Page 45 of Desired By the Dragon

Her eyes rolled up into her head and blood coated one side of her body from her shoulder. There was more blood on her nose and cheek, like she’d been kicked in the face, it spilled down her front and ran into her hair.

Anything human inside of me withered away.

“Take your hands off my mate!”

Wings swept out on either side of me, my body tripling in size and filling the alley as the screams of the remaining humans bounced off me. They were quickly silenced with my fire, but this time I let them burn. There would be no quick deaths for anyone who’d laid a finger on her.

“What are you?” The ringleader, I presumed, whimpered, and through my dragon I chuckled, the sound warped and harsh.

“Death,” I growled, the word barely intelligible through my maw. But he understood.

I took his body in my claws as he squirmed helplessly, then I wrenched violently and twisted until something vital snapped. I ripped his offending arms from his body with my teeth, flinging them to one side, not wanting to ingest any part of this scum. He screamed, the sound pleasant, and maybe I would have continued my wreckage if a weak voice hadn’t rasped my name.

“Max.”

I dropped the human and he landed on the ground with a thud, his body sloshing from where I’d pulverized his guts. He was lucky, because she was my priority. So his suffering would have to end here.

My fire razed all that still breathed, smoke billowing into the air as they faded away into ashen husks in the shape of bodies.

Kiernan sagged when I scooped her into my claws, her bleeding had slowed as her healing kicked in, and when her eyes flickered open some of my rage cooled.

“You came.”

Always.

I roared, the sound making the earth tremble, and then I pushed up into the air with her in my grip, leaving only fire behind. My wingbeats made the trees shudder as I took us higher, needing to get somewhere safe where my mate could heal.

And then I would claim her as mine.

Chapter Eighteen

Kiernan

When I woke up, I was covered in blood but had no injuries. It was warm and dark, the scent of earth and Max soothing me, and it was startling for me to realize that I associated him with safety.

I wriggled, feeling like I was going to overheat, and that was when I realized the darkness was unnatural.

Tentatively, I reached up and my fingertips brushed something silky soft, but strong, membranous.

Wings.

Huffing, the darkness rippled as a few streaks of light came in and I blinked, my eyes struggling to adjust.

“Max?”

A low rumble at my side made my eyes widen as I rolled to my right and saw one large blue eye open lazily. Steam fanned my face and I kissed the tip of the warm, scaled snout in front of me.

My make-shift blanket was one of Max’s wings, draped over my body and keeping me safe while I healed⁠—

Derek.

My heart rate spiked and Max huffed another load of steam into my face, as if telling me to calm down. Strangely, it helped. I stayed curled up against his much larger form, cocooned in the shade of his wing, until he stretched and the change fell over him, revealing the cave beyond his massive form.

“What the hell happened to your clothes?”

His hair was mussed and soot streaked his face in strange lines that reminded me of his tattoos. What remained of a pair of black slacks and a blue sweater were burned at the edges, like he’d burned them straight off his body. The sweater looked more like a crop top now, the end landing just below his sternum, and the sleeves were completely absent. His slacks were in much the same condition, looking more like ragged, tight-fitting shorts, and his shoes were missing altogether.

Max blushed. “I, ah, was in a bit of a panic. So I was caught mid-shift for a bit.”