Healing a Broken Dragon

by Marcy Jacks

  Fuck. Miles forgot all about that.

  When Renford had sneaked up on Molly, she'd been taking care of one of the little girls they were both in charge of protecting.

  They must have been so scared, locked in the utility closet, waiting for something, anything to happen.

  Good or bad.

  She wouldn't have very fond memories of being used as bait to lure Miles out, and that little girl probably had nightmares last night.

  "He just wanted to get me alone, to where I wouldn't be around so many kids that he would scare them. I'm sure of it."

  Arty rubbed his arm, he didn't say anything, but it was his silence that seemed the loudest.

  They knew each other, but never did they ever hang out as friends. Miles still felt the need to apologize for him. As if he was cutting the man by saying these things.

  "I'm real sorry, Arty."

  Arty shook his head. "No, it's not your fault, or Renford's, actually."

  Miles didn't understand that, but he figured he wouldn't be getting any answers just yet. Not when Edward spoke up.

  "We want that dragon brought in for questioning. Keagan has admitted the man has a history of attempted murder on a helpless warlock. Why would he not be involved in an attack on our soil, against our people?"

  "I said I would help you find him, but that didn't mean I would hand him over to you," Keagan said.

  "You would betray our peace?"

  "I'm not betraying Renford if he's innocent of this. I want to know what happened, too. We can question him, together, and if he had nothing to do with those dragons, didn't know them, wasn't part of their group, I fully expect you to set him free."

  James bristled, his eyes lighting up as though he were the dragon about to burst into flames. "You just told me that motherfucker tried to kill my son. You want that guy running around out there free?"

  "Dad—"

  "No. No, fuck this guy. He absolutely does not get to have a free and happy life when he tried to snuff out the life of my boy. You don't get to ask me that."

  "Dad, it's not up to you, and things aren't exactly what they seem."

  James looked like he was about to blow a gasket. He glared at Miles as if Miles had something to do with this before he sighed, running his hands through thinning hair. "All right, okay. Enlighten me. Why should I defend this man? Was there a spell cast on him? Did he attack you by mistake when he meant to go after someone else?"

  "Well, no, nothing like that."

  James threw his hands in the air. "Then there's nothing to discuss. The guy needs to be brought in, and he needs to face the consequences for what he's done."

  "And what would those be?" Keagan asked. "He's a dragon, not a warlock, and not a human. Human prisons won't touch him, and I won't leave him to you to deal with."

  Edward narrowed his eyes. "You should take care to watch your tone, Keagan. It would almost sound as though you do not trust us to handle the matter."

  Keagan pressed his lips together, and Miles understood right then and there that he was trying to watch his tone only because of Arty.

  Arty was the reason they had this peace with Keagan's clan in the first place. Of course, Arty was supposed to come back and live here, where he belonged, but even if he wanted to stay with Keagan on his territory, it still meant the dragons and warlocks were connecting themselves in ways they could not unwind from.

  Marek and Jason sealed that deal, but Miles didn't have anything nearly so solid with Renford.

  "Maybe…maybe I could ask him what happened?"

  Everyone looked at him.

  Miles had to choose his words carefully. "Renford is my mate. He clearly doesn't want me to be, but he's protective of me. I already know that. We know where he lives."

  "No, we don't," Edward said, glaring at Marek. "This one will not reveal the location of the dragon's home."

  "He didn't?"

  Marek crossed his arms, as though daring anyone to question that decision.

  Miles had no interest in questioning it. He was thrilled. It stunned him how much that pleased him, actually.

  At least Renford would have someplace safe to go. That he wouldn't be on the run and sleeping outdoors.

  As a shifter, he was supposed to be able to handle that sort of thing better, but that didn't mean Miles wanted him doing that.

  "Well, all right then, if Marek doesn't want to let anyone know where it is, why don't we just have him and Keagan drop me off at the house, and I can talk to him? Maybe ask him to come in. Explain himself to Arty."

  "There's nothing to explain on that front," Keagan said. "He did what he did. I cannot forgive that or allow him back into my clan."

  Again, Arty was the one who seemed most uncomfortable by that statement, which meant there was so much happening here, so many moving pieces, but Miles had to try.

  Even if Renford didn't want him, didn't care about him beyond his biological need to fuck Miles for the sake of their mating, Miles wanted the other man safe and sound.

  He didn’t want him locked up. He didn’t want him tortured. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to him ever.

  It wasn’t fair. Why did the guy Miles mated with have to be a murderous, revenge-seeking dragon? A dragon was bad enough without all that extra shit attached to it.

  “Please, just let me help. He’s going to eventually want to come for me anyway. The mating will pull him to me.”

  It hadn’t pulled Renford to him last night, but Miles was still convinced that this was the only way to go.

  And he needed Renford. It had only been a day, but the sex they’d had yesterday wasn’t enough, and his disappointment over Renford not coming to him that night just made everything worse.

  “Use me as bait if you need to. I’ll help you find him.”

  “To bring him to justice? That’s a good man,” Edward said.

  Miles ignored the stab of guilt in his gut, and he absolutely refused to look at Arty or James, or any of the other dragons.

  No. Not to bring him to justice. But to find out once and for all if being mated to him could work.

  If he could trust Renford.

  If he could be with him for the rest of his life.

  Chapter Ten

  Miles definitely got himself way in over his head.

  He'd thought he could offer himself as bait the warriors and elders around him could use to lure in Renford, assuming the other man gave a shit about him, but then forgot entirely about the idea that he would still be watched endlessly as they made their plans.

  And the plans all ranged from fucked up, to a little horrifying each time.

  Molly thought he was out of his mind. She yelled at him for being stupid enough to think this sort of thing could actually work, but he ignored her.

  What did she know? This was his mate he was talking about here, and sure, Edward was playing with the idea of putting him in chains, magickal and physical ones, to make it look like Miles was a prisoner so they could bring Renford in, but it was just an act.

  He hoped.

  The chain idea was scrapped. Keagan insisted Renford would see through the ruse, and he wouldn't come if he believed there was a trap waiting for him.

  Miles suggested that he be allowed to go back to Renford's cabin, that Marek fly him there where he could wait for the man and speak with him personally when he arrived.

  Marek was the first to shoot down that option, and Miles didn't understand why until he thought about it later.

  Maybe Marek didn't want to risk that any warlocks would try to follow them and discover where the cabin was?

  It seemed inevitable that the cabin would be found. The warriors already knew the general direction the cabin was in, and with some basic math, they could figure out how long it would take to walk, hike, or drive the distance it took twenty minutes to fly.

  They could find the general area, but getting to Renford, sneaking up on him was another matter.

  In the end, nothing was settled on
for the day. The only thing Keagan, his dragons, and the elders could make a decision on was that they did want to work together.

  It just seemed that no one could make a decision on what it was they wanted to do exactly.

  Which meant he was no closer to seeing Renford again.

  Miles waited for hours until it was well past noon before he got his chance to speak with Marek alone.

  The other dragons were being offered the chance to stay, again with reluctance, but Edward wanted to keep an eye on them, and it took forever before Marek allowed himself to be alone by one of the sheds.

  "I saw you staring at me all day," Marek said, scratching the back of his head. "You must have a ton of things to ask."

  Miles cut right to the chase. "Do you believe he's irredeemable?"

  Marek shrugged. He looked strange in the borrowed clothes he wore. That warlock robe on a dragon was out of place on him, but Miles figured he wore it because Jason had offered it, and it would put the warlocks in the coven more at ease to see him like this.

  He stuck one hand on his hip, and he couldn't have looked more uncomfortable if he'd tried.

  "I don't want to think so, but I never thought he would try strangling Arty either."

  Miles winced at that. "Do you think it's dangerous for me to be around him?"

  "You're his mate. What do you think?"

  Miles had to ponder that for a minute. "I…don't know what exactly I think about this. I want to believe in him. I really do, but I also know that's just the mating instinct. People have loved and trusted their mates who hurt them before, so why should I think this would be any different? I could believe that he's good all I want, but that doesn't make it true."

  And it hurt so badly to have to think about that.

  "What will you do if Keagan and I find him without using you and we bring him in? Without you getting the chance to see him at all?"

  Miles didn't have to think about that one at all. "I'd be upset."

  Marek crossed his arms, and he had a look around, making sure no one watched them. "You know, that's probably what's going to happen here, right? Using yourself as bait is a noble thing and all, but we all know what you're doing. You're mated to the guy. You're compromised."

  Miles glared at the man. "I let you fly me away from Renford. I could have stayed there. Is that what a compromised man would do?"

  Marek shook his head. "Maybe not, but you could have been having a moment of clarity. I'm trying to make this easier for you when it finally happens, but there's not going to be a happy ending for you. Even if he had nothing to do with the attack on your coven."

  "Do you think he did?"

  Marek didn't hesitate. "No. Yours isn't the coven he would want to attack even if he could, and I saw those dragons. Something was controlling them, and I think it was another warlock."

  That made Miles clench his hands to fists.

  He'd been so scared. He'd acted without thinking. He should have waited to find out what was going on, to hear Renford's explanations from his own mouth.

  Now he had to worry about him being captured and…he wasn't even sure what his coven would want to do to him, but he did know he wasn't going to like anything they had planned.

  "I just want to know one thing," Miles said. "If you or your alpha manage to bring him in, will you hand him over to my coven?"

  "Keagan will try not to, for old times’ sake, but if there's a warrior around, for the sake of the peace between our clan and your coven, I don't see that we'd have much of a choice."

  Miles’s heart clenched, then he realized something.

  "What do you mean, for old times’ sake? Are Keagan and Renford friends?"

  There was a clear age difference between them. Maybe about ten years or so from the looks of them.

  "Renford was mated to Keagan's father. He was the male who died in the warlock attack."

  Christ, if Miles ever thought he could get used to all the gut punches that came his way, boy was he ever wrong. They never seemed to stop coming.

  "Keagan's father…and Renford?"

  Marek nodded. "Yes. Keagan had a hard time coming to terms with being mated to Arty because of that. He didn’t like warlocks much either after it happened, but it was Renford who took it a little too far. To be fair, I wasn't much better. Neither were the others. But we didn't try to kill Arty in cold blood, either."

  Miles swallowed hard.

  "Keagan loves Renford like a second father. Renford wasn't mated to Keagan’s father until after the death of his mother, and after Keagan was an adult, but he still respected the man, we all do. Renford was a badass warrior. He led us in battle, and he defended the clan from attacks whenever he was called on to do so. Which was more often than anyone ever wanted it to be, which is standard for things like this."

  Miles nodded, the rock in his throat getting to be painful. "Right, I guess that would make sense."

  Marek looked at Miles with that pitying expression Miles normally hated, but right now, he was too numb to put much thought into it.

  "I don't want you thinking Renford is a monster. That's the last thing in the world he is. He's saved my life once before, and he and Keagan leaned on each other hard when Keagan’s father was killed. I think they kept each other alive. He just…he did something monumentally stupid, and it got him kicked out of the only home he's known for years. Now that we're working with your coven, and there's all this shit going on…we have to bring him in. We need to talk to him."

  Miles didn't want them to do any talking at all. He hated this. He didn't want Renford brought in. He didn't want to hear about what an amazing guy Renford was just to know that in a little while he would be used to help hunt him down for questioning, and possibly torture.

  Miles shouldn't have left the cabin, and he shouldn't have offered himself.

  Bad decision, after bad decision, after bad decision.

  "How old is Renford?" Miles asked, remembering that dragons aged differently, and Marek had said something about Renford not mating with Keagan's father until Keagan was an adult.

  "Is he over a hundred or something?"

  Renford looked as though he were in his mid-forties, maybe in his late thirties. He had some grays around his temples, some crow’s feet at his eyes, but Miles thought those made the man look more distinguished than older.

  Marek grinned at him. "Not quite that old, but he's old enough to make you feel pretty young. He's been around the block, seen a lot of shit, and he can get pretty set in his ways. He's lived long enough that he has a hard time letting go of things that pain him. Let's just leave it at that."

  Miles swallowed hard.

  "You said Renford isn't a bad guy…do you think I should have left the cabin?"

  Marek pressed his lips together. "I know it was my job to bring you back to safety, to put your sister's mind, and Jason's mind, at ease."

  Marek sighed. "Looking back, maybe I would have asked you to just write a note."

  Miles had already sent one to his sister, so there wouldn't have been a need for it.

  "Are you going to tell them where the cabin is?"

  "I'll have to, eventually. Your elders are already pissed enough that I'm withholding that information, and with Jason still wearing his shackle…I have to give them what they want eventually if I want Jason to be free to use his magick. I didn’t realize it was such a big deal to you warlocks to have it, and he’s going a little nuts without it.”

  Fuck.

  He couldn't think of anything else that he would need from Marek, any questions the man might be able to ask from him, so he thanked Marek for his time and walked away.

  Angelica asked after him, but Miles pretended to be sick and went back home. His sister wasn't there yet. She was probably speaking with the elders, who were likely asking her to keep an eye on him.

  Miles didn't need magick to know the little plans people put in place whenever shit went wrong. It was obvious.

  He flopped into bed with a si
gh, shoes and clothes still on.

  Just as it was obvious he should not have left that cabin.

  Miles put his hand over his heart.

  He closed his eyes, imagining Renford's scarred face in his mind. The handsome, tortured male who had done so much wrong, who everyone seemed to want to talk to, and whom no one wanted to be gentle with when they did.

  Miles had nothing that belonged to Renford, nothing to help him with the spell he wanted to cast, but he tried casting it anyway, putting all of his thought and focus into it.

  Stay away. Don't come here. Don't stay in your cabin. They're coming for you. Stay away.

  Miles thought those thoughts, willing them to find Renford, to warn him off of staying still in case he was still near his cabin, waiting for Miles to come back to him.

  He did that until something woke him up only a few minutes later.

  Except it was fully dark, and he wasn't entirely sure how much time had passed.

  His glasses were being pulled off. He'd fallen asleep with them on.

  "Molly, what are you—" He reached for her hand, grabbing her wrist, stopping her before she could put them away. He wasn't ready to go to sleep just yet, but the thick, rough wrist he grabbed definitely didn't belong to his sister.

  He froze, the heat of the arm he held on to, the rough skin and muscle already giving away exactly who this was, and his heart soared.

  And broke.

  “What are you doing—mmph.”

  Renford cut off the question he wanted to ask with his mouth, kissing him deeply and making Miles forget all about the dangers of him just being here.

  Because it didn’t matter.

  He was here. He pushed Miles down onto the bed, settling on top of him, his mouth making love to him in all the way Miles had needed ever since he left.

  Miles gripped his strong shoulders. He wanted to hold Renford to him forever, to never let him go no matter what happened.

  But he had to push him back, if only just a little so he could talk to him.

  “I’m sorry,” Miles said, his voice a breathy whisper. Renford had already taken his breath away with the kissing, so he didn’t think there was much risk of him getting them caught. “I shouldn’t have left. I’m sorry.”