Chapter 7
Flynn felt like every thought in his brain had been snuffed out. There was nothing but blank, empty darkness. Frozen, like the depths of space.
The bracelets couldn’t lie, and their magic couldn’t be manipulated.
She was who she said she was—Princess Kiraset Lael, the draken princess he’d been pledged to when he was twelve years old.
When she was only five.
She’d been a stranger to him then, and she was no less of a stranger now. A beautiful, intriguing stranger—who brought trouble along behind her. Unstoppable, fire-breathing trouble.
It was wrong, he knew it was wrong, but for one savage moment he wished she’d stayed dead. And his oaths and duties and memories could have stayed behind the walls he’d built so he could forget them.
Flynn slapped his left palm over the bracelet, cutting off the light. The hologram disappeared.
Then, without another word, he started the truck up, put it in gear, and drove.
It took him ten minutes to corral his feelings and shove them into the black hole where all his unwanted feelings went—which was most of them.
He did it the way he always did—focusing on practicalities. Things he could control, like strategy, tactics, and intel.
Kira waited, saying nothing. At least she had sense enough to know when to keep her mouth shut.
“So who’s after you?” he asked abruptly.
“Who isn’t?” She leaned her head back on the seat and closed her eyes.
“Not an answer.” He hit the brakes and pulled over abruptly. The car behind them leaned on the horn and zoomed past.
“Get this straight,” he said. “My territory, my rules. You want my protection, you answer my questions, or you can get out now. So, who’s sending hellhounds after you?”
She sighed. “You really want to do this here?”
“I’m waiting.”
She twisted in the seat to face him. “Use your famous brains, Lion. I’m the last survivor of the Draken House of Al-Maddeiri.”
“You stayed under the radar all this time,” he said. “Twenty years, and not even a breath of a rumor that you’d survived. If there was, I’d have heard about it. But now, suddenly everyone knows?”
“They don’t know who I am,” she said. “But they know what I am.”
A dragon, alone and unprotected, with magic and knowledge that many people would kill to get their hands on.
“How?” he asked.
“Hello,” she said. “Did you learn nothing in your preparation for our binding ceremony?”
He’d learned plenty. That’s what you did when you were a cadet in the Lion Guard. You did what you were told, and you learned what they told you to learn. And when they abandoned you, you spent the next twenty years erasing that shit from your mind.
“It was a long time ago,” he said.
She sighed. “I’m the goddamned Bound One, Flynn. I have all the superpowers of my bloodline. When I turned twenty-one, I was supposed to bond with my destined mate—that would be you—and gain access to the power. Then the draken of Al-Maddeiri would have a ceremony, and I’d channel all that magical goodness back into my clan, to replenish their powers for another thousand years.”
He knew that. It hadn’t made much impression on him at the time—the whole thing was far in the future, and his part was simply to mate with her when the time came. The rest was nothing to him.
“So? You didn’t do it. How did you get outed?”
She leaned back against the headrest once more. “Let’s just say I’m past my expiration date. And—until now—no destined mate, no way to unbind the power and nowhere for it to go. So now and then my wacky magic busts out and transmits like a beacon—ten times louder than that bullet I dug out of you—to anyone who’s looking. Some of them want to capture me, and the rest want to kill me dead. The end.”
Shit. “Can’t you stop it?”
She snorted. “Gee, I wish I’d thought of that.” She paused. “You know what would probably block it from my enemies, though? Territory magic. Like the kind wolves have. Or, oh, wait! Like the kind you have around your territory. I don’t suppose you could start driving again?”
Sarcasm. Flynn hated sarcasm.
He also hated the idea of bringing dragons and hellhounds and who knew what all else down on his crew.
And what he hated most of all was the little spear of hope that was poking through the walls inside him. The walls he’d built when he failed to save the House of Al-Maddeiri. When he’d failed to save his promised mate.
You didn’t fail, a little voice inside him said. She’s still here. You can protect her.
I have my crew now, he told the voice fiercely. My job is to protect them.
So will you let her die this time? Alone?
Dammit all to hell.
He put the truck in gear and pulled back out onto the road.
Kira breathed a sigh of relief. At least she’d gotten past the first hurdle. She’d found Flynn, made contact, and he’d agreed to help her.
Kind of.
Now she just had to deal with his crew.
Everyone had heard about the Bad Blood Crew. The few shifters who’d survived torture and captivity in Alexander Grant’s secret facility, and the mates who had been crazy enough to join up with them.
Sloan McCall. Snow leopard. Ex-special-forces sniper, and his mate Caitlyn Anderson—snowy owl—formerly with Shifter Intelligence. Xander Fierro, black panther. Fond of knives and homicidal rages. Recently captured by the Broken Hill panther clan, killed their crazy-ass alpha to steal his mate, and then just handed his new alpha status to some clan accountant and walked away.
Then there was Jasmin Wildacre. Jaguar. There were rumors about her and illegal cage fights—and that her mate, Brody Jameson, was some kind of mutant monster wolf. And finally, Tank Morrison. Grizzly Protector shifter, which gave him enhanced size and power when his crew was threatened. His mate Lissa Ramsey was the only Bad Blood who wasn’t rumored to be terrifying—but she had to be, to keep her place in a crew like that.
Everyone on the streets was relieved that they seemed to be settled into their territory in Tennessee. No one wanted to know what would happen if they ever decided to come out and wreak havoc on the shifter world.
All Kira knew was, she’d have to watch her back and make sure her knives were never far away.
The silence in the truck grew oppressive. Pissed-off Flynn oozed alpha mojo even more that usual—the kind that could make most shifters grovel on their bellies and beg to obey.
If she were anything but a dragon, that alone would have been terrifying.
But he was also still angry. Not just normal pissed off, but a deep, simmering rage that seemed to emanate from his very bones.
That did scare her. This was a man who could do anything—absolutely anything—if he got angry enough. Or if he believed it was necessary.
The fact that the anger was controlled, rather than raging, somehow made it even scarier.
They were out of the city now, past the ‘burbs and heading into the country. The rain that had threatened all evening had started falling lightly, and Flynn flipped on the windshield wipers. There was a faint growl of thunder in the air.
The low pressure of the thunderstorm, along with Flynn’s overpowering presence, made Kira feel like a steel band was tightening around her forehead.
Faintly, far away, she heard voices calling. Voices of the suffering, of the damned, calling for help.
Shit. Not now. Please just let me get to Flynn’s territory. Maybe the magic there would block them.
She tried to shut them out, but they wouldn’t leave her alone. She had the wild urge to reach over to Flynn, to take his hand, just to touch him. As if that would make her feel better.
Instead, she tried to think of something else. Anything else.
It didn’t help. The rain intensified the reflections from the cars and streetlights. Every time a vehicle passed them coming the other way, the lights hit Kira’s eyes and felt like they were stabbing into her brain.
The voices grew louder, shouting inside her head. Help us. Someone, please help us. Don’t leave us here to die…
She clenched her teeth and willed them back. Not now, she told them. Leave me alone. God, why can’t you leave me alone?
They paused at a stop sign. The road was nearly empty, and Flynn could have gone, but he looked over at her, his brow furrowed as if he could sense something wrong.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure.” She forced her voice to sound light. “Summer night, jacked-up truck, hot lion shifter taking me back to his lair. What’s not to love?”
He gave a faint snort, but he put the car in gear and kept going. “If you put country pop on the radio and start singing along with songs about tailgate parties and moonlight and Chevys, I’m going to shove you out onto the side of the road with a flare for the hellhounds.”
She wasn’t sure if he was serious or not.
“You live in Nashville and you don’t like country?” She shook her head. “Is that even allowed?”
“No. Like I said, I like to live dangerously.”
“Good for you.” Loves guns, hates country music. Two things she knew about her promised mate. That, and the fact that he was totally ripped and overwhelmingly sexy, and had no desire to help her.
Her head throbbed again, and she took a deep, slow breath. No voices. Please. No seizures. Not until she had a chance to talk to him, see if there was any chance he’d uphold the mating pledge they’d made so long ago.
He had to. If he didn’t…
Another stab of pain lanced through her skull. She clenched her teeth so hard her jaws ached. Stop. Stop. Stop.
He frowned. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” I could be fine. If you help me. Would an appeal like that sway his opinion? He was famous for being a stone-cold killer, when he needed to be. Word was he’d take you down without blinking.
Not the kind of guy to care if you were okay. Or if you needed help.
“What makes you think I’m not okay?” she asked.
He shrugged one of his enormous shoulders. She could feel the heat radiating off his massive body. His scent was hot and masculine, like baked earth and desert sage. It contrasted with the smell of summer rain that surrounded them.
It smelled like the place they’d both been born. Home. The band around her head loosened, and the voices began to fade away.
“Maybe I’m just used to being around people who’re usually not okay,” he said. “I figure any time somebody’s quiet for too long, all hell is going to break loose.”
Damn. That made her look forward to meeting his crew even less. She said, “If I were planning to rain hell down upon you, I wouldn’t give you a warning.”
Was that just the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth?
No. Couldn’t be, because he was still angry. She could feel it. Must have been just a trick of the light.
They were driving down the main street of a small town, mostly dark and shuttered except for the lights from an all-night diner on the main street.
Even in the rain, it looked…nice. Friendly. Like towns she’d seen on TV, and never had the chance to visit.
She was a creature of cities, of dark shadows, of mercenary jobs that needed her brand of special skills. Hostage rescue. Kidnap negotiations. Retrieval of various objects or documents that had ended up in the wrong hands—dangerous hands.
It was no life for a princess; Markus, her mentor, would have been horrified. But it paid the bills. There weren’t a lot of career options for a draken princess whose dragon was magically bound, and whose only marketable skills were stealth raids, infiltration, hand to hand combat and assassination.
And Markus had been dead for three years. She was on her own.
But if Flynn would help her—if he’d do what he’d pledged to do all those years ago, at least she wouldn’t be defenseless.
Flynn drove through the town and out into the countryside. They were on a dark, narrow county road, tall trees looming over them on either side. It was raining harder now, the dark limbs whipping overhead in the growing wind, water slapping on the windshield every time they moved out from under the cover of branches.
After a few miles, Flynn took a winding side road. Shortly after that, he slowed and crunched onto an almost-invisible dirt and gravel track that led further into the woods. There were lightning flashes in the sky above them, and a loud rumble of thunder.
Hell. All this wilderness made her uncomfortable, especially in the rain. Kira shifted in her seat.
About five minutes in, a tingle of magic washed over her as they passed through a warded boundary.
Territory magic. It was real, and it smelled of dragons.
She could almost see it when she twisted around to look behind them—a faint blue-white mist that no ordinary person or shifter would see. Only her dragon sight allowed her to sense it.
She relaxed slightly. She was safe here—at least, from the creatures that had been chasing her. Whether she was safe from Flynn and his crew was another thing entirely.
She expected Flynn to relax too, now that he was on home turf, but she could feel a tension growing in his body. He peered ahead into the gloom, frown deepening, and she felt the faint hum of adrenalin rising within him.
“Dammit,” he muttered. “Fucking thunder.”
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
He gave her a quick, surprised glance—almost as if he’d momentarily forgotten she was there.
He shook his head. “Is it ever?”