Puff stomped his front talons on the cave floor. His menacing growl reverberated through the room. The crowd retreated, some reaching the back of the cavern.
Nik splayed his hands. “Whoa, boss, get a grip. No one is going anywhere.” He turned toward Anna. “He says if you leave, the other dragons will find you.”
Puff grunted. A vision of a woman lying in a pool of blood with a newborn dragon beside her flashed through Nik’s mind. He froze as the memory focused on her wide, vacant eyes. A large gray dragon lumbered forward, nudged the baby toward the corpse, and coerced the fledgling to eat. Nik dropped to the floor and retched.
The memory darkened as the dragon’s muzzle touched Nik’s side. *I won’t let that happen to her.*
Shit, this was serious. Those gray dragons killed their mates when they were done with them. Anna needed to know Puff was the safer choice, but freaking her out more than she already was wasn’t the best idea, either.
Nik took a towel offered by someone and wiped his face before he looked up. “Anna, I get that you’re scared.”
Her eyes were wild. “Do you? You’re all nuts. Every stinking one of you. I want to go home.” She twisted in Pop’s grip. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at Puff. “Please, I’m sure you are a perfectly nice dragon, but you can’t do this. It’s not right. I want to go home.”
Someone behind her grumbled that repeating herself wasn’t going to make something magically happen.
Nik cringed. He loved his people, but they needed to understand this from the poor girl’s perspective. She obviously didn’t believe Puff could shift. She probably thought they were asking her to commit bestiality.
“Okay,” Nik said, then stopped. Had he spoken aloud? He didn’t think so, but then again, his words weren’t his own anymore.
He turned to the dragon. “Did you say that? What do you mean, okay?”
A deep sense of loss overcame Nik as Puff headed toward the still stoned-in entrance.
The Maori stepped back, giving him room as Puff grabbed a boulder from the center of the pile and pulled. His tail twitched, but the mound only creaked. Puff opened his mouth and howled at the doorway. The sound echoed through the chamber, bouncing off walls. Many dropped to their knees, grabbing their ears.
Nik tried to calm the swirl of emotions jack-hammering across their bond. He eased toward the screaming dragon. “Boss, you okay?”
Puff snapped at Nik before he threw his good shoulder at the wall, tumbling the upper rocks outward. When the light gleamed through the top of the mound, he pressed his front talons into the pile and the boulders rolled outward. Men on the outside shouted to stop, but Puff hoisted himself onto the mound and squeezed through the opening near the ceiling.
Outside, men continued to shout over the grating sounds of the boulders scratching beneath Puff’s talons. The dragon’s immense form closed out the sunlight for a few moments before he pushed his way through. His tail was the last to disappear, leaving a gaping hole at the top of the entrance.
The men continued to shout outside. Two words carried through the commotion.
Another dragon.
Sweat instantly dampened Nik’s brow. They’d been found.
His heart pounded in time with his erratic gasps as he clawed to the top of the boulders and slid through the hole. He squinted in the early morning heat, shielding his eyes as the three men they’d left outside circled Puff, yelling and pointing back to the cave.
Puff opened his jaws and bellowed at them. The men fell silent, until Puff’s howl was answered from somewhere far above.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you,” one man said to Puff. “Another dragon has been circling all morning. That’s why we haven’t given the all-clear.”
Nik slid, tumbling down the boulders. He cried out, and Puff shoved his shimmering tail beneath his Kotahi, cushioning Nik’s fall.
Heart rattling, Nik paused for three seconds and confirmed there was nothing broken, before the terror in the eyes of the men around them sunk in.
“Are you sure it was a dragon?” Nik slid to the sandy ground.
“Look.” One of the men pointed to the sky.
Miles above, a small winged creature glided through the air.
Nik shielded his eyes. “That’s a bird.”
“It’s not. You have no idea how high that is. We saw him circle lower. Believe me, it’s a dragon.”
The creature above swerved. It looked like it rolled through the air, playing in a way he’d never seen a bird fly before—as if it were enjoying the flight, rather than simply stalking prey.
Even so, that made him no less a hunter.
Nik placed his hand on Puff’s neck. “Boss, we need to get you inside. That dragon—”
“Already saw us.” Pops stood by the small human entrance to the cave, his right hand shielding his eyes as he looked toward the sky, where the huge winged creature swooped toward them.