Chapter Prologue

Snow littered the cold and uneven ground of the scrap yard where the brothers Wessex often went to work out. Too powerful to be contained indoors, their training had to be done stealthily.

The human world was not aware of Wyverns, or anything supernatural, for that matter. It preferred to live in ignorance, and the brothers were happy to oblige. They knew firsthand what the government did to anyone they saw as different.

Centuries being peddled back and forth in their eggs, they’d finally been hatched to spend the next decade being studied, poked, prodded, by idiot scientists until their father had enough.

General Arthur Wessex was ex-Army, but he’d earned that title, and no one forgot what he had given to his country in terms of service. He was the one who found the key to hatching the brothers. In the end, he took them from the cruelties of the facility where they were being kept and brought them to his wife and home to be raised as a family— taking them under his wing, no pun intended.

“Father is pissed again—agh,” Heliodore grunted as he lifted the old cargo van up and over his head before dropping it back down again.

“Yeah, what else is new?” Jasper replied, his eyes trained on his target as he worked on trying to control his flame.

When done right, he could release a precise laser-like beam of pure Wyvern fire more powerful than any human-made beam he had ever encountered. He’d currently been focusing his fiery breath on a rusty old bolt he’d placed some 7000 yards away.

It was one of several dozen he’d burnt to ash that very afternoon. But it was more than just disintegrating things. He also focused on the intensity of his flame. Sometimes ash was too much, and his Wyvern needed to learn how to control the temperature of his fire. It took training and work.

None of which he wanted to do just then. After all, it was the holidays. Jasper was not a huge fan of the season, but he loved the seasonal drinks and discounted wings at McCool’s Bar & Grill over on Grand Street.

The place was a favorite haunt of Jasper and his brothers, and Crystal was bartending this weekend. He knew that because the buxom blonde had sent him a selfie and a text telling him exactly where he could place the shot of chilled cinnamon vodka she planned on saving for him that very evening.

Yowza.

What could he say? He was a sucker for a woman who knew what her body was for.

“Hey! Watch it,” his brother snarled, and Jasper stopped shooting his flame.

Whoops.

His aim had gone off track along with his thoughts. It was a good thing the Sloth Shifter who ran the junkyard didn’t mind when he and his brothers got rough with his inventory.

They’d started working out there just after puberty hit, a suggestion from their dad who had seen firsthand how much damage four growing Wyvern Shifters could wreak.

The owner, Hector, was a friend of General Wessex. A fellow Shifter, he understood the problem and had gladly offered his place. In fact, he’d often joked about putting the boys on the payroll since they saved loads of electricity running his wrecking machine by demolishing cars into tidy cubes with their might.

During puberty, they had managed to rid the Sloth of half his stock without him having to lift a finger. Fun times. Not.

Jasper did not relish thinking of those angsty teenage years where he’d spent more time using pimple cream and jerking off than he’d care to admit. Exercise was a great way to channel their sudden bursts of aggression, and hefty influxes of testosterone. He was glad they had this place.

Where else were a couple of Wyvern Shifters supposed to burn off a little energy without fear of being seen?

“Why do you think Dad is pissed again?” Jasper asked without waiting for an answer.

He dropped to the ground, flipped backwards, landing hard on the floor just to bounce back again, the entire time keeping his target in sight. He then aimed his fire at the small hunk of metal, tempering the flame to melt not disintegrate. It took heaps of effort, and despite the freezing temperatures, he was sweating balls.

“Lucky shot.”

Heliodore smirked. He stretched and nodded at the puddle of metal, and Jasper saw his admiration in the action. Brothers could be rough on each other, but each had their own talents and were supportive when it counted. They had to be, since they were the only ones of their kind they knew of.

“Larimar and Zircon gave Jennifer a hard time with their last assignment.”

“Yeah, well, she should’ve known better than to have the two of them working with the security bigwigs at the Shifter Leagues during playoffs.”

“I know, I told her that myself.”

“What’s the big deal, anyway? I’m sure the job was accomplished, otherwise we’d have heard about it.”

“Yep, another one done and done. They’re both flying home today. The New York Sharks beat the California Claws, so now Conny is claiming Lari’s new Harley as his prize.”

Jasper snorted. His brother Zircon’s—or Conny as they affectionately called him—antics were legendary. As the youngest to hatch, he’d always been teased for being the baby, much to his consternation. Probably why he was such a fucker about winning. It was a sweet prize, for sure.

As far as Jasper knew, Larimar just had that bike custom outfitted by a bunch of Dire Wolves near Blue Valley, or somewhere in that area. His brother sure loved to ride. The Dire Wolf MC was renowned for their knowledge and expert care of all things motorcycle.

Whatever floats your boat, Jasper thought with a shrug. He never understood his brother’s obsession with his Harley. They were Wyverns. They had wings. Who the fuck cared about wheels?

“Well, Dad wants us back for dinner. You coming?” Dor, short for Heliodore, asked.

All four had been named after the gemstones their eggs resembled. Jasper, Heliodore, Larimar, and Zircon Wessex. Talk about a mouthful.

It was no wonder their gentle adoptive mother had affectionately shortened their given names to Jas, Dor, Lari, and Conny.

Although, it should be noted that if anyone outside of the four Wessexes, or their human parents, ever tried to use said nicknames, they typically lost a limb.

Grrrr.

Jas rolled his shoulders and neck. He wasn’t ready to call it a day, especially since he almost had his fire down to the smallest beam yet. It was a new record, and he was proud.

Control was something their father had always emphasized. Being a rare form of Shifter in the secret world of supernaturals put a target on their backs. They were not widely known, but ever since they formed the Wyvern Protection unit, news had spread about the brothers and their rare beasts.

Oh well.

Danger did not bother Jasper. He was a fucking beast in both his skin and his scales. Besides, they had gotten this far just fine.

A couple of decades in a select unit named after their animals and working for the federal government in a top secret capacity, for those humans who knew about the existence of things that went bump in the night.

It amused him no end the way people could be so willfully ignorant. Of course, monsters existed. They had to. How else would normals have come up with the legends they passed from generation to generation? It’s not like they could have made them up, for fuck’s sake.

Working hard and proving they could be an asset had earned the brothers Wessex some respect from those who ran secret elite groups such as theirs. Facts were facts, and though Jasper knew they scared the shit out of some of the higher ups, the Wyvern Protection Unit was the best at what they did, and they’d built a name in both the normal and the supe world.

They offered customizable protection based on their clients’ needs. No job was too big or too small. Technically, they worked for the government, but their capacity was completely unofficial. In fact, they had been told repeatedly that the need for stealth was imperative.

If it ever came out that Shifters existed, the government would not be a friend. But that was a chance they were willing to take. Jasper believed in his brothers and their team as a unit. They simply could not fuck up. It would be too dangerous for their human father, and an insult to the human mother who had raised them.

Other supernatural groups focused more on investigative and intelligence missions, and they seldom had time to simply hang around and protect their targets. That was when they called in the WPU.

Of course, their unit fell under the watchful eye of the Department of Paranormal Creatures and Activity, or DPCA for short, but no one knew them as well as their handler, Jennifer Dylluan.

The female was a Great Horned Owl Shifter, so she understood very well the importance of staying hidden among humankind. She was also a walking, talking wealth of information, and sarcasm, with an encyclopedic brain and quick wit.

Jasper respected the woman. More so since she’d whipped his ass at chess, the last tailgating party they’d had before they watched the Seattle Hornets give up yet another win to those damned Philadelphia Ferrets. Nasty fuckers.

Still, he’d been shocked to shit when he’d learned about her plans to retire earlier this year. Just when she’d entered her sixth month of leave, some funny business had ended with a couple of dead bad guys near her Indian Lake cabin in upstate New York. Thank fuck she’d called in the cavalry and he and his brothers had swooped in to assist in the cleanup.

After that, he knew Jennifer could not stay away. She was like the rest of them, duty and honor bound to see this thing through. Hell, she loved working with them.

So much so that after the cleanup crew had come and gone, she’d asked Jasper to guard the Grizzly Bear Shifter couple and their young cub until the mess could get sorted.

That was one fun weekend up there in the mountains. Well, except for the snow that had still been there in March, and the dang drive. Four hours in a car was just too fucking long for him.

The only time he stayed in a vehicle for that long was when he was on vacation. Something Jasper hadn’t taken in far too long a time.

Something he planned to rectify. Maybe even right after the holidays. His father’s beachfront house was sitting all alone down in Miami. First, he had to see what the old general wanted, then he’d book the jet. New Year’s in paradise sounded pretty fucking perfect. Maybe he could bring that sexy little bartender.

A little flying, a little fishing, and if he was feeling feisty, a little fucking would make his antsy Wyvern relax. On cue, the big, scaly fucker growled and scratched at his skin.

Jasper closed his eyes and tried to rein back the enormous beast. If his Wyvern could just calm the fuck down, maybe his human side could recharge his batteries as well.

Grrrr.