Page 42 of Dragon's Honor

Finley pressed back into Ash. One of his arms looped around her waist, his other hand gripped her hip. He held her close to him, waiting.

Wade chuckled. “Would you like me to do your job, Kris?”

“Fuck you, Wade. You were supposed to be here last night so we could move this all to secure location. Now we have to deal with intruders.”

“You may want to stand back,” Wade said. “Only one of us can shift in here, there’s not enough room.”

Shift? Like into a dragon? Finley wondered if she could handle seeing that. A dragon? Would it be like a monster or something more resembling the movies where dragons were good guys?

Her breath was coming in shallow spurts. Fear trickled out of every pore of her. She could feel Ash tighten and tense against her. He didn’t like what was happening either.

An explosion of crates and boxes being pushed down startled a cry out of her. The crates around them shifted and shook. And then there was an obstacle of them in front of them.

“Where are they?” Kristoff said.

A moment later, a giant man who reminded Finley of Dolf Lungrun appeared in front of them, and then a dragon’s head appeared behind him.

Ash shoved Finley behind him.

“You should’ve fucking died, Wade,” Ash snarled.

The dragon was white with an iridescent shimmer. The florescent lighting glinted off his scales. His head was large with two curled horns. He had giant talons on his feet and he was broad through the chest and legs. He was beautiful except for the terrifying teeth and reptilian eyes that were black with a shimmer of dark blue inside. Opal, Finley realized. He looked like he was made of opal.

“Now you’re going to die. Tristian will give me a whole mountain of treasure for taking you out,” Kristoff said.

Wade swatted Kristoff away and came charged at them.

Ash snarled. “Stay behind me, and when you can, you run.”

She wanted to argue with him, but she was way out of her depth.

Wade’s gaze flickered between them.

“Why the fuck did you bring a human?”

The woman’s voice startled Finley and she whipped around. The woman’s hands were out like she was holding some invisible ball in front of her. She pushed her hands forward and Finley flew backwards into a pile of crates.

Stabbing shards of crates and whatever was inside of them pushed and jabbed against her body. She almost felt impaled. She could feel everything which was good in the long run but sucked at the moment with the pain lancing through her. She scrambled as best she could to get to her feet.

Finley got up in time to see Wade blow fire from his mouth at Ash. Finley screamed and lunged forward unsure of what else to do. She wanted to protect him.

“He was foolish to bring you here,” the woman sauntered toward her. She looked calm and collected.

Tabitha, she presumed, cocked a hip and crossed her arms loosely over her chest. Her white hair was pulled back in a high, sharp ponytail. She looked fierce and commanding with her stiletto heels and pencil skirt. “Do you even know you’re his mate?”

Finley opened her mouth to respond, but the woman threw another invisible ball at her and Finley lunged away hoping to miss it. She had no idea if she could avoid the burst of power the woman was able to throw at her, but she managed to roll into covering and she didn’t feel the pain and energy colliding with her like it was a full semi-truck.

“You’re not a witch or a shifter. Did the prince find a human mate? That’s so sweet. Tristian will want you both dead.”

Finley didn’t give a shit what this woman’s agenda was, she just wanted to get away from her. She wanted to get Ash out of there and run away. How could anyone be safe when there were people who could do these kinds of things?

All her efforts to do something to protect the ones she loved and people in general felt wasted, like she couldn’t truly do anything. Not really. It seemed Ash would be no exception to that.

Finley needed to find a way out of there. Then she caught a glimpse of a jar of glowing orbs. Those things had to be magic, and if they were as powerful as the orbs of energy the witch was throwing, just maybe she could use them to her advantage.

She peeked around the corner and found the witch laughing as Wade continued to bat Ash around like a cat playing with a mouse. It was clear to Finley from the way Ash was still fighting that it was hard to kill a dragon…in any form. And Wade was so big that if Ash were one of them too, he wouldn’t be able to fit inside the warehouse, which had seemed spacious even with all the crates just moments before.

She couldn’t imagine it would be comfortable to change in a small space. Ash needed room, needed the ability to shift, if he had any hope of walking out of the warehouse on his own.

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