by Riley Storm
Then a deep rumble filled the store.
Chapter Thirteen
Trent
His growl rattled shelves and the trinkets and items on them shed any dust as the angry sound filled the interior of The Dragon’s Treasure.
Trent had come back into Five Peaks to try and sneak back into the shop. He wanted to do some work overnight, to get a head start on it all, so that when Lilly came back in the morning, she would be both surprised but also motivated. He still didn’t entirely approve of the content she was selling, but one thing that had convinced him to help her out was her sincerity.
At every turn, she’d seemed to truly want to help his people with what she was doing. During the repair work he’d done so far, Trent had perused many of the aisles. Everything in the store was dedicated to making dragons appear friendly or good, even heroic in some cases.
Nowhere in sight was there anything negative. None of the ridiculous junk that the Church of the Anti-Wyrm was spewing to its members could be found anywhere in her store. There weren’t even any scary dragons or anything that might be interpreted as ‘evil’. Lilly had chosen very, very carefully what she stocked.
On top of that, Trent had to admire her efforts. She’d been a one-person show for the past two weeks getting it ready, and the store looked great. He still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to do it all, but she must have been operating like a whirlwind. If that were the case, coming in to see that they were getting ahead of schedule—thanks to him—would hopefully make her day.
Plus, maybe she would smile. He loved it when she smiled. It made his entire body feel like he was floating on air when she smiled at him the way she did. That alone would be worth the effort.
Unfortunately, Lilly wasn’t smiling now. She was trembling in fear, a gun pointed in her direction by someone who had no idea who they were messing with. He’d arrived out in front of the store just in time to see Lilly and another woman—a friend, he assumed by their conversation and comfort level—head inside. He’d crept forward, hoping to sneak inside perhaps, preventing him from having to fiddle with the locks or security system.
What he’d found instead left his blood crackling with anger as power surged through him.
Careful of the shop. You need to get them outside somehow so you don’t damage it.
“Who’s there?” one of the masked men shouted, his voice wavering with nervous instability.
That wasn’t good. The more high-strung they were, the more likely that bullets would begin to fly. Trent would emerge from such an encounter unscathed thanks to his dragon skin, but he could not say the same for Lilly or her friend. They had no such protection.
“Get out,” he growled. “Before things get bad. Use the back door, and nobody will get hurt.”
As soon as he spoke, he moved, his voice drifting, making it tougher for the humans to figure out where he was. Trent didn’t want to give them anything that might make them start firing. He needed to do this quietly. Without damage to the shop.
“Go, go,” one of them was saying. “Just go. Take them with us.”
Trent snarled silently at that. The thugs were doing as he wanted, but they were taking Lilly and her friend along as human shields. The women were staying quiet, other than soft whimpers as they were dragged toward the back door.
Stalking like silent death, he followed them through the shop, his eyes easily picking out the quartet of male shapes in the near-dark gloom, along with both Lilly and her friend. As they reached the back door and pushed through it, a spear of light from an outdoor fixture burst through, illuminating Lilly’s face and the fear writ upon it.
Doubling over, Trent fought a silent battle within himself to contain the sudden terrible anger of his dragon. It thrashed and bellowed in blind rage. His head was filled with images of bolts of lightning spearing out, taking the thugs by surprise, seeking routes to their brain through their eyes and their noses. The satisfying thud as their dead bodies collapsed to the floor.
Wind began to swirl around him despite his best efforts, as a fury he’d never known until he saw Lilly’s fearful face filled him to the brink. Power crackled and raced through his body, called upon by him subconsciously, ready to be unleashed upon those who would dare lay a hand upon her.
No! Trent shouted at his other half. We mustn’t. If we do that, she might suffer! I might inadvertently kill Lilly. Or her friend.
His dragon cared not one ounce for her friend, but the thought of hurting Lilly because of his rage slapped it down like a giant hand, the beast tempering its rage, honing it.
When Trent looked up, his eyes were flat, filled with hatred. He strode forward as the last of the thugs moved through the door and into the parking lot at the rear.
Carefully, despite his blistering rage, he pulled open the door, careful to keep it in front of him at first, in case the thugs decided to simply open fire on him.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled, his voice booming out into the open space like thunder cracking across a field. “Why are you targeting this shop?”
No one replied.
“Answer me!” Trent howled, the wind shrieking furiously as it raced in from around, spinning faster, the seven figures at its center. Clouds and fog soon followed after. Whatever happened within would be obscured from those on the outside.
Trent was losing control of himself, and he knew it.
“He’s one of them!” a man shouted.
Trent’s eyes latched on to him. He was the one holding Lilly’s friend. It was then that Trent got a good glimpse at the garb of the attackers. They weren’t masked. They were hooded. Dark red robes fell to their ankles, the color of crimson. Of blood.
These were neophytes from the Church of the Anti-Wyrm. He was sure of it. Now suddenly Trent understood why they had chosen Lilly’s store. These men thought that dragons were a sign of the End Times. A coming of the Apocalypse.
“Let them go,” Trent said quietly, his still voice filling the circle left free of wind, debris, and fog. “Do that and nobody gets hurt.”
His dragon thrashed at that pronouncement, but Trent yanked hard with his willpower, retaining control. Lilly was his priority. He had to keep her safe.
“No way, man,” the same man holding Lilly’s friend said. “We do that, you fry us. We’re not dumb. They’re our only way out of here. You back off, and once we’re clear, we let them go.”
“Unacceptable,” Trent said flatly. His eyes tracked over to Lilly. “It’ll be okay. Just stay calm. I’ll protect you.”
“I can’t believe she’s friends with one of them,” another man, one without a hostage, said viciously under his breath. “We should take them all out, if you ask me.”
“That,” Trent growled. “Would be unwise. But you’re welcome to try, if you think you can succeed. I guarantee, however, that you at a minimum will not survive it. Choose wisely.”
The acolyte went quiet.
“I thought not,” Trent said in disgust, turning back to the leader of the group. “Let them go, nobody gets hurt. Final offer.”
In their nervousness, the men were starting to move without thinking, more concerned with Trent than they were with the women. Which was precisely how he wanted it. The one holding Lilly had even begun to point his gun at Trent. Now, only the leader remained aware of what was going on, his weapon still pointed at the other woman.
Trent needed a distraction.
His eyes scanned the interior of the circle until he found what he wanted. A rock a little bigger than his fist. It was large enough to resist the circling winds, but when Trent targeted it with a thought, a targeted gust caused it to rise. A savage jerk of his mind and the winds sent the rock tumbling across the parking lot.
The gun came away from the unknown woman’s head, and Trent thrust both hands forward with a savage shout.
Winds gusted, barreling into the two men without hostages, while twin bolts of lightning shot from his hands, sinking into the chests of the other pai
r, hurling them backward. One of the guns went off by accident, discharging blindly into the air. Trent winced, hoping nobody would be hurt by the bullet.
“Get back inside,” he said as Lilly and her friend ran for him. “Lock the door. I’ll knock four times in a row to let you know it’s me.”
“O-okay,” Lilly stuttered as they raced past him and into her shop.
The door locked behind them with an audible click.
“Now,” Trent said as the two outer men picked themselves up after being bowled over by the wind. “Where were we?”
He moved, a blur of motion as he closed on the nearest acolyte, too fast for the man to target. They were human and not Enhanced, so he couldn’t kill them, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t inflict pain. Lots of pain.
An arm broke. Shoulder was ripped from its socket. One rib. A second. Four. Trent snarled as he pulled his savage punches, blows that could kill a human if he struck with his full power. Instead he simply inflicted agonizing pain.
Then, he watched with vicious satisfaction as his target crumpled to the ground, unconscious, unable to bear such torment to his body. He didn’t even have time to scream.
“Your turn,” Trent said, turning slowly to face the remaining target. The two hit by lightning bolts would survive, but they were no threat to him.
There was a tremendous blast of sound, and Trent jerked as something slammed into his shoulder with ferocious strength.
“Ow,” he snarled. “Those things can’t kill me, but they still hurt.”
He tilted his head at the grin on the acolyte’s face. Why was the man smiling so maniacally? Did he not know that dragons were bulletproof?
Blinding agony abruptly filled Trent’s mind, and he had to work hard to shunt it aside as he fell to one knee. Glancing down at his upper chest, he saw bright red spreading across the right side.
His gaze snapped up. The acolyte had Agency tech. Bullets tipped with dragon scales designed for one purpose and one purpose only. To kill dragons.
The man lifted the gun and fired again, but Trent was done taking it lightly. He moved left, gestured brusquely with one hand and a gust of wind swept in and spun the shooter around, disorienting him. Trent closed in, his fingers wrapping around the man’s wrist and squeezing.
Bone shattered.
This time, the man was able to scream.
“Where did you get this?” Trent snarled, leaning over the man, blood dripping from his shirt as he did, striking the nearby ground for emphasis.
The man shook.
“Where did you get it?” His voice was filled with a fury Trent had never heard before.
The man fainted.
“Useless,” Trent spat, flinging him away to land in a heap on top of the leader, who was lying still, his hood having fallen back upon landing, revealing a face burnt from the impact of the lightning bolt.
Pain sliced through his brain fog at the move, using muscles that had been ripped by the bullet. He would heal from it, but damn it hurt. A lot.
Holding the arm tight to his side, he returned to the door and knocked on it four times and waited for Lilly to answer.
I need to get word back to the others. Let them know what the Church is up to.
Assuming it was the Church of the Anti-Wyrm itself and not some renegade group within it. This would represent a major step up for them, and Trent wasn’t sure that was their style. Maybe these men were just trying to prove themselves. To show they were worthy. He didn’t know. That would be for others to figure out.
They could hunt down whoever was supplying the weapons and destroy them.
He heard a voice come faintly through the door. “Trent?”
“It’s me,” he rumbled, knocking four times again. “It’s all okay now.”
The door flung open, forcing him to take a quick step back, which jerked the muscles of his arm. He hissed in pain.
“Trent, are you okay?” Lilly asked, face concerned. Her eyes tracked down to his chest. “Oh my god, you’ve—”
With a snarl completely devoid of anger Trent stepped forward, wrapped his good arm around Lilly’s waist and lifted her up, pressing her against the door jamb so he could kiss her. Thoroughly.
Lilly was okay, and that was all that mattered.
“Um, hi. I’m Claire. Nice to meet,” a voice said from next to them.
Chapter Fourteen
Lilly
She let Trent kiss her for a few more seconds before reality rudely intruded on the hotness of the moment, calming the searing flames that Trent’s kiss had awoken deep within her stomach.
Her eyes lifted high, and she pulled her head away. “You’ve been shot!” she yelped, her brain clearing suddenly.
“I will heal,” Trent assured her. “You can trust me on that. It is not life threatening.”
Lilly frowned, but he nodded at her confidently. Lilly relaxed into his grip, but she kept eyeing the bullet hole uncomfortably.
“And also, I’m Claire.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lilly said as she eventually slithered out of Trent’s grasp, feet touching the ground as she examined his wound. “We heard you the first time you tried to interrupt.”
“Interrupt? I was just trying to be polite,” Claire said with a snicker.
They were bantering to cover up the fear of what had just happened. They both knew it. Neither cared. They’d been doing much of the same with the door closed before Trent had come back. It was their coping mechanism, and it would have to do for now.
“Claire, call the sheriff’s department,” Lilly said. “And tell them to send EMS.”
“No EMS,” Trent said, waving it off. “No sheriff. I can handle this one.”
Lilly stiffened at his tone. “Did you…?”
He frowned down at her. “Kill them? No, of course not. I hurt them. A lot. But they’ll live. The sheriff’s department will get them, but there’s one sheriff in particular who more so understands things with us. I will call her.”
“What do you mean, more so understands you?”
Trent shrugged then winced in pain regretfully. “She’s mated to a dragon,” he said distractedly, reaching into a pocket for his phone and pulling it out. “Are any of you hurt?”
“No,” Lilly said, shaking her head. “Only you.”
She busied herself with ripping his shirt back away from the wound while he made the phone call. Lilly was no nurse or doctor, and she had no idea what she was looking at, but it seemed like a good idea to her. It had mostly stopped bleeding, which she assumed was good. He wasn’t going to bleed out, though his shirt was ruined. It would have to come off at some point.
For a moment, she had an impolite thought about how ‘unfortunate’ that was, then she dismissed it. Trent had been shot. Now was not the time for her to smile at the idea of getting to see him shirtless. The image would be spoiled by all the blood.
“Who the heck were those guys?” Claire asked when Trent hung up. “Church of the what?”
“Church of the Anti-Wyrm,” Lilly spat. “Dragon haters. They think the dragons are the harbingers of darkness, the bringers of the end times. The earth will split asunder and man shall perish, etc.”
“Ah. Crazies,” Claire said.
“Basically.”
“I’m not sure if they were of the Church or not,” Trent said. “They were dressed of it, but it’s too brazen for the Church. If they were caught, it would be bad for them.”
“You’re not thinking like a crazy,” Lilly said, shaking her head. “I’ve had a couple of interactions with them. They aren’t pleasant, and they don’t care. If they were caught, the men would either be praised as martyrs, or cries would go out that the police are corrupt too. There’s no losing for these guys.”
Trent considered her words. “Perhaps.”
“Trust me. They spray painted the front of my store a week ago with some of their ‘scripture,’ if you can call it that.”
“This is a big step up from that,” Trent pointed o
ut. “Still, I’m going to have to track it down, see who they’re working with, or for. They have weapons they shouldn’t. That in itself means something is afoot.”
“Does that mean you’re leaving us?” Lilly asked, glancing at Claire before looking up at him, concerned both for themselves but also for Trent. He had been shot, after all.
“No,” he said immediately. “My first concern now is to ensure that the two of you are okay.”
“We are,” Lilly assured him. “Shaken up, yes. But no actual harm done, thanks to you. We just want to get our stuff and go home.”
“Okay,” Trent said, nodding. “As long as they didn’t do anything to you.”
“You arrived right as they grabbed us,” Lilly said. “They didn’t have time.”
Trent smiled.
“But I don’t get it. Why were you here?” she asked abruptly. “Were you stalking me?”
“No,” he said with a laugh. “Sorry to disappoint you. But I was going to sneak into the store and do some work overnight. To surprise you tomorrow.”
Claire coughed loudly, though it sounded to Lilly that underneath it all was a covered up ‘see!’ She elbowed her friend. Now was not the time for that.
“Hey, Trent,” she said as they gathered up their stuff, both what she’d come back for and what they’d dropped during the fracas. “I, um, I have a question for you.”
“Dragons heal fast,” he said, following them toward the front door. “Much faster than humans. Stitches would be a waste.”
“Oh,” she said, pausing at the alarm to punch in her code. “No, not that actually.”
“Well, what then?”
They all hurried out the front door as she locked it behind her.
“Actually,” she said, stuffing the keys back in her purse. “I was wondering if maybe you could, um, walk us home?”
“Well, of course,” Trent rumbled, glancing at her as if he’d not considered any other course of action.
“Great. Thanks,” she said, smiling at him.
The trio started off in silence, Trent walking along a pace behind the two of them, allowing Lilly to stay close to Claire. Although she wasn’t going to leave her friend, she found herself longing for the warmth of Trent’s embrace. For the protection his presence offered. She had felt safe and secure in his arm when he’d picked her up after the fight, as if simply having one of his limbs wrapped around her would protect her from the outside world.