The Protector (Fire's Edge)

by Abigail Owen

  He deserved more than what she could give him.

  Or, more accurately, what she couldn’t give him.

  “Please tell me you weren’t out late looking for that orphan,” he shot at her next, still not turning around.

  “What do you have against my boys?” she shot back, keeping her voice hushed.

  His back stiffened visibly, like a golden marble statue. “Nothing. I have a thing against you being out there on your own. It’s dangerous.”

  Misogynistic ass.

  Levi spoke louder, to the entire room. “This fire is in western Nevada. We shouldn’t need the entire group.”

  Implying that they didn’t need her. Yet again. Levi always seemed to be trying to keep her from going out with the enforcer team. Or was it from going anywhere with him?

  “Bite me,” she muttered. Then glanced around for something to throw at his thick head.

  He would have to be on call with her again. Especially maddening given that his smooth as sin voice gave her highly inappropriate, and even more annoying, thoughts, no matter how hard she tried not to think them. Thoughts like what it might feel like if he growled against her skin—

  “You’re late, Lyndi.” Drake’s voice broke through the start of a horribly detailed fantasy.

  Lyndi smoothed out her scrunched-up face and stepped out from behind the human wall in front of her. “I’m on my period,” she announced.

  She had to swallow a chuckle as the men in the room shuffled their feet. Poor male suckers. The period excuse worked like a charm to shut them up. Every. Single. Time.

  Well…all except Rivin and Keighan. The two white dragon shifters—best friends, incessantly horny, and known to be up for a threesome or more—shot her twin grins of devilry.

  “Really?” Rivin smirked, dark hair flopping over one eye.

  “Let’s go get messy,” Keighan, taller and blonder and less swarthy, followed up immediately.

  Lyndi wrinkled her nose. “Gross—”

  A low rumble of a growl reverberated from Levi, cutting her off, and Lyndi wasn’t in the least surprised to find his eyes glowing copper with fire, setting a glittering glow to his already gold-toned skin. She crossed her arms and sent him yet another glare. The down-and-dirty dorks meant nothing by it, and Levi knew that. Besides, she could damn well stand up for herself, and, unlike the humans in this era who seemed to exist in a state of constant offense, she could also tell when the guys were joking.

  Keighan held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just kidding, Lyndi.”

  “Yeah, L,” Rivin said. “Call off your guard dog.”

  “He is not my guard dog,” she snarled at the same time Levi uttered a level but firm, “I am not her guard dog.”

  “Let’s stay on topic,” Drake snapped. “Lyndi, I want you at center.”

  Meaning the protected spot in the formation.

  “Center, but—”

  “You show up late, you don’t argue. Deal with it. Period or not.”

  Lyndi snapped her mouth shut but nodded. Drake was right; she should’ve been better prepared. “Where’s the fire located?”

  “Smith Valley, southeast of Lake Tahoe.”

  “Hot?”

  “Yes, but small so far. Spreading fast thanks to the winds and the dry winter,” Drake confirmed with his usual grim-faced expression.

  On his nod, they all headed up several levels and out through the secret door into the exterior building that covered the main entrance to the mountain. Set up to look like the headquarters for a human hotshot firefighting crew—their cover story these days—the space was both a training room with various workout equipment, offices, and small bunk-style living quarters.

  Lyndi ignored the way Levi held the door for her, stopping and pointedly waiting for him to go through first, which he did after a pause and shake of his head. Like he was disappointed in her.

  They exited the building into the chilly night air, lovely against her dragon-hot skin. Under the cover of a moonless night, the five of them shifted. Lyndi turned her back on the men and closed her eyes, smiling as she brought forth her dragon. Soft as a whisper, at the lick of her will, her form changed, absorbing her humanity, even her clothing, and shimmering, mirage-like, into her dragon.

  As she grew and her body reformed, she pitched forward onto taloned claws. Razor sharp spikes protruded from her back, lying flat against her scales. Wings near to thirty feet in length extended to either side of her. She gave them a satisfying flick before settling them against her sides.

  If it hadn’t been nighttime, her scales would look much different, the dark, glittering red brought out by direct light. Like hidden fire. It made it almost impossible to camouflage for daytime flying, but in the dark, she was damn near invisible.

  Okay, maybe she had two vanities.

  Lyndi gave herself a shake, stretching and arching her back like a sleepy cat waking slowly from good dreams. Also like a cat, without warning, she sprang into the crisp night air, her soul soaring with each stroke of her wings. Gods she loved to fly. Once she reached altitude, she tipped to the left, circled around, and came in line behind her brother with Rivin, Keighan, and Levi in a row behind her.

  She’d prove herself to all of them eventually. Even Mr. I-Don’t-Think-Lyndi-Should-Do-This. He didn’t think she should do anything. Leave the mountain by herself. Run away from her clan to come to the Americas. Even start her orphanage. But where would her boys, many now men, be without her?

  Dead. That was where.

  Following her brother, she shot through the inky night sky, aiming for a higher altitude and the lazy clouds floating by overhead. After a while, nearing the location of the fire, Levi popped up beside her, misty cloud clinging to his body then falling away in a swirl of white.

  Irritation was like a hot lance through a boil. Levi was supposed to remain behind with Rivin and Keighan. Breaking formation was going against their set plan, something he usually didn’t do. Which meant he was up here to keep a closer eye on her.

  “Go away,” she said. “Drake’s dead ahead of me. I can handle myself and don’t need you flying in my shadow. I sure as hell don’t need a babysitter.”

  The scales on his neck rippled, like a wave of living copper, in visible displeasure. “I am not your babysitter.”

  “You think you’re being protective. I call it annoying and stifling.”

  “And I call it the only way I can be.” The snap to his voice had her scowling even before the words sank in. Levi didn’t snap. He was always reasonable. Even when she yelled, the louder she got, the calmer he got.

  Before she could reply, something grabbed her by the tail, sending shards of pain shooting from that point up her spine, and yanked her down. In an impressive maneuver, Levi leapfrogged over her in time to take the brunt of the impact from a second dragon who would’ve flown straight into her with the speed of a freight train.

  Except Levi, copper scales glittering against the black scales of their almost invisible attacker, managed to flip, flinging the fucker directly between Rivin and Keighan. The two white dragons went at it like a pair of rabid dogs, one with his teeth sunk into its neck and the other on its tail, rendering the mace-like tip ineffective. The black dragon bleated a call for help as they drove it straight down, toward the rolling mountains below. Whatever, or whoever, had grabbed her let go and disappeared into the night in a whisper of shadow.

  That call for help brought an answering series of blasts from north of their position. Ten at least. But who?

  The sound must’ve distracted Rivin and Keighan, because the dragon they’d been pummeling shot away from beneath them. The two went to go after him but pulled up sharply at Drake’s command.

  “Dive,” Drake ordered. “Take cover on the ground.”

  A smart move. Outnumbered and against attackers they knew not
hing of—potentially all black dragons, whose stealth made them deadlier than most—it was better to disappear and return to fight another day. Lyndi had obeyed before her brother had finished the first word, tucking her wings in close to her body and elongating as she pointed her nose at the ground.

  Levi appeared in her periphery, aligning his descent with hers, side by side, his soft belly turned toward hers so that they were both equally protected. The man was diving upside down, inverted to her.

  “Show-off.” She flung the thought at him. Gold dragons weren’t supposed to be the trick fliers. That was green dragons, or even blue, though they were known more for speed. Gold, on the other hand, were the brute force—bigger, pure muscle, and damn scary with it.

  “If you’ve got it…” came an even smoother, sexier version of his deep voice, sliding through and doing unfortunate things to her body.

  Her dragon shuddered at the sudden slash of need. A need she’d been alternately fighting and ignoring since the day she’d arrived. One that scared the hell out of her because she knew it could go nowhere.

  “Hold,” Levi instructed, thankfully oblivious to her momentary lapse into lustful recklessness.

  Irritation had always been her best defense, and she didn’t even have to conjure it up now, managing to not respond, focused on landing. Timing things so that they slowed at the last minute while still avoiding misjudging the height of the taller pine trees or slamming into the earth at over a hundred miles an hour required concentration.

  “Now,” Levi said even as she peeled away, pulling her head up and flaring her wings wide, tipping them to catch the air like giant sails, her body jerked to almost a full stop midair, just in time to touch lightly down.

  Already, Rivin and Keighan had shifted. They huddled under the cover of dense bushes at the base of a fall of boulders. Pushing her body to the edge of pain, Lyndi shifted quickly as well, then ran on light feet toward where they waved at her, doing her best not to cause any sound one of the dragons above them could catch. Only each step produced a shock of pain that lanced down one leg from her back.

  That asshole tail-grabber had hurt her more than she’d realized.

  Without warning, a thick arm banded around her stomach and yanked her right off her feet and under a different bush. She landed with a grunt she managed to only make in her head, swallowing the sound down.

  Levi put his lips to her ear, his whisper barely audible. “Don’t move.”

  Barely, she kept from wiggling, going as still as a mouse in the jaws of a cat. Only he didn’t let her go. They sat on the ground, her between his legs, which were bent at the knees on either side of her hips, his arm still solidly around her, his hard-as-steel chest pressed tight against her back.

  She never allowed herself to get this close.

  Damn if instant heat didn’t swamp her, molten at the junction of her thighs, setting her to pulsing in time to her heartbeat and pushing the pain in her lower back clean out of her head.

  No. No. No. No. Now was not the time to let this unspoken, unacknowledged, lethal thing she felt toward him hold sway.

  Lyndi forced herself to remain motionless, closing her eyes and reaching for calm. Control.

  But his own heat surrounded her along with that sweet scent of cigar smoke and the smoothest brandy, like earlier in the war room, just like his voice. Is that what his skin would taste like?

  Not the first time she’d wondered.

  “Are you okay?” he husked.

  “Fine.” Or she would be as soon as she could get away from him.

  Her wound wasn’t her biggest concern right now. All shifters had accelerated healing, part of what allowed them to live so long. By the time Drake gave the all clear, she wouldn’t be lying about that.

  A low grunt told her Levi didn’t believe her anyway, but for once he didn’t push her. After a pause, his arm relaxed against her and he uncurled his fisted hand, his fingers flattening against her belly.

  “Stay where you are,” Drake ordered. He must still be dragon to be communicating telepathically. Where was he anyway? “I’m going to check whether they’ve gone.”

  Against her, Levi’s body eased infinitesimally. She wouldn’t have known if she wasn’t plastered against him. Stiffening, she went to sit away from him, but he tightened his grip. “Hold still.”

  He was right. Until Drake gave the okay, she should hold exactly as she was.

  “You’re trembling,” he whispered, lips still at her ear, breath tickling. His fingers, which she was horribly aware of, brushed against her lightly. She might as well have been naked the effect that small touch had, sending electric sparks of need hissing through her blood.

  “Don’t,” she warned, voice low.

  The fingers stopped and he stiffened against her, muscles going rigid.

  Guilt, an emotion that had only grown over the years of keeping this man at a distance, overrode common sense. “I’m ticklish,” she lied.

  “Since when?”

  “You’ve never touched me there, so you wouldn’t have known.” She winced. Wrong choice of words. Way too much innuendo for comfort. Change of subject time. “You know, if you hadn’t been distracting me, that dragon wouldn’t have got so close without me sensing him.”

  “I wasn’t distracting you. I was just flying next to you.”

  “Go fly next to someone else.”

  “Back to the babysitting thing, are we?”

  She still didn’t want to talk about that. Lyndi snapped her teeth together, catching her lip, and the metallic taste of blood hit her tongue.

  “You know, I try to protect everyone on this team,” he pointed out, with a lingering hint of a chuckle. “It’s my job as beta.”

  She should gratefully accept the reprieve and keep her mouth shut. “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Not at you.”

  “At what, then?”

  Levi’s arm tightened around her. “I’m laughing at my own stupidity.”

  “Which means what exactly?”

  “Apparently no good deed goes unpunished when it comes to you,” he accused. “I’m trying to remind myself of that.”

  “I don’t need your good deeds, either.”

  A hiss escaped him. A sound of such frustration, so unlike Levi, that she tried to scoot forward slightly only to come up against the iron band of his arm.

  “What do you need then?” he asked. “Because I can smell it all over you. Your need…it’s torture.”

  Lyndi blinked as his words sank in, blindingly grateful the intimidating, gorgeous, massive dragon surrounding her couldn’t see her face. Did he really not know? After all these years trying to keep it in check, he’d never once sensed it before now?

  More importantly, was it good torture or bad torture? Because for her, he was both.

  He pulled her even closer and everything inside Lyndi froze at the evidence of her effect on him.

  No.

  Because if he wanted her, then… Fuck. Panic swam through her blood, bitter and sharp. Him not wanting her was what she’d clung to so that she wouldn’t act on the overwhelming need to claim him as her own.

  She steeled herself to do the right thing, to shut this down. So much harder to do—fighting him as well as herself. If she was only denying herself, that was one thing. She opened her mouth but the wrong words popped out anyway. “You’re not the only one who—”

  “Quiet.” Drake’s command was loud enough in her mind to make her wince.

  Lyndi mashed her lips together. Oh gods. What did I just say?

  Think, Lyndi. Because no doubt he’d ask. It could be anything, though. He wasn’t the only one who needed to protect her. Or who had responsibilities.

  Except the door was open now. The one she tried to pretend wasn’t there even as she fought to keep it locked. A glimpse of what she’d be
en blind to, and it hurt even worse to keep it closed.

  Every breath, hers and his, turned into a silent, incremental torture, the heat sparking in her making each tiny sensation sink into her then spread out, building into a delicious ache, upping her tension, and damn if she didn’t want to creep her hand into her panties and relieve…something. Or better yet, guide Levi’s there. And then turn around and return the favor.

  Behind her, around her, his body stiffened.

  “All clear.” Drake finally put an end to the forced proximity.

  Lyndi was out from under the bush and away from Levi like cannon shot.

  “The fire is out,” Drake continued. “A lure to bring us here is my guess. Back to headquarters.”

  The words had a staccato cadence, like a snake striking a boot over and over. Drake was pissed. And no wonder. This wasn’t the first trap set for them lately, and they weren’t entirely sure if these rebellions in their territory were caused by the upheaval with the kings or by a more sinister hand orchestrating in the dark.

  “You got it,” Rivin’s and Keighan’s voices chimed together. A flash of white to her right told her they were already in the midst of their shifts.

  Lyndi barely absorbed the order, too focused on facing Levi whose gaze turned from frustrated to searching as she stood, staring and saying nothing.

  Waiting.

  It seemed as though she was always waiting. Waiting for him to get out of her way. Waiting for him to support her without qualification or objection. Waiting for him to feel the same tension between the two of them that she did and make a damn move. And dreading that day even more.

  Which was why she pushed him away so hard.

  Levi said nothing. Just watched her waiting for him, a wary sort of tenderness in his eyes that sent her frayed nerves into overdrive.

  With a small shake of her head, she turned away and started her shift, not even bothering to give him space. He could damn well hop out of the way.

  “I’m not the only one who…what?” he demanded, apparently having shifted at the same time.