His Dragon Protector Read online

  “I’m going too.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Bishop, the big scary bastard, stepped toward me, but I refused to scurry away. He smiled. “We’re not sure what’s going on. The same Cloud dragons who were targeting you and Haiden are causing more trouble.”

  “I’m going.”

  “No way,” Mason said with a sigh.

  Spinning toward him, I grasped the hem of his sweater and tugged until he met my eyes. “It’s okay for you to go do stupid shit, but not me?”

  “Look, I can shift into a dragon.” He smiled in victory, as if that had decided this and his word was law, and then he turned to say something to Carlisle, but I grabbed his hand. A bright shock of energy passed between us, and he groaned, locking his attention back on me.

  “I should be safe, then, right? If you’re a big ol’ dragon? I saw you. Teeth and muscles. I can’t be in danger with you.” I laid it on real thick, and he frowned, but his nose and cheeks turned a proud pink and the color rushed all the way up to the tips of his ears.

  “He has a point,” Carlisle said. He gave me a smile from over Mason’s shoulder that I swore looked like an apology.

  “You want me with you, right?” I pressed myself against Mason, sliding my hands behind his neck so that I could fit my body tight against his. The move backfired a little because it sent excitement simmering in my belly and frazzled me. I breathed through the arousal and tried to use the Force or something to get Mason to do what I wanted.

  “You’re such a little shit,” Mason grumped, but amusement was back in his eyes.

  “He’ll be fine,” Haiden said from across the room.

  “Okay,” sighed Mason, his chest rising and falling where I leaned against him. “I hate it, but I can’t make you stay here.”

  “And when were you going to tell me about all that mate stuff with the…” I pointed at my own canines.

  He flushed again, and I could feel his reaction to what we were talking about clearly pressed against my abdomen. It shifted closer to me.

  “How did you find out about that?”

  “I’m psychic,” I muttered with an eyeroll.

  Haiden went to a nearby closet and came out with a thick winter coat that he handed to me. I put it to my nose, and it smelled sweet. “You were wearing this when you were pregnant.”

  He chuckled. “How do you know?”

  I shrugged. “Pregnant people always smell like… more of themselves. I’m not sure how else to say that. I didn’t realize that only dragons could smell that for a long time. Let me tell you, my old man had an interesting life when I was growing up.”

  Haiden smiled and gave me half a hug that ended up encompassing Mason from the way we were glued together. “I still can’t do that. Be careful.”

  He went around us and gave Carlisle a much more personal goodbye, and Mason leaned down to kiss me too before he helped me into my coat. I felt like I’d won a very important round with him as he arranged my collar. Then when we were outside, he held the door open so that we could both sit in the back seat together in Carlisle’s car, but as we drove away from the safe, warm house in the pine trees, it occurred to me maybe that fight wasn’t something I had really wanted to win, especially if it meant someone might take me away from Mason. I was a little afraid in a way I hadn’t been before. He reached over and clasped my hand in his. Well, I guess I’d just have to trust him.

  10

  Mason

  From Carlisle’s new house, it only took about an hour to make it to the narrow country lane that wound through the forest to the Redcaps’ stronghold, but we had to walk in the last two miles. There was no other easy pathway in, which left us exposed in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Carlisle, Bishop and I could have shifted and flown in without Seth.

  “Why didn’t Vince say anything about this?” I asked as we climbed out of the car. I glared at the woods. “Didn’t they say they were getting ambushed, and that’s why everyone retreated to one location?”

  Carlisle shrugged. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean we’re in any more danger than we would have been if we could have driven directly there.”

  “It’ll leave us in the open longer,” I pointed out.

  “If anything happens, we shift,” Bishop said. He gave me a downright deadly half smile.

  “Blah, blah, all I’m hearing is we gotta hoof it, so let’s go.” Seth grabbed my medical bag out of the back seat and slung it over his shoulder, slammed the door, and then started away from us. My heart nearly stopped, and I raced to catch up with him. He was quick, though, and didn’t seem to be in a mood to do anything to make my life easier.

  The closer we got to Vince’s, the sparser the tree cover was, until we were walking along beside a cornfield that had been harvested for winter. There was still corn dotted here and there that had been missed when the thresher went through. In the distance deer munched the leftovers and stared at us. Seth exclaimed and pointed them out to me, and I held him close with an arm around his shoulder. Bishop slowly slid away from us and pulled out a wicked-looking blade from inside his coat but didn’t otherwise say anything. He scented the air and waved us forward. We went on, and we passed more fields that looked like they’d had traditional gardens of the sort that people just didn’t grow anymore, large enough to feed everyone in a small feudal holding.

  When we finally arrived at the bridge that led over a small stream to what I supposed could be called a manor house, I laughed. Carlisle shared an amused look with me. Vince had, indeed, built himself an empire out here in the middle of nowhere, and anyone who stumbled across it would have thought they’d gone back in time. The stone-hewn house sprawled and took up about two football fields’ worth of space along the front, and I wasn’t sure how far it extended away from us. There was a goddamned turret on the right side, higher than the rest of the building, to give a good vantage point to see any incoming visitors. I had no doubt we were spotted not long after we left our vehicle. A tall fence surrounded the property, but at the moment, the door was open.

  “Wow,” Seth gasped, squeezing my hand.

  “That could hold an entire clan, for sure,” I muttered.

  “We haven’t been allowed beyond this point before today. The gates have been closed.”

  Rustling in what looked to be a nearby orchard had us all reaching for weapons, but Vince himself stepped around a leafless apple tree and came out to greet us with a large smile on his face. Tall and thin, but rangy, Vince had an axe hanging from the wide belt he wore over his jeans and flannel shirt. His curly dark hair was longer and wilder than it had been the last time I saw him, like he’d given up cutting it while he was on the hunt, or maybe he just had better things to do. His eyes were bright pops of blue in the late afternoon sunshine as he made his way toward us with a wide smile.

  “Carlisle, you made it!” he called cheerfully. Seth stepped closer to me, but stuck his chin out, as if daring me to say a word about it.

  “This is quite the setup you have here,” I said.

  Vince nodded enthusiastically. “Took about twenty years to build.”

  Carlisle and Vince embraced and shook hands with a lot of back patting and laughing from Vince.

  “How’re goes things?” Carlisle asked.

  “Oh, fine.” Vince stepped back and rested a hand on his axe, staring out over the fallow fields as if daring someone to rush us. “The younger dragons are upset because we don’t have electricity out here, and gods forbid they don’t have Wi-Fi for a day, let alone weeks, but the older ones don’t mind.” Seth let out an unhappy sound beside me and Vince glanced at him and then almost did a double-take, staring. I gathered him closer.

  Vince cleared his throat. “The rest are having a grand time, reminiscing about the past and battles the clan has had.” Vince tore his gaze from Seth and grinned. He shook Bishop’s hand and then he laughed and turned his attention on Seth again. He didn’t offer his hand in the same way to Seth, but rather took his hand and caut
iously shook it like he was afraid he’d hurt him. Seth frowned at him, but let it happen, for once keeping his mouth shut. I leaned my weight against him gratefully.

  “How do you get away with this setup out here?” Seth asked, not bothering to hide his confusion.

  Vince shrugged. “The locals think we’re some sort of crazy hippie commune, and we don’t dissuade them from that notion. We take all sorts of goods to a farmers’ market. We have our own labels and everything. Smokey Farms.” He grinned, and Seth groaned.

  “A real wise guy, huh?”

  Vince chuckled and I almost didn’t like the way he seemed so easily won over by Seth. Carlisle smacked my shoulder and shook his head. I realized I’d been glaring.

  “Well, are you going to invite us to the house, then?” Carlisle looked toward the massive structure and I could tell his curiosity was eating him alive.

  “Most of my clan is in there. Is he your omega now, Mason?” Vince asked, eyeing up Seth with what I thought was a bit of disappointment. “He looks much healthier than when I last saw him.”

  “How is your clan faring, truly?” Carlisle butted in, and I was glad because I had no idea how I should answer him.

  “A little excitement never killed anyone, but, you know, arrows and bullets have on occasion. Everyone feels safer together, especially some of the dragons who never really learned how to fight.” He said that as if not fighting was the real tragedy everyone faced.

  Vince was looking at Seth again and I couldn’t help myself. I stepped in front of him. Vince laughed and Seth smacked my back.

  “I’ll take it as a sign of good faith in us Redcaps that you brought your omega with you. Why don’t you come in out of the cold? Please, won’t you accept our hospitality?”

  “Gladly and happily I accept the bounty you offer. Blessings on your clan,” Carlisle said, giving the traditional answer neither of us had probably uttered in a hundred years or more.

  Vince led the way back up to the house with a light jaunty step, and we all followed him. When the heavy front door was pulled open from the inside, the noise hit us before we were even in the building. The high windows let in more light than I would have thought and there were wall sconces lit with oil lanterns. Laughter rippled around the clumps of people gathered throughout the room and a woman ran by, skirts flying, with a young man in hot pursuit. She looked happy enough to be chased.

  There were dragons everywhere I looked, but they weren’t quite as human as our clan in Charleston. It was hard to place, but they moved differently, faster, mostly, than humans did, and with more grace. My heart skipped a beat, and Carlisle laughed. Some dragons sat in a corner, shifted in their smaller forms, playing a game I hadn’t seen in a long while. They had a glass ball and the point was to move it around a grid built into the floor, each square worth points, with a blast of fire, but not heat it enough to melt the glass. The one to melt the glass lost.

  This magnificent fortress reminded me of the former glory of great dragon halls and even with the shifted dragons, there was plenty of room for a long table off to the right that could easily seat twenty people, if not more. It appeared to be set up for dinner already.

  “Wow,” Seth said beside me.

  “Yeah, we do what we can.” Vince winked. “Come on. I have some people I’d like you to meet.” We were dragged around and introduced to at least sixty Redcaps. In another large room there were card tables set up and a bunch of men sat around drinking, laughing and playing, and we made the rounds of everyone there too. Seth covered a yawn and I held him at my side, which thankfully he didn’t protest.

  “How many of your clan are here right now?”

  “Oh, ‘bout seventy-five,” Vince said with good humor. “There’s a hundred of us, total.”

  Carlisle gaped and I felt the same. “How are there still so many of you? I had no idea.”

  Vince tapped his fingers on the handle of his axe. “We tend to keep to the wilds where dragons are meant to be. Our clan stayed strong a bit longer than everyone else, but of late, even we’ve given in and most of the clan stays closer to the cities. We meet up every three months or so here to shift and let the dragons play, with some people rotating in and out more often, but all of our omegas are gone now, and we’ve lost about ten of the women.”

  “We think it’s the lack of shifting.”

  He nodded. “Yes, the few women who have made it have been the ones who take to their dragon form regularly. We have two hatchlings here.”

  Bishop turned toward him. “We thought there were none in the Northeast.”

  Vince’s expression shuttered for a moment before his smile bounced back. “Given everything your Divine Omegas have suffered, do you blame us for keeping it quiet? We’ve had our fair share of grief, so we don’t want our joys to bring us heartbreak.”

  “That’s very poetic and pragmatic,” I said.

  Vince laughed. “Indeed. I was a poet in a former life. Can you believe it? You’ll join us for supper? We usually serve in about a half hour.” He glanced at the windows as if they were a clock and the nostalgia hit me all over again.

  “Of course,” Carlisle answered for all of us. “Thank you.”

  We followed Vince to the long table in the front room near the fireplace and an apple-cheeked woman who Vince slung his arm around and introduced as his second wife poured drinks for us as we settled in at the table. She smiled and another woman came out. “This is my first wife, Avens,” he said happily.

  “You mean, you have more than one?” Seth goggled, and Vince roared with laughter.

  “Yes, we’re not all so modern that we forget the best things of the past.”

  Seth frowned and scowled at me, as if daring me to suggest I should have another partner, and Vince laughed harder. I cleared my throat. “Of course, it’s totally wrong for an alpha to have more than one bed partner.” I smiled at Seth, but he still narrowed his eyes suspiciously and it didn’t help that every so often Vince would catch his eye and begin chuckling all over again.

  “How’s that hatchling, Carlisle?” Vince asked.

  Carlisle set down his glass and beamed like the proud daddy he was. “Perfect. We named her Charlotte.” He began going on about how sweet she was, and how much she cried, and Vince nodded encouragingly. The wine in my cup crept lower and a happy warmth seeped into me.

  Seth grabbed my arm and hissed, “Mason, look over there.”

  I tried to turn nonchalantly, but before I could, the smell hit me. We always said omegas smelled like baby powder out of ease of description, and maybe to remind alphas to treat them with respect because they were so important to us for so many reasons—especially since they could birth the next generation—but the scent that tickled my nose was closer to honeysuckle, even though it still had that powderiness that all omega scent contained. I turned and a tall, slim man drifted into the room.

  He seemed to be lost in his own world, scribbling on a notepad as he walked. His wardrobe was ripped from a mishmash of centuries, none of them any more recent than the last hundred years. He wore a shirt that was positively medieval with its long flowing sleeves and rich-red fabric I knew would be decadent to touch. I’d owned several myself in my earliest days. The leather pants molded to his legs with lacing down the side that I hadn’t seen since the Spanish-American war. His bright blond hair was in a braid he’d pulled over his right shoulder, and as I watched, he absently toyed with the end while he seemed to be thinking while he paused in whatever he was writing.

  Bishop stood on his side of the table as the omega approached to Vince’s right, but the omega didn’t look up until he practically stumbled against the table. “Good evening, Uncle,” he said softly.

  Seth looked ready to bounce apart, shaking my arm all around. He must have been able to smell him too. Carlisle gaped. I was just in shock.

  “Oh,” he said, eyebrows flying high as he glanced around at us. “I didn’t realize we had guests.”

  Vince frowned for the f
irst time all night. “This is my nephew, Evan. He’s my half-sister’s son. His mother… well, you know, she’s no longer with us. Evan has lived here at the homestead his entire life.”

  Evan flushed, apparently at having suddenly been made the center of attention, and ducked his head, moving back to stand behind Vince’s chair.

  “I’m Bishop Cane, Blood Dragon.” Bishop was still standing, and it was almost painful to watch the two be awkward toward each other.

  “Oh, um… nice to meet you,” Evan replied. He had trouble actually looking at Bishop, however.

  “Sit down, you berk,” Vince said to Bishop. His smile was still on his face, but it had slipped a bit. “This here is Carlisle James, the Princeps Draco of the entire region, he’s a good fellow to know, and this is Mason Hardwick, a doctor, also good to know from what I hear, and this is—”

  “I’m Seth. Nice to meet you.” Seth stood up and thrust his hand toward Evan, who looked over Vince’s shoulder at it for a second as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to touch someone else.

  “Go ahead,” Vince said softy.

  Evan inched around Vince and took Seth’s hand. It was a little like he’d never shaken anyone’s hand before, but he was smiling by the time he was done.

  “May I sit with you during the meal?” Evan asked Seth, but he also cast a glance at his uncle while he tugged at the end of his braid.

  “If everyone shifts down,” Vince said, so we all did with a lot of clattering and grumbling from the people along the table, but it was clear no one wanted to tell Evan no.

  “So this is the reason you didn’t want me here,” Carlisle said, not quite pulling off casual.

  “Yes, I know, I know.” Vince shrugged. “We weren’t exactly forthcoming. But that’s why we were so fast to answer your call for help, as well. If we’re ever in the same predicament, I’d love to have the Blood dragons on my side. I can’t imagine the fear of having someone you love taken.” He smiled at Evan and I got the feeling he was more son than nephew.