by Donna Grant
“Are you there, Banan? Don’t tell me you’re too angry to speak. I thought you were the one Dragon King who didn’t allow emotion into his life.”
Banan took a deep breath and swung his gaze to Rhys and Guy, who had moved closer to him. He lowered the phone and put it on speaker so everyone could hear.
“Who are you?” Banan demanded of the caller.
The man laughed softly. “Oh, you’ll never figure that out. Trust me. But, that’s not why I’m calling. I’m calling because I have a sweet morsel in my possession.”
“Leave Jane alone,” Banan stated angrily.
It was too long since he’d felt the need for battle. How Banan longed for it now. He wanted to shift, to spread his wings and take to the sky. He yearned to use his dragon sight to hunt down the scum who dared to touch Jane.
And then Banan would rip him apart with his teeth.
“Jane got herself in this situation,” the man said. “Or should I say you got her in this. It was you, after all, who sent her searching in Richard’s desk. It was you who got to know her. If only you’d left her alone, then we would’ve left her alone. She is quite the beauty, I must say.”
“If you’ve laid one hand on her!” Banan bellowed.
“He’s been following Jane,” Guy mouthed. “It’s the only explanation.”
Banan hated that his friend was probably right.
The man’s laughter cut through Banan’s thoughts. “What are you going to do? Not even your MI5 friend could help you. With all your power, with all your magic…with all your immortality, you’re powerless, Banan. I’m going to make sure each of the Kings feels such helplessness. And I’m starting with you.”
“Why?”
In answer, Banan heard a scream, a scream he recognized as Jane’s. His gut twisted, and anguish snaked through him.
“Jane has given us all the information we need. Her time is up,” the man said.
“Nay!” Banan yelled, but it was too late. The call had ended.
The mobile fell from his numb fingers to bounce on the carpet. Jane was still alive, but not for very long. He had precious few moments to find her.
There was no longer time to call the Warrior Broc. There was only one way Banan could find Jane.
He lifted his gaze to find Rhys and Guy watching him. There was no need for words. They all knew what had to happen.
“The storm is getting worse,” Rhys said.
Guy nodded. “It’ll be to your advantage, Banan.”
“They’ll never expect you.”
“Nay, they willna,” Banan said, and removed his boots and socks.
“Uh…not to interrupt,” Elena said as she moved to stand beside Guy. “But what the hell are you three talking about?”
Banan smiled weakly. “I’m going to risk everything we are as Dragon Kings.”
“Oh, God,” Elena said, and covered her mouth with her hand.
Rhys took off his shoes as well and rubbed his hands together. “I’m coming with you. No way I’m going to miss this.”
“Nay,” Banan said. “I’m risking too much. I might be able to get away with it, but there’s no way people will miss two dragons in the sky.”
“You’re no’ going alone.” The smile was gone from Rhys’s face, and the hard edge of a Dragon King took its place.
Guy opened the door for them. “Go. I’ll contact Con.”
Rhys was the first out the door, but Banan hung back. He looked at Guy and Elena. “Get Elena to safety. Doona risk her life any more.”
“I doona plan on it.”
With a nod to Elena, Banan hurried out of Jane’s building and into the rain. He lifted his face to the sky. It had been a Dragon King’s place to protect the humans, but this night Banan was going to break his oath.
He was going to kill a human. And rejoice in it.
“Come on!” Rhys shouted over the rain.
Banan lowered his head and took off at a run to catch up with Rhys. Together they weaved their way to the outskirts of London. They were too large, as dragons, to shift where they were. It was going to take privacy.
Fortunately for them, the sky had grown even darker, and people were in such a hurry to get out of the rain, they never looked up.
By the time they reached a safe spot, the urgency pushing Banan was too much. He barely spared Rhys a glance before he closed his eyes and shifted.
The change happened in an instant. He turned his great head first one way, then the other. Another second was spent stretching out his wings.
It felt so good to be in dragon form that for just an instant he forgot his mission. All too soon, the memory of Jane’s scream echoed through his mind.
“Ready?” Rhys’s voice sounded in his head.
Banan gave a nod and jumped into the air. The rush of wind as his wings caught a current sent excitement through him. It had been too long since he was in his true form. Too long to deny what he truly was.
It wasn’t right he was getting such a thrill of being in dragon form in order to save the woman who he had fallen in love with.
Banan climbed higher and higher in the sky, soaring in between the clouds as his vision locked on the warehouse area of London. He could see heat signatures through the buildings.
They appeared like bright orange figures, but picking out which one might be Jane wasn’t so easy.
The many passes he made over the warehouses were blurred as he got closer and closer, hoping to see or hear Jane. He’d do anything if he could detect where she was.
His heart clenched when he heard her terrified scream. With a roar, he rolled and turned to fly back the way he had come. She screamed again, and it helped him home in on the warehouse. He gave a roar that was drowned out by thunder.
And then dived toward the warehouse.
Chapter 13
Jane screamed and stumbled backward, tripping over her feet and nearly falling as her eyes locked on Richard Arnold, who pleaded for his life to the thug with the gun. The goon wasn’t the same man who had threatened her earlier, but that made little difference.
Villains were villains, and the one holding the gun—along with his malicious smile—stated just how much he enjoyed killing.
For the briefest of moments, when Richard had walked into the warehouse, Jane had thought he was in charge. It had taken less than a heartbeat to realize he was being dragged to the warehouse kicking and screaming.
Richard was merely a pawn. A gamepiece whoever ran this criminal enterprise was all too happy to be rid of.
“Richard, Richard, Richard,” said a familiar voice from the shadows. “I warned you what would happen if anyone discovered what you were up to.”
Jane searched the darkness for a face. Whoever the man was, he went to great lengths to keep his face from being seen. But why? If they were going to kill her, what did it matter if she saw him?
Richard glanced at her before he looked at the shadowy figure. “Please. You know how valuable I can be to you. My connections—”
“I didna contact you for your connections!” the voice bellowed angrily.
Once more, the brogue was all too clear. Jane took another step back as she tried to distance herself from Richard and the man with the gun.
“She didn’t hear anything!” Richard yelled.
He opened his mouth to say more, but the gun exploded. Jane screamed and watched as red blossomed over Richard’s heart, staining his white shirt.
Richard turned toward her as his legs gave out. He landed hard on his knees, and then fell to the side. His arm was stretched out to her, and his eyes wide.
Jane couldn’t tear her gaze away from him. She’d seen violent movies, but that was nothing compared to seeing someone killed in real life. It was shocking, appalling. Horrifying.
And it was something she would never forget.
Movement from the thug made her look at him. Only to find the gun now pointed at her. She hadn’t understood when they untied her wrists after hours of interrog
ation in which she had lied beautifully, but now she did. They wanted her to run, wanted to chase her. Like some kind of quarry.
Every instinct yelled for her to move, but fear rooted her.
“Banan,” she whispered, hating that she would never see him again.
She drew in a deep, shaky breath and readied for the sound of the gun going off. Instead, something crashed through the top of the warehouse.
Jane turned away, raising her arms to block her face from the shower of debris that fell on her. She stumbled against the back wall and quickly covered her ears against the roar that nearly busted her eardrums.
She chanced a look to see what had happened, and stood in stunned disbelief at the massive midnight blue dragon who now stood in the warehouse. Jane blinked through the torrent of water that drenched her to find the dragon’s gemlike sapphire scales glistening from the rain.
The dragon had a thick body with a long neck and a tail with what looked like a spiked ball at the end of it. The dragon used that tail, whipping it to the side to take out more men Jane had never even known were there.
One of the dragon’s large feet with four digits slammed into the floor as it roared again. It was then she noticed the wings tucked against the dragon’s body along with the rows of tendrils that ran from the base of its skull down its back to the tip of its tail.
She couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at. And then the dragon’s colossal head swung toward her. She let her gaze look from the four horns extending backwards from its forehead to the rows of teeth she glimpsed. Jane knew the instant the dragon’s amber eyes trained on her.
Her heart leaped in her throat. Was this how she would die? Not by a bullet, but by a creature that surely couldn’t exist?
There was movement near her. Jane watched the thug shoving away debris as he gained his feet. He took one look at her and raised his gun.
The dragon let out another deafening roar before it clamped down on the brute with its sharp teeth and tossed him in the air.
Jane followed the thug’s soar, both elated that he was gone and frightened of what would now happen to her. She was about to look away, when she spotted something yellow dip from the sky.
A shriek lodged in her throat when she saw the second dragon, which quickly ate the gunman.
Jane waited until the blue dragon was busy swatting more men with its tail before she began looking for a way out. She fled behind a wall where the roof still covered the warehouse and anxiously looked for some kind of door.
When she found nothing, she turned to retrace her footsteps and found a man standing in her way. His face, along with most of his body, was shrouded in the shadows, but she knew who it was. Despite all the yells from the dying men and the roars of the dragons, this man didn’t seem fazed.
“You aren’t afraid,” she commented.
He shrugged. “It’s not the first time I’ve seen dragons. What do you think of them? Are you frightened, Jane?”
She was terrified, but she wouldn’t tell him that. “Move.”
“So you can leave? Oh, I think not. You’re going to stay to see the end of this. I think you’ll be surprised. Matter of fact, I know it. And I want to see the look on your face when you realize what’s going on. Better than that, I want to see Banan’s face.”
Banan. Jane didn’t know what he had to do with this, but she couldn’t wait to get to him. In his arms she was safe—she knew that with a certainty she couldn’t explain.
It was then she realized the screams of the men had stopped. The only sound was that of a dragon’s deep, heavy breathing, the rain, and the thunder and lightning.
A large drop of rain landed in front of her. Jane slowly lifted her face to find the dragon looking at her from over the top of the wall, which in her haste, she hadn’t noticed didn’t go all the way to the roof.
Her heartbeat grew rapid and harsh as terror took hold. The dragon shifted its gaze, searching the shadows. Jane glanced to where the man had been, only to discover him gone. When her gaze returned to the dragon, she watched his head disappear back over the wall.
Why hadn’t he killed her? It would take just a swipe from his paw to knock down the wall separating them.
Jane took the opportunity to search where she was for a door out, but found nothing. She had no choice but to go back where the dragon waited. Maybe then she could escape without his notice.
She hesitantly walked around the wall and found not just the blue dragon, but also the yellow dragon. They were standing side by side, and their opened wings blocked the majority of the rain.
Jane looked from one to the other. The yellow dragon’s wide, orange eyes looked back at her, and she could have sworn the beast smiled, causing the series of tendril-like sprouts from his chin to move.
There seemed to be no malice coming from either of the dragons, and though the yellow one seemed to have smiled, it was the midnight blue one that drew her attention.
She couldn’t stop shaking from the cool air or the fear that gripped her. She was facing dragons!
Suddenly she recalled the man’s words from earlier. Dragon Kings.
Jane looked at the blue dragon. “Are you a Dragon King?”
To her surprise, he nodded his great head.
She took a step back, her hand over her heart. “How? How are you here? How do you exist?”
The blue looked away, his amber eyes troubled by her questions.
“They are questions I can answer,” said a male voice behind her.
Jane whirled around to see a new form move out of the shadows and into the light. He wore dark slacks and a charcoal gray and deep purple striped button-down. He shoved his hands casually in his front pockets and smiled.
“You must be Jane Holden.”
She looked over her shoulder to see the dragons watching her. When she looked back at the man, she took in his tall form, the muscles not quite hidden by his shirt, and the golden color of his hair. It was his nearly black eyes that penetrated her, which told her this man would not be trifled with.
“Yes,” she answered. “And you are?”
“Constantine. But you can call me Con. I’ve a feeling, Jane, you and I will come to know each other quite well. Banan has spoken highly of you, as have Elena, Rhys, and Guy.”
Jane put her hand to the side of her head. “Stop. Just…stop. There are two dragons behind me, and you aren’t even daunted by them. The other man seems to have just disappeared as well. What the hell is going on?”
Con took another step toward her. “First, the other man you refer to is gone. Unfortunately. But I’ll take care of that later. Second, those dragons are my friends. You know them, actually.”
“The other man said something like that as well. What do you mean?”
Con’s relaxed demeanor changed instantly. “Did you get a look at this man? Did you see his face?”
“No, to both questions. He made sure to keep to the shadows so I never saw him. He said he wanted to be here to see my face when I realized what the dragons were. He said he wanted to see Banan’s face as well. I don’t understand any of it.”
“Nay,” Con said with a sigh. “I’m no’ sure you’re ready for the answers, Jane.”
Con let out a short whistle, and both dragons shook their heads. Jane grew more confused the longer the conversation went on.
“Look. I’m wet and cold. I’ve been kidnapped, roughened up, threatened, and had the fear of God put in me. I just want to find Banan and get home.”
Con glanced at the ground. “A verra long time ago I swore to protect my men at all costs. We gave up everything, but I feared that wouldna be enough. So, I made sure we never developed feelings for mortals. I thought that would solve things.”
“Mortals?” Jane whispered, her brain having trouble deciphering his meaning.
“Jane, look at the dragons.”
She took a hesitant step back, but Con walked to her, placed his hands on her shoulders, and gently turned her to the drago
ns.
“Look at them. What do you see?”
“I saw them kill.” But she couldn’t leave it at that. There had been more, and she needed to admit it. “They didn’t touch me. It was almost as if…” She trailed off, not sure if she could say it.
“What? It was almost as if what?”
“They were protecting me,” she answered in a whisper.
Con leaned close and replied in the same hushed tone, “Because they were.”
“I know them?”
“Aye.”
She stepped away from Con and toward the dragons. Jane hesitantly smiled when the blue dragon shifted his wing to keep her dry. Her gaze swung to the yellow, but it didn’t stay.
The blue was the one who called to her. She continued toward the massive beast until she stood next to its large front foot.
Tentatively, she put her hand on it. The scales were surprisingly warm. And it was then she noticed the dark blue scales on its back slowly faded to a lighter blue on his belly.
“Are you afraid?” Con asked, his voice echoing in the warehouse.
“Yes. And no,” she answered.
She looked up at the blue watching her with its amber gaze, and it was something about those eyes that looked familiar.
It wasn’t the color, but something in the gaze that told her she should know who the dragon was.
But…surely that couldn’t be possible.
Chapter 14
Banan couldn’t look away from Jane’s sweet brown eyes. He had seen her fear while he’d been killing to keep her safe, but there hadn’t been time to calm her.
Now, he wasn’t sure what to do.
He’d seen Hal and Guy show their women their dragon forms, but none had done it while fighting. Jane had seen the worst. His gentle, kind Jane.
All Banan had to do was return to his human form. But did he dare? Could he take the chance of showing her everything he was and not have her run away?
It was because of him that she was involved in such danger. He had promised to keep her safe, when he’d only made things worse.