As much as Kurt would have loved to revel all day in the fact that he and Natalie were alive, he knew that they couldn’t pause for long to rest. The Dark Warriors would have already realized that their bomb hadn’t gone off, and they were going to be angry about it. Tonight’s battle wasn’t over yet.

“Come on,” Kurt said, pulling Natalie toward the door of the bathroom. “We’ll kiss more later. Now, we need to get away from here. This bathroom is the first place they’re going to look.”

But as they ran away from the bathroom, Kurt realized that hiding wasn’t exactly going to be an option. Not that he himself cared. He was planning to fight tooth and nail until every last wizard was dead. But he didn’t want to put Natalie out on the front line. He’d been hoping to find her a nice little hideout.

That didn’t seem likely when they were leaving a trail of flour everywhere they went. Anyone with two eyes and half a brain would be able to find them. And running down the stairs wasn’t likely to turn out great, either. There were four stairwells in this building, and the wizards would be running up at least one of them, maybe two. Or maybe all four, if they were smart and wanted to catch Kurt and Natalie in the act of escaping.

“Let’s just stand our ground and fight,” Natalie said as Kurt paced back and forth between two rows of cubicles.

He looked up at her and smiled sadly. “You’re so freaking brave. I love you.”

She smiled back. “I’m just trying to be practical. It’s the most realistic solution, and we’re gonna have to fight them eventually. Also, I love you, too.”

It was the first time she’d said it, and Kurt grinned at her like the fool in love that he was. God, why did these annoying Dark Warriors have to be so insistent on killing them? He wanted to make out with Natalie right here and now, and they were cramping his style.

“At least go stand behind a row of cubicles or something, would you? I don’t want you to be the first person they see. They can shoot attacks at my dragon hide all day long and I won’t feel a thing unless they’re lucky enough to hit me in a vulnerable spot.”

“But, Kurt—”

“Please just hide,” he said. “I know you’re brave and capable, but I just can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you.”

Before she could answer, the room was filled with the sound of shattering glass. Natalie shrieked and jumped back, and Kurt’s whole body tensed as he looked for the source of the sound and prepared to shift. But when he saw what had caused the noise, he relaxed and let out a loud whoop.

A large dragon had just come crashing through the floor to ceiling windows on the twelfth floor office space where Kurt and Natalie stood. And Kurt would have recognized that dragon anywhere.

“Stan!” he yelled. Stan grinned at him, and walked forward into the large room, smashing cubicles as he did. Behind him, another dragon flew in, and then another.

“Mitch! Hugh!” Kurt’s heart was so full of joy it was practically dancing with joy. On the backs of the three dragons rode Wyatt and most of the Chicago resistance crew. There were also several wizards wearing Torch Lake military uniforms.

“What’s going on?” Natalie asked, still looking uncertainly at the dragons.

“What’s going on,” Kurt said, his heart swelling with pride, “Is that the reinforcements from Torch Lake have arrived. The Dark Warriors are going down tonight.”

Wyatt hopped off of Stan’s dragon back and ran to Natalie, enveloping her in a friendly hug. “My god, we were all so worried. Is the bomb gone? You two both look like you were subjected to multiple rounds of the farina spell.”

Natalie nodded, flour falling from her head as she did. “Yup, it’s gone. No more bomb threat. Although I have a feeling we’re about to be joined by some very angry Dark Warriors.”

Wyatt grimaced. “Your feeling is right. But we’re gonna give them hell!”

A cheer went up from behind Wyatt, and Kurt’s heart swelled again. “What’s the plan, Wyatt?” he asked.

“We’re going to kill off all the wizards and shifters that are storming this building right now. That should be easy enough, since we have you plus the three additional dragons from Torch Lake. These guys arrived just after I got your text that Natalie was in trouble, and they were as pissed off as I was.”

Kurt looked at Stan’s dragon and grinned. “Looks like I keep needing you to rescue me, buddy,” he teased. Stan let out a huff of smoke in response. Kurt just laughed. Stan had been the one to rescue Kurt from the Dark Warriors several months ago when they had taken him captive. Kurt probably could have made it out of this mess alone today, but it was going to be a lot quicker—and a lot more fun—to beat back these bastards with his friends by his side.

“That’s not all though,” Wyatt said, glancing anxiously toward the direction of one of the stairwells. They all knew that the Dark Warriors would be appearing at any moment, angry as hornets. “We’re also going to head to the Dark Warriors headquarters and attack tonight, as soon as we’re done with the group here.”

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “We are?”

Wyatt nodded. “Yup. I know we’d planned to do a really well-planned-out attack, but we’re going to take advantage of tonight. The Dark Warriors won’t be expecting an attack after the chaos here at this building tonight. And they’ll likely be reeling and upset from the loss of so many wizards and shifters here. They’ll also be confused as to why the bomb they set didn’t go off.”

“Not only that,” Natalie piped in, her voice sounding practically giddy, “But they’ll be taken completely by surprise when we show up with four dragons and a bunch of wizard soldiers from Torch Lake.”

“Exactly,” Wyatt said. “They have no idea that we just had reinforcements come in tonight. If we attack right away, we’ll catch them off guard before they realize how much extra help we have.”

“Sounds good to me,” Kurt said. “I’m itching for a fight, after the way they treated Natalie tonight.”

“Good,” Wyatt said. “Then hurry up and shift because the battle’s gonna be starting any second now.”

Wyatt himself started to shift as he said this, his bear form quickly beginning to take over. But before Kurt started to shift, he ran over to Natalie and took her face in his hands. Much of the flour had fallen off at this point, but there was still quite a bit of it stuck to her skin. He brushed a clump of it away from one of her eyebrows, and then gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

“I won’t try to ask you not to fight, because I know I’d be wasting my breath.”

She laughed. “Yeah. There’s no way I’m sitting this one out. I’m no soldier, but they’ve made me too angry. I want revenge.”

“Can you at least hang back so you’re not on the front lines? It makes more sense to let the highly trained soldiers go first. I don’t want to lose you. One brush with death is enough for the night, don’t you think.”

She gave him a sheepish grin. “Fine. You’re right. I’ll hang back and let the experts do the hardest part. But I do want to get in a few hits of my own. I’m like an angry hornet right now.”

“Fair enough,” he said, then kissed her again. Then he gave her a pat on the ass. “Now get to the back, please.”

She nodded and went to stand behind the other dragons, while Kurt began to shift. A cloud of flour burst into the air as his body began to grow and his skin gave way to dragon hide.

That’s one way to clean off all that flour, he thought wryly. His transformation into a dragon moved swiftly, but even still, he had barely finished shifting when the doors to one of the stairwells flew open and a group of Dark Warriors stormed in. For a moment, they paused, obviously taken aback by the sight of all the dragons, wizards, and other shifters in the room. They had only been expecting Natalie, and perhaps Kurt, if they’d put two and two together and realized who he was. They certainly hadn’t been planning to face down a group like this.

Kurt had to hand it to them, though. They were either really brave or really stupid because they recovered from their shock pretty quickly.

“You’re all going to die!” shouted the dark wizard at the front of the group as he started to charge forward.

Think again. You are the one who’s gonna die today.

A second stairwell door flew open, and another group of dark wizards and shifters stormed into the room. The Dark Warriors must have already called for backup, because there were dozens more of them now than Kurt had seen slinking around the building earlier. Even with the additional soldiers, though, the Dark Warriors didn’t stand a chance. Not when there were four angry dragons in the room, one of whom was very angry over the fact that these fools had almost killed his lifemate. Kurt was going to make them all pay.

The next several minutes were pure chaos. Angry wizards on both sides cast attack spells back and forth. The shifters all bared their teeth and wrestled down as many enemies as they could. And the dragon shifters breathed out near-constant streams of fire. The room filled up with smoke, and soon the fire alarms started going off. Kurt ignored the blaring alarms and kept fighting. He reached out and slashed at enemy wizards and shifters with his sharp dragon claws, and he breathed searing hot flames onto others. He tried to keep an eye out for Natalie, but it was nearly impossible to do in the midst of the smoky, noisy room. He had to trust that she could take care of herself, and that she was staying back as she’d promised.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the battle stopped. Kurt swung his giant dragon head back and forth in confusion, his eyes peering through the haze as he tried to pick out any remaining enemies. But there were none. As the smoke slowly cleared, all he could see were his friends, old and new, looking around just like he was, searching for threatening faces. There were no more threats here.

Wyatt shifted back into human form, and was the first one to let out a whoop. “We did it!” he yelled. “They’re all down, every last one of them!”

And not a moment too soon, it seemed. Above the sound of Wyatt’s cheers, Kurt caught the sound of sirens from far down below. The police were coming. This part of downtown might be quiet at this time of night, but it wasn’t completely deserted. Someone must have seen something, and alerted the authorities that one of the downtown office buildings had several windows missing, with smoke and flames pouring out. Wyatt seemed to hear the sirens then, too.

“Shit,” he said. “We need to get going. Who can volunteer to stay behind and clean up all these bodies? They need to be gone before the police get up here.”

Several of the wizards raised their hands, and Wyatt pointed at five of them. “You, you, you, you, and you. Clean up here, then follow us to the Dark Warriors’ headquarters. You know where it is, right?”

The wizards nodded. Wyatt started giving them directions, but Kurt stopped paying attention. He turned his attention to scanning the room, looking for Natalie. It still wasn’t easy to see in here. The smoke hadn’t completely cleared, and it was dark. But it looked to Kurt like their group had suffered few casualties, if any. He didn’t notice anyone missing. Most importantly, Natalie was still standing. He caught her eye and she gave him a little wave, making his heart do a flip-flop in his giant dragon chest. She was alright. That was all that mattered.

Wyatt was yelling at everyone now that it was time to move. The wizards who were staying behind to clean up had their orders. It shouldn’t take them very long to deal with the mess, since they had magic on their side. They would make quick work of it, and in the meantime, the others would storm Dark Warrior headquarters.

Kurt glanced back at Natalie, who was walking toward him.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” she said, wrapping her arms around his giant dragon neck. He huffed in response.

She pulled back to look at him. “I’m going to ride with you, if that’s alright?”

He huffed again and gave her an encouraging nudge with his dragon nose. She grinned, and moved to hop onto his back. He would have been upset if she’d ridden with anyone else. He wanted her here, close to him so he could keep an eye on her and protect her.

Natalie climbed up and invited a few of the other shifters from Chicago to climb up behind her. The rest of the group climbed up on the other three dragon shifters, and once everyone was secure, Wyatt yelled out, “Now!”

The dragons took off through the broken windows. Below them, police cars were pulling up in front of the building. Kurt hoped none of them had looked up at the moment the dragons were leaving. But he couldn’t worry right now about whether humans had seen him in dragon form. His only worry was bringing down the Dark Warriors. After everything that had happened tonight, he was determined to make them pay. They had messed with the wrong dragon.

The four dragons sliced silently through the dark night, led by Stan’s dragon, which Wyatt rode on. Ordinarily, the dragons might have flown slowly to try to sneak up on the headquarters without being noticed. But there was nothing slow about tonight. They were flying in as fast as they could flap their wings, ready to come in blazing. Their plan tonight was to come in so fast that the Dark Warriors wouldn’t have time to react.

The plan worked.

As they approached the headquarters, the expert Torch Lake wizards started performing counterspells to break down the protective magic shields that the Dark Warriors had put up around the building. The counterspells required to break down these shields were complex, but Torch Lake had some very talented wizards, and they managed to make a hole large enough for a dragon to fly through. One by one, in rapid succession, the four dragons zoomed through the hole, not slowing down for an instant. They flew down to some large windows and crashed through them, just as they had in the office building downtown.

The Dark Warriors had seen them coming just before they broke through, and were in a frenzy. The dark wizards were screaming out spells, and the dark shifters were already beginning to morph into their animal forms. But Kurt could tell that it was going to be too little, too late for the Dark Warriors. Their reign of terror in the city of Chicago was about to come to an end. He took in a deep breath, and let it out in a long streak of flames.

The Dark Warriors screamed in agony. Some tried to run, others tried to attack back. But either way, they were doomed. With four dragons, dozens of other shifters, and a group of strong wizards fighting for good, the Dark Warriors could not hold the line.

Kurt felt energized as he fought alongside his fellow dragons. He’d thought after the last war that he wanted nothing to do with fighting evil, but now he realized that he’d missed this. He’d missed the high that came from taking out the enemy, and from protecting those he loved. Natalie stayed on his back even when everyone else jumped off, and he loved the feel of her there. He felt better knowing that she was safe and secure, and he thought they made a good team, she throwing attack spells and he breathing fire. Together, they were making good progress against the enemy.

Alarm sirens were going off all over the building, and another group of Dark Warriors arrived on the scene. They joined in the fight, but they weren’t enough to turn the tides of battle. Wave after wave of evil wizards and shifters appeared, but the good wizards and shifters held their ground. They would not allow darkness to have this city. The battle raged on for about thirty minutes, but then stopped almost as suddenly as it started. Kurt and the others looked around at the chaotic scene, trying to see if any enemies remained. But there were none. The room was silent except for the sound of ragged breathing as all of the good wizards and shifters tried to catch their breath.

Wyatt was the first to actually move. He shifted back to human form, then started walking across the large room, glass crunching under his feet as he did. He kicked at a few of the Dark Warriors’ bodies to make sure they were really down, then turned to his friends.

“This is likely all of them, but we should spread out and search the building. A few of the wizards stay here to clean up, and the rest of you check the other floors.”

They all moved to do as they were told. Kurt and the other dragons were too large in dragon form to squeeze through the hallways in the building, so they waited with the wizards who were cleaning up the bodies. After about ten minutes, the wizards were done cleaning up and the rest of the crew had returned.

“No one else in here,” one of the wizards announced. “We got them all, it seems.”

“We did find quite a bit of stuff that might be useful. Files of information, weapons, and computers,” said another wizard.

Kurt looked around at the room they had broken into. It was a large room not all that different from the call center room where Natalie had worked. There were several desks with computers, and one large screen near the back of the room, which looked like it had been cracked during the battle.

“This must have been some sort of command central,” Wyatt mused.

Kurt nodded his dragon head. He had a feeling there would be a lot of useful information here, but right now all he wanted to do was get out of here and be alone with Natalie. He felt he deserved that, after the night they’d had. Natalie seemed to feel the same.

“Would you mind if Kurt and I called it a night?” she asked Wyatt. “It looks like everything is under control here, and I could use a shower.”

Wyatt laughed as he looked at her. Much of the flour had fallen off of her by this point, but quite a bit still clung to her hairline. “Go ahead. You two more than deserve a break.”

Natalie turned to Kurt. “Want to fly us back to my place? I’ll put an invisibility spell over you so no one will see us. We can stop by your hotel first and I can run in and grab you some clothes, since yours were all ruined by shifting.”

Kurt nodded, turning his dragon lips up in a smile. He and Natalie left quietly through the hole in the windows, and Kurt lazily pumped his wings as he flew, going slowly enough so that Natalie wouldn’t have trouble keeping her invisibility shield around him.

The city was beautiful tonight. The sky was dark, but the lights of downtown twinkled, and the inky black lake reflected a bit of that light. Kurt didn’t exactly love big cities, but he could appreciate their unique sort of beauty.

He turned his dragon head north toward Natalie’s apartment. He was going home. Whether or not they ended up staying in Chicago, it didn’t matter. Wherever Natalie was, that was home. And that’s where he would always be.