Darren studied her, his eyes as cruel as ever. “I like the proposal. I’m just wondering if it’s worth it. After all, I can have my way here and now and there’s no one to stop me. You—Moira—cannot stop me. So why would I waste my time with a battle?”
“Because if you don’t, you’re going to look scared of a girl,” Moira said, taking a step toward him. “And your little buddy over there—Vaughn, is it?—won’t ever be able to really respect a leader who didn’t think he could take on a woman.”
His eyes narrowed, and he moved toward her as well. “I know I could take you. I could take you any way I wanted to.”
“Then prove it,” Moira sneered back at him.
She didn’t give him a chance to respond, taking matters into her own hands as she reared her head back and transitioned, her limbs flying outward as her muscled, scaled dragon form took over her body. It felt like a release, allowing her most natural form to come forth as she defended the people she loved, and as her neck stretched and her brilliant red hair turned into brilliant red scales, she roared with her fury at what Darren had done to all of them. Her strong legs stomped down onto the floor, shaking the foundation of the warehouse Darren had tried to imprison her in, and her eyes met his as she lowered her head and opened her jaw, exposing sharp teeth and a hot rush of air that held a single flame at the end.
It was a clear message—fight or flight.
Chapter Forty-One
Darren
If there was one thing he hated most in the world, it was being shown up, and a dragon appearing in front of him, challenging him to a one-on-one battle for his dignity and honor was more than enough to make his blood boil.
He also didn’t like being proved wrong. He had thought that lacing Moira’s chains with foxglove would keep her at his mercy, but clearly he had been wrong.
His plan was out the door; his carefully crafted strategy meaningless now in the face of Moira’s transformation. The next few days were supposed to be a bevy of entertainment for him as he picked off his victims one by one. First, Felicia, because she was just too easy. Then he had planned to take his time with Grady and Moira, torturing them both while they remained at his mercy, forced to watch each other go through hell. He would have killed Grady first, then really enjoyed himself as he drained Moira’s life slowly.
He wasn’t worried about her little friends showing up. The warehouse had no connection to him, and he’d left no evidence as to where he was going. They’d have to be psychic to find him, and he was confident that skill wasn’t included in their mix-match bag of supernatural powers.
He hated having his plans ruined.
He met Moira’s challenging glare with one of his own, taking a step back from her so there would be plenty of room for him to shift. But before he did, he turned to Vaughn. “Get the others on board—now. I don’t care what you threaten them with, but make sure they’re ready.”
“You can’t take her on your own?” Vaughn responded, arching an eyebrow.
The thing about Vaughn was that, aside from Callum, he’d been Darren’s most faithful ally, but Darren had never gotten the sense that it was out of personal loyalty. Vaughn did what was best for himself. Usually, Darren could respect that in person, but at the moment, it was inconvenient.
“Do it,” he snapped at Vaughn, and then he closed his eyes.
He was going to battle against the stomping, snorting, fire-breathing dragon in front of him, and he was going to have to use all his creativity to defeat her. His biggest advantage—their confined space. She could move around, but not nearly as much as he would be able to if he stayed small.
He pictured a fly, and in the next moment, he was that fly. To Moira, it would look like he had just disappeared, and as he zipped away, moving behind her, he enjoyed the knowledge that nobody in the room now knew where he was. That was the only advantage to becoming a fly though. He could do no harm in this form, and it was arguably cowardly for him to be hiding. He needed to position himself, and then he would really begin to fight—as soon as he got behind her.
But before he could get in the right position to take his next form, Moira moved. She didn’t turn around or step to the side, which he would have thought were her only two options. Instead, she soared straight upward, knocking into him without even realizing she had. To his shock, as he stared at her from the millions of eyes he now possessed, she slammed into the ceiling as hard as she could—hard enough for the entire room to shake.
Before he could react, she had done it again, and a terrible crack shot across the warehouse ceiling. He didn’t have to be a genius to realize what she was doing. She was solving her space issues by removing the top barrier, and if she succeeded, it would make it almost impossible for him to beat her at her own game.
But he wasn’t above fighting dirty—in fact, that was his favorite way to fight. From a fly, he shifted into a bear, landing on the dragon’s back and swiping across the back of her neck with his claws. Moira reared back, even though her scales repelled his claws with ease. His weight on her back and the force of his blow were enough to throw her off course, and he was now in the perfect position—behind her and on her back—to take her down. She couldn’t breathe her clouds of fire at him, get him with her sharp teeth, or swipe at him with her claws. He only had to worry about her powerful tail, but a one-front war was something he could definitely handle.
In the form of an agile black bear, he jumped upward, her tail sweeping harmlessly beneath him as she attempted to knock him off her back. He landed on her with a thud, beating at her with his paws, but then she surprised him again by sweeping her wings upward, sending them careening toward the ceiling.
He came within seconds of being crushed against the cracked concrete, but shifted into the bat form he loved to use when he needed to make a quick escape. He flew away from her just as she crashed against the ceiling, widening the crack and shaking the foundation of the warehouse. Darren knew there was nothing but open air outside, and nobody around for miles and miles to keep Moira from soaring out and away. As she came back down, then started to soar upward again, he landed his small bat feet on her nose and scratched viciously at her left eye with his claws.
Moira reared back, her wings flailing as she tried to right herself. She shook her head back and forth, but Darren anticipated the reaction and clung onto her, landing another painful swipe on her right eye. She roared and breathed out a cloud of fire that singed Darren’s wings as he swept away to make his escape. One eye cast upward told him that she was only one or two blows away from taking the ceiling and the structure of the building down, and then it occurred to him that there was only one way to stop her.
He wasn’t fighting nearly dirty enough. He was facing Moira directly—a being with as much power, if not more power, than he had. But he should be hitting her where it would hurt most—her heart. Her physical heart was covered by a layer of armor far too thick for him to ever penetrate, but her metaphorical heart was sprawled on the floor, still moving in and out of consciousness as chaos reigned above him.
Shifting again, Darren took on the form of a wolf and landed on the floor with all four legs, snarling directly at Grady. The man was suffering from a head injury, and he was still far too hazy to understand what was happening, but as Darren began to creep closer and closer to him, Moira stopped throwing herself against the ceiling and stared in horror behind her, recognizing Darren’s intention.
Darren was almost gleeful as he stalked Grady, knowing that Moira wasn’t agile enough to get to him with her teeth in time and her fire was too dangerous, because it would burn Grady as well. He was going to tear apart the love of her life in front of her eyes, and if that didn’t give him the upper hand in this fight, then nothing would.
With a low growl, Darren pounced, closing the distance between himself and Grady and sinking his teeth in the man’s calf, dragging him into the corner. The taste of blood spurred him on, and he crowed with delight, feeling Moira’s agony vibra
te through the air and hearing his impending victory echoing in his ears.
Chapter Forty-Two
Grady
It seemed like he was caught in a whirlwind of pain. His head, his ribs, and every other spot on his body hurt, his vision was blurry, and while he knew that something terrible was happening around him, he couldn’t seem to stay conscious enough to figure out what it was.
And then, out of nowhere, more pain seared through his leg and he was being dragged by that pain across a hard, cold floor. There was growling, but it sounded faint and far away, and then Grady forced his eyes open and stared directly into the cold, dark gaze of a wolf.
Reality cut sharply through his injury-induced haze, and he began to struggle to move away, finding it utterly useless to fight against the animal that was far stronger than him at his best, much less in his current state. He wanted to shout or to scream, but dignity prevented such things, and instead, he forced himself to go into survival mode. Useless as it was, he fought against the wolf, his head spinning and a sweat breaking out over his skin that he would later look back on as a sign that his body was shutting down.
It was hopeless, but Grady refused to stop fighting against the animal shaking him back and forth. He was losing the fight though, and he could only hope that somehow, somewhere Moira was safe. That she’d gotten away. That he was giving his life for hers, which would make it all worth it. Struggling to open his eyes, he looked once more at his wolf attacker, and he was just in time to see a block of concrete come flying from somewhere behind him, hitting the wolf just at the crown of his head.
The blow sent an initial fresh jolt of pain through him, but then the teeth that had lodged in his skin released as the wolf reared backward, howling. Though he wouldn’t have thought his body capable of such a feat, he scrambled backward, his leg bloodied but intact. Before he could try to stand, a large tail wrapped around his middle, lifting him up.
Ribs that were likely broken protested, but Grady gripped the tail, the fire-red scales more comforting to him than anything he had ever seen. He couldn’t see Moira’s face, but he knew it was her lifting him to safety, and his heart expanded with so much love for her that he couldn’t contain it. He bent his head and kissed one scale, watching the floor get further and further away as she lifted him higher. The wolf was back on its feet, glaring and rearing up, but then it disappeared from sight as Moira’s tail pushed Grady through a crack in the ceiling and deposited him on a roof, darkness and fresh air surrounding him instead of the stale stench of the room he’d just been in.
She released him, and he tumbled onto all fours, quickly lowering himself as his body protested every movement. Nothing that had just happened to him made any sense at all. He didn’t know where he was; he didn’t know why a wolf had attacked him; and he didn’t know where Moira had come from, even though he had brief memories of her face as he moved in and out of consciousness. He was in the dark, both literally and figuratively, and then a body tumbled down beside him and he opened his eyes to see Felicia there, chains hanging from her wrists and ankles. Moira had rescued her too.
He tried to speak, but his voice didn’t seem to work. Instead, he reached a hand toward her, briefly touching her arm and asking her with his eyes to tell him something—anything—about Moira.
“Darren beat you and brought you here,” she whispered, wriggling closer to him. She looked like she had taken a beating as well, but she was in far better shape than he was. “Moira and I were trapped here, but she got free enough to transition, and they’re battling it out in there. He was losing, so he went after you instead, and he got you pretty good, I think. But Moira got us out—up here.”
She was whispering her hurried explanation, leaving out a lot of details he thought would be important, but giving him enough to help him understand.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Felicia confessed, biting her lip. “That room is too small for her. She needs more space to really be dangerous, and Darren is very smart. Vaughn might back him up. I don’t know. The others won’t—I really don’t think they will. But Moira’s friends—I don’t think they know where we are. It’s down to Moira, I think. She has to win this.”
Grady reached for Felicia’s hand and held it tightly. “She will,” he managed to croak. “But we can’t be here.”
“What?” She shook her head, confused. “We’re safe here.”
“No,” Grady rasped, trying to tug her with him as he began to inch toward the edge of the building. “She needs to break through the roof. She needs the space—you said it. We can’t stay here. Drag me to the edge, Felicia. Now—hurry.”
Felicia got to her feet and grabbed his arm, trying to pull, but she was tiny. With the foxglove chains, she didn’t have much strength either. Grady tried to help her as much as he could though, and together, they made their way over to the far end of the roof.
If there had been a way for them to get down, he would have forced Felicia to take it, in case the entire roof caved in. It was a risk they were going to have to take, but at least now, he hoped, there was space enough for Moira to come through the ceiling without having to worry about dislodging them in the process. He lay on the ground, in more pain than he could remember, and he stared at that small opening that Moira had just pushed him through, wishing with every single heartbeat to see her come through it as well.
Chapter Forty-Three
Moira
Darren had only had Grady in his grasp for two minutes or less, but every second of those two minutes had been agony for Moira, and she cursed herself for not being able to save the man she loved faster. With the confines of space, she hadn’t been able to turn quickly enough to get to Grady, so she’d taken a risk and bashed her head against the ceiling until she could dislodge a chunk of the concrete and whip it at Darren’s head with the power of the muscles in her neck. When Darren had reeled backward, releasing Grady, she’d been able to reach him with her tail and propel him upward.
Now that he was safely on the roof of the building and Felicia there after him, she could only hope that he realized the importance of putting as much distance between himself and the crack she was widening. He was a smart man, and she trusted him to know, but she delayed her next crash against the ceiling, trying to give him enough time to get a safe distance away.
Instead, she focused wholly on Darren, who, still in his wolf form, was seething with anger, his teeth bared, and his yellow eyes glowing. She saw him look toward the door and craned her own neck to do the same, her heart sinking when she saw Vaughn there, looking ready to fight. If it was two against one in the small confines of this room, she was going to lose.
Darren growled at Vaughn, and Vaughn responded by shifting into a second wolf, stalking over to Darren and baring his teeth at Moira.
She whipped her tail at both of them, but they moved backward, avoiding the power of her strike with ease. Moira knew she couldn’t afford to stall any longer and she could only hope that Grady had gotten himself and Felicia out of the way. Using her wings, she pushed herself upward, slamming her back against the ceiling. The crack widened further, but there was no hope of her getting out of it and the building was too solid for the ceiling to collapse just yet. Moira lowered herself again, positioning her body so that her tail was against the wall this time, and she was facing her attackers. She reared her head back to breathe fire at them, but as she opened her mouth, one of the wolves jumped up and sank its teeth into the soft underside of Moira’s throat.
It was one of the only parts of her body not armored, and it sent pain and anger rushing through her. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the wolf, but even as she flung it back and forth in the air, it didn’t release her. The wolf’s muscled legs clamped onto her long neck, and he used the leverage to begin to shake his head back and forth, tearing at the softness of her throat. It was suddenly hard for Moira to breathe, and she knew she had to act fast.
She took a risk, using her legs and wings to prope
l her upward again. Even with the wolf latched onto her throat, she crashed against the ceiling, shaking the entire building, and the crack split further—but not far enough to let her pass through in her current form. Without hesitating, she transitioned back into her human form, grasping onto the edge of the concrete crack with one hand to keep herself from plummeting to the floor.
The jolt of her transition dislodged the wolf from her throat, but she was utterly vulnerable now, hanging by one hand from the ceiling, naked, and susceptible to any of their attacks. She knew she only had seconds before they regrouped and both came at her. If they reached her, they would tear her apart, limb from limb, and it was that thought that allowed her to haul her human form upward toward the freedom of the night air.
She scrambled her way through the opening in the ceiling, the jagged concrete scraping against her soft skin as she clawed toward safety. When she was only halfway out, she felt talons on her dangling legs and then a strong tug that threatened to send her tumbling back into her prison. She curled her fingers, trying to find some hold that she could grab onto, and then hands wrapped around her wrists and she looked up into Grady’s eyes, seeing an equal combination of pain and determination there.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “Felicia—get on her other side!”
Felicia grabbed Moira’s other arm, and they both worked to anchor her, but as Moira clutched at Grady, she could feel the talons of whatever flying beast Darren and Vaughn had now shifted into pulling her from the other side. She kicked at them, her legs flailing, and she managed to gain some ground, getting one leg up over the edge of the concrete opening.
With that one leg, she pushed herself the rest of the way into the open air, her bloodied leg dragging behind her. The moment she was free, she transitioned again and whirled to face the two pterodactyls that came winging out of the opening after her. Moira blew fire at them, but the two beasts flew in opposite directions, avoiding her flames. One came at her from behind, and she whipped at it with her tail, and the other came toward her front, intent on taking advantage of the softness of her throat again as it flew beneath her jaw.
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