Page 30 of Dragon Unhinged (Royal Dragon Shifters #5)

Chapter

Thirty

DECLAN

A few minutes earlier…

I want to stay in the room with Brianna. My dragon is all but demanding it, but she looks overwhelmed, and I can’t really blame her. Her life changed dramatically in a short amount of time. She’s suddenly in a new environment, surrounded by new people who are intimately in her space, and she’s carrying a dragon shifter’s baby.

I’ve been wondering for decades if I’d ever meet my mate, if I’d ever get the chance to have a family like this. Ash, Henrik, and I were sent off into the human world to learn to assimilate with the humans and make our own wealth to hoard. We’ve all got our treasure troves, but the treasure we truly desire is a mate. Dragons live a long time. We have family, friends, and clans to keep us busy, but centuries are a long time to wait without a mate that may never come along.

Brianna hasn’t been alive as long as I have and she’s had other things to think about, more important things than a husband, especially with her father treating her as property to trade for a better position. I want her to want all of this as much as I do. So, she doesn’t need me and my dragon breathing down her neck for a few minutes.

Instead, I concede to waiting outside the door. It’s too far for my dragon to be really content with the idea, and he’s still aching for us to claim her. I am too, but I won’t risk anything without Pru and Syrena confirming it’s okay to mark her while she’s pregnant. I hope Fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to make me wait for it until our baby is born, but if it’s the safest thing for my family, I’ll wait.

Grudgingly.

It’s not like we have any real information about how this could go down. It’s not like the Elders are willing to share and they hold all the texts around the subject.

“Declan,” Pru calls my name and pulls my attention from the closed door Brianna’s behind. She gestures for me to follow her. “Ash has requested your presence. He’s on a phone call he wants you to be on.”

I’m rooted to my spot. Ash doesn’t need me. “What about Brianna?”

“We’re in a hospital, a public place with multiple shifters on staff. Not to mention all the dragons here right now. She’ll be okay for a few minutes.” She looks around for a second, making sure there’s no one who could be eavesdropping. “It’s Krystana.”

She was missing too, and even if she called not long after the Vegas siege, I’m sure Ash wasn’t comfortable with her being on her own, constantly worrying about our baby sister. I don’t blame him, but knowing Krystana, she’s been fighting, defending herself from anyone or anything that might try to hurt her. She’s never needed protection from any of us. We just wanted to protect her from the bullshit of our dragon laws and any males who were desperate enough to try and force a bond, but she never needed us for any of that.

Still, it’d be nice to hear her voice. I’ve missed my family. I hate that it’s been all business and politics since I returned.

I take a step toward Pru, but stop again and look back at the door hoping she’ll just come out so she can go with me. I don’t want to go.

“I promise, we’ll be right back,” Pru encourages.

I reluctantly follow after Pru. Her office isn’t too far away, down the corridor and a right down another one, an elevator right up to the fifth floor and right off the elevators. I’m still anxious about being away from Brianna, but when I hear Krystana’s voice coming out of the speaker of my brother’s phone I still.

“I can’t come home, Ash. What I’m doing is too important and it has to be me,” she says.

Ash glances up from the phone and waves me closer.

“Declan is here, Krystana.”

“Declan, are you okay?” She sounds concerned, which means someone told her what happened to me.

“Hey, sis,” I say in a quiet tone. “I’m managing.”

“I imagine with a pregnant mate, it makes the transition back to civilization a little easier. Tell me about her.” She sounds so excited, so happy, and I immediately want to demand she comes back to Miami, not so that she can be back under Ash’s control, but because I think she would love Brianna and Brianna would love her.

I want to tell her everything about my mate, our baby, everything, but I also don’t want to be here long. “Are you safe? Really?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I’m more than capable of keeping myself safe, and if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m having a fucking blast away from Ash. Away from all you overbearing, overprotective, over masculine brothers.” She laughs. “I want all the details about your mate. I want a video call. I want to meet her.”

“I’ll have Ash text you my new phone number when you’re done here, and we’ll set something up. Brianna’s been through a lot quickly, so it’ll be on her terms when she’s ready.”

Krystana scoffs, “If she’s putting up with you, I’m sure she’s a badass.”

Gods, I want to wrap my little sister into a hug. And maybe there’s a little part of me that would feel better if she were here where we could watch over her.Her description of us wasn’t inaccurate.

Ash’s expression says he’s pissed she’s off on her own and not under his protection and control. The burden of being the clan leader, the head of our family, is weighing on him more than I thought.

But as someone who’s just gotten free of my own captors, I can’t blame her for wanting freedom either.

“We should definitely talk again soon.” I glance at Ash before adding, “Maybe consider coming home sometime soon, at least for a visit?”

“Yeah, right. Just a visit. Tell Ash to get the stick out of his ass about it. I’m fine. I am more than capable of taking on a few vampires, fae, and some humans who have read The Hobbit too many times.”

“I can hear you. And you’re still my sister, still my responsibility.” Ash’s tone is stern.

“Don’t you have a wife and a baby to helicopter over? You don’t need to hover over me too. I’m not going to get myself killed out here. Besides, I’m not alone. I’ll be more than fine.”

The call goes dead, and I’m sure Krystana ended it before Ash could prod for more information or demand she come home as her king.

I frown and look up to my brother. “Who is she with?”

“The fuck if I know. She keeps giving us these cryptic little bits, but nothing I can actually use to track her. Athena’s trying to find her, but either Krystana’s got a hacker of her own, or someone else is making sure she’s nowhere online. Not even on the dark web. Syrena can’t find her either, which means she’s also using magic to stay off the grid.” Ash rolls his eyes. “At least one of my idiot siblings is home.”

“Gee, big brother, you really know how to sweet talk a guy who was literally fighting for his life for months.”

The hurt and sorrow that flickers briefly in his eyes doesn’t go unnoticed, but I can tell by the look in his eyes, he’s not going to dwell on it right now, not when his wound of losing Krystana to her own adventure is torturing him more. “You still found time to find your mate and start a family.” He rolls his eyes, but I can hear the humor in his voice. “If she at least had one trusted tourmaline with her, I’d feel a lot better with her being out there.” He sighs and shakes his head. “When did she get so stubborn?”

I chuckle a little at his own hypocrisy.

He rakes his hands through his hair and refocuses. “We have got to figure things out. We’re close to having to fight a war on at least two fronts, and I’m not entirely sure we’re not going to have to fight our own kind when it comes down to the finale.”

“You’re not alone on it. We’re all fighting. We all want things to get better. Especially those of us who are bringing babies into this mess. I don’t want my son or daughter to be born in the middle of Grey’s plans. I don’t want them to have to grow up afraid of humans. I certainly don’t want them to end up in a fucking cage.”

It’s not the first time I’ve thought it, but it is the first time I’ve admitted it out loud. I don’t even want to tell Brianna my fears, not when she’s already so stressed out with the unknowns and the new environment.

Ash looks at me like he’s realizing for the first time just what I’ve been through, and the weight I’m carrying because of it. “We’re working on finding Grey. We won’t let him get away with this forever. We’ll stop him, his followers, and anyone else who threatens our lives.” He claps me on the shoulder, looking more stoic now and focused as our father always seemed to be when dealing with the weight of ruling. “Malcolm is working on following some leads, and with Kash and Athena scouring every corner of the internet they can, we’ll keep cutting off his sources for magic. Luckily, even magic has a paper trail nowadays. We’ll keep trying to stop him from getting his hands on other clan witches or any more dragons. We’re going to get through this.” The need in his voice matches my own ache to put this all behind us.

“You need to know…” I swallow hard, not really wanting to say this out loud. “He’s trying to recruit shifters. I think he’s hoping that he can break them in the fighting pits, in the captivity, the separation from their animal shapes and their packs and clans.” I know I’m talking about it like it’s happening to others, like it didn’t happen to me, but it’s the only way I’m going to get through it without crumbling. “He wants a few select shifters to follow him willingly. To use the cuffs, the spells, to keep them under thumb. He wants the groups to destroy their ways of living from the inside out.”

Ash’s dark green eyes meet mine, and I know he can see right through me. “He offered this to you?”

I nod once, looking down at the surface of the desk rather than holding my brother’s gaze. I don’t want to tell him how close I got to considering Grey’s offer, if only to make sure that Brianna, my family, would be all right. “He said he could make it so that the counsel would believe that Brianna was dragon born, that I was the rightful heir to the tourmaline throne, because you mated a human.”

Ash lets out a long breath and crosses his arms over his chest, shifting his weight. “Is he trying this with other dragons?”

“I don’t know. I would assume so.”

“I’ll send out word to all the allies we still have, and I’ll try to get the counsel to listen to me. It’s bad enough that he’s recruiting vampires, turning humans, and torturing or enthralling humans and supernaturals alike to do his bidding. If he’s actively recruiting shifters he thinks are vulnerable instead of taking them by force, who’s to say he’ll stop with just the ones in cages or in bad places? This war has done a lot of damage and desperation to save your family or have more power or any if you think you’re on the losing side…it could be endlessly valuable to Grey. We know firsthand he has charisma and charm. He lies with the truth and tells the truth with lies.”

I swallow around the lump in my throat, wanting to go back to my mate, to take solace in her embrace. To know that she’s mine, that we’re safe, and that we’re free, together. My fingers twitch at my side.

“I need to get back to her,” I murmur as I take a step backwards.

The door whooshes open behind me and Pru is panting like she ran all the way here instead of taking the elevator.

Pru’s eyes meets mine as she says, “Brianna’s gone.”