"So we're in the clear?"

"As possible. We played with their computers a bit. The paperwork for the headcount is missing, and the airline staff is frazzled. Add in our story of events, and you should be fine. Listen, I got to go. There's a cute cop I want to have interrogate me again."

No surprise there. Her sister had a thing for handcuffs.

"See you at the hotel, then?" Aimi asked.

"Not likely. I don't see any of us arriving anytime soon. We landed in the middle of tweedle-fucking-dumville. They have got the tiniest airport in existence, currently shut down because it's under FAA jurisdiction while they investigate the cause of the plane's demise. Which means, no flying out."

"So drive."

"Gee, wish I'd thought of it." Her sister's voice oozed sarcasm. "The town has got like...nothing. No taxi service or car rental. They've got us in a community center waiting for a shuttle bus to come. But that is going to take hours."

"Not the way Deka drives. Get her to bribe the driver. You could probably still make it."

"Not going to happen. So enjoy a night off, and we'll come up with something new when we get there."

"I can't wait that long." Impatience wasn't something she enjoyed dealing with.

"Don't you dare go to that party without us."

"Then you'd better hope that bus grows wing and gets your ass here fast because we are going to that party." The sooner she got Brand's little sister, the sooner she could claim him. Although, she had to admit, the spot of danger proved exciting. Would mating stop the Septs from coming after him?

I hope not. Boredom belonged to those who didn't truly live.

She hung up and handed the phone back to her cousin. "How far can you take us?"

"Where you going?"

"Beverly Hills."

"We can hit an airfield I know and borrow a Cessna. We'd be there in just over two hours. Or we can drive all the way, which is like eight."

She winced. "Ouch. I think we should-"

"Drive," Brandon stated, echoed a second later by Sam.

"But it will take so long." She might have pouted as she said it.

"It might be longer, but what are the chances we'll be attacked on the road versus the sky?"

"It's almost sunrise. Dragons don't fly in the day."

"I'll bet they're not supposed to attack planes either, and yet, look what happened."

Sam merged onto a highway, and the car put on even more speed. "By car, we can evade them better. They might know where we're going, but not how we're getting there."

"Unless they've got really good spies and are detecting our locator signals." As soon as she uttered it, Aimi longed for some tinfoil. She also had a revelation.

No wonder Aunt Waida says wear metal panties if you don't want them watching you. Did it disrupt the signal?

"Do you really think they'll come after you again? I mean you are in Silvercrest territory. They wouldn't dare." Natty held her chin high in pride. Cute that she stuck up for her family, and yet, it turned out she was wrong.

Apparently, some families would dare once they passed the Silvercrest land boundary into no man's land. Their attackers waited until a barren stretch, the sun mid-morning high, and everyone in the car partially drowsing except for Sam.

Good thing, because when a vehicle came shooting out of nowhere, he swerved the car hard enough to give them whiplash but avoided a collision. Rubber squealed, and gravel flew in a dusty cloud behind them as the tires of the car looked to regain traction. He hit the pavement, and the car shot like a dragon out of a volcano-which was way faster than a bat out of hell according to one of her great aunts.

"What the fuck just happened?" Natty bolted upright and slapped her hands on the dash, checking things out around them.

"We have company." Understatement of the year went to Sam.

From behind, a car chased. Ahead of them, they could see another heading straight on.

But the truly crowning moment was the pair of shadows overhead.

Dragons. In daylight. Holy fuck. Even her mother would be too stunned to make her gargle castor oil now.

Brand tensed beside her. "We're under attack again."

"We should have stopped for tinfoil," she muttered, turning around to peer at the car hugging their tail.

"How would tinfoil help?"

"Jamming signals. We just had the spy question answered. Someone has access to our GPS signal, and I do believe another family has just declared war." Because those were yellows in the sky. "We might want to duck. One of the guys in the car behind us has a gun."

Her remark was met a moment later by the cracking of glass as a slug hit the rear window and spiderwebbed it.

"My car. He hit my car." Sam's voice rose in pitch. He slammed the brakes, and the abrupt stop caused the car behind to swerve on the road, unwilling to crash into them.

Sam reached under his seat before opening his door and stepping out.

"Does he have a gun?" Brand asked.

"Under every seat," Natty admitted, head popping up along with the muzzle of a rifle. "You wouldn't believe how many he has stashed in the house. He's a huge fan of The Walking Dead."

Crack. Crack. Bullets peppered the area as Sam braced his AK-47 and sprayed it across the car that braked behind them and then flipped around to Swiss cheese the one trying to reverse.

As for the shadows overhead, Natty angled back and took aim. A squawk of pain met one shot, but the dragons were smart. As soon as they'd noted the guns coming out, they took to higher skies. In moments, the attack was thwarted with no casualty-but the car-on their side.

As they stood leaning against the vehicle, Sam paid a visit to the two vehicles and made sure, after wiping it down for prints, to place his gun with one of them. Then he placed an identical one with the other shooter, covering his tracks.

"Let's go." Sam swung into the car, cool as a glacier in the arctic, and Natty bounced in beside him.

"I don't suppose there is any point in insisting it's getting too dangerous, and I should go on alone?" Brand eyed them and the wrecks.

"If you're going to be mated to Aimi, then that makes you family."

"Get in," said Sam, then, in a very Terminator style, put on some glasses and added, "They'll be back."

A pity they had a party to go to or Aimi would have waited for them.

As it was, they did have to stop for tinfoil. She didn't know if it stopped them from emitting a signal, but she sure enjoyed helping Brand craft one for his groin, even if he ruined her fun by not allowing her to make it anatomically correct.

Chapter Thirteen.

The rest of the trip went off without any attacks. Brand wasn't entirely sure they had the aluminum foil to thank but more the fact that they soon entered more civilized areas with people watching.

The dragons might have launched some brazen attacks but thus far had done so only in secluded locations where discovery seemed unlikely.

Did he believe for a moment he was safe?

Nope, which meant Aimi wasn't safe either because the damnable woman wouldn't abandon him. She didn't seem to grasp that being with him equaled danger. Actually, that wasn't entirely true. She understood, she just didn't seem to care, and a part of her seemed to thrive on it. He could feel it through their link, the excitement, and the cold determination. Cute and ladylike on the outside didn't mean shit. Inside lurked someone who wouldn't hesitate to act.

So fucking sexy. Brandon never thought himself a guy to get turned on by a woman undaunted by anything, even violence, but that was before he'd met his moonbeam.

My moonbeam. And he planned to keep it that way, despite not knowing how that would work. He remained convinced he wasn't good enough for her, not by a long shot. However, he also couldn't bring himself to walk away. The selfish Mercer genes at play. It wasn't just dragons who liked to hoard pretty things, especially valuable things they shouldn't have.

The hotel they were booked to stay at was a gorgeous Marriott, considered a neutral zone by the Septs for this region. These neutral lodgings were scattered around the world, part of the treaties all dragons supposedly abided by to ensure they could vacation and deal with business interests. The only thing expected when dragons arrived onto another's territory was that they notify the local family Sept of their arrival.

"Isn't giving your enemy a copy of your itinerary counterproductive?" he'd asked when Aimi explained it to him.

"Dragons don't kill dragons." When he raised a brow, she added, "Often. We have to be severely provoked to move against our kind."

"Provoked such as the attack on our plane?"

"Yes. I've never heard of anything so brazen. Most times, we deal with issues in a civilized manner."

"What do you call civilized?"

A wide grin showed sharp white teeth-teeth that should be nibbling my skin. "Cooperate takeovers. Attacks on their stocks. Tabloids stories."

'But doesn't that make your enemies madder and even more out for revenge?"

She'd blinked. "Well, yeah. That's the whole point."

Such a different world he'd entered. In the bayou, arguments were usually solved with a few punches, and for the really heinous shit, the bayou left no evidence-and neither did his aunt with her recently published cookbook, Trap 'Em and Eat 'Em, the swamp guide to cooking critters without wasting any parts."

It wasn't selling enough to hit any bestseller lists, but Aunt Tanya became an instant celebrity among the Mercers and other swamp folk.

Brandon felt dirty and underdressed when Sam pulled under the canopy for the hotel. Before they piled out of the car, Natty turned in her seat.

"Here's some cash and a credit card." A silver card, not black as he would have expected.

"Where are you going?" Brandon asked.

"Back home," Natty replied. "If the reds are massing for an assault, then we need to prepare."

"I think you're safe," Aimi announced, slipping the flip-flops they'd bought at a gas station on her feet. "They're after Brand. But they're not getting him."

Mine. The word practically sang between them, and the cold in him warmed with a strange iciness at odds with the emotion.

The shoes weren't the only things they'd grabbed at the gas station. A prepaid cell phone that wouldn't leave a trace, a T-shirt for him with a reptile sunning itself on the front with the caption, "Wanna pet my lizard?"

He and Aimi piled out of the car with the taped-cardboard back window and watched it pull away.

The front desk didn't bat an eyelid at their strange outfits.

As for Aimi, she acted as if she wore designer duds and perfectly coiffed hair. "A suite please, with a balcony facing the front, top floor." Paying cash meant she could sign in with any name she liked. She chose Mr. and Mrs. Silvergrace.

He didn't say anything about it until they'd entered the elevator.

"Silvergrace? You do realize if you're serious about claiming me, then you'll have to take my name. Mercer."

"If I'm serious?" Her lips curved. "You should know by now I mean what I say."

He did know, and she needed to learn she wouldn't be calling all the shots. "I think Mrs. Mercer has a nice ring to it. Don't you?"

"It's not a dragon name."

"I'm not a dragon." He penned her with his arms, letting the bulk of his body pin her against the wall as the numbers to the floors flashed. "I say you'll take whatever name I tell you."

"Are you giving me orders?" Her query emerged with a hint of irritation-but she also couldn't hide arousal as he finally asserted his desires.

"I'm telling you how it's going to be, moonbeam." Before she could retort, the elevator stopped, and there was a ding as the doors slid open.

He stepped out and strode to one of the few doors on this level. The keycard switched the red light to green, and he entered.

Hot damn, now this is what I call swanky accommodations.

The room she'd booked proved lavish, so lavish that, when he stepped in, he almost turned right back around. These weren't the kind of digs he usually stayed in.

I am definitely not the kind of guy who should be staying somewhere like this.

"Chin up, shoulders back. You do belong."

"Was I thinking aloud again?" He'd been trying to control his mental yelling.

"It was your expression that gave it away. Actually, you've been good about keeping your thoughts to yourself. A shame, I miss the dirty ones." She winked, and he couldn't help it. The dirtiest thought crossed his mind involving her on her knees, lips wrapped around a certain part of him, her sultry expression peering upward.

Her lips rounded, and arousal flickered between them, a fire ready to consume. He took a step toward her, only to have her turn away as she kicked off the plastic flip-flops and sank her dirty toes into the carpet.