by Abigail Owen
Shoving that thought aside, she rushed forward. This, at least, she could help with. Her mother had taught each of her daughters survival skills. They all learned how to shoot a gun, though Kasia never had liked them. They all learned how to tend a garden and milk a cow. They all learned to work computers and how to beat a lie detector. The lessons changed over time as the world and abilities needed to survive in it changed. In addition to those essential skills, each of them had learned other individual skills suited to her personal proclivities and temperaments.
For Angelika, that meant nursing school.
“What happened?” she asked as she rushed over to them.
“Bastard brought his boot down on my leg,” Rafe grated through clenched teeth.
They lowered him to the ground, and the white streak in his rust-colored hair fell forward over one eye.
Angelika crouched beside him. “The dragon?” she asked, tossing a glance up at Bleidd’s grim countenance.
He smoothed a hand over his thick beard, unconsciously smoothing the two gray stripes at the chin. “Yes.”
Bleidd crossed his arms, feet set. “He was a tough son of a bitch. We didn’t give him a chance to shift, but even in human form, he was strong.”
“And he could shift only parts of his body. Did you see what he did to Hunter with that tail?” Rigel showed his relative youth in the eager awe included in that statement.
“It’s a miracle he didn’t skewer me with one of those wicked-looking spikes,” Hunter muttered darkly.
Then Bleidd caught her expression and waved a hand at both Hunter and Rigel.
He needn’t have bothered. Worry already had her in its grip. A dragon who can hold off five warrior wolves in human form has my sister?
Hunter grimaced. “Sorry.”
Angelika rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry about me.”
She had so many questions that wanted to burst out, but Rafe and Cairn needed her help first. Angelika put aside her needs for the moment. She ran a practiced eye over the man panting in agony on the ground. She could detect no signs of blood or major trauma beyond the obvious. He was breathing okay and lucid.
“Any issues other than the leg?” she asked, just to be sure.
“No.”
“Good.” She glanced up at the others, who stood around them in a circle. “Anyone have a knife?”
Jedd, who’d remained silent up till now, placed one in her outstretched hand, metal handle first. She immediately went to work exposing the wound, cutting a straight rip up the inside seam of Rafe’s black combat pants and peeling the rest back, folding it up around his knee, so she could get a better look.
The bone had not pierced the skin, though the off-kilter lump showed how it had snapped. “Hunter, help me stabilize the leg.”
The jokester of the group dropped to his knees beside her. He wasn’t laughing now.
“Hold him here, and here.” She pointed but needn’t have bothered, as Hunter was already reaching for those spots. She’d have to remember these guys, like the military, were trained to deal with injuries in the field.
“I’ll find you something to use as a splint,” Jedd said.
He loped off to search for long, straight branches. While he did that, Angelika got started on her neurovascular observations, checking for sensation changes and perfusion below the fracture site.
“Wiggle your toes for me?”
Rafe did so with a grunt of pain.
“Good. Looks like a clean break.” She glanced up at Bleidd. “Doc should be able to reset the leg. What about his accelerated healing?”
“I’ve got that,” Jedd said. He took out an instrument that looked like an EpiPen and stabbed it into Rafe’s upper arm.
“What was that?” Angelika asked.
Jedd shrugged. “A scientist in America invented it a few decades ago. It’ll slow his healing down for a few hours. Whatever it is has saved a lot of pain over the years.”
Bleidd pulled out a cell phone. While he talked in a low rumble to whomever picked up, Angelika focused on splinting the leg using the solid sticks Jedd brought and belts each of the guys provided.
She squeezed Rafe’s shoulder. “Don’t put any weight on it. Got that?”
“Not likely to try,” he managed to joke through white lips.
Angelika nodded, happy to see Rafe held onto his sense of humor, and levered to her feet.
“You’re next,” she said to Cairn.
He held up his hands, backing away. “No need, Nurse Ratched. I already set it myself.”
Angelika grinned. “Come here, you big baby, or I’ll think you’re scared of a little girl.”
Hunter and Rigel both laughed and earned themselves hard stares from Cairn’s swiftly swelling eyes. He was going to sport a helluva set of shiners for the next day or so until his body healed.
“Wouldn’t want to ruin that pretty face,” Rafe tossed up from his prone position.
“All right,” Cairn huffed.
He stepped closer and allowed Angelika to press gently on either side of his nose, gritting his teeth as she did so. She didn’t have an otoscope on her, so she couldn’t check the nasal cavity for obstruction, but he seemed to be breathing okay.
“I think your pretty face is safe.” She winked. “But have Doc check you out to be sure.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered.
“And get some ice on that face, too.” She pivoted to run her gaze over Hunter and Rigel. “Any complaints from you two?”
Both of them shrugged. “He tossed us around a fair bit, but nothing we couldn’t handle,” Rigel said.
Angelika knew better than to push it. After a year living with the shifters, she’d come to learn they didn’t appreciate coddling in any variation. So she nodded, then turned to Bleidd. “What about you?”
The leader of the wolf shifters shook his head.
She hadn’t expected him to be injured, anyway. The man was too damn smart to come off the worst in most any encounter. Although a dragon shifter was a whole different kettle of whatever came in kettles these days.
“What’s the plan to get him out of here?” she asked, nodding at Rafe. “He shouldn’t be jostled too much if we can help it.”
“Helicopter.”
She nodded. “I’ve done everything I can to set him until they get here.”
“Thank you.” Bleidd glanced at the men gathered around their pack brother, then took her by the arm and pulled her to the side.
Not that the action did much given their supernatural hearing. But the men knew better than to deliberately listen in. Another thing she’d learned about wolves since her mother sent her to them.
Showing up in the middle of a pack of wolf shifters had been a huge shock. Though Bleidd had not been surprised. Apparently, he’d agreed to help one of Serefina’s daughters when the time came. Granted, he’d been a younger wolf at the time he’d made that agreement.
“We found your sister,” he said. No fluff, no sparing her feelings.
Angelika blinked as she pulled herself out of nurse mode and back to the reason they were all here in the first place.
“The dragon didn’t want to give her up?” Given Rafe’s condition, that conclusion was an easy one to reach on her own.
Bleidd shook his head. “He didn’t, but that’s not why we don’t have her.”
Angelika frowned. “Why don’t you have her, then?”
“She insisted on staying with him. Pointed a shotgun at my chest, actually.” His lips tilted with an amusement marked with something more. Respect, unless Angelika missed her guess.
“Sounds like Kasia. Was she afraid of you?” Angelika had been worried about that happening.
Kasia could be a little too quick to trust sometimes, but even she probably knew better than to immediately fall in with wolf sh
ifters who pinned her down in the middle of France. “I should’ve gone with you. If she’d seen me—”
He shook his head. “I told her you were with us.”
Pain ebbed into her heart, but not from rejection. Kasia hadn’t rejected her, Angelika had no concern about that. She knew her sister too well. “She didn’t want to put me in danger. Is that it?”
He shrugged. “With the dragon listening to her side of it, we couldn’t have a detailed conversation. But yes, I think that was part of it.”
Angelika didn’t miss the qualification. “What’s the other part?”
“I got the impression that she is going with the dragon shifter willingly.” Bleidd watched her with the steady gaze she’d come to expect from him. One that usually soothed her jumbled mess of emotions, especially after her mother’s death. But not right now.
Hands on her hips, Angelika lowered her chin, staring at the leaf-covered ground but not seeing. “I guess we wait and watch, then.”
“Yes.” Bleidd gave her arm a squeeze and walked back over to the men, leaving her to her thoughts.
What are you doing, Kasia?
…
Taking Kasia’s hand, Brand tried to lead her away but had to stop when she jerked on his arm.
“You’re hurt!”
“I’ll be fine.” He brushed off her concern, more worried about getting their asses out of there double-quick.
Those wolves could come back.
But she stubbornly dug in her heels. Literally, her sneakers sank into the soft dirt. Kasia grabbed his injured arm, inspecting the wound closely, and tsking to herself as she did. Brand, meanwhile, held on to his patience, and his inappropriate reaction as her gentle touch stirred things inside him—things like a yearning he didn’t fucking need.
He yanked his arm back, and she snapped her narrowed gaze up to his, mouth hanging open on a squeak of protest. He refused to feel like he’d kicked a puppy or squashed a butterfly. She was tougher than she let on.
“Dragons heal fast. The bleeding has already stopped,” he said.
“Right.” A wall of indifference slammed down over her eyes as she took a step back from him, putting a distance there that should make no difference to him. “Lead on.”
Brand spun on his boot heel and marched off through the trees to the clearing where they’d landed earlier. The one where he’d shifted last night when he’d scouted the area for a place to stay while she slept peacefully in the car.
Those wolves could’ve taken her then.
He gritted his teeth and shoved aside the disturbing thought that did him no good now.
“Can you even fly?” She was laying on the sarcasm with a trowel and a heavy hand now.
“Worried about plummeting to your death?” he flung back.
“Yes.”
Well, now he felt like a total dick. “I’ll be fine.” He repeated his earlier words.
“And the leg?”
She’d noticed that as well? He’d been doing his best not to limp.
She glanced down at where his jeans were plastered to his skin with blood, saliva, and probably knitting into the skin as it healed. That’d be painful as hell when he finally fixed it.
“I don’t need a leg to fly.” Mostly.
“No. Just to land.” That smart mouth again. He could think of better uses for it.
“By the time we get to where we’re going, it’ll be strong enough for a landing.” He hoped.
“Good, because I don’t relish the thought of being smooshed like a bug under a dragon who rolls on top of me when his leg buckles.” Her tone implied that she thought him a moron but that she was done arguing.
Fine by him.
Kasia stood to the side, and he took the hint and shifted. But he didn’t take into consideration his emotional state—fury and a kick-to-the-balls type of worry for her had been roiling inside him like a festering cauldron since she cocked that shotgun. The second he was fully formed, Brand lost all control of the feral beast that lurked inside.
He lowered his head to fix her with a furious gaze and snarled.
Color drained from her face, leaving the freckles across her nose and even her shoulders to stand out in stark relief. “Brand?” Her voice shook slightly.
Brand didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
Don’t run. If she did, she’d trigger his predator instinct, not that he’d hurt her, but he’d chase and scare the shit out of her. Only he couldn’t get the thought through the haze of anger holding him hostage.
Thankfully, she held her ground, watching him closely, muscles quivering. “Brand,” she tried again.
Then she gasped as he lunged for her. Only he didn’t pounce or bite. Instead, he snaked over to her and rubbed his snout against her side.
“Whoa!” she said as the animal he turned into—still out of control, still driven entirely by elemental needs—communicated his concern and anger through physical touch that she’d put herself in danger. Something Brand had held himself back from doing when in human form, able to apply logic.
“Um? What’s going on?” Clearly having a massive, horned creature snuggle Kasia up was a disconcerting experience.
Only Brand still couldn’t speak. Not while he was like this.
After a minute, she patted his snout. “Are you okay?”
Brand snorted. Was he okay? Gods, the woman scored a zero on self-preservation.
Brand did his best to wrest control over his body from his more instinctually driven self, but the dragon wasn’t done. He wrapped around Kasia, lying on the ground and tucking his tail so that she was surrounded. Protected.
He should have protected her, not sent her off alone. The realization struck home like a hard punch to the chest. An assortment of reactions swirled inside him—shock, irritation, and not a small amount of guilt for not having watched after her the way he should have.
But mostly shock.
It almost seemed as though the man he was and the animal he became had split. Not that the dragon and he were separate creatures. Hell, they couldn’t be separated. He was the dragon. But the animal side of his nature wanted to claim Kasia, while the logical man knew giving her to Ladon was a crucial step in the revenge he’d sought for so long. He needed that dragon clan in his corner.
The day he’d watched as Uther beheaded his mother and father and murdered his brothers, Brand had sworn he’d kill the man—somehow, someday. He’d been only ten at the time. Using a secret tunnel, he’d managed to escape. The second he’d left his family’s mountain in Norway, the mark on his hand disappeared.
He’d gone to the Blue Clan, the closest to them, and begged asylum only to be turned away by King Thanatos. That’s when he’d met a boy of similar age and together, they’d agreed: when they were old enough and strong enough, they’d take it all back and make those who’d betrayed them—belittled them and stolen their riches—pay.
Granted, things had taken a little longer than expected. Centuries longer.
Now here he stood with a phoenix. Was he going to have to fight his own needs, Kasia’s insistence on making a choice, and the gut-level drives of the powerful creature locked inside him?
Suddenly, Kasia reached out, placing a hand against his snout, her touch warm, even through his scales. “I’m okay,” she whispered. “I promise.”
He lifted his head and gently nudged her, almost in thanks, even giving a low purring sound of satisfaction, despite Brand’s struggle to stop himself.
They needed to get out of there. Those wolves could return at any second, or more vamps, or dragons, or any other damn thing. But the wolves were his primary concern right now. They’d already proved to be ingenious when it came to sneaking up on a dragon shifter. Not an easy thing to do. He still wanted to know how he’d missed them twice. Vampires were harder, their scent subtler, and they traveled i
n smaller groups. But wolves he should’ve known before he’d even gotten to the car. Finally, he managed to rein in the animal, allowing his more logical human nature to take charge again.
Or had her touch soothed the savageness inside him?
Fuck-a-doodle-doo. Nothing he could do about it right now.
But at least he had control. Brand uncurled his body from around her, then lowered himself to the ground so she could climb on.
“We need to go. Now.”
Neither of them said anything until they were airborne and had gained altitude. As soon as he leveled off, she started with the questions he had no doubt were building up since the wolves left.
“I thought you said it was dangerous to fly right now. Other dragons,” she called.
The wind snatched the words from her mouth, but his heightened hearing caught every sound. “My car has been identified, and apparently everyone after you knows you’re with me. Those damn wolves have caught us twice. The vamps followed us. We’re not safe on the ground any more than we are in the air. But we need to clear out of this place faster than driving will allow.”
“So now what? We fly to Ladon’s?”
“No. We make it to a place I know is…safe.” Mostly safe, he amended in his head. But she didn’t need to know that the best place he could think of to take them didn’t come with that guarantee. “The guy there is someone I trust.”
You trust someone?
Brand wasn’t entirely sure he caught those words, they were so faint, like an echo bouncing off mountain walls. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Huh. Now he was hearing things? “While we’re on the subject of trust… Next time I tell you to run, you fucking run.”
“I did,” she said.
Her innocent act didn’t go over well, and Brand rumbled a frustrated growl before he could control it. “Did your mother not teach you how to run in a straight line?”
“I never did have a good sense of direction,” came her dry retort.
He snorted again. “Funny.”
She shifted her position on his back. From guilt, he hoped. “I wasn’t going to outrun the two sentries they sent after me. I figured we had a better shot together than apart, so I circled back.”