by Julia Mills
Taking a deep breath, Kellen quickly assessed his options. Tariq was off to the side talking with two of the doctors he remembered from Max’s photographs and another man Kellan immediately recognized as one of the Generals he’d served with in the desert. Rage, hot and fiery, filled his mind; his vision turned red. He had always suspected the enemy had someone on the inside but had never been able to prove it. It was a bitter pill to swallow with the confirmation of his suspicions standing not thirty feet from him.
Maddox’s thick brogue in his head asked, “Whatcha wanna do? Are we taking ‘em or leaving them to the flames?”
The clock ticking in his head made it painfully obvious that it was now or never. Looking over his shoulder, he knew there was no way the soldiers in the offices behind him could reach them before Kellan killed Tariq. Looking back at the arena, he saw that only O’Baoill and the three men remained on the floor. The scientists and their armed escorts had disappeared behind an electronically locked thick, metal emergency door.
Sure of his decision, he growled, “We take ‘em.”
“That’s my boy,” Maddox agreed and on the count of three, the two Guardsmen flew around the perimeter of the arena using whatever they could for cover, speeding closer and closer to their objective.
Coming up behind Tariq, Kellan burst into view while roaring, “O’Baoill!”
The leader of the hunters spun around with a glint in his eye and eerie lack of surprise on his face, while his three comrades ran for cover only to be caught and subdued by Maddox. With an evil grin spreading across his face, he ripped open the front of his fatigue jacket and said, “Did you really think I wouldn’t be prepared?”
Kellen couldn’t believe his eyes. Tariq O’Baoill was wearing a suicide vest armed with enough C-4 to bring the center of the complex crashing down around them.
Lennox called the three-minute warning at the precise moment Kellan screamed,” “Son of a bitch, he’s got a bomb,” to Maddox and shut down his mindspeak with Olive. He knew she would kick his ass if by some quirky stroke of luck he actually made it out of the hole in the ground alive, but it was a chance he was willing to take. There was no way he could concentrate on what had to be done if he felt her fear on top of his own chaotic emotions.
Sending mental images of what he saw to Lennox with the hopes the mad bomber knew some way to disarm the device, Kellan decided it best to keep his psychotic foe talking until he came up with a better plan. “You’re willing to blow yourself up just to kill me?”
“Not just you but all if your kind,” Tariq growled the last word and pointed to a glowing green light on the front of his vest. “My sacrifice will be worth the cost. I will be seen as a martyr to the world. I will have done what no other could do. I will have taken down a pack of dragons.”
Running through every possible scenario while warning Maddox to stay back and let him handle it, the same weird feeling he’d been battling all day settled over Kellan, but this time remaining like a slow boil in the back of his psyche. Looking back at the mad dragon, it was apparent he felt it too and was trying to zero in on its location.
The sound of O’Baoill’s voice drew Kellan’s full attention. “When I touch this button, it will activate the thirty-second timer on my device and thirteen others placed throughout this bunker and the grounds surrounding us.” The hunter pointed to the ceiling as he took a step towards Kellan. “I will eliminate not only you, but everyone you brought with you on this foolish rescue attempt and all those who, for a few fleeting moments, thought they had escaped my wrath.” His maniacal cackle echoed off the glass and metal walls of the bunker as the sound of the fifty or so soldiers who’d been pressed against the windows watching the standoff began to scatter like rats off a sinking ship.
Focusing on Tariq and leaving Maddox to find whatever it was that continued to prick at their enhanced senses, Kellan asked, “So you want me to believe that you knew we would come? That it was all part of your master plan?”
“Well, if you would like to think I’m smart enough to have devised a ‘master plan’,” the jerk literally made air quotes as he spoke, “then of course I won’t argue that fact. But to answer your question, yes, I knew some shifter clan or pack or whatever you people call yourselves would come. You have this insane need to be the heroes, to save the downtrodden, to rise victorious.” He shook his head. “I have to admit I had hoped it was you dragons.” He chuckled like they were old friends. “We have been locked in a kind of Battle Royale for what is it now?” Tariq paused and raised his eyebrows before answering his own question. “Four decades or so?”
The need to race forward and rip the bastard limb from limb who’d caused so much pain and suffering for so many was pushing both man and dragon to near insanity. Kellan pulled on the calm and restraint from his years of training just to be able to stay put. Maddox, however, was not so lucky.
Pacing back and forth several yards behind Tariq, the mad dragon was talking to himself and tapping his forehead. Reading Maddox’s thoughts, Kellan immediately knew that the mad dragon could feel something or someone very familiar was nearby just as he had before. In any other situation it would’ve been comical to see the old man driven even battier than usual, but with the scarred dragon’s greatest enemy between them – the timing couldn’t have been worse. Lennox called the two-minute-thirty-second warning and then just to Kellan he said, “You’re gonna have to get the asshole out here where I can see the device or leave him to die. I can’t get a good look at it to tell you what to disconnect to stop both his timer and all the others.” The mad bomber was mumbling, which meant he was trying to think of anything he could as quickly as possible. “There is no way we can find all the devices he’s set before the ones Pearce and I rigged blow and ours will most definitely take his C-4 with them”
“Have you moved everyone away from the blast radius?” Kellan asked, just to be sure what was he was planning to do would only endanger himself and maybe Maddox.
There was a second of hesitation and then in a very unsure tone, Lennox answered, “Yeah.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Lenn?” Kellan growled.
“Well...Olive is standing right beside me.”
“Son of a...” Taking a deep breath, he snarled, “Get her back.”
Another pregnant pause and then a chuckled, “Yeah, right, I’ll give it my best try. She’s as stubborn as you.”
“Just get her back. I’m bringing this bastard out, one way or another.”
“Don’t kill him until I see the bomb,” Lenn cautioned. “There may be a biometric switch as a failsafe on that contraption he’s wearing, so if his heart stops beating the whole place blows anyway.”
“You just now thought to mention that?” Kellan wasn’t sure whether to kill the mad bomber or kiss him, but was erring on the side of death.
“At least I thought of it...” Lenn was chuckling when Kellan turned his attention back to Tariq, who was rattling on about the purity of the human race.
“...And once I have eradicated every abomination, we humans will be able to live in peace and harmony without fear of—”
“—Ya’ know, I’ve heard a lot of bullshit in my life, but yours takes the cake.”
Kellan’s insult stopped the hunter’s tirade and left O’Baoill staring in disbelief. Showing Maddox what he wanted him to do through their unique link, Kellan listened to Lennox call the two-minute warning as he put his plan into action.
“I mean I thought you were a dick forty years ago when you slaughtered innocent women and children in the name of your cause, but your willingness to kill not only those loyal to you but also yourself in some half-baked idea to purify your race,” Kellan used air quotes just as Tariq had done, “well, that just tops the list of shit-for-brains things I’ve seen in my hundred and sixty years.”
Taking a step forward, the scarred dragon sneered, “Do you lay awake at night dreaming up new and inventive ways to be a dick or is it just a talent you acquired ov
er the years? Hell, maybe you were born with it? Was your dad a dick, too?”
The muscle at the side of Tariq’s eye twitched. Kellan’s plan was working. All he had to do was make the leader of the hunters angry enough to charge at him. Then Maddox could come behind and together they could subdue and carry O’Baoill out to Lenn to deactivate his vest and hopefully spare a drop or two of innocent bloodshed.
“Cat got your tongue, or were those questions just too difficult to answer?”
Tariq’s gloating grin turned to a grimace and his brow furrowed. Keeping up his verbal assault, Kellan added, “Did it make you feel superior to take advantage of young women and teenage boys...children... in some sick, twisted effort to turn soldiers into the very things you hate?”
A sneer cut across O’Baoill’s face as he clenched his fists at his sides and then took an aggressive step forward. Kellen had his enemy on the ropes. Tariq was having a hard time controlling his anger. It was time to push the last button.
“So, the real question is, do you really hate us, O’Baoill, or are you secretly jealous of us?”
Taking the final step forward, Kellan leaned in as he spoke, and with an evil smirk tormented, “That’s it, isn’t it, asshole? You don’t hate us, you envy us. You want to be just like us.”
The words had barely been uttered when Tariq flew through the air with hate in his eyes and a war cry roaring from his lips. Following the plan, Maddox was right behind him, running at top speed with a look of pure disgust and utter determination.
Just as the tips of O’Baoill’s fingers touched Kellan’s neck, the scarred dragon slid to the side and spun on one foot. Unable to stop his forward motion, Tariq fell face first onto the hard concrete floor with a loud oomph and a bone-shattering thud. Half a second later, Maddox landed over him with the point of his sword drawing the smallest drop of blood at the base of the hunter’s neck.
Kellan immediately zip-tied O’Baoill’s wrists and ankles together. Tariq screamed at the top of his lungs for his troops to attack, spitting and slobbering like a lunatic. Maddox stepped over the writhing hunter, stopped with his feet mere inches from O’Baoill’s head, took an old red bandana from his back pocket, knelt down and shoved it into Tariq’s mouth.
“There, that’s better,” the mad dragon grumbled, giving his head a quick shake to ease the ringing.
Lenn called the one-minute-thirty-second warning with an added, “Get the hell outta there.” Jumping into action, Kellan grabbed Tariq’s arms, threw the hunter over his shoulder, spun on his heels, and followed Maddox as they flew through the maze of corridors towards the exit. Reaching the bottom of the ladder just as Lennox called out the one-minute warning, Kellan all but pushed the mad dragon into the daylight.
Stumbling onto the grass while somehow managing to keep a kicking and wiggling Tariq on his shoulder, Kellen ran as fast as his enhanced abilities would carry him right on Maddox’s heels. Twenty-five yards from safety, Olive broke through his mental shields and screamed, “Damn you, Kellan Aherne! I’m gonna skin you alive!”
Her words were still echoing in his head when the strange sensation from the bunker returned with a renewed vengeance and a ringing in Kellan’s ears that drowned out all other sounds. Shaking his head against the barrage of noise, the scarred dragon failed to see Maddox fall to his knees, tearing at his ears and howling in pain.
Still running at full speed, Kellen rolled ass over kettle over the mad dragon, spiraling in a messed-up crooked somersault of flailing arms and legs, which dislodged Tariq, who in turn went flying through the air. Lennox raced towards them screaming the thirty-second warning. Lennox grabbed Kellan by the collar of his T-shirt and pulled the scarred dragon towards the safe zone at the same time that Pearce seized the still screeching Maddox by the arms and drug him kicking and screaming towards the tree line.
Being pulled over sticks and stones and various debris barely missing tree trunks and large rocks, Kellan heard Kayne shrieking in unison with the mad dragon with one significant difference, the demi god was howling a name... “KYRAN!”
With mere seconds before the bombs Lennox and Pearce set were about to explode, Kellan pulled away from the mad bomber’s grip, jumped to his feet, and ran to Tariq’s limp body, still laying just inside the blast perimeter.
A chorus of voices screamed in his head for him to stay back, but Kellan was not giving up. He’d worked too hard, waited too long, and would not be denied his due. Reaching the hunter just as the first of Lenn’s bombs exploded, he was thrown back several feet, landing flat on his ass next to Tariq’s head.
Rolling over, he bellowed, “Lenn, what wires do I pull?!”
“Pull ‘em all. Just fuckin’ pull them all!”
Shoving O’Baoill onto his back, Kellan grabbed the bundle of wires just over the hunter’s heart and pulled at the same time he grabbed the strap of his vest. The second blast shook the grounds with such force, Kellen once again found himself looking at the smoke-filled sky just a few feet from his greatest enemy.
Shaking his head in an attempt to restore his balance, Kellan leapt to his knees and scrambled forward as the blast of an underground gas line exploding just behind him spewed fire and debris into the atmosphere. Flames shot into the sky as far as the eyes could see. Sparks and ash rained down on the entire pasture. The heat from the blaze drove the scarred dragon back as he searched for a way to reach Tariq, who still lay lifeless on the ground.
The sound of wings flapping and a huge shadow that outshined even the radiance of the blaze drew his attention. Standing awestruck, sure he had lost his mind, Kellan could only stare as a full grown black dragon dropped from the sky, simultaneously transforming into a man the scarred dragon thought he’d never see again.
Almost as tall as himself, with long dark matted hair, bruises and abrasions covering the better part of his exposed torso, and hate burning in his black eyes, Kyran O’Connor, a Guardsman from Drago’s Force of lost brethren, touched down. Without any indication he recognized or even saw Kellan, the black dragon grabbed Tariq by the throat, turned, and ran full speed towards the fire.
Still stuck to his spot, trying to make sense of what he’d seen, the scarred dragon hit the ground when Lennox’s final blast ignited just as Kyran became dragon and was immediately airborne once again. Kellan watched O’Connor fly over the blaze with Tariq’s limp form hanging from his talons. Hands closed over both of Kellan’s shoulders and jerked him into the wooded area, dropping him on his ass just as Olive pounced on his lap, grabbed his face, and growled, “Thank God you’re alive.” Kissing him soundly, she pulled back, slapped his face, and screamed, “Now, I’m gonna kill you!”
Chapter Ten
Most of them stayed and watched the bunker be reduced to nothing but a smoldering cavern in the middle of the pasture. Max, the werepanthers, and the feathered shifters—minus Claire and Olive—took the refugees back to the lair where Niall and the other healers, as well as Audrey, Kyra, and Calysta, were waiting to tend to their wounds. Kellan was receiving hourly updates from her cousins on the condition of the survivors. The Elder Healer was trying to coax each to transform into their animal to call and use their beast’s healing magic. Some resisted out of fear and some were just too injured to shift. The dragons were committed to saving everyone and returning them to their families so had made plans to help for as long as it took.
Lennox’s charges had caused a chain reaction and set off the ones buried in the ground by the hunters. The flames had burned bright for another twelve hours. Because the site was so far from civilization no one worried about the fire department or local authorities showing up, but the dragons and werepanthers stayed anyway to make sure the fire did not spread. The hunters would not be allowed to cause any more damage, even posthumously.
For almost the entire first hour, Olive alternated between kissing her dragon silly and yelling at him for his recklessness and her near heart failure. Kellan had to admit he put up with the yelling just to get back to t
he kissing. Of course, that had all come to an end when Maddox awoke madder than hell and ready to kick Kyran’s ass. The only problem was the black dragon had flown away and no one could get a bead on his location.
“That stupid son of a...” the mad dragon growled. Then turning to Kayne, he asked, “And what they hell was that noise? He nearly turned my brain to mush.”
“Wouldn’t take much,” Rory mumbled.
“Shut the hell up, young’un, before I kick your ass,” Maddox yelled over his shoulder.
Everyone tried to hold in their laughter but it was no use. Kellan barked with laughter watching his brethren reduced to a bunch of grown men with red faces and bouncing shoulders. Finally, unable to keep it in, they all burst out laughing. Which only pissed off the mad dragon more, which lead to even more cussing and stomping.
It took a good ten minutes to get control of the group and when he did, another five minutes to get Maddox to agree not to run off half-cocked, and that was only after Kellan threatened to call Calysta.
At first, the mad dragon tried to act like he didn’t know what Kellan was talking about. “Why would you call that old witch?”
Kellen simply rolled his eyes and shook his head before saying, “Come on, old man, not a one of us is blind...or deaf or dumb.”
Spitting and sputtering as he kicked at the dirt, Maddox grumbled, “You all think you’re so smart. I really hate you young ones some times.”
“Yeah, I know you do, and you’re not always my favorite person either, but if you don’t chill out I’ll be forced to call in the big guns...your mate.”
Plopping to the ground and leaning against the base of a tree, Maddox looked at Kellan like a hurt pup and said, “Can you believe that shit? Me? With a mate?”
“Yeah, I believe it, and I’m pretty sure she’s the only woman with enough patience and enough magic to deal with your mangy cantankerous old ass,” Royce stepped up and said. “Those St. Croix ladies are a fiery bunch.”
