The Protector (Fire's Edge)

by Abigail Owen

  “Because we disagree with your assessment. He’s merely waiting for us to back down. Increasing the pressure may force his hand.”

  No shit. Except drawing that fucker out would be a mistake, inviting a worse retribution. Better to cut the head off a snake before taking the rattles, or he risked getting bit.

  “I see,” he said in his most neutral tone. “I’ll send out orders immediately.”

  Silence fell over the room. Maybe now they would get to the most important point?

  Zhuron flicked Mathai a hesitant glance before addressing Tineen. “Your mating suggestion was one we found quite…noteworthy.”

  “I thought you might.” He allowed himself a small smile.

  They weren’t saying no off the cuff. Already a sign in his favor.

  “Tell me,” Mathai said in that ultra-bored way of his. “What makes you think you are worthy of such an…alliance?”

  Tineen went into the same arguments he’d already posed to most of the Alliance members both when he first proposed this move but also individually since then. Ending with, “I believe my credentials speak for themselves.”

  The alpha of an enforcer team, appointed specially by his king. A black dragon shifter with a connection to royal bloodlines. Even the High King Pytheios himself would see the benefit of such a tie. Especially with the Black Clan now openly siding against him in the Kings’ War. Pytheios would want leadership in that clan tied to himself.

  Mathai lifted a single white eyebrow. “Do you have political plans beyond the reasons you’ve stated so far?”

  Tineen raised his chin. If all went well, not only would the Huracáns be removed and punished, but so would these men. Weak excuses for leaders, all of them. The High King would need someone familiar with the Americas colony to step up. “I’m a fighter,” he demurred. “Always will be.”

  The men in the room exchanged a series of glances. All except Mathai who kept his gaze on Tineen.

  “Very well,” he said. “You have our permission to mate.”

  Gods damned right he did. “And the Mating Council?”

  Mathai waved a hand. “Given the current upheaval in the clans, Pytheios has granted the Alliance in each of their colonies full powers to determine best steps in certain cases.”

  As he’d suspected. The Kings’ War was good for something, it seemed.

  “Excellent.” He cocked his head. “May I share this news with my intended?”

  Beyond a small twitch to his expression that might have been amusement, Mathai merely waved a single hand. “You may not. We’ll observe the traditions properly. As the leader of the Alliance, I’ll be the one to share this news with the female and make the arrangements.”

  “As you wish.”

  Tineen hung up the video call with a tap of his long, tapered finger then stalked from the room, more pleased than he’d anticipated being at this turn of events—expected or not.

  They didn’t know it yet, but the Huracáns were now dead in the water.

  …

  The second Levi closed the door to his own suite behind him, he was already having doubts about leaving Lyndi on her own to reason herself out of anything good that could happen between them. She never reacted the way he expected. Not once.

  What was he thinking?

  At the same time instinct told him to stick to his guns. He hit the shower in his own room, tugging another one out as the hot water sluiced over his skin and he closed his eyes reliving every single thing he and Lyndi had just done together.

  After dressing, he headed downstairs to find Drake and Finn. The last thing he was going to do was keep this a secret from the men he owed his allegiance to. His teammates had had enough upheaval lately without another surprise.

  Levi moved through the empty family room area and found most of the team still in the massive modern kitchen, all pale gray granite and dark wood cabinets. Rivin was already at the sink, cleaning up. Which meant he and Lyndi had missed breakfast.

  “Hey,” he said. “Where’s Drake?”

  Delaney glanced up from her half-finished plate of chocolate chip pancakes and had to tuck her tawny-colored curls out of her face. “Still downstairs with Finn in the war room,” she answered.

  Levi nodded and grabbed an orange from the basket of fruit on the island, then went to leave.

  “Hold up there, speedy. Where’d you go?” Hall asked. The green dragon was still sitting at one of the stools around the kitchen island. He was watching Levi closely, jet-black brows raised slightly.

  “Showering.” The image of Lyndi, eyes alight and mouth open as she came all over him, had his cock pressing against his zipper uncomfortably.

  Hall leaned back and ran a hand over his short hair, the burr of sound just as annoying as his sarcastic smirk now in full view. “Try again. Anything to share with the team?”

  Damn. He and Lyndi must’ve been louder than he thought, or he still smelled of her. He had to resist the urge to sniff his skin. Instead, Levi shot Hall what was hopefully an easy grin. “Nope.”

  “Not good enough,” Rivin popped off behind him.

  “Not even a little bit,” Keighan chimed in.

  Even Delaney, who’d been studiously pretending not to listen, raised her head.

  He’d expected their good-natured ribbing when this came to light; he just wasn’t in the mood to deal with it right now. Rather than answer, he turned again to leave.

  Kanta didn’t let him walk away. “This is a big deal that could impact the entire team,” he pointed out quietly. “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

  Levi stopped in the doorway, then slowly turned to face them, taking in Kanta’s steady expression.

  “Skip the ancient folksy wisdom, please,” Hall begged.

  “Aristotle is not folksy,” Kanta replied, about as offended as the man ever got.

  Hall ignored him, addressing Levi instead. “The man has a point, though.”

  Kanta was right, of course. Then again, Levi already knew all this. The complications with the team were yet another reason he’d stayed away from Lyndi all these years.

  “It’s beginning stages, so there’s not much to say. Give us space.” He eyed Rivin and Keighan in particular, but also Hall, who could be a sarcastic bastard when he wanted to be.

  “What?” Rivin said, the epitome of innocence.

  “Do not fuck this up for me. She’s skittish enough. In fact, don’t bring this up to her at all.”

  “I’m sure the guys will be…kind,” Delaney assured him, with warning looks of her own for the other men. Her friendship with Lyndi no doubt drove her support of him.

  “She’ll be suspicious if we suddenly aren’t us,” Keighan pointed out, despite both warnings.

  “If you can’t close the deal, man…” Rivin let the thought hang.

  Unbidden, Levi’s dragon let loose a warning growl that had every man in the room tensing, eyes glowing in direct response to a threat.

  “Got it.” Rivin and Keighan straightened at the same time. “Off limits.”

  Almost as one unit, they stood and headed out of the room, Rivin slugging Levi in the shoulder on the way by.

  Hall, however, rubbed at the bump in the bridge of his nose—one Drake had put there with his fists after he learned Hall had been feeding Rune information while they all thought the man a traitor—as though deciding if he wanted to risk rebreaking it. Apparently he needed a longer beat to reel in his instinctive reaction to Levi’s growl. Dragons didn’t respond well to direct challenge, which was what Levi’s dragon had just issued. But eventually Hall followed the others out.

  Kanta, though, risked his neck to come right into Levi’s space, his deep green eyes serious. “Don’t approach this on your own.”

  “Which means what?”

  “This is Lyndi we’re talking abou
t. She’s family. Not some unknown human who we don’t have an emotional attachment to.”

  Levi said nothing, though he listened.

  “Where do you see this headed? You’re out of here soon.”

  Top of the list of his problems.

  Mate, his dragon insisted. Levi rolled his shoulders against the sudden tension that one word sent through him. So damn complicated. “Where this is headed is entirely up to Lyndi.”

  Kanta leaned forward suddenly, in his face. “That’s a bullshit cop-out and you know it.”

  Levi blew out a hard breath. “Yeah. Well…when I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

  Kanta studied him for a minute then nodded. “Fair enough. I’m an ear when you need one.”

  “Thanks, man.” Levi hardly registered Kanta walking out, leaving him in the quiet, only the hum of the dishwasher interrupting the silence and his own thoughts.

  Delaney suddenly got up, making him jump, because he’d forgotten she was there. “Anything to add?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “You’ll figure it out. Both of you.”

  He wasn’t so sure. “Thanks.”

  With that, Levi headed down the winding staircase to the next level. They had an elevator system too, but none of them liked to take it, except maybe Lyndi and Drake. Red dragons who lived in Everest had no choice—the size of that mountain made elevators the efficient way to travel. But most of their kind avoided the contraptions. Too easy to be trapped. Probably an irrational fear, given their strength, but there you had it.

  Silence came from the open door to the war room, wafting down the hallway to him. Regardless, he knew the room was not empty. Popping his head around, he found the two men seated in front of the paneled wall of monitors.

  “Any sign that the fire is starting back up?” he asked.

  Neither man twitched nor even turned to acknowledge him. No surprise there. He hadn’t been quiet about coming down the hall.

  “None,” Finn said.

  Levi stepped closer, casting his gaze over the screens showing the area in Nevada where it had originated. It had been a small flash of a fire but had lit up white on their system that monitored the heat signature. White was damn hot, a sure sign of dragon fire. An interesting trap to attempt, if that’s what it had been.

  “Don’t you have bigger problems?” Drake muttered. Even mating Cami hadn’t changed his grumpy ass. Much. Around her, at least, the red dragon softened.

  He also wasn’t wrong. “I’ll worry about my leaving in a week.”

  Drake grunted. His form of affirmative.

  “What do you need?” Finn asked, swiveling his chair around to ask Levi the question.

  “I wanted to inform both of you that Lyndi and I…”

  Damn.

  He had every intention of being straightforward here but hadn’t thought through the wording.

  Drake swung around sharply from the desk to face him. “You and Lyndi what?”

  “I intend to pursue her. You need to be aware.”

  Nothing from his lover’s brother. A wall of silence. Difficult to discern his reaction when his expression was a perpetual scowl.

  “You wait almost two hundred years to make your move now? When you’ve been called back?” Finn asked. His expression remained neutral, but his tone said it all.

  Levi got quieter in response. “I’m well aware the timing sucks balls.”

  “Understatement of the century.”

  He ignored Drake’s snide aside. “This is the first time she’s indicated she wanted me to make a move.” Of a sort. After all, he wouldn’t have made a move if he hadn’t seen her face after the announcement of his being called back…or her tears.

  “What a dumbass,” Drake muttered under his breath.

  “Fuck off,” Levi said, almost affably and quieter still.

  Drake looked at him closer, seeming to reconsider his approach. A rare thing for him to reconsider anything.

  “Where is this headed?” Finn asked, glancing between the two men.

  Levi dragged his gaze to their leader. “Right now, I have my hands full just getting her not to shut me out completely.”

  “Do you plan to mate her?” Drake asked.

  Finn shot him a look. “When you first started things with Cami could you have answered that question honestly? Even to yourself?”

  Levi let go a silent breath, because Finn was spot on. He wasn’t ready to answer that question. Yes would be the shortest path to the truth. But this was Lyndi. He knew her hang-ups when it came to mating. Everyone knew.

  “So what do you want?” Drake grumbled. “My blessing?”

  “I want no secrets in case this blows up. Consider yourselves informed.”

  Through Drake’s grunt Finn stood up offering a hand and a grin. “Good luck.”

  Yeah. He’d need it.

  …

  Sneaking around made Lyndi feel like she’d covered herself in baby oil. Just gross and wrong on so many levels. But that’s exactly what she was doing.

  Mind-blowing sex with Levi hadn’t just scratched an itch—it made her burn with a need for more.

  She’d had other lovers. Few and far between. Many dragons took human lovers while they waited for their mates, and she vaguely knew Levi had from time to time based on subtle comments. None that had made any big impact on him, though. She hadn’t had human lovers. Instead, she’d taken dragon lovers, mostly while she’d lived in Everest. The pickings were fewer out here. Even back then, before Levi, those encounters had felt…hollow. Just a release. Because she was never going to be the woman those men chose.

  In almost every way, things would be a thousand times easier if what just happened with Levi was the same. A release and move on. But giving herself to him had been nothing like those others.

  Nothing.

  She couldn’t—she shouldn’t—let herself want more. One time was for a small piece of a memory to hold close with fondness after he was gone. More than once, even in the short time they had left, ran the dangerous risk of turning into more than just panty-melting, mouth-watering, heart-pounding sex.

  Life-altering sex, a small voice tacked on.

  She ignored the voice, and taking the coward’s path of avoidance, poked her head into the family room to find most of her boys lounging in front of the TV in various drooping states across the comfy couches. The baseball game they were watching held zero interest, but at least Levi wasn’t in here, which strangely had her both breathing easier and wrestling with a frustrating tweak of disappointment.

  Disappointment was bad. That whispered of a need deeper than orgasms.

  “Hey Lyndi-Loo-Hoo,” Mike sung out, swinging his leg over the arm of the couch. She’d long ago gotten used to his almost pink eyes, which reminded her of an albino mouse and somehow fit his goofy, rarely serious personality perfectly.

  “Mikey-bo-bikey,” she sang back, trying to sound normal.

  “We’re heading to the house in a bit. It’s Attor’s turn to babysit and we thought we’d go with him. Want to join?”

  Back to her house he meant. The halfway house for dragon shifters—providing motherless dragons in the Americas colonies with a home so they wouldn’t have to go rogue. Orphans weren’t the most stable of shifters, which was why their communities didn’t take them in. Hell, some of those kids, when she’d found them, had been this side of feral, which was why only the oldest and most controlled—Mike, Coahoma, Attor—had been pulled into the enforcer team.

  The other sixteen boys had moved into the headquarters for a short time before Drake had been set as the new alpha by the Alliance. As a visible display to that governing body that the Huracáns were returning to normal, the youngers had moved back to her house.

  Luckily, those still struggling with control had bonded to other boys in the house rather
than to her, which meant she wasn’t leaving them vulnerable. And Mike, Coahoma, and Attor traded out with her staying at the house so that an adult was always present.

  Even with the extra help, she tried to go home as often as possible when she wasn’t on call or training with the team. Every time she did, she sort of expected to see the place leveled. As things stood, pigsties were less filthy. She seemed to be the only adult who bothered to enforce chores. It wouldn’t hurt to have a chance to knock the boys into cleaning up under her stricter eye.

  “Sure. Come get me when you go.”

  As casually as she could, she wandered into the kitchen. Delaney and Cami glanced up from where they sat at the long kitchen table with their coffee cups. Despite the length of time she’d spent with the guys on the team through the years, Lyndi had to admit she’d needed these women in her life.

  Delaney was tall and slender, an elegant flier in dragon form, and as brave as anyone Lyndi knew. Beautiful with her dove gray eyes and cream-colored skin that would tint pink over her cheekbones when Finn whispered in her ear—no doubt naughty things—she had survived the loss of her family and believing she’d set fires to their winery until she’d learned she was a dragon shifter.

  Cami, meanwhile, with her dark hair, the smoothest terra-cotta skin, and the deepest brown eyes, was softer, sweeter. Maybe because she’d been raised by a large and loving family. Humans she continued to protect and worry over. Lyndi’s sister-by-blood was exactly what Drake needed to pull him out of his perpetually grumpy state.

  Only Sera was missing, still in hiding with Aidan and her son Blake. Maybe someday all of them would reunite, in safety, without having to keep it a secret.

  This was not that day.

  “Give me one of those,” Lyndi groaned as she made her way to the coffee pot, filling her cup with the needed black brew then stirring in so much cream and sugar it basically turned into dessert.

  She dropped into the chair at the short end between her two friends and buried her face in the mug.

  “Long night?” Delaney asked, eyebrows raised.

  Long life. But right now this was more about needing to find equilibrium and her damn common sense, because Levi leaving her still wanting shouldn’t feel like her life had a gaping, empty hole right in the center. A big fat donut of lonely nothingness.