And Reno’s protective rage knew no bounds.
“Surrender,” Reno snarled while the words I love Dani resounded like a melody in the back of his mind, distracting him from the pain scorching his insides.
Drenton coughed up blood, then howled in pain as Reno hit him again.
“I surrender,” Drenton said in defeat, and Reno stopped.
Reno got off of his brother and tried to stand. He could already feel the neutralizer wearing off now that the challenge was over.
But that only doubled the searing in his veins.
After a moment, Drenton slowly pushed himself to his feet, and Reno saw Dani running toward him. In moments, she was at Reno’s side, holding him close even as the pain of what was happening made him fall to one knee.
“It’s over. Call off your men and leave.”
Drenton ignored Reno and went over to pick up his shirt, wiping splotches of blood off his face. His wolf healing was already taking effect, though he was still a mess. Then Drenton laughed darkly. “You’re in no position to be making demands right now.”
“I won the challenge,” Reno said with a grimace.
“What’s wrong?” Dani said, clutching his side.
“Everything’s okay, honey. We’ll be fine.” If he could just get to his motorcycle and drive away, maybe…
Another flash of pain hit him. He tried to resist it, but there was nothing between him and the dragon blood in him right now.
“The rules say you can be pack alpha now. But you’re not going to be a wolf much longer, are you?” Men came beside him, surrounding Reno and Dani, and things had never looked more hopeless than they did in this moment. “My deal’s still on the table. Keep your wolf intact. Come with me.”
“Never!” Reno shouted, putting his arm around Dani as they backed away. It felt like his wolf was being pulled out of him. He could shift at any moment.
Just as Drenton and his people were circling closer, though, there was the sound—no, the feeling of earth moving beneath them. A low rumbling that quickly got louder.
A second later, the concrete in front of him parted, and a tall figure with tattoos all up his arms rose from the ground like the earth literally moved around him at his command, and he stood between Drenton and Reno.
Ajax.
Reno looked over to the corner where Ajax had been a moment ago and saw he wasn’t there.
So they could literally just… move through the earth?
He supposed it made sense.
He faced away from them. And without a sound, Ajax reached an arm forward and grabbed Drenton by the throat, picking him up like nothing as Reno heard a low growl coming from the basilisk.
“You are evil. You lied,” Ajax said darkly, and before Drenton could sputter a response, Ajax’s fist flew into Drenton’s face so hard Drenton went flying thirty or forty feet backward, colliding into a brick wall.
In an instant, dozens of men were firing machine guns and pistols at the basilisk who’d punched the daylights out of their alpha. But without even needing to move a muscle, a wall of rocks materialized from nowhere in front of Ajax, surrounding the three of them protectively.
Ajax turned over his shoulder to look at them, red eyes glowing in the dank light of the warehouse. “Bad wolf.”
No shit, Sherlock, Reno thought to himself as he tried to stand but fell to his knees instead. The way Ajax looked at him and Dani, he supposed it was pretty obvious who needed protecting from whom after Drenton double-crossed them both.
The gunfire continued to hail onto the wall for a moment longer. Then, as it abated, several men charged around the sides, attacking with knives and batons.
Ajax’s gaze moved toward one, and a huge rock appeared, flying like a bullet and slamming the guy backward. Another leaped at Ajax, and a stone came from seemingly nowhere above them and blasted the guy’s head in an explosion of pebbly dust.
“Thanks,” Reno tried to say, but Ajax didn’t even acknowledge the gratitude as he continued to fend people off from every direction, looking like he was enjoying the excuse for violence while keeping them safe.
Stubborn but protective.
“What’s going on?” Dani said, worry filling her gaze. Reno went over his options, but they were plumb out right now.
“Running… out of time,” Reno gasped out.
For years and years, the fear of turning into a wyvern, the expectation of the worst happening, had kept him from ever going outside the limits of what he’d been told back home. Don’t run out of stabilizer. Don’t try to use dragon powers while in wolf form. Don’t get overly excited or emotional or else it activates the blood.
If it came down to keeping his wolf or keeping Dani, Reno didn’t even have to think twice.
Even if his wolf turned into a leathery, horrible-looking wyvern, he’d still be himself. He’d still love Dani. And it wouldn’t break the connection he had with her.
She would still always be his mate.
Reno just clutched Dani to his chest, holding her like she was his whole world, because she really was. In front of them, several men had shifted into wolves, and rocks flew as Ajax punched one in the face, utterly unafraid in spite of being wholly outnumbered. In the distance, Reno could hear shouts as more people organized to attack.
It was now or never.
“I love you,” Reno said. His decision was already made.
“I know. I love you too.”
“I’m so sorry I messed up. I didn’t see this coming, and I didn’t fix things between us earlier.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Whatever happens, whatever you see next, know that I’ve always loved you and only you my whole life, Danielle Summers.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can’t explain now… but if you see something horrible with red eyes and fangs and wings in a second, it’s me.”
Reno let go of Dani and stepped away, finally giving in to the shift. Fur rippled over his forearms, then turned pale and brown then back to white wolf fur as if even his own body were resisting it.
Don’t have to resist it any longer. After so much fear and running, he almost looked forward to flying and biting off people’s heads if he had to.
Ajax stopped to look over his shoulder, red eyes wide while he held two people aloft, one in each hand.
And finally, while it felt like lethal lightning lit up his insides, Reno shifted into his wolf form, finally at peace with whatever was going to happen.
Because no matter what, he’d keep fighting for Dani.
He shut his eyes and changed.
26
The sounds of fighting didn’t abate as Reno felt his body lengthen and his limbs morph into animal legs.
It was better this way. Without the topaz power, his family would stop coming for Dani anyway. They could have a normal life.
At least the pain slowly went away as he shifted, everything inside him finally one, joined together after a lifetime of being held in two different sides of existence.
He reared his head back and howled.
Wait a second… Could wyverns howl?
Reno opened his eyes and looked down to see that he was, in fact, not a wyvern after all. He had four white paws, and he could see his black nose at the end of his wolf snout.
And around him, he and Dani were surrounded by an electric blue bubble. Like a dome made of electricity, crackling and sparking as it moved in waves and undulated back and forth.
What in the actual fuck was going on?
“Your wolf. I finally get to see it,” Dani exclaimed in wonder, and his heart bounded at the sight of her safe.
There were dozens of footsteps, and Reno rushed to Dani’s side, blindingly fast in his alpha wolf form. He curved his long body in front to shield her as a squad of people appeared at their side and raised their weapons to fire.
Bangs resounded from their guns, and Reno could hear the whizzing of bullets. But then, like moths hitting a bug
light, the bullets flickered and disappeared from existence as they made contact with the side of the bubble, the lightning disintegrating everything that came near.
“Is this… normal?” Dani asked, looking around as blue and green flashed around them.
Reno shook his head. He didn’t even know what to think.
He’d always secretly wondered what would happen. But the scientists from his hometown had always told him that his body would never be strong enough to withstand the effects of the dragon’s magic in his veins. And there were no other cases like his, wolves with his same power, to compare notes with.
But for the first time in his life, he felt at peace with himself, no longer pulled in two directions by warring forces inside himself.
He merely glanced at the men who stood staring, confused, and a wave of electricity arced from the bubble and zapped through all of them, moving like a chain from one person to the next, knocking them all unconscious.
“That’s pretty awesome,” Dani said. “How did you do that?”
“All I can guess is that my wolf was strong enough to withstand the power… somehow.” His “resistance” was actually much stronger in his wolf form, allowing him to somehow contain all the energy without it totally consuming him.
Dani gasped as more men appeared from behind, and Reno zapped them in an instant as well.
Even Ajax’s red eyes were a little wider as the basilisk sent a hail of cinderblock-size stones flying toward people above them who were taking cover behind trucks and boxes.
The way the basilisk seemed to be able to control, even create, rocks and earth like that was pretty amazing.
Reno would have to talk to him about it later, though.
“Get on,” Reno said. The safest place for Dani was here with him.
He leaned down, and Dani climbed up his side and onto his back, clutching his fur tightly.
As much as he wanted to relish in the feel and scent of his mate so close, right now, he needed to find Drenton. If his brother escaped, he could still use his alpha power to force the wolves under his control into a war.
Reno had to stop him.
There was a crash and an explosion, and Reno worried for a moment that reinforcements were coming to help the quickly falling wolves that still served his despotic brother, and Reno turned in the direction of the sound.
Instead, one of the big bay doors in front of them rattled as huge claws dug into the thick metal. Then with a wrenching sound, it was ripped away as a green-and gold dragon head appeared in the hole where the door had once been.
Harrison. And, jumping down from atop his neck, Diesel as well.
Then Reno heard a motorcycle engine, and from beneath Harrison, Gunnar and Beck sped into the warehouse.
Before Gunnar even had the chance to properly stop, Beck leaped off the back of the bike and smashed his fist into the nearest man, shouting, “Let my friend go!” as the crack of his punch resonated louder than even the gunfire.
So they didn’t hate him for lying to them?
Harrison spewed fire over a dozen men as they tried to run from the surly cowboy dragon while Diesel began to beat wholesale ass alongside Ajax in front of them, using his fists while Ajax continued to send lethal-fast rocks flying in every direction.
He wanted to stop and join his friends, thank them for not judging him for the things he’d had to hide from them.
If they all got out of this fine, he’d make sure they all knew how he felt.
Using his wolf’s big paws, Reno leaped onto the loading dock, scenting the air for his brother. Fire and bullets and rocks and fists flew all around as more and more people shifted into wolves to try and fight off the onslaught of Dragonclaw Ranch, but Reno ignored it, moving fast and keeping his mate out of danger.
A moment later, he caught Drenton, who had blood trickling down his face, about to disappear out of a back exit.
He whirled on Reno and commanded the men near him. “Kill that abomination!”
But their bullets were useless against the shield of lightning. And when several of them shifted, growling and leaping at him in their wolf forms, Reno had to only think and long arcs of electricity flew at them, sending them flying back as fur and skin sizzled.
Until it was just him and the person who’d tried to destroy everything.
“Go away. You’re nothing but a loser, little brother, who will never amount to anything!” Drenton ran for the door. Then a blast of electricity collapsed the doorway into a heap of rubble before Drenton could even reach it.
“It’s over, brother. You’ve lost.” Behind them, the fighting was already dying down, the combined power of the dragons and basilisks making quick work of even trained, experienced wolves.
“I’ll never lose to you. I’m the alpha. I’m the one in control. I don’t care what it takes. I’ll command every wolf in the world to come after you and your friends. I—”
Drenton’s words were cut off as untold amounts of electricity clenched his jaw and made him writhe, his body shaking in the place where he stood.
Reno wasn’t going to let him keep droning on. Nor was he going to let the devil escape to keep threatening Dani.
Drenton glared, tried to move away, but there was nowhere to go. And then, as he passed out, Reno finally stopped as his brother collapsed onto the ground in a smoking, unconscious heap.
Reno was frankly surprised he’d taken so much, and it was hard to not marvel at how small and feeble his big brother looked even after years of being afraid of him.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t be able to hurt or threaten another person ever again with his power.
“Reno!” a familiar voice called toward them, and he turned to face the direction of the sound as he saw Beck and Gunnar approaching them.
In the background, Harrison remained in dragon form, snarling at anyone who tried to run from the large huddle of surrendered wolf shifters, and Diesel finished pounding a few more faces at the back of the warehouse.
“Damn, your wolf is all… lightning-y,” Beck said, reaching out to touch the electric bubble. It zapped his finger, and Reno finally let the electricity around him dissipate.
Dani was safe. That was all that had mattered to him.
“You guys came,” Reno said, still enjoying the feel of Dani’s legs astride him. The need to take her home and finally claim her for good hovered like a need more desperate than food or air, but that would come in a minute.
He was still getting used to what had happened as well.
“Of course we came,” Beck drawled. “Dragonclaw protects its own. And you’re one of ours.”
Reno gently let Dani slide off his back while Beck spoke, then realized he’d be naked if he shifted right now.
Beck, as if already anticipating the need, tossed a pair of pants onto the ground in front of him. “Dallas reminded me you might need this when you shift back.”
Right.
Reno returned to his human form, watching as Dani’s eyes went wider. Then a blush spread over her cheeks as she saw him naked.
“Sorry, it’s an animal shifter thing,” Reno said, throwing on the pants. Then Gunnar handed over his heavy jacket, which Reno took gratefully.
“Don’t mind me,” Dani said, secretly grinning to herself. Once he had on enough clothes, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into his side.
He never wanted to let her go. Not ever.
“So what all happened here?” Beck asked. “And what’s up with your wolf?”
“I… There’s a lot to explain.”
In the background, Harrison was now in human form, looking down at his phone. “Double dragons say they’ll be here in a little while.”
Reno frowned. If they showed up, they might be all day figuring things out, and all he wanted right now was to be alone with his mate.
Beck seemed to sense this, and with a big grin, the mountain dragon came forward and clapped a hand on Reno’s shoulder. “You’ve had enough problems for one day. Yo
u two go home and sort things out.”
“Thanks, Beck. For everything.” Then he addressed the others. “Thanks to all of you.”
Gunnar just folded his arms and nodded while Diesel, who’d walked up a moment ago, scratched the back of his head in confusion. Harrison just glared over at Reno from beneath the brim of his Stetson and grinned at him while giving a short thumbs-up.
Before he could say more, though, there were heavy footsteps behind him. A second later, Ajax appeared, red-eyed and stoic, dragging Drenton’s barely moving body behind him.
Then with an easy heave, he tossed Drenton into the center of them, frowning down and folding his arms in disgust.
Apparently, basilisks could hold grudges.
Drenton, who was awake now, just sat there on his knees, looking around. “Where am I? Who are you?” he asked, looking directly at Reno.
“What’s up with him?”
“Amnesia,” Reno said. He knew small amounts of his electricity could give people short-term forgetfulness but nothing like this.
All the better. Even unknowingly, his alpha power was dangerous. He’d have to be locked up.
But knowing what he would have done with his power, it didn’t pain Reno to know his brother might not remember things for a long time so long as it put a halt to his plans for global domination and his quest to hurt Dani.
Beck growled and picked up Drenton by the back of his shirt. “We’ll take care of this bastard and his friends. You two just git before even more shit happens.”
Reno smiled at his close friend and took Dani’s hand in his, leading her toward one of the motorcycles that lay dropped on its side. He picked it up with one hand, then set Dani on the back seat before getting on himself, and thankfully, the engine roared to life.
They both waved at the others who waved or nodded back, except for Ajax who just glowered by himself. But if Reno wasn’t mistaken, there was at least the smallest hint of a smile as he pulled out of the warehouse and onto the highway, headed back toward Dragonclaw Ranch.
There—hopefully, finally—he and Dani could start their journey together.
Rogue Wolf Page 16