Dragons of Cadia - The Complete Dragon Shifter Series

by Amelia Jade

“Hold on!” he shouted.

  Beneath him, ice formed as he poured that aspect of his dragon into the ground, using its power. As an Aurum Dragon, Daxxton was blessed with the three powers of Frostfire, Dragonfire, and Electrofire. At any given point, he could make use of one, or all three of them. All he had to do was focus and apply the energy.

  The mound of ice the six of them were standing on rose into the air as it grew. The attackers slowed, baffled by what he was doing. One of them even began to summon his own Dragonfire, intending on melting the ice.

  But Daxxton had other ideas. Without warning, the flat section his group was standing on suddenly angled down sharply away from the house. Ice continued to form, completely smooth with no disturbances. Practically frictionless.

  He grinned as his team slid down the makeshift ice slide, swiftly putting distance between them and the attackers faster than the hit team could react.

  The look faded as a vehicle came roaring around the house, gunning for them.

  “Do you mind?” he asked Miranda sweetly.

  “My pleasure,” the woman said hotly, her anger at the situation somehow making her even more beautiful to him.

  She stepped forward, and he saw darkness gather around her hands as she once more spread them wide.

  Then, with a banshee-like yell, Miranda slapped them together in front of her. A pulse of energy burst forth from her, tearing a deep furrow in the ground as it lashed out at the SUV, taking it and flipping it upside down. A single shifter emerged from within. The sole pilot.

  There was a shout, and the ambushers clad in security and servant clothing burst from around the two-story ice mound, charging in among the Tanithians.

  Time to go to work.

  Daxxton charged into the fray, using the ice to his advantage. He went to one knee to avoid a punch, sliding forward and out of reach of one shifter, while surprising another who thought he was going to stop and engage. A massive gold-tinted fist lashed out and broke the man’s jaw.

  The shifter howled in agony, but his cry was cut short as the Aurum Dragon shifter wrapped his arms around the mercenary’s head. Back-to-back with his foe, Daxxton dropped to one knee and pulled forward, snapping the other shifter’s neck backward over his shoulder. There was a deflating oomph, followed by silence as the shifter went limp like only a corpse could.

  One down.

  A blow so fast it was a blur lashed out at his face. Daxxton yanked his head back fast enough that it only grazed him. He brought his hands up, grabbing the arm as he continued to spin away from it. He grabbed the fist with his right hand, and stabbed his left hand forward into the elbow of the outstretched arm.

  Tendons snapped, bone broke, and the arm fell uselessly to the shifter’s side.

  “Who are you?” Daxxton snarled as his thick fingers closed around the shifter’s larynx, lifting him clear of the ground.

  Shifter-enhanced fingers tore at his grip, but Daxxton ignored them, eyes blazing with golden flame as he saw his charges engaged in a desperate battle.

  No time to interrogate.

  “Fine, you die,” he said calmly, and closed his fingers into a fist with more power than a vise.

  Blood spurted as he all but ripped the merc’s neck out, dropping the thrashing soon-to-be-corpse to the ground. He stalked forward into the fray, his face blank but for the promise of death to any who stood in his way.

  Vogel went down under a heavy blow, his injuries not having healed enough to allow him to stand and fight. Dak slipped and a fist sent him crashing to the ice.

  The princess was surrounded.

  Daxxton roared, a bellowing challenge that got the attention of everyone as he returned to the fight. His slow, measured paces blurred abruptly as he shot forward. Two quick blows sent men hurtling through the air into the empty lawn behind his team. A spin kick sent a third to join them. Miranda downed another man, and the remainder retreated.

  Only six remained, but they faced only four shifters, and Nolan’s one arm was hanging at an unnatural angle.

  “Come on then!” he shouted, trying to goad the mercs into brash action. But they were good, he noted. Very good. They fanned out and advanced as one, clearly well versed in group tactics.

  There was a grunt, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Nolan turn to engage someone else.

  The driver of the vehicle, having recovered enough, had attempted to charge them from behind.

  “Help him, and protect her,” he said to Miranda, stepping forward to put himself between the six oncoming shifters and the rest of his party.

  “Are you nuts?” she hissed.

  “You’re under my protection, in my homeland,” he said, still facing the six men. “They’re going to learn just what that means.”

  He took a step forward again, challenging the attackers.

  Then, something made him stand upright and smile, and it wasn’t the squeal of pain as Miranda and the princess—whom he noted had held her own during the fight—easily finished off the other attacker.

  “Missed your chance,” he said jovially.

  “What?” one of them said.

  “Ah, so you’re the leader. Well, shame.”

  Daxxton raised his hand and began to wave farewell to the attackers, who all looked at each other in confusion.

  Then the first explosion landed. The ball of blue-white fire simply incinerated the man on the far left. Daxxton barely had time to watch as a bolt of lightning came down and impaled the man on the far right.

  The others were reacting by then, and the cloud of ice that descended didn’t succeed in trapping the other four. They ran off into the night at superhuman speeds.

  “Asher, let them go!” he called. There were still four of them, and unless he missed his bet, they had reinforcements around. He didn’t want his backup team getting hurt. It would be a long time before any other Guardians could arrive to help provide security, and his team was hurt.

  “How the hell did he get here so quickly?” Miranda asked, stepping up next to him, nursing a long jagged cut on her forearm.

  “They followed us,” Daxxton said with a shrug. “But they left the headquarters building by ground and proceeded to head out of the city. Then they looped around and followed at a discreet distance. All we needed to do was buy enough time for them to arrive.”

  He looked at her grimly. “Let’s go check the house for any traps.”

  Chapter Five

  Miranda

  “It’ll be okay,” she told the princess. “Daxxton has men on the way, and his second team will be here shortly as well, with two more dragons. We’ve scoured the house, released the security they had drugged, and ensured they didn’t leave any traps for us.”

  “I don’t get the non-lethal aspect,” the princess said, frowning. “Earlier they could have killed Vogel, but they only knocked him aside. Now these men, all drugged and restrained with special gear? That’s a lot of planning when they could just kill them.”

  Miranda shrugged. “Perhaps they hope it won’t incur as much of a backlash if they don’t leave any bodies behind when they come for you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I need to go now. Try to get some sleep,” Miranda said, trying very hard not to make it an order, and failing.

  “Nolan has already said he will sit on me if he has to.”

  Miranda snorted, knowing full well what she meant by “sit.” Their clandestine status as lovers was…well, not very clandestine.

  “Be good,” she said and left the room, closing the thick steel door behind her. It looked like wood, she noticed, but it would resist a much more concentrated attack before collapsing. Just one of the security elements built into the house that she hadn’t expected to care about.

  Now she was thankful for them.

  Daxxton was waiting for her back in the central atrium of the house. Located at the juncture of all four wings, it boasted a ceiling that rose nearly three stories into the area, along with an impressive amount of greenery s
he was sure would need constant tending. A lot of work went into maintaining the property.

  Without a word he rose from where he’d been talking to one of his own men, a grizzly shifter she believed, and came over to her.

  “Ready?”

  Miranda nodded sharply, and followed him through a door leading to a set of metal steps descending into the bowels of the house. They went down one story, then a second.

  Interesting, there appears to be an entire warren of tunnels and rooms under the house. I wonder what they’re used for?

  Daxxton paused in front of one room as they strode down a hallway. He pushed it open and gestured for her to enter.

  “No, after you,” she said.

  They both stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then as if by some unspoken signal, the two of them stepped forward at the same instant.

  Realizing her mistake, Miranda turned sideways in an attempt to avoid slamming into his chest. She squeezed past him and into the room, but not before her body dragged slowly across his, her rear pressing right into his crotch as he tried to flatten himself against the doorjamb.

  Electricity arced between them, jumping from one vertebrae to another as it made its way up her spine and into her extremities at the same time.

  Miranda drew blood as she bit down hard on her lip in an attempt to prevent herself from whimpering at the sensation, feeling overwhelmed and intoxicated with lust at the same exact moment. She wanted nothing more than to feel Daxxton pressed up behind her, his hands on her hips as he bent her over, taking her with abandon, as if they were nothing more than wild animals in rutting season.

  It was so intense, so vivid a sensation that her knees went weak and threatened to give out on her.

  None of that was helped by the sudden hiss followed by a deep, feral growl that sounded in Daxxton’s throat as he reacted to her touch. She sensed more than saw him reach out for her, but he pulled back as well. Her momentum had finally carried Miranda into the room, pulling her away from him.

  The electric tension didn’t fade though. If anything it actually increased as she automatically turned to look at him and found herself captured by a pair of eyes so golden-brown they might have been the yellow of his dragon. Desire poured out through them, threatening to overwhelm her already-battered defenses some more.

  “About time you got here,” a voice said, cutting through the silence like a whip.

  Miranda spun with a cry, having been so preoccupied with Daxxton that she hadn’t noticed the other occupant in the room.

  “Asher!” she exclaimed, her right hand raising over her heart as it went into overdrive for a moment.

  “The one and only,” he said with a spread of his arms, grinning at the pair of them.

  He knows. He saw and heard that whole thing. Please don’t say anything! Please, keep quiet. No snide comments.

  “I was hoping you’d be here soon,” Asher went on. “He’s not giving me anything, and Dax here said I wasn’t allowed to extract it from him. So, your turn,” he said with a shrug.

  The other man clapped her and Daxxton on the shoulder and left the room. He glanced at her as he went, and Miranda could have sworn there was a mischievous twinkle in his eye, but he was gone before she could be sure.

  The distraction had served its purpose however, because Daxxton was once again all business, and the searing heat she’d felt from him was back hidden behind his walls. His attention was focused on the fourth man in the room.

  “So, this is the only one to survive, is it?” she asked, looking at him through the gaps in the four-inch-thick, hardened-steel bars.

  “Yes.”

  The bedraggled survivor looked up at them from his hunched-over sitting position, and she stifled a gasp. His entire face was black and blue, and a chunk of skin hung loosely, not having snapped back into place just yet.

  “You look like shit,” she said aloud, earning her an angry stare from the brown eyes.

  The sullenness caused her to laugh. “Really? You’re angry at me that we didn’t just let you win? Come on now, have some common sense.”

  The glare eased, but only slightly.

  “Now tell me, who are you working for?” she asked, launching right into it.

  The prisoner just rolled his eyes and put his head back down on his knees.

  “I think we can make a safe assumption,” Daxxton rumbled. “Who else would have cause to hire such an elite unit besides Fenris?”

  She looked over at him. “We know who he is?”

  The big golden-skinned dragon shifter nodded, then stopped. “Well, I don’t know him in particular. But I recognize the mark on his wrist. He’s part of the Iron Scales.”

  Miranda whistled.

  “You’ve heard of them?”

  She nodded. “Who hasn’t heard of the Iron Scales? They’re some serious bad-asses, and heavy hitters. Dragon mercs without any morals. They cost a fortune, but they deliver results.”

  “Most of the time,” Daxxton said with a hint of pride at the fact that they’d beaten off one of the best mercenary teams in existence.

  “Do we know which company?” she asked, not wanting to let them get ahead of themselves.

  “C Company,” the man sitting on the floor grated out.

  The Iron Scales had four companies, each formed around ten shifters. Miranda knew that much. A Company was the best of the best of the best. There wasn’t a better unit on the planet. The biggest, oldest, and most powerful dragons were in A Company.

  “Shit,” she muttered. “If this idiot is telling the truth, we might have to face more.”

  No one in the room was under the impression that they might actually have beaten off the mercs for good, now that they knew who they were. True, it was likely Fenris had hired only the one company, but the mercs didn’t take it so well when one of their own was manhandled the way C Company had just been decimated.

  “Crommer is going to tear you apart,” the man chuckled evilly.

  Arrent Crommer was the head of A Company, she knew, and one of the most ruthless dragon shifters on the planet. No task was beneath him, regardless of how much bloodletting it might take.

  Some said he was next in line to command the Iron Scales, if their near-mythical leader Corbin Provaley ever stepped down.

  “We’ll see about that,” Daxxton said calmly.

  The lack of fear in his voice seemed to reach through to the prisoner. His head rose again and he regarded Daxxton for a long, silent moment, evaluating him and his claim. After a moment, he dropped his head once more.

  “We’re not going to get anything more out of him,” Daxxton said at long last. “He’s just going to have to rot in jail now. We’ll see what the Council has to say about him assaulting our honored guests. I have a feeling they won’t be inclined to be overly kind to him. I’d guess at least two centuries.”

  Miranda saw a shudder run through the prisoner’s body, but he didn’t react any more than that.

  “He’s prepared to do it,” she commented.

  “I know,” Daxxton agreed. “Which is why he’s useless to us. Would have been easier just to kill him.”

  “Waste of energy,” she muttered, turning to leave the room.

  “Waste of space now,” he argued.

  “Fair point.”

  The pair of them left the room, closing the door and heading back through the hallways and up the stairway to the main atrium.

  “How’s security look?” she asked they began to stroll through the house side by side.

  She was stalling for time, not wanting to leave his side. She felt…comfortable there.

  “Good. I have squads of Guardians roaming the perimeter. Along with a quick reaction force here. I’ve put out the call for more dragons now that I know who we’re up against. I can’t rightfully ask any of the others to put themselves in the path of the Iron Scales, though I know none of them will hesitate either.”

  Miranda nodded, hearing the words, but not really caring. She tr
usted Daxxton implicitly now. This was two scrapes that he’d bailed them out of, either directly or through shrewd planning. If he said the security arrangements that he’d made were well in hand, then she wouldn’t worry about them. He would protect her—them. He would protect them.

  Keep your head screwed on straight, girl. He’s gorgeous and smart, witty. Amazing, yes. But he’s also Cadian, and you’re in a tight situation right now. You need him thinking straight, not distracted by a dalliance with you. So think with your brain, not your hormones, and you’ll get through this.

  Oh, by the way, he’s staring at you now with those beautiful brown eyes, flecked so spectacularly with gold. Looking right into your soul as you talk to yourself. It probably means he’s saying something. You should listen.

  Like now. Listen to Daxxton.

  SNAP OUT OF IT.

  “Pardon?” she said abruptly, her head tilting back ever so slightly as she looked up at him.

  “I didn’t say anything,” he all but whispered.

  His eyes never wavered.

  “Oh,” she said weakly, his soft tone sending a flutter through her core.

  They were going to kiss, weren’t they?

  Shit. Did her breath smell bad? Was there anything in her teeth? What if she screwed it up?

  Miranda mentally shook herself. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was over a century and a half old. This was not her first time kissing a man, though it would be ending a bit of a dry spell, if she were forced to tell the truth. Still, she hadn’t forgotten how to kiss.

  He stepped slightly closer to her. “Listen, Miranda,” he said hesitantly.

  “Yes?” she replied, looking up at him, eyes roaming over his lips, framed by the goatee he kept clipped short and clean.

  They were definitely kissable, she decided.

  “I…” Daxxton stopped.

  Here it is. He’s going to do it.

  Her tongue flicked out, dampening her lips in preparation.

  A wave of heat pulsed out from Daxxton, washing over her, raising goosebumps along her arms as the moment built. The world around her swam out of focus, leaving only him clear. Right then, she was his.

  “I need to get some rest,” Daxxton said at last, his voice heavy and full of regret. “You should too.”