After being on the run for so long, I realize I can’t take him down myself. Not while caring for a baby and trying to keep her safe.
I need your help.
I know this is unfair, but please take care of Alanna until I return. I’m going to Dragonspire Keep to plead for help from Everly and the Prime. If that fails, I will seek an audience with Asharien, the Elemental King. Barrett falls under Asharien’s rule, as he is a fire elemental. Thankfully he is only a quarter elemental, so he is not particularly strong, but he has deep pockets and no shortage of those willing to sell themselves for the right price.
Whether I succeed or not, I will come back soon.
Tell Alanna I love her.
If, for some reason, he does not take the bait and tracks her here…
Please protect her.
She’s all I have left in this world.
Piper
Raw emotion tightened my throat,and I closed my eyes, letting my head fall back.
It wasn’t that she had left Alanna with me. Of course she could. It was that she was running toward danger. She was deliberately drawing Barrett away from Moonhaven, away from Alanna, and she was doing italone.
Well, alone save for her military contacts.
What branch of the military had my mate served in? I had spent time in the Army, but I didn’t have shadowy contacts scattered across the country, ready to mobilize at a moment’s notice.
Had she been military intelligence? Those in INSCOM were sharp, methodical, and lethal when necessary. It was not outside the realm of possibility, because Piper seemed to be all of those things.
I tried to reassure myself that she was not entirely alone, but my bear was not listening. He clawed at my insides, demanding release, convinced our mate was marching toward her death.
We can’t, I told him firmly.She entrusted us with the cub. We protect the cub.
My bear snarled in protest.We leave cub with Clan. Mate needs us.
He surged harder, panic bleeding through him, certainty driving him. When I forced him back, his voice cracked.
Our mate, Riggs. She needs us.
Breathing heavily from the effort of containing him, I braced a hand on the table.
She does. But she is going for help. She is not charging blindly into this alone. And she trusted us with the most precious thing in her world. We do not betray that trust. We do not hand the cub to someone else and chase our instincts. She asked for our help, and this is what she meant.
Slowly, reluctantly, my bear receded, curling inward in wounded resignation.
I moved unsteadily to the living area and sat hard on the arm of the couch.
That had been a difficult battle. I didn’t often clash with my bear, but at times his instincts ran headlong into my human judgment. He was present, aware, and intelligent in his own way, but he was not a dragon. And he knew it.
Dragons, he muttered darkly.
Despite everything, I huffed a quiet laugh.
He considered dragons insufferable show-offs. He tolerated Roarke because he was Clan through marriage, but beyond that he preferred to keep his distance. Fortunately for him, there were only a handful of dragon shifters in existence.
I glanced down at the sleeping baby curled against my chest and exhaled slowly.
What exactly was I going to do with her?
Well.
