Chapter 9
Magma
“Hold the line at the south fence!” I bark into the radio. “Get up there, now!”
“Copy!” one of my captains yells.
I switch channels.
“Come in, Gunner!” I growl.
“Yes, sir. Gunner here.”
“Please tell me there are no more of those Red fuckers inbound.”
There’s crackling on the other side. “No, sir. The Mistveil guards seem to have them under control now.”
“Thank fuck! Keep your eyes open and report in if you see so much as a tail twitch.”
“Yes, sir.”
I change again.
“Come in, Flint.” Nothing. “Come in, Flint!” I pause. “Where the fuck are you?”
I still get nothing. I change channels.
“Come in, Viper.”
“Copy, boss.” He sounds out of breath, like he’s running hard. The sirens are louder through the radio.
“What’s the situation?”
“Snare and the others are holding them off, but it looks like one got in on the north side of the hangar. I’m on my way there with a team now. It could take us a few minutes to get there.”
“Fuck!” I grind out. “Copy,” I tell him.
The corridor outside the trauma bay is bedlam. Several nurses are running past me, two orderlies are wheeling a gurney toward the stairs, and somewhere behind me a piece of ceiling is still groaning where the roof was peeled back. Smoke drifts down through the gap.
I change channel.
“Graze, talk to me. I want numbers,” I bark into my handset.
“Around sixty on Draig soil or in our airspace. They are attacking large structures, for the most part. Mistveil seems to have them contained at their border now.”
“About damned time. Tell every team to use deadly force.”
I’m sure they already are, but it needs to be said. If there is pushback from the Council, I will gladly take it.
“Yes, sir.”
I try to call Ridge, but he doesn’t answer. He’s probably trying to keep his female safe.
I put my cell phone in my pocket and move. The trauma wing curves around toward the hangar, and I need eyes on the opening in the roof. I’m halfway down the corridor when Drift, one of Snare’s lieutenants, jogs up to me from the other direction with blood on his cheek that doesn’t appear to be his.
“South stairwell is clear, sir. I’ve got two on the door.”
“There was talk of a breach on the northern side.”
“I haven’t seen anything, sir.” He shakes his head.
“Where are the female staff?”
“Most of them are bunkered in the imaging wing on Level Minus Two. Dr. Keller and Ridge are with them. Dr. Jenkins is locked in with the injured Red. I have five of my males guarding each of the doors.”
“Good. I saw three nurses head that way.” I point in the direction. “Two of them were female. We need to keep them safe. Where is Dr. Keller’s PA, Carla Price?”
He narrows his eyes in thought. “I think she’s with Dr. Keller.”
“You think, or you know?” I lift my brows. Something inside me tightens.
“Um…I’m not sure, sir.”
“Find out. She was with Flint, last I saw. Get him on the radio.”
“He’s not answering, sir. I’ve tried three times.”
That tightening becomes something colder. It’s not like Flint not to answer. Something is up, and I don’t like it.
“Keep trying. Go round up the rest of the staff and get them to safety.”
“Yes, sir.”
Drift takes off running. I continue down the hallway, taking big strides.
A scream cuts through the air, pulling up my hackles. It’s long and high, the kind that scrapes you raw to listen to. It comes from somewhere ahead, in the direction of the diagnostic bay. I break into a run.
By the time I clear the corner, I’m too late for whatever the scream was.
The corridor stretches empty ahead of me, the floor scuffed with claw marks.
The wide opening at the end, where the roof should have been over the loading area, has been turned into a jagged hole the size of a truck.
The dawn sky appears through it, with soft light filtering through.
I get to the opening just as a Red Dragon is ascending through it, wings tucked tight, something clutched in his front claw. I narrow my eyes, but its body moves in the way of what it’s holding.
I fucking hate what I think it might be, namely a human female.
It flies further away. One of our dragons attacks it, but it manages to evade the attack, flying fast. I move back into the hangar.
A low moan stops me in my tracks.
Behind me, off to one side of the corridor where the trauma carts had been parked, something is on the floor. I’d missed it in my haste to follow the scream.
My eyes widen when I see who it is and the state he is in.
“Fuck.”
Flint is on his back near the wall, one leg twisted under him.
His shirt is shredded down the front, and there are four long gashes opened up across his ribs.
Blood has pooled under him and is creeping across the tile toward my boots in a slow dark slick.
His face is turned to the side. His mouth is open.
There’s blood running out of one corner of it.
I drop to my knees beside him.
“Flint, look at me.”
He doesn’t.
I press two fingers to his throat. A thready pulse is there.
“Stay with me, brother.” I push at his shoulder and his head rolls. His eyes are half-open and not tracking. “Flint!”
A sound rattles out of him.
“Carla,” he gasps. “Carla,” he repeats with a little more force.
“What about Carla?”
My mind goes straight to the shape I saw in that bastard’s claw.
“Where is she?” I bark when he doesn’t answer. My eyes go up to the opening in the roof and back down to him. “Flint, where is she? Where is Carla? Tell me she got down to the imaging wing. Tell me she’s with Robyn.”
He doesn’t answer.
His eyes roll back. The hand I’m holding goes slack in mine.
“No, no, no, no.”
I want to shake him, but I’m afraid I’ll cause more damage. His left arm is angled wrong at the shoulder. None of it looks life-threatening.
When I put my fingers to his neck, his pulse is stronger.
Thank fuck!
“Open your eyes, you stubborn bastard.”
I lean over.
“Flint!”
Nothing.
Then he gasps. His eyes open, locking on mine.
He moans and grits his teeth against the pain he must be feeling.
“There you go,” I say, my voice rough. “There you are. Stay with me.”
“Carla,” he says again. “Please…help Carla.”
“I know. I’m going to get her. I need you to tell me where she is.”
His mouth works. Nothing comes for a moment. Then he lifts his right hand a few inches off the floor. A second later he drops it with a hard sigh.
He pointed up at the opening in the roof.
“Red…has…her,” he gasps out. “Save her.”
Fuck!
It was her.
I know it.
“Drift!” I roar down the corridor. “Drift, get Flint to Dr. Keller. He’s injured!”
There are footsteps and voices. Someone shouts that the elevators are out. I don’t wait. I’m already on my feet and moving.
Flint will make it, I’m sure, but if I don’t get help to Carla and soon…
My boots hit the concrete of the loading bay, and I burst out under the dawn sky. The chaos in the air above the hospital is worse than I’d imagined from inside. It’s like the frontline on the worst day.
It’s war.
The roar of wingbeats is so loud I can feel it in my back teeth.
And to the south, banking out over the water, I see him.
A Red Dragon flying low and fast, claws curled tight to his belly. Something inside them. He’s already a dot against the blue, getting smaller by the second, on a heading that takes him straight toward the smudge of Mistveil on the horizon.
He has her.
The dread that comes for me is bone-deep. The males who broke through tonight are exiles. Sent to the jungle for their heinous crimes. They are not bound by any laws.
Carla won’t survive what this beast has planned for her.
I look around me, trying to find a dragon I can send after them, but there are none. My shifted males are all locked in battle. Working frantically to keep the island safe.
I am still in that in-between phase. My dragon might still be feral from the drugs I’ve been taking all of these years.
Chances are he will be fine.
Fuck!
I might shift and go crazy, attacking everyone and everything.
The dragon is getting away. I’m her last chance.
I think of Flint.
I have to go.
I don’t have a choice.
The shift comes faster than ever before.
My clothes split off me, the seams of my pants giving with a sound like wet paper, my boots bursting at the laces.
Bone moves under my skin. Wings push out of my back in a long, hot pull that always feels like being turned inside out.
Scales sheet down my arms and over my chest. My vision goes wide.
My world goes wide. The roar that comes out of me is deafening.
I spread my wings.
Save her.
Save Carla.
My dragon doesn’t fight me.
He wants what I want. He wants to help the female. He’s seen the same thing I’ve seen, and the same dread is twisting through him, and the two of us, for the first time ever, are in complete harmony.
It feels magical, but I have no time to bask in the feeling.
We launch.
A red shape comes at me out of nowhere with snapping jaws. I manage to avoid a bite, but he hits me hard from the side, and we go tumbling through the air, the hospital roof spinning under us. I twist. He’s young and stupid, and I whip my tail into his exposed belly, giving me time to get away.
I climb as fast as my wings will take me.
I find the heading. I lock my eyes on the spot the other male disappeared toward, and I bank. I beat my wings hard, and the wind cracks past me.
I climb above the mess of bodies and find clean air. Below me, the south coast of Draig is a smear of black and yellow lights, with knots of fighting beasts clustered along it.
I stay focused on my target. I have to, or he will get away.
I force myself to beat my wings harder.
The water blurs by underneath. The island slips away behind me. I cross the line where the frontline used to be.
My dragon and I hunt…together.
Mistveil grows up out of the haze ahead of me. The mist that gives the island its name has rolled in across the water in a thick band, low to the surface, white as cotton, hugging the coast in a wide ring.
I drop lower as I close in.
Then I see what’s happening at the coast.
The sky above the mist is full of dragons. Reds against Reds. It has to be Mistveil guards against the feral Reds.
The noise reaches me before I’m close enough to feel it. A wall of screeches and bellowing roars and the heavy crack of bodies colliding mid-air.
It’s no better here than back at Draig.
I scan the front of the mass for him. The one with the small shape in his claws.
Then I see him.
He’s used the chaos as cover. He’s threaded the inside line, dropping under the worst of the fighting. He’s diving for it, Carla still tucked tight against his belly.
I dive too.
A pair of fighting Reds come tumbling across my path, and I have to twist hard to avoid them. One of them snaps at me as I pass. All the while, I keep my eyes on the prize. I keep going. I tuck my wings in and let gravity do the work, plunging down to a wall of jungle.
The bastard is still ahead and further than I’d like. He banks hard, drops his shoulder, and dives for the canopy.
He goes in.
The trees swallow him.
I keep my gaze on the exact area.
I fly hard, praying I won’t be too late. That he won’t hurt her before I get there.
Hold on, Carla.
Please hold on.
I’m coming.