Page 90 of Captured By the Dragon Warlord
I can’t tell if Dexx is winning or not, but it feels like my insides have been ripped out. I don’t know what this means for the babies. I can only hope they are okay. They have to be okay. Dexx has to be okay. Fate is supposed to be on our side. It has to be.
As my eyes close for the final time, I think Dexx must be winning as there are multiple fireballs lighting up the neutral sector. I want to stay conscious, to be here, in the moment, for him, but I’m fighting a losing battle against my own body, against the pain which wracks it, against the light which hurts my eyes now.
I cannot leave Dexx, but I am.
DEXX
“You chose wrong,” the shadow hisses into my ear.
“I chose my mate. And I choose the Sarkarnii.” I struggle to grip the thing, to maintain my hold on it, to keep it away from Scarlett.
If it is frightened of the human females, then I will protect my mate until my last ever breath. Humans may be small, but they are fierce, and Scarlett ismine.
“The Sarkarnii belong to us,” the thing I’m holding hisses.
“Which is where you are wrong. No matter what you do to us, the Sarkarnii belong to the Sarkarnii.” I duck my head as Dalox lets rip with a flame of epic proportions, searing over my hide with no injury but hitting the shadow directly, making parts of it solid.
Solid enough for me to get my teeth into, so I do, because I can see Scarlett below me and she isn’t moving.
Rage descends. A rage so primal, so feral I thought I’d lost it a long time ago.
No one hurts my mate.
No one threatens my clan.
No one takes a Sarkarnii.
“It’s time,” the shadow entity says.
“You had better nevving believe it is time,” I snarl, snapping at the thing, breaking lumps off it and spitting them into the air, to flame them out of existence. “Time you understood you can’t play with a Sarkarnii warlord. You kill us or you are killed by us.”
Around me, the remainder of the warlords circle. Each one releases his own flame. I feel the entity fight me, only this time it isn’t trying to subdue.
It’s trying to escape.
“Too late,” I growl, flinging it into the air and firing a sheet of pure fire, the hottest I can muster, at the swirling shadow.
It squeals. Whilst it might appear to be mist, it is not, and it can be damaged. The other warlords join me in spitting fire at it.
Any desire I had for answers went in the moment I had to destroy the shadow to get to my mate. Whatever it is, whatever it ultimately wanted, I do not care.
I have to get to Scarlett.
I dive down to her body. Her chest rises and falls with a ragged breath, and I scoop her into one of my huge paws, clutching her to me.
“Hold on, little mate,” I rasp. “Stay with me.”
Above, there is a thin, long screech, cut off abruptly, and one by one, the warlords land, shifting into their biped forms. Darax rushes into his sector, no doubt going to check on his mate. Dalox stares at the female in my arms.
“Shift and assist her,” he says. “Give her your venom and your claim. Save her.”
“I cannot. This is the form I have chosen. If I bite her, I will kill her.”
Dalox snorts and turns away from me, shifting out his wings and beating away to his sector.
Dante and Driok stare at the female I clutch to me.
“You chose to stay shifted?” Dante asks and shivers. “Forever?”
