He was too late, though. Hovering only a few hundred feet off the ground, close enough to catch Mathai’s self-satisfied smirk, Rune watched in growing horror as multiple forms rose from the ground all around him. Surrounding him. Dragons lifting into the air. At least a hundred of them. More maybe. A horde against the handful of his people who were still here. And too close for him to run.
How the fuck had they hidden their presence?
Seeing no options open to him, Rune exhaled, long and slow. So this was how it would end.
But he wasn’t going down without a fight. Hadyn wouldn’t want that. He held his position and stoked the fire in his belly. When they came at him, he’d be ready. Take down a few with him.
With a roar, the dragons charged.
Only, as he readied himself for impact, his own team blew past with the speed of a volcanic eruption. The clash of bodies sent thundering booms ricocheting in echoes off the mountaintops below them and dragon fire lit up the night.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wing throbbing in agony, left leg doing the same, Rune had to use every wile, every trick, to dodge the onslaught of dragons hurling into the skies. Chaos reigned around him as his men flashed by or tangled with their foes. Fire and smoke filled the skies, obscuring his vision.
But no one came directly at Rune. He ripped one fucker off Drake only to turn around and have to duck the swipe of another’s tail. All around him dragons roared a challenge or screamed in pain.
Then that horrible sound reached him again.
Shunk-Snap.
“Protect,” he screamed through the others’ minds, hoping like hell the younger ones knew what the hell that meant.
In the same instant, he grabbed the tail of a navy-blue asshole flying by and yanked its body in front of him. The thuds of those fucking spears sounded like bugs on a windshield, and the dragon he’d used as a shield was dead in an instant, a small whine of air the only sound he made before going still.
Rune let it drop.
From nowhere, one of Mathai’s men tackled him midair, but it made the mistake of coming at him from below. Rookie move. In a flinging motion only black dragons could do because of the way their wings attached, he flipped them hard and fast, disorienting the other dragon. Then he struck with all the furor of a cornered wolverine, ripping and slashing, ignoring the bolts of pain lancing up his leg each time he struck, his talons cutting through the other’s softer underbelly scales, until the thing went limp.
As he let that fucker fall away, too, another dragon appeared. Only before they could engage, Drake flashed by, chasing a green opponent. He caught the red dragon facing off against Rune in the face with his barbed tail, sending the thing plummeting, scrabbling at his head with his front claws.
As Rune backed up, searching for his next fight, movement from above caught his attention. A flash in the moonlight.
Dragons. At least another thirty of them, bearing down from above. He caught sight of one black dragon in particular—young and untried, it bobbled in the air as another dragon rushed by. The damn kid from the boat. Apparently, the bounty hunters thought they’d still get paid for his capture or death.
Fuck.
Too many. Especially with Levi’s group still hidden or captured or dead.
Rune turned in time to see a gold dragon lunging for his throat. In a deliberate move, he yanked his wings in close and dropped, only to come down on top of another beast already waiting for him.
This time, his opponent had the advantage, attaching to his side and beating at him with his tail. A spike found its way through his scales and he grunted, keeping in a howl of pain. The gold dragon that had come at him dropped down, ready to take his throat again as the other held him. Except Hall and Kanta suddenly barreled into the fucker, tearing him to shreds in a coordinated attack. A century of working together as a group and in different combos proved helpful now, thank the gods.
Distracted by his compatriot’s fate, the dragon clinging to Rune let up. Rune took advantage and flipped over on him, then shredded his wings in a frenzy of fury, over so fast, the other dragon had no idea what hit him until he was falling back to earth.
Rune looked up to find Hall grinning at him from a mouth covered in blood, black against his neon green scales in the moonlight.
“We need more numbers,” he said. “Cover me. I’m going to find the rest of our people.”
“How are you going to—”
Kanta stopped asking as Rune shot into the night away from the fight. Before he could attack, first he had to disappear and make sure no one followed.
A yowl at his six told him Hall and Kanta had taken care of whoever tried to follow. As soon as he was far enough away, he turned to face the fighting, to make sure he was alone. What he found was pure defeat. Dragon bodies littered the ground. Hopefully more of Mathai’s than theirs. Dragons coming at them from every side had maneuvered his people into a compact space in the sky. Surrounded.
If he was going to help them, he couldn’t focus on that.
“Qara. We need numbers,” he shot the thought outward, hoping like fuck she’d be able to hear him. Even three more could make a difference.
Now, where were the others? Levi had said Mathai had them.
…
Hadyn stood on the second-floor balcony of the home they’d commandeered, or maybe owned, she wasn’t sure which. The mates were all inside, hidden in the basement just in case. The best they could do on such short notice.
No way was Hadyn waiting inside. She needed to see, and this balcony gave her a direct view of the Rocky Mountains, stretched out like silent sentinels in the night. She hoped like heck that the occasional flashes of light in the distance were lightning, not fire.
But she knew better.
Qara, Delaney, and Cami all stood at her side, all focused on the same sky. Hadyn didn’t bother asking them if they were hearing anything. She could tell by their pinched expressions, the desperation in their eyes, the way their bodies held so still, that they weren’t.
Beside her, Qara suddenly twitched, then gasped.
She glanced at Delaney and Cami. “Did you hear that?”
The other two women shook their heads.
“It was Rune,” Qara said.
Rune? Hadyn gripped the wood railing so hard, several splinters dug into her palms, but she hardly noticed, not pulling her focus from Qara.
“They need us,” her mother said to the other two dragon women. “They need numbers.”
Needing numbers so badly they pulled protection from the mates? Hadyn shook her head, trying to keep a trembling deep inside her from overtaking her body.
Fuck. The word punched through her.
Delaney and Cami didn’t hesitate, sprinting into the house and down the stairs, Qara right behind them and Hadyn fast behind her, though unable to keep up with their greater speed. By the time she made it outside, they were almost done shifting.