Page 47 of Having the Dragon's Baby

Randal shifted just as fast as Orion did. Randal went for the doorway in case he had to attack the newcomers, leaving Marcus able to focus his attention on Orion.

Marcus threw himself into battle despite having just battled another dragon the night before. He went into it with all his heart and soul, no matter how much it may have hurt his healing wing. Rachel, his thunder, and his unborn child were all relying on him.

He soared into the sky, opening his jaws to sink into Orion’s thick but ragged scales. Orion let out a sharp cry and slashed at Marcus, which was a fruitless endeavor. He was slow and out of practice but with a ruthless aggression that made up for it. They spun around in the sky, reaching and clawing at one another until Marcus released a spark that sent Orion backward into the stars.

It burned him right between the eyes, smoke rising off his scales in ringlets. Marcus took advantage and fired his body into his sworn enemy, enveloping the dragon in a headlock a hundred feet in the air. He squeezed Orion’s thin windpipe until it squelched into mush between his biceps.

Orion’s lifeless body went limp, and Marcus dropped him into the river. The splash he made was startling and cinematic.

The battle below commenced, with his crew quickly gaining the upper hand. He glided down, shifted back into human form, and aided in guiding the prisoners to safety outside the base. Once they were all accounted for, Marcus and Randal returned to their dragon forms and emitted a glorious blast of fire from their gullets that would give the Big Bang a run for its money.

They engulfed the entire property until it was nothing but smoky ash. It swirled in the sky like black snow, and the bodies of the dead softened into embers of skeletal forms. When they were finished, Marcus went to the river to make sure Orion was actually dead.

“Take the prisoners back to their clans and packs after you tend to their injuries. Make sure they know that they are safe.”

He trailed in the blackness, using his nose as his guide. He came upon the remains of Orion, who had shriveled back into his human form. He was white as a ghost, the water running over his broken body.

Marcus took the blob of flesh and left it to burn in the main house. No such horrors would ever be seen there again.

TWENTY

RACHEL

Marcus recovered with magnificent speed from his injuries. Despite knowing that a shifter's recovery time was far faster than that of a human’s, Rachel was surprised. The tear in his wing as a dragon appeared as a bruised, ugly gash on his back when he shifted into his human form. The wing had been broken, and the shifter doctor saw to it at once, injecting a serum that Rachel didn’t recognize. He only needed to rest for one day. Then he was up, lifting her into his arms as if nothing at all had happened.

“Your rib!” Rachel called out in concern.

Marcus chuckled, burying his face into her neck as he placed her down. The sensation of his teeth and hot breath on her skin reminded her of the night he marked her, the indents still present.

“Oh, I’m fresh as a daisy, darling,” Marcus muttered, peppering kisses up from her neckline to her earlobe. “Shifters recover really fast. It’s like scraping your knee for us.”

Rachel wrinkled her nose, ready to scold him, but her body had other plans. Being so close to him made her tingle, no matter how emotional she was.

“Except when humans scrape their knees, there’s still a mark the next day,” she teased him.

Marcus nibbled on her ear, which made Rachel giggle and playfully elbow him away. After a loving pat on her bottom, he sat on the stool at the kitchen island. Being away from him for even a few seconds made Rachel sullen and yearning.

She continued making their eggs and bacon for breakfast while Marcus plucked a grape from the fruit bowl. She was amazed by how the color had returned to his face. The fights had taken a lot out of him. He was as white as a sheet when he returned from freeing the prisoners, and it had scared her a bit.

“So, there’s a celebration going on today,” Marcus said, munching on another grape. “At the town square. Everyone is going to be there. I hear whispers of some kind of a ceremony to honor what we did.”

Rachel stirred the eggs in the sizzling pan, sprinkling in chives she had found growing in the garden out back. She cocked an eyebrow at Marcus as he looked at her with an innocence that made her swoon.

“You mean to honor what you did?”

Marcus shrugged. Not even a little blush. The man was impossible.

“I didn’t really have a choice. It was the right thing to do. But you did. You could have fled from all of this shifter madness, but you didn’t. You stayed, and you supported me. You also smashed Vincent’s balls into sand.”

Rachel burst out laughing, a high-pitched squeal that made Marcus chuckle in response. It was the first time he had mentioned anything about Vincent. She knew there would be some after-effects of having to kill the man whom he had once considered his best friend. He maintained a stony exterior about it, but she knew there must be pain beneath it.

She scooped the eggs from the pan onto their separate plates, then lowered the heat on the bacon. After placing those down, she held out the meals in her hands, a display of domestic bliss.

Rachel batted her eyes at her mate.

“Always a ball kicker, but she can sure cook a mean egg,” Rachel jested.

“God, you’re delicious,” Marcus said, licking his lips.

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