Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Anna
The scent of food brought everyone inside to gather around the massive brellwood island that was the centerpiece of the kitchen.
Dirk, with help from Florian, was doling out steaming heaps of fresh-cooked meat sliced thinly enough to go perfectly on the warmed buns. A selection of cheeses and even what looked like a couple of tomatoes were there as well.
Leave it to the ice tyrant to have a faerie-magicked garden capable of growing surface food at his hidden chalet. Not that I was going to complain. The boys had added a large bowl of mixed greens and an entire tray of sliced fruit to the menu as well.
Ella and I dug in with gusto, and the men swarmed what we left behind.
“This is delicious,” Ella said around a mouthful of sandwich.
Caz echoed the sentiment from his post at my side as he devoured his food. Every few bites, he would pause and look at me, ensuring I was eating, or his hip would press gently against me. He never wanted to be far away.
“We need to talk,” I said to him as conversation devolved into smaller groups around the island.
“We do?”
I tore off a hunk of bread and chewed on it for a moment. “What happens now? With Ella, I mean. And me, for that matter. I’m not taking her into the citadel. Not until we know she’s okay, and that it will be safe. She doesn’t have a you around to protect her.”
Caz grunted to himself. “They’d have to get through Dirk first.”
“You noticed that, did you?”
He frowned. “Of course. He’s been acting strange since I removed her collar.”
“Ella doesn’t seem to notice.”
“I’m not sure Dirk does either.” Caz thought about that and then dismissed it. “You’re right. I don’t want to take you back. I want you safe, but I also don’t want you out of my sight.”
Everyone else would have simply heard his frustration. But I heard his fear, that he wasn’t sure he could protect me in his own home.
“You have to leave us here, then,” I told him, resting my head on his biceps and feeling the hard press of his cable-like muscles through his shirt.
“No.” He shook his head. “I can’t do that. You’re mine. My dragon won’t like knowing you’re here with another man.”
“So leave Dirk,” I suggested. “He’s … preoccupied.”
“No. I don’t know what’s up with him, and he won’t talk to me about it. But until he does, I’m not leaving him with you.”
“Florian could handle it.” I shrugged. “How long do you have to be away?”
“I don’t know. I need to find new leads.”
“Leads on what?” Ella asked, leaning over and leaving a frowning Dirk across the island from her.
Something weird was definitely going on there.
“I’ve been working for years now, trying to track down the hunters’ markets in Kylma,” Caz explained.
“I want to remove them. They’re illegal, but everyone ignores that, thanks to my father and the tyrants before him.
If I want to stop the treatment of wing-clipped and others, I have to catch someone with incontrovertible proof. My word alone isn’t good enough.”
“And you haven’t been able to do that in years?” Ella asked, glancing at me.
Caz growled, clenching a hand in frustration as his eyes glowed silver-green. Ella reacted by pulling away in fear, and Dirk’s eyes lit up as well, swiveling to lock on his brother.
“Whoa,” I said, putting a hand out in the middle of everyone. “Let’s back that up. Shall we? Caz is frustrated. He’s not mad at you, Ella. He doesn’t think you insulted him.”
“What?” Caz looked sharply from me to Ella. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Ella. Please forgive me. I was voicing my agreement, my frustration that it’s taken this long. You didn’t offend me. Even if you did, I wouldn’t take out my anger on you. You can ask Anna. You don’t need to fear me. I promise.”
Ella looked at me for confirmation.
“He’s telling the truth. He’s not … Ella, this is Caz. He’s a person. Remember that.”
“Okay,” she said, but she didn’t quite lean back over all the way.
“It’s been hard,” Caz acknowledged. “The hunters don’t make it easy. I’m certain one elite in particular is funding them, but I haven’t been able to pin him down at the market yet. I need to trap him there.”
“Because if he’s there, he’s actively doing something illegal.”
“Exactly.” Caz looked at me but pointed at her. “Your friend is quick.”
“Ella is the brains of us,” I confirmed with a smile.
“Too bad she didn’t find a way to delay us finding one another that day,” Caz said, chuckling with idle irritation. “I was tracking him, and then something happened to leave me all distracted and flustered.”
Ella shot me a sharp look that I echoed.
“What do you mean you were tracking him that day?” I asked.
Caz noticed the glance between us. “I was hot on his trails. He was right there. In the open market. I almost had him!”
“Her,” I said slowly.
“What?” Caz looked from me to Ella and then to Dirk, standing up straighter. “What did you say?”
“An elite was there just before you,” I told him. “A very powerful one. But it wasn’t a he.”
“The woman with the silver eyes,” Ella whispered, and I nodded.
“A woman?” Caz said slowly. “You’re saying it was a she?”
“Yes, and her eyes were so bright they were nearly white.”
Caz’s head snapped up to lock on to Dirk, who also looked stunned.
“Bryna?” he said, shaking his head. “There’s no way!”
The men began to all talk excitedly among themselves. I watched them go through the realization that they were looking for a woman they apparently knew. They weren’t bothered by that fact. Like Caz, they were upset at themselves for being blind to the possibility.
Most of all, though, they believed it. They believed Ella and me immediately, without doubt.
That was a strange feeling. In a room with all these powerful shifters, the strongest of them now holding my hand and resting with his shoulder comfortably touching me, everyone was talking about the consequences of what we’d revealed.
Not one of them questioned us. That was new. They simply … trusted. Caz had said I was part of their flight, but those had been the words of one man. This was the actions of many, without hesitation, and it included Ella automatically.
“Everything okay?” Caz murmured through the commotion, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “Your pulse is freaking out.”
I nuzzled my head into my mate’s shoulder a little harder. Despite everything, he still had a portion of his focus on me at all times. “I’m not used to people believing me when I tell them what an elite has been doing. Usually, I get yelled at. Or worse.”
Caz growled angrily. “That is going to change, Anna. Starting with this. The changes I make will all be because of you and Ella. In the end, everyone will believe you.”
I wrapped an arm around him and squeezed. “Thank you.”
He slid his hand down my back and palmed my ass in response. “Anything for you.”
“I still can’t believe she would do something that openly,” Dirk was saying, shaking his head.
“The description does match,” Florian pointed out, stroking his chin as he leaned forward onto the island. “Of course, we’ll have to make sure our evidence is orbtight.”
Caz stood up straight. Nothing else changed, but everyone in the room fell silent, recognizing that their leader was about to speak.
“We now have a prime suspect to track and see what they do. But we also can’t lose sight of our other objective.
Milly is still out there and needs to be found.
So we have two missions. Track Bryna and locate the new markets so we can find Milly.
Lots to do. None of which, unfortunately, can be done from here.
” He clenched a fist. “Therefore, I will be returning to the citadel. The women will be staying here.”
“I’m staying,” Dirk said without hesitation.
“No,” Caz rumbled with a hint of alpha power behind him. “You’re coming with me. Florian is staying.”
Dirk frowned at Caz, but he recognized a command when he heard one.
“Are you sure it has to be this way?” Florian asked quietly, glancing at me and then back.
Caz bared his teeth, his eyes glowing silver-green. His dragon really did not like the thought of being separated.
“I see no other option. We need to find these markets and infiltrate them. Following Bryna isn’t a guarantee of success, but the citadel is going to be an unsafe place. I will not take the women back to it. Not until Ella is ready.”
Caz’s eyes hadn’t stopped glowing the entire time. Now he pulled me tightly to his side, seeking comfort and reassurance only I could give him. Me. His mate.
“I don’t like it either,” I whispered as planning for the next few days began. “I don’t want it, Caz. But I agree, I don’t see another way.”
He sighed. “I know. And if you abandoned your friend, you wouldn’t be the person my dragon and I are obsessed with.”
I smiled, squeezing him tighter. “You said this place was secret anyway. We’ll be fine here. Florian will take good care of us.”
“Better not be too good care of you,” Caz rumbled protectively, rolling his shoulders.
“I don’t think we need to worry about that,” I told him firmly.
Caz shook his head. “My dragon hates the idea of you being alone with another man. It doesn’t matter who. You belong to me.”
I shivered at the possessiveness as the implication worked its way down my spine with delicious slowness. My dragon liked the idea of being his, and only his.
And truthfully, I wasn’t sure I hated it either.
“Then hurry back to me,” I whispered, arching up against his side to nip at the bottom of his earlobe. “And then you can show me just how badly you missed me.”
Silver light flared even brighter in his eyes.
“I want to claim you so badly,” he growled, turning to shield me from view of everyone else.
Or maybe it was to hide the giant tent his hard dick was causing in his pants.
“My dragon even more so. When you talk to me like that, it makes it very hard not to take you upstairs right now and bite you while I’m filling your pussy with every inch of me. ”
My mouth went dry, and I stammered, searching for words as my brain melted at the aggressive desire he had for me.
“Three days,” he added, leaning in close and kissing my neck lightly as a tease. “I’ll be back in three days. Then I’m not leaving without you.”
“Promise?” I whispered, suddenly never wanting to be apart from him again.
“The Red King himself couldn’t keep me from coming back to your side.
I will be back for you. Then I will claim you, and I will have you as mine for eternity.
” Caz’s eyes glowed brightly with his dragon, his arms around my waist as he stared into my soul.
He words were etched onto the very basis of my being. “That is my promise.”