by Amelia Jade
As if on cue, two of the team facing them let loose with their breath weapons. Yellow-orange fireballs raced in at them. Their aim was terrible, she thought as they went well wide of her and Dak, the two dragons in the center of the quartet.
“Shit,” Nolan muttered and her long neck flowed sinuously, allowing her head to watch what happened behind her.
Nolan lurched forward, his giant wing snapping out, forming a rust-colored barrier between the fireballs and their ride.
The fire washed over his red scales, doing nothing more than bathing Nolan in flames for a moment. He shook himself slightly and stared back across the lines at their attackers. Nolan was a Fire Dragon as well. He could not be harmed by their flames.
A bolt of lightning snap-hissed across the battlefield. But just before it could hit the stunned Nolan, Vogel moved into its path, the intense white light of power playing over and illuminating his sapphire scales as it fizzled out of existence.
“It’s a rental!” Nolan shouted back, as if the fact that they didn’t own the car was enough to stop their foes from attacking it.
A chuckle rose from the other side, providing the perfect decoy.
Miranda inhaled sharply and focused her power.
A blast of sheer sonic energy shot across the field and sent one of the two Electro Dragons among their pursuers tumbling across the ground. Trees fell before the massive creature, one taloned claw leaving huge furrows in the earth as it scrabbled for purchase.
The blue dragon finally came to a halt, but Miranda didn’t have time to see it. A cone of Frostfire came at her, and she flung herself to the side. She sent a quick burst of Blastfire back in the white dragon’s direction, forcing it to dodge as well, cutting off the attack.
All around her the dragons unleashed the forces of nature upon each other in a rather odd manner. To Miranda’s knowledge, it was the first time she’d ever participated in a land battle of this size while in dragon form. But neither side was willing to risk taking to the air and exposing their vulnerable undersides.
So they fought on land.
“This is ridiculous,” Nolan said with a snort of his massive nostrils, throwing up a wing to shield himself from a burst of fire and then sending his own fireball at one of the pair of Frost Dragons opposing them.
There were two reds, two blues, a white, a brass, and whatever the man still in the vehicle was, arrayed across the border.
If the six of them began to work together, her team was in trouble. But for now they seemed to be stalling. She wondered why.
“Dust cloud on the horizon!” Dak shouted.
Her eyes focused on it, and immediately she realized that their attackers were stalling.
“Enemy reinforcements,” she spat, sending a long stream of sonic energy right at their vehicle.
A Frost Dragon moved into the way, taking the brunt of the energy as he hunkered down, wings pulled over his head to help protect him, even as her breath battered his frame. Scales flew free and one of his wings developed a long jagged rip in it, before Miranda was forced to dive away from a blue-white stream of Dragonfire.
“That hurt!” she shouted as scales sizzled from the heat, even though the fire didn’t touch her directly.
Nolan spat a fireball at the hapless Frost Dragon, but the gigantic red that had been attacking Miranda moved into the way.
And just like that, the six of them began to focus on their targets, and her team fell back.
Dak was hit by a two-pronged blast of Frostfire and Electrofire. He tumbled aside and lay still. He was breathing, but out of the fight, she noted. Whoever they were, they weren’t interested in killing.
It’s a kidnap mission. They want the princess.
There was no other logical explanation. They intended to take her and force her to align Tanith with Fenris.
That could not be allowed to happen.
“Get in the driver’s seat,” Miranda shouted at the princess. “Start moving while we hold them off.”
The woman in the backseat nodded and moved into the front without hesitation, bringing the engine to life.
A bolt of electricity reached out for the vehicle. Miranda grimaced and threw herself in its path, absorbing most of the hit herself.
But a single tendril snuck past her, and the rear left tire of their vehicle disintegrated.
“Shit,” she said dully, trying to shake off the pain. “This is not good.”
“You need to go,” Nolan said as he unleashed a series of fireballs designed to distract, not destroy.
“Absolutely not,” she snapped between bursts of her own breath weapon.
“Miranda,” he said forcefully. “You know as well as I do that it’s the smart move. Not the one you want, but the smart one.”
She snarled at him, the expression heightened by the pain as she didn’t entirely avoid a blast. She wasn’t even sure if it was Fire or Frost.
The five remaining dragons spread out and glided across patches of land toward them as her team circled around the car.
One of them stepped forward as if to speak.
The ground between the two sides erupted with a fury and intensity that sent both sides reeling. Fire and Frost tracked back and forth as bolts of lightning electrically charged the inferno. A tornado of wind stirred it even further, pushing the mass of destruction toward the Fenris dragons.
Green fumes lashed out and caressed the other group of dragons as she watched, sending them winging away in the opposite direction.
Miranda watched wide-eyed as six dragons landed nearby in two perfect triangle formations. At their head was a sight she had never seen before. A gold dragon, his brilliant scales reflecting the sun’s light as he settled to the ground. For a moment she thought he was going to unleash more hell upon her attackers, but they were heading east rapidly, and the reinforcements had turned their vehicle around as well.
Clearly this wasn’t a team they wanted to mess with.
“I don’t know who you are,” she said, though she had an idea who the gold dragon might be, “but we owe you big time.”
The Aurum Dragon turned to face her.
“My name is Daxxton Ryker.”
Chapter Two
Daxxton
He stood up, brushing dirt from his hands, the dry crumbly earth falling away.
After the battle that had just taken place there, a large swath of the land was drained of all water, baked to a crisp.
“That should hold until we get to Cadia,” he said, giving the spare tire a swift kick to ensure it stayed in place. The vehicle rocked slightly under the blow, but there was no give in the tire or the nuts holding it on that he could see.
Beside him, the gorgeous woman who he’d come to learn was Miranda, the head of security, stood looking on apprehensively.
He eyed her once more out of the corner of his eyes, taking in her features. She was tall, as was to be expected for a dragon shifter, approaching nearly six feet in height. The height was even more accentuated by the calf-high tactical combat boots that she wore, the black material tight to her skin, outlining her legs for him to practically drool over.
Daxxton’s eyes swept upward, over her round hips, muscular torso, and past the swell of her perky but not overly large breasts. A strong chin was exposed by the lack of hair, her mane of midnight-black locks swept up into a bun, held in place by what looked suspiciously like a knife handle. He wondered about the practicality of that, but whatever it was, it worked for her.
She was a siren, reaching out from the depths of the waters to test him. More than once he was sure she’d caught him staring. It was most unlike him, and a wave of guilt washed over Daxxton as he realized he was looking at her once again for an overlong period of time.
Focus. Mission first.
“Let’s get going then,” Miranda said.
“There’s no way I can convince you to fly there?” he asked.
Miranda set her jaw, and he knew instantly the fight was over.
&
nbsp; “Okay, okay,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender, not wanting to provoke her temper. Her eyebrows slowly relaxed.
Daxxton hadn’t even seen them narrow, so distracted was he by the fire in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said.
Miranda was stubborn. Very stubborn, he was learning. He’d insisted they simply carry the wounded and head back to Cadia via the air. Miranda said flight wasn’t worthy of her princess when entering a foreign territory.
He still wasn’t sure how that made any sense whatsoever, but she’d been adamant about having the vehicle driven with the princess in it. He wasn’t sure why the princess couldn’t fly. By all reports she was a black dragon, like Miranda. She’d been through the schooling necessary to fly well, as did all in positions of power.
Maybe she’s got some sort of long-term injury? Or maybe she’s just a lazy brat…
Daxxton tried to push that second thought from his mind as he climbed into the front seat. That was a battle he’d managed to win. His team would shadow them from the air, but he was riding in the vehicle with Miranda and the princess. Daxxton hadn’t backed down on that one, and the Tanithians, knowing they were in his territory, had eventually acquiesced to it.
Miranda was behind the wheel, and the vehicle lurched into motion. Behind them, the rainbow of dragons took to the air, stirring up a massive cloud of dust as their wings beat against the ground, launching them skyward. Although he wasn’t about to say anything, a small part of Daxxton was proud to see his Cadians jump just a little higher and gain altitude just a little faster.
It was always a competition.
“What’s that smile for?” Miranda asked in her pleasing voice.
Daxxton shook his head, forcing his eyes straight ahead. It wouldn’t do to be seen admiring the soft skin of her neck in front of the princess of Tanith. And it doubly wouldn’t be acceptable to lean over and sink his teeth gently into that skin while his hands roamed her body.
Sit still.
His spine went ramrod straight as he exerted a level of self-control over himself that he hadn’t had to do in a long, long time.
“Just a thought,” he replied at last, before the silence went on for too long. “Nothing important.”
Miranda glanced over at him briefly, and he thought she was going to push, or call him out on the blatant lie, but she didn’t.
Taking a deep breath, he thanked his lucky stars for that. As he did, his hand slid from his lap, pushed aside by his expanding chest. Daxxton summoned the limb back to his lap unconsciously, but before it could respond, his fingers brushed against something that wasn’t car.
Across from him Miranda hissed quietly, but to the dragon-enhanced hearing in the confined area of the car, it may as well have been a shout.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, snatching his hand away, even as he closed his eyes, forcing himself to go through the same breathing exercises he did when he awoke from the dream.
The Dream. Kyra.
Guilt slammed into him full-force as he realized what he’d been doing, and what his mind had been thinking. Demons of his own creation welled up in his mind and sunk their claws into him. Sobering coldness swept across his body, quenching the fires that one simple touch had awakened as quickly as they’d come.
His mind, cleared of the fog that had been wrapping around it, focused back on the present with a cool analytical set to it.
“So, why are you here?” he asked.
It was a simple question on the surface, but every occupant of the vehicle knew that there was much more to it. Why did you come to Cadia now? Why did you choose the route you did? Why was it unannounced? What are your real motives for being here? Why were you being pursued by a mercenary shifter team?
The last one was perhaps the one that intrigued him the most.
Not all shifters lived within shifter territories. Some worked for the human governments, and most of the bigger and more powerful nations had several companies’ worth of shifters in their militaries. But beyond that, there were the private security firms. Such as the one he was fairly certain had been responsible for the earlier attack.
Daxxton didn’t have any firm data on that, but he thought he had recognized one of the dragons. Miranda had also mentioned something about the man in the first car, though he had disappeared at some point without anyone noticing. There were just enough things about the dragons who had attacked to indicate that they weren’t just a Fenris hit team.
“You saw why we’re here,” Miranda replied at last.
Translation: Fenris feels confident enough to move against us in the open under the disguise of mercenaries. We know we aren’t strong enough to hold them off on our own, but we’re not here to beg. We’re here to talk.
“I do hope you don’t have too many more parties planned,” he said dryly.
Translation: Are they desperate enough to attack you in Cadia?
It wasn’t necessary to speak in code, but Daxxton knew that for politicians it was all a big game, one they refused not to play. Miranda was far too professional and blunt to be a politician herself, but they were in the presence of a major one in the princess. So, despite the taste it left in his mouth, he played along with them.
“I’m not much of a formal ball lady myself,” Miranda said with a snort. “But you never know when the urge might strike.”
Translation: We don’t know, but they might, so be ready.
“I’ll have the on-hand staff doubled then, just in case you have a whim,” he said, sitting back in his chair and wondering just how the hell he was going to double the border patrols.
Things had been…tight, for the Guardians of late. There were generally peaceful interactions with the other shifter strongholds and the humans at Cloud Lake just on the other side of the Quicksilver Mountains to the west. With so few conflicts happening, Klara Nova, head of the Cadian ruling council, had massively scaled back the budget, although he and many others had contested it fiercely.
Daxxton had the unfortunate feeling that either he was going to be funding this himself, or he was going to have to rely on volunteers. Neither of which was ideal.
The rest of the ride passed peacefully, much to everyone’s relief. Even the tension that had built up between him and Miranda had mostly dissipated by the time they reached the Guardian headquarters building.
They walked on either side of the princess, escorting her up the stairs. As they did, he noticed the way Miranda matched her stride to that of the nobles, mimicking it almost perfectly. He frowned, looking at the facial features, body size, and hair of the two women…
“Princess!” Klara gushed, pushing open the door and emerging to greet them. “How wonderful to see you safe and sound.”
“Miss Nova,” the princess said, stopping to give the most powerful woman in Cadia a shallow curtsy.
“Oh nonsense. Call me Klara and please, do come in!”
He marveled at how sugary polite and chummy Klara was, even though to the best of his knowledge she’d never actually met the princess of Tanith before. Yet that didn’t stop her from acting as if they were old friends.
Politics. Ugh. He hated it and the fakeness associated with it all. Rolling his eyes, he pushed it from his mind as best he could.
Daxxton and Miranda hung back a pace as the two women began to chat, ignoring everyone around them. He caught snippets of the conversation before his attention was fully distracted, and knew they were discussing where the princess would stay while in Cadia.
“You’re not just her head of security, are you?” he asked Miranda as the pair went into a room, waving at the rest to stay outside. He gritted his teeth at being dismissed so easily, but the chance to spend more time talking to Miranda wasn’t exactly a bad thing in his mind. He could feel the fires stirring once more, and this time they pushed a bit of the guilt aside as well.
The raven-haired woman turned to face him sharply.
“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.
“You’re her body double too, aren’t you?”
Miranda relaxed. “Oh, yes. On the occasion where we feel it necessary, I’ve played the part of the princess before.”
Deep inside Daxxton, something he thought would lay dormant forever awoke. His dragon’s protective side reared its head, very unhappy with the prospect of Miranda purposefully putting herself in danger. He didn’t like it one bit, and Daxxton felt his mouth opening to say that she shouldn’t do that.
Shut up.
Right now. Do not say that. Whatever you do, do not utter those words, you fool. Not only do you barely know this woman, but what you do know indicates she can more than handle herself in a fight. So don’t patronize her.
His teeth clacked audibly as he snapped his jaw shut, common sense getting the better of him.
“Dangerous job,” he commented instead.
“Sometimes,” she agreed, though there was a twinkle in her eye.
Had she known what he was about to say? Or was the look because she enjoyed the danger? He wasn’t sure.
“I hear Cadia can be dangerous too though,” she continued, making a none-too-subtle reference to what had happened with the Fenris delegation a month earlier.
They had been attacked several times, though in the end it had turned out to be one of their own. Still, there had been collateral damage to the citizens of Cadia, which had not helped things much.
“So, we’re going to need a security liaison while we’re here. Help keep us away from the unsavory parts of town.”
Daxxton snorted. There wasn’t really a “wrong side of town” so to speak. Oh sure, one didn’t want to go into the gryphon sanctuary, but that was well north of the town, and not exactly a tourist spot. The Tanithians would have to fly there on purpose to land.
Still, it would probably not be a bad thing to have someone with them.
“Asher,” he called, motioning one of his team forward. He had been hanging back against the far wall, forming a circle with the other three members of Miranda’s security team.
“No,” Miranda said, holding a hand up to stop the Frost Dragon. “You.”
