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Black smoke belched from the doors and windows of the processing plant, nearly concealing the light of the roaring inferno within. The intensity of the burn told Bertram that it was dragon fire—it seemed they weren’t the only Drakes who’d come in search of the eggs. Reynard had to be here as well.
“Looks like you were right,” Sebastian grunted.
Bertram took no pleasure in the win, but Frederich was cocky, and when Bertram stepped into his headspace, he came on strong. “Did you expect anything less? Now, are you coming along, or staying here?”
“Like you could keep me away.”
Sebastian rolled up his sleeves and climbed out of the SUV, stomping off toward the wreckage. Bertram followed, eyeing the burning building with an increasing sense of dread. He’d been able to talk to Sebastian beforehand—to plead with him not to take a life while they fought to recover the eggs—but there would be no reasoning with Reynard. His young had been stolen from him, and in his rage, he would do anything and everything to get them back.
Could he have killed Sorin already?
Bertram looked inward, fearfully testing his mate bond, and was relieved to find it whole and firmly anchored here on earth. Sorin was alive. He didn’t know what it would feel like if he should die, but he did know that mates very rarely lived long without each other. It wouldn’t feel normal if Sorin had passed. As long as the bond remained intact, he could cling to what little hope he had that everything would be okay.
Just then, movement drew Bertram’s eye. Shapes shifted in the smoke. Humanoid. Many slight of stature, but every one of them fully grown.
The Vanguard.
Bertram barely had time to process what he was seeing before something whizzed through the air in their direction and detonated no more than a hundred feet away. A blast went off, pushing Bertram’s hair back and deafening him momentarily. When the ringing stopped, he heard Sebastian bark with laughter. “Rocket launchers! This should be fun.”
Sebastian ripped off his shirt and dropped the tatters on the ground. Scales plunged down his spine and his body began to change, reshaping itself, bulking, expanding, giving way as his dragon ripped itself into the physical world and took Sebastian’s place.
Bertram’s own dragon, so often silent, stirred in the depths of his soul. He let it out as he undressed, feeling the gleeful tumble of its scales as they rushed down his neck and washed over his shoulders, and as soon as he was fully nude, he gave himself over to it completely.
Transformation consumed him, and in a single, painful moment his human body was overcome.
Not a second after his dragon took hold, Bertram was in the air. He shot upward right as a new blast went off, this one closer and better aimed. Sebastian roared as if he’d been hit, but a quick glance confirmed he was fine. His transformation had saved him—he was mostly covered in scales now, with little skin left to singe—and as the smoke cleared, his transformation was complete. He lurched off the ground on his new wings just in time for three new explosions to go off, their blasts propelling him upward at great speed that allowed him to fall into place by Bertram’s side.
With a puff of smoke from his nostrils—a dragon’s laugh—he dove straight for the Vanguard who had attacked them.
Bertram followed.
He hoped Sebastian would keep his word.
It was difficult to see through smoke so thick, but Bertram had an aerial advantage, and he used it to his benefit. He took to swooping in, knocking the hostile omegas off their feet and sending their weapons flying, then soaring up and out of the smoke to do it all over again.
Every now and then, when he got close, he recognized a face.
A body.
A tattoo.
These people had wronged his family, but they were the same ones he’d laughed with while planning rescue missions. Some of them he’d rescued himself, and others were from families who’d been with the Vanguard for generations and had selflessly pledged their lives to the cause.
They were good people.
People with hearts larger than most.
And yet…
A rocket whizzed by, nearly grazing Bertram’s wing.
Did they not see how wrong this was?
How could he ever hope to save them after all the terrible things they’d done?
Another explosion rocked the area. More fighters emerged. More familiar faces. Bertram killed no one, but he didn’t fight fair, either. He gave them no quarter and drove them back into the flame, forcing them to make a choice—run, or burn.
To his relief, most ran.
