Dragonfury 01 - Fury of Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

tear apart.
    And yeah, there were others.
    Five, counting the one sniffing around the dilapidated shed.
    On a normal night, the small pack wouldn’t have presented much of a challenge. Not when he and Rikar closed ranks. But with a female and child to protect? The sliding scale went from mildly irritating to FUBARed in a hurry.
    Rikar pinged him from outside the fighting triangle—a three-mile separation that prevented the enemy from detecting him. “ Bastian…what the fuck are you doing? ”
    “Waiting.”
    “For what?”
    “The decoy to move.”
    “Hell, they’re getting smarter,” Rikar said, soft growl tinged with amusement.
    “Not exactly what we need tonight,” he said, not liking the odds.
    Bloodthirsty to the point of obsession, the Razorbacks were goal-oriented and single-minded—Bastian gave them full marks for that—but they fell short in other areas. Intelligence, for one.
    Made his job easier most nights, if not entirely interesting.
    Opening his senses wide, Bastian mapped the imprint of each, measuring the electrostatic signature all of his kind carried. Like a fingerprint, the impression was unique to the individual, a code written in his DNA. The ability to dissect a dragon’s strengths and weaknesses from a distance was an unusual talent. Most never acquired the skill. Bastian excelled at it. He knew to the degree how powerful each male was, down to the color of his scales and the poison he exhaled.
    The group hunting him was young, more ballsy than experienced. Good in some respects, terrible in others.
    Seasoned fighters would see Myst as a trophy and keep the fighting away from her. Inexperienced ones would set the trap and attack without care for collateral damage.
    “How is she?” Rikar asked, concern edging out impatience.
    He cupped the nape of Myst’s neck, praying his touch soothed her. She was throwing off too much energy, levels that drew dangerously close to breaking through the invisibility cloak he’d thrown around them. “Petrified.”
    “Shit.”
    No kidding. He needed her to calm down, to level out before enemy eyes turned in their direction.
    “Figure it out, man,” his friend said, ready to break cover.
    “You’ve got about thirty seconds before I break cover and the fuckers sense me coming.”
    “Give me a couple of minutes. Let me get a handle on her first.”
    His first in command grunted, but held course, flirting with the edge of the fighting triangle and detection.
    Bastian lowered his head until his mouth brushed Myst’s ear. He kept his voice low, more vibration than actual sound, and said, “Relax, Myst…you’re safe with me. Take a deep breath.”
    Air caught, hitching in the back of her throat as she tried to do as he asked. It didn’t go well. She was strung too tight, panic locking her lungs into spasm.
    “In through your nose, out through your mouth…come on, baby. Listen to my voice, feel the release.” Keeping his tone soft and steady, Bastian kept talking as he found the pressure point at the base of her skull. He rotated his thumb, massaged in gentle circles, hesitating, not wanting to do it. He shouldn’t be touching her, not like this, without her understanding or consent.
    In the kitchen, he’d been unable to help himself, had taken a sip and sampled her energy…and God. She was delicious, so sweet that arousal hit him like a brick house. The head below his waist had a mind of its own, was still complaining, wanting inside her with an insistence the circumstances didn’t warrant.
    Jesus, he was sick. She was scared out of her mind, and he was turned on.
    What did that say about him? That he was a deranged fuck? Or that he hadn’t fed in far too long?
    Probably a little of both, but he couldn’t worry about either now. Rikar wouldn’t wait much longer.
    Myst took another choppy breath and, with a silent curse, Bastian slipped his free hand under the hem of her green hospital scrubs. His palm settled on the small of her back. He