by Tessa Adams
She had still been interested in his skills, however, and she’d shown him the invoices she’d found. It had taken all his willpower to keep it together when he realized that he was holding in his hands the name of the company that had helped Silus manufacture the virus that had killed Quinn’s brother, Gabe’s mate, Dylan’s niece and so many other Dragonstars. His beast had screamed for vengeance, and he’d filed away the names on the invoices, to be dealt with later.
He’d told her he was working on infiltrating the defenses of the lab and he wasn’t exactly sure what was going on there—which was true, strictly speaking. After all, he’d spent the past sixteen hours trying to figure out what new atrocity was going down in there. She hadn’t tried to stop him, had, in fact, encouraged his quest. That openness was just one more reason he couldn’t believe—wouldn’t believe—that she knew anything about the virus.
Suddenly, a psychic war cry rang through his head, digging sharp talons into his brain. It was followed by the screams of what had to be close to two hundred healthy dragon shifters as they ripped through the magical safeguards that surrounded the compound.
Dylan’s plan must have failed, if he’d even had time to implement it. A quick psychic probe told him that the Shadowdrakes had arrived, and they were loaded for dragon.
Though none of the San Diego dragons had gotten to the lab yet, he could sense them flying through the town, slicing down Wyvernmoon clan members wherever they found them. And while he might have agreed with what they were doing even just a couple of days before—and had spent the past decade imagining being part of a similar war party—his first thought now was of Cecily.
He was up and running before the thought had fully formed, skidding around corners and hoping he wouldn’t run into anyone as he retraced his steps as fast as he could. She was alone at her house, defenseless except for her beast, and though she was incredibly fast, her dragon was no match for the highly trained ones that were pouring into the compound.
Cecily! He called out for her, but it was her turn to ignore him. Or at least that’s what he hoped she was doing. Her house was situated in the center of the compound. Surely none of the attackers had gotten to her yet. Cecily, damnit, I’m not joking! Answer me!
He was almost to the door when he sensed a huge group of shifters walking toward him from an intersecting corridor. Swearing mentally, he started feeling doorknobs, looking for an unlocked one that he could slip behind unnoticed. If he got caught now, they’d never let him go, and Cecily would be on her own out there.
He got lucky on the fourth door he tried, and he scanned the room as he stepped inside. It was empty, and he hoped he was in the middle of some janitor’s closet that no one ever went into.
He wasn’t. Instead, he’d stumbled into a room with a number of lab tables and three sophisticated computer setups. He really hoped that none of the people walking toward him wanted into this room.
Figuring he should at least try to take advantage of the situation, he sped down the aisle to one of the computers. In the back of his head, he kept his scan going across the compound, looking for Cecily’s energy. He needed to find her so that when he left this room in a few minutes, he would be able to go right to her. He refused to believe that he was going to be stuck in here for the duration.
The computers were all password protected—big surprise—but he whipped out the small tablet computer he carried with him everywhere and quickly connected it. Then he sent out a mental SOS to Shawn. There wasn’t anything the guy didn’t know about computers, and if he couldn’t break these passwords, no one could.
Shawn answered right away, pissed off and sleepy. What’s up, man? I just got to sleep. Is everything okay there?
Logan explained the situation as succinctly as possible.
Give me a minute.
I haven’t got a minute. Didn’t you hear what I said?
Well, find one. I’m a miracle worker, but I’m not God.
Within moments, he saw the screen on his computer change as Shawn seized control of it. It flickered through about seven different screens as Shawn did whatever it was that he did and Logan watched the door impatiently, prepared to rip to shreds the brain of anyone who opened the door in front of him.
No one did, but by the time Shawn said I’m in about three minutes later, Logan’s nerves were shot. His brain was filled with images of what was going on outside the lab in the compound, and from everything he could pick up, it seemed that the Shadowdrakes had beaten him to the draw. They were launching a full-scale war on the compound, and every dragon whose brain he brushed seemed to have two objectives: kill as many Wyvernmoons as they could and get to the lab.
Good, he told Shawn, as he disconnected his computer and shoved it into his bag while he ran. Now figure out what the fuck is in there and let me know. Something big is going on, and I’m hoping you can figure out what. If we’ve got any luck at all, that computer is part of the network.
With any luck at all, Shawn agreed. Trying to get into it was no walk in the park, so maybe we’ll get lucky.
Maybe.
Logan listened at the doorway—he used both his ears and his psychic sense—and heard nothing. Yanking it open, he took off full speed down the hallway, determined not to answer any questions that came his way. But somehow he managed to make it all the way outside without seeing anyone, and once his feet hit the ground, he poured on every burst of speed he had. Cecily was out there somewhere, and he would get to her.
He started shifting while he ran. It was difficult and painful and something few dragons could do, but the ability had served him in good stead through the years. He only hoped it did this time.
He launched himself into the air at the same second he finished shifting and flew hell-for-leather toward Cecily’s house. Two Shadowdrakes intercepted him about halfway there, and though he didn’t want to hurt them—they were just defending their clan against the virus as much as he was—he couldn’t take a chance on them slowing him down. If they had gotten this far into the compound, then someone could have gotten to Cecily. And he knew with utter certainty what they would do to the Wyvernmoon princess if they could get their hands on her: the same thing he would have done before he’d met her.
One barreled straight into him and sent him careening through the air. He dove, tried to avoid them, but they weren’t going any where—which was exactly what he had expected.
Focusing his power, he lowered his guard and reached out, isolating their specific brain patterns from all the others pouring in on him from all sides. Then he struck both of them at the same time, not destroying part of their brains as he had with Remy, but rendering them unconscious with a powerful psychic blow he designed specifically for them.
They were out instantly, and he took off, not bothering to hang around to make sure they spiraled safely to the ground.
He was at Cecily’s house in less than three minutes, and Logan called to her from within the beast. Cecily! Cecily, where are you?
She didn’t answer, and he flew straight through the big glass door of the house and into her family room, convinced he would find her locked in a struggle for her life or already dead on the floor. He found neither, though he wasted precious seconds zipping through the house, looking for her. Once he realized she really wasn’t there, he headed for the Dracon Club and prayed like he hadn’t in centuries.
He was bleeding from where he’d plowed through her glass door, and hoped he wasn’t leading a trail straight to her for the Shadowdrakes to find. But he was going to have to take his chances, because there was no way he was stopping to check the damages. He had to get to Cecily, had to make sure his mate was alive.
But when he got to the Dracon Club, it looked like a full-scale war had broken out. Dragons—Wyvernmoons and Shadowdrakes—were fighting everywhere he looked. Some were in beast form, some in human, and the battles were fierce. He didn’t know enough Wyvernmoons yet to be able to tell them apart on sight alone, and there were too many of
them to distinguish by scent. Which meant he had no idea which clan was winning or losing. He knew only there were an awful lot of bodies strewn in his path.
Frantic now, he searched the parking lot and street for glimpses of Cecily’s purple scales or blond hair. He saw neither, and finally landed outside the club with some vague idea of shifting and heading inside to comb the club for her. Because if she wasn’t here, then the sad fact was that he had no idea where she was. He might have fallen in love with her, but he had known her for only a few days, and that wasn’t long enough for him to even begin to hazard a guess about where she would go during an attack.
As he shifted into human form, he narrowly avoided being hit by a blast of energy flying from one direction and a fireball coming from another. Ducking behind one of the few cars in the parking lot, he finished the change. But as he headed for the door at a dead run, he was distracted by a huge bolt of lightning that split the night sky in front of him neatly in half.
Thunder cracked directly above him, so loud and powerful that it shook buildings and set off car alarms. Wind shrieked through the streets, sharp and wet and fast. It pummeled everything in its path, and Logan felt the sting of it against his own naked skin. It was followed by another powerful blast of lightning and the sound of two dragons screaming in pain.
In that moment, he flashed back to Cecily’s mountain, when she had used her hands to shoot sparks into him that brought his pleasure to a fever pitch. He remembered thinking then that she was a stormcaller, but it hadn’t been the time to ask her for clarification. He had forgotten about it in the heat of everything else that had happened afterward.
Now he wondered if she was the only one of her kind in the Wyvernmoon clan, or if there were others. Either way, he figured it was his best bet to find her, and he sprinted toward the lightning even as the dragons closest to it ran away.
A moment later, he looked up and up and up and there she was. At the top of a three-story building, her hair blowing wildly in the storm she had created while her eyes glowed a dark, eerie purple. Her arms were raised high as lightning exploded all around her. She seemed to almost pick one of the bolts out of midair and then hurtle it toward three Shadowdrakes who were trying to get away.
They weren’t that lucky. Her blast hit them dead-on, and they went flying. As they did, he swore he heard her laugh, low and long and exhilarated. She was riding high on the storm she’d called to her, absorbing it into her very being until her entire body seemed to glow. Yet even as he watched, two men sneaked up behind her. He saw their shadows loom large in the bright yellow globes of the streetlights, and he started to run, convinced that no matter what he did, he wouldn’t get there in time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Cecily! He screamed it into her head as he ran for the front door of the building, knowing he could run the stairs faster than he could shift at this point. She didn’t answer, and he was afraid she was too high from riding the storm to even hear him. He ran even faster, terror a rampaging beast inside him as he strained to get to her.
He took the stairs four at a time, screaming for her the entire way up. When he finally got to the roof—maybe ninety seconds after he’d first seen the men looming over her—he was terrified of what he would find. Breath sawing out of his lungs, dread a red haze before his eyes, he burst through the door onto the roof, screaming in rage. He was prepared to take the bastards apart piece by piece for daring to touch his woman.
But he’d worried for her for nothing. Cecily had them on the ground at her feet, caught in a maelstrom of wind and rain and lightning. They were alive, but he could feel their alarm, feel their horror all the way across the roof.
She might not have been able to beat them in hand-to-hand combat like some of the female dragons he knew from the Dragonstar clan, but, then, she didn’t have to. This power of hers, it was incredible. Unbelievable. He’d never been more proud of her, his dragon preening inside him, proud of itself for choosing such a strong, powerful mate.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t answer you,” she said, her voice hoarse with the effort to be heard above the storm she was controlling. “I was in the middle of something.”
“I can see that.” He grinned at her, fought the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her right there in the middle of the storm, in the middle of the battle. “You have quite a few tricks up your sleeve.”
“Yes, well, a woman has to have some mystery.” She threw his own words back at him, then turned to look out at the street below them. The fight was still going strong, and up here, for some reason, it was a lot easier for him to tell who the Wyvernmoons were and who the Shadowdrakes were. Maybe because he was standing next to the Wyvernmoon princess and she was, in essence, connected to them all. Whatever it was, he’d never had an easier time distinguishing clan affiliation.
“Over there,” he yelled, pointing at where three Shadowdrake males had a Wyvernmoon female cornered. As they advanced on her, the battle raging around them seemed to be the last thing on their minds.
Even as Cecily pulled down more lightning, he thrust his mind into the first one’s head. What he found in there was evil, disgusting, the dragon’s desire to humiliate and debase the woman in front of him an all-consuming fire in his brain.
For the first time, he wondered about the logic of the Dragonstars forming an alliance with the Shadowdrakes. Any leader who would allow his men to rape defenseless civilian women during battle was not the kind of leader Dylan would need—or want—to associate with.
As the bastard reached for her, talons extended, Logan didn’t hesitate, didn’t try for finesse—not with the other two bearing down on the helpless woman, as well. Instead, he honed his will to a blade, raking it through the man’s brain and shredding everything he came into contact with. Blood was leaking from the man’s nose and ears and mouth before Logan dropped him, dead, on the street.
He aimed for the second man’s mind, but Cecily was already there, a thin stream of lightning heading straight toward the two men. The woman was facing them and was obviously familiar with Cecily’s abilities, for she scrambled as far backward as she could. The men started to follow her, but before they could move, Cecily’s electricity blasted them off their feet.
“Good job,” he said, and this time he did pull her into his arms and kiss her. He couldn’t help it. His complete and utter relief that she was safe was so overwhelming that he couldn’t speak of it. Couldn’t do anything but pour his feelings into the kiss and into her.
She clutched at him, returned the kiss for a moment, then shoved him away. “They got through because there were no guards, no factionnaires , watching our borders. They were able to hurt my people because someone called the guards off on purpose, left us open to this attack.”
“Yes.” He couldn’t sugarcoat it for her, knew that she wouldn’t want him to, anyway.
Traitor. The word hissed from her mind to his.
“Yes.”
“I want him found and imprisoned.” Her voice was flat and emotionless, colder than he had ever heard it. “I want him dead.”
Though he’d known they were coming, and though he hadn’t been the one to leave the compound defenseless, he felt her words like blows deep inside him. He wasn’t a traitor, as his loyalties had never lay with her, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t betrayed her. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to betray her more before this whole nightmare was through. He couldn’t stand the idea that one day soon she would feel about him the same way she felt about the Wyvernmoon who had sold out her people to the Shadowdrakes.
But there wasn’t time for that now. The battle raged on, people dying all around them, and Cecily needed his help. He wouldn’t let her down, not now. Not this time.
Standing with her on top of that building, he fought side by side with her. Not because he cared about saving what Silus had built out here in the middle of South Dakota, but because he had faith in Cecily. In who she was and in what she wanted to create. No matter what he’d
thought when he’d come here, she was not her father’s daughter.
There was no way he could make things right for Gabe or Dylan or Quinn. No way he could make things right for the hundreds and thousands of Dragonstars who had lost loved ones to Silus’s evil creation. But that was one man and his corrupt council. That wasn’t the entire clan.
It wasn’t the poor woman down there who had nearly been raped and murdered simply because she was a Wyvernmoon. It wasn’t Sebastian, who was just trying to make ends meet in a clan that had forsaken him for so long. And it wasn’t Cecily, with her beautiful smile and even more beautiful heart. With her plans and determination and hopefulness that she could somehow buck thousands of years of tradition and save her home. Save her people.
Logan! Shawn’s voice ripped through his head, coming at him from the psychic bridge he had built between them hours before. Are you in the lab?
No. We’re under attack from the Shadowdrakes. My guess is that Dylan’s attempt to reach out to them today failed, he said, tongue firmly in cheek.
But Shawn wasn’t in the mood to joke. It didn’t fail. Rafael simply said he wasn’t sure an alliance between the clans was going to be necessary. I’m assuming this is what he meant. A pause. Are you okay?
Just dandy, he answered as he grabbed Cecily and hit the deck in an effort to avoid an energy blast aimed straight at them. It missed, but only by inches, and the resulting explosion rattled every bone in his body.
He rolled off Cecily slowly. “Are you okay?” he demanded.
She was still trying to catch her breath, but she gave him a thumbs-up sign.
“Stay down!” he ordered fiercely, as he crouched and looked over the edge of the buildings. But no one was paying attention to them. One of the factionnaires—Wyatt, he thought—had gutted the bastard who had sent the blast toward Cecily. He hoped none of the others down there had that particular power.
