Lost in Amber (RELIC #4)

by Maz Maddox

Whatever this piece was, it was worth a mountain of cash from a buyer that was willing to risk upsetting high rollers in China. We were likely stepping into a war to try and snatch this fossil from the greedy grips of warring factors. I couldn’t wait to get started.

“I won’t let everyone down. I’m more than just the…nerd in the chair, as Kelly says.”

“How?” “Same as you.” He stole my water and took a sip. “I survived and adapted.” “But I shot you.” I felt the blood drain from my face the moment I said it. He swallowed a gulp of water and nodded. “Hard to forget that part.”

How the hell this man found me, after all this time, was a strange sort of witchcraft I couldn’t fathom. He had come back from the dead and walked through time and sat next to me as if we were old friends.

“Why are you buying fossils?” He turned his gaze to me. “Sentimental value? Miss being a coelophysis?” “Of course I miss being a coelophysis. Everyone does.” I narrowed my eyes. “You’re being sarcastic.”

“Is that your angle, then? Show up and try and botch fossil deals?” “No.” Yulong ate another bite. “I came for the free dinner.”

You never forget your first time. My first kiss was from a poet in secret, hiding away from his parents. The first time I had tea, I sat on the steps of someone’s home and watched the sunrise. My first time making love as a human was with a woman betrothed to a lord. The first time with a man was a dockworker who smuggled me out of China. And the first time I was shot with a gun was by an American with wavy auburn hair, freckles, and amber eyes.

I had forgotten his voice years ago, but I remembered his face. I remembered that strange piece of sugar he had gifted me and how he jumped when I touched his cheek. I had pushed away hopes of finding him again a lifetime ago.

I loved Chinese antique shopping almost as much as I loved learning about genetic manipulation and paleopathology. No, I didn’t go on a lot of dates, but I had a killer collection of beautiful teapots.

“The best-preserved dinosaur in amber that has ever been found at ninety percent complete.” “It’s stunning,” I whispered. “Stunning.”

That son of a bitch Yulong had stolen my fossil and disappeared into the heart of Shanghai. And I had no earthly idea how the hell I was going to find him.

Trouble. It was something like trouble, but not the type Montana was referring to. Big, pretty eyes the color of ruby oolong looking up at me, freckles lost in a flush of pink—that was trouble.

My plan had been to distract him with chitchat or maybe get him drunk, but the moment he looked up at me with those eyes, hungry for affection and flushing from the attention…. Hell. It was too tempting not to push just a little bit.

Instead of endless forms most beautiful, we were two forms most awkward. We each had a human form and a prehistoric one, all wildly different.

I had been so close to finally getting him to unwind, and it was plucked away with that fossil. All my work had been undone, and it was very tragic. He had gone back to being a manic bundle of nerves.

But,” he stepped around me and pointed, the gesture more a jab, “no bunk. No double cross. This is a gentleman’s promise. We work together, find the fossil, and then we’ll settle this between us.”

I was told once by a poet that the people you meet are the brushstrokes that paint who you are. Each of them contributes to the picture.”

“We’re these walking portraits of people who are long gone.” “That’s not sad,” I said. “That’s how they live forever.”

“Bugs. I knew you were small.” “What do you mean you knew I was small?” He bristled. “It suits you.” His pout was back. “I don’t appreciate what that implies. I’ll have you know I am average height for a man born in the 1920s.

The kiss consumed me, tugged at the deep, feral beast hidden inside of my human form, and melted my sensibilities into a useless puddle.

“I don’t hate you, Lance.” “Of course you do.” He pleaded with me to understand, which I was slowly beginning to. “I would hate me. I would despise me for that pointless act of violence. It was a rock. It was just a hunk of rock, but I didn’t see it that way.”

“We’re the same as you.” Lance motioned between them and us. They blinked. “Chinese?” “No! My God.” Lance tossed his hands up in frustration. “Well, Yulong is, but I’m clearly not.” “He means we’re shifters,” I corrected. “We can do what you do.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to handle this before he—” “They,” Xiang corrected. “I’m too prehistoric for genders.”

I knew their type, dated their type, and woke up with a stolen wallet more than once. Lesson very learned.

Candy was both completely ruined for me and a new source of fantasies, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about either.

He didn’t say anything, and that was so terribly loud.

Weaving through the kitchen, Yulong snagged a hammer from a table and a screwdriver, before inching out into the closed hotel restaurant. I grabbed a pair of pliers and realized it was stupid, but felt obligated to hold onto them anyway. This was not my expertise.

They would die if they got too close. It didn’t matter that I only reached their thighs, nor that I only weighed about forty pounds; I would destroy them.

“What is that?” one guy asked. “Is that a turkey?” “That’s not a turkey. I don’t know what that is.”

“We have some unfinished business.”

You never forget your first time. Having a small, forty-pound ball of angry feathers defend me from a couple of gangsters was definitely a first for me.

Lance was a bundle of poof and rage, the feathers along his neck a rich brown with black roots and white tips.

To a rival or a prehistoric predator closer to his size, that would have been very chilling. To the humans gawking at the strange bird, it was just…weird.

For as innocent and sweet as he seemed, I hadn’t expected such a delicious display of experience, but the man had been around a hundred years. I was blessed by his century of practice.

It was much easier to fall into lustful cravings than unpack what the hell Yulong was implying.

I was fairly sure I just fell into a very deep, very bottomless, heart-shaped pit when it came to this suave, handsome, headache-inducing man.

I thought I was eaten alive at the museum, but he had merely played with his food compared to this kiss—this all-consuming attack that had me groaning for more.

My brain was in the process of melting out of my nose, so my response was a mumbled nothingness about condoms in the bag.

“There’s no way to know if there’s any DNA inside until we get in there. It’s likely long dead and unusable, but…it’s worth a try.” Yulong watched me, eyebrow lifting. “You know they made a series of movies about why that’s a bad idea.”

I shimmied myself out of my larval state to poke my head out and was greeted by the morning-sun-kissed body of a still-naked Yulong.

Instead of a small bundle of genderless thievery entering the room, it was a tall, mountainous white guy.

“There’s also mention of a large, feathered creature that caused issues with some of the men.” “That was me,” I said quickly. “I shifted and—” “No,” Montana cut me off, shooting me a stony look. “They called you a small, rabid goose.” “Excuse me.”

“I’m guessing you left Joseph at home? Or does he go by ‘Reaper?’” Yulong cut his eyes to Montana, and I saw the darkness cloud the stoic tyrannosaur’s eyes. Montana’s voice grew icy and sharp. “Reaper was my mate, and he’s passed. Watch what you say next, Ruben, or I’ll end this right here.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry I keep hurting you.” “Gunshots heal,” he said simply, sounding far away.

For a little while, I let myself daydream of us travelling the world and making up for lost time. Two immortal souls finding bliss in each other’s arms. I was a damn fool.

I felt my chest expand, my breath stuck against the beating of my heart. “Oh. Crap,” I said in an exhale. “Is this what swooning feels like?” “Give me a break,” Ruben grumbled beside me, but I ignored him. “He’s not even that big.”

“They think I knocked that asshole down for them. I was getting the fossil, not you. Stop fucking chirping at me.” Xiang chirped more, sounding very delighted.

“That day in the tent, you asked if I could see the connection between us,” Yulong whispered, nose brushing against mine. “I see you, Lance. I see you. I know this is messy and complicated, but if you think for a moment I’m leaving this country without you at my side, you’re dead wrong. I’m not spending another century without you, Lance. We’re going to work this out.”

“Tyrannosaurs are such blowhards, Lance. It had to be a damn tyrannosaur?”

“No arguing. Now stop crying, or your boyfriend is going to think I was mean to you.