Fire of Betrayal Read online

  Fire of Betrayal

  Demi Dumond

  Copyright © 2019 by Demi Dumond

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Logan

  For the first time all morning, I looked at my watch. Shit, it’s only ten? The morning was going by slow as hell.

  I tapped the pencil on the edge of the desk. Normally I was perfectly happy at work planning my empire here in my office. Right now, though, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the calm before the storm.

  Something had shifted. I could feel it in my bones. Someone or something was trying to move in on my territory, and the timing couldn’t be worse.

  But I couldn’t fight what I didn’t know, so I threw myself into some boring paperwork hoping to distract myself. It had worked, but it was only going to get me so far.

  I stood up and cracked my neck, then wandered out to the front desk where I had invested in a very good coffee maker. The room was cozy and outfitted with old wood, leather furniture, and some chrome artwork.

  The scent of coffee mingled with the engine grease that clung to every inch of our office. No matter how many times you cleaned things, you couldn’t make our shop not smell like motorcycles. Not that I minded. Coffee and engines had to be the two greatest smells in the world.

  I pulled out a new coffee mug and filled my cup, trying to figure out what to do with all of this nervous energy.

  Taking a sip, I glanced out the window. Several of my guys were hard at work in the morning sun fixing up a couple of Harleys that had just come in. Each guy had on a black leather vest with a red dragon symbol on the back. Just like mine.

  This crew, the Order of The Dragon, has held down Diablo Falls for centuries, fending off drug dealers and every other threat that had come up.

  Until the dragon shifters were banished by some magical council years ago. But I wouldn’t let them run me out of my own town. I set up this shop with the dragon shifters that stayed.

  The problem was we were just inside the city limits, and because of the banishment, a magic spell kept us from being able to shift here. Outside the city limits we were fine, here at the motorcycle shop, not so much.

  I took another sip of my coffee. That’s when my cell rang.

  I dug it out of my pocket. It was Antonio, my informant and man of all trades. Whatever was going on, I was hoping that he could sniff it out. “Antonio. Talk to me, man. What’s going on?”

  I waited as Antonio spelled it out. There was someone closing in on our territory. The worst kind of someone. Fucking wolves.

  “You gotta be kidding me. Don’t those assholes know who they’re messing with?”

  I swallowed back my rage. I knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad. We were a little short-handed right now. It could be a problem. We needed help.

  “You know what we’re going to need, Antonio. Firepower, man. We need weapons right now. Can you hook us up?”

  Chapter Two

  Bree

  I pulled the old, white, Ford pickup truck out of the parking lot of the rundown asphalt factory at the edge of town and edged onto the road.

  That meant I’d be driving alone with nothing but time. Which meant, no distractions. Fuck. I hated having time to think.

  I needed money badly and had spent the better part of the week searching for any kind of work. And of course, that had led me to a sketchy asphalt factory just outside of town where I’d get paid a shit ton of money to drive an old, inconspicuous pickup truck filled with plain brown boxes to a motorcycle shop just inside the city.

  So now I just eased out onto the highway, took a deep breath, and tried to pretend that everything I was doing was on the up and up. I did not want to go back to jail.

  There could be anything in those boxes, right? Plywood, tile, brick, or any other of hundreds of perfectly reputable products that wouldn’t have paid a tenth of what I had gotten for this job. Up front. In cash. That guy must have been hella desperate.

  Hey, his desperation was my gain. At least it was a beautiful, sunny day. I rolled down the window to feel the wind on my face.

  According to the map on my phone, I’d be there in half an hour or so. That was it. Get in there, drop the boxes, and then I was free and clear with a head start on my rent. I had even negotiated the use of the truck for a few days to move my stuff.

  Plus, once I dropped off the boxes, I had nothing to worry about. After that, everything I did was nice and legal.

  The only thing I had to do after that was to avoid men altogether. Specifically, the kind that set me up to go to jail for their misdeeds and then disappeared into the wind. If I could do that, I’d be fine.

  I made it on my own for years without incident. If it hadn’t been for that asshole and his bedroom acrobatics, I wouldn’t be on probation right now. Shit, that was exactly the kind of thing I didn’t want to think about.

  Luckily, I was getting closer and now I had to start paying attention to the road as I got nearer to my destination. I had to fight the urge to step on the gas and get this whole thing over with already. Driving casually was not usually my style but today the situation called for it.

  The rest of the trip was uneventful even if I didn’t realize just how on edge I was until I pulled into the motorcycle repair shop parking lot after triple checking that I had the right address.

  I stopped the truck and looked around. Then I rolled down the window to listen for sirens and heard none. The only thing I heard was traffic and the sound of metal on metal as men in motorcycle jackets worked nearby. I felt my shoulders relax. Whew.

  My presence started to attract attention, so I got out of the truck, but I didn’t go very far. My orders were very specific, only talk to a guy named Logan.

  I wasn’t about to screw this up. Not when I was so close to being free and clear.

  A burly guy with a bird’s nest beard saw me first. He was tall and brawny. His greasy, dark hair was mussed. He greeted me with a scowl that communicated that I wasn’t welcome. And he gave me the creeps.

  “Hey,” he said, his scowl deepening into a crease on his forehead. “Are you lost? This is a motorcycle repair shop, and I don’t see a motorcycle.” He peeked into the back of the truck, which was easy because he was looming over me. The guy was at least six-foot-four.

  I looked around to see if anybody else was going to help me, but nobody else was coming. One look at this guy and now I was on edge again. Great. Why were all the dangerous men always so drawn to me?

  My gut twisted as nervous energy sent flutters of unease through me. “Hi, Kip. Um, thanks for the very kind welcome, but I’m supposed to talk to Logan.”

  Kip took a step closer. He was too close, right in my personal space.

  Now I was getting angry. This was supposed to be easy. In and out. No drawing attention. No random, scary biker dudes up in my space. I should have known it wouldn’t be as simple as I expected. “
Like I said, I have to talk to Logan.”

  Deep breaths. I had to finish this job and get the hell out of here without getting eaten for dinner by a big-ass biker.

  I bit my lip to keep myself from pissing him off since he had a hundred pounds on me. “Look, I’m just a delivery girl.”

  “Easy, baby,” he said, reaching for one of the boxes. “Logan’s busy right now.”

  I stepped in between Kip and the boxes. My heart was racing. This was literally my life on the line here and I wasn’t going to let some idiot biker fuck it up. “Nobody touches the boxes until I talk to Logan.”

  Kip’s gaze went from the boxes in the back of the truck back to me. His scowl became a sneer, and I knew I couldn’t back down now. I had to hold my ground.

  “Well, aren’t you trouble?” He asked. He took another step toward me and I took a step back. “That’s okay, though, I like trouble.” His hand moved toward my face. “

  “No thanks,” I said, turning my head away but still holding my ground. My hand went into my pocket where I held my trusty switchblade. It wasn’t going to do any major damage to this guy, but it had gotten me out of plenty of scrapes in the past.

  He leaned in so close, I could smell his aftershave. It was the cheap kind that sort of smelled like pine air freshener. I leaned back, not wanting to start anything, but gripped my knife tighter in case I needed to use it.

  “Look, lady, you drove onto our lot, and now I’m going to look through those boxes. Whether you like it or not.”

  In one swift motion, I brought the small but razor-sharp knife to his considerable beer gut and pressed. Enough to draw a little blood, but not enough to do lasting damage. Now the ball was in his court. Without moving my hand, I looked up into his face, which had turned from annoyance to rage.

  Kip pulled out a gun. “Hey, if you want to play, we can play.”

  I took a step back, breathing heavy. My head whirred, trying to think of the best response. How fast was he? Could I disarm him? Do I run? Do I call for help? This day was going from bad to worse way too fast.

  Kip stared me down, a wicked smirk on his lips. Neither of us spoke. I was pretty sure he didn’t want to pull the trigger, but I didn’t know for sure. I decided to try to defuse the situation. Slowly, I pulled back my knife, keeping my other hand up in mock surrender.

  A sharp whistle broke the silence. Then a pink ceramic coffee mug flew through the air and hit Kip square in the face.

  Thunk. Bang. Pop.

  As soon as the mug hit Kip’s face, several things happened at once. The gun in his hand went off. My gaze went to the sound of the pop and that’s when I realize that the asshole had just shot out one of the tires of my truck. Shit.

  I looked on in amazement as the mug shattered into small pieces that flew apart everywhere, hitting the ground in a series of dull thuds. Brown liquid, presumably coffee, dripped down Kip’s face, mixing with sticky blood from where the cup had hit. I winced, turning away momentarily from the scene. Blood was impossible to get out of beards. He’d be cleaning that out for a week.

  I glanced back at my would-be attacker. Kip’s face contorted in anger and dripped with blood. His nose was clearly broken. He turned to see his assailant and when he did, the rage melted off of his face and it turned to fear.

  This caught my attention. My brow furrowed as I followed Kip’s gaze. We’d been joined by another guy in a motorcycle jacket. Great.

  As soon as I spotted the guy Kip was looking at, I understood the fear in his eyes. That guy was as pissed as any man I had ever seen. And he was looking right at me.

  What the hell had I just walked into here?

  Chapter Three

  Logan

  I had only barely gotten to take a few sips of my coffee when I heard the truck pull up outside. I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked out the door.

  The minute that I stepped outside and saw her, though, I couldn’t believe it. They sent a girl. That was new. And she was sexy as hell. Her long blond hair went almost down to her waist with ringlets at the end. And she had piercing blue eyes. My gaze shifted lower, taking in the curves of her body. I wanted her for my own. I tried to break myself free of the spell. Women, even gorgeous ones, never had this effect on me.

  What was Antonio trying to do to me, distract me? I got a hint of suspicion, and that’s when the breeze hit me.

  Her scent. It was the last thing in the world I was expecting. Her scent hit my body with a shock wave of excitement. The sensation gripped my insides, clawing at me with a need unlike any other.

  Pure desire mingled with lust. Heat flared in my chest. Tingles spread down my skin as if I were on fire.

  There was no denying what I was feeling. I’d heard the stories. I’d seen other dragons react when they knew. This woman was my mate.

  I was still standing there in shock trying to process the information when I saw Kip touch her. She recoiled and pulled a small knife.

  He put his hands on my mate. Inside me, my dragon roared. A rage beyond anything I had ever felt before rose inside me.

  I wanted to run over there, rip his head off, and breathe fire down onto his corpse.

  Then I saw him pull the gun out and threaten her. I had to fight back my rage in order to think fast. That girl was a human and if I followed my instincts and went full dragon on her right now, she’d probably run away. Especially since one of my men was threatening her.

  As my fire rose up in anger, my body temperature was probably hitting dangerous levels. I had to do something. Now. I either had to shift or find a way to defuse the situation.

  Only one idea came to mind, so I threw the only weapon I had in my hand. The hot pink coffee mug flew through the air and hit the thick skull of Kip with a very satisfying thud. He turned to me and the look on his face was priceless.

  I growled, a low sound that rolled from my chest. I heard Kip’s inner dragon yelp and his eyes widened as he looked at me.

  My dragon made himself heard. If you ever even look at her again. I’ll fucking kill you.

  Kip’s whole body tensed, and he dropped the weapon. I could smell the fear over his shitty aftershave. Good. He knew exactly how dangerous I was, and he knew his place.

  Then I heard the gun go off as it hit the ground. For a second I panicked as I looked to the girl. Luckily, he only got the truck tire and the girl was okay, but he was still a fucking idiot.

  I ran over to where the two of them were standing and tried to resist the urge to kill Kip where he stood. I had to think on my feet. Like a human. How do I fix this for her? I turned to Kip. “Get the hell out of m sight, Kip. And the next time somebody asks for me, you get me and shut the fuck up.”

  Kip’s face went from fear to bewilderment. “But boss…”

  “Do it now, Kip,” I said with a look that made him move his ass. He grabbed the gun and then ran off. You’re lucky I’m letting you walk out of here alive, my dragon growled after him.

  Then I turned to the girl. “I am so sorry that happened. Antonio sent you, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, look. I’ll have the guys fix your truck up right away. Please come inside and let me make you some coffee while you wait. I’m Logan, by the way.” I extended my hand.

  “I’m Bree,” she answered, still looking like she wanted to bolt. She was the sexiest woman I’d ever seen, and my dragon wanted her now.

  Her long blond hair touched the waist of her jeans and her crystal blue eyes burned with an intensity that made my cock twitch. Even her name was hot. She hesitated and looked up into my eyes, as if trying to figure me out. I held my breath, hoping she didn’t turn and run. I needed her but I didn’t want to scare her away and the last few minutes had been pretty intense.

  Finally, she shook my hand. A warm shock of electricity rippled up my arm from her touch.

  Inside, my dragon roared again with a hunger so strong it almost overpowered me. I wanted her so bad I could almost taste her. There was nothing I could do bu
t take a few deep breaths to steady myself.

  Then I cleared my head enough to remember the fact that we needed the guns. Badly. I whistled and my other men came over. “Unload the truck, boys.”

  Marco, my second in command, came around the corner. I filled him in and told him the truck tire was a top priority.

  He raised an eyebrow at me, then he heard my inner dragon growl. He smirked and glanced at Bree before leaving to make the arrangements.

  With that done, I led Bree back inside the office, breathing a huge sigh of relief that she agreed to follow.

  Chapter Four

  Bree

  He said his name was Logan. He had gorgeous brown eyes that melted me when he stared at me with that cocky grin. And don’t get me started on the chiseled jawline. His biceps nearly made me scream in that motorcycle jacket with the tight white t-shirt underneath.

  I had a thing for bad boys, and it just wasn’t fair for the universe to put this guy in my path. I was trying to stay out of trouble. Still, there was something about him that I trusted. Or maybe he was just another in a long line of bad decisions I wanted to make. I tried to steady myself.

  His brown eyes had nearly glowed with anger at the guy that had threatened me. He’d defended me even though we’d just met. And I had to respect the fact that he’d gotten rid of the asshole who pulled a gun on me.

  Though, something told me it wasn’t the gun that pissed him off. It looked like guns were allowed here, but threatening women was not. Had to give him mad props for that. Not all the men I’d met over the years were willing to stand up to another guy being a dick.