by Abigail Owen
She shook her head, and he stopped. Thankfully.
With sheer force of will, she turned her gaze back to Bleidd. The wolf shifter, seemingly oblivious to her and Brand’s silent interchange, continued. “We plan to set up some of my wolves in the town, positioning them where you saw them in the vision, but making sure they are in locations easily defensible once it starts.”
Kasia managed to nod. “I can tell you who I saw and where they were standing. Even what they were doing.”
“Excellent.”
“They’ll start with a fire run,” Ladon explained. “Go for the buildings and the trees close by, as well as any people or wolves they can see on the ground. Two or three of Uther’s people will make a sweeping pass over the area, one right after the other.”
The idea obviously being to burn most of the wolves alive and smoke out the rest.
“Only we won’t be there,” Bleidd said.
He pointed to five locations on the map, forming a circle around the town. “We’ll be here, waiting.”
“For what?” she asked.
“Us,” Ladon said. “We will attack from the sky, driving them to the ground. Then the wolves come in.”
“Where will I be?” she asked next.
“In this building.” Bleidd pointed to the map. “You and Maul can handle the fire. Wait for Ladon’s attack to start before you show yourself, then your job is to get the injured out of the fight and the outnumbered out of danger.”
“Got it.”
“We need Maul to contain any fire being created, to allow the wolves to come back in and join the fighting,” Ladon said. “Can he do that?”
The hellhound waited for her out in the street, unable to fit in the small building, but she knew his abilities. “Yes.”
“The objective is the king,” Ladon said. “If Brand takes out Uther, then the other gold dragons will be more likely to stop fighting.”
Right. Uther. The main reason Brand had mated her in the first damn place. His revenge would be easier to take, to finally fulfill that lifelong goal, with a phoenix tied to him by that bond. She didn’t need the reminder that she was just a stepping-stone. “Anything else?”
Brand narrowed his eyes. “Keep Maul at your side at all times.”
No doubt in her mind that was an order, but one she was willing to concede. “Yeah.”
“I mean it, Kasia. No sending him off to help one of us or one of the wolves. He’s your protection.”
She crossed her arms, mimicking his own posture. “I can protect myself. Besides, they’re not going to hurt me. I’m too valuable.”
His jaw set, and she knew whatever was coming out of his mouth next, she wouldn’t like. “Maul stays with you…or I do.”
She was right, she didn’t like that.
“And miss out on your revenge?” she scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
“Revenge?” Bleidd narrowed his eyes, glancing between them.
Kasia raised an eyebrow at Brand. He could bloody well explain it. His expression remained blank, but she could still tell by the twitching muscle in his jaw that she’d struck a nerve. She got it. He didn’t talk about his life. Hell, his life and her life were two sides of the same coin—lost a family and their place in the world thanks to a conniving, backstabbing dragon who wanted the throne, not to mention being abandoned by every other dragon who’d turned their backs, unwilling to stand up to bullies.
That didn’t make how he’d mated her to further his goals any easier a pill to choke down. She’d dedicated her life to protecting—her sisters, her secrets, even those dragon shifters caught up in a power struggle that boiled down to a few self-centered assholes. Brand included.
“I’m a bit lost here, guys,” Bleidd said.
She glanced his way. “Brand is the rightful heir to the Gold Clan’s throne. Uther killed his family and sent him into a secret exile of sorts. Now he intends to kill Uther and take it all back. And I’m the icing on the cake, because mating me makes him the High King.” She crossed her arms and swung to face her mate. “Isn’t that right?”
Brand leaned his knuckles on the table, a dark energy coming off him that just fueled her own anger. “I guess you have it all figured out.”
She gave him her best bored look. “Did I get anything wrong?”
“Yeah.” He shoved off the table and stalked toward her. “You.”
Kasia set her feet and held her ground. “Oh?”
“I didn’t mate you to become High King. I don’t want that position.” He stopped just shy of touching her.
If she breathed in hard, the tips of her breasts would brush his chest. Her traitorous nipples pinched, almost as if her body were reaching for his. “I don’t believe you.”
He barked a laugh that held no amusement. “No shit.”
Ladon interrupted their staring match. “Maybe we should give you two some privacy.”
Kasia stepped back. “No need. I have nothing else to say to him.”
…
Three hours had passed since she’d walked out and Brand had flown off with Ladon. They couldn’t have dragons here, but Uther and his people would expect to smell a phoenix, since they were coming for one, so she stayed. Maul was a different story. He’d teleported to the underworld where he could wait undetected and return at the appropriate hour.
She’d spent a quiet evening with Bleidd and the men who would be in the town when everything happened tomorrow. One of those men stood outside her room now, guarding her.
“I promised to protect Serefina’s daughter,” Bleidd had said when she protested. “Just because there are two daughters doesn’t make that promise any different.”
She’d shaken her head but accepted. Even now, if she flipped back over to face the door, she could see the shadow of two resolute boots in the light sneaking in under the rickety wood door.
Dammit, she should be asleep.
She shut her eyes tight, but her mind refused to stop spinning like a windmill in a tornado. Not about what would happen tomorrow. They were ready. Her vision had given them time to prepare. No, her mind wouldn’t quit going over every moment with Brand.
Every look, every word, every touch.
How had she gotten him so horribly wrong?
Gods forgive her, she’d chosen him. His mark might not yet grace her neck, but her heart had chosen him or he’d be a heap of ashes right now.
The hand that closed over her mouth was the first clue that anyone was even in the room with her. At the same time, a strong arm banded around her waist, and the heavy weight of a body came down on top of her.
A scream bubbled up her throat, only a cloth was shoved into her mouth, followed by duct tape.
I can’t breathe. Her panicked mind wouldn’t process anything else.
Roughly she was shoved to her back. Even in the dark, she’d recognize that face above hers from her visions.
Uther. The false king of the Gold Clan.
The shifter straddled her body. She thrashed in the bed, trying to somehow shove him off or wiggle out from under him, but he was bigger and stronger, and everything happened so fast. Even as she struggled, he managed to tie her hands to the bedposts with rough rope using knots he tightened to the point of pain, bringing tears that leaked out of the corners of her eyes.
He’s going to kill me.
A quick glance showed shoes no longer at her door. Instead, the light under the door was entirely blocked by something large, and a pool of dark liquid oozed its way across the rough wooden floorboards of her room. Her breath audibly hissed through her nostrils in sharp bursts, along with little whimpers in her throat, as she struggled to force air into her lungs and to think.
He’d killed her bodyguard.
A handsome face stared down at her—rugged with high, prominent cheekbones. His dark blond hair showed the e
arly signs of age. He had to be nearing that point when desperation would become a factor. Find a mate or start to rot.
He smiled. “You’re mine. Time to make that indisputable.”
Oh gods. He’s not going to kill me, he’s going to try to mate me. Is he crazy?
He didn’t know. She and Brand may have started the process, but no claiming mark branded her skin yet.
For less than a second, she considered letting it get to sex, just so she could take this asshole down, consuming him in her fire, but bile stung her throat at the thought. Fuck that.
She kicked out, and he put a hand to her throat and squeezed hard enough that she started to see stars. The pounding of her heart thundered in her ears as adrenaline and terror mingled in her mouth, adding a metallic taste to the cloth.
If Maul were here… But he wasn’t. He was in the underworld, waiting for the timing they’d arranged based on her visions. She didn’t even know if he could see her from there or not.
Fire. She could burn the ropes.
As the first rational thought penetrated the haze of terror, she called up the flames inside her, trying to ignite them. She needed them to teleport.
Uther squeezed harder, and her vision went patchy. “Light on fire and I cut off your air long enough to kill you.”
She couldn’t breathe, not just from his hands but from her fear, couldn’t find her fire anyway.
One hand remained at her neck as the other traveled down her body, pushing back the flimsy sheet to expose her body. She’d slept in only a T-shirt she’d borrowed from Angelika’s clothes and her underwear, providing no barrier, no protection.
With one hand, he fumbled with his pants. Hysterical laughter burbled up and out of her before she could stop the sounds, mingling with the tears and the terror. This was not how she thought she’d go.
“Psycho bitch,” he muttered as he struggled to pull his dick out of his pants.
“Brand!” Her mate’s name screamed through her mind, but she knew he’d be too far away to hear her. He was with Ladon, and they wouldn’t have circled back yet.
Suddenly, all the fear settled. It didn’t leave her, merely retreated to a corner of her mind where it couldn’t touch her, as cold resolve settled in her heart.
Brand was her destined mate. She’d made her choice, no matter his path to her. No fucking way was she letting this man take that from either of them.
Through the frozen core of pure rage an inferno slammed outward, outward from her. The resulting explosion ripped her from the bed, jerking one bound arm so hard against the restraints that she cried out at the pain. Not from her hands, like last time, but from every part of her. Everything disintegrated around her as the force flung her up and out.
Kasia flew through the air, along with flaming shrapnel, and slammed into the wall of another building, cracking her head against the stone siding before she dropped to the ground with a thud. She had no fucking clue how that happened and was pretty damn sure she’d dislocated her shoulder. Kasia managed to use her one good arm to yank the tape off her mouth and pull out the cloth, sucking in smoke-laden air.
Her body wanted to quit—to fall into the oblivion of trauma-induced sleep. But while her involuntary pyrotechnic folly had been explosive, it hadn’t been hot, not hot enough to affect a dragon, at least. Which meant Uther was still close by.
She forced herself to her feet, despite the nauseated dizziness swamping her senses, and gaped at the scene around her.
Her fire must’ve gone off like a bomb, because the building where she’d been sleeping was demolished, flattened in an instant, with a massive hole carved in the solid mountain below.
At least it had raised the alarm. Shifters ran out of all the other buildings, most already turned into wolves or making that transition as they ran.
The ruckus of voices all around her suddenly raised a notch, howls of warning passing through the village. Through the red haze of fire, she saw them. Golden dragons descended upon the wolf shifters, wings tucked back as they set up for the fire runs that Ladon had warned them about. They were going for the buildings and the trees. Only the wolves weren’t hiding in the woods yet, they were here. And Maul wasn’t here to control the fire; neither were Brand and Ladon’s men.
A terrible bellow, the blood-curdling screech of a wild animal, raised the fine hairs on her arms, the sound piercing. Kasia put her hands to her ears, only to feel a wetness seeping from them. When she pulled her hands away, crimson slashes of blood stained her palms.
My ears are bleeding?
To her right, a massive creature raised up into the dark, the fire from her explosion casting it in a golden glow. Uther had shifted.
A roar preceded a gale-force wind as Uther, now fully formed into his monstrous self, lifted from the ground, wings cast wide, forcing his body higher with each push against the air, his giant head swinging back and forth as he searched.
For her.
Kasia frantically glanced around, but there was nowhere to hide with the building at her back surrounded by a treeless mountainside and only the burning rubble of her little hovel in front of her. She raised her gaze just in time for Uther to find her, his head snapping as he zeroed in on her location.
He seemed to hover there for a moment, as if debating. Why? But then he angled his body, intent on her and her alone.
Likely, his next move would be to pick her up in those massive talons and take her away.
The hell with that, too.
Fight.
Kasia pushed past the fear and exhaustion and pain beating at her from all sides. She closed her eyes and summoned her power. And this time, she found it, found her strength, letting the soothing heat wash over her. As she pictured the lick of each flame, her body consumed by the conflagration, she held out her arms.
Rather than run, she opened her eyes. Thankfully, her sister’s borrowed clothing also appeared to be fireproof, remaining intact. Later, Kasia would have to ask how she’d gotten some. Flames now starkly illuminated the town as she faced the creature bearing down on her. Uther extended his legs, claws reaching, ready to pluck her from the ground. Kasia waited like she had that night—when another monster had tried to take her away while her mother tried to save her life.
At the last second, Kasia teleported, disappearing only to reappear less than a heartbeat later ten feet to her left.
Uther’s tail whipped by her with the sound of a freight train as he pulled up.
Kasia smiled grimly even as she allowed a shard of annoyance to pierce her newfound calm. Mental note to practice her skills in the middle of a personal attack if she survived this night.
Uther gained altitude and circled back around, clearly reassessing his options. Meanwhile, Kasia got ready to do it again. And again. And again. But she needed to save the wolves as well, and her reserves of power were already depleted because of what she’d used on that uncontrolled explosion. Rather than waiting for another attack, she took a moment to evaluate the chaos surrounding her, searching for wolves who needed help.
In a blink, she teleported to where Rafe—his red fur and white patch over the eye a dead giveaway—circled another grayish-brown wolf pinned under a jagged piece of lumber. From her explosion?
The second she appeared, he rounded on her, teeth bared. A snarl ripped from his throat.
Kasia held up her hands. “It’s me, Rafe.”
He held his defensive position for a moment as he stared at her intently. She didn’t blame him. Even her voice sounded different, raspy. Finally, he relaxed his position and gave her a nod.
“Can you help?” his voice growled inside her head.
“Let’s get you out of here,” she said.
Kasia pulled the flames back from her functioning hand, her other dangling limply at her side. She left the rest of her body on fire, but this allowed her to touch, not wanti
ng to seriously burn the wolves, who, unlike dragons, were not immune to flame.
She knelt and touched the wolf under the debris then opened her mouth to tell Rafe to touch her as well.
“Watch out!” Rafe yelled just before he shoved a shoulder into her, forcing her to the ground.
Pain spiked through her as her dislocated shoulder jostled. Kasia looked up just in time to see golden talons outstretched, feet away.
A scream rose, unbidden, then choked off when, from out of the darkness, another golden dragon barreled into Uther from the side.
Brand.
XVIII
In the split second before he’d struck, it seemed as though every emotion under the endless black sky had flown with him. Terror for his mate. Even a little pride as she’d faced down Uther, a dragon most other shifters, even dragons, wouldn’t mess with. Relief that he’d gotten there in time. Triumph. The time had finally come to take out the man responsible for his entire fucking life.
Got you, you son of a bitch.
Brand managed to sink his fangs into Uther’s shoulder as they tumbled down the slope of the mountain, crashing through trees, the trunks snapping under their weight and momentum like dry twigs in a drought.
All those emotions didn’t let up, mixing inside him, swirling with the bottomless hate he held for the creature whipping around in his grasp.
They slammed into the ground, hard, ploughing a deep trough in the earth as they slowed to a stop. Wedging a back leg between their bodies, Uther gave a hard shove, ripping himself out of Brand’s teeth and hold.
They both flipped over, gaining their feet to stare down their opponent across the small field separating them.
Uther turned so that the open wound on his shoulder was shielded by the rest of his body. Brand couldn’t see the damage he’d done.
I wish I ripped the entire leg off.
But he knew he hadn’t. Meanwhile, Brand did the same, keeping his injured leg out of sight, still healing from the dragonsteel bars of Ladon’s dungeons. Neither tried to take to the air. Other than mid-shift, a dragon was most vulnerable on takeoff, which took a few precious seconds to get their bulk moving. Another dragon close by on the ground could gut them while they tried. Flying was out.
