“Shift!” The word gurgled out of Kara as she clung to the man’s hand, trying to loosen his hold.
“I can’t!” Noah yelled again. He felt the dragon’s energy swirling around him, but he knew it wouldn’t back down enough for him to change to human. Byrd was much too worked up with Kara in danger.
“Just do it!” Kara screamed at him.
The man’s attention bounced back and forth between them as they yelled.
Noah’s pulse raced as he watched the gun drifting away from Kara’s head. Hope welled in his heart. If he could distract the man enough, he might be able to close the gap between them. He held a spell in his mind that he could unleash without words.
“Do it!” Kara yelled.
The man’s head snapped to her, then back to Noah.
As his attention turned, Kara gripped his hand tightly and kicked out. In an amazing feat of flexibility, she got her feet up against the corner of the alcove and shoved with all her might.
Fear raced through Noah’s system as he launched himself towards the pair.
The man stumbled to the side and rammed into a metal table filled with an elaborate array of chemistry equipment. The glass contraption rattled. A single tube slipped from its holder and shattered on the table.
Noah closed his eyes and raced towards them as the chemicals in the tube burst into a ball of blue flame. Time slowed as he counted the seconds left in Kara’s life. At three, he slammed into the unstable pair, knocking them to the ground. At four, the gun in the man’s hand went off, hitting Noah in the chest like a Mack truck, but the bullet skittered off his scales and ricocheted over his shoulder. At five, Noah popped the spell in his mind, sending a wave of energy out into his target. Unfortunately, the man’s hand was still on Kara’s throat. They were both racked with spasms as the energy coursed through them. At six, the glass array Noah had been using to brew up a very volatile potion exploded, peppering his outstretched wings with licks of white-hot flame and splintered glass. The concussion from the blast pressed him down over the pair on the floor and darkened the corners of his vision.
The screech of his fire alarm went off, pulling him back to consciousness. He struggled to get his limbs working again. Chunks of the flame-retardant ceiling he’d installed crashed down as it buckled under its own weight. The pressure from the blast had shattered the ceiling tiles beyond recognition, but they had done their job. The flames burning on the table and floor hadn’t caught on the beams of the ceiling.
A secondary siren screeched to life, driving Noah past his pain. He now had sixty seconds to get out of the room before his state-of-the-art fire-suppression system kicked in and flooded the room with an unhealthy dose of argon gas. It had been one of his many splurges that he’d made while setting up his lab. On the off chance there was an explosion that left him unable to get out, the argon gas would kill him, but it would smother out the flames before they reached something more dangerous. That, in itself, would save the lives of the poor sods sent to save him.
Shaking the shards of glass and fire from his wings, Noah staggered to his feet. He bumped Kara with his nose, but she didn’t move. Moving to her waist, he grabbed the back of her pants in his teeth and pulled her off their attacker. The hiss of the gas drove him faster as he backed up. Thankfully, Kara hadn’t let the door shut completely, and he was able to drag her into the stairwell and shut the lower door. The hissing noise stopped as the pressure from the argon gas forced the air seal around the door closed.
Noah struggled through the dark until he was next to her. “Kara,” he called, rubbing his nose against her.
She moaned in the dark.
“Come on.” He nudged her, forcing her to respond. “We have to get out of here.” There was good air in here, but the seal wasn’t designed to be perfect.
She moaned again.
Noah found her arm and managed to wiggle under her so she was mostly supported on his back.
After a moment of dead weight, she started to help by clutching on to him.
“Hold on,” he said as he started up the steps. Every step hurt. His chest hurt from the bullet. His shoulder screamed from where the blast had reinjured it. His wings and back burned from the sharp glass and caustic potion that had been sprayed across him. Focusing his mind, he ignored the pain and pulled on the energy of his dragon. Byrd was screaming at him to keep his mate from harm. He didn’t spare a thought to calm Byrd. He used that to force himself up the steps.
The door at the top of the steps was a bit more challenging, but he got it open. The sudden light of his kitchen blinded him, but he crawled his way out, dragging Kara with him. The audible cock of a gun stopped him, and he turned blurry eyes up to find four men standing in his kitchen, weapons drawn.
Byrd screamed at him to fight, to protect his mate, but there was nothing Noah could do. Kara was nearly unconscious, and he hurt beyond words. He struggled to flip Kara off him and lie down over her. At least that way, they couldn’t shoot her. Noah released his hold and let Byrd take over. If anything could save them, it was the savage fury of his dragon.
Byrd growled and snapped at the four men as they got close, but they tackled him, knocking him off Kara. His claws raked across the face of one of the men as his jaws snapped at another. “Mine!” he screeched, trying to get free so he could protect his fallen mate. He drew in a breath, stoking the fires deep in his chest, but one of the men slammed his head into the ground, clamping his mouth shut. Smoke rolled out of his nose, but there was no way to release the flames he had heated. They burned in his chest, forcing him to cool them off.
“Do it!” one of the men yelled.
Thrashing, Byrd fought as someone near his tail scraped something hard against the scales on his hip, separating them slightly. The sharp end of a needle slipped between two of the scales and deep into his flesh. His roar of anger was smothered by the man holding his mouth shut. The serum burned as it entered. Red filled his vision, and he kicked hard, flipping the man on his hip away. Another good thrashing tossed one of the men from his side. The rest released him and retreated to a safe distance. Byrd roared at them, but whatever they had injected him with was already working. Unable to stoke his flames to kill his attackers, he staggered over to Kara’s limp form and dropped himself on her again. Breathing hard, he spread his wings over her in a vain attempt to protect her. His vision swam as he clutched onto Kara. Thoughts of Raven’s death filled his mind, and he keened out his anguish as another of his was lost to these monsters. He glared at the waiting men as his limbs went heavy and numb.
A bare trickle of Noah’s consciousness brushed against Byrd’s mind. “They will pay for this.”
Byrd blinked one last time before the drug stole the last of his strength. “With their lives.”
10
“We can’t kill him,” a male voice called out of the darkness Noah’s mind swam in. “The boss wants the dragon.”
“But that shit killed Spencer!” another enraged voice responded. “He needs to die!”
“I know,” the first voice answered, coaxing the second to see reason, “and he will, but this is what we’ve been working for. We can’t kill him yet. The maks need him alive.”
Noah bristled at the slur against mages. The term ‘maks’ was only ever used in the most derogatory way. It was a word he’d often heard from his father growing up. A soft growl echoed up from his chest.