That’s when he saw him. At first just a flash of red a good mile away, showing when fire erupted above.
Rune lost sight of the Alliance leader as his friends shot into the sky all around him, clashing with the other forces with audible thuds and bombs that ricocheted off the mountains.
Shula, the black dragoness, paused. “Are you coming?”
If he hit Mathai in force with others, they would all be deemed traitors, even more so than they already were. No. He needed to take that fuckwad out himself. “Be right there.”
After a pause she nodded. “Lyndi and Sera are with the boys. They’re staying down there with Vilsinn blocking the entrance so no one can get in.”
Then she launched herself into the air, joining the fight.
Rune hesitated only a moment. “Lyndi,” he thought at his friend. “Levi is injured.” He relayed the location to her. Up to her to find her mate.
That done, Rune turned his focus on Mathai. Still where he’d seen him. He would likely expect Rune or someone else to come at him from above. Which meant one thing. Shifting again, back to human form, Rune silently made his awkward, limp-ass way through the trees to where the leader stood.
He slowed as he neared the spot. Mathai was in a clearing in dragon form, his scales nearly black in the darkness. At his feet lay a man who’d been beaten badly.
Rune recognized him instantly. Zhuron. The representative for the Black Clan in the Alliance, his friend, and his insider within that council.
Fuck.
Time to be the stealthy motherfucker rumor had it he could be. Like any honorable creature, attacking from behind was anathema, but Rune needed this over fast. He made his way around the site where Mathai stood, his head tipped up and watching the clash of dragons above. Farther away until he found a clearing of trees large enough to allow him to shift on the ground without being detected.
As soon as he was in dragon form, crouched low to the ground like a cat, he gathered all his strength and readied himself. He had one shot at this.
In a move that was both a leap, mostly with his right leg which unbalanced him slightly, and a push with his wings, he still managed to shoot low over the treetops and tackled the red dragon, the impact jarring him hard. Together they rolled, beating at each other, scrambling with claws and jaws, both trying to get purchase.
By some miracle of skill and luck, and maybe because the other dragon was older and slower, they came to a stop with Rune on top, pinning Mathai to the ground, teeth at his jugular.
That had been too easy.
“Yield,” he ordered.
Only Mathai drew his dragon lips back, baring his teeth in a sinister smile. “What are you going to do, traitor? Kill me?”
The mental communication was going to every fucking dragon in the fight. He didn’t have to glance up to know that the fighting above them paused. The sudden silence told him that.
“You have used illegal weapons—a warlock, a Dragon Slayer—against your own people,” Rune growled, also letting the others hear. “I’m not the traitor.”
“Zhuron used those. I did not,” Mathai said. “He will be punished, of course.”
Rune looked the bastard in his self-satisfied eyes and knew those words for what they were. The red dragon was covering his own ass. “Lies,” Rune snarled.
But Mathai was smart. Blame the illegal weapons on another black dragon traitor within his own group, taking out Rune’s spy. If Rune killed Mathai here and now, he’d only justify his deaths and those of every dragon fighting with him.
But we’re dead already.
No. Fuck this. It ended now.
“Mathai Draxonis. I judge you to be a traitor to your own people—”
“Rune don’t,” Finn’s voice sounded in his head, for him alone.
Mathai’s eyes widened in shock, and he must’ve realized Rune was dead serious, because he started thrashing, but Rune had had time during their exchange to get a solid grip.
He continued his judgement. “You have sent mates to their deaths. You have kept and used a Dragon Slayer against your own people. You have used a warlock as well.”
A sound like a massive wave—like a shooshing thunder—told him the dragons fighting against them were coming for him now.
“Rune, stop.” Finn again. “They’re coming for you.”
“As an Enforcer, appointed by King Gorgon of the Black Clan to uphold the laws of all dragon shifters, and keep us safe from harm, even from our own kind, I sentence you to immediate death.”
With one hand he punched through the slightly softer scales of Mathai’s belly with a crunch of bones and a gurgle of blood, ignoring the pain and likely breaking a few of his own bones in the process. With a roar, he ripped out Mathai’s heart, holding it up for all to see, still beating in his hand.
“Traitor!” The cry went up from every dragon coming for him.
Rune flung it to the ground, then shot up into the air, using every technique he’d ever learned to disappear into the night sky. It helped that, in their shock at his action, almost all their attackers pulled up short, hovering in the air, not knowing what to do.
That’s when Rune caught sight of a glitter in the darkness. Fire. Bright blue fucking dragon fire nowhere near the site of the battle, pine trees exploding with visible pops in the conflagration.
“Dragon fire on the ground,” he called.
The flames were growing bigger by the second, no doubt finding plenty of fuel in the dry trees of the Rocky Mountains. Close to the small mountain town full of humans.
The place Qara had taken the women. Taken Hadyn.
All hell broke loose, the fight resuming, because the Huracáns hadn’t just waited to watch him be gutted, they’d followed the dragons coming for him.
Rune jerked in the direction of the blue flames rising higher into the sky, smoke starting to boil up like a witch’s cauldron, only to pull up sharply at Finn’s shouted, “We need you in this, Abaddon.”
“Someone has to go,” he snarled back.
“We got this,” came three voices.
Five of Lyndi’s boys—including William and Marin—too young to fight, but old enough to fly. They shot out of the tunnel in the ground so fast, they must’ve been waiting for their chance to join the fray.
“Do it,” Finn ordered.
Rune roared his frustration. Hadyn was there. Gods she was right there. But his people were in the fight of their lives. He shot straight up and flipped, aiming for the battle. Then he gained altitude, his color hiding him in the smoke and dark. As soon as he was over the battling dragons, he paused and took the lay of the field.