The lights came on suddenly in the small work room roughly an hour later. Ashton, exhausted from her ordeal with an irate guest, sighed loudly. "Scott, you wouldn't beli—" she began, only to suddenly find herself pressed against the wall.

"Scott! What are you doing?" she asked heatedly. Her glamor fell away immediately as the concentration needed to maintain it was lost completely.

He shoved his nose into the crook of her neck then began to snuffle strongly at her throat like an animal. Weakly, she managed to shut the door with her foot and then locked it with trembling fingers.

The perfume in the air did not leave the room entirely when Ashton did. While Scott did possess slightly more coherence than before, he was not truly in his right mind. Inside his head, voices screamed and shrieked out denials, but the rapid pounding sound of his pulse and the blood rushing in his ears drowned them out.

Ashton's ears perked up. She acquired a nervous expression that soon gave way to a lustful glassy-eyed look just before her right thigh rose up against his hip. "Scott," she breathed out hoarsely.

"W-we can't," she implored him weakly. "I could be called away at any min-aaht!"

Her protest cut off by the sudden rise of his hand to her breast. Scott pressed hotly against her then rumbled out a slow, confident, "Mine."

"Scott! Please! I don't have any more pants," she pleaded with him in a cutely whiny high-pitched voice. Yet, her leg slid around and hooked around his backside. She insistently tugged him forward with her heel and calf.

Mind addled by the strange scent of the beautiful fox, he could only think of two things. The treasure belong to him, and the fact that treasure was concerned about her pants. He did the only sensible thing. Scott began to fumble with her buttons in order to remove her pants.

"No! We can't..." she whispered loudly in a scandalized tone. Her hips rotated forward and began to grind against him insistently. "We're at work. We could get fired," she said just before her ears flattened down and she began to snuffle at his head.

A knock suddenly came to the door, though Ashton was barely able to hear it due to the growing arousal. Scott heard it keenly, however. His head snapped toward the door, even as Ashton's face shot forward. She made a soft, pleasured, cry into his shoulder that was barely audible. The action caused her to miss the fact that Scott's eyes blazed dangerous with a bright red light. "Mine..." he rumbled in a low growl that most would not even hear if they were actually in the room.

"Ashton? Boss lady? You in there?" called a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

Scott squeezed her breast aggressively and stared at the door as if he dared the foolish thing to open. Ashton, somewhat out of her normal frame of mind at this point, nuzzled the side of his neck then slipped her tongue out and gently began to lick him. A sweet whimpering whine escaped her lips. What was work, again? Was it food? Was work tasty? It was impossible for her to think clearly in that moment.

"Thought I heard someone in there, but guess not," said the voice, possibly to someone else.

The red-eyed man listened carefully. It was easy to discern when the treasure thief turned and walked away from the door. As a human his senses were sharper than the average person, but nothing compared to those of a dragon. However, it was his treasure on the line. All of his attention, every cell in his body, was determined to guard what belonged to him.

However, something odd happened that change the moment entirely. He could barely hear it, but Ashton heard it clearly in spite of her overpowering arousal. The treasure thief proclaimed to someone else. "Try her radio again. That fiancé of hers seemed pretty insistent that something was going on."

"Bradly's here?" asked Ashton slowly, as though she were waking from a deep slumber. Her lust-glazed eyes slowly shifted. Soon, she bore a hateful expression.

"Mine." Scott's eyes narrowed even as his lips took on a feral sneer.

The sheer amount of her scent in the air, even after she had left the room previously, made it impossible for him to calm himself completely. Though, his body worked feverishly to try and overcome the effects the truth was that he never before experienced something quite like it. Even his draconic constitution, albeit muted slightly in human form, worked overtime to come up with a solution. For now, he was lost in a mental sea of hormones, rage, and the desire to guard his precious treasure.

"If he's here causing problems, I have to go deal with it..." she whispered in an apologetic tone. She drew her lower lip into her mouth then sucked on it briefly. A soft whine escaped her a moment later, "Dammit, Bradly..."

Scott growled at her when she tried to leave, but something in her eyes caused a flicker of comprehension within the chaotic maelstrom that was his mind. Confused briefly, by the shift in his mental state, Ashton was unfortunately able to escape with her clothing intact.

She sighed heavily once she made it into the hall. Expertly, she adjusted her clothes and hair on the move. A moment later, Scott blinked then staggered out of the door. He scented the air like a predator on the hunt then turned in the direction that Ashton had gone. His eyes narrowed once more. "Mine."

By the time he reached the security door which led from the personnel area to the store proper, the scent that kept his mind so addled dissipated to the point that he occasionally recalled flashes of what he was doing previously.

Scott blinked slowly then shook his head. A normal man would have succumbed from exhaustion within the first few minutes. Without the scent of his treasure to keep the pump primed he began to weaken, to tire, from his exertions. Unlike an actual encounter of the sexual variety there were no breaks on the treasure train. His blood raced through his veins and his heart hammered full-on for over an hour, even he bordered on exhaustion at this point, much like someone on the verge of crashing from a sugar rush.

He caught a whiff of her strange perfume. His engine revved slightly, and he continued forward. The sexy miasma of the work room continued to spill into the hall, finally diffusing the atmosphere of what had come before.

The scent of her led him to the front of the store. Ashton and Bradly argued back and forth, briefly, while employees and the occasional interested shopped gathered nearby.

Scott paid them no mind. The scent of her, it drew him like a moth to the flame. He stalked toward her, an animal on the hunt.

"Oh? So you can't talk? Huh? This place that much more important than me?" asked Bradly heatedly.

"It's over Bradly! I told you, I can't be with someone who lies and cheats on me!" exclaimed Ashton. "You need to leave, before we have to call the police."

"Call them! I don't give a fuck!" snapped Bradly. He started to say something else, but saw Scott stalking up to them, his eyes narrowed and his expression intense. "Oh, look. It's fat ass!"

All eyes turned to Scott, but he paid the peanut gallery no mind. The scene before him looked different to his lust-addled brain than the trailer park soap opera that everyone else saw. A thief had come for his treasure. The treasure was his, alone.

"You think she wants you? Is that it?" asked Bradly with a sneer. "Well, get over it you fat son-of—"

"Mine!" roared Scott angrily. He hissed at Bradly like an enraged serpent then exploded forward in a full-out sprint. Something in the man's eyes caused Bradly's to widen for a split second. Gone was the memory of a fat ass. In its place was a strange new sensation.

Much like the moment when the first small hairy mammal confronted a dinosaur at the beginning of mammalian history, something in Scott's eyes struck terror into the heart of the belligerent former fiancé. Was it the absence of remorse? Was it the rage? Was it the fact that for the briefest of instants his eyes seemed to glow red? It was impossible to know. The only thing he knew was a sense of overwhelming dread.

Bradly shrieked loudly then spun around and ran for the door. Scott never slowed down for a moment and remained dead-in behind him.

Over a dozen sets of eyes blinked, and then like a flood gate had opened the onlookers ran off after the duo. No one spoke in the moment, save for Scott. "Mine!" he snarled as he chased Bradly through the parking lot. His exhaustion forgotten, but still apparent due to the sluggishness in his body, Scott powered through his creeping weakness in search of the threat to his treasure.

"What's his?" asked Erin curiously as she stopped running after them.

"Ashton?" asked Kenna, curiously?

"That dude's ass," said Willie with a laugh mid-run. He was the security on duty, so he unlike everyone else, actually kept chasing after them. "I'm too old for this stuff, but man do I wanna be there to see how it ends."

Bradly dodged around the side of a truck and Scott was forced to skid to a stop. Soon, they spent a moment running a circle around a small compact car. Scott hissed at him and shouted mine several times.

"You're fucking crazy man!" snapped Bradly. His words caused Scott to stop cold, but the man's intense feral expression intensified. A low rumble echoed from the man's throat while his eyes narrowed dangerously.

Sensing a change in the dynamic Bradly tried to intimidate the fat ass, but his words came out in a high-pitched tone, "Bitch, I'll kick your ass!"

Instead of kicking Scott's ass, Bradly yelped when Scott leapt atop the hood of the car and lunged for him. Ashton's former fiancé narrowly avoided capture and opted to set out at a hard run once more.

Scott scented something different in the air, a certain something which caused his nose to wrinkle slightly. A distinctive brown mass flew from the bottom of Bradly's pants as the supposed hard ass ran for his life from what anyone else would think was nothing more than an irate fat man.

Bradly held no conscious knowledge of it. His human identity would not have allowed for such a thing. However, in the hinterlands of the most ancient aspect of Bradly's DNA, his body knew better. The small brown rat that lived inside of him understood the truth. The soul-crushing terror. The unforgiving nightmare. There was no possibility that he could fight back, he could only run if he wished to survive.

Flee little rat. Flee and burrow into the darkness of the earth. Tremble in existential terror and wait in desperate hope that the nightmare might choose to pass you by. The little brown rat that lived inside of Bradly knew well that it was no irate fat man that chased him, now. It was Jurassic Park!

Nigh-exhausted from his recent exertions, even the adrenalin induced rage that he felt could not keep Scott from losing ground. Tired even before this race across the parking lot began, he soon slowed to a steady walk. He panted heavily as Bradly continued to run off into the night, his body fleeing from the ancient terror that the little brown rat that lived inside of him experienced.

Through panted breaths he said, "Mine," while he watched the man flee.

A new voice caused Scott to whirl around quickly. The hint of a snarl on his lips.

"Man. I thought you'd get him there for a minute," said Willie between panted breaths of his own. The security guard held a ready smile on his lips while sweat poured down his face.

Scott blinked slowly at him then slowly tilted his head to the side. Was this one also after his treasure?

He could not form proper words at the moment, but as he gulped in copious amounts of Ashton-free air, some of his sensibilities soon began to return. When he did speak, it was to say, "Tired."

Willie laughed at him and nodded. "Man! I never knew you could run like that. Were you on the track team in school?"

Scott blinked at him, but said nothing as their eyes met. Willie froze in place. His body began to tremble slightly even as his eyes widened, and for some reason unknown to him he took a step back. Fear began to well up in his heart. Something about Scott in that moment caused a powerful sense of unease to rise up within the man.

The chaotic mind of the overly aroused and exhausted dragon in human form could make little sense of Willie's words at the moment, but the shivering meat seemed uninterested in his treasure. This strange trembling meat was of no concern. No remaining threats to his treasure hoard detected, Scott visibly began to relax.

Once Scott began to relax, the oppressive sensation of fear that clutched at Willie's heart lifted. The man blinked then shook his head rapidly. What was that? Was it just a case of the nerves? His mind quickly began to rationalize away the truth, but his body remembered. For one brief moment, the eyes of the small brown rat that lived inside of Willie had locked with the eyes of something that should be left alone and never disturbed again.