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Chapter One
“I can’t believe I’m doing this. Why am I doing this? I’m not even sure I should be doing this. Arrrgghhh.”
“You’ll be fine,” her sister laughed. “And growling is not gonna help.”
"I don't know about all this, and growling might help," Ellie added for the tiniest bit of humor as she stepped back from the mirror. "First of all, I've never gone anywhere outside of our little town for more than a night, two at the most. This is…"
"This is the chance you've been waiting for," Celia, her older, very pregnant, and incredibly persistent sibling, reassured. Patting Ellie on the shoulder, adding a little push of a confidence enchantment the older MacLeish was prone to use, she added, "You need to get out there. See the world. Practice standing on your own two feet. You'll be twenty-nine next week, and you know…"
“Yes,” Ellie sighed, running her fingers through long, red hair. “I am well aware of what happens at the stroke of midnight on my twenty-ninth year.” Letting her head fall forward, her chin to her chest, she huffed the bangs off her forehead, “At least Cinderella got to go to a damned ball before her coach turned back into a punkin, the attendants went back to being mice, and she lost her blasted shoe.”
“You get to go to an amazing resortandget to come home with all your shoes. What could be better than that?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, and with Angelica watching over my shoulder to be sure I don’t blow something up or lose my ever-lovin’ mind.”
“Ha!” Celia barked with laughter. “Ang will be leading the charge into whatever mischief can be found. For as long as I’ve known her, that Witch has always been right at the center of the action.”
"So, then, I should just stay here." Lifting her head, suddenly filled with the hope that she wouldn't have to leave the safety and security of their little ranch in the middle of the Texas Desert, Ellie spun on her toes. "I mean, come on. Can you really trust Angelica Fairway to make sure that everything turns out okay? That I don’t go crazy and try to kill myself or somebody else?” Laying her hand on her sister’s arms, she winked. “And I can help you finish the nursery. Heaven only knows when that man of yours will get back.”
Arching a single eyebrow, her mouth turning downward in an way-too-big-sisterly frown, Celia slowly shook her head. "No way. You are going, and that's all there is to it. Barbara MacAllen will be checking on me two or three times a day. She's already started baking and cooking, freezing my favorites, so I don't have to step foot in the kitchen except to pop something into the microwave. And those big, ole boys of hers, the ones without a Mate yet, are more than capable of painting the nursery and putting the last coat of varnish on momma's old rocking chair."
At the mention of her mother, Ellie's heart clenched and her breath hitched. It had been three years since both her parents were found dead in the middle of the desert. No signs of a struggle. Not a mark on either one of them. Not even a whiff of magic – good or bad – to be found. They were just dead. Or, as the coroner's report stated,'Ceased to be alive.'
Stupid, fucking way to say somebody passed away if you ask me…
The police – both human and paranormal - had investigated for thirteen excruciating months. The best detectives the Witch’s Council had, werestillon the case. But no one was any closer to finding out what had happened or who had committed such a heinous crime.
The only clue that turned up, and it was almost blown away with the winds of a tornado after being missed by the initial crime scene people, was the print of the back half of a boot heel, deep in the sand to the left of her father's head. It seemed too easy like it had been planted. Somebody murdered two highly-skilled, extremely powerful Witches without leaving so much as a scratch on either one of them, then inadvertently forgot to kick away their footprints.
At first, Ellie was sure the investigators were following ghosts. She even told the Grand Priest of the Council that everyone was wasting their time, but then she saw the cast of the print setting on the Sherriff's desk.
There it was. Plain as day. The three heads of the Chimera.
There hadn't been enough air in the room. Black dots danced before Ellie's eyes. Falling into the only chair in the room, the voice in the back of her head had repeated her father's low, ominous warning, "Three heads seen in the moon. Blood spilled by noon."
For as long as she could remember, her parents had been caring, loving people, who gave anyone the shirts off their backs if it would help, but things changed when the Chimera Tribe tried to settle in the desert not far from the back of their ranch. She'd never seen her father so furious, and her mother so worried. After a lengthy discussion over several days with the Elders, the Enforcers of the Council 'relocated' the Chimera, but things were never quite the same.
Her dad was always on alert, jumping at every sound, never able to sit and play his guitar like he had for all of Ellie's life. Even worse, her mom spent hours in the root cellar, drying herbs, creating new wards, and making preparations for what looked like war. The air was so thick with tension and fury, you could've cut it with a knife.
After talking to her sister and brother-in-law, Ellie went to the DIA - Dragon Intelligence Agency branch of their local Sheriff's department - with the information. She showed them her father's journals and let them make copies of his notes on the Chimera and the ancient black magic the Tribe was known to conjure. The officers assured her they would follow up, and they did. Not that it did any good. Being nomads, the Chimera were always on the run, never stayed in one place for long, making them damned near impossible to track.
That was what had always bothered her. Never made sense. What made a nomadic Tribe suddenly decide to put down roots? In the Chihuahuan Desert? Right behind the MacLeish Ranch?
Months later, seemingly out of thin air, an agent of the DIA office out of San Anton knocked on Ellie's door. Tall, dark, and handsome, Special Agent Ranger Evans explained that he'd been tracking the Chimera for almost six years. He told her of other cases in other towns in other states that mirrored her parents' murder.
The trail of dead bodies seemed endless. It only served to confirm what Ellie already knew – they were never going to catch the people who had killed her mom and dad.
Then Ranger showed her pictures from other crime scenes. The markings were just like the boot print found by her father's head. Some in the mud, some carved into trees, others painted in the victims' blood on whatever surface the perpetrator could find. It hadn't been a fluke. The Chimera had meant to tell the world that they'd killed not only Matthew and Gretchen MacLeish but many others who had gotten in their way.
Ellie was hopeful for the first time in a long time. Not only that, the person or persons who took her parents' lives would finally be caught, that they would be made to pay.
She was also sure that Ranger Evans was her Mate. Tall, six-foot-six if he was an inch, with dark, curly hair that refused to be tamed, light brown eyes that seemed to shimmer and shine no matter what he was talking about, and an olive complexion from being out in the sun for most of his life made the man irresistible.
He felt their connection, too, of that Ellie had no doubt. She'd seen the way his eyes glowed and his pupils went from round to elliptical as his Dragon shown through, but he never made a move or acted on their attraction.
Tired of waiting, her heart and soul longing for the connection of the one man the Universe had made for her, Ellie dropped hints. She even tried to flirt on several occasions during the three days Agent Evans was in Valentine, but nothing happened. He was holding back, keeping his distance, remaining professional. She could feel the conflict within him.
None of it made any sense. Everything she'd ever heard about Dragons said they were passionate, no-holds-barred, take-what-they-wanted, unstoppable beings, especially when in the vicinity of their Mate.
