Her Dragon's Fire (24 page)

Grace simply nodded her head and leaned forward to place one last chaste kiss upon his lips. He dropped his hands and stepped back. Their eyes locked. He saw all the love and devotion he felt for her mirrored in her beautiful blue eyes. She was absolutely perfect. With love filling every cell of his being, he turned and sped towards his brethren before he could change his mind, while offering a silent prayer to the Universe to keep his mate safe.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

She watched as Aidan sped away, mesmerized by the man that had chosen
her
. Sitting between the unconscious girls, she laid the back of her hand on their foreheads to make sure neither had a fever. A little smile came to her lips as she remembered all the times Miss Annabelle had taken care of her through all her various illnesses and injuries. These girls looked so young, lying there bruised and broken but her intuition told her that with the right medical and psychological help they would make it through this ordeal. She would make sure they got everything they needed as soon as they were out of this mess. Completely lost in thought, she jumped when alarm bells rang in her head, her
special intuition
screaming that something major was happening in the direction of Aidan and the warehouse. She knew Aidan would lose his mind if he knew she was even thinking of peeking over the edge of the foliage hiding her and the young women from view but she could not ignore her intuition. Something catastrophic was about to happen and she had to see that Aidan and the others were ok.

She crept forward and peeped through the leaves and branches that were serving as her cover. The Dragon Guard along with Max, Sophie and their men were surrounding the military looking men as they worked their way closer to what was left of the loading docks at the side of the warehouse. It didn’t look like they had any intentions of harming anyone but that their sole focus was to protect the man they surrounded and get him into the still smoldering warehouse. They had moved enough that they were now positioned directly across from Grace and only about fifty yards from the large loading dock doors. Aidan’s back was to her but she could see that his were flexed and he was ready to pounce. She jumped when she heard him speak. ”Who are you and what business do you have here?”

The man that was being protected turned to face Aidan but did not lift his hat, “This is my building. I have every right to be here. It is
you
who are trespassing, whoever you are.”

Something about the man’s voice seemed familiar to Grace and caused her
special intuition
to bounce around in her head. She lifted her hands to her ears in an effort to quiet the alarm in her mind.

“If this is your building, then why did you sit in your helicopter and not even attempt to help us rescue those trapped by the explosion?” Aidan asked. She could hear the contained violence in his voice and was sure no one was going to like the mystery man’s answer.

“Saving these
people
really does not concern me. I’m only here to get what is
mine
,” he answered, and his tone said he knew exactly what was going on in his building and really didn’t give a shit.

“So you knew there were young women being held here and did nothing to stop it?” Aidan asked, the anger radiating from his every pore and causing his muscles to bunch even tighter. Grace could feel it across the distance that separated them.

“I don’t have to explain anything to you. As I explained, this is my building and you are trespassing. Now you and your band of merry men have one minute to get the hell off of my property or these highly trained mercenaries will gladly shoot you and throw your cold, dead bodies into the rubble. It is your choice; either way is fine with me.”

Aidan took a step forward and his voice shook with the force of his rage, “Look asshole, I don’t care who you are, and your goons don’t scare me. You’re not going into that building until we’ve gotten all the survivors out. So I suggest you take your happy asses back to your fancy helicopter and chill out.”

The mystery man took an aggressive step forward and stood staring at Aidan. Grace counted to six before the mystery man spoke. What she heard made the hair all over her body stand on end. She had heard that voice before, many times. Frantically, she searched her memory as he continued to tell Aidan what was going to happen if they did not stand down. There was no way she could be right. She shook her head and listened more intently. Fear washed over her, combined with disbelief. Her instincts had to be misfiring because of everything she had been through in the last day and a half. There was no way it could be who she thought it was. As she was trying to convince herself of her mistake, the mystery man and Aidan’s voices grew louder and angrier. The tension in the air was threatening to strangle them all. Just when she was sure she had been mistaken, the man who obviously thought he was in charge reached up and removed his hat. What she saw had her screaming a warning to Aidan without any thought of her own safety. The mystery man, the man being protected by his own small army was her boss, the State Prosecutor and from the little he had revealed and her
spidey senses
, he was also ‘The Auctioneer’.

With her only thought of getting to the man that had lied not only to her, but absolutely everyone in law enforcement, and keeping him from hurting her mate, she burst from her hiding place, running as hard and fast as she could towards Aidan. Before she had made it more than fifty feet, she felt a burning sensation tear through her left shoulder. At the same time, something plowed into her right side and threw her into the air. She heard the sounds of gunfire and shouting as she landed flat on her back on the concrete. Her bones rattled and her head bounced from the impact. Black spots rose before her eyes. She heard yelling that echoed in her head like it was coming from the bottom of a barrel. As she tried to clear her vision and shake the cobwebs from her rattled brain, a large calloused hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her across the asphalt, scraping the skin from her lower back and causing her head to bounce a few more times against the unforgiving parking lot. She kicked and fought, trying to get her ankle free from the large paw that continued to drag her away from Aidan, but no matter what she tried, the grip around her ankle only tightened. She twisted and turned, trying to grab anything she could to stop her forward motion, but her every movement caused intense pain in her left shoulder and her left arm refused to cooperate, it just flailed about like a wet dishrag. She continued to kick with her free foot, listening to Aidan scream after her as the gunfire and commotion all around seemed to get farther and farther away. She only prayed her mate would catch up and free her from whoever had decided to drag her like a ragdoll.

Deciding to change tactics, she tried to get in a semi-upright position, hoping the added leverage would help her free her ankle. Just as she took a deep breath, preparing for the pain she knew would come from her useless left shoulder, she was jerked up from the ground and thrown over a heavily muscled shoulder. All the air was pushed from her lungs as her stomach made contact with an unforgiving shoulder. Intense pain radiated throughout her body. Apparently her ribs had been injured when she was tackled, because she almost blacked out as she felt them bend in directions bones were not meant to bend.

She heard Aidan screaming her name and the sound of pounding footsteps following behind. Whoever was carrying her had a vice like grip across the back of her thighs that she was sure would leave bruises to add to all the other injuries she was racking up. She lifted her head, only to see the tortured look on her mate’s face and that of his brethren, as they attempted to catch whoever was carrying her away from them.

“I swear to the Universe if you don’t put her down right now, I will flay the skin from your body and watch you bleed, you fucking useless piece of shit!” Grace heard Aidan screaming and could feel the pain in his voice. She lifted her head to look at the man that meant more to her than she could have imagined. Even across the distance she could see the anguish in his whiskey colored eyes. She heard the man that was carrying her mumbling something that sounded like a rhyme under his breath. Her vision began to blur and she felt the contents of her stomach planning a speedy getaway. She felt something warm and wet flowing down her arm. Great, blood; could this day get any better?

Her head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and her vision was narrowing to a single pinpoint. She knew she was about to blackout and thought she might have been hallucinating when one second she saw Max and Sophia racing alongside Aidan, and in the next he was sandwiched between two of the largest cats she had ever seen. She focused the best she could, realizing they were panthers, but a hell of a lot bigger than the ones she had seen at the zoo. She had known there was something different about Max and his people, not that she had the luxury of thinking about it as a crazy man, mumbling rhymes was carrying her farther and farther away from Aidan. She balled up her fist and used what little strength she had left to punch her abductor as hard as she could in the back. Since only one arm was working it was pretty much a waste of time, but there was no way she was going to be carried off to God knows where without a fight. The asshole she was draped over squeezed her legs tighter, and that coupled with the constant jarring against what she was sure were at least cracked ribs, caused her to yell out in pain as his voice grew louder and deeper. She heard Aidan roar in response.

She raised her head once again to look at the man she loved with all her heart. A single tear slid down her cheek and she prayed to God this would not be the last time she saw him. The air around her felt heavier as she felt little shocks of electricity all over her body and the space separating her and Aidan grew larger. They were moving so fast, the little she could still see was nothing but a blur. She was finding it difficult to breathe and knew in a matter of seconds, she would black out completely. “I love you, Aidan!” she yelled as loud as she could. He roared so loud she was sure the ground shook from its force. The last thing she saw before her world went black was Aidan bathed in bright silver light and the dragon she had seen on his back materializing before her eyes. It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

CHAPTER TEN

His luck had finally changed. He hadn’t thought it possible, but when he saw his
brother
trying to talk down the heavily guarded man heading into the warehouse, he knew it was his one and only chance to get away from the wizards and get his plan underway. It helped when Aidan’s mate had come bursting from the woods. Andrew had acted without a second thought, afraid another opportunity might slip through his fingers. Now he was heading towards one of the many hideouts he had secured over the years with an unconscious Grace draped over his shoulder. He had used the very last drop of the black magic stored within him to transport them several miles away from the warehouse, which meant he was going to have to move as quickly as possible or he would be caught, and that was not something he could afford. Without the aid of black magic, the Dragon Guard, those damn werepanthers and anything else that came along would be able to locate him way too easily, even with all the wards he had placed around the cabin.

He stopped about a hundred yards from his destination and opened the dragon senses that he had not used in almost seven years and until recently thought completely dead. Those long unused instincts were raw and dull from inactivity, but reached out into the woods, searching for anything out of place, anything that could stop him from what he had planned. When his rusty senses found nothing unusual, he moved from tree to tree, undetectable to the human eye, until he reached the back of his cabin. Andrew breathed a sigh of relief to see the large wooden doors to the cellar were still secured with the huge chain and lock he had used. He tested the air and found that the black magic wards that were lethal to all but him were also still in place. He was sure they would be enough deterrent to any and all that came close, but he was not willing to take any chances. With a few words of Latin the lock fell away and the doors slowly creaked open. The smell of stale air, mold, and fertile earth assaulted his reawakening dragon senses as he carefully made his way down the rickety wooden steps. Halfway to the bottom, he reached up and pulled a dirty, woven cord that hung from the ceiling, illuminating the root cellar he had dug over three years ago when he purchased this secluded cabin. Every purchase had been made with the utmost of care, knowing one day he would use one of them to lure his brother and finally make him pay for what he had done.

He placed his brother’s mate on the rusty old cot in the corner and secured her uninjured arm to the rail with the hand cuffs he had procured while readying this place for whomever or whatever he may have the pleasure of torturing. He really had not planned on it being Grace, but would make the most of the opportunities he was given. While looking at his prisoner, he noticed the wound in her left shoulder was still bleeding, but had thankfully slowed. He knew from his returning senses that the bullet was still lodged in the wound. At least he had clean sheets and medical supplies along with everything else he had gathered. After all, it was his brother he wanted dead, not the useless human that until recently had no knowledge of what fate had in store for her. Of course, she still had to suffer. Had it not been for her, he and Aidan would not have been out on an unplanned patrol in an area they had no business being in that fateful night all those years ago. His life had been irrevocably changed that night; people had to pay, that’s all there was to it. So Grace, the mate of his brother, would not die but she would
know
pain, for she would watch her
mate
die by his hand.