Sought by the Alphas Complete Boxed Set: A Paranormal Romance Serial

by Carina Wilder

  Quickly she moved into human form, even as the looming threat of Lord Drake’s shape appeared in the sky above her. He was looking down, watching, trying to discern what she was doing before making the decision to swoop down after her.

  And then softly, Gwynne spoke the words, slowly and methodically, being sure to get them right:

  Ic i beliehe fléamdom.

  She shifted again, her dragon’s head craning to look up towards the creature in the sky above her. In that moment she knew whether or not she had succeeded: but he seemed to be falling, careening downwards in her direction, towards the very place where she now stood.

  She backed away, ensuring to remain within the circle yet leaving him room for the hard landing to come.

  Drake came down opposite her, the earth shaking around him. His enormous dragon lay winded for a moment inside the wall of slabbed stone before rising and shaking its massive head. Gwynne began to walk slowly around the inside edge of the circle, slinking towards him, assessing his physical state as she did so.

  She could see a struggle in his features as he tried to lift off into the air again, wanting to provide himself with the advantage in this fight. But he was grounded now, and would only be able to move about on his four legs.

  Out of the corner of her eye Gwynne saw wolves—an army of them—rushing at the ring of stones. At their head were Lachlan and Rauth, both in their déor forms.

  Damn it, she thought. Stop. No further. She’d hoped to face Drake on her own without distraction. Her alphas would not sit idly by and watch her fight to the death, much as she wanted exactly that. This was her time.

  Rauth shifted as the army reached the perimeter and held up a hand, signalling the wolves to halt. No one was to proceed into the circle, not yet.

  Lachlan joined him in human form a moment later.

  “What are you doing standing by?” he asked. “She’ll be killed.”

  “Something’s at work here that doesn’t involve us. We’ll move in if we need to.”

  Rauth shifted again and paced outside the circle, waiting for any sort of sign that Gwynne was in trouble. But Lachlan stood still for a moment, still in his human skin, feeling helpless. At last he shifted, giving in to his cousin and admitting to himself that the man had never steered his clan wrong; he wouldn’t begin to do so now.

  Their mate was approaching her confused father, who’d begun, it seemed, to understand what was happening. He’d been crippled by the fall, but not entirely incapacitated. So the fight would be restricted to the ground. But he still had his greatest weapon: fire.

  He turned to face his daughter, ignoring the massive wolves who now surrounded the stone ring. They were nothing to him; their jaws, however strong, were not sufficient to tear through his coating of thick armoured scales; at least not easily. He was far larger than they were. No, it was only the dragon before him, who glowed red between her own glinting scales, who threatened his life. But she was no fighter. She was only a weak woman, spoiled by a life of pleasure and comfort.

  And he intended to take her down once and for all, here in this place of ancient magic.

  Gwynne came to a stop at last and turned to stare into his face: that cold, calculating assortment of dragon’s features that was so reminiscent of his emotionless human features. She sensed in him nothing of the sort of compassion that she’d come to know in her wolves—even Rauth was warm in comparison.

  This was a cold beast, and his blood had none of the kindness that she knew so well, and that she drilled into her children. If there had ever been goodness in him, it was now long gone.

  Closer, she thought, willing him to approach, to come within reach.

  As though understanding her thoughts and taking the bait, Drake moved towards her, his gait awkward as he walked on legs that seemed from their lopsidedness to be uneven lengths. He was best, she knew, in the air. On the ground he was off kilter and gangly.

  But as he came closer he put a plan into action, speeding up into a run and coming at her with full force, breathing a stream of fire in her direction.

  Gwynne took off flying upwards rapidly out of the flames, which nearly caught her feet. The fire scorched the grass and stones on the circle’s north side, where thankfully only a few wolves had been standing.

  I’ll have to be better prepared next time, Gwynne told herself.

  The standing stone which Drake’s flames had impacted was black now, the wolves who’d stood behind it scattered in every direction. The clan had backed off, realizing what they were up against. But Rauth stood by, his breath caught in his wolf’s throat as he ached to attack.

  Above her, Gwynne saw flyers—thousands of them—soaring in circles, waiting for a command. All eyes were fixed on her, counting on her to end this tyrant’s oppressive reign at last. She felt suddenly as though she were surrounded by spectators at a coliseum, a gladiator fighting a beast for their amusement.

  Well, at least they would get a show, whatever the outcome.

  Rauth and Lachlan paced in their wolf forms near the circle’s perimeter and Gwynne dove towards the dragon within it again, sensing that they might go in for an attack if she didn’t move. No, she thought. Not yet.

  She aimed for Drake himself. His neck was craned as he watched her come at him, readying himself for a heavy blow.

  But instead, Gwynne retaliated against his attack by shooting a spear of flame at his torso before veering away. She managed to hit him full on the side as he shrieked in pain. So dragons do burn, thought the cwen, pleased to have the advantage.

  She lifted away again and came at him, swooping down, flames shooting once more. This time, Drake managed to run out of its way, his side still smouldering.

  This game could go on for hours, Gwynne knew. It was one thing to cause him slight injuries, but she needed to ground him permanently. To rob him of his powers. She needed, probably, to kill him.

  Finally she landed before her opponent, challenging him with eyes which locked on his own. A dragon’s face can in fact have expression on occasion, and his told her now of his anger. Never had she seen such a hateful look on any creature’s features; here was a man who simply wanted his challenger dead, whether she was of his blood or not. There was no attachment, no affection. Only cold, searing loathing.

  In spite of his expression he seemed to cower, his side turned towards her, and for a moment Gwynne felt remorse at having hurt him. She considered shifting for a second and explaining herself. But no; he wouldn’t do her the same favour. He had almost killed her daughter. He didn’t deserve explanations.

  She approached slowly, carefully, readying herself for the attack. Drake seemed to have given up, as though the pain was too great to continue with the brief battle. As she came close, she inhaled deeply, ready to aim for his throat with a wall of fire that would no doubt incapacitate him. He recoiled like a wounded animal, his body seeming to shrink as she came near. The human inside Gwynne hesitated, backing off for only a few seconds.

  It was then that he made his move.

  He turned quickly and charged at her, knocking her sideways. She fell onto her right side, her wing under her, and before she could bring her large body to a standing position, a shock of searing heat grazed her chest.

  Her scales glowed with her own inner fire as she put up a resistant armour, fighting off the attempts to burn her flesh.

  Something occurred in that moment which made her stomach churn: the two alphas, seeing their mate in danger, were running into the circle, aiming themselves directly at Lord Drake.

  Gwynne wished in that moment that dragons could scream.

  * * *

  Dragon Queen 21

  Gwynne was still struggling to rise as the wolves ran at Drake, who was preparing another onslaught. Rauth’s and Lachlan’s déors came at him from both sides, charging towards his long neck with bared teeth.

  No, thought Gwynne, it won’t work. She knew that a dragon’s weak spot was not his neck. At most they’d manage to irrit
ate him.

  But the alphas’ queen was in trouble, and duty instructed them to protect her with their lives.

  It was Rauth who reached him first, leaping through the air, attempting to tear at the thick flesh as he would an elk’s or a bear’s. The most he could accomplish, though, was to grip Drake’s neck between his massive jaws, which served only to distract the shifter into flailing wildly, trying to relieve himself of the burden of the huge dire wolf.

  Lachlan leapt on Drake’s back between his now useless wings, coming at his neck from behind. This was a more successful strategy: biting into the softer tissue just behind the dragon’s head.

  But Drake was strong, and as he jerked his head around he sent Rauth flying through the air only to land on his back several feet away.

  Gwynne had watched all of it unfold, a sickening feeling developing in the pit of her stomach. She found herself airborne again as soon as she could regain her balance, flying at the other dragon. Fire was out of the question with Lachlan still attached to Drake, but she could try and knock him over before he reached Rauth.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t his plan.

  A solid spear of flame shot from Drake’s mouth towards the wolf, who’d had the wind knocked out of him when he’d hit the ground after Drake had thrown him off. Gwynne realized too late that she needed to place herself between her opponent and Rauth and she flew, aiming her body at the stream of fire. But too late; the flames had already swept by her.

  The smell of burning flesh filled the air and Gwynne wanted, needed, to scream. In the distance she saw Rauth lying motionless on the ground, smoke coming off his hind leg and side, where blackened, singed fur and charred flesh made for a sickening sight.

  Lachlan leapt off Drake’s back and ran towards his cousin, ready to take the brunt of the next hit.

  But none would come.

  Rage surged up inside Gwynne as it had never done before. Rauth, the strongest, most agonizingly stubborn man she knew, her lover, her mate, father to her children, would not die at the hands of this monster.

  She took off again, coming down at the other dragon like a missile. At the last moment she braced herself for impact as fire cascaded towards her victim. The flames that would burn him, but not her. She was her mother’s daughter, the offspring of a bird of fire.

  If dire wolves could gasp, the army surrounding the circle would have done so in that moment. They watched in silence as the golden dragon, their Queen, turn to a giant ball of flame just before colliding with Lord Drake’s déor. It was as though she’d spontaneously combusted into fire of a billion shades.

  And all of a sudden, her victim was on fire as well, running madly around, trying to get between the standing stones that were preventing his escape.

  Gwynne rose up again, hovering in the air before him, and came crashing down once more. This time she knocked him to the ground, smoke pouring off his body as the flames settled into bright embers which coated his tarnished scales.

  The great drake was down at last.

  His face turned to Gwynne’s briefly before sinking to the earth, and the eyes which had always seemed to pierce the souls of those they looked upon went blank at long last.

  A moment later, a simple man lay on the ground where the dragon had been, his skin pale, his body lifeless. The burns which his dragon had suffered didn’t seem to translate into his human form but nevertheless he seemed to have lost all of his strength, as though a force pulled him into the earth itself like a magnet.

  Gwynne suppressed any small desire to go to him, to help him, and instead turned back towards her dire wolf mates.

  Lachlan, meanwhile, had moved quickly to the outside of the stone circle and shifted, the leader within him rearing his head to address his army.

  “Take him away,” he yelled. “Let the drake’s reign end now.”

  The wolves moved in then, swarming around their victim. Picking him up between massive jaws, they carried him off to a fate that didn’t need discussion. He would not fly or breathe fire again in this lifetime.

  As Gwynne made her way over to Rauth she transformed into the woman he knew so well. He lay on the ground, still in his wolf form, his side heaving, struggling with each breath. Lachlan approached and knelt next to him, signalling one of their pack to bring them garments.

  “Rauth,” he said to his cousin. His voice was choked in his throat. “Don’t leave me. You don’t know how much I need you. You are my family. Your pack needs you, too.”

  The wolf’s head weakly tilted and looked towards him as though quietly acknowledging the words.

  “You and I work well together, whatever you think,” Lachlan continued. “I can’t do this without you. Neither can Gwynne, or the children. Remember that.”

  A moment later Gwynne was at his side, kneeling on the ground with a long linen robe falling around her.

  “He’s badly burned,” she said. “Weakened, and probably feeling too little strength to shift.”

  She put a hand on Rauth’s face, stroking his dark fur gently. “You can do it,” she said. “You can. Come back to us. Remember how you brought me back from the brink of death, Rauth? Come back now.”

  The feeling of warm human skin under her hand was the greatest thing Gwynne had experienced in some time. There it was: Rauth’s face; so like Lachlan’s and yet so different. Hard-edged but beautiful. Perfect, vulnerable and powerful.

  And now his face told Gwynne how much agony he must be enduring. Rauth so rarely showed weakness, but now he winced in pain. Gwynne’s eyes veered to his left leg; the alpha had not been so fortunate as her father, whose burns had remained with his déor. The entirety of her mate’s thigh and most of his calf had been badly scorched.

  Lachlan took his cousin’s hand, a gesture which Gwynne realized seemed more intimate than anything she’d seen in all the time she’d spent with her lovers. And Rauth, rather than retracting his own, held Lachlan’s tightly and even managed a smile.

  “I’m with you for good,” he said between clenched teeth. “And you, my cousin, will have to be our pack’s alpha if you’re willing.”

  “What do you mean?” Lachlan asked. “We’ll continue to share the role, as always.”

  “I’m no fool, Lachlan. I know that this leg will be of little use to me. A wolf who can’t sprint cannot be alpha. And we’ve both known from the beginning that you were the one who earned the role. It’s only your goodness that kept you from taking it away from me. So now, at last, take what’s rightfully yours.” Lachlan had in fact won the position long ago, but his quest to find Gwynne had always seemed more important and he’d never regretted the decision to let Rauth take the reins and lead the dire wolf clan.

  “We’ll talk about it when you’re well,” said Lachlan, reluctant to take advantage of a man who was in so much pain. He looked up at last, his eyes seeking his mate’s. “For now, Gwynne, can you get him the treatment he needs? I’m afraid that this isn’t the time or place for it.”

  “Of course I can,” said Gwynne, taking Rauth’s other hand in her own. A moment later, the two of them were gone, vanished to another time and place.

  * * *

  Dragon Queen 22

  Dr. Evans had managed to convince his twenty-first century colleagues to treat Rauth, despite their multitude of questions about his wounds. None of them had ever seen such burns, which had hit him in great swaths as if from an extremely powerful flame-thrower.

  His tissue, they said, was mostly dead. While he could keep his leg, he’d lost a good deal of the muscle, which would never return. Rauth had been right: his déor’s rear leg would be permanently weak, and he would no longer be a sprinter or even much of a fighter.

  As he lay in his modern bed recovering, he felt Gwynne run a hand through his hair.

  His eyes opened, landing on her, and she saw a softness in them which was altogether new. In all of his moments of humanity and vulnerability, Rauth had never surrendered his alpha wolf; never properly allowed the thick ston
e wall surrounding his heart to come down.

  “I am just a wolf now,” he said.

  “A dire wolf, still,” said Gwynne, smiling. “My dire wolf.”

  “Do you still want a broken man, my love?” he asked, his eyes moving away towards the opposite wall. Gwynne wondered if she’d heard his voice catch in his throat. Surely not.

  “You aren’t broken,” she said. “Only scarred, like my mother. And I couldn’t love her more. And I couldn’t love you more, Rauth. You were protecting me. All I ever wanted was for us to look after one another, rather than to command each other. We’re not enemies, you know. We’re lovers.”

  He looked into her eyes again, his own welling with tears.

  “I have never been able to stand the idea of losing you,” he said quietly. “So I’ve never wanted to surrender myself to you. Now I know that I should have done just that. Every day I should have let you know what you are to me. I may have lost part of myself in the battle, but you are more crucial to me than my heart itself.”

  Now it was Gwynne who choked back tears. Every moment of fear that she’d experienced, the terror that Rauth would become her father, seemed to shed itself now; he was a man whose wolf had calmed and settled at last. It was still within him, but it would now be a creature intent on teaching his young and guiding his pack.

  At last, Rauth found himself nestled, comfortable, deep inside his mate’s heart, and she welcomed him with open arms.

  * * *

  The two spent a few days together in Gwynne’s modern universe. When he was well enough to walk, she took him for ice cream, even—a treat he’d never experienced. Like his son he marvelled at cars, airplanes and the clothing that some people wore, though he wondered aloud a few times where all the shifters were.

  “In hiding, I suspect,” smiled Gwynne. “My time isn’t quite the same as yours. Shifters would be considered freaks of nature and no doubt arrested at gunpoint in this time and place.”