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  Match nodded. “The stain said that this all father went down. If it is some sort of intelligent demon dragon the area around your hot springs would be its first escape route.”

  Aric stepped forward. “What can we do to keep our pack’s safe? The protection your warriors gave us tonight is appreciated, but you won’t always be around. What if they come back once you leave?”

  These people were Fleur’s friends, her family even. Whatever happened he would make sure the dragon warriors would protect her people like he would protect her.

  The alpha in Match recognized the same in Aric. “We must root out their nest and destroy them so they do not plague this area.”

  Steele may be injured, he may have failed in his duty to protect his mate, and he may not ever be worthy of Fleur’s love, but he had it, and he would put it above all else. “Not before we find Fleur.”

  Barbara walked over and squeezed his cheek. “I knew you’d finally win her over. Let’s go get your mate.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Witchy Woman

  Fleur closed her eyes and thought of Steele. The way he’d pursued her relentlessly, the way he kissed her and loved her, the way he’d given his soul into her care, and the way she gave hers to him.

  “What are you doing, witch? Your magic can’t save you.”

  She ignored the disdain and disgust in the black dragon’s words. Her love was more powerful than his hatred.

  She pushed every bit of that love toward the teeny-tiny root and urged it to grow. Cracks and crunches of the rock breaking echoed all through the cavern and the scent of newly turned earth and fresh growth overtook the stench of sulfer.

  “A tree root is not going to save you from the agonizing burn of the lava.”

  Fleur opened her eyes and smiled at the asshat. He was wrong. The roots stretched down, creating first a wall of tangled wood between them and the creepy crone woman, and then a mass weaving covering the lava closest to her.

  The shard at her neck glowed brightly, changing the color of the air around them from red to green.

  The crone rattled the cage of branches and shouted through them. “Boy, see its power. Get the shard from her. Claim what is rightfully yours.”

  The man snarled and black scales rippled across his body. His hands transformed into dark claws, the color of dirty oil. They swiped across her chest, shredding her shirt and cutting deep, leaving gashes that oozed black sludge.

  She swallowed the scream, not wanting him to see her give into any pain he could inflict. She held fast to the knowledge that try as he might, his torture hadn’t sliced through the cord of the shard.

  He roared, trying to grasp the crystal. “Give it to me, whore.”

  “Get off.” Fleur twisted and slapped at his claws. She pushed her power far beyond where she’d gone before forcing the tree roots to twice, three, four times its normal size. A chunk of the ceiling fell, breaking away and landing in great pieces all around them.

  One narrowly missed the half-dragon half asshole’s head. That pissed him off even more. She’d hoped that she could injure him and get him to let her go, even run away.

  Nope.

  He seized her by the throat with one giant clawed fist and grabbed for the shard with the other. Fleur clutched his arms attempting to save both her life and the shard.

  “Never. You’ll never get it.”

  He growled and flames licked at the edges of his mouth. “I will.”

  The fire burst out at her and this time she did scream, turning her head away. But, the flames never touched her, didn’t burn her skin.

  “What the fuck, what are you?” The man shook her and shot his fiery breath at her again.

  It licked across her skin, but didn’t hurt any more than incredibly bad breath.

  Fleur blinked. There was something different about her eyelids. Or was it her eyes? The world around her turned technicolor, sharper. The heat that the shard had protected her from lessened even more and the wounds on her chest hurt less. A change was rising in her from the inside.

  She glared at her captor. Thorny vines wrapped around his claws and fist, drawing blood and crushing the scales. “Hells bells, why does everyone have to ask what I am?”

  She’d been asked that her entire life. Those that didn’t care to ask, simply shunned her. Now she was being tortured, and she still couldn’t answer the question. She didn’t know herself.

  She’d clung to her unknown destiny her whole life, hiding behind it. She would know who she was when her fate showed up to tell her.

  Screw that.

  A renewed power built inside.

  “You want to know what I am?” She released her grip on him as more vines and branches wrapped around them both. “You can talk to the hand, no, talk to the finger, because I’m not taking any more questions today.”

  Fleur raised her middle finger to the asshat’s face, holding it steady and strong.

  Smoke curled out of the snarl-puss face. He glanced at the shard and to face. “There are plenty of other ways to get what I want, hundreds of dragons who don’t know how precious the gift is.”

  He released her, breaking through the vines, and dropped her to the ground. She landed incredibly close to the lava, protected only by the thin layer of roots that were burning up by the second. Still she didn’t feel the heat.

  “If you won’t give me the soul shard, you can die, and your dragon with you.”

  He kicked at her, sending her careening toward the lava. She raised her arms into the air, calling the plants to her. A branch stretched down, wrapping around each arm and pulling her up and away from the danger.

  The man transformed fully into a black beast of a dragon and crashed through the wooden barrier. He took flight and torpedoed across the lava, following its flow deeper into the ground.

  The crone screeched after him and disappeared into a puff of black smoke.

  A great roar bubbled up from the direction the black dragon had flown and the earth shook below her. More of the ceiling caved in and the floor below her cracked right on cue like the set of an action adventure disaster movie.

  Crapping crappity crap crap. Fleur had been ready to release a sigh of relief, but they hadn’t let her escape at all. They were going to trap her underground in the cavern of death and despair.

  Where was a dragon warrior when she needed one?

  “He’s waiting for you.” The whisper of a soft feminine voice slid into her head.

  “What? Hello? Who’s there?”

  “Go, Fleur. Quickly.”

  “Where? I don’t see a way out.” The floor shook again and she fell. “Oh, god. I’m going to die in here, aren’t I? This is my destiny coming to bite me in the ass.”

  That would teach her to think she could ignore what the universe had predetermined her life would be.

  The image of a gorgeous mother-nature diva, white flowing robes, dark hair, and plump soft curves formed before her.

  For the briefest moment, she saw a reflection in the woman’s eyes, of herself, but instead of her own olive skin, she saw white scales.

  The woman pointed toward the tunnel in the rock Fleur had come through before. The roots had opened a new path that angled up to the surface. “Dammit, girl. Screw destiny. Run.”

  She had said it. Now she was truly going to do it.

  Screw. Stupid. Destiny.

  She wanted to live.

  The floor shook again, but this time the falling rock uncovered more roots. The tree she’d coaxed into helping her had continued to swell and fill the cavern with its roots. The leafy part of the tree must be huge above the ground.

  She scrambled onto the nearest root and encouraged more growth, jumping across from sprout to sprout across the cracks in the ground and the bubbling lava.

  Her muscles were on fire and she vowed to start doing squats if her legs would get her out of here in one piece. The room was collapsing before her eyes.

  She put on one final burst of speed. Th
e white-robed woman drifted alongside of her, waving her hands and whispering foreign words.

  A tremor grabbed Fleur’s heart, pushing out, shimmering over her entire body. One second she was running and the next, she flew into the tunnel, the earth falling in a tidal wave of dirt and rock behind her.

  Flying. Holy smokes, literally flying. She clawed at the rock to make room for her and her big ole white wings. A ginormous crack in the earth opened before her and she jumped into the air, dodging falling rocks and hot water spilling from above.

  “Steele? Are you there? Can you hear me?”

  “Fleur? We found your dragon tree. I’m coming.”

  She didn’t know what a dragon tree was, but she could feel Steele, he was close.

  “I’m flying up through a crack in the ground.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Did you say flying?”

  “Yeah, thanks to the woman in white with me.” Or, she was. The woman wasn’t beside her anymore. There wasn’t a whole lot of room though, so maybe she’d fallen behind.

  The night sky with the moon and stars were visible above. Almost there. Almost back to Steele.

  A great roar came from behind her and the crack widened. Fleur looked over her shoulder and saw the Black Dragon hot on her tail.

  Between them was the woman in white.

  “Go, little daughter. Hurry. I’ve muddled the dragon’s sight. Kur-jara can not see this part of you. Get to the surface and shift into your human form.”

  Go, go, go. Hopefully Steele would know how to help her shift, because she didn’t have a clue.

  She burst out of the ground and into the sky. Several dragons were circling the biggest tree in the forest. It towered above all the others, and its branches stretched out like the wings of dragon.

  She’d made a great big green dragon tree.

  It was beautiful and amazing. But, not as incredible as the sight of her own big green dragon pacing beneath it. “Steele.”

  She swooped down and skidded across the ground. Her body shimmered and her feet transformed, then her legs, and torso, and arms, which she wrapped around Steele and held him tight.

  He shifted instantly into his human form and held her tight against his chest with one arm. “Thank the first dragon. I failed you, my love. Forgive me.”

  First, she would kiss him, making sure his lips and tongue, teeth and tonsils, knew how much she missed them. Then she’d set him straight on the whole fail forgive thing.

  His kissy face plans matched hers. He pressed her against the tree trunk and mashed his lips against hers, taking her in a soul-deep kiss. The moment they touched a sense of overwhelming joy and rightness to her world flowed through, in and around them both.

  She could kiss him forever, except she knew danger was on its way. If they were going to fight itas off together, she needed him to know everything that was in her heart, and heal his. He thought he’d failed her, when in reality he’d saved her, helped her save herself from living a small life.

  As much as she didn’t want to, she broke the kiss and pressed her finger against his lips before he could say a word. “The black dragon is coming, so let me say this before the battle.” He sucked the end of her finger into his mouth, but waited for her to speak.

  When this was over they were going to spend a long damn time staring into each other’s eyes. In bed.

  The thunder and heat of dragon fire filled the air. She had only seconds before the black dragon and his special brand of destruction arrived.

  The great tree shuddered and the ground moved beneath their feet. Steele steadied them against the trunk, keeping them both from falling.

  Crap. She had a whole speech prepared, about how he was a warrior that has to protect the whole world from the evil she didn’t even know existed until yesterday. That would have to wait. Short, sweet, and to the point. They had a beast to battle.

  “Love of my life, you’re badass. But, you don’t have to protect me. I think it’s actually my job to keep you and your soul safe, so you can keep on saving the world.”

  Steele shook his head and clenched his jaw. “I am never leaving you exposed to a draft of cold air, much less demon dragons. I can’t, will not, lose you again. It almost killed me to think about those things even touching you.”

  The black dragon surged out of the ground, taking half a ton of earth and trees with him and raining it down along with fireballs of rock and lava.

  Dragons and wolves scattered to avoid the debris. Oh, no. The Wolfe pack was here. Her friends, the closest thing she had to a family were in danger too.

  She and Steele had to stop the black dragon before it hurt any of them.

  Fleur grabbed Steele’s arms and saw the wounds that weren’t healing. They matched the ones across her chest.

  Both were filled with a black taint, something evil and not of the earth.

  White scales rippled across her arms. What was inside of her, the part that she’d never been able to recognize or understand, pushed to get out.

  “Trust me, Steele. Together we are stronger, together, we can save Blue Creek from the black dragon.”

  It wasn’t only the dragon that Steele had awakened in her, but love.

  The antidote for evil.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Battling Demons

  Deep inside, Steele battled what no warrior, dragon or human wanted to admit. He was afraid.

  Not the adrenaline pumping kind of fear that he could push aside and do his job to keep the plague of demon dragons at bay. That was easy.

  How could he be the badass she thought he was?

  Fleur was here, in his arms again, safe and mostly sound. She was out of her god damn mind if she thought he’d let her out of his sight for even a second.

  But, then she went and asked him to trust her.

  No, she hadn’t asked. She’d told him to trust her.

  Branches on the tree above them shattered and rained down sharp spikes of wood. Steele turned his back to deflect what he could from hurting Fleur. The shard at her neck glowed green with swirls of white interspersed creating a layer of light surrounding them both. Any projectile that got even close sizzled in the light like dissolving before his eyes.

  Her eyes flicked back and forth, her gaze searching his, impatiently waiting for him to agree to put them both in harm’s way.

  The smart, sass mouthed, powerful woman he’d recognized in her was no longer hiding behind her destiny. She’d grown into her true self and it was a sight to behold. If it was possible, Steele fell even more in love with her standing under that tree waiting for the world explode, knowing that if he would trust in her, they could save it, together.

  He didn’t understand where her absolute faith in him came from, especially after he’d flunked protect your mate 101 already.

  But, if she’d just demonstrated her new found powers to him. If she was sure, and she was, he would put his trust in her, instead of himself.

  “I trust you, little flower. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  The smile that spread across her face cemented his decision to trust her. She kissed him, sucking his tongue into her mouth, and if evil incarnate wasn’t flying around over their heads he’d let her have her way with him.

  She nipped his lip with her teeth and ended their three second make-out session. “You go fight the black dragon. I’ll keep you safe.”

  “I can’t fly. The bones in my wing is broken and no matter how many times I shift into my dragon form it won’t heal.”

  “Turn around.” She spun him and pushed his shirt up revealing his broken shoulder and arm. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I was too busy holding you.”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  “Jakob already tried his dragon’s breath. It helped, but—” Fleur’s breath on his skin took his words and turned them into mush. Whatever she was doing was far behind any dragon’s breath he’d ever experienced. Normally it was like warm touch, but her he
aling power felt like Icy Hot on steroids.

  She continued to blow across his skin, down his arm, her lips pursed, white mist licking over his wounds. Black oil seeped from him everywhere her breath touched giving him instant relief. The skin knit together and the bones underneath reformed, stronger, infused with a new strength.

  She glanced up, still blowing, grinned at him, and winked.

  One more part of his body went harder than it ever had before too. “Promise me when this is over you’ll use those lips on my cock too.”

  “What do you think that wink was for?” She laughed. “Now, go. Defeat the black dragon, save my friends and their home.”

  Steele kissed his mate once more for luck and shifted into his dragon form, taking to the air.

  The black dragon rolled through the air, shooting jets of dragon’s fire at Jakob, and the other Wyverns.

  Cage used his power over the wind to easily avoid the attacks, and propelled the other dragon warriors out of harm’s way. But, in the dark of night, he was tiring fast.

  They needed to work together and move the battle to the ground, where he and Jakob could dig in and take over. The reds and Ky could use their fire and ice to destroy the legion of demon dragons that were pouring out of the same crack in the ground Fleur and the black dragon had emerged from.

  Steele glanced down and saw Fleur’s friends shift into wolves, one by one, and form a circle around her and the tree. The demon dragons attacked.

  Fuck. There were so many, there was no way the wolves could hold them at bay. Steele dove for the ground until he saw the burst of white power shoot from her hands, stunning the demon dragons.

  “Fleur. They’re coming. Get out of there.”

  The branches on the trees grew in every direction, blocking every attack. “I got this, mate. Get the black dragon.”

  The wolves took advantage of that and ripped out the throats and hearts of the beasts like the dragons had taught them to. The horde turned to mere black stains before his eyes.

  Well, okay then. He’d doubted the trust he’d given to his mate in that moment and had been dead wrong.