Page 101 of The Breeding Cave
Yeosin screamed my name from high above me, but I couldn’t see her. A dragon’s claws raked across my rib cage. Pain exploded through my body. I struggled as much as I could, but he was pinning me down with all his might.
“Yeosin!” I shouted.
“Luciano! Help me! Please, help me!”
Fuck, I can’t lose her! Not like this. I will do anything.
A burst of fire burned the flesh on my left side, the sudden hiss of the flames making it impossible to hear Yeosin anymore, if she was even close. For all I knew … they had taken her. They had taken my mate!
I turned away as harshly as I could in a measly attempt to escape. “Yeosin!”
From above me, Gideon struck the dragon in the side and knocked him off me. He sank his talons into the dragon’s neck. The dragon breathed fire all over him, and Gideon’s body burned, but he took no damage.
None.
It almost … made him stronger.
After Gideon ripped out his throat, the dragon collapsed onto the forest floor. I rolled onto my side, attempting to put out my burning flesh while choking on the heavy smoke.
Gideon shifted into his human form. “You should?—”
“Get away from me,” I spit, stumbling to my feet and clutching my ribs.
He approached. “We need to?—”
I weakly shoved him backward. “I said to get away from me. Where’s Yeosin?”
“Alvin took her.”
Rage rattled every part of my body. I seized him by the throat and slammed him against a tree, my wound so deep that my abilities wouldn’t let me heal as quickly as I usually could. “Where were you when Yeosin was taken?!”
Gideon shook his head, but didn’t try pushing me away. “I was fighting off dragons myself. We need to stay focused. I’m not your enemy, Luc. We need to work together if we’re going to save her.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said. “You lost that privilege when you came back to fucking life.”
Still, I couldn’t wrap my head around how he was still alive, how he had come back to life. And it surely was convenient that as soon as I was about to show Yeosin his body, the dragons had attacked us.
Once I shoved him back, I turned around and stumbled through the woods, back toward the packhouse that was engulfed in flames. I had no sense about where they had gone off to, where they had taken my mate.
But I had to start somewhere. I had to find her.
“Luciano,” Gideon said, following after me, “you need to be healed first.”
“No, I need to find her.”
“She will be okay,” he said to me.
“Okay?!” I snarled, turning on my heel and facing him again. “She’ll be okay?!”
“They can’t hurt her with fire,” he said.
“They could burn her alive!” I shouted. “What the fuck are you on?”
“Luciano, you don’t understand.”
When he tried to approach me again, I stepped back because I was losing strength to physically fight him right now. I needed to save it so I could … so I could get my mate and my family back. Now.
“I’m going to find her,” I said between my canines. “Don’t follow me.”
