Caden blinked. He had sort of been hoping she would stay with him and Valerius a bit as they watched the video feed of the wall. But she wouldn’t even meet his gaze.
“Uh, you don’t have to. We’d love to have you--”
“Thanks, but I… I have to go.” Realizing that the sharpness of her tone might have hurt his feelings, she quickly added, “Another time. I promise.”
“Okay…” Caden wasn’t sure what was going on here. Clearly, there was something on Rose’s mind, but she wasn’t going to share the burden of what it was. He hugged her and she gave him a firm hug back, but then she was pulling away and heading out the door as if something haunted her footsteps. When the door closed behind her, Caden turned to Valerius. “Well, I guess no one wants to be with us!”
Valerius chuckled. “I guess not. Good thing we have each other.”
The Black Dragon King opened his arms and Caden eagerly went into them, but as he did so, his eyes caught movement on the screen. His head snapped towards it even as his body froze. Valerius did the same.
The wall quivered.
Caden was reminded of a still pond when a stone was thrown in and the concentric circles that spread out to the water’s edge. That was happening here. Except nothing had been dropped into the wall, something was coming out.
It was a figure. A man was stepping through the wall and into the corridor. In some ways, Caden wasn’t surprised by who it was. After all, he’d always believed that Jasper Hawes had wanted power for power’s sake, not because he was really inclined to help humanity.
“Of course… wait… what?” Caden gasped.
Jasper wasn’t the only one coming out of the wall. Landry emerged next. Then her brothers. Then people Caden didn’t know. Dozens upon dozens of people emerged from the wall. It was then that Caden realized that all had eyeshine. All were Shifters.
Except…
“They are all the Behemoth,” Valerius hissed between his teeth. “There are hundreds of them.”
Dragon Sex
“EVERYONE, GET BACK HERE!" Valerius cried.
The other Dragon Shifters immediately raced back to them. All looked at the Wall on the vids. There were gasps all around.
"We have to track them,” Valerius growled as these human parts of Behemoth streamed in all directions and out of the cameras’ views.
“Wally will follow them,” Caden reminded him, but the young man had his arms crossed tightly across his chest and his eyes flickered from feed to feed.
“I really hope that Wally was not exaggerating his prowess at tracking multiple targets,” Esme breathed as she, too, held herself.
“He wasn’t,” Marban said, stroking his long goatee. “If anything, he has been hiding his light under a bushel.”
“Not worried that running a shop has made him soft?” Rose asked.
“No, his caring will make him more ruthless rather than less,” Marban answered her. “One of the reasons that Wally was feared back in the day was because he treated every one of his people like his own family. You hurt one of them, he killed five of yours. If Wally showed even a hint of interest in a job, everyone else backed off.”
“Even you?” Rose’s eyebrows lifted.
“Even me.” Marban smiled, but it quickly died as he turned from the cameras to his own phone where his people were alerting him to things with text messages.
“Where do you suppose they are going?” Kaila asked. “To plant more bombs?”
“Gods forbid,” Jahara said and shuddered.
Mei’s eyes narrowed. “That would actually be wise, but I do not see any such devices on them, do you?”
“Small devices could be covered by their clothes.” Illarion shrugged. His voice came from the doorway. He’d returned. That surprised Valerius.
“I thought you were leaving,” Mei said dryly.
“My plane cannot be here until tomorrow. I have nothing better to do,” he answered.
