"No," I said, the air shaking with the force of it. "I've never wished you harm, brother, but I won't let you touch my mate or my child. Ever. I'll kill you first, Ivan, brother or not."
He laughed, and it was a sound that chilled my hot blood. "You're wrong, ‘brother,'" he said, shifting as he launched into the air above me. "I care not for the human, but I will take your child."
I roared, but before I could shift and block him he'd already taken off, winging out over the waves. I was torn between chasing him and protecting Devin, but my need for my mate won out. I raced for the house, letting my dragon sense track Ivan as he curved around the island and headed toward the mainland.
He wasn't leaving. He was going deeper into my territory.
24
~ Devin ~
I didn't know what had happened to our bond, but the rush of relief when it came back almost overwhelmed me. I didn't ever want to be cut off from Maks again.
Maks's urgency and my own fear for our child had me following his order to go to the house without question, but once there, I couldn't tear myself away from the window. I watched them fight, and then talk, and then Ivan leave, all with my heart in my throat.
Danger and threat had never been a part of my life, and having them directed at the man I loved was worse than anything I could imagine. Through it all, I could feel fear and anger and a melancholy sadness broiling within Maks's heart, and the minute he came through the door he crushed me against him.
"Did he hurt you, love?" he asked, even though I knew he could feel the answer for himself. I wasn't hurt. Just scared.
"I'm fine," I reassured him. "We both are. But what about you?"
He was still naked from his change, but for once, as I ran my hands over him, I wasn't tempted to do anything more. No matter how many times I'd seen the evidence of his fast healing, I needed to convince myself that he was unharmed.
"He didn't hurt me," Maks said, offering me the same reassurance he'd needed. "But I'm afraid he'll be back."
"He wanted to take me somewhere. Why?"
Maks scrubbed a hand over his face, looking pained. "Ivan and my sire-all the dragons Dane and I had ever met, until Anik and Ben- they live very differently from us, love. They see humans as disposable, and have always manipulated humanity for their own ends. It's why Dane and I left Europe. I had no idea my sire had been keeping tabs on me."
Knowing the power that Maks's dragon had to compel humans to do its will, the thought was terrifying-but I still didn't understand what that had to do with me.
"It's not you," he answered my unvoiced question. "It's the baby. He wants to raise it the way he thinks I should have been raised, to make our child part of his ‘legacy,' the way he intended for me … and the way he obviously succeeded with Ivan."
"No!"
"Of course not, love. We won't let him. I just … need to figure out how to stop him."
"Well, you're not alone," I reminded him. "You need to call Dane and Ben. Three heads will definitely be better than one, and you know they'll have your back."
Maks stared at me blankly for a moment, and then started to smile. I knew he considered the other two shifters his closest friends, but it wasn't until that moment that I really realized what a solitary existence he'd led. I could feel it through our bond-it honestly hadn't occurred to him to ask for help.
I shook my head. These dragons … so powerful, but still, they needed us-Maks needed me-because they weren't just dragons, they were human, too.
I understood now that it was the part of them that couldn't be fully whole without a mate. Maks had given me everything I'd ever wanted … love, a child … and things that I hadn't ever dared to dream of … the seemingly magical abilities of his dragon. It was nice to know that I had something to offer him, too.
"You're right," he said, and he was agreeing with my suggestion about his friends as much as my thoughts. "I'll call them now." He pulled me to him for a quick kiss, then went to grab some clothes and call the other two dragons.
I knew they would come, and I had no doubt that we would find a way to keep our child safe from Ivan. But as Maks walked away from me, I could still sense a lingering sadness. His memories were open to me, and it was easy to see where his sadness stemmed from.
He felt guilty over what Ivan had become, even though it wasn't his fault. Maks was confident that he would save me and our child, but who would save his brother?
Ben showed up the next day. I felt it through Maks's dragon sense, a subtle pressure in my mind when the other dragon crossed into our territory-the same sense that, now that I'd learned to recognize it, told me that Ivan was still close, too.
I stayed in the house as we felt the other dragon approaching the island, and even though it "felt" like Ben, I breathed a subtle sigh of relief when the day's fading light made his red hide glow as he landed down at the beach, proving his identity.
I didn't know the northern dragon well, but Maks had told me a bit about his history. He was older than both Maks and Dane, and still unmated. For all his power and his tendency to let his temper flare when those he cared about were threatened, Maks insisted that Ben was the gentlest of all the dragons he'd ever met.
Unlike Maks and Dane, he'd been raised knowing what he was from birth. He was the child of fated mates, and his parents had never had any reason to foster him out the way the European dragons did. When his dragon had awoken, it hadn't been a surprise, and Anik, his dragon-shifter father, had taught him everything there was to know about his own true nature.
Ben definitely knew more about what it meant to be a dragon than Maks, or even Dane-both of whom had rejected dragonkind in their youth. Everything my mate had learned about his otherself had been through trial and error, and there were no doubt things that he had yet to discover-the effect of dragon fire obviously one of them, as we'd found out the day before.
"That man does love dragons," Ben was saying as they walked in the house, shaking his head and laughing. "Too bad he was born human."
"Who?" I asked, but before he answered I realized that I already knew the answer. It's not like there were all that many humans who knew that dragons existed among us … and I only knew of one who was enthusiastic enough to inspire that comment. "Oh. Ty, right?"
"That's right, love," Maks said. "Dane is taking Wes and Elise up to stay with Ben's fathers before he joins us here, to ensure their safety."
I sucked in a breath. "Do you think Ivan would actually go after Dane's family?"
"I don't know," he said. "But he isn't willing to leave them unprotected."
"What does that have to do with Ty?"
"Ty wanted Dane to take him up north, too," Ben answered me. "He wants to be the one to protect his brother and Elise."
"Either that, or he just wants another chance to ride a dragon," Maks said, laughing.
"I heard that he had a pretty extreme reaction to hearing that there's a ‘bad' dragon," Ben said. "I think he was under the impression that our kind was all full of noble honor or something. He's really bent out of shape about Ivan."
"I take it Dane didn't take him?" I asked.
"He couldn't get leave."
Ty was a soldier. He really was protective of those he loved, and it was the perfect career for him. It was also a lucky coincidence that he'd been stationed at the base in Washington State near his family for as long as he had, but being in the army meant that his time wasn't his own. If his superiors said that he couldn't go, that was the end of it.
"Will your father be able to keep Dane's family safe?" I asked Ben.
I'd never met Anik or his mate, Mikkel. I had the vague impression that they were really old-Ben was over five hundred, which was mind-boggling in itself-and in my mind I was picturing two white-haired, doting grandparents trying to stand against Ivan's flaming dragon. I shuddered.
Maks saw the vision in my mind and laughed. "No, baby, Anik isn't that old."
"My ata?" Ben asked. "He's not even two-thousand yet. If you met him in his human form you would think he was in his thirties."
"How long does your kind live?" I asked, my mouth falling open.
"A lot longer than that," he answered, smiling softly. "And you too, Devin. Your mating bond ties your life to Maks's. My father, Mikkel, was in his twenties when my ata found him. His aging has slowed to match pace with his mate, and I expect both will be around for a long time to come. A youngling like Ivan wouldn't be a threat to them. My ata was fighting dragons centuries before that one was born."