SUSAN LUTE

Logan Pen slipped out of the lusty crowd and into a bar that was only a decimal quieter. He’d been in New Orleans six hours and in the French Quarter half that time. Already he’d picked up a tail.

The dragon mark that had its beginnings on his right thigh - sharp, piercing talons morphing into an undulating body of blue-green scales arching over his hip, and ending in a fierce snout breathing powerful flames - burned in warning.

A shadow, an indistinct inky blot edging stealthily around the crowd of partying humanity filling Bourbon Street, followed him into the crowded bar. The dank stench of dark caves crept toward him. His pulse shot up. He’d never hunted an Umbra before now. This would be his first capture.

Letting his lips twitch into a rare smile, Logan took a seat in the darkest part of the room. The game was about to begin. He was going to enjoy his first encounter with a shadow thief.

Around him glasses clinked. The acrid smell of cigarette smoke and unwashed bodies fought with one another. Raucous laughter competed with the Vid screen airing the first World Soccer match since twenty-twelve. Voices were raised in vigorous debate over the new world government’s chance of survival.

A girl with an obscene number of colorful bead necklaces covering her ample breasts came to take his order. “What can I do you for, Duckie?”

“A Hurricane will do.”

Resting her hip against the table, she winked at him. “That all you want?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Pity. If you change your mind, I’m Stacy.”

Logan allowed himself a slow perusal of her assets, all the while letting his dragon senses reach out to the shadows around him. “I’ll keep that in mind, Stacy.”

As she left to get his drink, there was a brief shimmer in the air to his right. A pure human would never see it.

He looked the other way. Come closer, thief.

Fire danced in his heart at the impending skirmish - which he would win, of course. His vision sharpened into crystal clarity. The stale smell of pure humans desperate to survive separated themselves from the Darwin changelings of which there were a few.

The voice of his dragon strained to break free of his human shell. Faster than flame in dry tinder, his hand shot out and captured a slender arm.

Surprised at what his dragon half was telling him, Logan watched the shadow take human form. This one was female, not what he’d expected. He’d always had the impression the Umbra were neither male nor female.

Her hair was a dark, fiery red; whispering feathers around a face that seemed cut from ancient porcelain. Delicate brows drew together over eyes spitting fury. Her slender body pulled back from him, rigid with disbelief.

“Let go of me, human.”

Did it matter that his prize was female? Logan studied her beautiful face. He would take what he could get. “I don’t think so.”

“Let me go.” And, when he didn’t comply, “Now.”

Did she know he was dragonkind?

Music throbbed loudly around them. In answer to her demand, he tugged sharply, putting her at a disadvantage - sprawled across his lap. She was stronger than her slight frame promised.

No one in the bar noticed when he flipped her so she sat nose to nose with him, her slim wrists manacled behind her back. All was fair in war. Though this wasn’t the real thing, it was close enough.

Firm breasts arched against his chest reminding him just how long it’d been since he’d enjoyed the company of a woman. As he went hard, the Umbra’s fathomless emerald eyes opened wide in sudden awareness.

Too bad this wasn’t the right moment to act upon the flash of desire pushing him to have this rare beauty. Regretfully, getting intimate with a species still hidden in the murky mists of mythology, and who was his enemy, was not in the cards. At least not today.

She fought his iron grip. The finely etched features of her face hinting at desperation as she struggled had him easing back.

“Be still,” he commanded in a soft growl that had its origins in the passions of his dragon half.

The heat building between them surged before he was able to lock his dragon in check. Unaccountably snagged by her cool, phantom scent, he clamped his jaws.

Suddenly giving up the fight, the shadow woman leaned into him, pressed her lips to his, and just as his startled senses were about to give way to his dragon shouting, yeah baby!, she bit down hard on his bottom lip, momentarily breaking his hold on her wrists.

She leaped off his lap. He lunged after her, but found nothing except a shimmer moving swiftly out of reach.

“Wait,” he growled into the nothingness, then reluctantly conceded, “We need you.”

For a second, the shadows went still.

We? It was a whisper that came from of the darkest part of his mind.

“The Naga.”

The dragons?

Surprise underlined the thought as it shifted through him, brushing like a lover’s breath over his dragon mark. The caress flamed his fire. His eyes narrowing, Logan ran his tongue over the wound she’d inflicted and tasted blood.

“Yes.” He filled the sharp agreement with a promise to punishment the thief for marking him.

He felt her hover a heartbeat longer. Then his quarry was gone.

A tall glass appeared before him. “Your Hurricane, Duckie.”

“Thanks.” When he dug in his pocket for payment and realized what was missing, a pang of mourning for his telein - a talisman forged at his birth and carried on his person at all times since he was a small boy - cut through him sharply.

He raised his glass to the shadows where she’d disappeared.

“We’ll meet again, thief.” He took a long pull of the drink, then licked the mixture of rum and blood from where it burned his lip. “You can bet on it.”