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But my mouth dried up in an instant.
I had lost sight of my mate.
Another ball of magic energy broke through the trees, pushing us further apart. Followed by another. And then another. Before I knew it, we were separated and in the midst of battle. Hunters converged on us from every direction, doing everything but fall from the sky.
Deep inside, my dragon screamed to be let out, but with so many Drakon Hunters in such close proximity, the vulnerable moments of the change would be far too risky for either myself or my mate.
“Tess,” I bellowed over the explosions of magic going off all around us. “Fucking run!”
I had to hope that my mate took my direction. She had to. There was simply no other option. To stay and fight, weaponless, would mean she would be shredded by the dark spells in a heartbeat.
The Drakon Hunters, if nothing else, were exceedingly good at killing things.
Especially sweet and essential things, like an intended mate.
I dodged and rolled under a new volley of deadly spell fire, then came up and onto my feet, letting out a defiant snarl at my attackers who were still completely hidden from me. They must have been using some sort of cloaking spell to be able to sneak up so close on our usually highly intuitive and sharp scenting dragons.
Getting to Onxy’s base was my only hope of saving my mate.
In my mind, over and over, I chanted to myself that she was alive. That she’d taken heed of my order to take cover. That the Hunters hadn’t found her. I ignored every taunting whisper of from the darkness, which stole through the trees like a toxic fog. I ignored every scream and cry as I ran from tree to tree, keeping as much between myself and the Drakon Hunters as possible.
More Hunters lurked in the undergrowth. The entire forest seemed to be dotted with them. But with dragons circling in the air, fire raining down on the enemy, I almost forgot that I was defenseless.
Magic was wielded on Drakonis to aid in science. It was utilized only by the males and females of our kind who sought to improve our lives. While our forms were inherently magical–shifting from a two legged being to an enormous dragon defied the laws of physics, after all–not every Drakon was trained in the discipline of shaping that magic.
As such, I had never felt its rancid touch.
So, when my entire body locked up and crashed suddenly to the ground, no longer responding to my wishes, it took time for my logical brain to puzzle out what had even happened. To work out why I was down on the ground and unable to lift even a claw to come to my own defense.
And then, the pain started.
It felt like acid in my veins. Ripping and tearing through my body, laying ruin to everything it touched. The world went a hazy gray, then the pulsing red of dying star, before blinking in and out of existence.
The screaming which surrounded me felt so very far away.
Until I realized that the screaming was coming from me.
19
Tess
Nope. No fucking way. This was not how the last few insane days were going to end. I refused–just point blank refused–to let it go this way. My mate was not going to be torn to pieces for sport by the deadliest scumbags who walked this Earth.
While the Drakon Hunters had been distracted dragging Radon out into the natural clearing, I’d scaled a nearby tree so that I could look down on the meadow and watch over my mate without a casual glance into the undergrowth exposing my position. Damnit, I wished I’d had Berty with me, or even one of those stun guns we’d been using in training would’ve helped. They wouldn’t completely incapacitate my enemy, sure, but they would at least have pulled the Hunters’ attention off torturing my mate. Plus, if one of them got too close, anything that solid would hurt like fuck if you clocked a bitch in the back of the head.
Below me, Radon’s skin was terrible ashen gray. Every nerve in my body was screaming at me that this was a bad sign. Like so, so bad. Radon was being taken from me, right before my eyes, and I wasn’t able to do dick about it. Stuck up in this tree like a numbnuts. Why was I hiding in the shadows when he was down there taking the punishment he didn’t even deserve?
There had to be a reason I’d hung back. There had to be something I could do–some reason my instincts had begged me to stay put–rather than run for help like Radon had ordered me to do. What had Samantha told me, back in the bar? Something about when the final fated mate accepts their bond, each of the mates grow stronger? Heal faster? Became somehow–by some magical mating mojo–irrevocably connected to one another, able and willing to come to each other’s aid at a moment’s notice?
Well, I needed Asteroid. More than ever before, I needed my mate’s wrath in his most destructive form to sweep into this clearing and destroy the sick fucks who’d dragged my mate out into the open, just so they could torment him some more.
The Drakon Hunters were standing there in the tall grass and gloating over the fallen form of Radon, who had long since ceased to scream. Now he was simply curled up on his side in a ball of despair. When one of them used his foot to roll my mate open, Radon unfurled to lay inert on the ground. Unresponsive. The Hunter jeered, nudging his mates, then unzipped his fly.
The intent of his actions–to piss on my helpless mate–turned my world to red.
Fuck, no. Not on my watch.
My selfless mate had ordered me to run–to hide and save myself if I had to–but of course I’d ignored my surly mate. When the Hunters had driven a wedge between us, ignoring me to hunt their prey, I knew they didn’t give a lick about me. Not really. Clearly, a ‘normie’ wasn’t perceived as a threat to real witches.
