Darius was about to shout back at his mate for daring to challenge him in front of the group, but Adam’s deep voice drowned them all out.
“The lion is right,” said Adam. “Those choppers aren’t stopping, and although I could burn them out of the sky, there’s no way I’m killing those pilots.” The dragon circled in the air once more, then began another dive down towards the trapped animals. “Those choppers’ cannons can’t do shit to me. The shells will bounce off my scales. Magda’s spell seems to have brought the animals back from whatever hold the Darkness had on them—for now, at least.” Then the dragon turned his head back, his gold eye focused unblinkingly on Darius. “But now that the animals are back in their senses, they’re going to panic at being all bunched up together, surrounded by fire, a dragon blocking out the sun, military choppers creating all that racket. These animals are simple creatures, and their rage is going to be replaced by fear. They’re going to need a leader, Darius. They’re going to need their king and his queen. I’ll provide cover from the attack, but you and your mate need to lead the animals back out into the jungle as the flames die out. They call you King of the Ring, right? Well, here’s the ring, King. Now do your thing.”
Do your thing, King, whispered his lion as Darius felt an energy that seemed to come from his deepest nature, his very essence. He glanced down at the hordes of animals, and he knew immediately that the dragon was right. The animals were coming out of that strange spell or trance or whatever, coming back to their senses. And their simple senses told them it was time to freak the hell out! They were confused, scared, about to straight-up panic.
He looked over at Lacy, seeing the glint of confidence in her bobcat’s eyes as she held her gaze on him. He was still annoyed at her for yelling at him, but he also understood that she was right too: It was hard for Darius to acknowledge that Adam the Dragon was powerful too, could do things that no other Shifter could do.
We all have our place in the world, in the universe’s plan, said his lion as it crouched down and prepared to leap off the dragon’s back. And this is our place. In the center of the ring. Let’s show them what we can do. Let’s do our thing, King. Let’s do our thing.
15
“Um . . . so . . . what is our thing? What do we do?” Lacy whispered as she landed on all fours by her lion’s side, smack in the middle of a cluster of skittish hyenas who were hysterically circling each other, jaws snapping aimlessly as they sniffed the burning wood in the distance, yipped at the sounds of bullets bouncing off the dragon’s armored scales above them.
She glanced over at Darius, twin sensations of excitement and anxiety snaking through her as she saw her majestic mate survey the scene with a calm confidence that made her weak in the furry knees. She understood immediately that Darius was in his element now, in the center of the ring, the King surrounded by his subjects. She could feel his power as she watched him, and once again there was that instinctual need to bow down to his authority, to follow his lead. It was pure instinct, and she knew at once that it was an instinct as old as the jungle. It wasn’t just a fairy tale: The lion really was the King!
“The lion doesn’t rule by getting into petty squabbles or fights to prove his strength,” grunted Darius as he raised an eyebrow at a panicked hyena that got too close. That one look stopped the beast in its tracks, its snarl turning to a meek whimper as it bowed its head and retreated in submission. “Haven’t you ever watched Animal Planet?”
“Um, I think this is more like When Animals Attack,” Lacy muttered, hissing at a group of wildebeest that were snorting and stomping, their tails whipping about even though there were no flies to swat.
“Relax,” said Darius with a chuckle.
“Relax?! Darius, we’re surrounded by a thousand panicked animals! There’s a dragon gliding above us, deflecting bullets being shot by the Kenyan military! This is hardly the time to freakin’ relax! Darius? What the hell are you doing? Darius?!”
“It’s exactly the time to relax,” said Darius, his voice calm and steady as he plonked himself down on a patch of grass. “Come. Sit by me.”
Lacy whirled around in confusion, not sure if her mate had lost his mind. But then she saw how a group of monkeys that had been sounding the alarm in a nearby tree had stopped thrashing about and were now all staring at the lion . . .
The lion who, in the midst of confusion and chaos, was just chilling the hell out.
Then Lacy understood. She got it. She got him!
With a slow, deliberate walk, Lacy padded over to her mate. She leaned in and nuzzled against his big furry neck. Then she sat by his side, her bobcat’s body nestled perfectly against the lion’s massive frame. She could feel the protective energy oozing from her mate as he calmly looked at all the animals of his realm, and she understood exactly what he was doing.
“I get it now,” she whispered, her eyes lighting up as she saw how all the animals were instinctively calming down in reaction to seeing the lion and his mate sitting down like they didn’t have a care in the world. “You’re leading by example. You’re showing them that there’s nothing to worry about, that it’s all gonna work out just fine, that the King and Queen say it’s all right. Just chillax, people!”
Darius just grunted, his big gold eyes gleaming at her in acknowledgement that she was right, that she understood how instinct worked, how the lion and his mate set the tone for the rest of the animals. The jungle was at its calmest when the lions were well-fed and relaxed, and this was exactly what they needed to do in the midst of the madness. Just relax.
And then Lacy felt a strange peace roll through the atmosphere, and soon she and Darius were rolling around, playfully biting at each other as they lost themselves in the magic of the moment. In the background Lacy could sense that the flames were slowly dying down, the ring opening up a pathway back to the jungle. The barrage of bullets above them seemed to have lessened too, and Lacy finally rolled onto her back and glanced up at the massive dragon flying cover over the king and his queen.
“Darius, look,” she whispered, pointing with her right paw. “The choppers are leaving. Either they’re out of ammunition or they’ve figured out that it’s pointless to pepper a mythical beast with silly little bullets!”
Darius grunted, barely even looking up as he rolled belly-up and scratched his back on the hard ground. “What about the animals? Are they heading back to the jungle?”
Lacy rolled onto her side and looked around. “Yes,” she said as she watched the animals slowly leave the area through a path cleared by the elephants. The fire had mostly died down, leaving smoldering wood and scorched earth that smelled like incense.
“Then it’s time for us to go,” Darius said, getting to his feet and glancing up. He waved at the dragon like he was hailing a taxi, and Lacy gasped as the winged beast circled once more and then came in for a landing. “The animals are safe, but we aren’t.”
“What do you mean?” Lacy asked as she bounded up onto the dragon’s back, nodding at the bear, wolf, and fox that had been hiding behind the dragon’s massive dorsal wing. “You think the Kenyan military is going to send in fighter jets next?”
“They already did,” Adam the dragon said, pushing off against the earth and taking off into the skies with ease, five Shifters on his scaly back. “They launched a few missiles, but then stopped when they realized I wasn’t fighting back. Either that, or they were called off. Ordered to stand down.”
“Who would have called off the attack?” Darius growled, raising a gold eyebrow. “And why? As far as the world knows, Shifters are dangerous, out-of-control monsters! They probably think that all those animals were Shifters running wild! Shifters are primetime news now—and bad news! Who the hell would have called off the attack?”
Bart the Bear and Caleb the Wolf both shot one another knowing looks before breaking into chuckles. Beneath them Adam the Dragon was rumbling with laughter too,
and even the Dark Witch Magda cracked a smile through her fox.
“You ever heard of John Benson?” Caleb the Wolf said finally as the dragon set course and picked up speed, heading directly Northeast from Africa, towards the Arabian Peninsula.
“No,” said Darius.
“Exactly,” said Bart the Bear, his massive brown body quivering as he giggled like an overgrown schoolboy. “That’s just the way he likes it.”
16
ABU DHABI
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
“I don’t like it,” said John Benson, pulling at his silver beard and frowning so deep Darius could see every crease on the weathered CIA-man’s forehead like it was a map of where he’d been, what he’d done, what secrets he kept locked away inside that head. “I don’t like it one damned bit!” He turned directly to Darius, gray eyes shining with focus. “You said you saw Murad? The Black Dragon himself? The beast is in Africa? Why didn’t he attack you? Why didn’t he attack all of you? Why didn’t my drones and scout-planes pick him up visually or even on radar? Are you sure it was him?”
“I know what I saw,” Darius said, his gold eyes flashing as he held Benson’s gaze. “But it was strange, I agree. I could sense the dark energy of the Black Dragon—shit, it almost pulled my lion away from me! But there was also a strange sense of control in the beast. It’s like it knew what it was doing, even though it didn’t know what it was doing.”
Bart the Bear stomped his feet and rubbed his eyes. “It knew what it was doing even though it didn’t know what it was doing? Wow, that really clears it up, Lion King! I’d get a better explanation just banging my head on the wall!”
“Happy to help you with that, Furball,” growled Darius, feeling his lion whisper that it would be more than happy to pound this dumb bear into submission on Benson’s teakwood tabletop.
Bart grinned wide, sticking out his chest as he turned to face Darius. “You wanna throw down, Big Boy? Let’s go. I’ll have you mewing for Mama before you can even—”
Adam narrowed his eyes at Bart, and the big bear Shifter sighed and raised his hands. “All right. All right. I’ll save it for later.”
“Mama,” came Magda’s whisper from the left, and Darius frowned as he turned to face the Dark Witch, who’d been quiet all this while. “Mama.”
“What the—” Darius started to say, but his breath caught when he saw how Magda’s eyes had rolled up in her head, her eyelids quivering, lips trembling. “What’s she doing?”
Instinctively Darius stepped in front of Lacy, but she was having none of it. She pushed her way around his thick body, going straight to the convulsing witch and grabbing her by the arm.
“What is it?” Lacy whispered, her eyes wide and earnest. “What do you see?”
“She’s having a seizure, Lacy,” Darius growled. “Step back. She might bite you.”
“She’s having a vision,” said Lacy firmly. “Can you just show some faith for once?”
“She’s a goddamn witch,” Darius snapped. “You don’t show faith in a witch. That never ends well. She started all this, and for all we know, she’s still working for Murad. Hell, maybe Murad’s working for her! Maybe we’re all just puppets in her twisted game!”
Now Caleb the Wolf stepped forward, his blue eyes the color of midnight, his wolf coiled up like a spring inside. Bart the Bear stepped up and stood by his buddy’s side, and Darius could sense a fight coming on. He let out a low, warning growl from his lion, shooting a quick glance at Adam Drake. The dragon was the only Shifter more powerful than a lion, but Darius could sense that Adam wouldn’t Change in this enclosed space in the middle of freakin’ Abu Dhabi! Not unless he wanted to kill all of them!
The tension was so thick Darius could almost see it. From the corner of his eye he saw John Benson slowly back away from the desk, like he knew he’d be ripped to shreds if three Shifters got into a rumble in his office. As for Magda . . . well, Darius didn’t trust Magda. He didn’t trust witches. He didn’t trust . . . Mama?
Darius blinked in confusion as memories of his childhood came rushing in like a dam had just broken. He cocked his head as he stared at Magda, wondering if she was doing something to him, messing with his head. He’d buried the memories of his parents—buried them because he had no real memories of them. He’d been alone after his grandparents had died too—surviving on his own in the woods, learning to hunt, learning to kill, learning that he couldn’t rely on anyone but himself, couldn’t trust anyone but himself.
For some reason Darius kept staring at Adam Drake as the thoughts rushed in, and as the dragon Shifter stared back, Darius felt a strange bond form almost instantaneously between the two of them. A kinship of sorts. An acknowledgement that Adam understood what it was like to not trust a parent, to perhaps even hate a parent!
Slowly Darius scanned the tense faces of Bart the Bear and Caleb the Wolf, and in their eyes he could see pain and heartache, a history of abandonment, tragedy, misery. They were all bound together by hardship, he began to realize. Bound together like brothers. Bound together by . . . fate?
The lion inside was slowly retreating from its readiness to fight, and Darius felt the calmness of the man in him slowly win as he looked over at Lacy and then back at the men. She was his fated mate, yes. But what had she told him earlier? She’d said an animal’s fate begins and ends with finding its mate, but a human’s fate is broader, bigger, more complex.
So these men are part of my fate too, aren’t they? Part of my crew! I’m part of their crew! That’s the source of all this machismo and tension! We’re sizing each other up, jostling to figure out what our place is in the crew. Adam might be the Alpha, but we’re all leaders, all warriors, all proud men who never bow down, never submit, never yield! That’s a new challenge, isn’t it? To learn how to work with others as powerful as I am? To respect the unique talents of my crewmates? That’s what a good king does, right?
“All right,” he said finally, exhaling but not taking a step away from Bart and Caleb, holding their gaze until there was a moment of mutual understanding and they all looked away at the same time so no one could admit defeat. He let out a slow smile and looked over at Lacy, his heart filling with a warmth that felt both peaceful and wild at the same time. She’d brought him to this moment, he understood. It was her, whether she knew it or not.
“All right,” he said again, glancing at Magda and then back at his mate. “But if she bites you, I’m gonna say Told You So.”
Everyone in the room laughed, and just then Magda gasped and came out of her trance, blinking three times and breaking into a bewildered smile like she was trying to remember where she was.
“I saw his mind,” she said, her voice coming out in a whisper. “I saw his heart. I saw what he sees in his madness.” Slowly she turned to Adam, her eyes glistening with tears. “He sees you, Adam. His child. He sees you as a baby. A baby dragon crying for Mama. And he’s crying for her too.”
“Crying for her? He killed her!” Adam said, his eyes burning in a way that made Darius tense up, wondering if the dragon was going to burst forth and destroy the building!
“That’s what he thinks too,” said Magda, her eyes widening as she glanced at her mate Caleb and then at Adam. “Even his dragon thinks its mate is dead. But she isn’t. Adam, your father didn’t attack her in some rampage. He did it because . . . because he was trying to Turn her!”
“That’s ridiculous!” Adam shouted, clenching his fists as smoke billowed out of his nostrils and ears. “A dragon can’t Turn a human! He would have known that! He would have known he’d kill her! His dragon would have known it too!”
Magda shook her head. Then she shrugged. “Well, whatever it did to her didn’t kill her, and your father is only just realizing it. The Black Dragon is only just realizing it.”
Adam was pacing, rubbing his jaw as Darius watched, his lion growling inside, ready to protect i
ts mate in case things got out of hand.
“So wait, that’s a good thing, right?” said Lacy excitedly. “Doesn’t it mean the Black Dragon might not be lost to the Darkness? That there’s hope it will find its way back from feral madness?”
But Magda shook her head slowly, her eyes darkening in a way that sent a chill through Darius. “The problem is that Adam is right: A dragon can’t Turn a human without killing the human. And that is what happened—sort of.” She paused and blinked, shaking her head again. “Adam, when your father’s dragon attacked your mother to Turn her, it worked almost too completely! It killed her and it Turned her!”
“What the hell does that mean?” Adam roared, pacing around the room as if his dragon was fighting to get out.
“When s Shifter dies, the human goes to the Light, and the animal returns to the Darkness,” Darius muttered, thinking back to what his grandparents had told him as he tried to make sense of Magda’s vision. “But what happens if a non-Shifter is Turned and dies at the same time?! Is that what you’re saying happened, Magda? That Murad’s Black Dragon killed his mate and Turned her at the same time?! Creating some kind of dragon that has no human part?”
Magda blinked and nodded, for the first time looking at Darius without frowning. “Yes,” she said softly, sighing and then glancing over at Adam. “It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.”
“So the human in her returned to the Light, but there was a new Dragon forming too . . . and that new Dragon has spent its entire existence in the Darkness,” Darius said as the awful realization began to dawn. “A Dragon born from Darkness! A beast that has never been joined with its human!”
“So where is she? Adam’s mother? Murad’s mate? This other dragon?” Lacy said, frowning as she glanced around the room at the ashen faces of the group.
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