Page 39 of Having the Dragon's Baby

Marcus wrapped himself in his wings and plummeted toward the earth. He caught the tail-end of the blast singeing his left side, and he gritted his teeth to endure the hot agony. He remained wrapped until snapping his wings outward just before hitting the dirt and gliding to safety.

It was folklore that a dragon was immune to fire. Scales made them resistant, but the wings were as fragile as they were powerful. Marcus floated along the ground before taking a sharp turn toward the section of the woods where Rachel had disappeared.

His left wing throbbed, but his enemy was still following him. His big feet smashed onto the earth, sending a thunderous rattle through the ground. Marcus saw his enforcers battling in the air, equally matched, tiny blooms of fire coloring the murky sky. He returned his attention to his own opponent just in time.

They head-butted, the pain moving through his dragon body with a visceral shudder. It sent him to the ground, rolling and skidding over the pebbles of dirt.

Fucking hell! he screamed in his mind.

And here I thought you were an alpha? the dragon replied.

Marcus’s scales bristled as he recovered, landing on all fours and breathing deeply to summon his own dazzling flames. He hated that the son of a bitch was getting the better of him. That rarely, if ever, happened. Marcus knew from the very beginning whoever had been behind the missing shifters would not be easy to take down.

But the difference now was the key and rose in his mind … now he had Rachel, his mate. That not only made him far more formidable, but it also made him vulnerable.

The thought of Rachel and the baby getting hurt made him angry and violent but also distracted and irrational. The shifter was trying to get a rise out of him, and it was working.

Bubbles of heat gathered in his throat like a cloud burst. It galloped through him with intense heat, erupting out of his mouth in a ball of vibrant licks of orange. The shifter before him managed to avoid the collision, skirting the flames and zipping sideways to catch Marcus’s wounded wing between its teeth.

Marcus cried out in unexpected anguish, the shifter throwing him by the edges of the most sensitive portions of his body. That was when the anger took control, but only in the most succinct and beautiful way. A part of him clicked inside, a piece that had always been there, simply waiting to be moved.

It was the fated mate's strength and the threat of losing her. It made the pain surging through his wings and body shrink, virtually disappearing into the ether.

Marcus, the intimidating and calculating alpha, violently whipped his tail directly into the eyes of his enemy. It lashed him with a snap, landing in a bull’s eye at the core of the shifter’s green iris. It instantly became red and swollen, blood flowing down his scales like tears.

He stopped, grasping for the injured eye with his claws. Marcus took advantage of the blunder and brought out his own talons, catapulting forward, the steel-like blades going for the exposed neck of his nemesis.

Marcus moved like lightning, giving the shifter no chance in hell to recover. He was surely blinded in one eye, but that agony would soon fade. Marcus flew toward him and lacerated through the leather-thick scales in a single swipe, causing blood the color of oil to squelch out into the moonlight.

Marcus wasn’t going to leave it at that. If he gave the dragon any chance, he would surely take it. He was vicious, so Marcus had no problem being the same.

Seconds after cutting the shifter’s throat, Marcus hovered above it and placed his hands on the dragon’s head. He twisted with expert precision, the cracking sound almost deafening, echoing through the night air. Marcus imagined a champagne cork popping when the dead shifter clonked to the ground, the night going silent once more.

Marcus landed on all fours, taking note of his enforcers and their own opponents. They appeared to have slayed them in the fashion he had instructed, with rivers of blood spilled.

Marcus grinned to himself, the sight of the moon illuminating the bodies morphing into their human counterparts. The enforcers seemed relatively lively, so he wasn’t so concerned about them.

But something in him, the thread connected to Rachel, was alarmed. It pulsed like his heart was being squeezed.

Before turning toward the woods and shifting, he instructed his enforcers on the next steps.

Make sure they are dead. One of you warn the den. This isn’t over.

He felt the wind of his enforcer's extraordinary wings as Marcus shrank down into a man and ran naked in the dark with a hot, drumming sensation in his lower spine.

SEVENTEEN

RACHEL

Rachel ripped off the gag as she ran for the protection of the tree line just in time. The gust of wind caused by the dragon coming for her with the speed of a bullet pushed her forward with the force of a tornado, causing her to trip over a few fallen branches and tumble onto her side. The fall didn’t stop her from moving, though. She didn’t know if dragons could infiltrate such a dense forest, but they could breathe fucking fire.

Marcus’s signal looked like an explosion, the kind she had only witnessed on TV shows or the news. It was a fair distance away, but it was still just as striking. The howl into the night was filled with sorrow and fear, riddling her with her own versions of the feelings as she crawled onto all fours and then climbed to her feet. Screeches and squawks erupted behind her with surreal and extraordinary sounds.

Rachel ran, her heart rattling in her chest as she tried to find her way through the dark. She held out her arms as she moved to feel the trees while the bursts of fire behind her glowed in the dim forest and briefly lit her way.

She didn’t know what was going to happen to Marcus, but she had to trust him. It was his world she was in, and for the time being, she had to find somewhere to hide and wait out the battle.

She boldly kept going while her hands shook in front of her, the reverberation from the fight moving under her feet like the cracking of thunder.

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