The Protector (Fire's Edge)

by Abigail Owen

  Another roar filled the air suddenly. The white dragon didn’t release him, but Levi jerked his head up at the sound.

  He knew that roar. Hell, he’d fought beside that sound for centuries.

  Deep.

  A second later, the skies swarmed with dragons, like a blanket being drawn over the stars. He had no idea how they’d got here in time, but the Huracán team of enforcers had arrived. With extras, because there were a damn sight more dragons in the air than the team had among them.

  The crash of battle sounded as their forces erupted through the now mostly spread out Alaz men who’d scattered. The Alaz were now greatly outnumbered.

  The asshole with his teeth still in Levi’s leg must’ve done the same math, because he released him and jumped for the sky.

  Levi tried to follow, but his back leg crumpled under the force and he sort of frog-hopped along. But the white dragon, like many of that kind, was long, with an elegant tail trailing behind him. Levi lunged and snagged it just above the spiked, mace-like tip and yanked the thing from the sky. Immediately, Hall dropped on top of him, neon green scales bright even at night. Levi held the shithead down and Hall gutted him in one long drag of his clawed hand down its belly, his snakelike eyes glowing with bloodlust.

  “Brother.” Hall nodded, then leaped back into the air.

  A quick look around showed Levi the layout of the battle quickly. Every Alaz dragon now faced two or more of Levi’s people. Rivin and Keighan took two of the Alaz on a merry chase, the white dragons looping and circling. On the ground with him, William and Marin stood over the body of one of the green Alaz dragons. Blood poured down Marin’s chin, giving his white scales a gruesome appearance as the tiny dragon blasted flame into the gaping maw of their enemy.

  Above, only just clearing the top of the trees, Drake flashed by with Cami at his side, chasing down a blue dragon in perfect sync, almost beautiful to watch. Finn and Delaney tore into another overhead, Finn holding it from behind while Delaney went at its gizzard. She must’ve hit the fire sac because molten sparks burst from its belly, raining down over the forest like red glowing embers. Immediately several trees went up in flame.

  Levi spun to find his mate gone. Hard on the heels of his relief came a bitter spike of worry. Where the fuck is Lyndi?

  Attor, Mike, and Coahoma remained unconscious on the ground. “Stay with your brothers,” he ordered William and Marin.

  Back leg dragging, he took to the sky. In three swift strokes he cleared high enough to search for his mate. Then he realized all he had to do was reach out for her through the bond they now shared. As soon as he reached for that place inside him that was her, the floodgates opened.

  Fear and fury. All pouring from her.

  Because she was fighting hard, but she was also losing, already pushed to the edge of exhaustion. And no wonder after the last few days.

  He didn’t call out to her. He couldn’t distract her. But where was she?

  Levi jerked around in the air, wings beating to hold him aloft, searching. A blow must’ve struck her hard, because the impact shuddered down that connection to him followed by a wave of disorientation.

  That’s when he spotted her.

  Directly overhead, facing off against Tineen on her own. Fuck.

  “I’m coming.” He shot the thought ahead of him as he pushed himself faster.

  His leg was definitely broken, dangling rather than tucking up against him, dragging in the wind and slowing him down, cutting his ability to make himself more aerodynamic.

  “Pull him in closer on my call.”

  Lyndi didn’t answer, but the sensation down that bond was one of her readying herself.

  “Now.”

  As he watched, she slipped out of the way of the black dragon’s swipe with a talon, but she dropped lower and nearer. As Tineen moved to follow, it brought him in to her.

  “To your right.”

  She juked to the side, and the Alaz leader followed, and that’s when Levi went at him. Only, at the last second, the bastard spun.

  Almost as though she heard his thoughts, Lyndi attacked one side while Levi went for the other. Between the two of them they used their talons with deadly effect, rending scales from his body and gashes in his wings.

  Tineen fought like a wild thing, thrashing and spewing fire, snapping and swiping at them. Rage drove the dragon now. Maybe rage had always been there, and he’d hidden it well until this moment.

  Working as a team, their minds in total sync, he and Lyndi stayed on the fucker. This was what the mating bond could be like. Two fighting and living and breathing and someday dying as one. With every new bite, every new tear, Tineen grew wilder. More desperate. But they didn’t let up.

  They rode his corpse—though Tineen had yet to acknowledge his own doom—to the ground, counting down together until the last second, then flaring their wings in time, letting him fall away. Gravity did its job and dragged the body closer to the earth. Combined with wings no longer functioning meant he couldn’t stop himself. He struck with the force of a hurtling comet. With a resounding boom, trees and dirt and debris shot up into the air and out from his body in an almost perfect circle.

  As the dust settled, Levi and Lyndi both set their backs to each other, guarding while scanning the skies.

  Only no one else came at them.

  “Report,” Levi ordered.

  One by one, every Huracán and every one of Lyndi’s boys signaled the all clear.

  “We got them all,” Finn confirmed a moment later.

  Relief spread from the bond, coming from his mate, mixing with his own as the adrenaline pumping through his veins gave way to the high of battle and the realization that, in this second, they were safe. They’d protected the lives they’d been given by the fates to guard.

  But experience had taught Levi long ago that the crash of reality would come soon enough. They’d lost at least one. Maybe more. His mate’s tender heart would be crushed when Elijah’s death truly hit her. Hell, so would his.

  “Gather at the mountain,” he instructed.

  He and Lyndi led the way, and she landed ahead of him, shifting then climbing over the remaining rocks to hug Delaney and Cami who had beat them inside.

  Levi, though, had to focus on his landing. With more care than usual, he came down so that his front legs helped to support the one hind leg still working. Though he knocked the injured leg, agony lancing up and through him in scissoring waves, he gritted his teeth through.

  “Wow, that hurts,” Lyndi muttered, her face contorted with it as she watched him.

  She started toward him as though ready to help, but he shook his head. “Give me a sec.”

  The shift, usually painless, was a fuckton of uncomfortable as his body realigned, including the leg. As soon as he stood upright in his human form, he grimaced at the sight of the unnatural lump to one side.

  “Fuck me,” he muttered. Then looked to Kanta who’d landed and shifted behind him. “A little help?”

  The big man, a shoulder under Levi’s arm and a hand holding him up by the belt loops, got him over the rockslide and laid him out on the stone floor of the cavern inside. Then Kanta gripped him firmly by the ankle.

  “Ready?”

  Lyndi looked to Marin who stood off to the side, eyes wide. “Go get the tent poles from my room,” she said. Then she knelt beside Levi, taking his hand. “If I couldn’t feel your pain through our link, I would never know you hurt this much.”

  He shrugged. His teeth were going to be flat nubs only good for chewing cud the way he was clenching them.

  With a shake of her head, she rolled her eyes. “Big tough dragon shifter, hmmm?”

  He cupped the back of her head with one hand. “And your mate. Damn, min eneste, your dragon is gorgeous to behold. I can’t wait to see you in daylight.”

  That
brought a grin to her face. “In the middle of all that, you managed to notice my new coloring?”

  “Yeah—” He gave a hard grunt as, without warning, Kanta jerked and twisted in one smooth move and the bone slid back into place with a sickening crunch and another wrenching spike of anguish that sent a wave of blackness through his vision. He fought it off to catch the tail end of Lyndi’s wince.

  “Ouch.” She squeezed his hand. “As soon as you’re healed, we’ll make up for that.”

  Using his hands behind him as leverage, Levi sat up, but left his legs straight out in front of him. Marin returned with the tent poles, and Lyndi started tying them to his leg in a makeshift splint. He’d need to keep that limb nice and straight and still while it healed, or he’d risk permanent disfigurement and that would cause problems for him as a fighter.

  And he knew the aftermath of tonight was going to mean more fighting.

  All the while, more of the team landed and shifted one at a time. They waited as each of the others came inside.

  Including several black dragons. The last to shift was Shula, who joined another woman, smaller with dark, chin-length hair and eyes that glittered almost silver.

  Lyndi squeezed his hand again, then stood to greet them. “You have my gratitude for your help,” she said as she shook hands with both women.

  “We owed you,” Shula said, gaze solemn.

  …

  A lot of questions still needed to be answered.

  “We’ll cover everything in a minute.” Finn’s voice preceded him into the chamber. Between them, the Huracáns managed to carry Coahoma, Mike, and Attor, who’d shifted back to human, though they remained unconscious, back to the mountain.

  “Are they all right?” Lyndi asked, rushing forward as soon they were settled.

  “They seem to be knocked out,” Finn said. “We’ll keep an eye on them. Gather everyone here.”

  Levi nodded at Marin who stood closest, and the boy ran for the others only to return seconds later. “Vilsinn is all balled up at the entrance to the chamber, blocking it, and he won’t move.”

  Levi looked to Lyndi who nodded and followed Marin back down the hall.

  “Who the fuck is Vilsinn?” She caught Hall’s muttered question as she walked away.

  “We made friends with a cave troll.”

  Sure enough, the tunnel ended in a black dead end of troll. Lyndi put her hand to the leathery skin. “It’s Lyndi. Everything is safe now. You can let the boys out.”

  It took a long second, but then the stone-like creature rolled away before unfolding to his full height.

  Faces of her boys, precious and dear, looked out at her from inside, illuminated by the fire in the center of the room. No doubt they’d heard much of what had happened through the telepathic thoughts. “Finn wants us all together to talk,” she said.

  They filed past her, a few pausing to wrap an arm around her for a hug, or to give her the much cooler, but no less emotional, knucks or high fives. Only Vilsinn didn’t follow.

  “You, too,” she said. “You’re part of this family now.”

  The troll appeared to blink at her for a long moment, emotions she couldn’t pinpoint flitting across his craggy face. “Vilsinn family.”

  Then he lumbered through the opening, having to stoop down, and followed her with shuffling feet back to the room.

  They quickly filled each other in. Drake had wanted to come as soon as Coahoma, Mike, and Attor had radioed in about Roan following Levi’s trail. It had taken Deep, who in leading the Alaz away from Lyndi had managed to circle back around to Colorado, for the Huracáns to move. He’d seen the entire Alaz team blow out of their headquarters, aiming northwest, and had no doubt where they were headed. Best guess now that they were piecing the different events together was that Roan had contacted Tineen before attacking Lyndi and Levi.

  “If their actions had taken out one of my men, I might have done the same,” Finn said. “I’m not excusing what Tineen did, but…” He shrugged.

  Either way, it didn’t matter what the Alaz leader’s or the team’s motivations were. Levi shook his head. “We’ve got to figure out what the fuck to do now.”

  “We just killed the entire Alaz enforcer team,” Lyndi said as she moved back to her mate’s side. Do? Was Levi kidding? There was only one thing they could do. “We run.”

  Except a beat of calm pulsed from her mate, soothing her down that odd connection. Odd because that link to him felt more right than wrong. Not intrusive, like she’d often imagined. As though it had always been there.

  “The Alliance may not know that,” Levi said.

  She frowned. So did Drake and Finn. “Explain,” Finn demanded.

  Lyndi was already nodding. She knew exactly where her mate was going with this.

  “I’m suggesting we go back to business as usual. Us and Shula’s group both. Return to our homes and act as though nothing has happened. We’ll set up contingency plans in the event of an attack on either group and start reaching out to the other settlements, starting in our territory. More than just Deep going to them, now we’re gathering an army and not just warning people. As far as the Alliance is concerned, we pretend we have no idea where the Alaz team disappeared to. And we wait…” Levi shrugged. “It will take them a while to come for us. When they do…we’ll be ready.”

  Damn. Her mate could be brilliant when he wished. Could such a simple plan work?

  “They won’t know anything until they find this battlefield,” Finn mused. “It buys us time.”

  “Makes sense, boss,” Kanta murmured.

  As Lyndi watched, the others nodded.

  “And our boys?” Lyndi asked quietly.

  “We bring them back with us. Tineen was the bigger threat there.”

  Relief surged through her, expanding her lungs and her heart. Watching her face, Levi had clearly caught her reaction. He yanked her into him, holding her against his side, and she felt the same shudder of relief surge through him. Almost a panicked kind of emotion, as though they couldn’t quite believe that part of this nightmare, at least, was over.

  “If the Alliance decides to come for the boys, we go back to the original plan of pretending to take them to their clans.” Levi glanced around, mouth a grim slash. “Maybe a different mountain to hide in, though.”

  They might be running out of places to hide at this rate. But… “I think, if anything, today has shown we need to stick together.” Lyndi glanced around. “All of us.”

  Not Levi, though. He still had to go take his place beside his king fighting in the Kings’ War. But that was something they’d figure out tomorrow.

  A solemn silence fell over their group, and Lyndi couldn’t bear to look at the ash that had once been her sweet, brave Elijah.

  Crouching down, she slipped her hand into Levi’s, reaction setting in on a wave of exhaustion. One of her boys was gone, and she could never fix that. Even if they’d won today, they’d lost.

  “Let’s go home,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twenty

  Two days later, Levi stood in the war room alone facing the screens and waiting for the man he’d placed a tricky call into to show up. The person manning the war room in Norway had put him on hold, and damned if he wasn’t having a hell of a time not fidgeting with nerves as he waited.

  He also half listened down the hallway in case anyone else showed up in the middle of this call. He hadn’t asked permission. If he screwed things up with this gambit, not that they could get much worse, Finn and Drake would be pissed. Hell, Lyndi would be pissed, and that might be scarier.

  Suddenly the screen changed from black to another war room in another mountain and the glowering visage of the man who’d only recently become his king.

  Brand Astarot.

  “Why the fuck aren’t you talking to me in person, Rowtag?” the king sna
pped.

  Not a great way to start this conversation.

  “You need to know what is going on in the colonies. If you and your allied kings aren’t careful, you’re going to lose this entire land and all the dragons living here to Pytheios.”

  Brand’s gaze narrowed but remained human in appearance. “I’m listening.”

  Levi quickly and succinctly filled his king in on everything that had been happening here since the last time Brand had shown his face in their headquarters. All of it. Rune’s reasons for turning traitor, the new developments with mates and female-borns, the Alliance’s sketchy leadership, enforcer teams going against each other to the death. Everything. He didn’t pussyfoot around the Huracáns’ mistakes in his report. If Brand was going to make the right choices here, he needed to know it all.

  Brand clenched his hands into fists and leaned into the screen. “What a clusterfuck,” he snapped. “And what in the seven hells do you think I can do about this? I can’t fight on two fronts.”

  “Give the Huracán team your blessing—you and your allied kings—to try to hold the dragon shifter colonies in your name.”

  Brand’s brows shot up. “You’d be asking the red, white, and green dragons in your area to go rogue. To denounce their clans and kings to side with us.”

  “Our team is already rogue, most of us, though we haven’t made it official yet. I honestly don’t know how we still retain our kings’ marks, but we won’t abandon the people in here. We won’t turn our backs on them.”

  Brand blew out a short growl. “Let me talk to Ladon and Gorgon, and I’ll get back to you.”

  The kings of the Blue Clan and Black Clan. Levi hoped they were reasonable men. “Understood.”

  As his king stood to end the call, Levi stepped forward. “One other thing.”

  Brand snorted. “You’ve got balls, Rowtag. I’ll give you that.”

  Levi shrugged. “I can’t leave my men to join you.”