For once, the annoying phone call that jangles my last nerve in an effort to get me out of bed actually isn’t mine. This is good in that I don’t have any surprise, the baby decided to come early and we need you at the hospital expectations. It’s bad because, come on, it’s barely daylight and my body is pleasantly sore from how many times Bronaz rose to the challenge of putting a baby in me.

He certainly gave it a hell of an effort. I may not sit right for a week.

Bronaz fumbles for his cell and barks into the phone. “If someone’s not bleeding from an artery, they will be when I get there.”

There’s a long silence before he bolts upright in the bed. “You’re where?”

That doesn’t sound very good. Slowly I sit up, my hand on Bronaz’ shoulder. He looks over at me and mouths Goldie.

Oh gods. Has something happened?

“All right. Stay there and stay down. We’re on our way.” He pauses, listening before shaking his head, as if Goldie can see it. “No. I’m serious, girl, don’t go anywhere until we get there. Send me the address.”

He kills the call and drops it to the bed. Scrubbing vigorously at his face, he takes several breaths. “Kuras, get on your phone and call Taran and Nyve, tell them to meet me here.”

His phone chimes and he pulls up the address that Goldie just sent him.

I lunge from the bed to find my phone. “Is she really there by herself?”

“Yes,” his answer comes out like a hiss. “She thinks she’s found where they’re holding her sister.”

My hands shake with the realization.

Bronaz is out of bed, jerking on clothes, while I call Austin first, then Nosko and relay the message. When I’m done, he takes his phone back and calls Varos and Sako.

I pull my slacks and shirt on. My shoes are somewhere under the bed and I have to drop to my knees to find them.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Bronaz demands.

“With you.” I find my shoes and socks and drag them out.

“Like hell.”

“No,” I say with equal firmness. “You like hell. I’m going, Bronaz. I may not have known her as long as you have, but she’s still my friend and she needs me. Us.”

“Kuras.” Bronaz’ sharp rebuke is followed by a long breath. “I’m not going to be able to stop you.”

“Sharp observation for so early in the morning.” I stomp my feet into my shoes and tie them off before standing.

Bronaz is staring at me, his brow furrowed. I place my hands on his waist, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. “Look. I know you’re worried about me.”

“You might be carrying my baby, Kuras, so yes I’m worried—”

“But I can help. I’ve been helpful before, haven’t I?”

He hesitates before he answers. “Yes, but—”

“No buts. I have. You know it. I know it. I have to go, Bronaz. I’ll be fine. I’m an omega, but I’m not helpless. I can be pretty scrappy in a fight. But it won’t come to that. We’ll go in, get her and be gone. Hell, who’s awake at…” I lean around him to notice the time. “Five am? Everyone’s still in bed.”

Bronaz stands immovable. I’m afraid that he’s going to insist. Then I’ll have to insist. And it will get ugly. We just formed our bond and we stand on the edge of our first fight.

His shoulders sag slightly. “Fine. But seriously, Kuras, don’t put yourself in harm’s way, alright? No heroics?”

“Same to you,” I say firmly.

“No heroics.”

I can’t be sure if he’s promising me no heroics or if he’s just being stubborn in reminding me. Before I can ask, his phone rings and we are heading toward the front door.

We all converge at the meeting spot around the same time. Taran and Nyve flew in dragon form and landed out of sight before emerging from the high brush of an abandoned lot in their human forms. Sako shows up on his motorcycle and Varos jogs up from where his car dropped him off.

Goldie appears soon after. Her normally brushed and curly hair is pulled into a braided ponytail. She’s not wearing makeup and there are dark circles under her eyes, probably a combination of smeared mascara and lack of sleep.

“Where are we?” Bronaz asks, looking around.

“Somerville Heights. It’s an abandoned subdivision when the finance company went bankrupt about five years ago. They lost house buyers and went belly up.” Varos is typing into his phone with his thumbs. “I’ll have Ronnie run it and see who the holding company comes up for.”

“I bet we know what name comes up,” I muse as I look around at the abandoned construction site. “They just stopped building. Right in the middle of erecting the houses.”

“I think they’re keeping her in that one over there,” Goldie points to a house that from the outside appears almost complete. “I’ve seen cars come and go regularly. Just one car, usually three or four people. The people who go in aren’t the people who come out.”

“Working in shifts?” Bronaz asks, although that’s what we all already suspect.

Goldie’s chin lifts in pride. “They need four people to watch her. She’s still fighting them.”

“Yeah, well, she’s probably getting pretty tired. Do you know the pattern of when they come and go?”

“I think it’s twelve hour shifts. So this current lot has been guarding her now for about ten hours.”

Taran nods slowly, a wicked smile crossing his lips. “They must be getting tired, too.”

Sako slaps his hands together. “Then let’s get this party started. I didn’t leave the warmth of my bed to stand around and talk all morning.”

Taran splits us up. Bronaz and I are separated. My mate protests but he’s silenced when Taran explains Bronaz will be more on point if he’s not watching over his shoulder to look after me. It makes sense. I grab Bronaz and kiss him fiercely. “We got your back. Go get her.”

With a lingering glance, Bronaz takes off at a jog behind Taran and Nyve.

Once they’re out of sight, Varos tucks his phone away. Sako bumps his elbow. “Put that shit on silence or Murphy’s Law will fuck our asses bad.”

Varos powers his phone down as we strike off, following Goldie’s direction, to come at the house from a different vantage point.

“I was able to watch from here,” she says as she jumps the neighboring chainlink fence. “No one looks out their back windows anymore.”

It’s not until we’re at the back door that we hear the sounds of a fight inside. It’s hard to tell which direction it’s coming from.

Goldie sucks in a deep breath. “They have the house magically sealed to muffle sound. But that’s Rayne. I can feel her. She’s getting tired.”

Varos kicks the door in and we stop in the kitchen. The sounds of a fight are louder now. Goldie pushes past us and points to the wall. “There,” she says.

I don’t see anything, and judging by the quizzical looks on Varos and Sako’s face, they don’t see it either. But she sees something. “That’s her.”

With her finger pointing, she heads deeper into the house until she stops at a door beneath the stairs. Most likely, a basement staircase.

The hinge lock is torn from the wood and hangs sadly from one screw. Looks like the guys got there before us.

Sako taps Varos to head down. “I’ll stay up here and make sure no one follows.”

He grabs my arm as I follow Varos. Goldie pushes past me. At the top of the stairs the sounds of a fight are almost deafening. “Kuras, no offense—”

“None taken and you’re not stopping me.” When he resists letting me go, I pat him on the shoulder. “Sako, my mate is down there. I can hold off anyone at the bottom of the stairs. I know better than to get in the way of those who are better at fighting than me.”

The sound of gunshots ricochet through the house. With a grimace, he relents with a nod and I race down.

It’s complete mayhem when I get there.

There’s a young woman with silver hair styled in an undercut in the middle of a shimmering blue shield of light. Goldie raises a second shield as around our guys making a straight line path to the men with guns drawn.

There are more men here than we anticipated. Some with guns, some wielding powerful magic of their own.

The young woman, who I’m assuming is Goldie’s sister, gives our arrival a wicked grin. She shifts her stance from defensive to offensive now that Goldie is there with a fresh shield.

The hair on my arms raise with the amount of mythical energy contained in the unfinished basement. Energy blasts darken the cinder block wall. Judging by the divots in the concrete of the floor and walls, they’ve been at this for a while.

By the time our guys reach the men, they’ve shifted into dragon form.

A dragon in full shift is intimidating enough. To have three barreling down on your position has to be terrifying.

Taran bellows a roar and a gout of fire spews from his mouth. One of the men barely manage to get a defensive shield up in time. A couple of their number are shrugging off their smoldering jackets.

That makes some of the men panic, shooting bullets and magic in every direction. One of their own is hit in the shoulder and he staggers against the back wall, dropping his gun. The others close rank to face the charging dragons.

It’s pure chaos after that. With three dragons, two mages, and a handful of men still trying valiantly to hold off the onslaught, there’s not a lot of room to maneuver. Once Bronaz is within reach, he’s claws and teeth and fire as he tears through the group, clearly trying to keep panic from setting in.

Movement just off the main fighting group catches my eye. The one who has been shot has busted out a narrow window and two of his fellows are lifting him up through it. Shit. Shit!

“Sako! Out back!” I shout as I race for the window to follow the escaping man. In human form, I can wiggle through it easily. A jagged piece of glass tears at my shirt and I feel a sharp pang in my side. It’s not serious and I keep wiggling until I am clear of the window. To my right, Sako bursts through the back door.

The man is staggering for the fence. For an injured guy, he’s moving fast. He must not be human.

Both of us change into dragon and lope out into the yard to take to the air to track him.

He clears the fence and disappears into the low brush before we can get airborne.

I can’t scent blood from him or gunpowder, although to be fair, in dragon form my senses aren’t sharp.

Several circuits around the neighborhood, and no sign of him. We lost him.

Sako catches my attention and motions for us to head back to the house. We get there in time to see Goldie and Rayne stagger out of the house to collapse in the yard.

“Anyone still alive in there?” I ask as I shift back to my human form.

Goldie shrugs and gestures behind her where Taran, Nyve and Bronaz follow. Bronaz has smudges of soot and dirt on his face but his eyes are clear and sparkling dangerously.

“What do we do with them?” Varos asks as he shuts the door. “Call an ambulance? The cops?”

“Leave them. We got what we came for,” Taran says roughly. He collapses on the ground next to Rayne and Goldie and sticks his hand out. “Taran Scalding.”

“Rayne Burdle,” she says, taking his hand. “But I guess you already knew that?”

“I told them all about you,” Goldie says with pride.

“Not everything,” Nyve says.

“She told us enough.” Bronaz looks at me and his expression shifts from grim exhaustion to horror. “Kuras. You’re bleeding.”

I glance down at my side. My shirt is ripped and the area around it is soaked with blood. I pick at the cotton and hold it away from my body to examine it. “I must have cut myself when I went through the window.”

“Must have?” Bronaz pulls my hand away and gingerly untucks my shirt to see the gash. He hisses through his teeth. “I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have—”

“Can we talk about this later?” Sako says roughly. “We still got a guy running around in the bushes out there.”

Varos clucks his tongue. “You let one get away? You had one job, Sako.”

“Fuck you. He was a runner and he came from the basement, which was your job,” Sako says with a rough push against Varos to make him stagger.

Varos just laughs and shakes his head. “So are we really going to leave them there, Taran?”

“What are they going to do, report us to the police?” Taran lifts to his feet. “But we do need to get out of here.”

Rayne is on her feet, helping Goldie up as well. “Thanks for coming with Goldie to get me.”

Nyve snorts. “Didn’t look like you need much of our help. You were holding your own pretty well there.”

“It was enough.”

Goldie throws her arms around her sister’s neck. “Can we go home now? I haven’t had a shower in two days and my hair is a wreck.”

Rayne rolls her eyes. “I’ll catch up with you guys later. I think we have a lot to talk about.”

“Goldie knows where to find us.”

With a nod of his head, Taran shifts into dragon form again and flies off.

Nyve and Varos follow suit. Sako thumps me on the shoulder. “Good call on seeing that guy take off.”

“I just wish we could have caught him.” Bronaz is still examining my side and he pokes it. I flinch from the pain. “Ow.”

Sako laughs. “Go let your man take care of you. I’ll see you at the shop.”

Bronaz and I are the last two standing in the abandoned yard. He clucks his tongue. “Can you fly back or do I need to get a car?”

My eyebrow lifts in disbelief. “First, I’m fine, but I really don’t think I need to get in a car looking like this. Looks like we’re flying.”

Bronaz drags me into a fierce hug. “That was a foolish thing to do.”

His arms are tight and squeezing the air from my lungs. I pat on his hip until he lets me go. “I’m a dragon, just like you. It’ll heal. You know that.”

“Doesn’t mean I like to see it. I never want to see your blood, Kuras.”

“Then take me home and patch me up.”

Bronaz kisses me softly, his lips gentle against mine. “Done.”