Claimed by Fire (Dragonkeepers Book 4) Read online

  “This is Blackfoot,” he said. “Word gets around. You of all people know that. Those three have been working on crews of mine for twenty years, Alecia. What’s going on out there? If you’re in trouble, you promised me you’d ask for help.”

  “The problem is, Len, Pete, and Tommy have been working on crews of yours for twenty years. Dad, they were never going to see me as anything but your kid. They look to you. I don’t want that kind of vibe.”

  He let out a sigh. “Those are experienced guys. Good guys. Just, give it a day. They’ll cool off. I’ll talk to them and get them back out there for you. It’s going to be okay.”

  I finished the last of my coffee and braced myself for how he’d react to my next words. “Dad, I don’t want you to ask them back. They didn’t walk off. I fired them.”

  He growled. The windows vibrated. Davy and Rod fell silent. They rose in unison, gave my father an uncomfortable smile, then got the hell out of the diner. Great. It was going to take a hot minute for them to blab this little squabble all over town.

  “Baby, we are already two weeks into the season. You can’t afford a setback like this.”

  “I know what I can afford,” I said. “You need to trust me. I have to be able to run my crew my way or not at all. If they don’t respect me out there, if they think you or Will are the real bosses, it’s going to kill my ability to function. I know what I’m doing. I promise. You’ll see. The proof will be in the clean-ups.”

  “This isn’t an internship or a hobby. Those guys depend on what they earn in the next twelve weeks to feed their families for the entire year.” He tapped his fingers on the back of the bench.

  “Why did you give the cut to me?” I asked.

  His face fell. “Alecia…”

  “No, I mean it. Was it Mom? Were you just trying to get her off your back for a summer? Did you ever have any intention of giving me a real shot at running my own outfit? Christ, Dad. I know this business too. I learned from the best, remember? You gave Will his own cut when he was twenty. I’m twenty-five. I’ve earned it. You know I have. You’ve seen what I can do.”

  To his credit, he at least looked miserable. My father tore a hand through his hair and his eyes darkened. “I don’t want to say it. I know what it sounds like. I’m not… Dammit. You’re a woman. And you’re…”

  “Human,” I finished for him. “I’m aware of that, Dad. You think I could ever forget that? You think I haven’t had that thrown in my face since the day I was born? I know what everyone says behind my back too. I live in a house full of shifters. I’ve worked alongside shifters my whole life. Hell, I know you better than you know yourself.”

  “I have never treated you differently because of that,” he said through gritted teeth. “But I will not sit here and pretend it doesn’t mean you don’t have to work twice as hard to…”

  “I do,” I said. “I’ve worked ten times as hard to get half as far as Will. And I’ll keep doing it. But you have to believe me that I am managing things just fine at that mine. I don’t care that Len and Pete and Tommy don’t think so. Yes, I’ve got a young crew. But they’re hungry. They’re not set in their ways. I know how to get the best out of them. All I ask is that you let me prove that to you without you interfering. I really do know what I’m doing.”

  I reached for my father’s hand. A vein popped in his temple. I could sense his urge to go tiger on me. That was his go to when he thought he had to protect me. Only right this second, he was the one causing me the most trouble.

  His phone rang in his back pocket. It was Mom’s ringtone. I let go of his hand. “Better take that,” I said. “I’ll wait right here.”

  His nostrils flared as he slid out of the booth. No doubt Mom was calling to see how our meeting went. It made feel sorry for him for a second. Almost. To him, it would feel like an ambush. He excused himself and walked out of the diner. I held back a laugh as I watched him pace. Whatever my mother was saying, she wasn’t letting him get a word in.

  I took the opportunity to head to the bathroom for a quick second. When I came out, my father was still talking and pacing. I stopped at the counter. It was empty, save for the stranger with the newspaper. My skin pricked as I turned to look at him.

  He was staring straight at me, his eyes flashing gold. They were like my father’s a little, but burned even brighter. Not a tiger. But, not a bear either. What the hell was he? As he twisted his stool to face me full on, my heart skipped and the air went out of me. He rose to his full height and my eyes went up and up.

  Oh, he was shifter, all right. I could practically feel his animal clawing to get out.

  “Did you enjoy the show?” I asked, my throat feeling dry as sandpaper.

  He cocked his head to the side as he regarded me. He really was something magnificent to behold with his chiseled jaw, thick caramel-colored hair, and a sexy cleft in his chin. I knew an Alpha when I saw one. My eyes went to his hands. They were about as big as dinner plates with long, strong fingers. He filled out his denim in all the right places and wore a shiny belt buckle and worn cowboy boots. Yet, there was something about the way he carried himself with his back rod straight. He seemed more...I don’t know...sophisticated than the usual meatheads that ran around Blackfoot.

  “I wasn’t really listening,” he said. His deep voice vibrated through me, sending a flash of heat straight to my toes. Oh, boy.

  “You’re not from Blackfoot,” I said. My body went on autopilot. I found myself extending a hand to his.

  He hesitated, frozen for a second. Then, he reached for me. His grip was firm and strong, but gentle. Fire shot through me as our skin touched. What the actual hell was this guy?

  “Loch,” he said. “Bran...Loch Branson.”

  “Well, nice to meet you, Bran-lock-Branson. I’m…”

  “Alecia,” he said, smiling. “I guess I heard at least that part.”

  I scowled. “Nobody calls me that but him. It’s Ash. Ash Yeager.”

  That little flash of gold came back into his eyes. When they cooled, they were the deepest sable brown.

  “Any story behind that?” he asked. “Ash?”

  He was still holding my hand. I felt stuck there, not wanting to let go. “Sure,” I said. “Ask around.”

  Oh, that smile of his. He was probably used to melting the pants off women with it. I got unstuck and drew my hand away.

  Just then, my father came back into the diner. I jerked my chin at Loch Branson and started back toward our booth. Dad was sweating. Red-faced and flustered, he could barely sit down. Apparently, my mother had ripped him a new one over me.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll stay out of your shit. But you still haven’t answered me with what you plan to do about your shortage of manpower. You wanna be treated just like Will and my other crew bosses? Fine. You’d better believe I’d be straight up their asses on this. You aren’t going to be able to find replacements for them this late in the season. Firing three experienced guys without having a plan B was foolish...it doesn’t matter if....”

  “Oh,” I said. I could still feel Branson’s eyes at my back. I don’t know what went through me. Maybe it was having my father throw down a gauntlet. Maybe it was anger at knowing my brother probably had been the one to rat me out about firing my father’s men. “I’ve already hired a replacement.”

  My father blinked slow. He became aware of the hulking man standing behind me. I acted on instinct. On impulse. And maybe a heaping dose of stupidity. “Sorry. I was going to tell you, but Mom called. This is my new hire,” I said. “Loch Branson. He’ll be on a rock truck by the end of the day.”

  Loch could have hung me out to dry. He didn’t really know me. I was banking on the fact that a guy who looked like him wouldn’t just show up in Blackfoot during gold mining season without wanting to work. He shifted his weight and a tiny smile played at the corner of his mouth.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said to me, bypassing the stunned look on my dad’s face. “Just show me where
I can bunk.”

  Chapter Three

  Loch

  “You think this is a good idea why?” My mother was breathing so hard she might have melted the phone in my hand. I’d told her three times about taking the job on one of Yeagers’ mining crews. I had yet to tell her about Ash.

  Ash. I could still feel her touch on my arm as she put herself between her father and me. His tiger had nearly ripped out of him, though I knew his senses betrayed him. I was no wolf. No bear. Nothing he’d ever encountered before. The idea of a dragon shifter shouldn’t even have been on his radar. We were dead. And yet...I saw the flash of recognition in his eyes. Instinct put it there. Had the world fallen away in that instant and I faced him alone, he would have been out for blood.

  “It’ll put me right where I need to be,” I said. “Give me a few days. I’ll get close to that bastard. It’s perfect.”

  “It’s horrible,” she said. “Loch, this wasn’t a recon mission. I want you in and out. You don’t understand what you’re dealing with. Jegers have been trying to kill us for…”

  “I know the history!” I said. I gritted my teeth, trying to control my tone. “You’ve got to trust me.” The second the words came out, I recognized the irony in them. I’d just overheard Ash telling her father the very same thing.

  “Blackfoot is unique,” I said, trying to appeal to my mother’s rational side. “I’ve never sensed so many shifters in one place. From what I can tell, they’ve taken over all the local mining operations here. Bear, wolf...tiger.”

  “Well, isn’t that just a wonderful little shifter utopia for them. Good Christ, Loch. That’s all the more reason for you to do your job and get the hell out of there as fast as you can. The longer you stay…”

  “If I do this as a slash and burn, I’ll risk exposing what I am to at least three different kinds of shifters. Or...they’ll assume it was a fire witch. You really want that on your conscience?”

  A few years ago, I knew my mother’s answer would have been an instant yes. Things were different now though. My brother Finn was mated to the most powerful fire witch in the world. Gemma was one of us now, under our protection. I could not do anything that might ignite a shifter war with her coven. In just a few months, she’d give birth to my niece. The only child of mixed dragon and mage blood ever born, as far as we knew. No, this had to be a surgical strike. There was far too much at stake.

  “It’s dangerous for you to be there too long,” Avelina said. Stripped of its rage, her voice held nothing but desperate worry.

  “I can take care of myself,” I said. “Let me do this my way.”

  “One week,” she said. “And I can’t believe I’m even saying that. Let me send your brothers. I’d feel so much better if…”

  “No!” The idea of any of my brothers coming anywhere near Ash sent a wave of anger through me that caught me by surprise. Where the hell was that coming from?

  “No,” I said softer. “Finn needs to stay by Gemma’s side. Gideon and Xander have their own families to look out for. No one here has the faintest clue what I am. It’s just me. If you send the whole dragon cavalry, they’re going to start piecing things together.”

  “Kian then,” she said.

  I dropped my head. My brother Kian had long been the worst off of all of us. His mating sickness had begun to rob him of his balance. He rarely left the catacombs beneath Chicago now. He was further down the path we all feared. Except Xander, Gideon, and Finn were safe. This was the second lie I had told my mother besides keeping quiet about Ash. It was just too hard for me to be around Kian lately. I hated myself a little for it.

  “I have it under control,” I said. “I’ll call you in a day or two. Don’t come here. Don’t send any of my brothers. Again, trust me. The less this town senses of dragon magic, the better. I’ll find the right time and place to do what I came here for.”

  “See that you do,” she said. “You said it yourself. It’s not just us at risk anymore. If the Jegers figure out about my grandbabies...if they…”

  “They won’t,” I assured her. “It’s going to be okay. Call me if you need me. I have to go. I’m past due at the jobsite. This is a good thing. I promise.”

  My mother made a gruff noise, but didn’t argue any further. I took that as a victory and said goodbye. I tossed the phone on the seat of my truck and gripped the steering wheel.

  I parked at the top of a hill just before the entrance to the Yeager gold mines. After asking around town and pulling up a map online, I learned the main, money-making cuts branched off to the north of this dirt road. Ash’s operation, the so-called Little Sister cut, was just below me.

  Her gigantic wash plant belched and churned as dirt and rock bumped down its massive conveyor belt. Rock trucks tore down the road leading up to it, dumping their loads. Beyond that, dozers scratched through the main cut, hunting for gold-rich paydirt to dump in the giant loading trucks ready to haul back to the plant. To the east of the main activity sat a dozen rickety-looking trailers. One of those was supposed to be Ash Yeager’s office. She told me to report there.

  I punched the truck into gear and headed down the road, avoiding the outgoing rock trucks. If what she said yesterday held, I’d be driving one of those to start out. Though I hadn’t planned for this kind of work, I had some experience. Thirty years ago, when we broke ground on the Brandhart Building on Chicago’s Gold Coast, Kian and I insisted on working the construction site ourselves for a while. The two of us felt more suited to it than the boardroom and business-dealing side Xander and Gideon excelled at then. I’d mellowed some over the years, but the pure, clean air and smell of dirt worked their way into my blood. I’d even had experience as a silver miner in the nineteenth century. It had been another diversion my mother hated.

  One of the trailers stood apart from the others. A makeshift, cardboard sign read “office” in slanted black paint. I parked the truck and cut the engine. My skin vibrated from the heavy diesel motors of the trucks and equipment behind me. Beneath that though, I felt the same heated rumble that nearly paralyzed me back at the diner.

  Ash.

  Her scent was unlike any I’d ever tracked before. Sweet. Intoxicating. It had a power I couldn’t place. She was human. Through and through. But still…

  The front door of her trailer swung open and a burly guy stormed out, slamming the door behind him hard enough to make the whole structure sway.

  Ash came to the door. “You don’t like the way I run things, you know what you can do, Rick.”

  Rick turned. His eyes flashed silver, and in an instant, I recognized his animal. Polar bear. He snorted and threw his hard hat on the ground with enough force to crack it.

  “You don’t know shit about shit,” he said. My spine became fire. Scales popped out on the back of my hands as I gripped the steering wheel. I took two short breaths to push my dragon back.

  “I don’t care if I end up down to a skeleton crew, Rick,” Ash said. It was her turn to slam the door. She stood with her arms crossed. Her flannel shirt was at least two sizes too big on her. A man’s, perhaps. That same protective fury burned through me. I wanted to incinerate the man she’d taken it from. The shirt flapped open, revealing her blank tank top and the outline of those perfect breasts. I blinked hard to clear the lust-filled thoughts that threatened to let my dragon punch through.

  “That’s what you’ll have, Ash,” Rick said.

  She advanced on him. “Is that a threat?”

  “Watch yourself, little sister,” he said, spitting out the last two words. I couldn’t read his mind. But, I felt enough of his animal to get the gist of what he didn’t say.

  Ash was tall. Nearly six feet. She might not have been a shifter, but she had enough of her father’s DNA in her to give her size and strength. But, she was no match for a full-grown polar bear shifter spoiling for a fight.

  I don’t remember leaving the truck or slamming the door. I don’t remember taking the steps that brought me to Ash. But, I found my
self standing between her and Rick, my eyes blazing as I tasted blood in my mouth.

  “You need to watch your manners,” I said, my voice dripping with threat.

  Rick recognized it. He made a chuffing sound and dug his nails into his palms. He was trying to keep his bear under control and nearly failing.

  “Loch,” Ash shouted. The sound of my name on her lips sent a shiver of pleasure through me.

  “Who the fuck is he?” Rick asked.

  “Well, I guess I’m your new crewmate,” I said. “Unless the lady has other plans.”

  Rick’s eyes darted from me to Ash. “Who the fuck is he?” he asked again.

  “My new hire,” Ash said. Her own fury danced behind her eyes. “Back the fuck off, Rick, or he’ll be your replacement. You work for me. I decide who does what around here. Danny’s your foreman. You have a problem with your work orders for the day, you go to him first. We clear?”

  Ash put a light hand on me, pushing me out of her way. Of course, she couldn’t move me unless I wanted it, but she was making a point. Steam came out of my damn nostrils. My desire to rip Rick the polar bear apart made white spots swim in front of my eyes.

  “This is bullshit,” Rick said, but the rage had gone out of him. He was backing down. “It’s not how your father would run things.”

  “I’m not my dad,” Ash said. “He doesn’t sign your paychecks anymore. Get on board or get out. That’s the deal. It’s too late in the season for you to go anywhere else, and you know it.”

  Rick had gone nonverbal. He grunted, but took a step back. He was pissed at Ash, but his eyes stayed glued to mine. Oh, he knew I was something; he just couldn’t figure out what. Maybe Avelina was right. The longer I stayed here, the more dangerous it was for all of us.

  Then, Ash’s hand on my arm sent a shock of heat zinging through me. I saw the catch in her breath and knew she felt it too. Dammit if I didn’t want to wrap my arm around her and pull her back into that trailer. Her cheeks flushed and I recognized the change in her scent. She was turned on. Shit. As soon as Rick climbed back into his own truck and went out of earshot, Ash dropped her hand.