Dragon's True Mate (Dragons of Mount Atrox Book 1)

by Riley Storm

  Steeling herself, she walked up to the van and opened the sliding door on the passenger side. When she didn’t immediately get inside, the gunman walked up to her and shoved the barrel in her back.

  “Inside.”

  She did as ordered, and he bodily closed the door behind her, nearly catching her ankle in it.

  Lilly yanked her foot out of the way and sat on the floor, the first row of seats having been removed. The gunman walked around the front and got in the driver’s seat. Lilly thought about making a break for it, but fear left her paralyzed. She wasn’t trained for this. She needed someone who was.

  Come on, Trent. It doesn’t take this long to get food. Where are you? Wake up and realize something is wrong.

  Trent!

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Trent

  He looked up as something tickled at his senses.

  “All good out there?” he called, looking towards the door.

  The feeling that something was wrong continued to push down on him. It had come on so strongly, so quickly, that he couldn’t ignore it. Hurrying to throw on his boxers, Trent pulled open the office door.

  “Lilly?” he called, not seeing anyone at the front door.

  The knot of fear that coalesced in his stomach was born of an instinct that Trent had long ago learned not to ignore. He strode quickly to the front door, looking around. There was no sign of Lilly nor of any food. A quick test of the air revealed nothing food-like, just Lilly—

  And another familiar scent!

  His fear bubbling over, Trent burst through the front door just in time to see a white panel van squeal out of a parking space next door. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was sure that Lilly was inside.

  Behind the wheel would be the other person he’d scented at the door. One of the gunmen who had invaded the store a week before.

  He snarled angrily at himself for having been so lenient, for the way he’d let the men off the hook without killing them. He wasn’t going to make that mistake a second time. If they so much as harmed a hair on Lilly, he would tear them limb from limb and beat them to a bloody death as punishment.

  The world around him turned red as Trent started chasing after the van, his bare feet slapping hard against the pavement. It was midday on a Saturday, and the crowds had descended upon Five Peaks in thick throngs already. He simply couldn’t go fast enough with the risk of hurting someone.

  “Out of the way!” he bellowed as he ran, dodging those people who were too slow to move out of his path.

  The van was getting away, able to move faster down the streets than he could on the sidewalk.

  “Fine,” he growled and angled between two parked cars out onto the street to chase after her.

  A horn blared from behind Trent. He had a split second to wince, realizing he’d not looked for any oncoming traffic, and then a delivery van plowed into him from behind, sending him bouncing and rolling across the asphalt, the scrape of it like sandpaper against his skin.

  “Holy shit!” someone exclaimed. “Call 911!”

  Trent shook his head and got to his feet as a crowd closed in. The blow had stunned him momentarily, and he blinked, realizing he was facing the wrong direction, then turned and took off after the van again.

  Or tried to. The crowd was too large, pressing in from all sides as people came to help, and others came to watch.

  “Are you okay, dude? You just got hammered by the truck!”

  Behind him, the driver of the truck swung out from his cab. “Are you okay? Man, I am so sorry! But what were you thinking, just jumping out in front of me like that?”

  “Mister, you should lie down,” an older lady said as she came closer. “You don’t know what you might have hurt.”

  “I’m a doctor!” another man cried. “Let me through!”

  “I know CPR!” someone else exclaimed.

  “911 is on their way,” an anonymous voice in the crowd called out.

  “Get back,” Trent said, trying to move without hurting anyone. “I have to go.”

  Lilly needed him right now.

  “Your skin. That was a bad fall, mister. You should lay down,” the old lady repeated.

  “Here, let me take a look at you,” the doctor said as he pushed his way through the crowd.

  “Get away from me, I’m fine,” Trent said, turning wildly, looking for an escape as the press of people grew tighter. The street was blocked. Vehicles hammering on their horns to get through, the sound mixing with the clamor of people who had just witnessed something out of the ordinary.

  “I said sit down,” a voice said in his ear.

  Dozens of cameras were pointed in his face. Trent was beginning to panic. He’d lost sight of the panel van. Where had it gone? It had Lilly. She was in danger!

  The panic gave way to anger.

  “Stand back!” he bellowed, throwing his arms out to the side.

  As he did, he let some of his dragon come through. Wings burst from his shoulders, and blue scales rippled across his mostly bare body, covering him in their protective embrace. Horns jutted from his head, and he grew by several feet and several hundred pounds until he towered over the crowd.

  The press around him simply evaporated as people pulled back. Most of it was in shock at the unexpected appearance and, for a long handful of seconds, nobody did anything.

  “Clear a path!” Trent shouted at the frozen crowd of onlookers, hoping his new appearance would lend him further authority so that he could get going after Lilly before she was lost to him completely. “Now!”

  Some people pulled away, but most just stared.

  “It’s a dragon!” someone cried out.

  Almost immediately, the cry was repeated up and down the street. The surge of people trying to get close to him redoubled, and Trent realized his mistake. By revealing himself to the people, he’d hoped they would back away, either in fear or respect, or simply because he’d asked them to.

  He’d forgotten that these were not residents of Five Peaks but dragon watchers. The massed crowds of people who had descended upon the city in hopes of seeing exactly what he’d just given them.

  A dragon.

  He might not be fully shifted, but it was the closest these people had ever gotten to seeing the real thing since the announcement on television by one of the Valen clan. Phones appeared in every hand, most people videoing it.

  Questions came at him in a barrage, and people were forced closer due to the press of those in the back row who wanted a better view. Trent was getting hemmed in on all sides.

  “Screw this,” he snarled and reached for the sky.

  There wasn’t time to dawdle. He had more important things to do than pose for a photo op.

  His mate was in trouble, and Trent was going to save her.

  He was going to show up.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Lilly

  Her driver guided the van into a darkened garage or warehouse of some sort, Lilly wasn’t sure which. She was too busy wishing she had more courage.

  With his one hand broken, the driver was forced to balance the gun on his ruined hand while he drove with the other. It was in easy reach, but for the entire drive it hadn’t been pointed at her. Anyone else would have gone for it, she was positive. They would have taken it and set themselves free.

  Instead of doing something heroic like that, however, she’d sat in the only row of seats at the back and done absolutely nothing, terrified. Maybe it was the smart move, but she couldn’t be certain.

  Get a grip. He has a gun. You don’t fight back against that.

  The van came to a stop, interrupting her internal dialog of rational thought versus irrational desire to do something.

  “We’re here. Get out,” her driver said, awkwardly opening his door and grabbing the gun.

  Lilly swallowed, her throat dry, and reached for the door. Her hands were shaking, she realized. Was this the end of her? Was she going to be marched onto a plastic tarp, shot, and then
disposed of, like in some sort of gangster movie? How had it come to this?

  “Please, listen,” she said as someone yanked open the side door. “We can come to some sort of arrangement, I’m sure. We can work something out. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Oh, please. Get out,” a voice said from somewhere inside the dimly lit area outside the van. “We’re not going to shoot you.”

  “I don’t know,” a belligerent part of Lilly said, surprising her. “Sending a man with a gun to kidnap me sort of says differently.”

  “It’s a force multiplier,” the voice said tiredly. “To ensure you came along. Alone.”

  “Yeah, because you know that if Trent were here, you’d all be fucked,” she spat, getting out of the van, her curiosity getting the better of her. She wanted to know who was behind her kidnapping.

  “Au contraire,” said the man, an elderly, thick-bodied fellow whose stomach was stretching the brightly colored Hawaiian shirt to its limits.

  He had gray hair that sat limply on top of his head and a watery gaze that did little to instill fear. Yet somehow his aura told her that he was the one she should fear most.

  Perhaps it was the pair of men at his side, both of whom appeared uninjured and were holding weapons of their own. Or maybe it was the dozen other men lingering around the warehouse, all clearly armed, armored, and screaming ‘threat’ to her senses.

  Could be both, she thought wryly and then shook herself, focusing on the man. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

  The elderly man chuckled. Lilly’s blood ran cold as she listened to the maniacal cackle of a man clearly unhinged.

  This can’t be good.

  “You? You’re nothing to me. Nothing except bait,” the man hissed, blue-green eyes gleaming with something bordering on insanity, if not already there. “The lure that will bring me my true desire.”

  “Bait?” Lilly repeated, confused. “Lure what? Nobody knows I’m here. I’m not anyone. The only person who might come after me is…”

  She trailed off suddenly as the man’s eyes focused on her with terrifying intensity.

  “Is your dragon lover,” he said, chuckling. “Yes. Precisely. And boy, what a welcome he will get. The first of many to come, I promise you. I’ve learned much over the past year, oh yes. Much indeed. Since the first time I met any of them. Since I was first humiliated by their kind. Now though, now I will strike back! And the dragon world will learn to fear my name. They will rue the day they ever messed with Wilson!”

  Lilly stared blankly. She’d never heard of the man, but he was clearly harboring quite the grudge against the dragons.

  “How do you expect to harm him?” she asked casually. “You know he can shoot lightning from his fingertips, right? That he’s stronger than all of you. Faster too. Not to mention bigger. Probably in all aspects.”

  Wilson continued to chuckle that insane chuckle of his, the wavery nature of it sending chills down her spine. This man was well and truly unhinged.

  The warehouse had few windows at ground level, but the tops of the walls were mostly transparent, letting the natural light in to the cavernous, empty area. As Wilson laughed, Lilly saw something swoop past, momentarily blocking out windows one by one along the far side.

  She wasn’t the only one to see it either.

  The armed men shouted an alarm, everyone turning to look.

  That was when Trent came bursting through the adjacent wall. He didn’t walk through it. No, he flew right through the steel walls, making them appear little stronger than matchsticks. A pair of men were sent flying by the impact. It wasn’t the human Trent that came through either, but a full blown dragon, stretching nearly seventy feet from head to tail.

  Its wings spread wide as it landed, the head snaking forward and snatching up one of the guards in its mouth and shaking him violently before tossing him clear across the warehouse.

  “Let. Her. Go,” the gigantic beast said in a dark, ominous voice.

  Thunderclouds appeared high above Lilly in the rafters of the warehouse, a deep rumbling filling the cavernous space, promising a storm to come.

  “Hold your fire!” Wilson shouted as his guards gathered themselves to strike back. “Hold.”

  “Smart move,” Trent said, his dragon tail flicking wildly behind him as she watched. “Now you get to live.”

  Wilson didn’t grovel, however. He didn’t even appear surprised. Instead, he laughed his laugh.

  “Oh, I intend to live,” Wilson cackled. “It’s you who will die.”

  Yellow eyes narrowed, the vertical pupils focusing on Wilson. “Do I know you?”

  “My name is Wilson, and I will have my revenge!” the man shouted, his bulging stomach nearly popping buttons from his tropical shirt.

  Lilly frowned at that. It really wasn’t the outfit of a master criminal intent on killing off dragons. Then again, she didn’t really have much experience with them, so maybe this was standard dress code.

  Trent’s dragon head turned to face her. “It’s going to be okay,” he said quietly.

  “But it won’t,” Wilson countered.

  “Yes, it will,” Trent growled.

  “How can you know that?” Wilson said, his voice brimming with laughter. “You don’t know what you’re up against.”

  “I know,” Trent replied, “Because I love her. And love always wins.”

  Lilly felt like she’d just been hit by a hammer blow of emotion. He loved her? Her? Short, thick, partial-failure Lilly? She was beyond flattered.

  “Love,” Wilson spat. “Pah.”

  “Yes, love,” the dragon countered, his eyes still focused on her. “I haven’t gone through this journey of personal revelation and understanding just to lose my love to some punk criminal who can’t let things go.”

  “You know me?” Wilson asked, astonished.

  “Oh, yes. The entire dragon community knows of your pathetic interference last year. You need to let it go, though, Wilson. You need to move on. Forgive. Forget. Learn how to grow from the past and make yourself better in the future. I’ve done it; you can too. Now, just let her go.”

  Wilson threw back his head and laughed. “Don’t you get it, dragon scum? I have learned. I have come back better than before. I didn’t have the knowledge or the tools a year ago. Now I have both, and you will suffer. Your entire kind will suffer for what you’ve done to me.”

  Trent looked around the room at the guards. “Yes, I can see you’ve outfitted yourself with some Agency castoffs and stolen goods.”

  “That’s right!” Wilson cackled. “These things can pierce your armor. They can kill you. No longer do we have to be afraid!”

  The dragon sighed. “What is it with humans and not thinking things through when they want to do us harm?”

  “Are you saying you’re not in danger?” Lilly asked, finding her voice at last, the shock of Trent’s statement about his feelings finally wearing off enough for her to speak.

  “From this punk and his hired goons? Not really,” Trent said with a shrug.

  “Did you miss the part where I told you that our guns have dragon-piercing bullets?” Wilson shouted. “You will suffer!”

  Trent glanced at him then back at Lilly.

  She frowned. There was something in the expression. The set of his eyes perhaps. Something that she could almost interpret. It looked like he was asking her a question. Something about Wilson.

  No, not just Wilson, but the criminal and his hired manpower. Trent wanted to know something about them. Something…

  Ah.

  Lilly smiled. “You tried,” she said softly, preparing to move.

  Trent bared his dragon teeth. “I did, my love. But you’re still in danger.”

  “Do what you must,” she whispered and then dove under the van.

  There was a mighty roar, and the sound of many guns opening up.

  A moment later, the screams began.

  Lilly couldn’t see much. She saw the dragon launch itself f
orward. Something bright hit a pair of booted feet nearby, and she closed her eyes a moment too late. When her vision finally cleared, only the boots remained, charred and blackened. The owner was nowhere to be seen, though a fine cloud of black dust was slowly accumulating on the floor.

  She saw Trent’s long tail whip around, and a meaty impact made her wince. A split second later, something crashed through a metal wall. Lilly had an idea what it might be.

  Gunfire continued to bellow, forcing her to clamp her hands over her ears it was so loud. The ground shook as the dragon rampaged around the warehouse. More flashes of light left her vision stunned and blurry.

  The roar of sound slowly died down until she felt confident enough to remove her hands from her ears. Only a few guns were going off now, and as she listened, there were more unpleasant sounds. The van shook as someone climbed into it—or onto it, she amended—as Trent turned and slashed at the person with a claw.

  Lilly swallowed down bile as blood covered the beige concrete floor behind her. She resolutely looked away as something toppled off the van onto the ground. There were some things she just did not need to see.

  An unknown amount of time later, she realized she could hear nothing more. Silence reigned.

  “Trent?” she called nervously.

  “You can come out now,” he said.

  She emerged to see Trent in his dragon form, standing amid a sea of bodies. His dragon form was covered in tiny wounds, bits of blood streaming from a hundred different places. The flanks of the mighty creature rose and fell at an accelerated pace. One eye was closed.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, rushing over to him, resolutely ignoring the carnage around her.

  “I will be,” he promised, lowering his head and the good eye to her. “Just need to heal.”

  “Can you shift?” she asked.

  “I won’t. That’s what Wilson didn’t understand. In my human form, they would have caused great harm and damage. In this form though, not so much. The Agency didn’t create the weapons expecting to fight us in our dragon form, because at the time we were so focused on hiding, on preventing public knowledge of us. Now though…”

  “Now you can do as you need to.”