“Just tell me what you want. Stop fucking around and tell me. You can have anything.”

I would-I would give anything to take her down from there. Turn my fingers to talons and cut her bonds. She didn’t deserve whatever in the hell this was. In the back of my head, I wished she’d never come here.

“Oh come now, Alpha. There’s only a handful of reasons that I would want your mate. Let’s play a guessing game, shall we? You guess correctly and I will refrain from slitting her throat while you watch.”

I lunged at her, but stopped myself.

“You want me dead.”

She rolled her eyes and let out a cackle that was unadulterated evil.

“Yes, I want you dead. So does your brother. His lust for your title and your power is so thick in the air, I can grasp it with my bare hands. He’s wanted it all his life. Oh? You already knew that, didn’t you? Big brother has been jealous of you since birth. You were all the things he admired about your father, all the things he wasn’t. But it’s so petty in the scheme of things. There’s so much more than your death that I want.”

I looked over to Kallie and watched her choke against the thick rope that was around her neck. She was bleeding so much I couldn’t tell which wound would need the most attention.

“Come now, another guess. I’m enjoying this.”

“Well, there’s not much left but the root of everything that corrupts. You want our clan’s treasure.”

Turning my attention back to Kallie, I sniffed the air. If she was dying, the sourness would permeate the air and sting my nose. There was no such smell, which either meant she wasn’t hurt or something else entirely was going on. There was no denying that my mate was hurt, so there must’ve been something else.

“Yes or no?” I pressed further.

“Yes and no, little dragon.”

My dragon paced like a caged tiger inside my skin. He and I were on the same level, wishing we could get to get Kallie and fly her the hell out of here, away from all of this. But she was hurt and we didn’t know if we would cause more damage, and then there was the chance that the real animal in the scenario would get to her first.

“For the love of Odin, just tell me what the fuck you want and let’s get this done.”

“We need your blood spilled and we need your treasure. Simple as that.”

I squinted. “What do you need my blood for?”

“Come now, you don’t expect us to give up all of our secrets, do you? Well, I could tell you. After all, when this is over, you won’t be able to tell anyone anyway. You will be too dead to be able to breathe.”

I thought of Kallie and nothing else in the moment. If I gave myself for her, what would stop them from killing her once I was gone. She knew too much. Once I was gone, there would be nothing stopping them from killing her just for sport and no one to stop them from doing it. I had to do something, whether or not I’d turned her away. She was still my mate and I’d give my own life in place of hers in a heartbeat.

“The only way you can bleed me is in my dragon form. My skin is too thick for any knife you have. I have to turn.”

I was bluffing, of course. I had human-like skin just like anyone else. I was betting on the fact that Rhi wasn’t as knowledgeable about dragons as she thought.

“Is that true? I’m not so sure. I guess it would make sense.”

Got her. She was overthinking now, distracted by the difference between what she wanted and knowing that I would swallow her down in one gulp the second I turned to dragon.

Her skin turned to pallor. She had no choice and she knew it. I’d trapped her between a hard place and my dragon’s teeth.

“Okay, but know this, Alpha, if you do anything to me, I will make sure she dies. One word spoken and the spell I’ve already put on her will take effect. Her very skin will fall from her bones before she burns alive.”

Connecting with the beast inside, I called him forward, willing to allow this wretched being to cut into us in order to save our mate, yet he would not come. He refused to heed the call.

Not right. Not our mate.

The Mate Craze must’ve altered his thinking or lack of thinking. Clearly, Kallie was right in front of us.

Scent. Not ours. Not ours.

The last words were shouted into my consciousness, the roar of his gruff voice reverberated in my chest. It was louder and stronger than even when he proclaimed to me the first time that Kallie was our mate.

Something was very wrong.

“Kallie, can you speak to me?” I asked her while stalling Rhi.

“I’m here!” From my left, coming into the clearing from the forest, Kallie and Rhi. Wait.

“Kallie?” I looked back and forth between the Kallie who was tied up and the Kallie who had just entered the forest with a second Rhi. Some shit was going down and I had to take a step back and allow my dragon to figure it out.

Mate.

Somehow my beast forced my eyes to the left where the latest Kallie had appeared. I could smell her now, not like the blood and stench I’d smelled on the other Kallie. I was so stupid. It was all a façade and there I was about to transform into my other form and allow them to take my blood. Dragon’s blood, along with our treasure, would’ve funded a family for tens of generations.

“Kallie, don’t move. Who is this?” I demanded, now afraid for the real Kallie. Though she was bleeding from several places on her face and arms, it was not near to the degree that the fake Kallie was. I’d been tricked.

“I’m sorry, Knox. I didn’t know. I mean, I knew, but they forced me. I would never hurt Kallie.”

“Shut up, Rhi.” Kallie and I both spoke at the same time.

“Who are you? Reveal yourself now before I turn and chew you both up.”

Before my eyes, in a matter of seconds, were two older people, but the woman noticeably looked like Rhi and I assumed the male, the one who had so well played my mate, was her father.

“What is to stop me from swallowing you alive right this second?” I steadied myself against the onslaught of the transition. As much as my dragon was fiercely against turning before, now he was ready to come out and play, and by play, he meant to kill.

The woman strolled forward, but I could smell the fear coming off her. “Come on, Knox. What kind of witches would we be if we didn’t do a little treasure searching, especially when the circumstances lent themselves so beautifully to our plan? Our daughter was the best friend to a dragon hunter’s ancestor, who was the mate of the most powerful dragon Alpha in this part of the country. It was so easy. Plus, your big brother, oh, his jealously practically spilled out of his pores when we met him for the first time. We just slid right in and he gave us the information we needed. He didn’t mean to, of course, but his envy gave us the door we needed to penetrate his thoughts. It was like we were meant to have the treasure all along.”

“My brother,” I gasped at the knowledge. I knew there was some contention between us long ago, but I had thought it was long gone. Apparently, I was wrong.

“So you see, little Alpha, it’s better if you just hand it over. We have the upper hand.”

I laughed, no longer afraid. “You have no upper hand. Kallie is alive and well. I believe I’m the one with the upper hand now.”

The witch’s saccharine laugh pierced my ears. “So foolish. Just because she appears to be fine, doesn’t mean she is. In a few minutes the effects of our taking on her form will weaken her into a coma. She will be comatose and you will be back in the throngs of the Mate Craze. There is nothing you can do. We already know the location of the treasure. All we need is some of your blood to unlock the cavern.”

“You mean you think you know where it is.”

“Your brother told us. We simply plucked it from his mind not less than twenty-four hours ago.”

I smiled and looked at Kallie. “My brother doesn’t know the real location. My father was the one who didn’t trust my brother. He never did trust him. He made me promise to tell everyone a different location to the real treasure. It is guarded by the spirit of Odin’s ravens in a place that can only be accessed by a dragon. Now, who is foolish?”

In an instant, Rhi’s mother reached out with bony knuckled fingers and her eyes became bloodshot as she spoke. “You.” My veins were the first to pulse with her power. Her poison flowed through me while my heart began to arrest. I faintly remember dropping to my knees while her voice and power throbbed between my temples.

“Die now, dragon. There are other ways to find your treasure.”

She was right. In the event of my death, Samson would find, in my will, the location of the real treasure, and it would be theirs in an instant.

I looked to Kallie who was screaming or crying, maybe both. I watched as she reached out to me and instantly everything became a blank.

* * *

The next thing I heard was her yelling, beating on my chest.

“Knox. Don’t you dare! I swear if you don’t wake up right this instant, I will kill you myself. Rhi, do something! What kind of a witch are you? Do something. It’s the least you can do.”

I heard her far away, but the more she spoke, the closer she became. In my silent state, I begged her to keep calling to me, keep calling to us.

“Knox. Look, Rhi. His eyes are fluttering. I think he’s waking up. Well don’t just stand there, do something. No, I don’t care. I’m fine. I’m fine!”

Wake up. Mate. Pain. Blood.

Sometimes I wished the damned beast would speak in full sentences.

“I’m here. What’s wrong?” I tried to sit up as fast as I could, and in so doing almost passed out again from the amount of pain radiating in my head and chest. I opened my eyes to see Kallie in front of me. Her arms were around her chest, holding herself together.

“You’re hurt. How badly? Let’s get you to the hospital.” I got up, but it was already too late. In keeping me alive, Kallie had sacrificed her own well being once again. “No. Damn it.”

“It’s okay. I wanted to save you. I needed to save you. That’s what I wanted to do. I know you didn’t want me to, but I had to. I couldn’t let you die.”

She collapsed then. Her hair splayed out in a million directions while her body, once full of life, flopped to the ground before I could catch her.

“Do something!” I screamed at Rhi who looked to be almost as distraught as I was. Her hands were shaking, but no matter what she tried, my mate’s body was losing steam second by second.

“You have to. Do it. You know what you have to do. There’s no other choice. She will die if you don’t. Now, Knox!”

Looking down at Kallie’s form, there was only one choice to save her life, but I didn’t want it to happen this way. There were few humans who survived the change, but I knew that my mate was strong and well. If anyone could survive it, it would be her.

“She will hate me.”

“But she will be alive.”

“She will leave me.”

“But she will be alive.”

“She will be alive.”

I repeated those words like a mantra, over and over while I conjured my bravery to do the unthinkable. I would have to change her to a dragon just like me. Her scales would be the same as mine-the teal and red of an Alpha born.

“I love you, Kallie. I do this out of love.” In seconds I was changed into a dragon and hovering over the human that I called my own.

Mine. Ours. Dragon.

I huffed out a breath that made Kallie’s hair blow before doing what I knew to save her. I tried, as gently as I could and bit down on her thigh, near her carotid artery to insure that my blood would enter her bloodstream immediately. I allowed the wound to bleed out some and then, with my own talon, slit a cut across my front leg and allowed the blood to seep into the wound.

The only thing I could do then was pray that it would work.

I turned back into human form and gathered her in my arms. I had to get her back to my cabin and allow her to rest while my clan took care of the mess.

“She killed them. I don’t know how in the hell she did it, but she went after them like an animal. One minute you’re dying and the next she’d taken my knife from its sheath and my parents… my mother.”

“Are they dead?”

“They are. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’m sorry. I know they were your parents.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged and helped me lift Kallie’s lifeless body into a car I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t lifeless, but it felt limp. Her smell was better. The dragon’s blood was pumping through her system already, healing what needed to be healed and improving what it saw fit, though I could see nothing other than the wounds that needed improvement. She was perfect just the way she was.

“She’s going to be pissed, but I think she will understand.” That was the last thing I heard before I passed out in the car with Kallie in my arms.