Going against the symbol seemed foolhardy at best. Murder at worst.
That more and more mates under Pytheios’s current edicts were dying only fed Rune’s belief that he was right. The dragon colonies needed independence if he continued in leadership. They needed to separate from the clans and be allowed to govern themselves and figure out their own mating process. One that, hopefully, resulted in many fewer deaths. Not that he ever saw that happening.
Until Pytheios pulled his sticky fingers out of it, Rune wasn’t letting those women go to the Mating Council. Not if he could save them.
Hadyn being here now felt like that, only not the same.
He didn’t have to explain dragon shifters to this mate or convince her that they existed in the first place. She wasn’t panicky, following him in the dark without question or hesitation. Maybe a few blindly waving arm movements, but that was it.
He could smell her fear, but she kept it staunchly under control, even her heart rate staying steady. Still, the fact that she feared meant she wasn’t entirely blind to the peril they’d found themselves in. She merely pushed through and did what she must.
The fact that her mate was dead already was a godsdamned tragedy because she would make an incredible dragon with those traits. A partner.
His dragon, strangely, remained silent in his head.
Probably too focused on escape to be working through the conundrum of a mate who could never be changed. His dragon’s survival instincts, if anything, were even stronger than his own. Even with the human half in charge, the animal was tuned to everything around them, listening for any sign that they’d been followed from behind or were walking into a trap as they moved forward. Right now…no sounds, no scents, nothing reached them.
How had those who’d come along after he’d abandoned the mountain not figured out this entrance? All they’d had to do was go around the water and they’d discover the tunnel beyond. The phoenix and dragon king who was now her mate had escaped this way with dragons crawling all over the blasted peak.
Deep would be proud he’d managed to keep this secret.
But so far, he and Hadyn remained safe. Rune worked through alternate plans on the chance that an ambush was waiting for them. Finally they reached the part of the cave that widened, allowing him to straighten from the stoop he’d been forced into. Another hundred yards and he’d be able to shift.
After that…well…
He’d never been one to appeal to the gods with prayer. Most of the time—hell, all the time—they didn’t answer or deign to get involved, so why bother.
“Whoa,” Hadyn whispered at his side as the cavern suddenly widened, a pinpoint of sunlight beaming down at the end from the hole made in a natural caldera.
“We wait here until well into the night,” he said.
“Then what?”
“Time to shift.” And run like hell.
He’d seen three dragons in the camera feed. A green, a red, and what might have been blue or black. Hard to tell based on the grainy image. There could be more out there, though. He hadn’t waited around long enough to find out.
Her head snapped in his direction, and he winced at how that couldn’t have felt good to her neck. “I can’t shift. I told you—”
He held up a hand. “I assume you’ve flown on the back of a dragon before.”
Realization dawned in her eyes, evident even in the small light cast by the flame he’d held steady as they’d made their way to this point.
“If you have to fight, you could throw me off or lose me.”
“We’re going to have to take that chance,” he said.
“Terrific.”
His estimation of her—even through the still nagging suspicions that she’d brought these bastards down on his head—went up a notch or two. Because facing those odds without quibble took more guts than most could lay claim to. “We’d better rest while we can.”
Hadyn glanced around. He shouldn’t have been surprised when she suddenly scaled up the side of the rounded walls—this part was dragon made, by him, connecting the caldera to the chamber with the underground lake—to a spot that was relatively flat, but shielded from the rest of the room by a large boulder.
Smart.
Without comment, he followed and squished in beside her, back against the wall. She’d already dropped her head back against the wall, eyes closed. Another surprise because he’d expected another round of fifty questions. He took advantage of the opportunity to study her face.
No wonder she was ready to sleep already, dark smudges under her eyes told him she was more exhausted than she’d let on. Climbing the mountain alone was no small feat.
Rune clenched his fist against reaching out to smooth back a lock of hair that had fallen into her eyes. The urge ill-timed and ill-conceived. Not that he’d consciously conceived it.
Maybe the gesture had been driven by the show of implicit trust. She hadn’t warned him to not betray her or worried that she shouldn’t sleep now, assuming he would keep her safe while she rested, even when they were being hunted.
That had to be it. His protective instincts, when it came to mates in particular, must’ve kicked in. The best explanation he could come up with for his reaction to her, that sat in his gut like the boulder they currently slept behind.
With a long exhale, he resigned himself to a state of only half rest. One of them needed to stay alert.
When he’d arrived today, after nearly two weeks of travel, covering his tracks along the way, he’d hoped to spend a night or two in the mountain recharging before the return trip. Dragons flew at roughly the speed of a small plane and could only go so far before they were forced to stop.
“You take the first hour then wake me up,” she murmured in a sleep-weary voice.
That damn mind-reading thing again. He’d swear the woman was a telepath.
He grunted his agreement, not willing to show the small spark of appreciation that she’d considered him, then had to swallow back a growl as her lips lifted in a small smile, even as her eyes remained shut.
Suddenly, a shiver visibly passed through her, and he kicked himself for not realizing sooner. Dragons ran hot, given that they carried their own fire with them, even in human form. But Hadyn was human. That jacket—the girl had done her research to get the best gear for cold-weather mountaineering, that was for certain—no doubt did a lot to ward off the chill, and it helped that they were in a cavern, except this high up, winter already had a firm grip. That, combined with a dragon-sized entrance, allowed a frosty breeze to blow down, which made it damn cold. The soft howl of the wind was putting him in mind of a lone wolf shifter.
He couldn’t start a fire for warmth. The light and the smoke would both be like a beacon announcing their exact location to anyone searching. And he had no doubt they were watching for the slightest sign.