Chapter 43
SLADE
The explosion of magic from the witches had me drawing on my own energy to connect with Talon’s. The joining of our dragons already felt like second nature, even though we’d only had days to practice.
When we stopped fighting the process, the bonding was seamless.
Parts of our minds melded as one, while other parts remained independent. This was different to the first shift when we’d had no cohesiveness and our left and right sides kept trying to move in different directions.
As our enemies rushed toward us, our allies fanned out behind our huge form, instinctively understanding that we offered the best protection from the spells.
We moved forward, and I was relieved to feel our essences blending even more seamlessly than they had the last time we’d trained.
This unity amplified our strengths, until we were nearly indestructible.
Flames burst from both our heads, blasting back the front line of our enemies. We turned our left head in a wider arc, and the right we moved forward.
This is a waste of our time, Talon growled. Jewels is not here, and we’re being forced to destroy any who might be able to lead us to her.
They’ll never betray her, I reminded him. Better that we relieve her of allies. There are powerful shifters and witches here, and we can’t have them back her up when we do find her.
We blasted through another group, more spells bouncing off us, and while some of them left a mark, it wasn’t enough to slow us down. Off to the side, Hunter had given up on fighting in his human form and had shifted so his beast could tear shifters to pieces.
So far we’d managed to keep this battle from slipping through the bond to Emme.
Our quintet was locked down hard, and her beast wasn’t stirring at all.
The urge to push into her stasis was strong, just so confirm she was okay, but then I’d lose focus on the battle.
Or worse, cause her panic as she felt our fight.
We might have broken our promise to her, but she’d forgive us eventually, provided we all returned unharmed. Hence the need for focus.
Hunter wasn’t the only one battling. Constantine sent out waves of magic, while darting behind our body for cover. He apparently liked to fight dirty, his spells leaving his victims writhing on the ground, bleeding from every visible orifice.
The rest of our Silver City allies used Reeves Industries weapons, and while none of them had shifted, they weren’t without solid fighting skills. A few had already gone down under spells, and it bothered me to see our allies fall, but there was nothing I could do.
If we didn’t give our attention to thinning the numbers, all of us would go down.
More shifters and witches poured into the underground bunker’s large, main chamber. In sheer numbers, they had us beat fifty to one, but in the power scale…
We were always on top.
Blaine, for all of his early bravado, remained at the back of the group, watching his allies fall one by one. As we crushed their front line, some of the witches and shifters started to back away, but we didn’t let them retreat. They’d chosen their path, and now they would die on it.
We pushed harder into the group, using our tail to swing in a massive arc, shattering shifters against the walls.
Just when we were starting to make some real headway, Hunter let out a pain-filled roar and our beast bellowed with him.
A witch and wolf had teamed up against him, one using magic to hold him, while the bear sank his enhanced claws into my brother’s chest, dangerously close to his heart.
We couldn’t blast our fire without hitting Hunter, and any attempt to dislodge the bear would only dig those claws in deeper.
We need to split, I barked at my twin. I have to be in my human form to help Hunter.
Talon accepted this change of plan with the same ease as he accepted most of my orders. I was the older twin, and the only alpha in the world he’d take orders from without question. Not even Hunter had that power.
When our energy separated, it left me briefly disoriented. No amount of practice had eased that transition yet, and I had to ride it out until my brain stopped rattling in my head searching for its twin.
When I reached Hunter, he was motionless on the ground, but I caught sight of his hand gripping the bear, scarcely keeping it from carving out his heart completely.
My vision went red on the edges, and the dragon was raging for a kill as we gripped the bear around the throat and broke his neck in one flick of our wrist.
Hunter’s breaths were ragged as he stared up at me. His chest was even more destroyed than I expected. That much visible muscle and bone was beyond a shifter’s healing, even one as strong and dominant as Hunter.
“Let me try,” Constantine said, appearing at my side. I took in his pale, drained features and knew he was running on fucking nothing. But he was our only chance to save Hunter, so I’d take whatever he had left, even if he died in the process.
Talon remained in his dragon form, shifting his bulk to block us, though he wouldn’t be able to hold them back for long. “Heal him,” I demanded, my voice shot to shit.
There were only three shifters in existence that if I lost, I would lose myself.
Hunter was one of them.
Constantine flinched at my tone, recognizing how far beyond sanity and rational thought I was.
Heat spilled from his fingers, and I found myself pushing into the bond to see if Emme was reacting to Hunter’s grave injury.
Only, her wolf was still not moving, so unnaturally motionless that upon my focus, I knew she was in the middle of some shit too.
Instinct and logic told me that our arrival here had triggered another attack in Golden Claw. Jewels wasn’t here, which meant she had to have been there all along. In our fucking city.
No amount of dragon strength could break through the energy that held our quintet, not even to reach Kellan or Finley. Emme was our heart, and whatever controlled her had our whole quintet locked down.
My shredded clothes remained where I’d shifted, and I decided to find my phone, in the hopes of accessing security or contacting someone. “Don’t stop healing him until his alpha strength kicks in,” I warned Constantine, the witch-wolf so pale he almost glowed.
“I won’t,” he promised breathlessly, and I nodded my respect.
Keep blocking them, I ordered Talon, racing through the crowd, crashing my lethal fist into any who got into my way. Something is up with Emme and I need my phone to check in with Kellan and Fin.
Talon’s dragon roared out his fury. I can’t feel her in our bond, he bellowed through our twin connection, the only one still functioning. We need to return to Golden Claw. She’s in trouble.
Finding my phone, I was relieved to see that the screen was only a little cracked. I took a second to scroll through my security apps, checking Golden Claw’s perimeter, our house, and the stadium. Golden Claw perimeters have not been breached. No magic. No witches. No unauthorized shifters.
As I suspected, Jewels had been inside already.
Dialing Kellan’s number first, and then Finley’s, I got no response from either and almost threw the phone in frustration.
Talon, who was lost in rage over our mate, blasted so much fire through the room that it felt like a furnace down here.
The air was also growing harder to breathe, but he didn’t care as he laid waste to the shifters and witches who dared side with the bitch threatening our mate.
On my way back to Hunter, I managed to kill another dozen shifters.
By the time I reached his side, his healing had kicked in and his chest was all but knitted back together.
“I’m going to help Talon,” I told him, as his gold and gray eyes bored into me.
“We need to get out of here—Emme is in trouble. I can’t see it on the cameras, but I feel it in our bond. ”
Hunter attempted to sit up, but Constantine stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he snapped, sounding far from his normal mild-mannered alpha. “You’re no use to Emme dead. Heal first, and then we save my daughter.”
The snarl from our entitled alpha was filled with the sort of rage that made lesser alphas cower, and I felt the same fury deep in my gut. Moving away from them, I called on my dragon and stretched my wings to get above the masses.
Screams rang out as the witches and shifters ducked down, blindly shooting magic my way, but no one here was strong enough to take on a dragon. Especially not a pissed off one.
Turning my focus on Blaine, I carved a path toward him, ignoring the bite of magic and claws against my side. When I closed in on the pathetic excuse for an entitled alpha, there was for once not a shred of arrogance on his features.
“Wait,” he called, throwing his hands up above his head.
I hovered a few feet away, while those around him bailed, leaving him standing alone and shaking. Spells pummeled into me, and they were starting to wear down my natural resistance, but for Emme I’d hold on through a lot worse than this.
“Jewels has been under your noses all along,” he burst out, probably expecting me to flip out and lose control. But I’d already figured that out. “She’s in Golden Claw, and has been waiting for an opportunity to take Emme out. That omega is your weak link after all.”
My beast reared up, but instead of lashing out as I would normally, I let that icy fury settle in my chest. I gave him one more minute to spill information, on the off chance it would be useful, and then decided I could wait no more.
Blaine howled as I blasted him into ash and dust, relieved that dragon fire left nothing behind. There’d be no blood or bone for a spell. No flesh of the pack that once tormented my mate. After what they’d put Emme through, all their deaths were far too easy, but at least they were gone.
Now we just had to save our mate.
My wings extended once more, and I lifted my dragon higher to turn and find Talon guarding my back. The magic was starting to strain your beast, he explained.
He’d stepped in to shield me without any hesitation.
Thank you, brother. Is Hunter okay?
Talon moved out of my line of sight, his powerful wings gusting wind around the cavernous room. Off to the side, I could now see Hunter and Constantine fighting side by side, standing on a field of dead enemies.
“We’ve taken this stronghold,” Hunter bellowed, and there was no sign of weakness of injury in his voice or energy. “Now, we must return to Golden Claw.”
We landed near Hunter and I returned to my bipedal form, the change bringing a wave of fatigue far greater than any I’d felt in a long time.
“Jewels is in Golden Claw,” I told them, forcing my legs to stand strong and sure. “She’s been right there, under our nose the entire time. And she’s gunning for Emme.”
Hunter’s curse rang out through the cavernous space and he just took off for the exit. Talon and I were right behind him, smashing any witches and shifters we passed. Not that there were many left.
“We’ll clean up here,” Will shouted from where he stood with a battered group of our allies. “You take out the witch.”
Hunter saluted him but didn’t look back. While a few might have escaped in the bedlam, for the most part we’d decimated Jewels’ hidden army.
Blood, ash, and death coated us, but we didn’t care. We had to get home to our omega.
“She’s still alive,” Hunter said, desperate worry lacing every word.
She was. That much we could tell. But for how long?