by Amelia Jade
He’d assumed there would be more to it, so that Martin and his goons could set a trap for them. It was making him wary.
“I don’t like it. This is too open.”
Rose stepped closer to him, her head also craning around left and right. “You think it’s a trap?”
“Of course. But I can’t see how it would be, which is what’s making me uneasy. There’s nowhere for them to hide. They can’t sneak up on me. How’s this going to work? What the hell are they planning?”
“I don’t know, but there’s a vehicle coming our way.”
He looked behind him. It was a small soft-sided truck, canvas stretched over a metal frame to obscure the load in the back. Perfect for carrying a bunch of people around.
“They’re going to need more men than they can fit in there to take me on,” he snarled fiercely, turning to stand face the oncoming truck.
Another noise caught his ear before he’d finished his turn. Pausing, he glanced up the road. A second truck, the mirror image of the one approaching from behind, was descending out of the mountains.
“Ah, so that’s their trap. Catch us from both ends, with open territory. I get it now.”
Rose was suddenly holding his hand, squeezing tightly. “I don’t. Can you explain? Why?”
“There’s not a house for miles in any direction,” he explained. “A pack of wolves running around wouldn’t generate any real interest, except maybe for the oversized look of them. But a dragon in the sky? Anyone with a brain could see that from a long distance. If it were wooded terrain, I could possibly lose them in the trees, negating their advantage when they shift. Here? I’m fast, but even I can’t outrun a wolf shifter on four legs.”
“So we’re screwed?”
“No, it just means I’m feeling relieved because I can see the trap.” He laughed. “I bet you the boss isn’t even here. They just said that to make sure I showed up. They were goading me, taunting me.”
“You seem awfully confident,” she said, gripping him with both arms as the trucks came close and slowed, turning to block the road so that he couldn’t put Rose in the car and send her off.
“They’re just wolf shifters,” he said. “I think I can handle them.”
He hated the misdirection, but he needed Rose as terrified as possible. They would expect extreme arrogance from him, and he intended to give it. But they would be able to read her much better, to scent her fear, or lack thereof if he told her everything. So he hadn’t.
Men began to pile out of the trucks.
“Watch the one behind us. Tell me if you see Martin or your brother.”
“I see them.”
The unexpected speed of her response had him whirling to check. Rose was still attached to his arm, however, and this sent her stumbling sideways with a yelp. Stoen grabbed her and steadied her. “Sorry.”
When Rose spoke her words weren’t directed at him. “Teddy,” she groaned.
Stoen saw her brother, saw the way he hobbled forward. There were no chains or restraints on him anywhere. They weren’t needed. He was beaten and done. His face was a bloody mess, one arm clearly broken and he walked with a pronounced limp. The shifters had done a number on him. But he was alive, and he was walking on his own.
“He’s alive, Rose. And walking. Look at his eyes. They’re not the eyes of a broken man. Have strength,” he hissed under his breath.
Teddy’s eyes were strong. They almost glowed with righteous anger as he glared at the man who Stoen assumed was responsible for his condition.
“Martin,” he spat as the alpha swaggered to a halt thirty paces distant. “I’m surprised a traitorous, worm-infested piece of shit like yourself had the confidence to come and meet me.”
“Now now, Stoen. This isn’t personal. I’m only here for the pictures.”
Stoen looked over his shoulder. “Right. So what’s the entire pack here for then? A social occasion? Are we going to go have a picnic in the field?”
“They’re just here to ensure you don’t do anything stupid.”
“Peace by greater arms. Always works,” he muttered.
“Stoen,” Rose said nervously from next to him. “What are we going to do?”
“You’re going to walk over there and give them the memory card after you talk to your brother,” he said calmly. “Here.”
He made a show of pressing it into her hand, knowing that Martin would never let him get in among his men to check on Teddy. It had to be Rose. Still, he was going to get as close as he possibly could.
Leaning in, he kissed his mate on the head. “Keep your eyes focused on Teddy. Don’t react to what I’m saying. When the time comes, grab him and get out of here.” He reached down and gave her ass a spank.
Rose yelped and spun to look at him, holding up her open hand to hit him. “What the hell are you doing?”
He grabbed the hand with his, holding it tight. “What I need to do. Use it,” he said, glancing at their clasped hands. “Don’t hesitate.”
Rose calmed and nodded, closing her fingers around the object he’d palmed to her. Together they looked at Martin once more and started walking forward.
“That’s far enough,” the apparent leader said, pointing at Stoen.
He took several more steps, until he was half a dozen feet away from a solid line of shifters. Their entire focus was on him now. All of them came together, lips peeled back in silent snarls, challenges to his supremacy.
“Go on,” he urged Rose. “You’ll be okay.”
She walked forward, but Martin moved to block her way, hand extended.
“Bite me,” Rose snapped. “I’m going to talk to him first. You’ll be between the two of us. That’s all you get.”
Martin hesitated, then grinned and used the extended arm to wave her through the line of shifters. She hurried to Teddy’s side, conversing with him in low tones. Stoen saw her brother nod.
Anytime now…anytime now…
A distant whine caught everyone’s attention as a plane passed by overhead. Stoen saw all eyes turn upward, and he seized the moment. Stabbing his hands forward he pushed his power through his fingertips. Tendrils of living quicksilver shot out, separating the shifters into two lines.
Shouting with effort he pushed outward. The lines slammed into the distracted shifters and flung them out to the sides.
“GO!” he called to Rose. They wouldn’t have long.
Behind him the car fired to life as Rose remote started it, the pair of them already hobbling toward it.
Shouts erupted from the second group of shifters, but Stoen didn’t have the time, nor the need to worry about them. A whistling sound pierced the air, and despite knowing he shouldn’t, he risked a glance up while charging at Martin.
A black shape was hurtling toward the ground, arms and legs tucked in tight behind it. The whistle became a shriek and the object spread its arms, huge wings sprouting from its back momentarily to slow its momentum before disappearing once more.
Correll slammed into the asphalt with a thunderous impact, rising from amid the dust cloud in perfect position between the car and the second group of wolf shifters. The young quicksilver laughed and strode toward the oncoming wolves with all the arrogance due a dragon shifter.
“Get out of here!” he shouted as he and Rose passed one another. Teddy said something unintelligible, but he shoved it from his mind. Right now he couldn’t spare a single second. Martin was recovered and the others were right behind him.
Stoen had a hell of a fight on his hands, and he knew Correll, despite his entry, would be even more hard-pressed.
Men leapt at him from all sides, some changing into huge beasts as they came, others charging at him with their fists. Stoen fought a slow retreat, content to fend them off and keep the attention on him until he heard the sounds of the car retreating down the hill. The engine roared to life and he smiled at his foes. With the humans clear of the zone he could be a little more j
udicious in his use of power.
Except the car was growing louder. Not quieter. Stoen’s head whipped around and he tossed himself clear of the road as the Aston Martin raced past through the space he’d just occupied. Others cleared the way as well, and the car disappeared up the road, deeper into the mountains. It wasn’t the plan, but she was still clear.
“Now you’re really not going to enjoy inviting me out here,” he growled, letting his dragon flow through him in the way he’d practiced. This was a new skill for Stoen, and one he knew not many shifters ever bothered with. But it was perfect now.
Wings sprouted from his back. Scales rippled down his shoulders, covering his arms and chest before coating his legs as well. His feet grew into massive clawed weapons, but his hands stayed more humanoid, except for the six-inch talons on the end. His neck elongated slightly, the typical dragon head atop it, but it wasn’t normal.
He was only about ten feet tall. A dragon-man.
“My turn,” he chuckled, and unleashed hell on his opponents.
The wolves at first fell back under his onslaught. Quicksilver bathed any opponent foolish enough to stand still. Talons sliced through thick shifter fur with ease, spilling blood across the road. If someone came at him from behind his wings could flick out and send them tumbling away.
Two minutes into the fight and it was almost over. Stoen had them nearly routed, and he advanced, ready to finish the job and go to Correll’s aid. He’d not risked a look behind him, but the sounds reaching his ears told him it was a fierce battle, and he wanted to help his cousin as soon as he could.
Martin was no pushover however, and despite his evil ways he was still a fierce warrior. The pack regrouped minus a trio who were either dead or too wounded to continue. He barked orders at them and they spread out, circling Stoen before rushing him all at once.
He waited until they were close before leaping from the ground, his wings pushing him higher, the air battering at the wolves. A pair of them leapt at him. One missed, but the other grabbed his leg, its teeth ripping through scales before he shook it off.
Landing outside the circle he charged them. One wolf was too slow and the four talons on his right hand impaled it completely, tossing it behind him as blood sprayed everywhere.
Ew.
There was little time to think about it though. The remaining eight came at him in a wave and bowled him over. Teeth and claws ripped and tore at him as he fought to get to his feet. Martin led the charge, saliva and blood dripping from his mouth as bone-white teeth dug deeper into Stoen.
A shot of quicksilver caught the alpha across the snout, bowling him backward and out of the line of fire. Stoen twisted his head and another wolf took it full-bore in the face and down the throat as it came at him. The unfortunate shifter rolled away, melting from the inside out as the ultra-cold metal ate away at his skin.
Getting to his feet he saw Correll barely holding off a double-handful of wolves. Two were down and out, victims of the dragon shifter. But the others were coming at him now, and he was already bleeding, still in his human form, too young to duplicate Stoen’s feat of strength.
The remaining seven wolves came at Stoen once more, Martin still guiding them despite his wound. Taking a gamble, Stoen let them come unimpeded, even shifting back into his human form and trying to appear weak, encouraging them to close and finish the job. The pack took the bait and even as he curled into a ball they closed around him, each wolf eager to give the killing blow.
Pain struck him from half a dozen places at once as they reached his flesh, but Stoen was ready now. He gripped one hand tightly, and then unleashed all the power he’d been sucking into himself since he’d decided on this plan.
Foot-long spikes of quicksilver sprang out from his skin in all directions. Wolves were punctured and pierced repeatedly. Stoen didn’t stop there. He flailed wildly, his actions opening dozens more holes in his foes, most of whom were far too slow to avoid the attack.
He leapt to his feet and took that power and shoved it into his clenched fist, willing the quicksilver to obey his orders. A stream of it leapt from his hand shaped like a whip.
One of the two remaining wolves leapt at him. Stoen dodged to the side, flicking his hand around and then out. The whip cracked, the last two feet of it coming down right on the wolf’s flank and nearly slicing it in two. The creature hit the ground, dead before it had come to a halt.
Martin was all that remained now, and he took one look at Stoen and tried to flee. Before he could a sleek all-white sports car plowed into it from the back. Stoen whimpered at the damage done to the carbon-fiber body, but he couldn’t argue with the results as the wolf was sent flying.
A crack of his whip and it was done.
“I told you to get out of here!” he shouted at Rose through the windshield, already heading to help Correll out.
Except Correll didn’t need it. Eight of the wolves were on the ground around him, plus the other two he’d dispatched earlier. Stoen looked closely. They were in pieces.
“How the hell did you do that?” he asked, astonished his cousin had managed whatever it took to take them down. They were positively hacked up.
“Trade secret,” Correll said with a wink.
The bravado was back, but Stoen could tell much of it was an act. There was enough blood on him that wasn’t from the wolves, and one gaping wound in his side that would require quite some time to heal from. Still, the battle was over. They’d done it. Teddy was free, and everyone, including Rose, was still alive and in one piece.
“We did it!” he called, pumping his fist at the car as Rose got out.
Her expression was somber. She shook her head as he approached.
“It’s not over, Stoen. Not yet.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Rose
“What the hell do you mean it’s not over yet?”
She rested her right arm on the roof of the vehicle, trying hard to ignore the damage she’d done to the car, while simultaneously freaking out about Stoen’s wounds. He was covered in dozens of them, some looking like teeth had ripped out chunks of flesh.
“Are you all right?” Suddenly her leaning on the car was there to help support her as worry for his well-being overcame her.
“I’ll be okay,” he insisted, coming to her side of the car, taking her hand. “I promise. Nothing major, just a lot of minor cuts and bites.”
He didn’t seem to be weakened by it, but Rose knew appearances could be deceiving. Now wasn’t the time for that though. “Tell him, Teddy.”
Her brother had exited the car by now, looking suspiciously at the contact between the two of them for a moment, before cracking a smile from the side of his battered mouth. Almost immediately it disappeared.
“We need to go.” He pointed up the mountain road. “That way. To the base camp.”
“What base camp?” Stoen asked.
“It’s why they took us in the first place,” Teddy said, his voice slightly off-kilter as he worked around what she suspected might be a fractured jaw. “To dig.”
“To dig?” Correll came up next to them as well, also covered in blood.
“In the mountains. They take one job per crew, and when they’re done, they kill them. The job is almost done. They’re nearly there.”
“So they’re taking miners, to make them…mine? I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t they just pay you? That seems ineffective and just asking for trouble.” Stoen rubbed his jaw. “What are they digging for? Gold? Gems?”
“Everything. Treasure,” she said. “Tell them, Teddy.”
“I think they have us robbing graves,” her brother said carefully. “Graves filled with treasure. Nothing raw. Refined gold and cut gems are the rumors. I’ve seen a few pictures.”
Rose was watching Stoen, and she saw his face go dark. Cold. Sterile. “What is it?” she asked quietly. “Stoen, what do you know?”
“When a dragon dies of natural causes,”
he said quietly, “they turn to stone. Then they’re buried with all their treasure. It’s thought to help out in the afterlife.”
“Like the Egyptians?” she asked, curious. “Is that where you got it from?”
He looked at her curiously. “Other way around,” he informed her. “If what your brother says is true, then I understand now.”
“Can you explain? I get most of it, but I don’t understand why they kill them? Why don’t they do it themselves?”
“Deniability.” Stoen spat the word. “They make the humans dig, and then once they excavate, they kill them off so they can’t tell anyone. If anyone were to discover that dragons were behind this, well, even someone as highly placed as Santis couldn’t stop justice from occurring.
Teddy looked up. “You know Santis?”
Stoen groaned and Rose filled with fear.
“He’s involved?” she asked nervously. “You’re positive of this, Teddy?”
“More than I’d like to be.” Her brother looked back up the road.
Rose saw the shiver run down his spine. Memories, undoubtedly, of the things that had happened to him up there. She was very glad that he was free, but her heart went out to those still up there.
And to Stoen, who she knew without a doubt was going to go after Santis. She was scared for him. Scared that he wouldn’t come back to her. She needed him to come back, she realized. To her.
“We have proof now,” she said into the silence that had come over them. “Stoen, we have proof of what’s going on. Call for backup. Make others aware of it. You don’t have to take him on alone.”
“Take on whom alone?” Teddy asked.
“Santis is a powerful dragon shifter. Like Stoen and Correll here. But older. Stronger.” She frowned. “Say, how is it that this whole scene didn’t cause so much as a peep from you?” she asked, pointing at the dead wolves strewn across the road and down the fields to the side.
“More than one prisoner was hunted down by the guards when they tried to escape,” Teddy said. “There wasn’t much in the way of security. They didn’t need it. Nobody ever got more than a few hundred yards before one of the guards would shift into a massive wolf and go after them.” He looked down, eyes closed.
