by Amelia Jade
“We almost made it too.”
Miranda leaned back in her rear-facing seat, eying the other woman with a small smile. While she wore the drab gray-green mottled uniform of the princess’s security team, the princess wore a very expensive pale blue suit with gray vest and white blouse underneath. It wasn’t overtly formalwear for the ruler of a shifter stronghold, but these were more practical times. A ballgown, while more befitting her station as seen by many, was no longer the appropriate attire.
Especially if they had to move quickly.
“We’re approaching the border of Cadia, ma’am,” the driver said to her respectfully.
“And our company?” she asked, though she could see them easily through the rear window. The driver was an excellent judge of distance; she needed to know what he thought.
“Closing fast,” came the unhappy reply.
Miranda sensed the man wasn’t finished.
“Go on,” she urged.
The man just looked at her through the mirror and shook his head twice, firmly and sharply, without hesitation.
The meaning was clear. They weren’t going to make it.
“We’re going to have to fight,” Miranda announced.
Nolan looked at her, an argument on his lips, but she shut it down with a look. The words died as his mouth closed, and the professional was suddenly back. There was no time for arguments. That time had passed.
“Hold on,” the driver said. “Straightaway.”
The vehicle suddenly rocketed ahead as he punched the accelerator to the floor, and Miranda was thrown from her seat. It was forward for her because of the direction she was sitting, but she actually tumbled into the rear of the vehicle. Her reflexes allowed her to twist mid-air, and she simply landed in the empty seat on the other side of the princess.
Nolan glanced around their charge, who remained quiet, and gave her a look.
“I know, I know. You told me to wear my seatbelt,” she admitted.
Nolan simply huffed softly in reply and sat back.
“They’re going to catch us at the border.” The driver’s voice was tight as they gunned it for the imaginary line, notable only by the wooden pole on either side of the road about two miles ahead.
“Fucking Fenris,” she cursed. “I can’t believe they would stoop this low.”
“We don’t know for sure it’s them,” the princess said at last, adjusting her suit as the modified car hopped another bump, jostling the occupants.
“I think we can make a safe assumption,” Miranda replied. “Nobody else would be that bold. Fenris is the only one confident that if their team was outed, that they wouldn’t face retaliation. Cadia wouldn’t risk war over it, and if they wouldn’t, nobody would.”
“So tell me again why we came to Cadia for help then?” the princess asked.
“Because we need to convince them to act. To stop playing politics and view the reality of the situation,” Miranda said dully, having been over this argument a thousand times before.
The princess simply looked at her, raised her eyebrows at the tone, and went back to sitting still, her mouth closing.
“What I don’t get,” Nolan said, speaking into the silence, “is why they waited until the last possible moment to make their move? They’ve had ample opportunities to get their target.”
Miranda frowned. “Maybe we did have them fooled for most of our trip? When we made our unscheduled departure from our last stop to try and fool them, we’ve been on the move constantly since. There hasn’t been a chance for them to do anything, because they were so busy catching up.”
Nolan considered that, nodding slowly as he mulled it over. “That would make sense. They were tasked to shadow us unless we made a move for Cadia.”
Miranda snorted. “We brought this upon ourselves.”
The princess spoke. “We did what we had to do.”
“I know,” she replied. “I was the one who came up with the plan after all. “
Nobody said a word to that.
“Twenty seconds,” the driver announced. “If we wait any longer, they’ll be on top of us before we can shift.”
Miranda nodded. The royal security team was made up of the best protectors from within Tanith. But they were sorely lacking on numbers, having left most of the security detail behind as a cover when they made the break for Cadia.
She closed her eyes and reached inside of herself, finding the carefully controlled ball of energy that lived in part of her mind. Mental fingers caressed it, bringing it to wakefulness and sharing her knowledge of the situation with the entity within.
It wasn’t a sentient being, in the normal sense. It was more akin to another part of her that she kept under rigid control, except when she needed to turn it loose.
Like now.
The interior shuddered as the driver slammed on the brakes the moment they passed the poles. It was official; they were in Cadia now. Miranda just hoped that her phone call to the head of the Cadian Council could produce results in time.
“Try not to provoke them!” she shouted as they piled out. There were four of them: her, Nolan, Dak, and Vogel. The princess stayed in the vehicle, though she made sure to shoot Miranda an angry look about it. She didn’t have time to deal with that though. Everyone had a role to play, and just then, she needed the princess to play hers.
Inky black darkness swirled up around her, obscuring her vision, but not before she saw the truck that had been pursuing them slide sideways to a halt, half a dozen men piling out from it. They also spread out.
A moment later the cloud parted, practically sucked back into her skin instead of dissipating upon the wind.
Three hundred yards distant, the pursuing dragons finished doing the same.
Miranda’s team fanned out, but they didn’t make any aggressive moves. Her yellow orbs narrowed as she noted that one man still remained in human form. He was sitting in the back of the vehicle, calmly looking at the situation through the open door.
What the fuck is that all about? He can’t be a human. That would be suicide. So why is he here, and why is he not shifting?
Miranda supposed the unknown man, older, judging by the silver in his hair, could be a different shifter type, but she had her doubts on that as well. No, something was up.
“Stay on your guard,” she said to her team, “but don’t do anything until they attack us.”
As if on cue, two of the team facing them let loose with their breath weapons. Yellow-orange fireballs raced in at them. Their aim was terrible, she thought as they went well wide of her and Dak, the two dragons in the center of the quartet.
“Shit,” Nolan muttered and her long neck flowed sinuously, allowing her head to watch what happened behind her.
Nolan lurched forward, his giant wing snapping out, forming a rust-colored barrier between the fireballs and their ride.
The fire washed over his red scales, doing nothing more than bathing Nolan in flames for a moment. He shook himself slightly and stared back across the lines at their attackers. Nolan was a Fire Dragon as well. He could not be harmed by their flames.
A bolt of lightning snap-hissed across the battlefield. But just before it could hit the stunned Nolan, Vogel moved into its path, the intense white light of power playing over and illuminating his sapphire scales as it fizzled out of existence.
“It’s a rental!” Nolan shouted back, as if the fact that they didn’t own the car was enough to stop their foes from attacking it.
A chuckle rose from the other side, providing the perfect decoy.
Miranda inhaled sharply and focused her power.
A blast of sheer sonic energy shot across the field and sent one of the two Electro Dragons among their pursuers tumbling across the ground. Trees fell before the massive creature, one taloned claw leaving huge furrows in the earth as it scrabbled for purchase.
The blue dragon finally came to a halt, but Miranda didn’t have time to see it. A cone of Frostfire came at her, and she flung herse
lf to the side. She sent a quick burst of Blastfire back in the white dragon’s direction, forcing it to dodge as well, cutting off the attack.
All around her the dragons unleashed the forces of nature upon each other in a rather odd manner. To Miranda’s knowledge, it was the first time she’d ever participated in a land battle of this size while in dragon form. But neither side was willing to risk taking to the air and exposing their vulnerable undersides.
So they fought on land.
“This is ridiculous,” Nolan said with a snort of his massive nostrils, throwing up a wing to shield himself from a burst of fire and then sending his own fireball at one of the pair of Frost Dragons opposing them.
There were two reds, two blues, a white, a brass, and whatever the man still in the vehicle was, arrayed across the border.
If the six of them began to work together, her team was in trouble. But for now they seemed to be stalling. She wondered why.
“Dust cloud on the horizon!” Dak shouted.
Her eyes focused on it, and immediately she realized that their attackers were stalling.
“Enemy reinforcements,” she spat, sending a long stream of sonic energy right at their vehicle.
A Frost Dragon moved into the way, taking the brunt of the energy as he hunkered down, wings pulled over his head to help protect him, even as her breath battered his frame. Scales flew free and one of his wings developed a long jagged rip in it, before Miranda was forced to dive away from a blue-white stream of Dragonfire.
“That hurt!” she shouted as scales sizzled from the heat, even though the fire didn’t touch her directly.
Nolan spat a fireball at the hapless Frost Dragon, but the gigantic red that had been attacking Miranda moved into the way.
And just like that, the six of them began to focus on their targets, and her team fell back.
Dak was hit by a two-pronged blast of Frostfire and Electrofire. He tumbled aside and lay still. He was breathing, but out of the fight, she noted. Whoever they were, they weren’t interested in killing.
It’s a kidnap mission. They want the princess.
There was no other logical explanation. They intended to take her and force her to align Tanith with Fenris.
That could not be allowed to happen.
“Get in the driver’s seat,” Miranda shouted at the princess. “Start moving while we hold them off.”
The woman in the backseat nodded and moved into the front without hesitation, bringing the engine to life.
A bolt of electricity reached out for the vehicle. Miranda grimaced and threw herself in its path, absorbing most of the hit herself.
But a single tendril snuck past her, and the rear left tire of their vehicle disintegrated.
“Shit,” she said dully, trying to shake off the pain. “This is not good.”
“You need to go,” Nolan said as he unleashed a series of fireballs designed to distract, not destroy.
“Absolutely not,” she snapped between bursts of her own breath weapon.
“Miranda,” he said forcefully. “You know as well as I do that it’s the smart move. Not the one you want, but the smart one.”
She snarled at him, the expression heightened by the pain as she didn’t entirely avoid a blast. She wasn’t even sure if it was Fire or Frost.
The five remaining dragons spread out and glided across patches of land toward them as her team circled around the car.
One of them stepped forward as if to speak.
The ground between the two sides erupted with a fury and intensity that sent both sides reeling. Fire and Frost tracked back and forth as bolts of lightning electrically charged the inferno. A tornado of wind stirred it even further, pushing the mass of destruction toward the Fenris dragons.
Green fumes lashed out and caressed the other group of dragons as she watched, sending them winging away in the opposite direction.
Miranda watched wide-eyed as six dragons landed nearby in two perfect triangle formations. At their head was a sight she had never seen before. A gold dragon, his brilliant scales reflecting the sun’s light as he settled to the ground. For a moment she thought he was going to unleash more hell upon her attackers, but they were heading east rapidly, and the reinforcements had turned their vehicle around as well.
Clearly this wasn’t a team they wanted to mess with.
“I don’t know who you are,” she said, though she had an idea who the gold dragon might be, “but we owe you big time.”
The Aurum Dragon turned to face her.
“My name is Daxxton Ryker.”
Chapter Two
Daxxton
He stood up, brushing dirt from his hands, the dry crumbly earth falling away.
After the battle that had just taken place there, a large swath of the land was drained of all water, baked to a crisp.
“That should hold until we get to Cadia,” he said, giving the spare tire a swift kick to ensure it stayed in place. The vehicle rocked slightly under the blow, but there was no give in the tire or the nuts holding it on that he could see.
Beside him, the gorgeous woman who he’d come to learn was Miranda, the head of security, stood looking on apprehensively.
He eyed her once more out of the corner of his eyes, taking in her features. She was tall, as was to be expected for a dragon shifter, approaching nearly six feet in height. The height was even more accentuated by the calf-high tactical combat boots that she wore, the black material tight to her skin, outlining her legs for him to practically drool over.
Daxxton’s eyes swept upward, over her round hips, muscular torso, and past the swell of her perky but not overly large breasts. A strong chin was exposed by the lack of hair, her mane of midnight-black locks swept up into a bun, held in place by what looked suspiciously like a knife handle. He wondered about the practicality of that, but whatever it was, it worked for her.
She was a siren, reaching out from the depths of the waters to test him. More than once he was sure she’d caught him staring. It was most unlike him, and a wave of guilt washed over Daxxton as he realized he was looking at her once again for an overlong period of time.
Focus. Mission first.
“Let’s get going then,” Miranda said.
“There’s no way I can convince you to fly there?” he asked.
Miranda set her jaw, and he knew instantly the fight was over.
“Okay, okay,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender, not wanting to provoke her temper. Her eyebrows slowly relaxed.
Daxxton hadn’t even seen them narrow, so distracted was he by the fire in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said.
Miranda was stubborn. Very stubborn, he was learning. He’d insisted they simply carry the wounded and head back to Cadia via the air. Miranda said flight wasn’t worthy of her princess when entering a foreign territory.
He still wasn’t sure how that made any sense whatsoever, but she’d been adamant about having the vehicle driven with the princess in it. He wasn’t sure why the princess couldn’t fly. By all reports she was a black dragon, like Miranda. She’d been through the schooling necessary to fly well, as did all in positions of power.
Maybe she’s got some sort of long-term injury? Or maybe she’s just a lazy brat…
Daxxton tried to push that second thought from his mind as he climbed into the front seat. That was a battle he’d managed to win. His team would shadow them from the air, but he was riding in the vehicle with Miranda and the princess. Daxxton hadn’t backed down on that one, and the Tanithians, knowing they were in his territory, had eventually acquiesced to it.
Miranda was behind the wheel, and the vehicle lurched into motion. Behind them, the rainbow of dragons took to the air, stirring up a massive cloud of dust as their wings beat against the ground, launching them skyward. Although he wasn’t about to say anything, a small part of Daxxton was proud to see his Cadians jump just a little higher and gain altitude just a little faster.
It was always a comp
etition.
“What’s that smile for?” Miranda asked in her pleasing voice.
Daxxton shook his head, forcing his eyes straight ahead. It wouldn’t do to be seen admiring the soft skin of her neck in front of the princess of Tanith. And it doubly wouldn’t be acceptable to lean over and sink his teeth gently into that skin while his hands roamed her body.
Sit still.
His spine went ramrod straight as he exerted a level of self-control over himself that he hadn’t had to do in a long, long time.
“Just a thought,” he replied at last, before the silence went on for too long. “Nothing important.”
Miranda glanced over at him briefly, and he thought she was going to push, or call him out on the blatant lie, but she didn’t.
Taking a deep breath, he thanked his lucky stars for that. As he did, his hand slid from his lap, pushed aside by his expanding chest. Daxxton summoned the limb back to his lap unconsciously, but before it could respond, his fingers brushed against something that wasn’t car.
Across from him Miranda hissed quietly, but to the dragon-enhanced hearing in the confined area of the car, it may as well have been a shout.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, snatching his hand away, even as he closed his eyes, forcing himself to go through the same breathing exercises he did when he awoke from the dream.
The Dream. Kyra.
Guilt slammed into him full-force as he realized what he’d been doing, and what his mind had been thinking. Demons of his own creation welled up in his mind and sunk their claws into him. Sobering coldness swept across his body, quenching the fires that one simple touch had awakened as quickly as they’d come.
His mind, cleared of the fog that had been wrapping around it, focused back on the present with a cool analytical set to it.
“So, why are you here?” he asked.
It was a simple question on the surface, but every occupant of the vehicle knew that there was much more to it. Why did you come to Cadia now? Why did you choose the route you did? Why was it unannounced? What are your real motives for being here? Why were you being pursued by a mercenary shifter team?
The last one was perhaps the one that intrigued him the most.
