Page 12 of Bite Me

They’d had some success interrogating a demon dragon when one of Jakob’s lieutenants, Steele, had been fighting for his mate.

The two times Ky knew of that demon dragons with enhanced abilities had attacked were around the time Jakob had mated Ciara and Steele had mated Fleur.

Holy shit.

The attacks were connected to Dragon Warriors’ mates. This could be the first real insight they had into the gift of true mates for the greens and how the influx of demon dragon attacks was connected.

The kidnapped Mami Wata must be the mate of a green dragon.

Poor Azynsa.

A mermaid and a green dragon with power of earth, a match made in mud. Literally.

But, first they needed to interrogate the prisoner and find out what they could, so they could mount a rescue.

“The only good demon dragon,”— Match blew an intense burst of dragon fire at the beast-come-ice sculpture, incinerating both instantly, “— is a dead one.”

Fucking hell.

“Huh huh huh ha,” Cage chuckled in Ky’s head. “Fucking red dragons.”

Cage’s tone was light, but his voice was weak.

Ky glared at Match, then said to Jakob, “Take me to Cage.”

Jakob led the way into the manor’s imposing front hall with the Italian marble stairway. Gold dragons did love to flaunt their treasure right out in the open.

Cage might have a Victorian fireplace for the reds, a French garden for the greens, and an indoor-outdoor pool for the blues, but they all knew that perfectly temperature-controlled wine cellar was only the façade for the largest treasure hoard among them.

Ky wouldn’t trade his place in Kenepuru Sound for this kind of opulence. His vineyards supplied half of Cage’s wine cellar, and a cavern hidden in one of the hundreds of inlets in the sound was a better hiding place for treasure than a fancy pants house.

Jakob pushed open the doors to a bedroom suite with a glass domed ceiling and decorated in so much yellowy gold it practically glowed.

Holy First Dragon, one of the biggest, baddest, toughest warriors Ky had ever known looked like shit had eaten him for breakfast and spit him back out.

Cage, pale as a sparkling vampire, leaned against the wall next to a window overlooking the pond. “Damn it, Cage, get back in bed,” Match growled.

Cage flipped him off, and embraced Ky in a weak, clap on the back man hug.

“What the fuck, bro?” Ky looked Cage up and down. His brother Wyvern was only two-hundred and a few years old. Barely a half century into his prime and not that much older than Ky or Jakob. So, why did he look at if he was pushing his wisdom years to the brink of six hundred?

“Demon got my soul.”

Ky glanced to where Cage’s golden soul shard should have been hanging on a cord around his neck. The sight of only a deep wound sent the bottom of Ky’s stomach dropping to the floor and bouncing back up into his throat.

“Bugger me.”

No dragon in the history of, well, dragons, had ever lost or had their soul shard stolen. They couldn’t be taken, only given. Ky grabbed his own blue shard.

It was every dragon’s most prized possession. A small piece of the First Dragon’s soul mixed with their own. It gave them the ability to shift from dragon to human.

Jakob no longer wore his shard around his neck. He’d gifted it to Ciara when he’d claimed her. Now, it was his mate’s to protect.

When he’d done that, Jakob’s powers had increased. Cage’s power, his essence, was fading right before Ky’s eyes.

Cage leaned hard on Ky, trying to stay upright, show he was still a Wyvern. They had to do everything they could to restore Cage’s shard.

Was this related to the attack on the Mami Wata? The demon dragon attacks were getting more daring with each new mate found by a Dragon Warrior.