Four
Damn bastards never listened,did they?
Race nailed the males from his past with an icy stare. It seemed Koal’s failed attempt at persuasion was to be backed by two more shifters, whom he never thought to see again.
Koal straightened, his muscular frame tense, positioned just behind the other two. Attor, that crafty old bastard—his late sire’s former head enforcer—waited with the patience of a predator after prey.
Yeah, not happening.
And the real gut-punch was the flame-haired shifter. Skaldr.
His old friend, whom he’d thought dead for millennia, watched him with eyes that held none of their former brotherhood.
Race didn’t bother speaking, but seeing them brought back memories of a world torn apart, of carnage and betrayal. His dragon thrashed furiously beneath his skin at the sight of these males from their shared past.
“Race, what’s going on?” Ash asked from behind him.
Dammit, he didn’t want her there amid danger.
“Bloodshed.” He didn’t raise his voice, but power threaded through his tone. “Go inside, Ash.”
Her footsteps crunched on the snow-covered courtyard as she beat a hasty retreat back into the abbey. The air grew thick with tension, the warriors shifting their stances.
His gaze locked with Skaldr’s. While he was glad his old friend lived, the past could never be erased. “You survived?”
Nothing showed in Skaldr’s amber eyes, but the nerve in his jaw pounded.
“It took him a long time to heal,” Koal jumped in, trying to ease the animosity.
“Good for you,” Race retorted. “Now get out. I have no interest in Lemuria.”
Not when he had been betrayed, captured, and incarcerated in Tartarus, trapped in a torture that had broken him. Even now, the rattling of chains clawed his mind, bringing back the horror, the endless agony of spikes nailed into his bones?—
Teeth gritted, he shut out the past that would start the screams inside his skull again.
“Eracier?” Attor stepped forward. “I know you have a different life now. But circumstances?—”
“Am I not speaking clearly enough for you?” he snapped, bloodlust surging through his veins. “Get out. I’m done.”
Skaldr took a step forward, hands fisted, amber eyes flashing, looking ready to tear into Race.
“Skaldr,” Attor warned.
Enough of this shit.Race summoned his Gaian sword. It ripped free from his biceps, the agony nearly dropping him to his knees—the price he paid for using it without cause.
He launched himself at them, blade winging through the frigid air. Snarls erupted, and they unsheathed their own weapons with practiced speed and countered. They fought, fast and furiously, steel clashing with steel in a thunderous clang. Growls erupted as blood spilled.
He wasn’t just a Guardian, but a fucking predator. He went for gore and death.
“Dammit, Eracier, listen—” Attor ducked a deathly swing to his carotid. “Caelvyrn—all of Lemuria is falling. Malcarion?—”
“I don’t care.” He struck hard. Attor leaped back, and Race’s obsidian sword sliced across the male’s chest, blood drenching his gray shirt.
“Then you leave us no choice!” Skaldr roared. Sword sheathed, he ducked Race’s blow and sprinted for the abbey.
Ash’s startled cry pierced the air, triggering both man and dragon’s protective instincts.
Race spun as Skaldr strode outside, Ash tossed over his shoulder. She yelled, pounding at his back.
