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Chapter Six
“Lottie!” Over and over, he roared her name as the powerful Magic of the Ancients filled him from the inside out.
Silver scales swirling with the blue of the sea covered his body as he raced forward completely oblivious to the tearing and reforming of the very fiber of his being. From one pounding footstep to the next, Donovan Cross went from well-dressed DIA Agent to a furious, roaring, damned near foaming at the mouth Warrior Dragon.
Ten feet of raging muscle with the brawn of a team of oxen, the razor-sharp and venomous talons of a prehistoric Pterodactyl at the tips of his massive paws, Van threw back his head, dropped his momentous jaws, and threw a wall of Dragon Fire at the exact spot where just seconds before Vanessa Marron had taken her stand. Jerking to the right, spearing the Valkyrie with a glare he knew held flames, the Guardsman snarled, “Keep up, there’s only one place she could’ve taken my Mate.”
With an immediate about-face, Van trusted Daig to read his mind and react accordingly. Taking off at a dead run, he tore open the floodgates of not only the pure white Dragon Magic he’d inherited from his father, but the ancient mysticism of his mother’s pride, the Adalia White Tigers.
Using the searing pain wracking his body from his tendons tearing as fuel for his ever-growing rage, he roared to the Heavens as the wings that had been curled into his back unfurled to their full hundred-foot span. Muscles were stretched beyond their limits and his skeleton elongated, reformed and strengthened as he shot to the height of nothing less than six stories. Instinctively, his shorter arms folded into his chest, his knees bent, and with a single backward thrust of his wings, the Winged Warrior took flight.
Ripping through the sky, using the low-hanging clouds as cover to avoid detection from those who either resented his ability or were oblivious to his existence, Van opened his mind to Jianna and called, “You back there?”
No sooner had the words left his mind than did the Valkyrie appear at his side atop her snow-white winged horse, Appalonia. Dressed in the armor of Odin, a howling Wolf’s head emblazoned on the chest plate and the Spear of Falcons presented to her by Freya at Jianna’s inception at the ready, Van watched his old friend force a calm he knew she didn’t feel as she nodded,“Nope, I’m right here, Bud. You sure you’re ready for this? You’ve never…”
“Been in a battle where the life of my Mate hung in the balance?”Van snarled. “Okay, you got me there, but that doesn’t mean I’m givin’ up. I’ve waited too long to apologize for showing my ass and even longer to tell Lottie how I feel to let the likes of Vanessa Marron take her from me. This ends today. She will be safe and the one responsible for so much death and destruction will be locked away where she belongs.”
“Glad to hear it,”came the Valkyrie’s clipped reply. “Lifa lengi. Sókn grimmr.”
“Life long. Fight fierce?”He snorted. “What about the last line? The die well part?”
“Fuck that shit,”the Valkyrie spat.“The only one we let draw her last breath is Vanessa Marron and I don’t care if it’s good for her or not.”
“And Hammond Reginald Thommingham III?”
“Ya’ know how I love a twofer deal.”
“That I do.”
Flying along in silence, his every thought focused on Lottie, Donovan called to her over and over again, his every word smashing into an impenetrable wall of twisted, warped Magic. Reverberating back as some horribly demented screech, it sounded like a woundedanimal begging for its life. So hideous, so incomprehensible, the abhorrent sound forced his thoughts inward, demanding he finds answers.
Why had Vanessa done it? Was it all really just a stupid powerplay? Did she really think she could get away with stealing Magic and using it against the whole Supernatural community in a bid for… for… for what? To be the Queen? Could she have honestly ever considered the lives she would snuff out or the rubble she would leave in her wake? And if she did, was all the bloodshed considered an acceptable loss, collateral damage?
“In order, the answers are – Vanessa Marron is a stupid, egocentric, selfish bitch without the scruples of a slug. Yes, it was a powerplay. Yes, she wanted to be Queen, or Empress, or Head Bitch In Charge. No, she didn’t consider what would happen to anyone else, even her very own daughter, because in her world no one and nothing else matters but Numero Uno. And let’s round it off with a big fat yes, anything and anyone is an acceptable risk as long as she gets what she wants. Are you new here?” Ji scoffed. “Think about it, Marron took the beautiful, mystical enchantment entrusted to one of my oldest and dearest friends by a freakin’ Goddess, then she warped it into something unimaginably ugly and hideous for her own ill-gotten gains.”
“Okay, those questions were rhetorical, but thanks for the heads up. Now, oh great and wonderful Valkyrie can you tell what any of Vanessa’s weaknesses are? What I can use against her or what I can say that will get her to take her eyes off the ball and give me that split-second I need to get in there and save Lottie?”
“Blast her with Dragon Fire and leave the ashes for the wind?”
“Let’s make that Plan B. What I need is umm… I need…. I need, BRYNN!”
“Okay, but I think Zach might get pissed.”
Ignoring Jianna’s sarcasm, even though it kept him imagining what Lottie was going through, thinking the worse, Van opened the unique mental link he shared with Zach MacAllen and called out to the one Witch he knew could help.“Hey, Brynn, you there?”
“Well, hello to you, too, Asshole,”came the chuckled reply of brother number four of the renowned bronze Dragon Clan. “Good to hear from you, Van? What’s up? How ya’ doin’? Oh, me, you ask? I’m good. Been working hard. Taking care of your damned house while you’re hangin’ out at some swanky resort. No, need to thank me. You’re family. It’s a…”
“Could you shut the hell up and let me talk to your Mate, please?”Van’s words flew from his mind to Zach’s so quickly not even he knew if he was making sense. The only thing that mattered was saving Lottie. He’d yell at, piss off, and beg whoever he had to make that happen, even shock one of his oldest friends into shutting down their usual casual banter.“Vanessa Marron has Lottie. They’re at the old Hickory Mansion. I need Brynn to tell me what I can use to distract her mom.”
“She’s not my mom,”Brynn’s furious hiss flooded Van’s mind.“Vanessa makes Mommy Dearest look like Betty Crocker, June Cleaver, and Carol Brady all rolled into one.”Without taking a breath, the feisty Witch with a heart of gold and the mouth of a sailor kept right on going,“She’s true horse’s ass, a bitch, a worthless waste of space – hell, pick any one you like or add to the list. Who knows, you might come up with one I haven’t thought of yet. And there’s only one thing that Vanessa cares about, and that’s Vanessa. You either have to charm her or sneak up on her. That woman’s ego could swallow up the whole metroplex and still have room for Beijing, Taiwan, and Sydney. Stay where you are, we’re on the way. The only thing I know for sure will give her a moment’s pause is setting eyes on me. Especially since the last time we talked, I promised to curse her with an immortality spell, lock her in a cement trunk, and drop her into the Gulf of Mexico.”
“NO!”Van roared. “I will not put anyone else in danger. Lottie is my Mate. This is my fight. More than that, this is my job, like what I do for a living, and I’m damned good at it. Thanks, but I can’t let you do anything more than you already have. You gave me an idea I can work with and for that, I owe you a big one.”
“You don’t understand, Donovan, Vanessa’s not…”
“Normal? Sane? Easy to live with?”Jianna broke into the conversation.“Yeah, we know, and if Van says he has a plan, then we’re going in and I’d like to see the person crazy enough to get in our way. I promised Lottie’s mom I’d take care of her daughter and come hell, high water, or somebody waving Hel’s scythe around who decides to remove my head from my shoulders – that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Okay, Ji,”Brynn warily backed off, her tone saying she wasn’t buying any of it, but was trying to do as they asked. “If you say so, but from what I just saw in Van’s mind, Vanessa has some serious firepower and one hell of a magical sugar Daddy and I promise, she’s not afraid to use any of it.”
