Hidden Embers (35 page)

He never got to finish the statement. Instead, he went flying about ten feet into the street, propelled by an invisible force. Unfortunately, his grip on her arm never loosened, and she went flying with him.

Brock was off balance now, looking for whatever had dealt the blow, and she took advantage, bringing her knee up between his legs as hard as she could. He screamed and his grip loosened for a second as he fell to his knees. It was all she needed to yank her arm away and deliver a fast, powerful kick to the side of his head.

Then she ran, heading for the lab as fast as she could go—which was pretty fast, if she did say so herself, considering her just-healed ankle, still-sore ribs and assorted other injuries.

But she was no match for the dragons. With a roar, one of the men she’d called to for help—stupid her—landed directly in her path. She tried to hit him like she had Brock, but he sent her flying against the building with one careless swipe of his fist.

She hit hard—harder than she thought possible from one punch. Her ears were ringing as she tried to right herself, to stagger forward. But he was already there, one huge hand closing around her neck as he slammed her into the building a second time. His fingers tightened around her throat and the world started going gray. She fought him violently, kicking and struggling as she tried desperately to pry his fingers away from her windpipe.

Her back was flush against the building, and she felt a weird stinging in her arm from where she must have scraped against a piece of wood or a nail. Her ribs ached, her head felt like it was going to explode. She was only seconds from blacking out. She fought it—fought him—knowing that the second she lost consciousness she was dead.

In a last ditch effort for freedom, Jasmine dug her fingernails into the hand holding her throat, but while the jerk grunted in pain, he didn’t loosen his grip by so much as a millimeter. Not knowing what else to do, she used her last burst of strength to reach upward and rake her nails down the side of his face, digging as deep as she could.

He howled, dropping her as his hand automatically went to his cheek. She hit the ground hard, her legs too shaky to support her.

“You bitch! You’ll pay for that!”

She braced herself for a kick, but only one landed—square in her injured ribs—before the man flew backward. She watched in shock as his head twisted violently, his neck broken in one quick snap. But no one was there.

Come on!
She heard a voice in her head—dark and sexy and completely male.
There are ten of them left—I can’t take them all on. We need to get out of here.

She scrambled to her feet, looking around wildly, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.

Jasmine, move it!
Then a man was shimmering into solidity right in front of her. He reached for her hand and she recoiled, before realizing that she’d been introduced to him earlier. He was a friend of Quinn’s—and a sentry.

“Logan?” she asked faintly.

“Who did you expect, Santa Claus?” And then he picked her up and raced down the street to Quinn’s lab, ten dragon shifters in close pursuit.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

G
oddamnit, Quinn, Dylan! I need you! Now!

The frantic shout slammed through Quinn’s concentration like a sledgehammer. He reared up from his desk and headed for the laboratory door without a backward glance. Dylan was right behind him.

Where are you?
Quinn demanded of Logan.

A couple of blocks north, with ten pissed-off Wyvernmoons on my ass. What the hell were you thinking letting your mate wander around town without protection? They damn near killed her.

Quinn’s dragon leaped forward, breaking the choke chain of control he normally kept on it.

“Mate?” Dylan demanded, as the two of them all but flew down the hall to the front door, ignoring the security measures in their haste to get to the battle. “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”

“Later,” he growled, shifting as soon as he hit the nighttime air. Dylan did the same.

“At least tell me who she is,” Dylan said, as wings burst through his back and scales rippled across his skin.

“Jasmine.”

“And Logan knew this before I did?”

Quinn didn’t answer, he couldn’t, as the shift completed. He launched himself into the air, screaming for Logan.
Where are you?
Quinn demanded, never in his life more grateful for Logan’s odd psychic power, which enabled him to speak telepathically.

Next to the library and moving fast.

We’ll be there in a second
, Dylan said.
Call for reinforcements
.

Callie, Caitlyn, Travis and Gabe are on their way
.

Good
.

Quinn was barely aware of the conversation, barely aware of anything but the driving need to find Jasmine, to protect her. Terror was a frantic nightmare within him, the fear that he would be too late to save her. He pushed himself—and his dragon—faster than he had ever gone before. In some small part of his mind, he registered that Dylan was struggling to keep up, but it never occurred to him to slow down.

I see you!
Logan yelled, as he came around the corner and Quinn nearly shuddered with relief as he saw Jasmine, safe and alive, in his friend’s arms. Then a lightning bolt flew straight at Logan, followed by a second and a third.

Quinn dove, heading straight for the ground at top speed, but he knew he wouldn’t get there in time. Sure enough, Logan managed to dodge the first two bolts, but the third caught him in the upper thigh.

He stumbled, went down hard, and just that easily the first two Wyvernmoons in pursuit were on him. Quinn screamed. Then he pulled out of the dive, picked up the two dragons—who were still in their human form—in his claws and threw them against the nearest building as hard as he could.

Both hit with a satisfying crunch.
Are you okay?
he demanded of Logan, as he stalked toward the two dragons who had dared to touch his mate.

Fine
, his friend answered. Quinn was conscious of his rolling to his feet behind him. Dylan was half a block away, taking on the other eight Wyvernmoons as they tried to shift and fight at the same time.

The fact that they were shifting would give Dylan a minute or two advantage, but then he would be in serious trouble. King or no king, he couldn’t take on eight fully grown dragons in their prime alone—not if he wanted to live.

Get Jasmine back to the lab!
he ordered Logan, advancing on the two shifters he already had in his sights. One shot a lightning bolt at him, which he easily dodged. Then he was on them, ripping them apart with his sharp talons and razorlike teeth.

He didn’t take his time, didn’t make it pretty. Just got in, got the job done, before racing down the street to Dylan’s side. As he did, he realized that Logan hadn’t followed his orders, but was guarding Jasmine in an alley between two buildings; Jasmine must have seen him savagely kill the two men without a qualm.

He wondered what that would do to her already bad image of him, but he didn’t have time to worry about it now. As he reached Dylan, he saw two Wyvernmoons dead on the ground, trapped halfway between human and dragon, proof that Dylan had managed to hold his own so far. Still, Dylan was surrounded by six fully shifted dragons, all of whom were bearing down on him with blood in their eyes.

Damn it, Logan!
Quinn roared as he charged into battle beside his king.
Don’t you leave her. She needs to be protected.

One of the Wyvernmoons swiped at Quinn, who barely managed to dodge a full set of talons in the chest. As it was, he was distracted enough that he caught them on his shoulder.

Fire exploded through the right side of his body.

I got this,
Logan yelled frantically.
Keep your mind on what you’re doing, asshole!

With a dragon’s scream of fury, Quinn turned toward the dragon who had wounded him and went straight for the jugular. He took him down fast and hard, ripping the other shifter’s throat out without a second of remorse, then turned to deal with the next two who were coming at him.

“Go help him!” Jasmine screamed at Logan, as she watched two evil-looking dragons bear down on Quinn. Both were pitch black and huge, their monstrous eyes glowing with flames while their fangs dripped with saliva. She’d never seen a rabid animal up close, but those two seemed as close to rabid as dragons could get.

“I’m supposed to protect you. Quinn will kill me if anything happens to you.”

“I’m fine! Besides, who’s going to protect me if the Wyvernmoons get through Dylan and Quinn?”

“Good point.” He turned and glared sternly at her, his amber eyes glowing with his own dragon. “You stay here or Quinn will kill both of us.”

“I won’t move. I swear—just go!”

Logan shifted into his dragon on the run, a huge, red beast with a spiky tail and enormous wings and claws. Grabbing one of three dragons that was currently attacking Dylan, he ripped the thing apart with his bare hands. Jasmine gasped, looked away. Then she nearly cheered when she saw four more Dragonstar sentries landing next to their king.

The battle was over in a matter of seconds, as the seven Dragonstars ripped the remaining Wyvernmoons to shreds. One took off, trying to flee, she assumed, and Logan sent a fireball straight at him. It caught him in the tail, and he dropped about ten yards toward the ground before managing to right himself.

Dylan sent a huge ball of flames straight at him, but he managed to dodge it, heading straight up into the clouds. Quinn took off after him, followed by two Dragonstar sentries she didn’t know. They caught up to the injured dragon quickly, but the next thing she knew a smaller, light blue dragon backed off.

Instead of chasing after the Wyvernmoon, she—at least Jasmine assumed the dragon was a she, based on her size and looks—did the strangest thing Jasmine had ever seen. With a high-pitched scream that raised the hair on the back of Jasmine’s neck, the dragon raked her claws straight down the sky.

Under Jasmine’s horrified and disbelieving gaze, the sky seemed to split in two—and out of the new portal poured too many of the pitch-black dragons to count. The first casualty was a golden brown Dragonstar sentry, who went careening to the ground after one of the Wyvernmoons raked his claws straight down the other dragon’s belly.

All hell broke loose, as the black dragons swarmed Dylan and his sentries. Jasmine tried desperately to see Quinn in the melee, but there was too much fighting—and too many black dragons—to find him.

She spotted the golden brown dragon, which had fallen a few feet away and was shifting slowly back to human form. She ran for him, once again cursing her missing medical bag. If by some miracle she managed to get out of this nightmare alive, she was going to transfer the supplies to a backpack—and make damn sure she never went anywhere without it.

As she ran, she caught a glimpse of bright green scales out of the corner of her eye and whirled just in time to see Quinn punch one huge claw into an enemy’s chest and rip its heart out. The thing was dead before it ever hit the ground, but three more dragons bore down on him.

“Quinn! Look out!” she screamed, but he was already shooting fire from his palms in a long stream that took out one dragon and seriously singed a second.

At her feet, the injured Dragonstar groaned weakly, and Jasmine forced herself to look away from Quinn and do the job she was trained for. He could take care of himself, she told herself, even against an entire clan of pissed-off dragons. She only wished she believed it.

“What’s your name?” she asked the injured man, as she fell to her knees beside him.

“Shawn.” His voice was barely audible, and when she went to take his pulse it was weak and fluttery.

“Okay, Shawn. I’m going to help you until Quinn can get over here. I’m not a healer, so it’s probably going to hurt a lot more than when Quinn does it, but I don’t think I have a choice.” She looked down at his stomach, which had been ripped open in much the same way Tyler’s had been a few days before.
Damn these Wyvernmoons and their killer talons.

She looked at Shawn’s stomach, which was gushing blood. She needed her bag, an operating room, something! How the hell was she supposed to stop the bleeding if—

A thought occurred to her—a terrible thought that was probably going to hurt Shawn like hell, but one that just might save his life. Reaching into her hair, she pulled out one of the sparkly bobby pins she used to keep her bangs out of her eyes when she was working. Then muttering a prayer for this to work, she shoved her hand deep into Shawn’s pelvis, searching for the vein that was gushing so much blood.

Unlike with Tyler, she found it on the first try—
thank God
—and managed to clamp it with the bobby pin. It was a desperate measure—a field surgeon’s stopgap—but it would keep him from bleeding out until they could get him moved. If—and it was a big
if
—the fight ended in the next few minutes, he’d survive, though the extended lack of blood supply to his leg might mean amputation was the only option.

Shawn grew pale, his lips pressed tightly together in agony. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to him. “I know it hurts. Just bear with me until Quinn gets here.”

“I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth, a blatant lie. He had a hole the size of a cantaloupe in his stomach and bone-deep cuts in his shoulder and chest; he was shivering violently despite the early summer heat. Fine was not quite how she would describe him.

Whipping off her shirt, she tried to wipe some of the blood away so she could see how much damage had been done to his chest, but every time she got it clear, more blood welled up. Finally, she just gave up and rubbed him soothingly, praying that the battle being waged in front of them would end soon—and that the Dragonstars would win it. But frankly, she couldn’t see how that was possible.