“We all know how they handled the incident at Clawson’s Creek. And at the Crater. And so far, none of the jobs we’ve given Ajax yet have gone south,” Olivia said, addressing the whole room.

  “The people he’s worked with haven’t had a lot of good things to say about his personality,” Jack said with a shrug.

  “But did he go starting unnecessary fights or causing additional damage? Has he hurt anyone?”

  Jack and Troy were both quiet at that.

  “Whatever happened to the crater dragon, by the way?” Reno’s masculine, cheery voice cut the tension between her and the double dragons for a moment.

  “He’s somewhere secure,” Troy just said plainly, not even looking over at him.

  Olivia stepped toward Troy, getting in his face. Even as dragons, they were still shifters at heart, and passivity or acquiescence would get her nowhere. “We have a very serious problem, you guys. And Ajax is the best solution we have yet. I’ve studied the basilisks for months now. And aside from their extreme durability, ultra-keen senses, and superhuman strength, Ajax alone has additional abilities that could come in handy.”

  “How about his temperament?” Jack asked as everyone’s attention was drawn back to the backyard by another shout.

  Ajax, as if just to be contrary to her point, was in the middle of snapping an old, rotted wood telephone pole in half like it was a twig, methodically breaking it into increasingly smaller halves, looking somehow angrier the farther he went.

  “You’re the one who will be working with him,” Jack said with a teasing grin.

  Olivia was almost too enthralled by the one-man show happening beneath them to answer.

  Reno stepped toward them, leaning against the glass door they were watching through. “You know how it is with shifters. The stronger they are, the more unpredictable they can be.” He sent Troy a stern look, which Troy ignored completely.

  “Sounds like someone I know,” Olivia said with a shrug, and Troy hissed.

  “All I care about is if he’s trustworthy. I’m not sending our most important human—I mean asset—out in the field with this complete psycho.” Troy huffed and turned away from the group, his whole body tense. “After all, didn’t he kidnap your own damn mate, Reno?”

  Olivia almost forgot it had been years since she’d personally been sent out on a mission like this.

  Was Troy acting… worried about her?

  No need. She could hold her own. She’d done so countless times, against every kind of shifter.

  Though, it was hard not to be a little intimidated by the raging creature down below.

  Reno gave Olivia a longsuffering glance, then looked toward Troy. “Yes, he did. But then he helped me fight off my older brother and my entire pack when he realized he’d been lied to. He bought us time and saved my mate’s life, in case you forgot how it all went down.” He exhaled, then addressed Olivia. “I’d trust that man with my life.”

  Troy slowly turned around, thinly veiled annoyance creasing the corners of his expression despite his ethereally handsome face.

  When he spoke, though, he stared intensely at her, like he wanted to read her thoughts but was resisting doing so.

  “Would you trust him, Olivia? This is your call, not mine.” Then he ran a hand through his thick blond hair, breaking eye contact. “All I care… I mean, all we care about is making sure you’re safe.”

  Her heart clenched at even the slight sign Troy cared about anything in the world other than his job or his partner, Jack.

  She was grateful to him in that moment for putting aside whatever grudge he had so she could just do her job trying to keep the world safe.

  Like they were all trying to do.

  “I won’t say yet. I want to meet him in person. But… I think so.” She had no reason not to trust him, at least not yet.

  Was Ajax difficult at times? Likely. Was he scarier than any shifter she’d ever met before? Probably.

  Did she get a warm feeling in her heart, like everything would work out, when she looked at him?

  Possibly.

  “I’ll go tell him to meet you downstairs in fifteen. That sound good to you?” Reno asked, and Olivia nodded.

  But when she looked down, she caught Ajax staring up at her, just standing there, still drenched in rain.

  She felt an instant sizzle of something unfamiliar and uncomfortable go through her as her gaze felt frozen by his crimson glare.

  The lights were off in the room. Could he even see her up here?

  Then, as quickly as it had happened, Ajax shrugged and walked off, heading toward the house for no particular reason at all.

  “I still have a bad feeling about this,” Troy said, leaning over to watch him leave.

  Olivia wasn’t sure how she felt now.

  Only that she was about to meet a basilisk, in person, for the first time, and her body tensed just thinking about it.

  Was this fear or attraction? Or both?

  Either way, if Ajax got any ideas, she’d show him that she wasn’t someone to be messed with.

  3

  Ajax didn’t know why in the hell Reno wanted him to go to the study right now, only that it was “important.”

  Probably something to do with the double dragons.

  After all, he’d scented them the moment they’d shown up at the mansion. Especially the black dragon, whose venom he could pick up from miles away if the wind was cooperative.

  Probably another stupid mission from those uppity bastards.

  But he couldn’t shake the slight feeling of excitement as he strode through the mansion, hands shoved in his pockets.

  They weren’t the only unusual scents around. Ajax knew it. There had been someone else with them, watching from the second story while he’d been outside.

  Why?

  The only answers were waiting for him in his lair, it seemed.

  While the other basilisks had been cooing over their mates, Ajax had retreated even deeper into his research about human mating customs, devouring any and all media that could maybe help him woo or win his mate.

  If he ever met her, that was.

  As he crossed the mansion, he picked up an odd-looking toy lying on the ground in the middle of the hallway, probably put there by Grace’s cat, Wendell, who had a habit of leaving things in odd places.

  He wouldn’t want Grace to trip and fall if she wasn’t watching where she was going. Which wasn’t unheard of since she often had her eyes glued to a book, even while walking.

  Ajax set the toy on a table in the hall as he reached the other end of the mansion. Then he pushed the big cherrywood door leading into the study open with his foot, expecting to be greeted by some dude in a black suit like all the other human operators that worked for the double dragons wore.

  If this was just another mission to babysit some silly humans scared about their shifter neighbors…

  But instead, as he looked into the room, he was greeted by a sight that nearly took his breath away.

  And made the beast inside him growl.

  Instead of a man, there was a woman standing at the other end of the large room. She was behind the mahogany desk, silently looking through the big bay window. And when Ajax took a step in, she casually looked over her shoulder at him, giving him the view of her profile, showing sparkling brown eyes that appraised him with keen interest.

  Ajax took a second to get a read on her.

  She was taller than average, though still short compared to shifters, probably five-nine. She wore black jeans with black boots with a slight heel and a normal T-shirt with a light but functional green jacket with the sleeves rolled midway up her forearms.

  Ajax took another step in, expecting her to flinch like all the other human women he’d met did when looking at him.

  But if she felt the same fear he knew humans felt when in the presence of a monstrous killer like him, she hid it shockingly well.

  The gloomy gray from the window behind her made her dark skin look even more gorgeous, and despite the slight frown on her full lips, Ajax had the sudden urge to kiss her, right there and then.

  Ajax folded his arms, bristling as she remained quiet. Where the hell were these thoughts coming from?

  Her thick, curly hair was pulled back into an efficient bun, and her dark brows and long lashes only made her mixed expression of caution and curiosity that much more obvious on her pretty face.

  “You’re late.” She spoke finally, with a smooth voice that was both feminine and succinct.

  He didn’t know if he liked this woman instantly or hated her guts for being so presumptuous as to call him late to a meeting he’d only just found out about.

  Ajax tried to suppress his glower and instead just stayed silent as she turned to face him, giving an even better view of her gorgeous outline and feminine features.

  “So you’re Ajax? It’s interesting to finally meet you in person,” she said, taking slow steps as she paced behind the desk.

  Ajax huffed.

  Though he’d never met her in person, Ajax knew who she was already.

  The double dragon’s chief handler, though many people called her their “wrangler” due to the fact that Troy’s uncooperativeness and bad temper were legendary throughout the state of Texas.

  She was certainly nothing like he’d expected her to be in person.

  “Those eyes of yours, they really are unsettling,” she said, cocking her head to the side slightly, looking at him so perceptively she reminded him of Wendell. Or Dallas.

  “What do you want?” Ajax asked harshly. He wasn’t here to be reminded of how much of a freak he was.

  Though, as the woman folded her arms, he noticed a huge scar across her left hand and up her arm, which disappeared under the sleeve of her jacket.

  Most humans hid their scars like the plague. This one wore it like a fucking badge of honor.

  Interesting…

  Ignoring his question, as if to make a point, she looked at the scattered DVD cases around the room, ones Ajax had put there intentionally to hide his research from the rest of the house.

  “Looks like you really go hard on the action movies. Huge fan of Die Hard, I see?”

  Ajax laughed internally because he had no fucking clue what those movies were about.

  “Do you always make a habit of wasting people’s time?” he asked.

  “Only when I’m trying to figure them out.” She glanced down his body, a razor-quick motion that nonetheless gave Ajax the idea that his attraction wasn’t one-sided.

  But he’d never fall for someone practically attached to the double dragons at the hip.

  “I’m not staying a second longer unless I get your name and what the hell Troy and Jack asked me here for, right now,” Ajax said, putting his hand on the door behind him, ready to leave.

  He wasn’t anyone’s lackey.

  “They didn’t ask you to come. I did,” she said.

  Ajax went still, a little stunned by that.

  Well… if she was asking, maybe he could stay a little longer.

  “My name’s Olivia,” she said, not coming closer or stretching out a hand for him to shake. “I don’t usually share that with people unless I’m going to be working with them.”

  “That’s assuming I’ll even say yes.”

  Olivia—damn, that was a pretty name—seemed intrigued by his response.

  And to his surprise, she sat down in his big comfy leather chair where he did most of his thinking about mates, and she tapped her fingers on the desk.

  “All of this is secret, just so you’re aware.”

  Ajax nodded. He was good with secrets.

  He’d been keeping them his whole damn life.

  “There’s a new poison that some of our operatives recently picked up off the shifter black market. From what we can tell, the wolves who found it only just got their hands on it, and Troy and Jack were able to take out their base in Dallas with ease.”

  “Doesn’t sound like they need my help at all.”

  Olivia’s eyes flashed with something like worry, though she hid it. “Troy doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but it has me concerned. We ran tests on it, and it’s more potent than any venom we’ve ever come across before. Something that’s even deadlier to dragons than wyvern toxin.”

  Considering wyverns were literally made to be anti-dragon, that wasn’t a good thing.

  “How strong is it?” Ajax asked, more intrigued by the second.

  She let out a scoff. “Strong enough that when Troy tried a diluted amount, it laid him out for two days. And Jack is a blue dragon with the best healing this side of the Mississippi.”

  She leaned back in Ajax’s chair, rocking slightly, which annoyed him.

  This was his office, after all.

  “So why should I help you?” Ajax asked with a shrug.

  “After that stunt with the other basilisks a minute ago, I figured you might be up for something a little more… dangerous?” She raised an eyebrow at him, and Ajax grimaced.

  Dammit, so she’d been the person he’d sensed watching from upstairs.

  And she had him right on the money.

  “Tell me more, and I’ll think about it.”

  Even the slight grin on her lips made Ajax want to do whatever it took to see her really smile. It seemed so rare, so precious; he was instantly drawn to it.

  “We’ve traced the source of the poison to somewhere in the far west of Texas, the middle of nowhere. We still don’t know what it is or who is making it, but we need them stopped before even a single new shipment reaches Dallas or the surrounding cities.”

  “Is it shifter in origin?”

  She exhaled in frustration. “We have no clue. We have scientists working on it, but it doesn’t look or act like black dragon or wyvern toxins. But regardless of where it’s from, there are a lot of evil people—humans and shifters alike—that would go to any lengths to upend the advantage the dragons give us throughout the world, fighting for good. If this gets out, or goes global, a lot of good people might get hurt.”

  While she spoke, she stood and had begun pacing again, a nervous habit Ajax instantly found endearing in this mysterious, surprisingly strong person.

  Personally, Ajax wasn’t sure how much he cared about world peace or saving dragons and all that.

  But this was important to Olivia. He could sense it.

  And for some reason, that made it important to him too.

  She reached the corner of his desk, and to Ajax’s horror, he noticed he’d left his small leather-bound notebook where he kept all his notes just sitting there, out in the open.

  Dammit, he was so distracted waiting for the basilisk beatdown he’d forgotten it in here earlier.

  Her hand wandered over the cover, and she pulled it open distractedly as though her thoughts were far off still.

  Ajax was there in an instant, his palm slamming the journal closed as he found himself glowering down at Olivia, the territorial beast inside him wanting to keep his secret mate research to himself.

  He expected her to leap back or make a frightened noise. That was how most people acted when he got in their face.

  Instead, in a flash of movement, she brandished something small and silver the shape of a thick pen from somewhere in her jacket, and something blue and electric sparkled from the tip as she pointed it at his neck.

  On pure reflex, Ajax’s left hand flew up and caught her by the wrist, holding it firmly in the air as she tried to jab him with the object.

  Had she… pulled a weapon on him? It looked like a taser of some sort, but not the kind anyone could just buy off a shelf.

  Fuck, Olivia really was something else.

  “Don’t get so close,” she said, eyes slitted as she looked up at him with an implacable glare, her arm still tense in his grip.

  “Don’t touch my shit,” Ajax growled, the beast in him waking instantly at the mere prospect of someone who’d dare challenge his dominance like this.

  “I’ll touch whatever I want,” she replied defiantly. And for a split second, her eyes dipped to his chest, then back up to meet his gaze.

  “Try it,” Ajax said, his other hand still atop the journal, keeping it shut.

  He had to fight the sudden urge to pull her in closer. To get a better look at her. To feel her.

  And her scent, like poppies in springtime, called to something deep inside him.

  Olivia looked at his hand that had hers trapped, then back at him.

  Then she glanced away, distracting him for a second as he looked over to see what she was looking at.

  And in another whirl of motion, her other hand reached for a tiny canister hidden somewhere in her jacket. She was halfway into raising it to spray it in his face when Ajax’s other hand flew up and caught it instantly, his thumb blocking hers from reaching the tiny red button on the top of it.

  Clever, but not nearly fast enough, Ajax thought with amusement.

  She tried to pull her other hand back, looking frustrated but impressed. “Hm, that usually works. Even if they can stop the first attack, most shifters underestimate the fact I’m human and don’t see the second one coming,” Olivia said with a grin.

  “If I was most shifters, you wouldn’t be here, would you?” he replied, trying to distract from the fact that his skin seemed to buzz in his palms and along his fingers wherever they made contact with her.

  “You can let me go now,” she said. “Or do you always hold on to people for an awkwardly long time?”

  “Only when I’m trying to figure them out,” he said, repeating her earlier phrase. After all, she’d attacked him first.

  Though, considering how Ajax looked to normal people, he couldn’t say he was at all surprised. Just a little impressed at her audacity.

  He immediately let her go, stepping back as she put away whatever those little anti-shifter gadgets were.

  Probably pretty fancy tech, given the double dragons had access to things far beyond what humans could put together themselves.

  Olivia huffed, straightening her jacket again and looking a little flustered. And for a moment, she was hesitant to meet his eyes, as if he hadn’t been the only one feeling something electric between them.