“Get back over there.” Rikar slashed another rogue to keep the bastard at bay. “I can’t find Lothair and—”
“Mac’ll move her if shit gets critical.”
“Son of a…” Rikar trailed off as he grabbed a Razorback by the tail. Pulling a spin and toss, he hurled the enemy toward the farmhouse below him. The red dragon hit the ground with a crunch and slid, cutting a swath through the paddock, mounding the earth before he smashed into the barn. Wood siding exploded into kindling. “…bitch.”
“Fuck off, Frosty.” Forge breathed out. A stream of orange flame shot from his throat, flashing across the night sky. Bang-on accurate, he torched the pile of rubble beneath the rogue on the ground, lighting the entire mess on fire. “Eye on the ball.”
Freaking Forge. He didn’t care how effective the warrior was with his flamethrower-cum-mouth. He would skin the male alive when this was over.
But first things first. Where the hell was the cavalry? Yeah, he and Forge might be doing the job keeping the rogues at bay, but not by much. It was hard, after all, to KO the enemy while playing defense.
“B,” Rikar growled. “Where the fuck are—”
“On your six,” his commander said, coming in hot. A Razorback squawked, wing-flapping to get out of Bastian’s way. “Shove over.”
No problem.
Rikar flipped, tucking into a tight sideways spiral. Midnight-blue scales streaked in his periphery as his friend arrived, flying in with a shitload of kick-ass and the other Nightfury warriors on his tail. As the pack rolled in, the Razorbacks recoiled. The idiots. They were bold when they outnumbered him ten to one, but give them even odds, it was Retreatsville for the assholes.
Thank fuck. He didn’t have a moment to waste.
Swooping in behind Venom and Wick, he mind-spoke, “B…I’m going cliff-side.”
Bastian grunted, cracking a rogue’s skull. “Get her out of here.”
Amen to that.
As much as he hated to leave the fight, he couldn’t stay. Not with Angela alone and vulnerable up on the ridgeline. Okay, so she wasn’t alone, but Mac was little better than a cub—unsure of his magic, unused to his new body, unable to use his strength to maximum effect. Leaving her with a fledgling male who didn’t have a clue how to cloak himself, never mind her, wasn’t an option.
Especially with Lothair still MIA.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Retreating to the secondary location wasn’t Angela’s idea of fun. Then again, neither was Mac at the moment. Freaking guy and his strong-arm tactics. He’d hauled her off the ground, stealing her rifle before she could get another shot away. Now he dragged her away from the firefight and Rikar, pushing her ahead of him down the rough pathway toward the beachfront.
Crap. The beach wasn’t a place she wanted to go. Bad memories lay in that direction. Especially after spotting Lothair not far from their primary position on the ledge. Angela clenched her teeth and kept her feet moving. She didn’t want to think about the cabin, the river, or the beachfront where Rikar rescued her. Nothing good lay in rehashing it. But as she navigated the steep incline, boot heels sinking into rock shale, blood rushed in her ears and fear came calling.
Her stomach knotted. She swallowed the sudden surge of bile, struggling to keep her footing on unfriendly terrain. Her boots slid on loose stone. Fist-sized rocks rolled down the slope in front of her, kicking up dust, cracking the sides of boulders. Angela grabbed for a handhold, fighting for balance. Her palm slid on the sheer rock wall. A second before she fell, Mac grabbed the back of her army jacket and hauled her upright.
Angela sucked in a breath. “Mac—”
“Keeping moving.” He glanced over his shoulder, scanning the sky.
“We’re sitting ducks out here,” she whispered, her voice an octave lower than usual. Sound carried for miles out here. They were already in Deep-Shitsville. No need to give away their position by being an idiot. “You can fly. Shift and let’s go airborne.”
He shook his head. “Too dangerous.”
She opened her mouth to argue.
Mac drilled her with a look, aqua-blue eyes shimmering in the gloom. “I haven’t trained enough. Shit, I can barely protect myself up there, never mind you. Staying hidden’s our best bet until we get to the water. Once we’re in, no one will be able to touch me, and I’ll swim you to safety. Get you home.”
“But Rikar—”
“Can handle himself.”
True enough. A bird’s-eye view of his lethal abilities from the ridge told her that much. She’d gotten up close and personal through her scope. Watched him hammer enemy dragons…seen him twist and turn, white scales flashing as he went supersonic in flight to dodge Razorback claws. And that was before the other Nightfuries arrived on the scene.
Still, leaving Rikar out there—without her to cover him—made her go cold inside. Not that she’d had much choice in the matter. Proof positive of that was hauling ass behind her. With her M25 slung over his shoulder, leaving her nothing but the twin Glocks holstered on the outsides of her thighs for protection.
The guys had teased her when she’d strapped on the double gun belt, calling her a Lara Croft wannabe. Bet they weren’t laughing now. Mac certainly wasn’t.
Freaking guy…rifle-stealing pain in her ass.
Grabbing her shoulder, Mac pushed her sideways into a low-lying boulder, military-speak for hold up and get down. As he crouched alongside her, he checked the clip in her rifle, chambered a round, and whispered, “Besides, he’ll kick my ass if I go airborne with you.”
“Better an ass-kicking than getting me killed on the ground,” she said, talking smack to ease the tension. Both of them were wound too tight. Life-and-death situations tended to do that to a couple of cops in over their heads. “He’ll nail your—”
“Shut up,” he said even as his lips twitched. “And keep your head down. We’re headed into a straight stretch.”
She peeked over the top of the huge rock. “An open area?”
Mac nodded. “About a hundred yards worth.”
“Crap.”
“No kidding.”
Wonderful. Angela unholstered one of her Glocks and flipped the safety off. Just what they didn’t need, a clearing complete with sheer rock walls. The perfect spot for an ambush.
After double-checking her weapon, she glanced at Mac. “The plan?”
“Shit,” he said. “We’re supposed to have a plan?”
Angela rolled her eyes. Her partner grinned at her, but she could see the strain and knew what he was thinking because…you betcha. She was thinking the same thing. Mac was Dragonkind now, fast healing, hard to kill in a firefight. Crazy durable, unlike her. She was human, packing nothing but her smarts and a couple of Glocks to protect her mortal self while he owned a kick-ass set of claws, armored scales, and a nasty exhale. And that was before she got to the whole magic thing. So, yeah. If Mac got tag-teamed, she’d be forced to face a psychopath in dragon form.
All by her lonesome.
“Okay,” she murmured, blowing out a calming breath. With a shimmy, she slid sideways, popped her head around the edge of the boulder, giving the terrain another sneak peek. “I’ll stick close to the rock face. There’s an overhang at the base of the rock wall on the right-hand side. I should be able to squeeze under it. If things go south, I’ll hide there. Good?”
“Good,” Mac repeated, falling into their usual prebattle routine. It almost felt normal, as though they were headed into a perp’s house, not about to cross a clearing in dragon country. “Be safe.”
“You know it,” she said, then completed their trash talk ritual with, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
He snorted.
She went commando, staying low, double-fisting her gun as she skirted the edge of a boulder. Entering the plateau on the run, Angela hauled ass, legs pumping, moving with more speed than stealth. A low growl slithered through the quiet, bouncing between the sheer stone walls surrounding her. A grinding noise echoe
d, the snick of claws scraping stone as dragons took flight.
Her heart scrambled, going AWOL inside her chest. “Mac!”
“Get the fuck down!”
Two shadows flew in, hard scales glinting in the moonlight.
Angela leveled her Glock at the brown Razorback. Mac beat her to it. Transforming into dragon form, he streaked across the plateau, heading for the far end where a cliff tumbled off the edge toward the ocean. Still running, she got low and slid sideways on stone, ripping her pant leg open at the knee. She raised gun again, trying to get a shot off, watching transfixed as Mac went to work.
No training, her ass. Look at him go.
Blue-gray scales nothing but a blur in the gloom, her partner leapt skyward. The enemy dragon stopped short, trying to compensate, hanging in midair. Mac struck, grabbing the SOB’s spike tail at the top of his jump. With a snarl, he yanked. The Razorback squawked as Mac dragged him out of the sky. As Mac’s talons touched down with a thump, the rogue slammed into the ground. Rock dust flew, clouding the clearing as the brown dragon slid toward the cliff edge.
Mac leapt on top on him. Angela dove for cover, using jagged pieces of fallen rock to hide her movements. She needed to get to the other end of the open space. With her partner pummeling the bastard, she couldn’t get a clear shot at the Razorback’s head. A bullet to the temple would help Mac out, but only if she didn’t hit him by mistake.
Adrenaline made her fast. Her mind made her lethal as she beat feet to the opposite end of the clearing. Her gaze narrowed on Mac, a plan took hold. She’d climb. Get to higher ground, protect her partner, and shoot the bastard from above. Even in the dark, she could see a stretch of rock she could scale.
Holstering her gun, she sprinted toward the steep wall, looking for hand and toeholds. She checked Mac’s position, watched him push the Razorback toward the cliff edge, and yelled, “Mac, don’t go over the—”
Ah, crap.
With a snarl, Mac screwed up her plan, launching himself and the Razorback over the ledge. Her heart stopped beating as she watched them fall. Within seconds, the pair disappeared, tumbling through thin air toward—
Splash!
—the ocean.
All went quiet.
Not trusting the stillness, Angela searched the sky. Pinpoint stars winked at her, belying the seriousness of her situation. Mac had a hold of one dragon, but the other still hid, waiting to strike. Her heart in her throat, she backed toward the overhang, the narrow crevice that would protect her from Razorback claws. Loose rock crunched beneath her boot treads, sounding loud in the silence. Holding the gun against her thigh, Angela curled her finger around the trigger and waited, forcing herself to breathe through the fear.
“Come on, Mac…hurry up,” she murmured, trying to make herself believe her partner was seconds away from reemerging over the cliff face. “Come on, man.”
Ten feet from her hidey-hole. Now eight. She was almost there, but unease kept her eyes on the sky. She refused to turn her back on the clearing. The instant she did, the rat-bastard would make his move. So she backed up slowly, desperate to anticipate, knowing the sadistic bastard was out there…watching her, enjoying her fear, wanting her to feel it to maximum effect.
“Here, kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty.” The awful hiss came from right above her head.
Angela went stone-still, the voice affecting her like slow poison, shutting down her ability to think. Those words…oh, God, his words. He’d used the same ones the night he chased her through the woods toward the beachhead. The memory kicked at her. She eviscerated it, reaching for every ounce of courage she possessed.
The mental readjust snapped her into motion. Angela scrambled for the jagged opening of the crevice. The rat-bastard growled. A gust of air blasted her back, shoving her forward. She lost her footing and went down, but she wasn’t out.
Spinning into a speed roll, she hurtled toward safety, twisting to avoid the huge talon as it swiped at her. The womp-womp of heavy wings sounded overhead. Angela increased her tilt-a-whirl, her arms tucked tight to her chest, chunks of shale biting through her BDUs as she rolled faster. Razor-sharp claws glinted in the moonlight, reaching for her. An instant before Lothair caught her, she zipped beneath the overhang and into the opening.
“Fucking she-cop.” The sharp click of claws echoed just outside her hidey-hole.
Her lungs so tight she could hardly breathe, Angela shuffled back into the fissure. She wanted to go farther, but…goddamn it. It only went about twelve feet. Surrounded by dank, slimy rock, she wedged her shoulders in tight and grabbed a handful of silt. She rubbed it on her shirt, drying her sweat-slick palm, then shifted her gun to the other hand and repeated the procedure. She couldn’t afford to have her weapon slip.
The rat-bastard snarled. “More trouble than you’re worth.”
Finished with the drying routine, she leveled her Glock at the crack, toward the thin strip of moonlight. “Go home then, why don’t you?”
Taunting him probably wasn’t the best strategy, but she didn’t know what else to do. Other than blow his head off if he crouched down to look at her. Please God, let him be that stupid. ’Cause, yeah. He might have her cornered, but the second she saw the dark glint of his dragon eye or he shifted into human form and came after her, she’d put a bullet through his brain.
Mining his female’s energy, Rikar tracked her through the rough terrain. His eyes narrowed on the craggy coastline, he rocketed around another bend. The ocean roared, waves frothing, smashing against the base of the cliffs, throwing up cold spray. Slick with mist, water wicked from his scales, turning to ice before blowing back behind him in a frosty swirl. He increased his wing speed, scanning, searching…his aggression factor set on apocalyptic.
He needed to find her. Close. He was so freaking close. Less than a minute away.
Which was way too long. He could feel her fear through energy-fuse, heard the hitch of her breath, the hammer of her heart as if it were his own.
Fucking hell. Something nasty was going down. Angela didn’t scare that easily. Add that to the fact he couldn’t raise Mac through mind-speak, and situation critical took on a whole new meaning.
Night vision pinpoint sharp, he picked up all kinds of trace and discarded most of it. She wasn’t on the beach or anywhere near the secondary location. Which meant she was stuck on the trail, up in the cliffs above the churn and chop of water. Flying harder, wings stretched to capacity, Rikar banked hard, heading inland. He came in low, following a rough trail up from the beachhead. Almost there. Another rise. Another fall, and he crested a sheer rock face. He heard the growl and the sound of claws on stone a second before he spotted the rogue.
The bastard was digging, clawing at the ground beneath a narrow overhang. Good Christ. Angela was under there, avoiding Lothair’s deadly talons as he swiped at her.
Baring his fangs, Rikar came in hot. Arctic air whistled from his throat and ice daggers flew. Reacting to the magic hurtling toward him, Lothair’s head snapped in his direction. Rikar snarled. Too late. The fucker wouldn’t get airborne before—
Wham!
The frozen knives struck the Razorback XO, piercing his scales. Blood splatter arced as Lothair snarled and spun to face him. His velocity supersonic, Rikar swooped in and hammered the rogue broadside. His claws found flesh and bone. With a roar, he clamped down, ramming the ice daggers deeper as he spun his enemy away from Angela. Lothair’s head whiplashed, exposing his throat. Rikar ignored the pain as the SOB’s talons ripped at his shoulders, and flipped the bastard. Jumping on his spiked spine, he grabbed the rogue’s wings and cranked, popping them from their sockets.
Lothair shrieked in agony, thrashing beneath his hold.
Rikar showed no mercy. With a twist, he snapped the male’s spine, severing his spinal cord. Paralyzed from the chest down, Lothair screamed. Rikar applied more pressure, giving his beast free rein, and growled, “She’s mine. You dare to touch what’s mine…you die.”
And fuck,
he wanted to do it. To finish Lothair—deliver the death blow and punish him for hurting Angela. For taking what by right should’ve been hers to give. But he couldn’t steal that from her. His female deserved justice, needed closure to heal from the pain. And if pulling the trigger helped her recover, he’d forgo his own need for vengeance in order to give it to her.
His claws buried in enemy flesh, he called to her, “Angela.”
“Rikar?”
“Are you all right, love?”
He heard her move in answer. The shuffle sounded loud even though it shouldn’t. Other noises trumped that…the crashing churn of ocean waves, the labored breathing of the enemy male he pinned to the granite. But his focus was absolute, and all about her. His dragon senses picked up each miniscule shift of movement, tapping into her heart rate, mining her emotional state.
The biofeedback bounced back like a boomerang. Scared, but all right. Rikar exhaled in relief. She wasn’t hurt. Thank Christ.
The Glock clutched in her hand, she scrambled around the edge of a boulder, then froze. Just stopped short, hazel gaze widening as they landed on him. Pressing his prey into the ground, he tipped his chin at her, knowing what kind of picture he made. Blood spattered. Deadly. Aggressive. A bonded male presenting a gift to his female.
Tears flooded her eyes. She breathed his name, a thank-you in each syllable.
“Come finish it, angel.”
One tear fell, streaking through the dirt on her cheek. She moved forward, the gun bobbing against her thigh, her attention shifting to the bastard who’d hurt her. As she approached, Lothair whined, pawing the ground, trying to get away even though he had nowhere to go. Rikar wrapped one talon around the rogue’s front paws, holding him immobile, protecting Angela, refusing to feel sorry for the bastard.
The execution might not be nice, but was deserved. Justice at its best.
Stopping less than three feet away, Angela raised the Glock. She met his gaze, hers full of pain, his full of understanding. He nodded. She pulled the trigger, ending Lothair’s life and his reign of terror. Over her. Over them. Over the females yet to be freed.
Fury of Ice Page 34