“We shouldn’t stay here and wait for him,” Zoa said. “He’s going to destroy everything.”
“He won’t.”
“He could,” she whispered, exasperated. What if that happened? How would she ever forgive herself? Surely, there must be another way of locating Kellen.
“He won’t,” Declan said. He seemed to sense her anxiety, because it only took him two strides to reach her, and then he was kissing her. Instantly, all of her fear melted away, and she was caught up in the fact that he adored her. “He won’t.”
THAT NIGHT, ZOA AND Declan made love slowly and sweetly. When they were done, they held each other for a long time, but neither one of them talked. There wasn’t really anything to say. They didn’t know where Kellen had gone. He probably owned a lot of properties, and he most likely had them all under different names and shell corporations. Figuring out where those locations were would take time, though, and that was something they didn’t have.
Zoa knew where the office was that Kellen had first taken her. She’d suspected that perhaps Kellen had gone there to hide out, but Declan had sent one of his employees to check it out, and she hadn’t seen anything. In fact, she’d reported to him that the location had been completely emptied out. Zoa wondered if that meant it hadn’t ever been a real office space at all. She felt even more dumb, if that was even possible.
Declan didn’t seem worried about his plan to simply wait until Kellen attacked and then to defend his home, but it didn’t sit right with Zoa. Kellen was a dick. He was also wildly clever. If he knew where they were hiding, it was only a matter of time before he came to them, sure, but there was going to be a twist. There was always a twist.
It was nearly 2AM when Christopher knocked on the door to the bedroom and pushed it open.
“Hey,” he said, popping his head into the room. “It’s time.”
So, Kellen was almost there. He’d waited until the middle of the night, then he’d come. Zoa understood the plan, and she knew perfectly well what her mate and his two brothers were capable of, but she still found herself scared and nervous about what was going to happen next.
Declan was awake beside her. He reached for her and squeezed her hand.
“It’ll be fine,” he said. Then they headed downstairs where Brian was waiting. Together, the four of them left the little treehouse and wandered out into the woods a safe distance away. They could still see the treehouse clearly, but they were hidden beneath the cover of darkness.
Declan kept checking his tablet. He could see that there was a dragon flying in low. It was hovering just above the trees as it made its way toward the treehouse. When the dragon was almost directly above the treehouse, Declan handed the tablet to Christopher.
“Watch for any additional players,” he said. They weren’t sure whether Kellen would actually appear tonight, or whether he’d just bring the dragon to do his dirty work. Either way, the dragon brothers were ready.
Brian and Declan charged toward the treehouse, shifting as they ran. They leapt up toward the dragon and started to fight right there above the treehouse. Zoa was amazed as they watched the three dragons growling at each other. She’d never seen anything like it before. The sounds and the howls were insane to her as they fought over and over. They were hitting each other and slamming into one another. One dragon would barrel toward another in the air, and then the other one would react.
Soon another dragon approached, joining the fight. Zoa couldn’t tell whether it was fighting against Declan and Brian or with them. It was impossible to tell, and soon the sky was filled with the sounds of the fight. The dragons were soaring into one another, hitting each other repeatedly, yet somehow, none of them fell. They managed to stay right in the air where they belonged.
Then another dragon came.
And another.
“Shit,” Christopher muttered. He looked at the tablet again. Zoa peered over and saw what Christopher was looking at. Alarms were going off throughout the forest, but not because there were a lot of people. After all, Kellen had killed a lot of his men. No, the alarms were going off because there were even more dragons approaching the treehouse. “Hold this,” Christopher shoved the tablet into Zoa’s hands. “And don’t move.”
Christopher took off, shifting, too. He leapt up and started fighting with his brothers. The dragons were growling and hissing at each other in the air. None of them were breathing fire, but occasionally, one of them would let out a loud howl and smack another with its tail or its wings. Zoa tried not to panic or freak out. Instead, she looked down at the tablet.
“Strange,” she muttered. Why were so many dragons coming here? Tonight? It seemed like this was a quiet place most of the time. If Kellen’s men had come to attack, that would have been one thing, but from Zoa’s point of view, it didn’t look like the dragons were attacking the Monster brothers. They were kind of just attacking everyone.
There was a buzzing sound from beside her. Christopher had left his phone when he’d gone to fight with the others, and she reached for it. There was an alert on the phone, so Zoa didn’t even
need to unlock it to read what it said.
EMERGENCY IN SAPPHIRE FOREST. EMERGENCY. A DRAGON IS IN DANGER. ALL ABLE-BODIED SHIFTERS REQUESTED TO ASSIST. REPEAT. A DRAGON IS IN DANGER.
The alert went on, but Zoa’s heart sunk. So that was it. That was the twist. This wasn’t a group of dragons who were all evil and trying to kill Declan. Aside from the very first dragon that arrived, the light blue one who worked for Kellen, these were citizens of Sapphire Island. They probably knew Declan and his brothers. They were probably trying to help.
They just didn’t know what the problem was. They’d shown up and seen a fight, and they’d joined in. Apparently, dragons were unable to resist a good fight. Crap.
“Hey!” Zoa stepped forward to call out to them. She started walking toward the treehouse. How could she get their attention? She had to let them know that whatever was happening wasn’t the reality. They needed to stop fighting because Kellen was trying to distract them for some reason.
What if she launched some sort of firework?
Or maybe she could shoot off a flare.
She didn’t have anything, though. She didn’t have anything except her voice. She opened her mouth and screamed, but the dragons were too loud. They were making wild, horrible noises, and not a single one of them noticed her.