Her Mad Dragon (Dragon Guard Series Book 15) (13 page)

They both smiled and nodded
while his mate assured, “I’ll just be a minute. Practice your meditation
exercises while I’m gone and we’ll start from there when I get back.”

Following Callie out the
door, he directed her to the end of the hall, pulled her into his arms, and
kissed her soundly before leaning back and sighing. “I needed that.”

Patting his chest with a
dreamy smile on her face, his little witch beamed, “Me too,
mo ghrá
, me
too.” Laying another chaste kiss on his lips, she leaned back and asked,
“Before we get too carried away, what did you need to tell me?”

“Oh, yeah,” he snickered.
“Max’s doctor is downstairs with Niall examining Kyran. Seems Dr. Danvers was
as impressed to meet our Healer as he was to meet her. It was a mutual admiration
society down there for a while.”

“Wow, that was quick.” She
paused then asked with wide eyes, “Dr. Camille Danvers?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. You
know her too?”

Nodding, the Priestess
confirmed. “Yes. If her published works are any indication, she’s brilliant.”

“Well, I’ll take your word
for it. I just want her to fix our boy. If it takes brilliant to get that done,
then I guess it’s good we have it.”

    Caylsta’s brow was
momentarily furrowed before she shrugged and commented, “I never had a clue she
was a shifter.”

“Did you ever meet her in
person?” Maddox inquired while giving into temptation and kissing along her
jawline.

“No, just read her articles
and her bio.” Calysta sighed and leaned into his body, enjoying his attention
as much as he enjoyed giving it.

“I assure you, in person
there’s no denyin’ she’s a cat,” he mumbled, more interested in kissing his
mate than talking.

Pushing against his chest and
leaning her head back, Calysta raised her eyebrows and asked, “I’m guessing
she’s attractive?”

“I have no idea,
mo chroí
.
I only have eyes for you,” Maddox quickly answered, leaning in to continue
kissing her but not getting very far as she held him at bay with the palms of
her hands against his pecs.

“Mmmmhmmmm, sure you do,”
Calysta rolled her eyes and tsk’d at him.

He knew she was kidding but
decided to have a little fun with her anyway. Using his enhanced reflexes,
Maddox spun them around until her back was to the wall, shifted his hands to
her sides, and began tickling her. Her peals of laughter filled the hallway as
he said, “Repeat after me.”

Frantically shaking her head
while laughing and trying to catch her breath, Calysta wheezed, “I…can’t…”

Easing up just a fraction, he
once again commanded, “Repeat after me,” and then added, “Maddox loves
only
me.”

Squirming and fighting to get
free, his little witch gasped, “Madddddox…llloves…only mmmmeeee,” before
falling into another fit of giggles.

He was having so much fun, he
had to ask,
“What did you say?”
When Niall’s voice broke through Calysta’s
laughter.

His fingers stilled as the
mad dragon focused on the Healer’s words while smiling at the flush on his
mate’s cheeks and salivating at the way her ample bosom rose and fell as she
fought to catch her breath. Shaking his head to clear his mind, he took a half
step back to put some space between them and tapped the side of his head so
Calysta knew to listen too as Niall repeated,
“Camille wants to do the
surgery immediately. We are preparing Kyran right now. Max has others from his
pride bringing the additional medical equipment we need.”
There was a quick
pause and then,
“The procedure will take about four hours, as long as there
are no complications. I’m having Wolfe and Callum prepare the room Kyran is in
for the surgery. I’m not comfortable moving him out of lockup.”

“No, I agree. Do you need
Kayne and I there?”

“I don’t think that’s
necessary. Drago is staying with us and Camille has another sedative that she’s
adding to ours. I’m sure the heavy dosage will keep him asleep for as long as
we need him to be, but I would like you two to stay close as a precaution.”

“Sounds good. I’ll go find
the pain in the butt demi god and we’ll be here if you need us. Good luck, Ni,”
Maddox could only imagine what it was
like for Niall, always having to patch up his friends and now performing brain
surgery on one of them. It made the mad dragon thankful for his magic and his
sword and his complete lack of all things scientific.

Looking at Calysta, he asked,
“Did all that make sense to you?”

“Yes.” She patted his arm,
“He’s in good hands, Maddy. There’s no one I trust more than Niall and with
Camille Danvers heading the surgery, everything will be fine.”

Leaning forward, he kissed
her slowly, showing his appreciation where his words would’ve failed. Pulling
back when they were both breathless, he looked into her love-clouded eyes and
breathed,
“Is breá liom tú an méid sin.”
 

Smiling that smile he knew
she saved just for him, his mate sighed. “And I love you,
mo Dragon
.
Now, go find Kayne and let me get back to the girls. I’ll be here if you need
me.”

Kissing the tip of her nose,
he watched as she turned and headed back to the girls. Just the seductive sway
of her hypnotic hips and the memory of the feel of her silken skin under his
fingertips made it hard for him not to race down the hall, scoop her up, and
take her home to bed. As usual, his fantasies were interrupted by a voice in
his head,
“Okay, loverboy, enough of the mushy stuff. Get out here and keep
Max and I company. We’re gonna need your brute strength in about ten minutes
when all the equipment Niall and the lovely doctor ordered arrives.”

Rolling his eyes, the mad
dragon grumbled,
“You just stay outta my mushy thoughts.”
Then chuckling
added,
“Or better yet, get some of your own.”

“I shudder to think about
that happening,”
the demi god laughed
out loud.

Maddox snickered,
“We all
do.”
Then as he waved to Calysta and the girls on his way past their room,
he confirmed,
“I’m on my way.”

He’d just walked out the side
door when Max stood and pointed to a large silver moving truck and said, “Just
in time,
Doxie
. The machines are here.”

Punching Kayne in the
shoulder as the demi god walked past, Maddox growled, “Just couldn’t keep your
mouth shut, huh?” Turning and following the King and the demi god, the mad dragon
mumbled, “Remember, paybacks are a bitch.”

Kayne snorted with laughter
while sliding the door on the back of the truck open and climbing in. It took
less than fifteen minutes for the three of them plus the two werepanthers who’d
brought the equipment, Juan Carlos and Matías, to unload and install the four
machines.

Niall quickly shooed them
out, stating they had already given Kyran the
anesthetic
for surgery and needed to get started. Maddox looked
to Drago, who gave a single nod confirming all was okay from the corner. Thank
the Heavens there had been no complications, so far. The mad dragon then went
back to watching the man they all called the Phantom.

Kyran was laying on his
stomach with his long hair shoved into a blue paper hat resembling a shower
cap. His arms were down at his sides with his wrists cuffed to the steel
railing by cloth lined silver shackles as well as chained to huge hooks in the
stone walls just like his ankles. They had taken every precaution to make sure
he didn’t hurt himself or others in case he woke up.

Maddox followed Max and Kayne
back to the surface and through the clinic. The smell of dinner being served to
the patients made his stomach growl. “You guys hungry?”

“Always,” Kayne grinned.

“I could eat,” Max answered.

“Since Niall wants us close,
it’s a delivery kinda night. So what sounds good, pizza or subs?” he asked.

“Pizza,” was the unanimous
decision and less than an hour later, they were out behind the clinic eating
and chatting on one of the picnic tables.

Time seemed to drone on as
the demi god, the King, and the mad dragon discussed everything from politics -
both human and shifter - to the O’Baoill twins and the elimination of hunters
all together.

“There will always be evil.
That is the one constant in our world,” Kayne commented, taking a drink of the
iced tea Della had brought them out about an hour before. “Oh, and I’m sorry
some of your panthers have gotten caught up in all of this. I thought maybe at
least one of our groups had escaped the madness.”

“Thank you.” The King’s brow
furrowed. “It’s a shame our people can’t live their lives without interference
from tyrannical zealots who’ve been fed hate and rhetoric from the womb. Who
kill without remorse or regret. And multiply faster than rabbits procreate. We
flush out one group and three more take their place.” The fury in Max’s voice
matched Maddox’s own as the King continued. “I love this modern age and all the
advantages it affords us but I also hate that it gives our enemies the same
advantages and that they somehow figure out a way to capitalize for their own
nefarious ideals far better than we do in the pursuit of peace. The continued
loss of life is utterly unacceptable.”

“Couldn’t have said it better
myself,” Kayne agreed. “I’m hoping Brann and Lenn and some of the young guys
can figure out a way to help us get out in front of our enemies. Those hateful
bastards, more than the wizards, are using technology to advance their cause.”

“So…” The words died in
Maddox’s mouth as an explosion rocked the ground where he sat.

Jumping to his feet, he ran
at full speed, following the echoes of the blast. The sounds of Kayne and Max
following close behind reached his ears as he burst through the well-manicured
bushes and cleared the dense cover of the trees. Looking to the East, the mad
dragon saw large billows of dark grey smoke filling the sky. Yelling through
mindspeak as he raced towards the blast site, he commanded,
“Kellan, Rian,
Royce, Rian, get the boys. We’ve got trouble.”

Chapter Eleven

Reaching the far side of the
lair just in time to see Eve press a red button atop the long silver tube she
was gripping in her hand while bellowing out a war cry that would’ve made
Sitting Bull proud, Maddox’s heart stopped in his chest. A collected gasp from
his brethren sounded in his mind as the side of the mountain containing their
Sacred Healing Caves exploded.

Dirt, rock, and debris rained
down from the heavens as a small platoon of fatigue-covered hunters being led
by the male version of Eve and a small band of shifters in various stages of
transformation advanced towards the dragons. The mad dragon could see two
wolves, who looked more like the Wolfman from one of the old movies Declan was
always watching than the werewolves he’d met over the years, racing towards
him. On one side of the lupine was an absolutely enormous male black bear who
moved with a speed and grace that defied his size and on the other, a fully
grown silverback gorilla that Maddox had no doubt outweighed him by almost
eighty pounds. When he stopped, stood on his back legs, and beat his chest, was
almost as tall as the Guardsman.

“What the hell is
happening out there?”
Drago’s voice
rang through his mind.

“You wouldn’t believe it
if I told you,”
Maddox quickly
replied, running towards the enemy.

“Try me,”
the Assassin demanded.
“Niall and Camille are
elbow deep in Kyran’s brain and it feels like a bomb went off.”

“And the old Commander
gets it in one,”
Kayne chimed in.

“Is it the bastards who
did this to my lad?”
Drago growled.

“Two for two,
mo chara
,”
the demi god quipped then out loud
to Max, who had taken off his suit coat and was preparing to call forth his
panther, “Hey, King, nine o’clock, on the ridge, looks like three of your
people.”

“I’m on my way,”
the Assassin stated.

“Stay where you are. Keep
us informed on Ky’s condition. We got this,”
Maddox retorted. He could hear Drago’s resistance to his veiled orders
but was glad when his old friend finally responded with a
“Give ‘em hell,
Doxie,”
before severing their communication.

Looking to the left, the mad
dragon confirmed a trio of big cats – a cheetah, a jaguar and a snow leopard -
all creeping along the unaffected side of the mountain using the foliage and
their natural camouflage for cover, just as Max uttered something in Spanish
and was immediately a massive black panther. In a split second, his
lieutenants, Juan Carlos and Matías, followed suit and called forth their
golden brown panthers. Maddox was astounded by how fast the big cats moved and
knew whoever got in their way was looking for an ass-kicking of epic
proportions.

In any other circumstance, he
would’ve laughed out loud when Kayne commented,
“Max really does have a wide
variety of kitties, doesn’t he?
” But there wasn’t time for anything but
readying his sword as the horde of bloodthirsty hunters, who were hiding behind
innocent shifters they’d kidnapped, poisoned, and were forcing to fight against
their wills, came careening towards them.

It was going to be an all-out
man-to-man hand-to-hand combat situation. It reminded him of the battles he and
his brethren used to fight when they were young lads.

The more things change,
the more they stay the same. Not sure if I like this or not…

He listened as Kellan
commanded his Force. The scarred dragon was a master tactician with extensive
battle and military experience who was quick and decisive with his orders and
able to make instantaneous adjustments as combat progressed. From the
conversation flying about as the Guardsmen converged from every direction, it
was clear they would have the hunters surrounded.

“Looks like they got us
six or seven to one.”
Kayne’s words
echoed Maddox’s thoughts but it was Declan’s deadpan remark of,
“I like them
odds. What about you?”
that had them all laughing despite the situation.

Movement to his right alerted
the mad dragon to the arrival of Wolfe and Callum, two of the newest Guardsmen
whom he’d left watching over Kyran’s surgery.

“What are you doing here?”
Maddox snapped.

“Commander Drago sent us,”
the young men answered in unison.

Shaking his head at his old
friend’s interference, he responded the only way he could in the situation,
“Glad
to have you. Watch your backs.”

“Aye, sir,”
they immediately replied, grinning satisfied grins at
one another.

“Oh, to be that young and
enthusiastic again,”
Kayne chuckled
along their private link.

“We were never that
young,”
Maddox snorted as he could
literally see the whites of the eyes of the shifters being manipulated to
attack their allies.

The dead, unfocused look in
their eyes and the complete disregard of their surroundings reminded him of the
way Kyran had looked when he attacked Drago. These poor creatures were nothing
more than puppets to advance the O’Baoill twins’ maniacal plans to exterminate
all things magical and populate the world with homegrown terrorists like
themselves.

Both man and dragon seethed
at the injustice. His beast roared and blew smoke, pushing against the confines
of the mad dragon’s mind, begging to be let out, spoiling to fight their
enemies.  

“Lenn and I have the
charges set in the canyon. Herd the cattle!”
Pearce’s voice boomed through all the Guardsmen’s minds.

Just as expected, Kellan had
formulated a way to even the score and thankfully, Kayne had been paying
attention while Maddox’s focus was their side of the war.

“Okay, old man, we’re
pushing these bastards towards the valley where Brann and Dec are waiting to
use some techno gizmo they invented that will shut down those piece of shit
boxes in the shifters’ heads. After that, let’s pray they’re thankful enough to
help us fight those fucking twins and their army. Sound good?”

Before Maddox could answer,
Adam O’Baoill screamed, “ATTACK!” and all hell broke loose. Silver bullets flew
through the air. Canisters of the same gas that had immobilized the mad dragon
during his first confrontation with Eve were lobbed from every direction,
joined by more of the deadly silver arrows he had a close, personal, hate-hate
relationship with, all designed to take the dragons out and allow the O’Baoill
twins to reclaim Kyran.

There was no doubt the
Phantom was their target. He was the largest and deadliest weapon the hunters
had designed. He could fight on the ground as well as in the air and had a
screech with the ability to immobilize any living being he pointed it at.
Maddox’s prayers that Brannoc had deactivated the black dragon’s trackers
before the O’Baoills got a trace were apparently unanswered, but the mad dragon
had no doubt his brethren were prepared for every worst case scenario there
was. It was just how they played the game.

He reveled in the surprised
looks on the hunters’ faces as the Guardsmen continued towards them and laughed
out loud as Adam changed his original command to, “Cease fire! Go to
hand-to-hand! Guns and blades only!”

And that’s one for the
Guard!

Brannoc, Lennox, and Declan
had been able to design dragon-friendly body armor that absorbed the modified
silver nitrate should a bullet or an arrow make contact and was strong enough
to keep the silver from breaking through to the Guardsmen’s skin. On top of
that, Niall developed a vaccine for the noxious gas which negated the effects
of the airborne silver allowing the Guardsmen to breathe it in while suffering
no ill effects. Fighting on their own soil was never what the dragons wanted
but if they had to do it, at least they were prepared for all comers.

 At Adam’s continued screams
of “Attack and kill!”, the shifters moved faster than Maddox had ever seen
anyone or anything move in all his years as a Guardsman. He knew it was because
of the transponders in their heads and the poison being continuously pumped
into their bodies. Praying to the Universe, the Goddess, and every deity who
would listen, Maddox implored the heavenly bodies to help those being
manipulated and to spare all their lives.

Approaching the enemy from
the East with Kayne, Wolfe, and Callum at his side, while Kellan, Rian, Rory,
and Royce came in from the West, the mad dragon engaged the enemy. He, along
with his brethren, zigged and zagged, employing only defensive moves against
the shifters in an effort to get past those helpless in their actions without
causing serious injury and attack the real culprits, the humans who made the
conscious choice to attempt to fight the dragons on their own turf.

Maddox was unfortunately
forced to raise his sword more times than he wanted, especially when it came to
the largest wolf man’s gargantuan paws and claws that rivaled even his
dragon’s. The lupine was more agile and flexible than the mad dragon was
prepared for, coming at Maddox with swipes and jabs in such quick succession
they were all but a blur.

Bone clashed with steel as
the mad dragon worked hard to defend himself while not doing any lasting damage
to the wolf. In a Hail Mary move, the mad dragon faked to the right, waiting
until the precise moment the werewolf had committed to follow him then jerked
the butt of the grip of his broadsword towards the lupine’s temple. The impact
of metal to bone jarred Maddox’s hands with such force that he was forced to
grip his blade with all his strength as a loud crack of steel against bone rang
out above the chaos. He dodged a blow from the butt of a hunter’s automatic
rifle while running him through with his blade as he stepped over the fallen
wolf. Looking to his right, he saw Kayne had dropped the other werewolf and was
striding towards him with a look of triumph.

He and the demi god fought
side-by-side, just as they had so many times before, mowing down the zealots
who ran towards them like bowling pins at their favorite alley. Looking over his
shoulder, Maddox was proud to see Wolfe and Callum still on their feet and
holding their own in their first battle. They would make fine Guardsmen, just
as their fathers had.

The fight continued to move
towards the valley between the mountain that had once housed their Healing
Caves and the one where the Cave of Ancients had been for hundreds of years.
The mad dragon wondered if the Gruesome Twosome or their flock even noticed the
flow of the battle and decided it didn’t matter as long as it worked. These
bastards needed to die and they needed to do it soon.

One glance to his left showed
Kellan and Rory in paw-to-sword combat with the silverback. The mad dragon
narrowly missed a blow to the back of his head from a hunter’s short blade as
he stood riveted by the sheer power of the mighty gorilla.

“Stop lollygagging, old
man. You’re gonna get your clock cleaned if you don’t pay attention,”
Kayne chuckled as his blade made contact with yet
another hunter’s midsection.

“Old man? I seem to
remember someone coming up on two hundred and fifty way sooner than me,”
Maddox snorted, irritated that he was out of breath
when the demi god acted as if he was barely exerting any energy at all.

Damn him and his divine
genes… 

A shout from behind him had
the mad dragon pulling his blade from across the chest of a particularly
persistent hunter and spinning on his toes. He was off and running before his
eyes fully focused on the image of what had to be seven hundred and fifty
pounds of black bear measuring every inch of eight feet tall bearing down on
Callum as he stood over the fallen Wolfe with his sword drawn.

Yelling as loud as he could
as he flew through the air holding his broadsword over his head with the hilt
aimed as close to the bear’s face as he could get it, Maddox bellowed, “Get the
hell away from my boys!” 

The mammoth ursa turned
towards the mad dragon with his colossal paws raised and his mouth open in a
blood-curdling roar. Maddox counted every single pearly white threatening to
shred his body should he make the slightest misstep and knew for sure the bear
had as many teeth as his dragon. Thankfully, Fate was on his side, although
slightly off the bullseye, as he used the momentum of his leap and his enhanced
strength to strike the bear shifter right between the eyes with the butt of the
hilt of his weapon.

Landing just feet from where
the unconscious bear had toppled over, Maddox ran to the young Guardsman and
commanded, “Cal, get Wolfe and get your asses back to the clinic. That chest
wound needs medical attention, now.”

“Aye, sir.” In one fluid
motion, Callum had his fellow Guardsman over his shoulder and was jogging away
from the battle.

“Wolfe injured, Cal’s
bringing him in,”
Maddox called to
Calysta.

“I see them coming across
the clearing,”
sShe quickly answered
before asking,
“How are you?”