I uncloaked at the same time as Dex and Archer.
Our display was a show of power, because these creatures clearly believed we had none.
Since I was alighting in their midst, however, it was me they saw first.
Dex and Archer were both landing on the rooftop.
I landed within the ring of fire I threw with my tail. Another showy demonstration that was completely unnecessary. I didn’t need the protection of the fire.
But these assholes seemed to have no understanding that dragons could fly, and I seriously doubted their understanding of our ability to throw fire.
I was happy to educate them, especially since my woman wanted me to keep the casualties to a minimum.
“You called a reckoning.” I imbued my human speaking voice with the rumble of my dragon’s voice. Also unnecessary, but it made for an intimidating display.
And it seemed I was all about the intimidation factor today. I swallowed a sigh. Anything for my woman.
Sal stepped forward flanked by a man and a woman. “You stole my woman.”
I dropped the dragon growl and spoke in my natural voice. “She was never yours.”
“Lie. You said you’d claimed her, but I checked. You hadn’t. If she’s unclaimed, then my claim is valid.”
Did the rats truly take whatever they wished? With or without consent? I’d promised only to incinerate them as a last resort, but fire was a malleable magical weapon.
I threw fire at him. My goal was pain, not damage. My mate didn’t want bodies, and by the traditional terms of a reckoning, I was restricted to nonlethal acts until a just end was attempted.
He screamed, like the weak bully he was.
Several of his minions moved closer; two even fired on me with their weapons. Bullets couldn’t penetrate my magically reinforced scales or pass through the ring of fire that encircled me, but good to see where they stood on abiding by the reckoning’s nonlethal engagement policy.
I hadn’t asserted lethal force.
When I’d made my point—no more than two, perhaps three seconds—I called my flame back to me. But not before I’d assured myself with a glance that Taylor was protected from gunfire.
She was safely tucked behind Dex’s wing.
“You son of a bitch. What did you do to me?” The rat panted, and sweat dripped down his face.
Clearly he’d never tasted a dragon’s fire.
No knowledge of our flight or our fire. Were the rat shifters’ memories so short? If knowledge of dragons wasn’t within their own experience, then it should have been passed from the previous generation.
Or had it been so long since a dragon occupied territory in Texas?
“I gave you a taste of my fire.” I turned my attention from the pathetic excuse of a leader to his people. “A taste that caused no damage, per the traditional terms of the reckoning.”
That got Sal’s attention, because his people had technically violated those terms by firing on me. They sure as hell hadn’t known their guns were useless against my fire and my armor.
“I seek justice,” he replied, referencing the reckoning tradition, as I had. “I want what you stole from me.”
“She’s not yours,” I growled, and I knew my eyes glowed green with my magic. “She will never be yours. She is mine.”
With luck, she wouldn’t remove my balls for saying that, because with the acoustics here, she could hear every word.
She hadn’t agreed to be my mate. She hadn’t agreed to be bound to me, soul to soul, for the span of our lives. In my heart, I thought of her as mine, but she could only truly be mine if she gave herself to me, even if we were already bound on some level.
She might never agree.
That was a torment I didn’t want to contemplate, especially since the unequivocal truth was that I was hers.
“You can’t have her,” Sal replied, a manic light in his eyes.
The rat had lost all reason.
Or he wished to die.
He continued, as if the words he spoke were truth itself. “You hide behind your beast form and your magic fire. Face me like a man.”
We were shifters. There was no shame in our beastly forms.
Or…I had none in mine.
But the rat’s poor attempt to prick my pride was simply a ruse. He wished to meet on equal footing. He was blind to the fact we would never be equals. Strip me of my fangs, my claws, my armor, and my fire, and I would still squash him like the bug he was. I was twice the man that Sal Green was, though that was hardly a claim to be proud of.
I glanced up at the building. Taylor was still safely ensconced behind the protective shield of Dex’s wing.
Archer was curled in a ball. The bastard looked like he was half asleep. He wasn’t, but the message was clear, that I had this situation well in hand.
Good thing I knew he could still protect my woman, even looking like an overgrown napping lizard.
I called the ring of fire back to me and shifted to my human form.
I stood before him, no less a man for lack of a shield and armor.
And Sal Green was just as pathetic a piece of shit today as the day he’d groped my woman’s ass.
I let my anger leach into my eyes.
They no longer glowed. They burned with green fire.
“I’m done with this farce. Apologize to my woman for your offense.”
“I only took what was offered,” the rat spat out.
And he believed that, the pathetic fuck.
I raised my hand to throw fire, because this farce had gone on far too long.
“Parley!” The call came from one of the rat’s seconds, the woman.
Sal Green I’d have ignored. He lied and lacked all honor. But his second I’d hear out.
“You have no authority,” Sal hissed to the woman.
“And you have no sense.” She turned to me. “We wish to parley.”
Sal’s face was turning reddish-purple. Given that rats were susceptible to mortal injury and illness, it occurred to me he might be suffering a health crisis.
One could hope.
Indicating Sal with a chin thrust in his direction, I replied, “You sure about that?”
Holding my gaze, the second motioned two men forward. “I speak for my people.”
And since those two men secured Sal with his arms behind his back, it looked like she did.
“You called the reckoning.” I eyed the horde’s former leader. How had this pathetic excuse for a shifter ever risen to leadership? “So speak your demands.”
“You stole my woman,” Sal spat. “I’ll have her back.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t have to.
Sal’s second spoke. “She’s his mate.” Looking between us, she added, “If she is his mate, she can’t be your woman.”
“This morning, she was unclaimed. She didn’t have a trace of his scent. Even if he’s fucked her, my prior claim is superior.”
Did these rats have any honor? Any respect for women?
By his twisted logic, naming a woman a man’s property made it so. And following that unsound reasoning, I had prior claim.
I addressed my remarks to the woman, since she seemed to have some hold on sanity, unlike Sal. “I claimed Taylor weeks ago. He was informed that she was mine, and that if he touched her again I would kill him.”
“Touched her?” The second’s eyes glimmered with red. “Again?”
An honorable rat? I considered my limited past dealings with their kind. I hadn’t met many, but they weren’t lacking in honor as a rule…merely as an inclination.
I’d allowed Sal’s dishonorable actions to color my view of his people. Though, in fairness, I’d also predicted his weak hold over them.
Taylor’s voice, loud and strong, called out, “He touched my peach.”
The second looked up at the building and then to me in confusion. It appeared that “peach” was not a commonly used term for a woman’s ass within the rat horde.
“He squeezed her ass when she leaned over the bar, after which I informed him that Taylor was mine.” Again, I had the fleeting thought that I liked my balls and didn’t want to lose them. “And that I’d kill him if he touched her again.”
“Is this true?” the second asked.
And for the first time since this fiasco of a reckoning had begun, Sal Green showed signs of fear.
“I can see it is,” the second spoke calmly.
She just as calmly, though with preternatural speed, produced a knife.
I recognized the second’s intent and threw fire to create a wall between us and the building. Taylor didn’t need to see Sal bleed.
With a quick slash, Sal’s second slit her former leader’s throat.
Unlike dragons, rats lived a mortal span of life and were susceptible to a mortal death.
Beyond the incompetence of this horde in accepting someone as unworthy as Sal Green as their leader, their mortal span of life was the underlying issue at play today.
The horde was populated by mortal creatures with lifespans of seventy to perhaps a hundred years. They had no memory of the time when dragons ruled over all other shifters.
Of a time when we’d been kings.
That time had long passed, and I wasn’t sorry it had faded away into myth.
But dragonkind hadn’t faded away.
We were here.
We were strong.
And we protected our own.
“Bain Tolliver!”
Shit. My woman was pissed. I needed to wrap this up.
“Bain?” The horde’s new leader waited for me to acknowledge her.
“And you are?”
“Sasha.” She extended her hand. “We officially withdraw our call for the reckoning and appreciate your restraint in not pursuing retaliation for Sal’s false claims.”
Sal’s false claims, not the horde’s. Already she was making better choices than the man whose blood pooled at our feet.
Also, I hadn’t made any promises, but I didn’t argue. I had no intentions of slaughtering a bunch of rats because they’d chosen a shit leader. And that wasn’t even in deference to Taylor’s sensitive and generous heart.
Not being an idiot, unlike Sal, she knew when her horde was outgunned. She was also a born politician, because before we parted ways, she slipped me her business card and implied that the horde would be open to a friendlier relationship in the future.
At least it looked like they’d get their happy ending. A better leader, a more secure future.
Me?
That was a question yet to be answered. I shifted.