Page 13 of Must Love Dragons (Sable Cove #4)

Shit!

Zay was simultaneously furious and falling for her hard because she put herself in danger to protect him.

He slammed his fist into the barrier that she’d erected with a quick throw of her magic and it wobbled like ripples on a pond but didn’t disappear.

He ran to the back door, but the barrier was there as well, and he could see that it covered the entire damn house so he couldn’t even get out through a window.

His dragon let out a furious bellow and he let it spill out of his mouth as rage boiled over inside him. How fucking dare those warlocks take her!

Forcing himself to focus and think clearly, he took out his phone and called his sister.

“Hey, Zay! Have you found Uncle Rorik yet?”

“Lyra, listen carefully. I need you to get Ronan and Sierra and all three of you shift and fly as fast as you can to Sable Cove. I’m sending you a pin to my location.”

“Um, okay? What’s going on?”

“I don’t have time to tell you everything, but my mate was just taken by the warlocks who attacked our clan and abducted Rorik. I need all of you to help me get her back safely.”

“Mate?” Lyra squeaked.

“Yes. Now hurry, please. I need you all.”

“You got it. See you soon.”

He ended the call and sent a pin to his sister, and then he opened the search engine and looked up the phone number for the familiar rescue.

He recognized Brody when the call was answered.

“It’s Zay. Warlocks took Kinsley while I was checking the house to make sure it was safe.

I’m trapped inside the house with some kind of damn barrier!

I know you can’t leave because the sun hasn’t set, but can Delaney help me out? I need to get to Kinsley.”

“I’ll send Venice to watch over Delaney and I’m sure she can help you.”

“Thanks. Please tell her to hurry.”

“Of course.”

The call ended and Zay stood at the open front door he couldn’t cross, furious and scared.

Hold on, Kinsley. I’m coming for you.

* * *

By the time Delaney and Venice arrived, Zay was going stir-crazy.

“Please tell me you can get rid of this barrier,” he said when she and Venice approached.

“Yeah, I can get through this barrier. I know what spell she used, and she picked it because she knew the warlocks wouldn’t be able to get through it since it guards against dark magic.”

“It also fucking kept me from helping her,” he said with a growl.

Delaney smiled sadly. “Because she knew you were the one who was valuable to the warlocks.”

“She’s the valuable one.”

“I’ll grab my kit, I need a few things.” She hurried to the truck in the driveway.

“You’re okay, though?” Venice asked.

Zay nodded. “I can’t believe I let myself get separated from her.”

“You couldn’t have known that they were watching her house.”

“I should have known,” he said with a growl.

Delaney appeared with a tied-up leather roll. She knelt on the porch and unrolled it, revealing small vials, pouches, and stones etched with runes.

She took a vial of a purple powder and poured it into her hand, plucked a stone with a metallic sheen from the roll, and squeezed it in her left hand.

With practiced ease, she stood and spoke a spell. As each word rushed from her lips, the barrier warbled and twitched, and then she tossed the purple powder on the doorway and spoke words that were a language he didn’t know.

“ Sha Fina. Sha Fina!”

When the powder hit the barrier, it shattered like glass and made a sound around the house like a mini tornado.

Overhead, dragons roared in the distance and his dragon let out an answering trill in his head.

“You called in reinforcements?” Venice asked with a grin.

“I didn’t want to risk Kinsley’s safety, and I think we could use all the firepower we can get.”

“I’ll keep Brody updated on our location,” Delaney said. “He’ll come to help us fight.”

“That’s awesome,” Zay said. The sun was setting, but it wouldn’t be fully dark for a while longer.

“I need her scrying mirror,” Kinsley said.

“For what?” Venice asked.

“To find her. I’m not the best at scrying but it’s Kinsley’s mirror so that should help me cast the spell to get her location.”

She hurried into the house and Zay stepped out so he could watch for his clan in the distance.

He heard the dragons roaring again and after scanning the sky, he saw them.

Ronan was the largest of the three, with dark green scales. Sierra had rust-colored scales, and Lyra, like others in their family, had onyx scales.

He’d never been so happy to see his clan as he was right now.

He waved at them and hoped they’d be able to find a place to land safely, grateful that Kinsley’s home, and the others along the street, had large yards.

One by one, his clan members landed and shifted to make room for the others. Lyra was first, grabbing a tunic from her satchel and pulling it over her head to cover herself. Then she ran to him and gave him a hug while Sierra and then Ronan shifted.

“Zay! What’s going on? You have a mate? And she was taken? Who are these people?” Lyra asked the questions rapidly, her eyes glittering with worry and curiosity.

“I do,” he said. As Sierra and Ronan joined him, he introduced them to Venice and told them about Delaney who was in the house getting something to conjure a spell to find Kinsley, and hopefully Rorik.

He told his clan all that had happened while they waited for Delaney to find the scrying mirror.

He felt like a fool for keeping so much from his clan, especially when he’d finally come to his senses and realized that Kinsley was the right female for him and that magical or not, she was his.

His clan stared at him in slack-jawed surprise.

Delaney walked out of the house and stopped short. “Oh hi! I’m Delaney. Kinsley’s my best friend and I’m going to locate her with this mirror. I hope that your uncle is with her too, but if not I’m pretty sure that she and I together can locate him.”

“Or maybe we can get one of those asshole warlocks to tell us where he is,” Venice said, cracking his knuckles.

“I like the way you think,” Ronan said with a nod.

Kinsley set up the mirror on the grass and knelt in front of it. Zay moved to watch but Lyra stopped him.

“This is magic, Zay,” she said with a low voice. “Magical people killed most of our clan members including our parents. Are you… are you sure about this?”

He looked at her, seeing the genuine worry.

“Yes, I am. Kinsley is my truemate. I’ve seen her use her magic.

Hell, she healed me when one of the warlocks attacked me.

What good magic users do is far, far different than what the dark magic warlocks are doing.

They don’t want to hurt; they want to help.

And I trust Kinsley with my life. Hell, she sacrificed herself to keep me safe from the warlocks. ”

Lyra nodded. “Okay. I trust you and you trust her, so I’m good. I just wanted to be sure. I love you, and you and Rorik are the last family I’ve got left. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you both.”

“I feel the same way. But Kinsley is your family now too, and she thinks of Delaney and her mate Brody, and their friend Venice as family, so our family isn’t small anymore.”

“That’s a nice way to think of it.” She clapped her hands together. “Okay, so how are we going to save my new sister and our uncle?”

“I’m searching for Kinsley now,” Delaney said.

She was leaning over the large mirror that had an ornate, gilded frame. At first, he didn’t see anything in the mirror except the starry sky above and the illumination from the street and porch lights.

But then it hazed over like a smoky wave before clearing and showing a flickering, dull image.

The image sharpened and showed Kinsley, restrained against a pillar, head down and unmoving.

He stared at the image, seeing first the rise and fall of her chest which ensured she was alive. But then he realized he’d seen a pillar just like that.

In the warehouse at the port.

His dragon roared in his head.

“I know where that is,” he said. “The Mariner’s Bluff port. It’s the same type of interior as the warehouse the warlock’s booby-trapped. There was a row of warehouses, but we didn’t check any others because she was injured, and I needed to get her back here.”

“They were probably watching,” Venice said. “And hopefully that means your uncle is there too.”

Zay wanted to rescue his uncle, but his priority was his mate.

“How should we do this?” Delaney asked as she lifted the mirror and carried it to the porch.

He looked at Ronan, who he considered to be a formidable fighter.

“How far is the port?” Ronan asked.

“About ten miles north,” Zay said.

“Then we should drive, we’ll take two vehicles.

Lyra isn’t a fighter, so she can man one of the vehicles in case we need a quick getaway.

If we shift and fly there, we won’t be stealthy.

It’s safe to assume that they’re expecting us.

They took your mate because they couldn’t get to you, and she’s the perfect bait.

It would be better for us to go in covertly, but be ready to fight,” Ronan said.

Sierra nodded. “We can also shift and fly out if we have to.”

“Good point,” Zay said. “We need weapons to fight hand to hand, though.”

“I’ve got my magic,” Delaney said. “I’ve got defensive and offensive spells.”

“And I’ve got weapons in the back of the truck,” Venice said. “I’ll text Brody our location and he’ll get there as soon as he’s able.”

Zay nodded, grateful to have so much help. “Let’s go,” Zay said. “And thank you all for helping me get my mate back.”

“It’s what we do for family,” Lyra said.

Delaney nodded. “One hundred percent.”