“No!” I scream, charging towards Thomas as the shifter’s claws rear up. The dangerously sharp, hooked tips pointed at Thomas’s soft neck glint in the sunshine.
I move as if I’m trapped in honey. The pieces of my heart stab into my ribs as he uses his body to protect the stupid fucking egg. The shifter is slashing down with claws that can tear and ruin my mate.
I scream Thomas’s name—reaching for him, fear buzzing through me like a colony of wasps.
And then, from the corner of my eye, a spark before…fire.
Burning hot and bright as the sun, spilling out like waves crashing against cliffs.
The shifter cries out, falling back and scrambling away. I grab hold of Thomas and haul us back, covering his face with my hand from the burning glow and shielding him with my body from the intense heat.
“W-what the hell just happened…” Thomas gasps when the fire dies, and a woman stands at the alleyway’s entrance. Her angular face twisted in anger, opalescent scales glittering on her cheeks.
My client.
I smirk at the tattooed shifter who’s sprawled to the ground, his shirt singed and his hands burned. “Congratulations. You’ve just pissed off a dragon mother.”
Chapter Twelve - Thomas
Icling to Ketill and the egg, chest heaving as a tall woman with shimmering white scales tracing across her high cheekbones steps out. Her eyes burn amber-red, and all of it is directed at the shifter trying to push himself away.
“I’ve been looking for you, Ketill.” Her voice is softer than I expected, like someone who doesn’t raise it often.
“And I’ve been looking for you, too, Saskia,” Ketill replies, pulling us towards the mouth of the alleyway. “Good timing, by the way. Very dramatic.”
She snorts out a curl of flame. “And this is the scum who stole my egg?”
The shifter scrambles back on his hands, but Saskia takes two steps—the last bringing her foot down right onto his groin.
I flinch, wincing along with the groaning shifter.
“Let me go!” he demands.
Ketill laughs darkly. “Something tells me that isn’t going to work. You got it from here, right, Saskia?” The dragon woman nods once, and I suck in a sharp breath when her thin lips peel back to reveal rows and rows of fangs the colour of diamonds.
“I’ve got it,” Saskia snarls, voice hardened with rage, as orange sparks fill the back of her throat. The shifter under her struggles, desperate to escape and promising everything and anything. Not that she listens as her mouth stretches wider.
My pulse quickens, and I cling to Ketill with my erratic heart lodged in my throat.
“C’mon, treasure,” Ketill says as he turns and leads us away from what’s about to happen and the bodies littering the ground. “You don’t need to see this.”
“Is she really going to—” But before I can finish, my question is answered by a wave of heat at my back that singes the hairs on my neck, and a scream of agony.
I plaster myself to Ketill’s side; his hold on me is almost painful.
“You’re okay, right?” Ketill asks, laying careful kisses on my temple
I nod, breathing him in. “I’m okay.”
I feel Ketill physically relax.
“But this is maybe the worst holiday I’ve ever been on.”
Ketill chuckles, brushing a kiss onto my cheek. “It hasn’t been that bad, right? Think of the story it’ll make!”
I scoff as I turn to face my very strange vampire, his smile digging into his cheeks. His single dimple on full display. “I think if I told my brother, he’d want to commit me. Or at the very least kill you.”
“This brother of yours is very protective.” He wraps his arms around me, then tucks my head into the crook of his neck.
