Chapter 26
Sable
I’m doing sixty on a mountain road with the headlights off when the lights appear ahead.
Three sets. Coming around a curve in a formation too tight and too deliberate for civilian traffic at three in the morning.
They spread across both lanes—black SUVs, armored, low to the ground—and stop nose-to-nose, blocking the road completely as they come to a halt.
The trees on either side are too thick to go around.
I brake. The van skids on wet asphalt and stops thirty feet from the roadblock.
My hands are still on the wheel. The engine idles. Beside me, Rafael sits up from where he’d been sleeping against the window. The blanket slides off his shoulder. His eyes are sharp, sharper than they’ve been since I unbuckled him from the cot. The hour of sleep seems to have worked miracles.
“What’s happening?” he says, instantly alert.
“Roadblock.”
“How many?”
“I count six. Maybe more inside the vehicles.” I scan the formation. Two men are broad enough through the chest and shoulders to be dragon. One is massive—the heaviness barely contained in a human frame. “Two dragons. At least.”
The power is already building in him. I’ve been feeling it for the last twenty minutes through the seat, through the console, growing steadier as the miles put distance between him and Aurora’s wards. Now it sharpens. The steering column buzzes under my hands. The dashboard rattles.
Doors open up ahead. Figures step out and fan into a loose line in the headlight wash.
Alastair Creed stands in the center. Black tactical gear. No diplomatic suit.
He’s done talking.
Dr. Fell is behind the vehicles. Hair almost glowing in the headlight glare. Hands clasped behind her back. She’s not in the front line. She’s waiting.
“Out,” Creed calls. “Both of you.”
“Stay close to me,” Rafael says.
We step out.
The cold hits first. Mountain air, wet road, exhaust from the idling SUVs.
I stand beside the open door with my hands visible.
Rafael is a step away from me. The power is spreading from his body into the road surface, into the air, into the metal of every vehicle in range.
I can feel it through my feet, like standing on a bridge when a train passes underneath.
“You’re blocking our path,” I call out, brazen, because it’s all I have. “We’d like you to move.”
“The asset belongs to the Syndicate,” Creed says. “The offer to Viktor was a courtesy. This is the alternative.”
“He doesn’t belong to anyone.”
“Dr. Fell would disagree.”
“I don’t give a fuck what Dr. Fell agrees with.”
Creed’s eyes move to Rafael. “Stand down. Both of you. This doesn’t have to end badly.”
“It’s already bad, you bastard,” I start. “If you think—”
Rafael’s hand finds mine. The grip is tight, and I sense his wolf in it, fingers thick, knuckles swollen. The power reverberates through the contact.
“You have our answer,” he responds. “Move your vehicles.”
“Not going to happen, 3-0-6-7-0,” says Creed. “Come quietly, and no one has to get hurt.”
Rafael bristles beside me at the sound of the number. “I said you have our answer.” His voice is little more than a growl.
“I don’t have time for this.” Creed nods at the operatives alongside him.
They move. The larger one starts the shift first, air around his body rippling, bones cracking, scales pushing through skin.
His frame expands. Wings form, dark, wet, unfolding from shoulder blades that have doubled in width.
His jaw extends into something that could bite through the van’s roof.
He pushes off the asphalt, heavy, ugly, those wings sending grit swirling across the road.
“Shit,” I mutter.
Rafael lifts his free hand.
The sound comes from his chest, low, focused, a pulse I feel in my teeth before I hear it.
It hits the dragon mid-wingbeat. The massive body jerks.
The wings fold wrong, crumpling inward. The dragon drops and hits the road hard enough to crack the asphalt.
Scales scrape across wet pavement. The body slides, rolls, and comes to rest against the bumper of the nearest SUV. Alive. Moving. But grounded.
Creed’s jaw tightens. “You think I’m impressed with your theatrics?” he snorts. He signals again. Two more operatives step forward; not dragons, but armed. Rifles come up. Safeties click. They fire.
The first volley hits the van behind us. Glass shatters. Metal punches inward. I duck, dragging Rafael with me because he doesn’t seem concerned about getting out of range.
Rafael’s hand snaps out. The hum in his chest drops an octave, and a wall of sound rolls off him like a shockwave. The second volley hits it mid-air. The rounds stop dead, flattened against nothing, and clatter to the asphalt like spent shells.
The shooters stare.
Rafael doesn’t give them time to react. The frequency broadens. The road surface ripples. Both men lose their footing, rifles skittering across wet asphalt. One hits his head on the way down. The other rolls, dazed.
Creed barks something sharp. Two more dragons emerge, not shifting fully, not yet. They spread out, flanking us. The grounded dragon drags himself upright, shaking off the impact. He doesn’t charge. He waits.
They’re learning.
Rafael’s breathing is rough. His hand is still on mine, but the grip is looser, the wolf receding enough for the man to think. His eyes track the dragons, the SUVs, Creed. The hum from the road surface is a constant thrum underfoot, but it’s not destructive. Not yet. He’s holding back.
“I just want the asset,” Creed says. No warmth. “The girl can walk.”
“The girl is right here. And she’s not walking anywhere without him.” I glare back at him.
Creed ignores me. His focus is on Rafael. “You know what you are. You know what happens if you don’t comply. The conditioning—”
“Fuck the conditioning,” Rafael growls.
Creed blinks.
The dragons move.
Two of them shift simultaneously. Practiced. Efficient. One takes to the air immediately, wings beating hard against the wet dark. The other stays low, lunging across the asphalt on four legs, claws gouging trenches in the road.
Rafael doesn’t let go of my wrist.
He lifts both hands—my arm rising with his—and the power comes out in a wave. It hits the grounded dragon mid-lunge. The dragon stops like it’s run into a cliff face. Scales crack. Bones groan. It tries to push forward, muscles straining, but the sound folds around it and squeezes.
The dragon collapses. On its side. Chest heaving. Alive, but broken.
The airborne one dives.
I feel the wind of it, the downdraft from wings that span the road. Claws extend. Jaws open. It comes straight for us.
Rafael turns his head.
The sound that comes from his chest is a single note; high, pure, wrong.
It hits the dragon in the open mouth. The body convulses mid-air.
The shift reverses…not gradually, not controlled.
Scales retract in a rush that tears skin open.
Bones shorten with audible cracks. The human form reasserts itself in a violent, scrambled collapse, and the man who hits the road is naked, bleeding from every pore, and screaming.
He doesn’t stop screaming.
The operatives near the SUVs back up. One turns away. His hands are shaking. They’ve seen dragons die. They haven’t seen this.
Creed stares at the man on the asphalt. Then, at the grounded dragon. Then, at the first one, crumpled against the bumper. Then at Rafael.
He wasn’t expecting this.
“Your organization spent years creating a weapon,” I say. “You’re looking at it.”
“You’re next,” says Rafael. His hand lifts.
Creed’s mouth is open. “Fall back,” he barks over his shoulder. “All units. Recover the wounded and fall back.”
His operatives move fast. They drag the screaming man toward an SUV. The first dragon stumbles to its feet and retreats without being told.
Dr. Fell doesn’t retreat.
“Faith.” Creed’s voice hardens. “We’re withdrawing.”
She steps past him like he hasn’t spoken.
Through the headlight wash. Past the operatives scrambling for their vehicles.
Past the blood and the shattered asphalt and the men who are still screaming.
She walks toward Rafael with her hands clasped behind her back and her chin lifted.
She just watched him destroy her team. She’s walking toward him like she’s walking into her own lab.
“There you are,” she says. Calm. Pleasant. The voice from the intercom. The observation room. A thousand facility mornings. “You never needed handlers or operatives or containment. You just needed someone who understands what you are.”
Rafael goes rigid.
His hand drops from my wrist. The force running through the road falters. His breathing changes. Fast. Shallow. His jaw thickens. His hands curl. Claws prick through and retract.
“Faith.” Creed, from beside the SUV. “Get in the vehicle. Now.”
She ignores him.
She walks closer. Her focus is entirely on Rafael. He takes a step back. Then another.
She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t acknowledge I’m standing three feet away. I’m right there, and she doesn’t care. She’s found her lost toy. The rest of the world doesn’t exist.
“You’ve been so brave,” she says. Soft. Almost affectionate. “Coming all this way. Fighting so hard. But you’re tired, aren’t you? You’ve been tired for a long time.”
Rafael takes another step back.
His claws are halfway out. His eyes are wild. The wolf is right there, but the man is still visible underneath. And the man is terrified. Not of her body. Of her voice. The way it finds the place inside him that five years of pain carved open.
“You don’t need to fight anymore,” she says. Another step toward him. “You can rest. Come back with me. Just like before…quiet, orderly, routine. I’ll take care of everything.”
“No.” Ragged. Torn out of him. “No, no, no—”
“Get away from my mate,” I snarl.
“Mate?” She snorts. Doesn’t glance at me. “Don’t be ridiculous. He doesn’t know how to bond. The closest thing he’ll ever have to a mate is me.” Her eyes move over Rafael. “Isn’t that right, 3-0-6-7-0?”