Page 10

EMME

T here was a brief pause from Talon as he assessed the situation. At no point did his expression change. The steady thrumming of his heartbeat remained even too.

Finley, on the other hand, was a raging inferno of fired-up shifter.

His bear threw his head back again, roared into the ceiling, and tossed the body of the shifter aside.

When the deafening sound of his rage faded, the bear’s inscrutable deep black eyes locked in on me.

His gaze ran over me more than once, taking in every inch from the dirt on my bare toes to the top of my smooth hair.

When the bear sidled forward, Talon snapped into action, launching himself between us. “Wait,” I called, almost reaching out to touch Talon, before I remembered he was the enemy. A powerful, dangerous, possibly sociopathic enemy. “It’s Finley. One of my pack. Don’t hurt him.”

Talon’s head swung around and he shot me a dark stare. Uh, okay.

Was it really that of all freaking things that finally upset him?

He’d managed to ignore the bites under my clothes, but Finley standing here in this room, had apparently broken through his iron will and composure.

His expression was now wreathed in darkness as his full lips thinned and pulled at the scar on his face.

His heartrate didn’t change much, but it was stronger than it had been before.

“I’m your pack,” he rumbled, and hell if that didn’t set Finley off as well.

The bear didn’t have the ability to express himself with words, but he launched forward, those blood-tinged claws outreached.

Talon reacted like the giant beast moved in slow motion, swatting him out of the way and into the wall.

A near ton of bear slammed into the panels, shaking the room, and Talon didn’t even break a sweat.

“Leave now or I’ll kill you.” Like Slade, this dragon didn’t fuck around with pleasantries, and I wasn’t going to pretend that was an empty threat. Talon was Fletcher’s most lethal soldier, trained to obey and kill on demand. A true assassin.

Finley was already back on his hind legs, standing near nine or ten feet tall as the shadows of the room danced around him.

This time when he launched, he anticipated the slap from Talon and dodged the dragon’s hand.

The two of them clashed like a boulder slamming into a rock wall.

It was loud, and I barely refrained from clasping my hands over my ears, caught up in watching their deadly dance.

No matter what happened, I would not let Talon kill one of my mates.

I had to protect Finley, and not with my strength—a mere pittance compared to these two—but with my intelligence.

With the knowledge that Talon needed me, and not just because we were bonded.

I was the key component to his alpha’s plan.

Finley roared as the dragon tore a large tuft of fur from his chest, leaving a bloody welt behind. Talon hadn’t shifted any part of his body, as it appeared he didn’t need to be in dragon form to win this fight. Scary, powerful bastard.

Before he could hurt Finley again, I threw myself between them, and for the first time didn’t avoid the bear like he had a shifter disease.

With my arms held wide, I backed into Finley’s huge form.

I’d expected, when I put this plan into action, that he’d step back with me, and we’d put some distance between us and Talon.

Instead, I found myself plastered against his raging, heaving form, snatched up in two huge bear paws.

Talon let out a huff, the scent of ash filtering through the room.

He didn’t follow as Finley dragged me against his massive chest, my feet dangling a few feet off the floor.

The warmth of the bear was soothing against my back, and even in this form, he still smelled of vanilla and cherries, mixed decently with sweat and dirt.

The sweet scent overpowered the rest though, and I hated the way I still craved this male when he didn’t want me.

The irony of being stuck here, between one pack mate who hated me, and one who had forcibly bonded me…

that was fucked up. Part of me wished I could just destroy them both and walk my ass out of here, alive and strong in my own right.

Unfortunately, an omega couldn’t play in the world of alphas like that.

At least not without more training than I had.

“If you release her,” Talon murmured slowly. “I will let you leave with your life.”

Finley snorted; the sound of derision almost cute coming from a bear. He continued to back away slowly, with Talon matching each step so they remained the same eight feet apart. “You cannot leave,” he ordered, the dragon’s dominance washing over me and Finley.

Panic surged to the forefront of all my convoluted emotions as I was reminded of one miscalculation.

Dominance . It never factored for me, as it didn’t work on omegas.

But it worked on alphas. It worked on any who were weaker, and while shifters rarely used it these days—no need to start fights that could come back to bite you on the ass—it remained a solid option in battle.

And Talon knew it. “Return her to me,” he said, releasing an even stronger wave of dominance.

Finley’s paws shook, and I clutched one of them with both hands. “You are strong enough to resist,” I whispered to him. “Fight him, Fin. Fight him. Call on the strength of the rest of your brothers.”

He tried his best, but in the end the dragon was stronger. Maybe if we’d all been bonded in a complete quintet, Finley would have stood a chance, but there was no way to know for sure.

His staggered steps moved us closer to Talon, who remained still and patient, as if he wanted to draw out the humiliation of the bear being forced to return me to him . “Release me,” I said to Finley, and while his paws flexed against my skin, he couldn’t free me to any but Talon.

Glaring at the dragon, I snarled, “I will fight you. If you hurt Finley in any way, I will never stop fighting until one of us is dead. I don’t care if it’s you or me, but it will end in blood.”

Talon tilted his head, giving Slade vibes, and I hated how much the bastard reminded me of my pack mate. “If he returns what is mine, then he is free to leave.”

The spark of anger that had been simmering since I woke and found myself once again at the mercy of my mom’s old pack and their alpha , flared to life in an inferno of fury. “I’m not yours,” I shot back, heat building in my center. “Not yours. Not now or ever.”

Talon’s gaze landed on my covered neck, and the mark tingled at the reminder. We were no more than two feet apart now, Finley’s ability to fight extending only so far as in how slow he moved. “You are mine. Always.”

The dragon shocked me with that simple statement, and my stomach flipped in a way that I didn’t like or understand. My wolf even piped her head up, and I wanted to scream at her for abandoning me when I needed her the most, only to return at that fucking declaration.

Still, her return was enough to have that ember of energy in my chest flaring harder, emboldened by the beast within me. My torso ached at the sensation of my essence pulsing.

When Finley finally reached Talon, the dragon reached for me, and as his fingers connected to my chest, I lifted my legs and kicked him.

The energy surged with that strike, and it was as if I suddenly developed super strength, knocking him back at least a dozen feet, until he almost hit the far wall.

My fingers and toes buzzed as if I’d hit him with a damn spell, but since that wasn’t possible, I decided it had to be pure adrenaline.

Talon wasn’t rattled as he straightened, his focus on me, like nothing else in the world existed. “You’re one powerful omega,” he said softly. “You will be our greatest weapon.”

“Not a fucking chance,” I snarled back, but it was all fake bravado. My wolf had sunk back into my essence, and I’d have panicked that she was fully gone this time, but I felt a flicker of her deep down.

When a bout of exhaustion hit me, I deflated in Finley’s hold, wishing that this day was over.

I just wanted to be home with my pack.

“I can’t let you leave,” Talon said, and it might have been my lack of focus, but he almost sounded torn by this statement. “I am willing to negotiate, though. What would it take for you to stay and work with us?”

A choked laugh was my initial response. He had to be kidding.

“A lobotomy,” I said with a shake of my head.

“What could you possibly offer that would get me to sign up with the evil fuck who killed my mom and a bunch of other omegas? A shifter who wants to destroy the pack cities and turn the clock all the way back to the Stone Age? All I want is to wipe Fletcher from the face of this planet.”

His eyebrows drew together, and there was a moment where a flash of what looked like vulnerability crossed his features.

“I can offer you a true pack and the promise that you won’t ever be alone again.

You will have a powerful mate, and we can rule at our alpha’s side.

We will be his most trusted weapons. Together. ”

The stupid stomach flip returned, and Finley growled behind me, no doubt expecting I was so disloyal that I’d just run off into the sunset with this delusional asshat. “Your plan has one flaw,” I said, my voice softer than I would have liked.

Talon’s eyebrows drew even tighter, as if a flaw would never dare to sully his presence.

“Without my other bonded mates, I will fade away, and so will my power. I’ll be useless to you.

My wolf is already broken and mourning, buried so deep in my essence I can barely feel her.

You and I alone…” I pointed my finger between us.

“…can never be. I’ve already gifted parts of myself to other mates.

Mates. I. Love. There will never just be you and I . ”

Of everything that had happened since Finley busted into this room, this was the first time the dragon completely lost control.

Ash and maple filled the room, until I was sweating and panting against the dense air.

Whatever dominance he held over Finley broke as he lost control, and the bear moved again, racing for the exit.

We made it into the hallway, and while Finley moved fast on two legs, it was an awkward gait. “Let me down,” I hissed, tapping his arm. “I can run, and you’ll fight easier without me in your arms.”

The walls around us shook as flecks of plasterboard and stone fell from above, and there was still no sign of a window. Finley shocked me by dropping me to my feet, and after ensuring I was in front, his snout nudged me to start moving.

I sprinted down the hall as the building shook harder. I couldn’t figure out what Talon was doing until I heard the roar and glanced over my shoulder to find a dragon tearing through the hall, destroying the structure around us as he moved.

When we reached the end of the hall, there was the option to go left and right, and both ways looked exactly the same. Finley nudged me toward the right and I took off again, my body fatigued but my will to get out of here alive and strong.

Not that I was sure what would happen when we made it into the open.

The open skies were a dragon’s domain, and through the broken tendrils of our bond, Talon felt slightly unhinged.

He had lost it at my last statement, and I wasn’t sure he’d even stop for me now.