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In complete agreement with his orders, the dragons began to slam their massive, powerful hind legs through the cinder blocks and wood structure of the first two floors. The materials erected with such selfish pride crumbled under the heavy dragon attack.

When he discovered the final iron flooring guarding the last level to the dome, the Mckenna, Liekki, Edjer, and Hydra made a circle while the Drahks stood back.

They spewed fire over and over again until they burned a hole deep enough to see the top of the glass encasement below and sufficient for Aodh’s dragon to fit through with ease.

The Mckenna’s massive, burnt-orange frame dropped down carefully onto the clear ceiling. Not because the dragon was concerned about injuring anyone below or inside.

Fuck, no. But because he wanted to take a moment and stare into the face of the man he was going to kill. Hold Muskrand’s gaze and watch the moment the People’s Governor realized he was facing his death and today was his reckoning.

The Mckenna stood there in the large hole, balanced on the glass, ensuring it kept its claws raised so as not to pierce the dense glass just yet.

Aodh rose inside the big beast and watched all the other men and women who had supported the asshole for years, scurry away like the cretins they were, racing to the walls and underneath the big commander’s table attempting to hide, protecting themselves from Muskrand’s fate.

However, Muskrand, gaze locked on the dragon above, knew better than to move. Perhaps because Muskrand stupidly thought this situation before the dangerous beast above meant that if he froze in place, the hulking dragon would perceive his stationary form as less of a threat and go away.

Ha! Never. Aodh and his beast both knew that physically, Muskrand didn’t pose a threat.

Everette Muskrand was a tall, sour-yellow-haired man, with splotchy, flushed red pigmentation and a bulbous nose from too much drink, a potbelly, sagging jowls from overeating, with narrow shoulders, and small, fat hands.

No, physically, a youngling Drakh could crush him.

However, the man was evil to the core, and his egocentric machinations were the biggest bully on the field, a threat to mankind.

I see you. Then the Mckenna began to pound, and pound, and pound until the thick, manmade resistant glass began to crack under his dragon's four powerful feet.

When the deep cracks spidered out, ready to shatter, Aodh shifted.

“ErrrAhhhhhh,” he grunted, drew his fist back, then drove it hard into the glass, breaking it.

As thick chunks of glass rained down into the dome, so did Aodh. Dropping down through the space, he landed right before his enemy. The impact brought him low, knees bent, but Aodh slowly rose to his feet until he was standing over the man.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I did what I had to do,” he whined and shuffled back.

Aodh stalked, followed.

In his peripheral vision, he saw the movement of guns being drawn by Muskrand’s security detail, but the arrival of ten Drahk dropping in and fanning out before them put a halt to any foolish action.

“Don’t even think about it!” Liekki roared.

“They needed a leader. I saved them from death.” Muskrand shuffled back more until his hips were pressed against the heavy commander's table.

Growling, Aodh blew smoke into the man’s face. “You broke their trust. Treated the ones who needed your help the most like nothing.”

Muskrand coughed, choking on the smoke. Wheezing, he began, “Look. Look. You want more power? We can team together and—”

Reaching out in a flash, Aodh grabbed the man by the throat and squeezed.

“You have me mistaken. I don’t lie with fleas.

You are the worst kind of parasite. You latch on to people in their weakest moment and suck out everything vital and true inside of them.

You’re a sickness, Everette, a disease worse than the XD87867 because you promised hope and stripped them of human dignity. ”

“But they elected me.”

“As the Speaker of the House before the catastrophes. You just got left when the President and Vice President fled to join the other world leaders in their underground paradise in Greenland. You were worthless to them as you are to those in the district,” Aodh sniped.

Everette gasped, his blotchy skin flaring as red as a tomato. “I won’t stand for—”

Aodh punched him, cutting off his words.

The man slammed back into the table, his nose shattered, gushing blood. Everette scrambled back over the tabletop with one hand clutching his nose and the other held out before him. “Fine. Fine. You win. I’ll stay out of your fucking territories!”

A harsh chuckle came out of Aodh as he stalked down the length of the table as the man attempted to get away.

“You coming into any of the preternatural territories is the least of my concerns, Everette.” He had shot out his hand and grabbed a fistful of the other man’s hair and dragged him forward.

When he had the human at eye level, Aodh continued, “The problem is that you thought you had the right to play with genetics, alter DNA, and release those hounds outside your walls, when you should have turned them on yourself.”

“Then just kill me. Get it over—”

Aodh backhanded him even as he kept a tight grip on Muskrand’s hair.

Four teeth flew out of Everette’s mouth and skittered across the table. The blood from his mouth joined the stream from his nose, feeding the red river down his chin and neck.

“You don’t seem to understand you're done talking. Finished giving orders of any kind.” Flames flaring in his eyes reflected in Everette’s watery gaze. Aodh’s scales now illuminated with so deep a rage, his skin glowed garnet.

He continued, vehemently, ”You see, one of your wild mutants came into Drahk territory and touched my mate. No one. Touches. A. Dragon’s. Heart!”

Aodh beat a fist against his own chest.

Everette started to tremble and cry.

Aodh wasn’t swayed, as he pronounced the preternatural council’s verdict. “The council easily voted and ruled that you would die. But I’ve decided it’s going to be painful.”

“No! No, no, no—” Everett's pleading turned into a blood-curdling scream as Aodh took hold of the man’s left bicep and yanked, ripping his arm out of the socket.

The other humans screamed as blood sprayed out of the snapped arteries, and Aodh began to beat Everette over the head with the limb.

The leaders rushed toward the doors, tripping and clambering over each other to bang on the glass, pleading with the large group of Vampires and Lupines staring on from the outside.

“Let us out—”

“Please, let us out—”

“Stop him...he’ll kill us all!”

Not a single Vampire or Lupine moved to assist. The leaders had sealed themselves into their fate.

Everette twisted and thrashed, right arms swinging wildly, trying to block blows as he screamed for mercy.

Aodh ignored the man’s pleas, but dropped the left arm to the floor, only to free his hand to grasp one of the man’s flailing legs. He squeezed until Everette's femur crushed under his grip.

The man’s body began to convulse from the pain.

Releasing him, Aodh watched Everette’s body collapse into a heap on the floor.

When Aodh stepped toward him, Everette clambered to his feet and attempted to hobble away.

Aodh let him move further and further away from him, until Everette had managed to hop and drag his lame leg behind him to the far wall alone.

“When you wake up in Hell this night, I want you to remember every human woman you made sell their bodies for breeding to gain pennies on their account books that didn’t last. I want your mind to be tortured with every man who couldn’t provide enough for his family in the slums you let fester and lower himself to persuade his teenage daughter to sell her womb for crumbs in her newborn baby's mouth. May the Great Spirit never allow your soul to rest from the vision of squalor you forced every man, woman, and child under the shameful moniker of Dispatch to live in.”

With one big breath, Aodh released his dragon’s fire toward the man, heating the enclosed space until Everette's body disintegrated into a heap of black dust.

Aodh turned and stared at the crowd of leaders, faces now black with soot. “You all are just as guilty as Everette. You conspired and chose not to stop his madness for your gain.“

“You won’t get away with this!” One of the leaders, a reed-thin black female with straight black hair held high and severe at the top of her head, boldly raised her chin, took a single step away from the huddled, and shot a harsh look—recklessly making some last stand.

“Humans will rise again and claim power over you shifters,” she sneered loudly.

Aodh held the foolish woman’s gaze.

Liekki barked out a laugh.

“Humans don’t want power, foolish. They, like all, want peace.”

The woman twisted her face into a mask of hate and tsked.

Mckenna, may I?

He didn’t deem it necessary to respond to the human leader, but Aodh offered permission to his female guard. You may.

Hydra, in a swift move, crossed the distance and with a single, back-handed swing struck the mouthy human leader.

The woman went sailing past her fellow petrified leaders, causing a crunch-splat sound as her head contacted their protective glass wall, seconds before her deadweight dropped to the floor with a thump.

The group stood terrified that Aodh would allow the same to them. He’d had enough of them. He turned and met the gaze of the Drahkelle who had stood guard for many days protecting his mate-wife, and just silenced the idiotic woman. “Hydra, let them out.”

There was a collective sigh from the leaders.

Smiling, Hydra shifted, her pale-sienna dragon the smallest of those who accompanied Aodh, but still powerful.

As the leaders parted away from the door, allowing the beast to set them free, Hydra’s dragon charged forward, shattering the thick glass.

The moment they saw the opening, they ran, pouring out the door like water through a dam, a few calling out thanks.

It only took a blink for the leaders to realize the situation right before Kairos roared in joyous bloodlust, and the nine Vampire leaders raced toward the freed individuals with their swirling black smoke.

Aodh watched as Liekki stepped out in the fray of savagery, not to join in but with a single goal in mind, Avalore, the new Drahkelle running across the old communication center to his waiting arms.

His mission here complete, there was only one place Aodh wanted to be. “Edjer, take command and lead the flight home after you assist Iskah and Dov in getting the people screened and settled.”

“At your command, Mckenna.”

Shifting, Aodh’s dragon shattered the remainder of the glass ceiling and then shoved up into the air to head home.