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"Yes, dammit," Zach snarled in reply to Ranger's single angry word. "I understand that you're flippin' like a fish. You want your Mate back, and you want the asshole who hurt her to pay." Taking another step forward, his hands out in front of him, palms up, Zach tried to reason. "What the fuck good will it do for you to go runnin' in there half-cocked and get killed? Think that's what Ellie wants? Think they won't just kill her even quicker than they already planned?" Pounding the first two fingers of his right hand to his temple, Zach snarled, "Think, dammit. Use that brain of yours for something other than pissing me off."
Stepping between them just as Ranger was about to lose his temper all over his brother, Jianna held up her hands in surrender. Voice softer than Ranger could ever remember hearing, the Valkyrie played mediator. "Zach's right. Weneeda plan. We’re all coming out of there alive, ya’ hear me?”
When he didn't answer right away, mostly because he couldn't, Jianna closed the distance between them, grabbed his upper arms, and shook as she growled, "Do. You. Hear. Me. Ranger. Evans?"
"Yes," he snarled. "So get with the plan-making. I can't think about anything but Ellie. You've got sixty seconds before I'm busting in there and…"
Before he could get the next word out a bloodcurdling scream, Ellie’s horrified, pained shriek slashed through the silent desert. “Nooooooooo!”
Spinning on his toes, racing around the mountain like he'd been shot out of a cannon, Ranger made it as far as the mouth of the cave when a blast of magic unlike anything he'd ever felt blew not only him but Jianna and Zach off their feet and a good fifty feet backward. Landing with a painful thud, on his ass, beside an Eagle Clawed Cactus, the Guardsman refused to be stopped.
Back up on his feet, running faster than he ever had in all his very long life, he'd just stepped through the massive mouth of the cave, when Jianna appeared in front of him. Hands on his chest, her dark eyes swirling with unspent magic and more than a little rage, her voice cut through his mind,“Stop and listen, Asshole.”
“What the…”
Again, his words were stolen from his lips as Ellie's voice, clear, strong, and absolutely perfect, echoed through the chamber, "But why, Aunt Gwen? Why would you do this? Why would you work with the Chimera? Why would you…” Her voice broke off with a sob. One haggard inhale later, a sound that quite literally made Ranger shake with fury, and Ellie asked, “Why did you kill momma and daddy?”
"WHY?!" A furious voice, deep, grating, raspy, and rough roared. "You have the utter nerve to ask me why?"
Another blast of magic, not as strong as the first but much more vengeful whipped and whirled down the tunnel, past Ranger, Jianna, and Zach, and out into the desert "You, spoiled, little snot-nosed brat who never wanted for anything. Young, beautiful, loved by everybody, promised the future that was stolen from me, you have the fucking nerve to question me?!”
"Yes." Ellie snapped right back, her strength and the true goodness of her very being infused in that single word. "I have the fucking right to question you. What does it matter one way or another? You're going to kill me like you killed mom and dad? Suck the very life from my body, steal my magic, leave my body to rot in the desert. Is that what you did to those other people, too? Did you steal their souls? Take the Enchantment that had been in their families for generations? Were they sacrifices to whatever unholy abomination you sold your dirty, worthless soul to? Did you get what you wanted? Get back what you lost?" Taking a ragged breath, the sound beating at Ranger's very soul, making him long to take his Mate in his arms and remove her from the evil he felt pulsing all around them, Ellie started again just as he pushed harder against Jianna's hands and pulled at the hold Zach had on his arm.
"Just tell me why you're working with the Chimera. You owe me that, at least."
"I owe you?" The voice cackled. "I owe you? That is rich." Another burst of maniacal laughter, another flash of magic, another blast of hot air, this time laced with the scent of sulfur. "Well, I guess, at the very least I can tell you that, since you won't be alive long enough to reveal my secret." Voice becoming little more than a conspiratorial whisper, Ellie's captor's chuckled sounded almost as manic as her cackle as she divulged, "I don't work with the Chimera, dear niece, I run, lead, and command the Chimera. I am the Keeper of the Three."
"Niece?" Ranger breathed the word, his head snapping to the side, his eyes connecting with Zach's. "Does Ellie have any other aunts, but the one who is her mom's younger sister? The one who was locked away forever ago when she lost her mind during her Awakening and tried to kill herself?"
“Not that I know of, and if it’s her, she shouldn’t have…”
"Much magic," Ranger growled in unison with his brother, going on to add, "Wrong again. Fuck this shit. That bitch is certifiably crazy. The Leader of the mother fuckin' Chimera. All she's got is Black magic stolen from the souls of others. She is evil with a capital E. I gotta get Ellie outta there."
Grabbing Jianna’s hands, he pulled the Valkyrie to the side at the same time that Zach let loose the hold he had on Ranger’s arm of his own accord. Flying through the twisting and turning tunnel, the screeching howls of the mad Witch ringing in his ears, Ranger burst into the grotto just as Gwen screamed, “And you, my worthless waste of magic and space niece, will give me what is mine!”
Hands flying forward, a blast of light, energy, and mysticism not unlike Ranger's pure, white Dragon Magic flew from the mad Witch's palms. Hitting Ellie square in the chest, the beam went through and around his Mate, ripping the young Witch from her restraints and lifting her in the air right before his eyes.
Head thrown back, arms open wide, her nose nearly touching the ceiling of the cave, Ellie was completely silent, utterly still, and glowing like Times Square on New Year's Eve. Sprinting forward, Ranger made it as far as the fire in the center of the cavern, when the light surrounding his Mate turned the brilliant blue and red-tipped hue of the scales of his Dragon, and her voice sounded in his mind.
“This is it. This is my Awakening. Join your mind with mine and shift!”
Doing as she commanded without a single reservation, Ranger opened completely to his Mate and embraced the coming transformation. Throwing back his head, flames flying from his lips as he roared to the Heavens, tremors shook his entire body.
Blood running cold in his veins then flipping to hotter than Hades then back to cold over and over again, Ranger held tight to the bond he shared with Ellie. It was his anchor. She was the tether that would always keep him grounded. Icy rage filled every cell of his being, contracted and contorted his very physique, transformed the Dragon King within his soul into the compact, indestructible form of his Warrior Dragon.
The Magic of the Ancients beat against Ranger’s body, forcing the large, elongated muscles he would usually use for flying into his chest, biceps, and quads. The Earth beneath his feet shuddered as he dug the long claws jutting from the tips of his toes into the rock of the cave just to remain standing.
An inferno, like flaming shards of silver forged in the fires of Hell, sliced through the flesh and bone of his back. The tips of his wings curled downward, turning inward towards his shoulder blades, pushing through the thick layer of scales, tearing into his body as if he were made of no more than wet paper.
Bone shattered, and muscles tore until he no longer possessed wings at all, but instead had what looked like huge blades of an oversized battle-ax jutting from his back with long, venomous finger-claws extending from their razor-sharp edges. Moving them up and down and forward and back, an evil grin curled the corner of his shortened snout. The visions of slashing Ellie’s aunt and all the Chimera to ribbons while injecting them with his acidic poison, for which there was no antidote, would be the only just end for those who’d inflicted so much pain and anguish to so many.
The talons at the ends of his fingers doubled in size and girth, their hooked tips tingling with the need to rip through rock and human flesh. Eyes flying to Ellie's, he launched himself into the air. Catching his Mate in midair as she floated downward, he placed her on his back.
Never had anything felt so right. He had his Mate back. She was okay. Hell, better than okay, Ellie was fabulous, and together, they were going to kick ass and not worry in the slightest about taking any names.
Spinning back around with a grace that always renewed his faith in the Universe, Ranger cheered into Ellie’s mind, “Go get ‘em, my love. You command, I follow.”
