The Protector (Fire's Edge)

by Abigail Owen

  “I just did,” Keighan tossed back as they descended the stairs then walked through the family room, now empty. No doubt everyone in the mountain wanted to hear from Deep.

  They were the last to crowd into the oversize kitchen. She was going to make her way to Delaney and Cami who sat at the long table with Deep, Finn, and Drake, only Levi snagged her by the wrist and tugged her sideways to stand directly in front of him.

  He let go immediately, but she didn’t argue or move away. Couldn’t. Her dragon wouldn’t let her, as though she wanted to be around the gold goliath. With way less reluctance than she was willing to cop to, Lyndi stayed where she was, horribly conscious of him at her back. His heat, the smoke and brandy scent of him, his size—like gravity pulling her into his orbit.

  Then Deep, who sat right where she could see him, nodded at something Finn had been saying as they entered, and she focused, instead, on him.

  “I’m not going to sugarcoat this,” he said. “It’s rough out there and getting worse.”

  …

  Levi shifted his gaze from Lyndi’s stiff back and the strange urge to hook a finger through hers where her hands remained loose at her sides. Instead, he focused on the man who’d been the original alpha of the Huracán enforcer team, now semi-retired.

  A familiar ease settled over Levi, despite Deep’s unsettling words.

  With his craggy dark skin, reddish-brown eyes clouded with age, a shock of white hair, and steady demeanor, his old mentor was familiar in a way that bred a certain air of trust. Even now, if Deep had decided to issue an order, the original Huracáns—Levi, Finn, and Rune, had he been here—would no doubt have snapped to obey. Drake, too, though he’d joined the team a little later.

  After retiring, Deep and Calla had moved to their cabin. All the men had private cabins. The pair also lived and worked among the humans in whatever role gave Deep the most chance of helping the enforcers. These days, that was as the California State Fire Marshal. He directed the Huracáns from behind the scenes at larger fires where human crews were involved and helped cover their tracks when needed.

  But since Drake’s mating, Deep had been doing something else.

  “How ugly?” Finn demanded.

  Deep cleared his throat. “From what I can tell, a group—or a few different groups—claiming to be enforcers is hitting settlements throughout our territory. The way they deal with each group is different, but the results are the same—growing distrust for us, beyond what the upheaval in the clans would cause.”

  Drake’s snarl from the corner he’d stuffed himself into echoed Levi’s dragon who set to rumbling inside him.

  “Any idea who?” Finn asked.

  Deep canted his head. “I have yet to see them in person. But they are cracking down on everything—mates, the setup of living quarters to fool humans, orphaned dragons. And…”

  “And?” Levi asked, voice all dragon. Can’t shift in here, he warned his animal side. The creature, with Lyndi’s scent in his nostrils, was turning dangerously protective.

  “Many I spoke with have caught a single name. Roan.”

  The beta to the Alaz team? Or another dragon by the same name? What would the Alaz team—who were supposed to be out hunting down Rune—be doing stirring up trouble and making it worse? Like the Huracáns, they were sworn to uphold law and order. There seemed to be no sense to it.

  “Fuck,” Finn muttered, running a hand through his hair.

  In front of Levi, Lyndi crossed her arms, no doubt thinking of both her boys and the new one they’d been trying to track recently. If these dragons were after orphans, that wasn’t good.

  “In the settlements that haven’t broken any laws, these imposters are claiming to be sent by the Alliance, planting stories about how our team is no longer sanctioned, all of you rogue. Seeds of distrust that I can’t un-sow. Not as the former alpha of the team. The distrust runs too deep.”

  If trust was eroding, they were fucked. A descent of dragon shifters into lawlessness—or worse, having the people they were sworn to serve come after them—was a no-win situation.

  Drake shook his head. “If Roan is with the Alaz, this will either get worse or better.”

  “Why?” Deep asked.

  “The Alliance has ordered them to step up their hunt for Rune,” Drake said. “Maybe they won’t have time to keep fucking with the people in our territory.”

  “Or, if this is them, they just got permission to be here more,” Levi muttered.

  Deep, as exhausted as Levi had ever seen the man, traced a long gash in the kitchen table—one put there when Hall and Drake had one of their misunderstandings—with the tip of his finger. “My going to each group to tell them our side of the story and warn them away from the Alliance or the other two enforcer teams isn’t going to work at this rate. Not with the distrust already out there. It’s our word against whoever is going behind our backs, and we all still answer to the clans. If we go against the Alliance…”

  Damn.

  Deep’s idea of touching base personally with each individual family and colony and working his way through their territory had seemed brilliant. At the very least, they could warn their people to batten down the hatches and prepare for a shit ton of uncertainty as the kings and clans were clearly working through a massive coup and organizational overhaul. The colonies would be the last to benefit from their attention, which meant holding strong until then.

  The Huracáns had no intention of abandoning the people they’d sworn to watch over. Had watched over for centuries. This was who they were.

  “What do we do?” Finn asked.

  Bushy white eyebrows lowered over a blaze of red in Deep’s eyes. “We don’t quit. I don’t quit. I’m going to keep reaching out. I don’t give a fuck what clan they hail from…”

  Different than the clans, dragon color here in the Americas had come to matter less and less over centuries of blended communities. Some of the settlements did stay true to clan and color, but most found benefit in the different skills and perspectives each offered. Like his team, each group was family. Levi couldn’t picture a world without these men and women—not a single other one from his clan—in his life.

  Gods, without Lyndi in his life…

  How the hell can I leave them in the middle of this? The betrayal of what he was being forced to do cut deep in a thousand different slices.

  Deep slammed a fist on the table. “These are our people. Those we’ve sworn to protect and defend.”

  And police. Not always making them popular.

  They all nodded, silence turning into another presence in the room. Even Rivin and Keighan remained solemn.

  “What else can we do?” Drake asked.

  “We keep watching for fires from here,” Finn said. “Start sending more of us out to the groups closer to the mountain. In pairs, just to be safe.”

  “How about we try to find the group that attacked us last night?” Lyndi said. “If we can find them, maybe they can tell us more.”

  Deep looked at her, gaze suddenly deeper red. “What group?”

  “They set a fire, a trap for enforcers. But we got the sense that we weren’t the ones they were after because they scattered.”

  Their old alpha looked to Finn and Drake, who nodded. Then Drake shot a look at his sister. “You said you caught the direction they were headed?”

  She nodded.

  Levi came off the wall, which brought him closer to Lyndi, his hands going to her hips without thought. Not to move her, though. Almost to keep her closer. He didn’t like where this was going.

  “Good,” said Deep. “I want you out there come nightfall, Lyndi, showing me the way.”

  Levi hooked one finger in her back belt loop, as though tethering himself to her, and opened his mouth to protest, but Finn cut him off with a sharp glance. “Take Levi with you.”

&
nbsp; “But—” Lyndi’s protest was also cut off at a glance from Finn. “Fine.”

  Deep nodded, seeming satisfied with the plan. “Which brings me to a related item… I’d like Calla to go stay with Rune.”

  Levi went rigid, as did every other person in the room. “Whoa. With Rune? That seems like a perception issue. We’re the only ones who don’t see him as a traitor.”

  It had to be fucked up out there if Deep was contemplating a move like that.

  Deep pinned them with a blazing look that said he’d made up his mind. “Officially, she’s going back to Everest to get word directly from King Pytheios, so don’t worry about perception.”

  “Why Rune? Why not here?” Drake asked.

  “Because Rune will keep her hidden. Here she’s exposed, and it would give the Alliance one more reason to wonder at our allegiances and actions.”

  All true.

  But sending Calla so far away when the devoted mates hadn’t separated since their finding each other almost a thousand years prior? Hell, Deep’s decision—from a man who had dared to bring her over to an unknown land, but now wouldn’t risk her sticking around their territory—said more than enough.

  Levi glanced over Lyndi’s head, his gaze connecting first with Finn, then with Drake, and knew they were both thinking the same thing. Should they send their mates away, too?

  Then Drake shot a silent, pointed glance at Lyndi before cocking his head in a barely there move that Levi still caught. Levi gave the same pointed glance to Cami then Delaney, and Drake’s mouth flattened. Message sent and received. No telepathy needed.

  None of the women would allow themselves to be shuffled off to relative safety. They’d fight, too. No way would Cami leave her human family behind. No way would Lyndi leave her boys. And neither Cami nor Delaney would want to leave their mates, or, for that matter, let the team risk their lives while they hid and waited. That was for damn certain. They shouldn’t even bother to bring it up as an option, or they’d risk getting their balls chopped off.

  He didn’t realize he’d dug his fingers into the soft flesh of Lyndi’s hip until she shifted subtly under his grip.

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Forcibly, he tried to relax, though he didn’t let go. His dragon was wound too tight to do that. One tussle in her bedroom, and the creature side of him had claimed her as theirs, marked his stamp of possession on her metaphorically, since they couldn’t physically. She was his.

  And you’re leaving like an asshole. Desperation was starting to set in around that reality, sinking its claws in deep. He couldn’t leave her. Couldn’t leave the team, either.

  Needing to settle the beast inside him, Levi snuck his thumb under the gap between her shirt and jeans, whispering the pad over her bare skin.

  His dragon curled up, content.

  Levi’s dick, on the other hand, now pulsed in time to his heartbeat. In time to hers. This close, he could hear it, higher pitched than his and slightly faster than normal.

  “I need to rest before I go back out.” Deep stood from the kitchen table, and everyone else moved with him.

  Except Levi, who froze with the realization that he’d been so intent on that tiny touch and the sound of her heart that he’d missed the rest of the conversation. A serious conversation with immediate impacts. He’d never allowed anything to distract him from his duty in his entire long life.

  A stupid move with potentially disastrous results.

  Fuck. Maybe Lyndi’s hesitation to pursue anything—for so many reasons—wasn’t the wrong instinct to follow. Maybe his was…

  With a grunt, he jerked his hands from her body and strode out of the room, following Deep as he headed up to the suites. Deep and Calla had given up their rooms in the mountain, so he stayed in one of Finn and Delaney’s guest rooms when they were there.

  “Can I ask you something?” Levi asked as he caught up with his old mentor and friend just as he entered the suite. Was Deep moving slower?

  Wizened eyes crinkled at the corners. “So you finally claimed her? About damn time.”

  Shock jolted through Levi, emphasized by the slam of the door to Finn’s suite which closed automatically behind him. “Finally?”

  Deep’s eyebrows twitched. “I remember the first time you got a good look at Lyndi Chandali, son.”

  He did? Deep always did see too much.

  The older man chortled. “Hard to miss the way you turned tail and ran.”

  No doubt that’s how it had appeared. “Or the way she hated me from that moment on.”

  Her message had been more than clear after that day. Several messages, actually. Not interested. Stay away from me. Don’t get in my way. Everything you say is wrong.

  He’d respected her signals and done his best to keep out of her way, except those occasions when his protective instincts kicked in so hard, he couldn’t remain quiet. Those moments only served to make her angrier with him. But her antipathy wasn’t the only thing that had shut down his dragon and any moves he might have made. In fairly short order, Lyndi had made it clear that she’d never mate. Plus, she was Drake’s sister and a Chandali. The powers that be would never sanction his claim on her, even if she was willing.

  More to the point…Lyndi wasn’t willing.

  But he had his foot in the door now, or, perhaps more accurately, they’d both got a taste of each other. Damned if he was going to waste this chance. Knowing Lyndi, he’d never get another.

  “Your dragon took one look at her, and that was it. Am I wrong?” Deep asked.

  “You’re not wrong.” No use denying it.

  “But you’ve kept your distance until now. What changed?”

  He was tempted to say Lyndi’s ultimatum, but that was only part of the truth. “I’ve watched Finn, Aidan, and Drake reach for what they want and be damned the consequences. Their mates are the most important thing in their lives.”

  “Which is as it should be.”

  But Levi shook his head. “For a long time, I thought the team should come first. Always. Lyndi puts her boys first, too. We have responsibilities and obligations.”

  “Sounds like excuses to me.”

  “Maybe so. But now I’m leaving.”

  Deep jerked at that. “The hell you say?”

  Levi grimaced. “My king is recalling all loyal gold dragons older than two hundred.”

  “Fuck me.”

  Levi could almost hear Calla saying, “Language.”

  Deep crossed his arms. “So you got the push you needed, but now you’re going to be separated. It’s a conundrum.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  Deep shrugged. “What’s your question?”

  Right. His question. “Assuming I can convince Lyndi to go against every other obstacle against us, does my claiming her put the team at greater risk? You’ve talked to the people we defend. You know the Alliance better than even Finn. You even know some of the kings, though it’s been centuries. That tells me that you, more than anyone else, can evaluate how big a problem this is going to be.”

  Deep sat in silence for such a long time, heavy lids drooping over his eyes, that Levi wondered if he’d fallen asleep standing up.

  “We’re in the middle of a tectonic shift in our world,” Deep finally said, his accent turning thicker, a sure sign he was dead serious. “Not just the kings. The way things are happening with mates and their signs. The number of phoenixes supposedly now in existence. Something bigger is at work here.”

  An accurate picture in Levi’s opinion.

  “I could easily feel like a boat adrift with no anchor and storms on the horizon. Except I have Calla to anchor me. Because of her, I know what is important.”

  “You’re saying that nothing should stand in my way because Lyndi is too important?”

  Deep shook his head. “I’m s
aying if she’s not your mate, don’t pursue her. Not right now.”

  Fuck.

  “But if you believe she is your fated mate—though I’ve only heard of one other instance that has happened with a female-born dragon—nothing should stop you. Because what mates bring for each other is the only stability we’ll find in life. Everything else is fire and violence. Mates are peace. The rest of the world…” Deep waved a careless hand. “Will sort itself out.”

  Knots untied in Levi’s belly, tension draining out of him. Not all of it, but the pressure he’d put on himself to make the right decision.

  Deep grinned. “Now, the bigger problem will be convincing her.”

  Chapter Seven

  Levi was going to get a piece of her dragon’s tail in the face if he didn’t stop sending such mixed signals.

  Said the pot to the kettle, that small voice inside her piped up, and then her dragon huffed a laugh.

  Oh, shut up.

  And now she was arguing with herself. Terrific.

  But she couldn’t move past the conflicting emotions whipping at her since he’d disappeared. After placing those large, warm hands on her skin, teasing while they stood in the kitchen, surrounded by the others, in a serious discussion…then walking away like she’d developed a sudden infectious disease, which stupidly reminded her of the day they met. She hadn’t seen him until she’d walked outside into the night, ready to help Deep find that group that had set a trap for them.

  As soon as she’d appeared, Levi had proceeded to send her a smoldering stare, eyes glinting predatorially in the night, that reached inside her and twisted up her insides. Almost as fast as that happened, he’d shuttered his expression, dousing the glow.

  That was different.

  Now they were in the air, Levi flew ahead of her, having caught the scent once she’d got them to the right area. He took one stroke of his wings for every two of hers, an easy, flowing glide that she had to admit was a thing of beauty to watch. Which only made her glare at his back more.

  She was struggling enough with herself when it came to Levi. Of the two of them, he was the rock. He always acted so sure of everything he did, every decision he made. Confident in his ability to handle everything that got thrown at him. But the way he’d stiffened in the kitchen a beat before he’d dashed off told her maybe he wasn’t that guy underneath.