Make a scene, which was exactly what Wade did.
He opened the door and waltzed into the hallway like he wasn’t on a breaking-and-entering spree. He heard voices down the way and dialed up his hearing, his brain squeezing in the familiar way of translating language.
“—my turn to have some fun with the animal,” a fae was saying in their language.
Wade bit back a growl and started to run rather than walk. He was pretty sure he tore through a couple of wards that felt like spiderwebs breaking across his body, but whatever magic they contained never touched him. One of them must have been some kind of alarm to notify its caster because when he reached the hotel room door in question, he didn’t even need to knock. It was already opening.
“Oh, hey. Have you seen housekeeping? I need a spray bottle,” Wade said.
The fae standing in the door stared at him with ugly orange eyes that widened. “How did you?—”
Wade didn’t wait for the fae to finish speaking. He aimed an uppercut at the fae with all his strength—which was considerable when one was a dragon.
He tore the fae’s head off with that punch, shattering bone and blood spraying through the air and staining his clothes as he shoved the door open and muscled past the falling body. He shook meaty bits off his hand and then had to dodge out of the way of another fae, nearly falling into the bathroom.
“Would you watch where you’re going?” Wade shouted.
The fae reappeared in the doorway, magic crackling around their fingers. She was tall and icily beautiful, and Wade ruined everything about her when he roared out a fireball so hot it seared through her upper body in an instant. Wade was a fire dragon, and the fire he could produce even in human form was hotter than lava.
He stepped over the remains of that corpse and swung himself out of the bathroom and into the hotel room proper. Through the smell of charred flesh, the stinging scent of aconite finally hit his nose.
“She’snotan animal,” Wade snapped, glaring at the last remaining fae on guard duty.
They’d certainly treated Harper like one.
Someone had removed the bed, leaving an open space where Harper was chained to the wall by silver chains and cuffs. The carpet beneath her was stained with blood and would have to be replaced before the room was given to a guest. Her arms were covered in burns and whip marks, as was her torso that he could see through the shreds of her clothes, courtesy of the aconite-laced leather whip the fae standing near her held. The fae also held a gun, which was pointed at Wade.
“Whatareyou?” the fae demanded, vibrant lime-green eyes wide in his face. His short hair was the same color, and paired with his brown skin, the whole look reminded Wade of a kiwi, just probably not as tasty.
“If I say your worst nightmare, is that too cliché?”
In answer, the fae pulled the trigger.
Wade shifted mass, bringing his scales to the forefront of his human form. The mass behind them he was prepared to shift into place would be enough to deflect the bullets. In full dragon form, regular bullets weren’t even noticeable. It was missiles he’d have to watch out for, according to Reed, but Wade was a lot better these days at hiding from radar.
His scales were just in case any of the bullets got through the fire he spat at the fae. Jono always said to have a backup plan whenever he went into a fight. Jono always told Patrick the same thing, to which Patrick always quipped that Jono and the pack were his backup. Wade didn’t have his pack with him, but he had all the teachings they’d given him over the last five years or so.
The fae went up in flames, and this time, the heat and smoke were enough to set off the sprinklers overhead. Water poured out in a spray as the fire alarm blared through the hotel in a piercing siren that had Wade immediately dialing down his hearing, becauseow.
He hurried to Harper’s side, kneeling next to her. She stared at him with badly bruised brown eyes, her dark hair matted in places from blood. “I need to touch you.”
“Who are you?” she croaked.
“Wade, from the New York City god pack. Your dire found a workaround in the shitty bargain Niall forced on your pack. Can I touch you?”
Despite knowing they were running out of time, he kept his hands hovering over the aconite-laced silver shackles locked around her wrists that impeded her shifting. He didn’t know what had been done to her beyond the obvious—being the unwilling punching bag for fae—but he wasn’t about to trigger a breakdown with an unwanted touch.
Harper bared her teeth at him. Several were broken, and a couple in the front were gone completely. “Get me free.”
Wade shifted a tiny bit more mass, and black talons erupted from his fingertips. Harper flinched, nostrils flaring. He gave her a tight smile, knowing everything about his true form was probably making her uncomfortable. “Sorry.”
He carefully slid two talons between Harper’s wrist and the cuff, not needing to exert much pressure to slice through the silver. Dragon strength helped with that, and he tossed the broken cuff aside before working to free Harper of the other. The moment she was free of them both, she scrambled away from the wall on shaky limbs, nearly face-planting on the carpet. Wade caught her, mindful of his hands, even if he couldn’t be as mindful of her injuries as he’d like because he didn’t know the full extent of them.
“We have to go. Can you shift?” he said as he shifted mass again to make his talons disappear. The scales covering his body sank back under his skin, giving no more hint of what he truly was.
“He’ll kill Casey if I leave,” Harper gasped out.
“I won’t let him. Needing to help you both is why I came to Boston. Is Casey here?”
