Page 18 of Her Two Dragons

“Darius, we have a problem.” Khal stood near the back side of the tent, concern all over his face.

Striding around the canvas, Darius’s dragon woke to the scent. The stench of arrogance, entitlement, and tobacco burned his nostrils. He growled deep in his chest rumbled, his dragon adding to the earth quaking roar threatening to rattle the archeologists.

Cedric.

Darius made no attempt to hide the string of expletives running through his brain as he followed the signs of Michelle’s struggle away from camp. His dragon was all but trying to claw his way out of Darius’s skin, desperate to find Michelle.

His mate had spunk, fire in her belly. He just hoped that would be enough for whatever the dragon had in mind.

MINE!

The roar made Darius jump. He’d been so focused on his own dragon’s temper tantrum, he hadn’t heard Khal. He turned to stare at Khalid, shocked.

His own dragon was echoing the same point, but Khalid looked ready for blood.

“What’s going on, Khal?”

“My mate.” He snarled, kicking at the sand.

“Khal, you can’t…”

“Mine,” he roared.

Great. Khal’s dragon was in control.

Darius let his own dragon come closer to the surface, his teeth elongating in his mouth as he growled low in his belly, keeping the sound soft, but forceful. He didn’t want to wake the whole camp, not until Khal was under control. “Khalid, we will find her. But you can’t shift here.”

Darius’s dragon wanted to rip through to take flight as much as Khal’s seemed to, but Darius was fighting to hold onto control, to keep the situation from getting worse.

It was damned hard, though, when the echo of Khal claiming that Michelle was his mate rang in his ears.

With a determined posture, he stomped along the path in the sand, following what were human-sized footprints. At least Cedric hadn’t been stupid enough to try to take flight in the camp.

“We. Have. To. Find. Her.” Khal was clearly still fighting for the upper hand against a dragon ready to rage, but Darius was confident the man would win out, at least for now.

“We will.” Darius wished his confrontation with the obsidian queen’s spirit hadn’t left him feeling so drained. He hardly felt like he could manage to shift at all, let alone fight against another dragon whether it would be Cedric or Khalid.

But for Michelle, he’d do whatever it took.

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