“Just what? Kidnapping my mate?”Draven’s mental voice crackled with barely contained fury.“Explain yourself before I incinerate you where you stand.”
“Aunt Veyra sent me!” Marvin called out, his voice cracking. “She said to scare the human, make her want to leave Nova Aurora. Nothing deadly, just?—”
Draven’s roar of fury echoed across the ridges as he dove toward Marvin, shifting mid-flight. His human form hit the ground, and within three strides, he’d tackled the younger dragon shifter to the rocky ground.
“You don’t touch her ever again,” Draven snarled, his hands wrapping around Marvin’s throat.
Marvin struggled beneath him, his own shift beginning in panic. “It wasn’t my idea! Veyra said?—”
“I don’t care what that scheming bitch told you.” Draven’s grip tightened as his inner fire blazed just beneath his skin. “The moment you laid hands on my mate, you signed your death warrant.”
Marvin’s partial shift made him larger and stronger, but Draven’s fury was beyond anything the younger dragon had ever faced. They rolled across the rocky ground, claws and fists flying, until Draven landed a devastating blow that sent Marvin crashing into the volcanic ridge’s face.
The impact left Marvin unconscious and bleeding, his body crumpled against the stones.
Draven spun toward Lila, ready to shift and carry her to safety, when movement from the cabin caught his attention. A man emerged heading straight for Lila.
“Corin.” The name left his lips like a curse.
His mate was already in motion. Despite her injured ankle, Lila pivoted on her good foot and drove her knee into Corin’s groin with enough force to double him over. As he gasped and staggered, she grabbed his wrist and twisted, ripping his communicator free before delivering a perfectly aimed kick that sent him sprawling unconscious beside the cabin.
Holy hell.Draven stared at his mate with a mixture of awe and blazing arousal.She just took down a trained operative like it was nothing.
Lila looked up at him, breathing hard but triumphant. “Self-defense classes in Santa Monica,” she said with a shaky grin. “Apparently they translate well on Nova Aurora.”
Draven laughed, then shifted back to his dragon form and approached Lila carefully, his claws closing gently around Lila’s waist. She didn’t flinch—instead, she leaned into his touch,trusting him completely despite having just been terrorized by another dragon moments before.
As they lifted off toward his cabin, Draven’s mind was already racing through the implications. Veyra had made her move, using her nephew and Corin to target Lila directly. The gloves were officially off.
But watching his mate fight back with such fierce courage had shown him something crucial. Lila wasn’t just his emotional anchor. She was a warrior in her own right, capable of standing beside him as an equal partner in whatever battles lay ahead.
My queen,he thought as they soared through the morning sky.My fierce, brilliant queen.
Draven’s dragon soon touched down outside his cabin with gentleness despite the urgency coursing through his veins to tend to his mate’s injury. His massive claws released Lila with infinite care before he shifted back to his human state, the transformation swift and fluid.
Without hesitation, he scooped her into his arms, ignoring her immediate protests.
“I can walk, you know. It’s just a little sprain. Nothing ice can’t fix,” she said, though her voice carried a breathless quality that made his protective instincts flare even hotter.
Draven examined her ankle as he carried her toward the cabin, noting the purple bruising and alarming swelling that had already begun. His jaw tightened. “That’s not a sprain, Lila. It’s broken.”
She glanced down as they entered the cabin, her face falling slightly. “Oh. Well, that’s just fantastic.”
“Tomorrow before the funeral, I’ll have the castle healer assess it properly and treat you,” he said, setting her down gently on the bed. His hands lingered on her waist, the need to touch her and reassure himself she was safe overwhelming his usualrestraint. “Right now though, I’ll wrap it with what I have in the first aid kit.”
“Draven, thank you for saving my life,” she said softly, her eyes holding his with an intensity that made his chest tighten.
He knelt beside the bed, his hands gentle as he examined her injury. “You saved your own life. You were brave, fierce, and incredibly sexy taking down Corin like that.”
Her laugh was light despite the pain. “Your dragon was pretty sexy too, fighting and protecting me like that. Very alpha of you.”
If she only knew how close I came to tearing Marvin apart.
The memory of another dragon’s claws wrapped around his mate still made his inner fire burn with rage.
Lila reached into her pocket and pulled out Corin’s communicator, her expression shifting to something darker as she began scrolling through the messages. “Now I have the concrete proof we need.”
“What are you talking about?” Draven paused in his bandaging, sensing the sudden tension radiating from her.
