Mated To The Alpha Dragon (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (14 page)

"I knew you would be. I knew it. But I had to save the others and myself because you might not have been able to get to me. Miles was going to set up some kind of force field barrier thing around the encampment, like you probably ran into outside the mountains. And the kind of barrier he was going to do, no Keeper could cross it. We knew you might be able to break his magic, but I couldn't wait. I had to act."

Victor planted kisses all over the side of my face, still squeezing me and holding me off the ground, kind of rocking me from side to side in his strong arms. "And you did beautifully. You did brilliantly. I couldn't be and more proud and honored to be the husband of such a brave, beautiful, intelligent woman."

I buried my face in his neck, smiling and squeezing him back.

But he soon abruptly set me down and quickly looked me over. "Are you hurt anywhere? Did he...did he or any of the others violate you? In any way?"

"No, to that. Thank God. But he...he slapped my face. But that's it."

Within a blink, Victor went white. He didn't speak right away, the muscles in his jaw working.

"That's it?'"

"It really wasn't even-"

"That's it?'"

After being called brave, I didn't want to be a baby about the whole thing.

I rubbed my cheek. "It honestly doesn't even hurt that much anymore. See? It really doesn't."

Victor pulled my hand away, examined my cheek, and spoke through gritted teeth. "He gave you a bruise."

"I'm really okay, though. And it's over now."

Victor chuckled, but it wasn't his usual kind of chuckle. It was a short, harsh sound.

"Over for you, yes, and thank God, and thank all the stars in the heavens for that. But for Miles, it's just beginning. He's going to regret the very first fraction of a moment that the thought of him raising a hand to strike you first entered his brain. He's going to regret it with every fiber of his being. I'm going to make him beg for death. But first, answer me this. Did he or any of his men harm Julia or Elizabeth in any way?"

I shook my head. "No. Nobody even laid a finger on them. The two slave girls I levitated with us have been abused horribly, though."

With his expression unreadable, Victor took my hands and gazed over my head into the distance, seeming to be thinking. After a few moments, he kissed each of my hands, released them, and turned to face everyone else behind him.

Most of the two dozen or so Keepers stood a good distance back, talking in low murmurs, all of them in human form now. A few of them seemed to be attending to Rose and Brook, who both stood twisting their fingers, appearing unsure of how to react to concern. While asking Brook something, one Keeper who'd ripped a strip of cloth from his t-shirt gestured to a fairly fresh cut on her arm that I'd noticed at the encampment. She studied him for only a moment or two before nodding and offering him her arm, which he began bandaging with the cloth. Julia and Sam, and Elizabeth and Michael seemed to be finishing up their own little reunions, and soon Victor gestured for Sam and Michael to come over to him, which they did, right away.

His face still pale with what I knew was some sort of white-hot rage over what Miles had done to me, Victor looked at them both. "I know this was supposed to be a three-on-three fight, and I know you're both probably even more eager to fight now that Miles abducted Julia and Elizabeth. But he didn't physically harm either of your wives and he did mine. Will you let me take my revenge and kill him myself?"

Michael said of course.

Sam nodded. "You take the kill, and we'll handle the others while you do it."

"No." Victor paused and seemed to be thinking for a few moments. "No, I want all of them, all dozen of them or however many exactly are at the camp. I want all of them, to avenge the harm that was done to Kate. Neither one of you is to help me or step in at any time, for any reason. On pain of being excommunicated as a Keeper and being sent from the mountains. Is this absolutely clear?"

Michael nodded. "Yes."

But Sam swallowed, becoming nearly as pale as Victor was. "But...all dozen of them? What if you get in trouble, and we need to –“

"You'll do so on pain of being excommunicated as a Keeper and being sent from the mountains. Is this absolutely clear, Samuel?"

Sam swallowed again and nodded. "Yeah. Yes."

"Good."

I stood a foot or two away from Victor, feeling as if I was going to be sick.

I folded my arms across my chest and looked at him. "No. No, I'm not letting you do this. This is crazy. Going one against a dozen Oppressors? Just to avenge a little slap? No. No, this is not happening. I won't allow it."

C
HAPTER FIFTHTEEN

Victor looked at Sam and Michael. "I need a moment alone with my wife, please. Please tell the others what I intend to do and the consequences for stepping in to assist me at any time, for any reason."

Sam and Michael both nodded and went to join the others, who still stood a ways back, talking amongst themselves while Julia and Elizabeth seemed to be introducing Rose and Brook to everyone in little groups of two and three Keepers at a time.

Victor put his hands on my shoulders, heaving a sigh. "I appreciate your concern. I really do. But –"

"No." I tightened my folded arms across my chest even tighter than they already were. "No. This is not happening, one of you against a dozen or so Oppressors and their leader? That's not even remotely a fair fight. Let Sam and Michael fight with you."

Victor heaved another sigh. "No."

I waited for him to continue, but he didn't seem like he was going to.

"Just...no?"

"Correct. Just, no."

I hugged my arms to my chest so hard I actually hurt my ribs. "Look. You may be the lord of everyone in Stonebrook, but I'm your wife, and I –“

"Kate, do you trust me?"

"Of course I do, but I –"

"Then I need you to put that trust in action right now. Your husband isn't a stupid, impulsive, reckless man and I think you know that."

I did. So I didn't say anything.

"I know you're concerned about a dozen or so Oppressors against one of me, and I know you might be concerned about Miles' advanced magical powers. And I appreciate your concern; it shows your love and care. But although Miles is seemingly able to display some magical powers the likes of which us Keepers have never seen before, he's not the only one with new powers. I haven't been exactly sitting outside on my hands these past few days. I've been working, incredibly hard, developing some magical skills once thought impossible for a shifter to possess. I wouldn't take on Miles and all his men if I didn't have confidence in these new skills. So does this help you understand my thinking a little better? Does this help you understand that I would never recklessly dive headfirst into any situation certain to make my beautiful, beloved wife a widow?"

I moved my head in the slightest of nods, my hold on my ribs loosening.

Victor's deep gray eyes twinkled.

"Good. Now, I'm sure Miles will soon be aware of your absence, if he hasn't already, so we need to move. We're only about a mile from his encampment, so this will all happen very quickly. But don't worry about a thing; you'll be protected every second."

"You mean...you mean, I get to come to the battle with you?"

"Yes, you, Julia, Elizabeth, and the two other women. It would take us too long to take you all back to Stonebrook, and who knows what Miles would be up to by then. And I don't want him coming to the city."

"Well...I don't mean to be funny, but this seems kind if strange and unlike you to let me get near the danger. To
bring
me near the danger yourself."

Victor's eyes twinkled again.

"Let the magic commence."

He took a step back and dipped his head, closing his eyes briefly. And suddenly, a sheer, shimmery golden mist enveloped my entire body, from head to toe.

I examined it, stunned. "What...what is it?"

He smiled. "It's a protection shield. I developed a way to protect non-shifter humans from any and all magic. It will be impenetrable to Miles and his men, and that I swear to you on my soul. You will be completely safe. It will last up to three hours, which will be more than long enough. And I'll give them to the other women as well. However, I'm still going to have the five of you very, very far back from the fight and surrounded by all my men. You'll be shielded from any and all magical spells, but not from the heat of my own dragon fire."

Victor soon applied the golden protection shield to the other women and then gave a few instructions to the two-dozen or so Keepers. Shortly after, everyone began marching towards the encampment.

But we didn't march long.

Victor saw the tiny black dots in the sky first and shouted that the Oppressors were coming and for the five of us women to be taken up on a nearby very tall, broad hill. Sam shifted into dragon form immediately, and we all, all five of us, hopped on his scaly, jewel-green back. He flew us to the hill, all the other shifters flying in dragon form behind us.

For the first minute or so on the hill, I was aware that things were going on around me; I was aware that the dragons were shifting back into human form so they could talk; I was aware of a low hum of conversation; I was aware of Julia examining her golden protection shield and saying things next to me. But I didn't
really
see or hear any of it. My gaze was focused on Victor, who stood un-shifted in the middle of the great open field we'd all just been marching down. His own gaze was locked on the sky and the dozen or so tiny figures that were quickly descending from it, getting bigger and bigger.

Soon he roared Miles' name, and all conversation on the hill came to a sudden, grinding, halt. Even a few birds circling a tall tree on one side of the giant hill stopped chirping. The figures in the sky became easily identifiable, Miles at the front. Victor roared his name again, the rage in his voice so palpable that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, even though he was my own loving husband. But Miles and his men didn't seem to slow down.

Victor roared one final time. "Miles!"

If anything, Miles accelerated. But his men fell back a little.

Victor stood growling, not budging an inch. "Miles, meet death!"

A burning in my lungs reminded me to breathe.

Miles came to within maybe four hundred feet of Victor, and then three hundred, flying so fast he became a blur. Victor didn't shift into dragon form until Miles was less than two hundred feet away. But then, he launched himself into the air, dark wings unfurling, massive. His and Miles' mid-air collision sounded like a thunderclap.

He pinned Miles' beneath him and slammed him into the ground on his back. Miles whipped up a hand and shot a beam of bright green light that hit Victor right between the eyes, making him rise up on his back legs, roaring, obviously in pain. I gasped, horrified, and Elizabeth put an arm around my shoulders.

But Miles' punishment of Victor didn't last long. Victor took a deep breath and breathed a jet of bright blue fire on Miles. Keepers normally only breathed red fire. Miles writhed on the ground, literally screaming, and the sound of it as high as a woman's. After several moments, Victor stopped the jet of fire shooting from his mouth and turned his attention to Miles' men, who had just entered the airspace directly above him. They each seemed to try different spells on him while Miles remained on his back, flailing. Some shot bolts of green light at Victor; some shot bolts of silvery light; and some shot bolts of light somewhere between silver and black, like gunmetal. But Victor deflected each bolt with one dark gray scaly arm extended, a golden light surrounding his knife-like claws seeming to bounce the bolts of light right back at the Oppressors.

Just as Victor seemed to have everything well under control, Miles rose to his feet and exhaled some sort of fluorescent orange mist that encircled Victor's long, thick-scaled neck, appearing to tighten and choke him like a pair of hands. He staggered while the Oppressors flying above him renewed their efforts, hitting him square in the chest with several beams of light. I heard someone whimpering, only realizing after several moments that the noise was coming from me.

Elizabeth gave me a squeeze. "Stay strong. He's about to take the upper hand."

Elizabeth wasn't known to be psychic, and I knew she'd said what she'd said just to be encouraging. But at that moment, Victor did take the upper hand. And he kept it. He shot a thin stream of red fire from his mouth at Miles, and the fluorescent orange mist around his neck disappeared. He roared blue fire on the dozen Oppressors above him, making every single one of them drop to the ground like flies before they even had a chance to fly away. He immediately got to work stabbing them in the eye with one of his long claws, killing several of them within seconds.

Meanwhile, to the astonishment of everyone on the hill, myself included, Miles had opened his mouth and directly from it was shooting a thin stream of what seemed to be orange fire from it. Just like he was a dragon. The stream was at least twenty feet long and got Victor right in the side, but Victor didn't seem harmed by it or even phased in the least. He paused in his Oppressor killing, threw his mighty dragon head back, and made some sort of deep, rhythmic noise in the back of his throat. He seemed to be actually laughing.

He soon returned fire on Miles, except his stream was more powerful. It was more like a bomb of blue fire exploding from his open mouth. Miles shook on his feet as if being electrocuted before falling backward, hitting the ground still jerking and shaking. Gray smoke billowed from his light brown hair. A few Oppressors were just starting to come around from being stunned in the sky, and Victor got each of them with a blast of blue fire before stabbing several more in the eyes, killing them. While he did this, Miles attempted to sit up, failed and fell back down. He extended a hand in Victor's general direction and shot a silvery beam of light so weak that it didn't even connect with Victor, who stood less than ten feet away. If he even noticed, Victor ignored him and continued on with the task at hand, until all the Oppressors but Miles were dead.

Elizabeth breathed a sigh, surely of relief. Julia, who stood on my other side, bit back a noise that sounded like a little squeal of delight.

Victor slowly turned from the Oppressor carcasses and stomped over to Miles, the scales on his enormous dark body glimmering in the sun. Miles, who had ceased all efforts to shoot any beams of light from his fingers or breathe any fire from his mouth, rolled from his back to his stomach and began trying to crawl away. Before he got more than a few feet, Victor stopped him with a foot to the back, and then flipped him back onto his back using the same foot. Now, the whimpering I heard wasn't my own. Miles was making pitiful noises loud enough to be heard all the way across the enormous field. But they soon stopped because Victor lifted one of his thick arms and cracked Miles across the face with the back of his claws.

Elizabeth spoke in a low voice near my ear. "I think you might want to look away. I just feel like...something crazy is about to happen. And I know you have a weak stomach when it comes to blood."

She was right. But, surprising myself, I found that I was willing to risk a fainting spell or an episode of getting sick. I didn't want to look away. I wanted to see Miles lose his life. And not because of what he'd done to me, but for how he'd abused Rose and Brook, too, I was sure. And for how he'd killed many of the women in Cold Creek just in the past couple of weeks.

I shook my head. "No. I'm watching."

Elizabeth said all right, and then extended the invitation to look away to Julia, Rose, and Brook. None of them took her up on it, either.

Victor slapped Miles again, seeming to crack his nose, sending a spray of blood shooting into the air. Although immediately nauseous, I still didn't look away. I continued to focus my gaze directly at Victor and Miles, even when Victor with a single claw tore open Miles' chest, plucked his heart out, and flung it aside in one continuous movement. I didn't even look away for a fraction of a second. Though I did start swaying on my feet just a bit. With a sensation of heat, immediately followed by icy coldness, washing over me. I blacked out just a split-second after Victor hit Miles with a blast of blue flame and then stabbed him through the eye, killing him.

*

When I came to, I was in Victor’s and mine bed, with him on his side next to me. An electric lamp on one of the bedside tables revealed his expression of concern.

He began smoothing my hair. "How are you feeling?"

I thought for a few seconds. Usually when I fainted, I came to feeling as if I'd just woken up from a very long and restful nap, this time was no exception.