Chapter 49: We Need To Get Us One Of Those

Kael had now lost the same woman three times in two days, which was either a pattern or a talent.

Forty minutes ago, they were perfectly fine in flight, she was passed out on his back. Under them, snowline changed into jungle, which confirmed his suspicion that they were on the fae continent of Eldoria.

On cue, dark fae rose like wasps from the canopy, their formation aimed at Guinevere.

Kael torched them. Ten for ten in one breath. Perfect score. Naturally, she convulsed. Black flame would protect them here, but it gave her seizures. Outstanding design.

When one of the bastard’s fingers closed around her ankle, Kael had no choice but to do a full barrel rotation, all five thousand pounds of dragon spinning on its axis.

Guinevere slid off his back, and he caught her in his claw.

Unfortunately, that turned her into a prize in a claw machine, and fae started to swarm by the hundreds.

But Kael Ashenvale did not make mistakes and knew exactly what he was doing.

The plan had been simple. Drop her. Decoy the fae. Circle back. Recover the asset. Four steps before she even woke up. He’d completed three.

The flaw was that the woman he’d hidden in a jungle was unconscious and could not defend herself. In retrospect, this should have been obvious. In his defense, he had been busy convincing hundreds of dark fae to chase an empty claw at fifteen hundred feet.

His human form hit the ground and cut through the branches at a speed that stripped leaves from their stems, covering two miles in under ninety seconds.

The ferns where she had landed were crushed flat and she was gone. He stood there with his chest heaving. Sweat and jungle humidity plastered his dark hair to his forehead.

"Of course," he muttered. "Why would she be where I put her. Oh no, Kael, that would be too easy."

He scanned the undergrowth in every direction. Boot prints converged on her landing site from the south and left heading east, and the depth of the prints on the exit was heavier than the entrance, which meant they were carrying weight they had not arrived with.

"Who the fuck falls asleep on a damn dragon?" he asked, talking to the jungle.

The jungle did not respond.

✦✦✦

Ryker laughed out loud and flashed an I-told-you-so smirk to Sterling.

Ryker: You owe me fifty gold.

Sterling turned his head to see Maddox entering the departure zone in his battle suit. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Sterling: We are in the middle of a civil war. Please tell me you’re just here to send us off.

Maddox: My wife is unconscious on a continent full of dark fae. Are you serious?

Sterling: I want it on the record that I advised against this.

Maddox: Noted. Ignored. Let’s move.

✦✦✦

If anyone had asked Nicholas Shadowfell whether he would ever willingly step through a mage portal, ride a dragon, and work alongside Drakencrest military for a rescue mission, he would have questioned their sobriety.

And yet here he was. Doing it with enthusiasm he would deny later because Guinevere Lunaris was missing and rules had stopped mattering approximately an hour ago.

He stepped through the shimmering portal, Damon, his Beta, behind him. Once they were on the other side, both had arrived at the same conclusion: we need to get one of these.

Jaxon Valerios studied the two wolves with the expression of a scholar observing a rare species in its natural habitat. "Fascinating. I’ve always been curious about wolves. How do you travel without wings or portals? I imagine it involves a great deal of running."

Nicholas turned his head slowly. "We walk. Occasionally with purpose."

Damon made a sound that was technically a cough.

Half of the strike team shifted into dragon form. Maddox jumped onto Sterling at the front.

Ryker: Hey Maddox?

Maddox: No.

Ryker: Want to hear an Alpha king scream like a girl?

The second Nicholas and Damon climbed onto Ryker’s back, he launched aggressively in the air. More aggressive than necessary. Nicholas’s hands found the ridge of scale at the base of Ryker’s neck and held with the grip strength of an Alpha who had been doing pull-ups on cliff faces since he was twelve. His Beta didn’t blink.

Ryker’s voice came back disappointed.

Ryker: Cute. They’re pretending this is fine.

Sterling: Wolves.

Ryker: On the bright side, if the wolf falls off my back, the problem solves itself.

Maddox: Ryker.

Ryker: Kidding. Mostly. I would catch him after a reasonable delay.

Griffin: How long is reasonable?

Ryker: Long enough for him to reconsider the word mate.

It took an hour of flight to get to the jungle.

Nicholas sniffed the air, then stood on Ryker’s back like he’d done this a thousand times. He raised one arm, and made three gestures in rapid succession. Fist. Open palm down. Two fingers pointed southeast.

Hold. Descend. That direction.

Ryker adjusted course without being told twice. The formation followed.

Sterling: Did the wolf just direct a dragon strike team with his hands?

Ryker: Yes. And we all listened.

Sterling dove. The descent was controlled, tactical, dropping through the humidity and the heat into the canopy’s upper layer.

Nicholas felt it at the same moment the formation turned. Her fever, which had been climbing steadily for the last hour, had spiked. His eyes flared full wolf gold, bleeding through the amber until his irises were bright enough to reflect the light off Sterling’s scales.

At forty feet, he jumped. He shifted mid-air. The transformation was seamless, a man becoming wolf between one heartbeat and the next, black fur replacing skin, four legs replacing two, and the wolf that landed on the jungle floor was already running before the shift had finished.

Fast. Alpha-fast. The kind of speed that reminded every predator in the jungle why the wolf at the top of the food chain on Nyros held the position. He tore through the undergrowth, over roots, under branches, his nose locked on a trail his matebond was painting in real time.

Damon hit the ground three seconds later. Same shift. Slower speed but still fast. Running in the same direction with the coordination of a wolf who had been following his Alpha into terrible situations for eleven years and had perfected the art of keeping up.

The formation followed from above. Sterling leading, Ryker flanking, the strike team spread in a net pattern that tracked the wolves’ trajectory through the canopy gaps.

Ryker: ...

Griffin: We need to get us some of those.

Sterling: Focus.

Griffin: I am focused. I am also acknowledging that the wolves are fast.

That’s when the first swarm hit.

Dark fae boiled up from the trees humming. They shredded Calder into bloody ribbons before he could finish his roar. Maddox barely registered it before the dragon’s head left his body. A man who had been with him for six years.

They hit Wessick next, stabbing his eyes before he could blow flame. Maddox shifted to intervene, but by the time his dragon form finished, Wessick’s neck cracked and he was falling.

The banter was gone.

Maddox: Below the canopy now. Riders be ready for flame on descent.

Under the trees, Nicholas was unaware that two dragons had just died in under one minute. He shifted back to human form, Damon beside him. Both of them breathing hard. He knelt and his fingers touched the crushed moss. She had been here lying in the dirt alone. The bootprints that took her were military.

Sterling landed behind him, shifting mid-stride, already moving to the site. His eyes scanned the prints, the pattern, the direction.

Maddox came through next. His boots hit the ground with the deliberate weight of a king who had brought twenty men into this jungle and was down to eighteen.

Calder’s daughter was seven. Wessick’s mate was expecting. Maddox would be the one who knocked on their doors and told their wives.

Two of his strongest warriors just got butchered like they were prey, and Guinevere had been here alone for fourteen hours now.

But Maddox Drakencrest did not show weakness and he would not start now.

"Ground team, on me. Four in the air under the canopy, Ryker’s call on who stays up. The rest drop and run." He turned to Sterling. "Eldorian military patrol, six men, heading east. They took her. We take her back."

Nicholas watched Maddox give orders to his remaining men. The dragon king’s voice was steady, his hands were still. But Nicholas recognized the mask because he wore the same one. The composure of a king who was bleeding internally and would deal with it after everyone else was safe.

There was a slight breeze and her scent hit Nicholas and Maddox both at the same time, both nostrils flaring in unison that neither would acknowledge but everyone saw.

Maddox’s jaw set. "Found her."

Nicholas was already running before Maddox said ’her’ with the kind of fast that came from a wolf who had found his mate’s trail.

Maddox dashed behind him, his eyes flaring dragon gold, locked onto the back of the wolf’s head.