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The little troll squealed and bolted seconds before I opened my jaws and bit the guardhouse off its foundations—gun, walls, an’ all.

Spitting the rubble to the side, I turned again, and saw the little troll fleeing up the front steps.

His only advantage was his size. Like a mouse in the grass, he could hide from me.

My only option, then, was to flush him out.

I could have unleashed a wave of flame, but it would probably kill him. There wouldn’t be much meat on a roasted troll, and besides, Skrinde was going to pay for his actions and rot in a Lost Ones prison somewhere. But first, I was going to reduce his empire to rubble.

A single tail swipe took out the tennis courts.

Every step tore up the pretty driveway.

I stomped to the front of the house and bit through the walls and glass, taking out the shiny entrance foyer. Skrinde wasn’t inside. He’d probably run to the back of the house, as far away from me as possible. I chomped some more house away, gradually reducing the sprawling palace to rubble until all that was left was the pool, and Skrinde standing next to it pointing a tiny gun at me.

“Stay back, dragon!”

He fired. The round bounced off my nose.

“Gah!” He looked at the gun, disgusted by it, then tossed it into the pool and raised his hands. “Okay, you got me! I give up.”

I brought my head low and my snout in close. Skrinde trembled. I showed him my teeth in a snarl. Teeth bigger than him.

“Wait! Don’t eat me!” He dropped into a ball, hugging his knees to his chest. “I’ll tell them everything! Tell them it was me, not you. The drugs, guns, pixie strippers, unicorn eggs, all of it!”

Unicorns laid eggs? I huffed, blasting him with hot nostril air.

He squealed. “Please . . .” he sobbed. “Please don’t eat me.”

Yeah . . . no. I opened my jaws, tilted my head, and snapped my teeth around him, locking him inside my mouth. With the palace in ruins, Skrinde had learned his lesson. Wings out, I flapped, and took to the air again, ignoring the throbbing ache from the string of bullet holes. I’d heal soon enough. Skrinde wriggled on my tongue. He’d better sit still. One gulp, and he’d be gone. I sailed over Miami’s South Beach and spiraled down again, zeroing in on where the SSD vehicles waited like a string of ants. Landing on the Strip, I tucked my wings in, making myself as small as possible, and plodded toward the angsty onlooking agents.

Zee and Victor were still here. I tried not to focus on how worried they were.

The rows of agents glanced at each other. Nobody seemed to know what to do with a dragon the size of a building in front of them. They scooted back as I brought my head in low and spat out a wet, spluttering Skrinde. He sobbed on the asphalt.

I snorted, and Skrinde yelped. “I did it . . . I did it all. Arrest me! I’m the one you want.”

I grinned, and sat back on my haunches, the tip of my tail wagging.

See . . . I didn’t eat every problem. Skrinde would have been all bone and no meat anyway.

Nobody seemed all that pleased. Except Zee, showing me two thumbs up.

Right. Dragons looked fierce and terrifying.

I packed my dragon self away inside my human glamor, shrinking down until I was just Adam again. Everyone continued to gawk, open-mouthed.

Tough crowd. I ambled toward the arresting agent and stopped just in front of him. “Are we free to go now?”

He cleared his throat. “That’s not my call to make. You gotta get in the van, but . . . you know . . . if you don’t want to, that’s fine too, I guess . . . I just work here.” He gulped hard. “Please don’t eat me. I got kids.”

I sucked in a deep breath, and sighed. “Okay, sure. But no cuffs. We’re giving up voluntarily. We need to speak with Agent Leomaris.”

I climbed into the back of the van with Victor and Zee, and the doors slammed shut. A lock clanged.

I could only hope we weren’t making a terrible mistake.

CHAPTER 18