a hellion—or so the stories said—but Mikah had never heard of him doing anything as crazy as that.

“How the hell did you not get arrested?” he asked. Not to mention how the hell did they not die. “Or did you get arrested?” That would have pissed everybody off.

Michelangela gave him an ‘are you an idiot’ look. “Of course not. We’re not total fools. We got Derek Silver to fly underneath us, cloaked, to catch us and hide us before we hit the ground. We cut our chutes, and nobody could figure out where we’d gone or what happened to us. It was epic.”

Mikah rubbed his hand over his face, trying not to let her see him hiding a laugh. It was pretty epic, but Michelangela did not need encouragement. Derek Silver was a dragon shifter, son of one of the other Silverlake pack members and his Draken mate. He was also only twelve or thirteen, and the kids had no business dragging him into their crazy bullshit.

Although at least they’d been smart enough to have a dragon there to catch them, if anything went wrong.

He said, “You’re lucky Flynn didn’t kill you.”

In the Bad Blood territory, you did things the alpha’s way, or you didn’t do them at all. And drawing the kind of attention that base jumping off a fucking skyscraper would draw was not Flynn’s way.

“He wanted to lock us in the shed until we turn twenty-one,” Michelangela admitted. “And then he told my dad to get me out of his fucking territory and not bring me back until I knew how to fucking act.” She paused. “Which is unfair, because Flynn has the craziest crew in the whole shifter world, probably. Hardly any of them know how to act.”

“Exactly,” Mikah said. “The poor guy has enough on his hands—including your friends the McCall twins.” Talk about hellraisers.

“They’re so cool, though,” Michelangela said. “They’re not afraid of anything. So anyway, my dad grounded me for… well… ever, I think. So… I was going to ask Uncle Tristan or Grandpa Gerard if I could come and stay for a while. But if they’re not there…” She sighed.

Mikah shook his head, feeling his heart softening. Michelangela was the exact opposite of the way he’d been as a kid. Adrenalin junkie, loved action and adventure and stirring things up. And contrary to what she thought at the moment, her dad adored her. Both her parents did.

She’d grown up surrounded by so much love, she’d never had to be scared that the people she needed would turn their backs on her. No matter how much trouble she got in, she knew they were there for her.

He’d never had that. When he and Caz and Zak had been growing up, they’d only had each other to count on. Zak was the instigator, always with an angle. Caz was the muscle. And Mikah was the calm one, the sensible one, the one that held everything together.

His survival had always depended on not pissing people off. He envied Michelangela, and also admired her, in a way, for always being so totally herself, never being afraid to take a risk.

She had a restless heart, but a good one.

He opened his mouth, but before he could answer he heard Rafe’s frustrated voice in the background. “When I said no phone, I meant no communication devices either.”

“You should be happy,” Michelangela answered resentfully. “I’m trying to find a way for you to get rid of me.”

“We don’t fucking want to get rid of you! We just don’t want you to get us kicked out of every place we try to take you. Is that Tristan?”

“No, it’s Mikah. Tristan’s on a mission with Gerard.”

The image in the globe flickered as Rafe took Michelangela’s device from her, and then Rafe’s face appeared. He was in his early forties, handsome with wavy dark hair, and like most older shifters, he looked younger than his age. At least for the moment.