“Humans?”
“Mates yet to be turned,” he said, voice turning almost…kind.
And there went that warm glow again.
…
A familiar restlessness had settled in his bones. One that always preceded a fight. As though his dragon was preparing them both to be at the highest level of alertness to survive what was coming. He knew this feeling, welcomed it. Welcomed the purpose that drove it. Rune never had been one for sitting on his ass and waiting for the world to right itself.
The only trouble was, a new edge to the restlessness crawled through him. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear it was a sort of gut-wrenching fear. He’d learned how to bury that particular emotion long ago, shut it out and silence it entirely. A scared dragon was a dead dragon.
His gaze tracked the woman who he suspected was the cause of this little…issue.
A call with his contact, a black dragon shifter from Rune’s old clan and an old friend, hadn’t revealed much. Zhuron had been oblivious to the bounty on Rune’s head or any dragons being held in the Alaz mountain.
“I was told that it’s empty until we find or replace the team,” the man had had a snarl in his voice as he revealed that information.
No doubt Zhuron would go digging to try to find out more, but they couldn’t wait for him. So Rune had kept that to himself, not sharing with the other Huracáns.
After agreeing to a high-level plan, the team had decided to wait until the next day to move on things. He’d spent the rest of the day hammering out a few different scenarios to be ready for. Meanwhile, Hadyn had gone up to his rooms to rest.
His rooms.
Most of his focus, if he was honest, had been devoted to not following her. Deliberately, he hadn’t seen her until dinnertime in the kitchen, and, when he’d entered the room, she’d already been seated between Calla and Cami. Those two women had settled into the roles of mother and sister hens, making sure she was comfortable and liked the food, and somehow keeping Rune from getting anywhere near her.
She did look better than earlier, her skin less sallow, the shadows under her eyes less dark. While waiting to set things in motion was a bitch, he had to admit, it was also recuperating. Especially her. His accelerated healing meant he recovered from exhaustion faster, but Hadyn had to still be operating at a deficit.
Better that he’d given her space, even if he was half hard all fucking day. Besides, he and the team had needed time to put a few pieces in place and move a few people on the board around to more strategic positions.
He’d like to move a few women around and out of his way about now so he could talk to Hadyn.
Finally, Calla got to her feet, and he was ready to slide over and take her place. Only she held out a hand to Hadyn. “Let’s get you settled for the night,” she said. “You need your rest.”
Despite his own frustration, Rune had to swallow a chuckle at the irritation that flashed in Hadyn’s eyes, almost too fast to catch, but he’d still seen it. She hated being treated like a puny human.
Except instead of arguing, she went along, getting to her feet. Bloody hell. Now he was holding back a scowl.
“I’ll take her—” Rune stopped moving at a glance from Calla, which was all mama dragon. As though the older woman had taken Hadyn under her wing and wasn’t letting anyone near her. Not even Rune, who’d saved her ass several times over.
“I’m happy to,” was all Calla said.
Behind the older woman’s back, Hadyn raised her eyebrows at him, mouthing, “She likes me more.”
A rare laugh rushed up his throat, and Rune coughed around it. It disappeared as Calla ignored him and led Hadyn, without protesting, from the room.
An invisible hand wrapped around his heart, squeezing, making it a little harder to breathe. It had been the same all day while he’d been buried in the war room with the team. More than simple lust or the need to protect her?
The rest of the group apparently took Calla and Hadyn’s departure as a cue to disband as well. Rune went through the motions of clearing his place and helping clean up, wondering how long he needed to wait for Calla to stop hovering over her new hatchling.
“You found a fascinating one, brother,” a slow, deliberate voice sounded from behind him, quiet enough that the others who apparently had cleared out of the kitchen without him wouldn’t catch it.
He turned his head to find Kanta and Hall still there, watching him closely.
The two green dragons had joined the team several hundred years after the original group Rune had started with. Kanta was, perhaps, the one who saw Rune clearest. Quiet but observant, he saw to the hearts of most of the team members. Finn had not only been his alpha, but his best friend. Rivin and Keighan the comic relief. Drake he had rarely seen eye to eye with until the red dragon had found Cami. Deep and Calla were like second parents. Given the loss of his own early in his life, that wasn’t surprising.
But these two…
Though they were from the same dragon clan, Hall and Kanta were as different as two men could be. Hall, taller and leaner with midnight hair and smooth, lightly-bronzed skin, had a mouth on him that tended to get him into trouble. It also hid his sharp mind. Hall was the only one Rune had eventually convinced to listen to him because, from the beginning, Hall had been willing to see past tradition and expectation and history to what was really happening with their kind.
Kanta, meanwhile, was shorter and stockier. The combination of ebony skin and deep, forest-green eyes were an exact reflection of his personality. He was the quiet rock. The one to see if you needed to just sit and be. What were those deep green eyes perceiving now?
“She’s had to be to survive,” he answered Kanta’s question, deciding to address the words only and not the implication he was not interested in deciphering.
“She’s supposed to be a green dragon,” Hall stated, straight to the point as always.
“And?”
The two cocked their heads in such a similar fashion, it could’ve been rehearsed. “Without her mate, and without her dragon parents here to watch out for her—”
Ah, so that’s what this was about. The green dragons looking out for their own, even if she wasn’t officially part of the clan. Unfortunately, Rune wasn’t in a place where he wanted to share. “She has me.”
“Does she?” Hall asked.
“What does that mean?” He was damn close to snarling now.
“You don’t need anyone’s permission except hers,” Kanta said cryptically. “You know that, right?”
Rune crossed his arms. “Which means what?”
Hall snorted. “You know what it means. We’ve never seen you look at a woman that way. Ever.”