by Abigail Owen
“She’s fine.” Delaney’s voice broke through the snarl ripping from his mouth. His dragon, near frantic, eased up.
“Where is she?”
“Rune took out Nidhogg. She and her family are getting out on foot through woods.”
“Thank the gods—”
Though he’d slowed, Drake had to slam himself to a stop midair. Either that, or plow through the green dragon that appeared in front of him, spikes raised on the back of his spine, ready for battle.
Drake hovered in the air staring him down. He knew this guy, but were Rune’s men up to speed on the situation since Drake had rejoined the Huracáns? Though he’d never seen Jiǎ in dragon form, he had no doubt who he faced off against.
“I’m not your enemy,” Drake said.
Jiǎ stared back, unblinking. “No. You’re an ally who must pretend to be my enemy.”
Only if he was trying to stay with his team. Fighting Rune’s people just might get him back there. “I’m not going to pull my punches. This has to look real.”
The dragon’s green eyes glittered like backlit emeralds in the half light of the valley. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t.” Drake lunged at Jiǎ. To give the rogue credit, the flipping maneuver he used to both evade and bring himself around for an attack was damn impressive.
He came up under Drake who, rather than evading, yanked in one wing to flip to his back, so that Jiǎ didn’t skewer the softer scales on his underbelly with the spikes along his back. The move had Drake dropping down on top of Jiǎ like a plane with its wings clipped.
He grunted as their bodies impacted, and Jiǎ scrambled for a second to get out from under him.
Both upright, they faced off again.
“Nice move,” Drake offered.
“Dick move,” Jiǎ came back.
“Need some help?” The sound of Tineen’s voice in his head was one Drake had hoped never to hear again.
He didn’t take his gaze of Jiǎ. “Fuck off.”
Tineen ignored him. “We’re here to—”
“Take out Rune?” Drake interrupted the Alaz Alpha. “No shit. So am I.” The lie slipped easily from him.
In his peripheral, he caught a flash of black and knew Tineen was close.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jiǎ demanded as they continued to hover, not in on the conversation with Tineen.
This conversations thing in battle was a pain in the ass.
“An Alaz dragon is coming at us. Get ready, because I’m going to serve him up like a fucking seven course meal. Make it look good.”
“I hear you’ve gone rogue.” Tineen continued to sound off inside his head.
“I’m a little busy, asshole.” Drake angled his body so that he was between Tineen and Jiǎ. Just one move. That’s all it would take. A slip to the side.
“I should kill you now,” Jiǎ snarled. But sounding far more real than he should for setting up an act for the Alaz team.
“What?” Drake said. “You don’t trust me?”
Jiǎ snorted. “No.”
“I don’t have time for this shit,” Drake snarled. “I’m trying to help you.”
Help them both. Let Jiǎ take out Tineen and the Huracáns wouldn’t be blamed for it. Someday, there would be a reckoning for all these lies. But today was not that day. Today, they needed to get Rune and the grizzlies away safely and have the Alaz believe the stories they were weaving. After that, they’d figure the rest out. Hopefully not in a cell or with his neck ripped out by an enforcer.
“Jiǎ. On three.” Drake deliberately loosed a torrent of fire from his maw, a move to look as though he was fighting, but also to obscure Jiǎ’s position.
“I’ll come at him from underneath,” Tineen radioed ahead for Drake alone.
Thanks for the info. Drake almost smiled around the flames. “He’s coming from below,” he warned Jiǎ. The green dragon across from him rippled as muscles tensed.
“Three. Two. One.”
Jiǎ lunged at Drake through the flames, his expression wild. Drake tucked in his wings, which caused him to drop, making the way he hit into Tineen look like an accident as he evaded an adversary.
“Fuck.” Tineen’s voice came through a millisecond before Jiǎ had the Alpha by the throat and both dragons plummeted toward the earth, slashing and writhing in each other’s grasps like two mamba snakes—one oily black, the other leaf green—locked in a fight to the death.
Drake didn’t bother to follow. “Where’s Cami?” He sent the thought to Lyndi and Delaney.
“A bit— Fuck!”
Drake jerked his head, looking in all directions, searching for his Alpha’s mate. “Finn. Delaney’s in trouble,” he relayed.
“I know,” came the grim return. “It’s for show.”
A flash of blue streaking through the sky caught Drake’s eye. Sure enough, Finn was diving after his mate who was wrapped up with a dragon the color of garnet. It had to be one of Rune’s men.
“Nidhogg is dead.” Rune’s voice now joined the multitude sounding off in his head.
Dammit. The Alaz team would go feral over that.
“I had no choice.”
“Get the grizzlies, and get your asses out of here.” Finn’s voice was strained. At a guess, he’d caught up with his mate and was engaged in a fight that had to look real.
“We need a distraction.”
Drake knew exactly what he had to do. “I’ve got a distraction for you.”
Deliberately, Drake pictured every shifter in the area, sensing their minds, preparing to unleash a torrent of thoughts sure to buy Rune’s team some time, as long as they didn’t also get caught up in the distraction.
“Rune. The woman you are after has been mated,” he announced. “And if one more dragon goes after my mate, I’ll kill them myself. I don’t give a shit which side you’re on.”
A blast of words came at him from every direction. Cries of “Traitor” from the Alaz team members. From his own team, though, total silence. They knew already, of course.
He’d expected anger. What he didn’t expect was for Tineen to throw Jiǎ off him and launch into the air. “Take the woman,” his order slammed through.
Drake couldn’t pause in his flight, though every part of him wanted to lock up at that order. No. Cami was a mate. No way would they separate them.
But streaks of color through the air, all headed one direction, told him every one of the Alaz team had obeyed that order, and so had the Huracáns.
Drake, barely closer, arrowed toward the ground, toward where he could feel Cami’s presence. Tiny movements among the dense trees had to be her and her family.
“Cami. They’re coming for you. Don’t run. I’m coming.” She wouldn’t make it. He had to get to her first.
“Go!” He could hear her tiny voice echoing up to him off the rock. Was that for her family?
A flash of hair and movement behind the trees, going at a perpendicular motion to the way she had been going, split off from the other humans continuing to run the way they had.
She was sacrificing herself for her family. He had no doubt.
Drake changed his trajectory, pushing hard, fear charging through him like a cavalry of thousands. “That’s it. Head for the road. I’ll meet you there.”
On every side of him, he could sense the presence of the other dragons, racing against him and against time to get to his mate.
He wasn’t going to beat the blue Alaz fucker to his right. Blue dragons had always been faster, built for speed in the way white dragons were built for distance, black dragons stealth, and gold dragons strength.
No! The word pounded through his mind. He wasn’t going to get to her first.
A flash of green shot up from under the blue dragon, and he flipped, losing all momentum.
&
nbsp; “Fuck, sorry man,” Hall’s voice came across, aimed at the blue dragon.
That beautiful bastard. Drake didn’t let up on his speed, risking breaking himself with the impact when he landed, but he’d get there first, dammit.
Cami burst out of the trees onto the deserted street two seconds before he threw his wings wide, tipping his body back to slow as fast as he could. He slammed into the ground hard, the boom echoing from mountain to mountain. Drake managed to yank his wings in close and flatten his spikes as he rolled with the momentum. Then popped to his feet, digging his claws into the pavement with a horrible screech as he bled off the rest of his speed.
He came to a stop mere feet from his mate, who had backed up, but otherwise trusted that he’d stop himself in time.
He chanced a look back, confirming for himself that she was unharmed. Ashen faced, but fine. For now.
Every protective instinct in him screamed with the need to snap her up and fly her away. Only he wouldn’t be fast enough, which meant holding his ground.
Gods, please let that be the right decision. If he held here instead of taking her away and she died…
When he faced forward, six dragons had landed before him. All Alaz dragons. None of his team in sight.
He was on his own.
Drake opened his mouth, showing his teeth, letting them hear the rumble of his fire in his chest. A warning. “You won’t harm her.”
Tineen prowled forward menacingly, his broad chest heaving with the effort and blood dripping over the scales on one side of his face. Looked like Jiǎ had hurt the guy. Normally Drake would be happy about that, but an injured dragon was like any other injured predator. He could snap and take them all out in a craze.
The black dragon stopped when Drake let loose another warning growl.
Tineen’s tail slashed behind him. A sign of leashed anger, or a sign that he was on the verge of losing it? “Come with us now, and we won’t…hurt her.”
Drake didn’t like the pause or the way Tineen’s voice had turned even more dragon, almost unrecognizable. Could he even be reasoned with? He had to try.
“I did it to save her from Rune,” he said.
Another slash of the onyx tail. “We’ll determine that at the trial.”
No. Hell, no. A trial that could end with both their deaths. “No fucking trial. We settle this now.”
Tineen cocked his head, staring Drake down with eyes suddenly glittering with black fire, smoke trailing from his nostrils. “You know how this works, enforcer.”
He knew how it was supposed to work, and this was not it.
“Fuck this.” A gold dragon lowered his head, whipping his tail back and forth, a definite indication of threat. “He’s not going to come peaceably.”
Five of the six dragons, all but Tineen, bared their teeth, bodies tensing for a hell of a fight.
“Bring it, assholes,” Drake snarled. “We’ll see who—”
A flash of blue was his only warning before something hard slammed into the side of Drake’s head.
“Drake!” Cami’s shout came at him as though she was calling down a long tunnel.
His vision went blurry, blackness closing in from the edges as his perspective shifted at the same time, and Drake knew he was falling. Sideways apparently.
He hit the ground hard, the smack of his head against the rock like a spike drilling through his skull. As black edges consumed the rest of his vision, Finn’s face appeared in front of him.
“Sorry, brother. I had no choice.”
…
Consciousness returned to Cami in a rush—sound and light and a sense of being cold but not comfortable smacked her between the eyes with the force of a sledgehammer. One second after wakefulness, realization intruded with even more force and she jerked upright with a gasp, heart sprinting.
Drake had been facing off against the dragons, putting himself between her and them, before Finn had slammed that wicked-looking spiked tail into Drake’s head.
Had he betrayed them? Given them to the Alaz enforcers to save the rest of the team?
She remembered trying to run to him, only darkness claimed her, too. Like his being knocked out traveled down the connection bonding them and dragged her into unconsciousness with him.
“I’m here.” Drake’s dark tones reached out to her, curled around her. But he was too far away.
She spun, her only need to get to her mate. Another gasp left her as she found him standing with his face pressed against two steel bars, hands gripping them on either side, as he watched her with an intensity that shot her already erratic heartrate sky high.
Still, only one thought settled, and she forced her wobbly legs to function as she rushed to him, trying to wrap her arms around her mate, despite the bars that kept them separate.
“They didn’t kill you?”
“Not yet.” Underlying a grim tone to his voice was a tension that she could almost feel. He was…scared. For her?
Cami pulled back slightly, though she didn’t let go of him and frowned as their surroundings finally penetrated her hazy mind. “Where are we?”
“Huracán headquarters.”
If they were in the mountain, then… “Why are we behind bars?”
They were in a dungeon, actually. That was the best way she could describe it. A long, windowless corridor in a mountain, based on the uneven cave-like walls of rock. Steel bars separated the cells and faced out to the corridor. The only source of light came from the strip along the ceiling, currently a faint glow. Was it sunrise or sunset?
“How long have we been in here? What is going on?”
His grip on her tightened as more of his emotions filtered through that new connection. He wanted to reassure her, calm her, but he couldn’t. “I don’t know,” he said.
The sound of a large metal door being opened had them both tensing. Through the bars, Drake placed a kiss on her forehead. “No matter what happens, I want you to know something…”
“What’s that?” Cami stared down the hall with trepidation, reaching out with senses she didn’t know if she had access to yet and getting nothing, waiting to see who went with the slow, methodical footsteps tapping out a tattoo of sound on the stone floor.
When Drake didn’t answer, she dragged her gaze back around to him to find him watching her with eyes ablaze.
“What?” she repeated.
He ran his fingers over her cheeks, brushing her lips with his thumb. “That I love you.”
Oh God.
Trying to control her own fear, Cami leaned into him as best she could with the bars between them. At the same time, a pinpoint of pure happiness pierced the panic trying to smother her. They were fated mates, the deed signed, sealed, and delivered. Why those three little words should make such a difference… But they did.
“Don’t do that,” she begged.
“Do what?”
“Don’t say goodbye.” She lifted her head. “If you love me, you’re going to fight. You understand me?”
He stared at her with that impenetrable expression he used so often, except, somehow, insanely, she could feel his emotions behind that facade. Love, adoration, need, respect…and a dark underbelly of fear, all mashed together. The same emotions packed inside her like sardines, only she couldn’t tell if they were all hers or a combination of both of them.
She took a deep breath. “When we’re out of here and safe, then you can tell me you love me.”
“When you’ve quite finished.” A posh British accent sounded outside their cells.
Slowly Cami turned to face a man who stood alone, staring at them with a hardness that set her skin crawling. A white dragon, if his eyes were anything to go by. Older, appearing in his sixties or so, which meant pretty damn old for a dragon shifter, who aged slowly over thousands of years. The voice was vaguely familiar, but t
he face was not one she’d seen before.
But the way Drake pulled her closer almost convulsively, as though trying to shield her, the bars biting into her skin, she knew this white dragon shifter was important.
“Mathai,” Drake acknowledged. “You got here fast.”
The tall, lanky man with a shock of white-blond hair and frost blue eyes gave a barely discernable shrug. “On my orders, they’ve kept you unconscious for two days, so I could get here.”
Two days.
Two days unconscious.
“My family?” Cami demanded.
His gaze snapped to hers.
“Safely back on your lands, memories wiped, none the worse for wear.”
She shut her eyes against the wave of relief. “Thank God.”
“Thank all the gods if you must,” Mathai commented.
That had her opening her eyes to glare at him. “Your men owe my family restitution for any damage those fires caused.”
After a long, tense moment, he inclined his head in a move she’d pictured kings and royals of old making. “We shall see.”
Cami narrowed her eyes, but smartly kept her mouth shut. There was a threat in his voice that cascaded shivers over her skin.
Mathai took a deep breath. “Which brings us to the point.” His gaze slid to Drake—assessing, discerning. What was he looking for? “You are going to explain exactly what happened out there.”
A command. A threat.
Cami had zero doubt that if Drake answered wrong, they’d both be dead in a heartbeat.
Drake eyed him narrowly. “I would have assumed the Alaz and Huracán teams already brought you up to speed.”
What had Finn and the team already told these people? Had any of them been able to talk to Drake telepathically and clue him in? Probably not. No doubt the Alaz team weren’t letting his men shift so that they could relay information to him. He’d have to tread carefully now, and assume the team stuck to a story of not knowing exactly what happened except for Drake’s original plan of leaving the team to die.
“I’d like to hear it from you.”
“Fine,” Drake agreed. But when he opened his mouth to start, Mathai held up a hand, offering a smile that sent ice through her veins. “Not yet.”
