by Amelia Jade
Handy, that. I wonder how often that’s helped them avoid trouble?
“Do you really think Fenris would chance sending a team into Cadia proper to attack us?” Nolan asked as he and Miranda moved up on either side of him.
Behind them, Dak and Vogel flanked the princess, to her side and just slightly to her rear as well, putting her firmly in the center of the formation.
“They wouldn’t send their own troops, no,” he said immediately.
“But even if they send the mercenaries, wouldn’t that basically be provoking open warfare?” Nolan pressed.
“Not if we can’t prove who sent them,” Daxxton and Miranda replied together.
He looked over at the black Blast Dragon and smiled.
She smiled back. He pictured her human face and the way it curved up into a smile.
Miranda was certainly beautiful.
Without warning the image in his mind wavered, and changed. The black hair became blonde, the soft, milky skin became tanned, kissed by the sun, and dark brown eyes became a soft green.
Kyra.
She gave him a sad smile.
Daxxton felt sick to his stomach. His wings beat hard and he pulled slightly ahead of the other two, flying in silence as his mind hammered him with guilt. He was betraying his mate.
It had been a long time since Kyra had died. Daxxton had not been celibate, though it had taken him a long time to be with a woman afterward. He’d been unable to live with himself for some time after…after…
After you exacted your revenge.
Yes. After that. But in time, he’d learned to appreciate the touch of a woman once more.
But it was only physical, as a relief of his more basic needs. Never more than once either, as he did not trust himself not to begin to care. It had just been easier that way.
But none of the women he’d met had been anything like Miranda either. And now here he was, not having had any intimate contact with her besides a pat on his chest, and he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
How could he do that to Kyra? How could he sully her memory like that? She had loved him with all of her heart. Had given him everything she’d had. Her virginity. Her hand in marriage. They’d even begun trying to conceive a child together, only days before—
Daxxton snarled silently as he shoved images of burning buildings from his mind, determined not to relieve that memory once again. Not right now.
But the smiling green-eyed beauty with long blonde hair wouldn’t leave his mind. She just kept on giving him that same sad smile, the look saying only one thing.
What about me?
He snarled at himself and pushed harder, trying to get them there faster.
And at the back of his mind the entire time was the feeling of danger that just wouldn’t go away.
***
The sprawling grounds of the Nova Estate came into view twenty-odd minutes later. They were so massive, however, that the party still had to fly onward for another handful of minutes before they began to descend toward the house.
He watched as the picturesque clusters of trees gave way to the perfectly manicured lawns that surrounded the estate building itself.
“Wow,” he heard Nolan say from behind him.
It certainly was an amazing sight. Gently rolling hills covered in cross-hatched grass led up to the house itself. The huge mansion, laid out in a cross pattern, was a brilliant white even at night, the four wings all pointing at one of the primary compass points.
Extending directly away from the wings of the house were stone landing strips, illuminated by rows of solar-powered lights, making it easy for his team to descend.
Daxxton was careful to land gently, so that his claws didn’t mar the ground beneath them. The stone underfoot was not the normal beige of nearly everywhere else. It was a red quartz that was always kept pristinely polished, despite the fact that most of the visitors were dragons who had a tendency to scratch and scuff things up.
As his team descended behind him, a group of men emerged from the house, fanning out to either side of the walkway as they approached. They skirted the giant garden that the walkway split around. Each of the four corners had one, and at the center of each garden was one of the massive Vallenwood trees, towering high into the air and spreading out to cover much of the house under their canopies.
The other men drew closer, and he realized of the nine of them, only three were dressed as security. The other half-dozen had the white livery of servants.
“Everything okay?” Miranda asked as they shifted back into human form, her team closing up around the princess.
He frowned. Everything was okay, wasn’t it?
Then why are your hands balled into fists?
He glanced down in surprise, noting that his right foot was forward, weight balanced evenly on the balls of his feet.
A fighting stance.
What the hell was he doing?
He glanced up at the oncoming men once more.
“No,” he said, looking them over. “Something is wrong.”
Something loud roared to life, but whatever it was, it was still obscured by the house.
That seemed to spur the men in front of them on, and without a word the nine of them charged across the distance.
“Shit,” Daxxton muttered. “It’s a fucking trap. I knew we should have stayed.”
“No time to debate that now,” Miranda snapped as she and the other Tanithians moved into a protective circle around the princess.
It wasn’t good. Whoever these men were, they had them outnumbered. Another few seconds and they would be on top of him.
What could he do to buy them time?
Whoever they were, they were smart, having waited until his entire team had landed and shifted back into human form. The distance between them was too little for any of them to be able to shift back before the ambushers were among them.
An idea came to him, his body reacting before it was even fully formed. Daxxton dropped to one knee and reached inside himself, finding the swirling maelstrom of energy that was his dragon.
There were a few tricks he could do that the attackers might not be familiar with.
“Hold on!” he shouted.
Beneath him, ice formed as he poured that aspect of his dragon into the ground, using its power. As an Aurum Dragon, Daxxton was blessed with the three powers of Frostfire, Dragonfire, and Electrofire. At any given point, he could make use of one, or all three of them. All he had to do was focus and apply the energy.
The mound of ice the six of them were standing on rose into the air as it grew. The attackers slowed, baffled by what he was doing. One of them even began to summon his own Dragonfire, intending on melting the ice.
But Daxxton had other ideas. Without warning, the flat section his group was standing on suddenly angled down sharply away from the house. Ice continued to form, completely smooth with no disturbances. Practically frictionless.
He grinned as his team slid down the makeshift ice slide, swiftly putting distance between them and the attackers faster than the hit team could react.
The look faded as a vehicle came roaring around the house, gunning for them.
“Do you mind?” he asked Miranda sweetly.
“My pleasure,” the woman said hotly, her anger at the situation somehow making her even more beautiful to him.
She stepped forward, and he saw darkness gather around her hands as she once more spread them wide.
Then, with a banshee-like yell, Miranda slapped them together in front of her. A pulse of energy burst forth from her, tearing a deep furrow in the ground as it lashed out at the SUV, taking it and flipping it upside down. A single shifter emerged from within. The sole pilot.
There was a shout, and the ambushers clad in security and servant clothing burst from around the two-story ice mound, charging in among the Tanithians.
Time to go to work.
Daxxton charged into the fray, using the ice to his advantage. He went to one k
nee to avoid a punch, sliding forward and out of reach of one shifter, while surprising another who thought he was going to stop and engage. A massive gold-tinted fist lashed out and broke the man’s jaw.
The shifter howled in agony, but his cry was cut short as the Aurum Dragon shifter wrapped his arms around the mercenary’s head. Back-to-back with his foe, Daxxton dropped to one knee and pulled forward, snapping the other shifter’s neck backward over his shoulder. There was a deflating oomph, followed by silence as the shifter went limp like only a corpse could.
One down.
A blow so fast it was a blur lashed out at his face. Daxxton yanked his head back fast enough that it only grazed him. He brought his hands up, grabbing the arm as he continued to spin away from it. He grabbed the fist with his right hand, and stabbed his left hand forward into the elbow of the outstretched arm.
Tendons snapped, bone broke, and the arm fell uselessly to the shifter’s side.
“Who are you?” Daxxton snarled as his thick fingers closed around the shifter’s larynx, lifting him clear of the ground.
Shifter-enhanced fingers tore at his grip, but Daxxton ignored them, eyes blazing with golden flame as he saw his charges engaged in a desperate battle.
No time to interrogate.
“Fine, you die,” he said calmly, and closed his fingers into a fist with more power than a vise.
Blood spurted as he all but ripped the merc’s neck out, dropping the thrashing soon-to-be-corpse to the ground. He stalked forward into the fray, his face blank but for the promise of death to any who stood in his way.
Vogel went down under a heavy blow, his injuries not having healed enough to allow him to stand and fight. Dak slipped and a fist sent him crashing to the ice.
The princess was surrounded.
Daxxton roared, a bellowing challenge that got the attention of everyone as he returned to the fight. His slow, measured paces blurred abruptly as he shot forward. Two quick blows sent men hurtling through the air into the empty lawn behind his team. A spin kick sent a third to join them. Miranda downed another man, and the remainder retreated.
Only six remained, but they faced only four shifters, and Nolan’s one arm was hanging at an unnatural angle.
“Come on then!” he shouted, trying to goad the mercs into brash action. But they were good, he noted. Very good. They fanned out and advanced as one, clearly well versed in group tactics.
There was a grunt, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Nolan turn to engage someone else.
The driver of the vehicle, having recovered enough, had attempted to charge them from behind.
“Help him, and protect her,” he said to Miranda, stepping forward to put himself between the six oncoming shifters and the rest of his party.
“Are you nuts?” she hissed.
“You’re under my protection, in my homeland,” he said, still facing the six men. “They’re going to learn just what that means.”
He took a step forward again, challenging the attackers.
Then, something made him stand upright and smile, and it wasn’t the squeal of pain as Miranda and the princess—whom he noted had held her own during the fight—easily finished off the other attacker.
“Missed your chance,” he said jovially.
“What?” one of them said.
“Ah, so you’re the leader. Well, shame.”
Daxxton raised his hand and began to wave farewell to the attackers, who all looked at each other in confusion.
Then the first explosion landed. The ball of blue-white fire simply incinerated the man on the far left. Daxxton barely had time to watch as a bolt of lightning came down and impaled the man on the far right.
The others were reacting by then, and the cloud of ice that descended didn’t succeed in trapping the other four. They ran off into the night at superhuman speeds.
“Asher, let them go!” he called. There were still four of them, and unless he missed his bet, they had reinforcements around. He didn’t want his backup team getting hurt. It would be a long time before any other Guardians could arrive to help provide security, and his team was hurt.
“How the hell did he get here so quickly?” Miranda asked, stepping up next to him, nursing a long jagged cut on her forearm.
“They followed us,” Daxxton said with a shrug. “But they left the headquarters building by ground and proceeded to head out of the city. Then they looped around and followed at a discreet distance. All we needed to do was buy enough time for them to arrive.”
He looked at her grimly. “Let’s go check the house for any traps.”
Chapter Five
Miranda
“It’ll be okay,” she told the princess. “Daxxton has men on the way, and his second team will be here shortly as well, with two more dragons. We’ve scoured the house, released the security they had drugged, and ensured they didn’t leave any traps for us.”
“I don’t get the non-lethal aspect,” the princess said, frowning. “Earlier they could have killed Vogel, but they only knocked him aside. Now these men, all drugged and restrained with special gear? That’s a lot of planning when they could just kill them.”
Miranda shrugged. “Perhaps they hope it won’t incur as much of a backlash if they don’t leave any bodies behind when they come for you?”
“Maybe.”
“I need to go now. Try to get some sleep,” Miranda said, trying very hard not to make it an order, and failing.
“Nolan has already said he will sit on me if he has to.”
Miranda snorted, knowing full well what she meant by “sit.” Their clandestine status as lovers was…well, not very clandestine.
“Be good,” she said and left the room, closing the thick steel door behind her. It looked like wood, she noticed, but it would resist a much more concentrated attack before collapsing. Just one of the security elements built into the house that she hadn’t expected to care about.
Now she was thankful for them.
Daxxton was waiting for her back in the central atrium of the house. Located at the juncture of all four wings, it boasted a ceiling that rose nearly three stories into the area, along with an impressive amount of greenery she was sure would need constant tending. A lot of work went into maintaining the property.
Without a word he rose from where he’d been talking to one of his own men, a grizzly shifter she believed, and came over to her.
“Ready?”
Miranda nodded sharply, and followed him through a door leading to a set of metal steps descending into the bowels of the house. They went down one story, then a second.
Interesting, there appears to be an entire warren of tunnels and rooms under the house. I wonder what they’re used for?
Daxxton paused in front of one room as they strode down a hallway. He pushed it open and gestured for her to enter.
“No, after you,” she said.
They both stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then as if by some unspoken signal, the two of them stepped forward at the same instant.
Realizing her mistake, Miranda turned sideways in an attempt to avoid slamming into his chest. She squeezed past him and into the room, but not before her body dragged slowly across his, her rear pressing right into his crotch as he tried to flatten himself against the doorjamb.
Electricity arced between them, jumping from one vertebrae to another as it made its way up her spine and into her extremities at the same time.
Miranda drew blood as she bit down hard on her lip in an attempt to prevent herself from whimpering at the sensation, feeling overwhelmed and intoxicated with lust at the same exact moment. She wanted nothing more than to feel Daxxton pressed up behind her, his hands on her hips as he bent her over, taking her with abandon, as if they were nothing more than wild animals in rutting season.
It was so intense, so vivid a sensation that her knees went weak and threatened to give out on her.
None of that was helped by the sudden hiss followed by a deep, feral growl t
hat sounded in Daxxton’s throat as he reacted to her touch. She sensed more than saw him reach out for her, but he pulled back as well. Her momentum had finally carried Miranda into the room, pulling her away from him.
The electric tension didn’t fade though. If anything it actually increased as she automatically turned to look at him and found herself captured by a pair of eyes so golden-brown they might have been the yellow of his dragon. Desire poured out through them, threatening to overwhelm her already-battered defenses some more.
“About time you got here,” a voice said, cutting through the silence like a whip.
Miranda spun with a cry, having been so preoccupied with Daxxton that she hadn’t noticed the other occupant in the room.
“Asher!” she exclaimed, her right hand raising over her heart as it went into overdrive for a moment.
“The one and only,” he said with a spread of his arms, grinning at the pair of them.
He knows. He saw and heard that whole thing. Please don’t say anything! Please, keep quiet. No snide comments.
“I was hoping you’d be here soon,” Asher went on. “He’s not giving me anything, and Dax here said I wasn’t allowed to extract it from him. So, your turn,” he said with a shrug.
The other man clapped her and Daxxton on the shoulder and left the room. He glanced at her as he went, and Miranda could have sworn there was a mischievous twinkle in his eye, but he was gone before she could be sure.
The distraction had served its purpose however, because Daxxton was once again all business, and the searing heat she’d felt from him was back hidden behind his walls. His attention was focused on the fourth man in the room.
“So, this is the only one to survive, is it?” she asked, looking at him through the gaps in the four-inch-thick, hardened-steel bars.
“Yes.”
The bedraggled survivor looked up at them from his hunched-over sitting position, and she stifled a gasp. His entire face was black and blue, and a chunk of skin hung loosely, not having snapped back into place just yet.
“You look like shit,” she said aloud, earning her an angry stare from the brown eyes.
