Malcom collapsed to his knees before the other two moved. They launched themselves at Gwen. Now that Malcom couldn’t draw air to speak, she was free. Her dark power wrapped itself around the other two. They crashed to the ground, face first. The dark power crushed them. Stones cracked beneath them as they cried out in pain.
It was stronger, running deeper than she knew.
Above her, a thin dragon form lowered to the ground. A human shape appeared where it should have been, launching into a run. Cameron closed the space between them, but stuttered to a stop when he saw she had things under control.
“They’re dead,” he whispered. His body wrapped around hers. It enclosed her in warmth. Protection. Her dark power faded. Malcom’s body dropped to the ground, Gwen’s magic snapping back like a hand in a flame.
It was over. Malcom was dead.
She was alive.
Above them, the still fighting white dragons, the ones that hadn’t yet realized their leader was dead, figured out that they were outnumbered. Some turned in the air, banking to get away. Others were caught in the clawed grip of red dragons. The fight was over.
Around her, red dragons touched the ground and their dragon forms folded away to reveal human bodies. A large male stomped towards a sleek looking woman with wine red hair. He was fuming, his body looming over the female. Yet, the female only tilted her head back to meet his eyes.
“What did you think you were doing?” the male growled. “You could have been hurt! You could have put our child at risk!”
“I wasn’t going to sit by and let everyone else get hurt.” She bared her teeth at him as she spoke.
Gwen and Cameron exchanged glances. His trembling hand reached out and his fingers entwined with hers. A breath escaped him and he seemed to deflate.
The huge male’s attention was caught by Cameron’s shaking form. He assessed the smaller male before nodding. Gwen didn’t know what she had missed. All she could think was that she had lived. She was alive.
But, there was a form still laying on the ground. Gwen pulled her fingers from Cameron’s grasp, ignoring his barks of protest. Liana needed help. Drystan scooped his arms beneath the young woman and carefully picked her up. Beside them, a red dragon whose name she did not yet know shifted from foot to foot, worry clearly engraved on his face.
The features that he and Liana shared told Gwen that they might be relatives, siblings even. His hand hovered over Liana’s bloodied arm, wavered, and then snapped back. He was afraid to touch her, to hurt her any more than she already hurt.
“This is my fault,” Gwen confessed. “Let me try to help her. It is the least that I can do.”
“Yes. It is your fault,” the red haired male dragon growled through his clenched jaw. The damnation in his eyes shot her through the heart, a dart that she freely took.
Drystan’s glare on her was hard. It said that he blamed her for this. She accepted the guilt and the shame, feeling it settle heavily on her shoulders. She could live with it as long as Liana lived. Without requesting further permission, she touched the bleeding female dragon’s shoulder.
Her green magic flared to life. Her desperation and need made it glow brighter than she’d ever seen. It was softer than the thorny whip of magic she’d summoned earlier. This was a gentle wave of healing water. It cascaded over the female dragon and Gwen could hear the unconscious sigh of relief slip out from between her lips. Wounds slowly started to knit back together, leaving behind only smears of blood.
“She will live,” Drystan said. “Her continued healing will be a long, uphill battle. I worry more for her dragon than anything else. I don’t know how extensive her wounds were before she gave in to the smaller form.”
Gwen swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I’ll work with her as often as you’ll allow me. I need to help her. I need to help all of you.”
Drystan’s eyes flicked to where Malcom’s body lay on the ground. “I think, in the end, you have helped us.”
Held captive between two dragons that she’d never seen before was a man with a shock of white blonde hair. A white dragon. He snarled at the people around him, still furiously trying to pull his arms from the dragons’ grip. He would sooner tear his arms out of their sockets than get free.
The sleek female dragon approached the white dragon man. Her fist drew back and collided with his square cut jaw. “That’s for my human family, you piece of shit. I can’t believe they let you out after what you did. You deserve to rot in hell.”
“Calm down, Rhiannon,” Drystan barked.
Her narrowed eyes spun toward Drystan. She was clearly not used to taking orders from him. Her cheeks were red with the heat of her anger. Gwen recognized her from the recent upset in Bangor. She was the girl that GOE apparently kidnapped and managed to convince that she was human. It seemed, she’d found her family after all, Gwen thought as the huge man that had been angry with her moved to wrap his arms around her.
“What are we doing with this one?” The dragon male holding the white dragon had an American accent. His brown hair was cut short on the sides and swept back on the top. The cut and the set of his spine gave him an air of authority. The arm that gripped the white dragon was inked with black designs that bled into one another, the lines never ending.
“GOE, or what’s left of the Guardians, is going to want him,” Drystan said.
The American dragon nodded. When had that happened? When had American dragons arrived?
“Can we drop him a few times on the way there?” the other, unfamiliar dragon asked. His long, mahogany hair was held back in a tight bun and a smirk rested at the corner of his mouth, a regular thing if the dimple in his cheek was any indication.
“Thank you,” Rhiannon whispered to the two American dragons. “You didn’t have to lift a finger for us, but you did and I thank you for that.”
“We came on a mission to build a coalition,” the tattooed dragon confessed. His green eyes scanned the battleground, his eyes lingering on Liana’s form in Drystan’s arms. “We’ve been separate entities for too long. If it was going to work, we needed the Welsh dragon war to end.”
“This isn’t over,” the white dragon said between clenched teeth. “Dinas Emrys is our home! It is our right. We have been homeless creatures for centuries. It wasn’t fair that you kept our homeland so selfishly for yourselves.”
“Did you ever think to ask if you could live here?” Gwen’s voice was soft. “The territory is big enough for two families. At least, I think it would be.”
Her words sent a domino effect around the family. Dragons agreed or nodded as they threw in with Gwen’s statement. The rage was taken out of the white dragon’s body, leaving him to simply slump between the American dragons. Not once had it occurred to them to ask for a home.
She glanced toward Malcom’s body again. Their leader had always taken what he wanted. Perhaps, with him gone, the white dragons could learn to become more gentle. They could take a few pages from the red dragons’ book.
Chapter Fourteen
Many of the white dragons that fought for Malcom had died or fled. They were scattered to the wind with no real leader to organize a retaliation. Raphael had been captured and the American dragons had taken immense pleasure in flying him back to the remains of GOE.
The organization was slowly putting itself back together again. Rhiannon managed to warn Everett of the white dragons’ false nature and that had given him time to lock down at least one of the GOE buildings, sparing a handful of agents and officials from the chaos the white dragons had wrought. That action had earned Everett a promotion, one that allowed him to reenact the sham department Malcom had once headed. He would make it real this time.
Rhiannon was put at the head of the new Welsh Dragon Embassy, an ambassador to the Territories that resided by the city. It seemed that the chaos with the white dragons managed to change the opinions of the city’s citizens. They still very much feared dragons, but the Welsh red dragons had defeated the ones
that really hurt them. It gave them a second chance.
It gave Gwen a second chance at life, too.
Cameron watched her bask in the square of morning light that the sun cast across their bed. He couldn’t believe that she was in his bed. His breath still caught in his throat when she turned to look at him and a slow smile spread across her lips. She wore one of his white shirts over her breasts, leaving her long legs bare.
The idea of losing her still made his chest tight. It drove his beast near madness. He now understood what Elgar felt when his mate died. He knew why the old dragon had done what he did, but he didn’t forgive him. He only worried about what he would have done if she had died. He, most likely, would have gone down with her.
Instead, she was alive. She had even moved in with him. It seemed that in the heat of the moment, Gwen had acknowledged their connection. She was happy and, he thought, in love.
“I should get going,” she said with no real motivation to get up. “Liana is probably expecting me.”
“Her human form is completely healed,” Cameron reminded her. “She can wait another hour or so.”
Gwen’s lips twisted into a frown, one that he couldn’t stand to see on her face. He closed the space between two of them, his hands moving to gently touch the tops of her knees.
“She’s being healed by the Witch of Caernarfon. She’s fine,” Cameron said.
The truth was, they didn’t know how Liana’s dragon form was doing. She blatantly refused to shift forms. Any insistence that she do so, made her wrap her arms around herself and snarl. Drystan had tried to force the shift out of her, but her screams had enraged Rhys so much that they’d been forced to hold her brother down.
They didn’t know what to do with the female dragon, how to help her heal. From the looks that the American dragon had been giving her, Drystan suggested that she travel home with them to start work as an ambassador.
What they were going to do with Rhys while Liana was away was another question. The man had lived for protecting his baby sister, for helping her to cause destruction on the Territory. With her absent, the male dragon was going to be restless and on edge. The normally jovial dragon was already being a cranky ass to begin with.
The look on Gwen’s face said that she saw through his lie. Liana needed more help, but neither of them were sure that Gwen could offer the kind that she needed. The dragon refused to talk about what happened to her in the forest. At least she refused to blame Gwen for what happened.
His mate carried enough blame on her own shoulders for all that happened, no matter the outcome. It made her sit at Liana’s side every morning, casting her blanket of healing over the dragon. Yet, as he pushed her knees apart, she let him. She gave in to him as his head lowered between her legs. Her hand fisted in his hair.
She was alive and she was his. It was more than he’d ever asked for.
I hope you enjoyed Books 1 to 3 of the Fated Dragons series!! If you’d like to find out what happens next, you can get books 4 and 5 here:
Fated Dragons Complete Boxed Set: Books 1 - 5
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Protected by the Mountain Wolf
Emilia Hartley
Chapter 1
Amara loved to walk at night, beneath the light of the full moon. Not that she was allowed to. She couldn’t count how many times her grandfather had forbade her to be out at night. Wolves, he said. Wolves were everywhere. And they were dangerous. Once, that might have been true. In fact, she knew it was, since just three years before, one had killed her father. But that had only spurred the hunters in town to action, killing off every wolf they could get their hands on in retaliation. Since then, the sleepy town of Strathford was nothing more than a boring mountain town just trying to survive until tourist season.
Still, it seemed like Grandfather hadn’t gotten the memo. She was still expected to be home before dark, still expected to listen to every little warning he had. It was like he thought the wolves could think like humans or something. She loved him more than she could say, but sometimes, she thought the old man was crazy.
What harm could it do to be out at night beneath the stars? He couldn’t hold her captive forever. As she gazed out at the surrounding houses, she thought she caught movement across the street. Was there someone up there? She blinked a couple of times and rubbed her eyes, before looking again. No, no one was there. She must have been imagining things.
“Amara, what do you think?” her friend Zoe asked, jarring her from her reverie. She and Becca were staring at her, their hands shoved into the pockets of their coats against the cold.
Amara stared at them, hastily pushing her thick, dark hair from her eyes and straightening her red wool coat. She had no idea what they’d been saying. “What do I think about what?”
Zoe gaped at her. “What do you mean about what?” she exclaimed, exasperated. “About Brad! Don’t you think he was into Becca? I mean, honestly, he couldn’t stop staring at her tonight.”
“Oh, right.” Amara forced a smile, trying to ignore her friends’ incredulous stares. “I’m sure Zoe’s right, Becs. Brad’s totally into you. I mean, the diner is pretty small, so I doubt he was staring at anyone else, right?” Truthfully, she hadn’t been paying attention to Brad at all. She’s just happy she had managed to sneak out and enjoy her freedom tonight. Whether Brad was into Becca or not just didn’t matter all the much to her at the moment.
Her friends, on the other hand, didn’t appear to approve. Zoe put her hands on her hips and glared at Amara, as if accusing her of not being a good friend. Becca looked more hurt than anything else.
Amara scuffed the ground with her shoe, feeling slightly ashamed. She knew Becca had been crushing on Brad Hendricks since like, eighth grade. And if he really did like her back, then this was huge, and she was a horrible friend not to notice.
“I’m sorry, Becs,” Amara murmured, reaching out to rub Becca’s arm in apology. “I wasn’t really paying attention, but I did notice him watching you all through dance practice yesterday. Besides,” she threaded her arm through the other girl’s and the three of them began to walk again, “you’re awesome. He’d be stupid not to like you.”
Becca’s face lit up with hope. “You really think so?”
“Of course I do.” Amara caught Zoe’s gaze. From the look in her eyes, all was forgiven. “Although, he is a guy. It may take him a lot longer to get over himself and figure it out, but once he does, he’ll realize he should have started talking to you years ago.” All three girls began to laugh.
From somewhere in the dark, Amara thought she heard a growl. Fear gripped her, and suddenly, Grandfather’s voice was in her head again, warning her about the danger of wolves. She shook herself. She was being silly. There were no wolves in Strathford anymore. But a howl in the distance made her freeze. “Did you guys hear that?” she whispered, but her friends took no notice. It must’ve been a coyote or something, she reassured herself. Nothing more. Still, she caught herself glancing over her shoulder, almost as if she were expecting to see a wolf standing in the street.
“Are you okay, Amara?” Becca asked, concern written all over her face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Amara took a deep breath and shook her head. She was being ridiculous. Yet, she couldn’t help but feel as if she were being watched.
Chapter 2
Up on the roof of a nearby house, Nova crouched by the chimney and watched the girls as they walked down the street. Two of them were cute enough, but it was the dark haired one in the red coat that really caught his eye. There was something in the way she moved, the way she smiled, that intrigued him. And out of the three, she was the only one that had heard the wolf’s howl. He wondered what she looked like up close, what she smelled like. How soft her skin was, and what it would feel like to hold her hand.
Stupid, Nova thought, cursing himself under his breath. He shouldn’t even be thinking about a human
girl, much less fantasizing about her. His job was to protect his clan’s territory. Strathford and all its humans were included in that protection, as they had been for the last sixty-five years.
He had only been allowed on watch the last couple of months. Nova grinned to himself. He had finally been allowed to join the Protectors of the Mountain Wolf Clan, the elite group within his pack. He wasn’t about to let some stupid infatuation with a human girl mess it up.
Keep your distance, his brother, Nemoy, had always said. Don’t get too close—just close enough to keep them safe—and definitely don’t get to know them. You can’t protect the humans if you can’t stay objective. Besides, it was forbidden to get involved with a human. And he’d be damned if he was going to break one of his pack’s rules.
Turning at the sound of footsteps on the roof, Nova watched Nemoy’s nearly silent approach. Although the two brothers were two years apart in age, they looked almost identical. They both had long, jet-black hair, tanned skin, dark almond-shaped eyes, and a lanky, muscular build. Nemoy, at nineteen, was starting to fill out and his frame had stopped looking so boyish, and more like a man; something Nova, at seventeen, secretly envied.
Nemoy crouched beside him, gazing stoically down at the girls walking across the street. “Seems pretty quiet tonight, doesn’t it?” Nemoy asked, his deep voice a harsh whisper.
Nova nodded. “Not a lot going on. There was a howl a little while ago.” He tried not to let the worry show in his voice. “Think we should check it out?”
Considering, Nemoy shook his head. “Nah. Probably just one of the younger pups, out running around.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Still, Nova found himself probing the darkness for danger. “Any word on the Valley Clan recently? Have they come into our territory again?”
Nemoy’s features turned grave and serious. “The was a breach on the East border last night. They think it was teenagers, maybe not even of age. We sent an envoy to their Alpha, hoping he would re-enforce the territory restrictions, but it doesn’t look promising. The Valley Alpha only took over six months ago, and from what we can tell, he has a thirst for violence. His son seems to be just as bad, unfortunately. Personally, I think we need to do something about them.”
Loved by the Alpha Bear (Alpha Bears Book 3) Page 45
