Page 105 of Dragon Unhinged

I know that voice. The familiarity of it burns deep inside me. There are other voices seeking attention inside my head and it gets too loud, too noisy, too much for me to bear.

I whip my head around, scanning for the source. Looking for a new enemy to fight.

Who would dare to try and stop me now?

The piercing cry of a baby cuts through all the noise in my head and all the commotion around me. My dragon sniffs the air, curious. What is a baby doing here? Surely no one would be stupid enough to bring a baby into the middle of a battle between dragons.

Surely no one would bring a baby into the fighting pits like this.

Declan, shift now. Your mate needs you. She needs your claim, your bite.

There it is again, that voice.

It’s a ploy. A trick of Grey, of my captors. They want me to stop, they want me to get distracted so that they can finish me off.

Declan, please.

Brianna.

I’d know her voice anywhere, even when it’s dripping with so much pain it’s almost unrecognizable.

I shake my head, trying to clear my mind. Trying to refocus. Barely feeling it as my head creates more rubble and destruction as I process what’s happening.

I feel the tingle of magic, like an electric buzz on my tongue, and I whip around to face down the source. Finally, I’m face-to-face with the new intruders. My dragon snarls as I stare down at them.

Syrena. Standing next to Ash. And Brianna.

MyBrianna. Looking small. Frail. Broken.

Did I do this to her? Have I broken my mate?

The sound of a baby crying echoes again off the rubble laying around me, and my nostrils flare in anger. Why is my mate here? Who would bring a baby to a fight like this? If this is some new ploy to make me fight harder, to do more damage, to keep my mate safe, they’ve gone too far.

Besides, I’m certain my opponent is already dead, or if not quite dead yet, he will be soon enough.

“Declan Wystan, I’m not going to tell you again. Your mate needs you, and your brother needs you to remove your talons from his gut. Shift. Now.” Syrena’s voice echoes in my head, even as she says the words aloud. The power of the Tourmaline Clan bridges between us. I’m taken back to a memory, one I don’t remember. But it’s through Syrena’s eyes. She’s looking down at me as she murmurs the ancient words of our people and connects me to my heartstone. I see my baby-self connecting tothe stone, wrapping my little fingers around it. It winds around my arm like a little cuff, protecting me, waiting for the day to guide me to my mate.

The magic of my heartstone. I silence the voices in my head, I silence my raging emotions and fears, and I just listen to the thrum of my heartstone. I haven’t heard it in so many years. It’s been missing. Gone. Syrena sent it out into the universe to be protected, to guide me to my mate.

I stare down at Brianna’s fragile, broken body. Down the slope of her pale skin to her wrist where I see the first gleam of tourmaline in the morning light. Wrapped around her wrist is my heartstone. I knew she was my mate even though I was scared to truly hope for it, but there is proof that the Fates brought her to me. Even if it was in the worst conditions possible, I don’t care. I’m just beyond joyful to have her.

I want to touch her, help her heal from all that she has been through. I reach out, but it’s still my dragon’s taloned paw.

I don’t take my eyes off her as I start to return to my human form. All the aches, the pain of flying on injured wings, the burn of deep scratches and bites, both old and new, make me want to crumple. Exhaustion seeps deep into my bones, and I feel like maybe it is time to just give up, to give in to it all, and set Brianna free from me, from being shackled to a crazed, broken dragon.

“Thank the gods. Declan, your mate needs your claim, now.” Syrena runs over, grabbing my hand. “Your daughter needs you both to heal, so that you can take care of her. She’s more precious than any of us realized, I daresay.”

I blink at her, still fighting against the dragon in my mind, demanding that we shift back and continue to fight, to destroy. My legs wobble as I step through the debris in bare feet. Not that I notice much, I just want to get to Brianna. “My daughter?”

Syrena nods, and gestures at a nearby van. “Finley’s watching over her. Tend to your mate, so that we can all get out of here.”

I stumble a little as I rush to where Ash is standing, holding my mate. My mind is spinning in circles, and I’m still not entirely sure any of this, anyone I recognize is real, but if it’s not real, then I don’t care.

I lean down and study Brianna carefully. She smells like my mate. Fear, pain, and rage drip off her. That’s new. She’s never carried a scent like that before, even when she lived with her father.

Immediately, I grab her from my brother roughly, in a possessive move that makes her groan in protest. “Mine!”

“Be careful, Declan, you idiot. I wasn’t trying to keep her from you. She’s hurt, and you throwing her around like a barbarian isn’t going to help her heal.” Ash holds up his hands, skirting around me as he makes his way to the dragon I left in the streets.

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