They both looked at Erin, who was staring worriedly at them from the kitchen.
“Be safe,” she said.
Zach strode over to her, dipped her in his arms, and kissed her. “Of course I will. I’m invincible, remember?”
“I know,” she said. “But you’re everything to me.”
Luc couldn’t even roll his eyes at what they were doing, because he wanted that with Hallie. And he was going to have it as soon as he got her back.
He’d freeze them all where they stood and reclaim his mate.
Zach grabbed a few things, and they headed out to get in his truck. They set the GPS to the address on the card, and it came up with a travel time of a few hours.
“That’s not going to work,” Luc said in exasperation, getting out of the truck and slamming the door.
“Hey,” Zach said. “Come on. I promise he’s not going to let them hurt her. I know him. He hates me more than anyone. He doesn’t just hurt random people.”
“That was before he woke up. Before he started working with whatever evil piece of shit he’s working for.”
“I know, I know,” Zach said. “But come on. I have the route down well enough after looking at the GPS. We can just fly. It’ll be much faster being able to go direct and bypass all the winding mountain roads.”
“Great,” Luc said, striding out onto the main lawn with Zach. It was good he had such a large, private house with expansive grounds. Luc would buy the same thing after he visited his treasure trove.
“Still remember how to shift?” Zach asked, slowly morphing in a dark-black cloud, taller and taller.
“Of course,” Luc said. “It’s what I am. The human is the disguise.” He closed his eyes and listened internally, felt rushing energy and then his body growing, expanding past its cramped confines.
When he opened his eyes, he was so tall, and the air around him was crystalline, icy. He spread his giant blue wings with a grin. Then he flapped them, rising into the air alongside Zach’s giant, sparkly black dragon.
When they were high enough, they took off into the clouds where no one could see them, flying at top speed.
If it hadn’t been for his panic, it would have been amazing to fly again, watching mountains and trees pass by in a blur below him. Watching the clouds change color and thickness, feeling the cold air on his scaly body.
He wished he could have showed Hallie his dragon on his first transformation. Maybe he’d still get to.
He had no idea where they were going, so he followed Zach, trying to keep his mind off what could be happening to her while they travelled.
After a couple hours of straight flying at top speed, he was beginning to tire, just as Zach started to slowly descend toward some mountains in the distance.
They flew lower until he could make out little mountain roads and a small sort of compound in the distance, nestled in a valley at the center of the peaks.
Unless you came at it from an aerial view or happened to drive the winding, obscure roads leading to the compound, you’d never know it was there.
Given the fact that Zach was aiming straight at it, that had to be where they were keeping Hallie.
They flew in a circle until they saw a safe place to land outside the compound, and then they hit the ground hard, their claws raking the dirt as they slowed themselves after their long flight.
“Holy shit,” Zach said. “I’m already tired.”
“Are you, though?” Luc said, shifting back to his human and cracking his knuckles. Aside from flight, he could use all his dragon powers in this form. And his human form was less tiring to maintain.
“No. Not now that we get to fight,” Zach said, shifting back as well. One of the benefits of being a dragon shifter was the ability to stay clothed between shifts due to the higher level of magic. Thus, Zach was still wearing his usual leather jacket and dark jeans.
And Luc was wearing the tee shirt and jeans he’d left home in, under a gray jacket.
They looked up at the first wall into the compound.
“Well, they wanted us here. Now they have us,” Zach said.
“We didn’t want both of you,” a sardonic voice said over the loudspeakers. “Just Sapphire, you dick.”
“I think he means me,” Zach said. “Same to you, asshole!” He raised a bird in the direction of the speaker, and Luc raised an eyebrow.
“I’m pretty sure that means something sexual and offensive,” Zach said, grinning.
Luc took a step forward. “Where is Hallie?”
“You just need to come up and talk to me,” Aegis said through the speaker. “Just hear me out, and I’ll give your mate back. Safe and sound.” There was rustling. “You’re safe and sound, right, darling? Tell him you’re safe and sound,” Aegis said, clearly talking to someone else.
“I’m safe and sound,” said Hallie’s voice through the speaker, sending both rage and relief through Luc. Relief because she was fine. Rage because Aegis was controlling her.
“I won’t talk until I see Hallie,” Luc called out.
“Well,” Aegis said as a whirring, creaking sound started. “I guess we can talk about that in a minute. But first, I have someone here who wants to see you still have your powers.”
“What the fuck…?” Luke trailed off as the cement doors in front of them were slowly pulled apart, revealing a courtyard.
Inside the yard were dozens of tall, strong-looking men, all wearing black, some of them carrying modern-looking weapons.
Whatever they were doing up here in the mountains, whoever Emerald was working for, they were raising an army by the looks of it.
An army of shifters, according to the various scents in the air. But they didn’t smell right, and he couldn’t make out exactly what type. Like something was off about them.
But he didn’t have time to figure it out. He just needed them out of his way.
A bolt of lightning struck nearby, followed by the clap of thunder and the applause of heavy rain as it clattered to the earth all around them.
“I never was too fond of your ability to do that,” Zach said sarcastically, looking up at the suddenly darkened sky and back to his quickly soaking leather jacket.
“Let’s just take care of these guys and find Hallie,” Luc snapped, ignoring Zach’s comment and seething with indignant fury.
One particularly tall man stepped forward, at least part bear from the looks of it, and judging by his posture, probably a leader of some sort.
“Move out!” he shouted, and the men around him began moving forward in ranked groups, approaching cautiously, weapons raised.
Aegis’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Capture the ice dragon. Do whatever you like with the other. Something painful preferably.”
“Be careful. Not everything they have looks manmade.” Zach cracked his knuckles and stepped forward.
“I don’t think we’ll need to worry about it,” Luc said, taking in a deep breath and feeling ice flow through his veins, his body changing shape once again into his dragon, adrenaline and rage mixing with cold, calculated resolution to save his mate.
If he didn’t have to, he’d prefer to not kill anyone. But all bets were off now. He’d squared with what happened in the past, and all he had now was the firm resolve to protect his mate, no matter the cost.
Immediately, the men approaching began firing, and Luc focused the rain in front of him, concentrating it and creating a solid wall of ice.
Go time.
He charged through the ice wall, right into the center of the unsuspecting soldiers. As the wall crashed all around them, sending the men scattering in different directions to avoid the debris, Luc breathed his dragon fire all around, a thick white stream of ice that froze anything too slow to avoid it.
With the path clear, he charged into the compound, swatting one soldier and then another with his gigantic talons, throwing them headlong into nearby buildings and walls.
“I forgot how fun it is to watch you in action,
” Zach said, following in right behind him and swiping a monstrous black claw at a nearby tower, knocking it over and sending the men on it careening into the nearby tree line.
By now, the entire compound was awash in commotion and gunfire. More men poured into the center through doors that ran deeper into the buildings adjoining the main perimeter.
Along the walls, men filed onto catwalks in an attempt to surround them from all sides, while others ducked into Humvees and began driving, circling the two huge dragons occupying the main courtyard.
17
Whoever was behind this meant business.
But so did Lucien.
He breathed his dragon fire once again, this time on the heavy rain droplets around him, freezing them and sending them flying at high speeds like ice daggers all around him, focusing on the men along the walls in particular. Those who didn’t duck or jump for cover were given something to remember him by.
Thankfully, these men seemed equipped with armor and other protective gear, so unless he made a point of killing them, they’d survive. Probably.
The men in the vehicles below them drove wide circles, moving fast and trying to stay clear of Luc’s and Zach’s spiked, dangerous tails as they swung at them. Then without warning, Luc felt explosions going off around him, some flying wide and missing, but others detonating dangerously close as men fired from weapons mounted on the tops of the Humvees.
And unlike Zach, Lucien didn’t have invulnerable onyx skin, though his enhanced healing made it so he was pretty damn hard to hurt for long, let alone kill.
He stamped down and crushed a car that came too close to his claws. Then all of a sudden, to Luc’s right, a huge green figure slammed into the onyx dragon, pushing him into a wall that cracked and groaned under the force of it.
“You didn’t think I’d miss out on all the fun, did you?” the emerald dragon sneered, his beast not quite as big as Zach’s, but still formidable.
“So you were thinking about me?” Zach grunted, a low rumbling sound, as he pushed the huge green dragon off and swiped his black, stone-rimmed tail at him.
“Thinking of ways to end you, yes,” Aegis replied viciously, dodging backward and then squaring off with him, bright-yellow eyes focused on his age-old nemesis.
But Zach could handle Aegis.
Luc needed to clear a path so he could go looking for Hallie. The only thing that mattered was knowing she was okay, knowing she was safe. And the only way he could be certain of that was if she was in his arms.
He focused his energy on the sky above them, and a second later, huge boulders of ice came falling down, crashing into the last few parked vehicles and ripping through walls and windows.
Where there was water, there was hail. And where there was hail, Luc could make bigger hail.
Most of the men still in the courtyard ducked for cover beneath the onslaught of raining destruction. And as they scattered, Luc moved through them, tossing them like rag dolls or freezing them in place and immobilizing them.
To the left, a large door opened, and a tightly packed group of men marched toward him, wielding tall, gray shields and long, forked poles that clacked and popped with electricity. Lucien breathed a long cone of ice on them, but somehow, the shields remained unfrozen, unaffected.
That was definitely a first.
Whoever created this technology made it with dragons in mind.
Ignoring the swipes of their electric spears, Luc charged headlong into the group, letting his long horns and the spikes along his skull do the talking instead.
The men shrieked and dodged, to no avail, as most were caught by the assault and thrown back through the door, piling into each other or hitting walls with incredible impact.
Despite all of the collisions, Luc didn’t think he had killed anyone, based on the energies around him, and that was an exhilarating feeling. Having power and control.
With the newest group cleared, by now most of the fighting was starting to quiet, and only the sound of the rain and a few hysterical, fleeing men could be heard, punctuated by loud thuds and crashes as Onyx and Emerald duked out their ancient grudge match.
But just as Aegis and Zach were clinched, wrestling and swinging their gigantic tails, Aegis leapt back with a muttered curse, looking skyward.
“I’m being called back,” he said, looking supremely disappointed.” He shot up into the air and hovered for a second, glaring down at Zach. “I’ll have to kick your ass later.”
With that, he pushed off the ground and flapped his wings, rising into the sky and disappearing into the thick storm clouds close above them.
“Come back here, you bastard! We were just getting started!” Zach said with a roar, breathing his dark, diamond-like breath into the sky in vain, the rainclouds too near and too thick to see through.
“Sorry to disappoint. Another time, another place,” he said, his voice calling faintly across the distance.
Zach huffed and then turned back to Luc. “I’ll take care of the stragglers. You go get your mate,” he said, swiping away a roaring, snarling shifter that was viciously biting and scratching at his leg.
Apparently, that guy hadn’t gotten the message that the fight was more or less over.
Luc shifted back into his human form as he began running toward the biggest doors he could see, ones that led into what looked like the side of one of the mountains surrounding the compound. Behind him, he could hear Zach let out a roar of triumph as he cleaned up.
Whatever Emerald’s crew was planning, they would know they needed more than that to take on dragons.
He ran down a long, metal-lined corridor, trying to pick up on the scent of his mate or hear her thoughts.
Luc. Luc, are you out there? Are you okay? Stay safe.
Her thoughts touched him. Even after what she’d been through, even after their fight, she was worried for him. And thankfully, she was apparently doing well enough that she could.
Zach had been right. Emerald wouldn’t hurt his mate. Perhaps there was something redeemable about him.
Luc made a left turn, astonished at the sheer size of the place despite its relatively low profile from the outside, and came upon a pair of guards in front of a large, steel door.
As he approached, the bored-looking soldiers eyed him suspiciously. Then one man’s face contorted in surprise and recognition as he walked up to them.
“Hey, that’s the guy we’re supposed to—”
The man’s exclamation was cut off, though, as Luc swung a powerful punch into his jaw, sending him flying into a stack of metal crates that clattered with incredible noise. The other man immediately charged, but Luc just picked him up and tossed him into the neighboring wall, where he ricocheted off and landed on the ground with a grunt.
“Luc, is that you?” Hallie called from the other side of the door, muffled through the thick metal.
He pressed a red button that looked like it might operate the door, but a small screen simply displayed the words “access denied” in red type. He tried again and got the same response.
Screw that.
“Yes, it’s me. Just get clear of the door, okay?” he said, followed by the sound of footsteps moving away from the door on the other side.
With a grunt, he pulled at the doors, wrenching them open despite their size and weight. When they yielded an inch, then two, he could see inside a small room full of panels with bright-colored buttons and TV screens and, in the center, his mate, Hallie.
Seeing her invigorated him even more, and he pushed against the doors, one hand on each, grateful for his dragon strength, since the corridors would be far too small to fit his full-sized dragon form.
Once the doors finally ripped opened, the supports holding them giving way and shattering, he stepped inside, and Hallie rushed forward to meet him. He caught her in his arms and held her tightly.
“Are you all right? Did they do anything?” he said, worried to death something might have happened in the time it took him and Zac
h to fly here.
“No. I’m okay. You got here soon after us,” she replied, the sound of her voice more soothing than anything else in the world.
“Are you certain?” he asked, still paranoid, still over the moon to have her once again with him.
“I mean, aside from Emerald, or Aegis, doing that scary mind control thing to bring me here, nothing else happened.”
Luc put stomp Aegis silly on his list of things to do when he saw him next. No one got away with doing anything to his mate.
“Honestly, though, I’m fine. Are you? It sounded like the apocalypse out there,” she said, her arms wrapped around his midsection, the height difference between him and his curvy mate all the more apparent.
“Now that I have you, everything is better,” he said, picking her up in his arms and walking back in the direction from which he’d entered the compound earlier.
Hallie just rested her head on his shoulder as he quickly trotted back along the path and into the courtyard. When they arrived, the scene of chaos was even worse than Luc remembered, and Hallie gave out a gasp of surprise.
“Did you do this?”
“With my friend’s help, yes,” he said, nodding to the huge black dragon looming over a pack of cowering soldiers with their hands above their heads.
Everywhere there were boulders of ice or piles of rubble or patches of frozen ground where his breath had touched. Then as they came up to Zach, the onyx dragon looked over and smiled, though the rows of dark, razor-sharp teeth did nothing to improve his terrifying appearance.
“So this is what dragons look like?” Hallie squeaked in shock. Is this what you look like?” she asked, turning to Luc.
“Not exactly. You’ll see in a moment,” he said, putting her down for a second. “What are you planning on doing with these guys?” he asked Zach.
“I gave the oracle a call. The blue and red dragon pair were actually in the area, so they’ll be here any minute to join me. So you just get your mate home and let us take care of it.”
“You did all this… for me?” She looked mildly horrified.
“We didn’t kill anyone,” Zach said. “Then again, they were all shifters, so it’s easier. But Luc here did good keeping himself in check. He was precise while still being a total monster.”
Sapphire Dragon (Awakened Dragons Book 2) Page 12
