Bound to the Dragon

by Zoe Chant

  At that, Shaw’s head snapped toward him, his yellow eyes narrowing.

  In fact, I do, he said, his voice little more than a low, dangerous growl.

  Dante frowned, his head turning toward where Roy crouched in the water, his strange, patchy fur sodden.

  He could see the muscles of Roy’s shoulders and hindquarters bunch with tension, his eyes narrowed. His eyes seemed to flitter from Shaw to the other dragons who surrounded him, before finally landing on Dante.

  Something about the sight of him seemed to enrage Roy, and he reared back, baring even more of the long, shining teeth that protruded from his mouth.

  This isn’t over, he suddenly snarled out, his voice crazed. You think you can take me – any of you? None of you can – none of you –

  All of a sudden, Roy surged forward, his teeth gnashing, red eyes wild.

  Dante barely had time to react before he was on him, claws digging into his sides, teeth snapping a bare inch from his face.

  No!

  He heard Mercy’s panicked scream, but he could barely turn his head to check that she was out of harm’s way. All his focus was on Roy, who was obviously trying to bury his fangs in his throat.

  Get him – !

  He heard Shaw’s command a moment before Roy’s claws raked into Dante’s side, making him roar in pain. And then, Roy’s jaws closed around his neck, long teeth sinking into his throat. Pain exploded through Dante as Roy’s jaws held him tight, crushing his windpipe, making it impossible to breathe.

  Dante could hear all hell breaking loose around him, hear Mercy crying out his name as he clawed at Roy’s sides, trying to break free, but every movement he made just seemed to make Roy hold on tighter and tighter, until Dante’s vision began to fade to black.

  He heard the boom of a Voice as both Stefan and Declan Shaw commanded Roy to free Dante’s throat from his death grip – but it was too late. Dante could feel the darkness rushing up inside him, the thud of his heart loud in his ears, his muscles burning from exertion and lack of oxygen...

  Dante!

  Mercy’s voice was the last thing he heard before he at last slid into oblivion.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dante

  The first thing Dante was aware of when he began to come to was the warmth of Mercy’s palm against his.

  He blinked, his head pounding, feeling pain all throughout his body – but it was nothing compared to the softness of Mercy’s hand, nor the comfort he felt as he looked into her eyes, wide and worried though they were.

  “Oh my God, Dante,” she breathed, relief flooding her expression. “I was so worried about you – well, I still am. I didn’t know when you’d come back to me.”

  “I’ll always come back to you,” Dante said, raising his hand to touch her face. “Always, Mercy. Nothing could keep me from you.”

  Mercy blinked, tears filling her eyes. She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but then she simply leaned forward instead, pressing their lips together, kissing him.

  It was easy to forget about the pain in his body as he opened his mouth, his tongue twining with Mercy’s – her scent, her warmth, her everything filled his senses, driving out everything else. For the moment, he was totally focused on her.

  But even that couldn’t last. When she drew back, her dark eyes looking down into his, Dante could see that the worry still hadn’t left them.

  “You’ve been unconscious for about an hour and a half,” Mercy told him. “I was so worried after they pulled Roy off you that – that –” The tears that had been brimming in her eyes finally spilled over. “Stefan explained to me that it was just a dragon’s way of healing, that it was better for you to be asleep so that your body could focus all your energy on recovering. It didn’t make it any easier sitting here, though.”

  Dante swallowed, pain slicing through his chest. “I’m sorry, Mercy,” he said. “I’m sorry I caused you such worry.”

  Mercy shook her head fiercely. “Don’t you apologize!” she said, voice firm. “I don’t want to hear it. The only reason you got injured was because you were trying to protect me from Roy. He’s the only one to blame in any of this. That piece of shit! I wish I – if only I could –”

  Dante couldn’t help but let out a low laugh at Mercy’s frustration. Her eyes darted to his. She looked annoyed for a moment, but then the expression melted away and she began laughing too.

  “I suppose I must sound ridiculous to you. Wanting to beat the hell out of a mythical creature.”

  “Not at all,” Dante replied. “You sound amazing. And if anyone could beat the hell out of a mythical creature, it’d be you, Mercy.”

  She squeezed his hand, shaking her head. “Yeah, well. I mean it. I wish I could.” Mercy frowned, looking down at him, her eyes roving over his body. “You’re looking better already. I guess this is why you were fine five minutes after getting stabbed that first time you stumbled into my kitchen, bleeding everywhere.”

  Dante nodded. “Yeah. Dragons heal fast. But it’s faster still because you’re here – the mated bond gives a dragon even more strength.”

  “The mated bond,” Mercy said slowly, as if trying the words out. “I’m still getting used to that idea. I can’t really say I understand it. Holly’s explained it a little to me, but she said it was a conversation that it would be better for me to have with you.”

  Dante nodded. “I want to tell you everything. And I mean everything, Mercy – about dragons, about the bond, about myself and where I’ve come from.” He paused. “But right now...”

  “I’ll definitely have a lot of questions for you,” Mercy said. “But you’re right. Right now, we have bigger fish to fry.”

  Dante sat up, groaning. Despite Mercy’s presence sending warmth through his veins and speeding his healing, his body was still battered and bruised, and his broken ribs would need at least a couple more hours to heal completely.

  He looked around, for the first time taking notice of his surroundings. They were still outside, amongst the trees that grew alongside the river that he and Roy had crashed into. He could still hear the sound of the water, though, and beyond that, the sound of voices.

  “Stefan brought you over here after they pulled Roy off you and you passed out,” Mercy explained. “He didn’t want you to be disturbed. He said he’d sort things out with... with the officers who arrived.”

  Dante nodded. That was Stefan all over. He’d only had a chance to get to know him a little, but he was exactly the kind of clan leader the Novaks needed: quiet, judicious, stern, and extremely protective of his family.

  “Where’s Roy?”

  Mercy hesitated. “He transformed into a human again after they managed to restrain him. I think they forced him to. I don’t really know what’s going on with that – but they got him in cuffs. That officer said he was under arrest.”

  Dante frowned. “He’s the one they were after?”

  “I... I guess so,” Mercy said. “But I don’t know why, or what else has happened. I’ve been here with you. I didn’t want to leave you.”

  Grimacing, Dante slowly got to his feet. He needed to know what was going on. Roy had threatened his mate, and he had promised her he’d protect her from him. And besides which, he could think of about a hundred other questions he had.

  “Take it easy, Dante,” Mercy said as she slipped an arm around him, helping him as they made their way back toward the river.

  Stefan looked up as they approached, and Dante could see relief in his green eyes. Mercy hadn’t made a bad guess when she’d called Stefan his brother – they looked very much alike. They both had the dark hair and green eyes of the Novak Clan, a trait that was also shared by Stefan’s younger sister Darklis. Anyone who looked at them could instantly see they were related.

  Stefan’s mate Holly stood by his side – she was shorter than him by more than a head, and her eyes were a brilliant blue, her hair a tangle of golden curls. They had two children together, Dante knew, a bo
y and a girl, Calla and Firth. The first in a new generation of Novaks after the blood feud that had almost wiped them from the face of the earth.

  Holly came over to them, slipping her arm through Mercy’s. Dante wasn’t surprised: Holly was generosity personified, and she was always ready to help anyone who needed it.

  Glancing around, Dante’s gaze finally fell on Roy. He was kneeling on the riverbank, his hands cuffed behind his back, just like Mercy had said. He was surrounded by a group of five men and women, all of whom had their arms crossed over their chests, faces grim. Clearly, they meant business.

  The man who Dante recognized as Officer Declan Shaw stood a little apart from them, but he was no less grim than they were. In human form he was just as impressive as his dragon: he was as tall and broad as Stefan was, and Stefan was the most powerful dragon Dante knew. He regarded Dante with a steely gaze, his gray eyes hard.

  Dante stared back at him, feeling his dragon’s hackles rise. This man had said he was an officer of the Shifter Patrol Corps, and that he was looking for a criminal. Despite the fact he wasn’t sure what the Shifter Patrol Corps was, Shaw was clearly some kind of law enforcement. None of those things filled Dante with any confidence that he was going to be friendly toward him.

  “Calm down, Dante.” Stefan’s low voice cut through the tension. He’d clearly sensed Dante’s unease. “Officer Shaw has explained his situation to me, and I’ve explained ours. I think we understand each other.”

  “We do,” Shaw said, his voice low. “I understand you were only engaged in this fight to protect your mate, whose life and safety had been threatened. As far as the Shifter Patrol Corps is concerned, you’ve done nothing wrong there. Your clan leader has vouched for you, and that’s good enough for me. We’ve found who we came here looking for.”

  He turned to look down at Roy, and for a moment, Dante saw an expression of undisguised disgust cross Shaw’s face.

  Dante stared down at Roy where he knelt, sneering, on the riverbank.

  All at once, his dragon reared up inside him, spitting fire and fury.

  This is the one who hurt our mate! He tried to kill her! He has to pay!

  Mercy pressed her hand against his arm, glancing up at him. Clearly, his rage was obvious.

  With effort, Dante forced his dragon back down. Shaw didn’t seem like the type who’d be impressed by him attacking Roy now that Mercy was out of immediate danger. So instead, he settled on asking a question.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked, his voice little more than a low growl. “What the hell were you planning? And what are you, anyway?”

  He’d never seen anything like Roy before, and he knew there were some pretty bizarre and rare shifters out there – griffins, unicorns, pegasi, wyverns, even a basilisk or two. But nothing like Roy.

  In answer, Roy only spat on the riverbank. “You expect me to tell you anything? Fuck you.”

  “He’s half-manticore, half-dragon.” Shaw’s voice cut in harshly. “One of only a few. You know that dragons and manticores are natural enemies. So obviously, Roy’s kind are very rare.”

  Dante blinked, startled. Half-manticore, half-dragon? He’d never heard of anything like that – much less thought it was possible.

  It would explain everything, though – the scorpion’s tail, dripping venom. The ability to breathe dragonfire. The fact that he had been completely unable to sense what Roy was, even if he’d known there was something strange about him.

  “He’s wanted for murder – three murders, actually,” Shaw said. “It took a long time for us to get the evidence we needed – you’re slippery, Roy Wilmore, I’ll give you that.”

  “Murder? He’s a murderer?”

  Mercy’s voice was quiet and shocked. Dante could feel her weight as she leaned against him, as if she was feeling faint. Dante could understand how she felt – she’d been very close to Roy at one time, after all. It must have been shocking to hear he was capable of such things.

  Shaw glanced at her, his gray eyes perceptive. Perhaps he guessed why she was so shocked, because next time he spoke, his voice was gentler.

  “Yes. You don’t need to know the details. But I dare say it’s normal when you grow up in his family. I don’t know who his mother is, but his father is Goddard Hellner.”

  Dante sucked in a breath. The name wouldn’t mean anything to Mercy, but he knew who Goddard Hellner was. “The boss of the manticore crime syndicate,” he said, still feeling shocked. He was familiar to Dante as a man to be feared, to say the least – he controlled every operation that manticores were involved in, and was utterly ruthless about it. The gang who had held Dante hostage for most of his life had been under his control. As terrifying as they had been, all of them had lived in fear of pissing off Goddard Hellner. Dante had grown up hearing stories of what Hellner did to people who disappointed or defied him – and he’d known that if he ever dared to put a toe out of line, he’d end up just like them.

  “But – but that’s impossible,” Mercy said, shaking her head. “I knew him – I went to school with him! I thought I lov—” She cut herself off, the next thing she’d been going to say clearly too painful for her to reveal in front of everyone. Dante put his hand on hers, trying to comfort her.

  Mercy was silent for a moment before taking a deep breath.

  “I just want to know why, Roy,” she said, her voice quiet and flat. “And how. You were – you seemed like – a normal human to me. I don’t understand.”

  Roy shook his head, his lip curled up into a sneer. “Why would I explain it to you?” He snorted. “It was hellish living amongst you humans for so long, but that’s what my father wanted. He wanted someone he could trust who could live amongst humans. He wanted someone with an identity that couldn’t be traced back to him. So when I was fourteen, I stopped being Roy Hellner, and became Roy Wilmore. Enrolled in high school. Told everyone I’d just moved here. Went to college. Built an empire.”

  “Using your father’s money,” Shaw interjected flatly. “Don’t think we haven’t done the paperwork, and chased down every piece of evidence we need. We’ve been very thorough. Roy Wilmore might have seemed to come out of nowhere and build his own empire, but it was all paid for with dirty money.”

  Roy said nothing, but lowered his eyes. His shoulders were bunched with tension.

  “And – and the murders?” Mercy asked, her voice shaking.

  Shaw glanced at her. “You don’t need to know the details. But being in a crime syndicate is a messy business.”

  Dante knew only too well what he was talking about. There was no way Roy could have been involved in his father’s work at such a high level and not have committed some terrible crimes. In a way, Dante had been lucky that he himself had only been a low-level grunt.

  “I still don’t understand why, Roy,” Mercy said. “You’re rich – you could do anything. Why did you come back to Hainesville? Why did you terrorize us?” She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant. If it hadn’t been us, it would have been somewhere else, which is just as bad. But I still want to know why.”

  Roy let out a low, cold laugh. “Do you know what it was like living amongst you putrid humans for so long?” he asked, raising his head to stare at her. “Having to pretend to be one of you – having to pretend to be ordinary? None of you had any idea what I was. Better than a dragon, better than a manticore. And far beyond your human understanding. It was disgusting. And the only thing I could think of was coming back, and wiping your miserable little town off the map – tearing it down, brick by brick.”

  Dante could sense Mercy’s shock and revulsion as she stared down at Roy. He could feel his own fury rising again – how dare Roy talk about the community Mercy loved so much like that? The place she had dedicated her life to – the people she had helped to give hope to?

  “That’s enough,” he growled out, hearing the dragon’s distinctive rumble in his voice. “The only disgusting one here is you, Roy. And now, you’ll pay for what you’
ve done.”

  Shaw glanced at him. “We’ll see he’s brought to justice. We’ve been collecting evidence on him for quite some time. Like I said – he’s slippery, and we needed to make sure our case was watertight.” He paused, his eyes going to Mercy. “But we still need every piece of evidence we can get. You’re an important witness, ma’am. Would you consider giving evidence against him?”

  For a moment, Dante bristled, tempted to jump in and tell Shaw that Mercy would be doing no such thing – she’d been through enough. But then he released the urge, remembering that despite his dragon’s overprotective nature, it was Mercy’s choice, and he would support her no matter what she did.

  Her answer was instantaneous. “Yes, of course I will,” she said, her voice steady. “I’ll do whatever I need to do in order to make sure he sees justice. Just tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it.”

  Despite his misgivings, Dante couldn’t help but be filled with pride.

  My mate. My strong, beautiful mate.

  He should have known she’d never be happy to stand by when there was something she could do to help make sure Roy never hurt anyone ever again.

  Even so, he could feel Mercy’s fatigue. She had been through a lot this evening. She needed to rest. She had sent him so much strength – first in his fight against Roy, and then to heal him – that he knew she must be feeling beyond drained.

  “We can discuss the details another time,” he said. “Right now, Mercy needs to rest.”

  He felt Mercy gratefully squeeze his arm, as Shaw nodded.

  “Yes. And we need to hurry and get Roy Hellner here back to headquarters. I don’t think anyone will really believe we’ve got him until we prove it.”

  Dante nodded. Despite himself, he found he quite liked this Officer Declan Shaw – he was straightforward and no-nonsense, and he’d taken Stefan at his word that Dante was only fighting Roy to protect his mate. He’d have to ask Stefan later if he had any idea who or what the Shifter Patrol Corps were.