Destined Dragons: BBW Paranormal Romance (Dragons of New York Book 3) (8 page)

Sterling. That was it. Sterling hadn’t been taken. He could find them. She could use her dragon powers to call to him. She listened in her mind but didn’t hear him. Where was he?

Sterling
, she called out, hoping he could hear.
We need you. We need you now. Come find us, and we can work out the rest later. Gentry’s… Gentry’s hurt.

She heard the screech of a dragon from the direction of the mansion. Heard things breaking. Whatever had taken them, there were more in the castle, and they were fighting Sterling.

She could see Gentry hanging unconscious in the claws of something to her side. There were other dragons out there, weren’t there? There had to be. What had Gentry said, that Sterling could call out to other dragon minds?

Maybe she could too.

As she flew through the air, she used her mind to broadcast a call for help as far as she could, until she was completely exhausted.

Then she screamed for Gentry again. This got her a dart in her arm, and then everything went black.

R
oxy heard
Gentry calling her name just hours later.

“Roxy. Roxy, can you hear me?” his voice sounded weak, pained, and when she blinked and opened her eyes, she was shocked by how pale he was.

She looked to his arm, where his robe was torn, and saw a nasty bite with green and purple around it, like toxic veins. “Oh no,” she said.

He pulled her against his chest. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t think they’d try to breach the castle. Didn’t know they knew where it was.”

“What did they use?” she asked. “I heard this boom.”

“I don’t even know,” Gentry said. “Dragons don’t use weaponry like that. We
are
weapons.”

“Gentry, what dragon powers do you have? I mean, I know what Sterling has, but what do you have? Aren’t you the leader?”

Gentry gave her a wry grin, but she recognized guilt in his eyes. “I… I’m afraid I’m pretty useless, aside from my visions and my understanding of other dragons. That’s why it’s been good to have a partner like Sterling.” He sighed. “Now that we’re in this situation, I’m kind of glad he mated you like that. At least you’ll have some protection.” He looked around the dank dungeon walls surrounding them. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’ll fight to the death for you. But…” He looked down at his arm. “I don’t know how much longer that will be.”

“No,” she said. “Don’t say that.” She pulled up his sleeve to get a better look. “Can we suck the poison out? Or what do we do?”

He jerked his arm away. “It’s wyvern poison. There’s nothing you can do.”

“Then what’s going to happen?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’m going to fight to stay conscious so I can fight them if they come for you.”

“Why would they come for me?”

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she understood immediately. “The vision. The one you’ve been having that made Sterling do… what he did. Why didn’t you just tell me what it was?”

“I didn’t want to frighten you. I didn’t want you to feel you made a decision to be with us only because of that. I guess it’s silly, but I wanted you to want us.”

“I do,” she said.

“Even though Sterling betrayed you?” Gentry asked.

She let out a sigh. “I know he had his reasons. It still hurts, but I’ll try to understand. But don’t worry about that right now. Just try to hang in there.”

Gentry nodded. “I’ll do my best. I’m just glad you have powers now. You can use them to fight until Sterling arrives. He’ll be here in time for you. He’s never let me down before.” His head sagged slightly, but he brought it back up through force of will. His purple eyes were dull and glazed. “But don’t let them see. Don’t let them know until the last minute, okay? Wait for the right moment.”

She nodded. Then, because she heard no one around them, she crawled closer and snuggled against his side. “He’ll be here in time for you too,” she said. “I know it.”

Gentry shook his head weakly. “I don’t know. I’ll be happy if just the two of you can get out of here.

She bit her lip in frustration. She felt so helpless. But she had to keep Gentry talking. “Tell me about what happened earlier, in the tub. You and Gentry were talking about picking him…”

Gentry nodded wearily. “Dragons pick partners just out of adolescence. And as purple, my visions make me the most valuable to dragon society. Thus, tradition says I get first pick of dragon cohort.”

She nodded.

“Normally, the pick always goes the same. The purple picks the gold for protection. The black dragon, the most dangerous, picks next. The black dragon contains a poison that slowly poisons itself if not continuously healed, so the black dragon always picks the blue dragon, which is the healer dragon. And then the red dragon, the most physically strong and durable, always picks the silver dragon, the one with the sharpest intelligence.”

“I see,” she said, intrigued.

“But of course, I had to go and screw everything up. You see, Sterling wasn’t born a regular silver dragon. He was stronger, had more powers, and some thought him dangerous. Some wanted to take him. Dragons work in regions, but there are others above us who watch things. They intended to take Sterling and do who knows what to him and give our region another silver dragon.”

“So what happened?”

“I heard them talking about it and told my father, the head of another region, that I would refuse my duties if they broke the tradition of giving me full pick from the dragons in my region.”

“Ah,” she said. “So then you picked Sterling.”

Gentry nodded. His dark hair was damp with sweat and his expression was drawn in pain. But telling the story did seem to help by distracting him. “No one thought I would pick him. The purple picks the gold. That’s how it is.”

She nodded. “So why did you pick him?”

Gentry sighed. “You know, I told him I didn’t do it out of pity, but that was a bit of a lie, at least at first. He was so bright, so strong, and I didn’t want to see something happen to him. You see, I’d seen him around when his dad brought him to the palace where I was raised. I knew we’d be in the same region. When I heard what they were planning… well, I couldn’t pick anyone else.”

She nodded. “It was a noble thing to do.”

“Was it?” he asked. “I did it all to save Sterling, but in the end, Sterling has always been the one saving me.”

“You understand him like no one else does,” she says. “You save him too, every day.”

Gentry’s eyes widened slightly. “I want to continue to save him. I want to keep being his partner. I don’t want to leave him or you.”

“Help will be here soon,” she said, holding him close.

“You know, every partnership in my region has been different because of my pick. No one was paired with who they expected, and it’s been wonderful seeing the amazing things that can work out when people learn to value each other’s strengths.”

She nodded.

“I think I’ve done a good job with my region. I haven’t been perfect, and I’ve made them angry at times, but it’s good to know they’ll be happy, that they have mates.”

“Stop talking like that,” she said.

“It comforts me,” he said. “And knowing that you have Sterling and he has you. It’s been an honor to get to know you.”

“You’re going to keep knowing me,” she insisted, feeling his forehead and hating the clamminess there.

“I think I’m passing out now, from the poison. Remember what I said, Roxy. Fight. Wait until the right moment, and then fight.”

She nodded. “I will.”

Gentry went limp in her arms. She gasped and felt for a pulse. It was still there, still strong. She just had to hope someone would come to rescue them.

She heard voices at the door and looked up as it creaked open. A man with long, dark hair looked down at her, and from the cruel spark in his eyes, she knew this wasn’t a rescuer.

He reached down and jerked her to her feet, and she fought to stay with Gentry, but they pulled her away anyway.

“Stop it,” she yelled. “He needs medical help. He’s going to die.”

The guard threw him a glance. “Suits me. One less dragon will never be something I cry about.”

Roxy tried to slap his face, but he caught her hand and tossed it aside before jerking her in front of him and marching her down the dirty hall.

Don’t worry, Gentry
, she said in her mind.
I’ll finish this and be right back.
In the meantime, she’d pray Sterling found them soon.

S
terling had indeed been sitting
in the attic when he heard the boom of the wall breach. By the time he reacted, he’d seen wyverns flooding through the building, and he’d been determined to stay out of sight until he could figure out a better plan.

Then he heard Roxy call out for him, and he’d had no choice but to spring into action.

He looked around him at the wyvern bodies strewn throughout the room. He’d never been so vicious, but his mate had been calling for him. And Gentry was hurt and needed him. If he was poisoned by wyverns…

But Sterling couldn’t think like that. As much as he regretted hurting Roxy’s feelings, he was at least reassured she had some ability to take on the men who had kidnapped her. He’d have to hope Gentry could take care of himself as well.

He stepped over the bodies of wyverns he’d thrown into walls and those whose skulls he’d crushed in his dragon form. He hadn’t cared about destroying the structure as he’d transformed. They’d have to move after this anyway. All that mattered was getting to his family and getting them back safely.

He picked up a phone and dialed Quill as he stumbled out of the house in his human form, trying to catch his breath. Not that he couldn’t call out mentally, but there was a distance limit on that, and he was tired and needed to save his strength for rescuing his mates.

“Sterling?” Quill asked, sounding concerned. “What’s going on?”

“I need your help,” Sterling rasped into the phone.

“I know,” Quill said. “We were already headed out. We just didn’t know where.”

“What do you mean?” Sterling asked.

“Someone called out to us, using telepathy. We thought it was you, but now that I think about it, it sounded a little too high pitched.”

Roxy. She must have mustered all her strength to put out that kind of a call. Either that or…

“She must be close to you,” Sterling said.

“She?” Quill asked, sounding confused. “Wait, did you find a mate?” His voice was teasing.

“Shut it,” Sterling said. “She’s in trouble. Wyverns broke in and took her and Gentry a few moments ago. I’ve been fighting wyverns until just now.”

“Damn, I thought we took care of them before.”

“We will now,” Sterling said. “For good. Anyway, if they’re out in your direction, I think I know where they would have gone.”

“But how did they know where you lived? No one is supposed to know. I mean, we know where your apartment is where you meet with other dragons, but none of us know—”

“I know,” Sterling said. “We’ll have to figure that out later. For now, shut up and let me give you the coordinates.”

A short pause on the other end and then Quill responded, “All right. Go ahead.”

When he was assured Quill and his healing ability would be on the way in case Gentry had been bitten, Sterling summoned his strength to become a dragon and took off into the air in the direction of his mates.

He’d take them back, and then he’d make everyone pay.

T
he man
who’d taken Roxy led her down the hall and up a set of stairs and into a huge, empty great room where there were many men gathered. Well, men or something else, since in this world, nothing was as it seemed.

The men standing around the room were mangy, wearing clothes that hung on their tall, thin bodies, and they had heated looks in their eyes as she walked past. The feeling in the air made her skin crawl. She purposely closed her mind to their thoughts, not wanting to hear them. She’d realized she could do that too if she concentrated hard enough.

The man tossed her into a chair in the middle of the room, and two other men stepped forward with rope, ignoring her struggles as they wrapped it around her, forcing her back against the huge, wooden chair and then tying her hands behind her.

She remembered Gentry’s advice about not telling them she had powers, so she knew to bide her time. She was fairly confident she could work on the rope without them noticing.

The man in front of her studied her closely. He turned when someone called his name, and she looked behind him to see another man approaching. One who didn’t look like any of the others.

He was tall, with long, stringy white hair and a face that seemed aged beyond his years. Maybe only middle-aged, but scored by deep lines in his pale skin. His eyes were cruel and an icy gray. There was something about him that set him apart from the other men. And she could see he saw himself as above them as well.

The rest of the men looked feral, like they hadn’t bathed in a while. They were all muscular and frightening in their own way, but none of them gave her chills the way this one did.

“Hm,” was all he said when he got to her. He folded his arms and continued to study her, and she could feel her heart beating hard in her chest.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“What I wanted when we first captured you,” he said. He had a faint accent, something European and old-fashioned. “To experiment.”

She blinked as her heart began to pound harder. In her mind, she began to study the ropes binding her wrists.

“What do you mean, experiment?” she spat.

He sighed. “Well, first I’m going to let the wolves have you. I want to see if sexually bonding with a wolf shifter, or multiple wolf shifters, has any effect with a dragon-heart. Then I want to use your blood with the wyverns, see what happens if you share with them. I have so many things I want to do to you,” he said icily, leaning over her, placing his hands on the arms of her chair.

She tried to pull back, but she couldn’t.

The man turned and addressed the room. “She’s so beautiful, no?” he asked. “It won’t be any trouble getting them to take you. And at the end, I’ll have such data.”

She blinked. It all came together in an instant, what or who he was. She could sense it.

“You’re a dragon,” she said. She remembered Sterling telling her wyverns were made from giving other shifters dragon blood, but they didn’t know where they were getting the blood because no one hadn’t been kidnapped in a while. This man was how.

“Yes, I am,” he said. “Silver, as you probably guessed. Not as talented as Sterling. No, I have telekinesis, but not his ability with minds.”

That was good. It meant that now she was part dragon, he hopefully couldn’t read her mind. She studied him for any reaction to that thought, and was reassured when she saw none.

“You’re evil,” she said. “And you won’t get away with this.”

He leaned down and hissed into her ear. “I already have. Just look around you.” He grinned. “Just look in my mind, since I know you can. I know you have Sterling’s power.”

She winced at his acrid breath and did as he said. Images filled her mind, clear as day, and she felt all her courage shatter at what was really intended to happen.

This was what Gentry had been seeing in his dreams. This was what made Sterling bond them without her permission.

And right now, she was only glad that he had.

So much pain, so much suffering. So much helplessness and torture. She closed her eyes against the images as she felt the ropes on her wrists loosen.

She nearly cried in relief. She had a chance to fight, thanks to Sterling. She couldn’t be mad at him anymore. And she was realizing, ever since being in the dungeon with Gentry, or here in the chair waiting for Sterling, that her dreams and her ideas of life had changed.

While captured this time, she hadn’t been thinking about goals she had or recipes to cook. All she’d wanted was for Gentry to be okay and to be able to see Sterling again.

She loved them, it was clear as day. And Gentry loved her, based on him taking that bite for her with the wyverns. And Sterling loved her, based on what he’d done to give her a chance to fight.

She thanked heaven for partners that understood her so well, who could act even when she was too short-sighted to do the same.

She could feel her power getting stronger within her as her emotion grew. Her love for Gentry, who could be dying in the basement right now. Her love for Sterling, who was out there worrying, fighting, or hurt. Maybe all of the above.

She felt power building inside her, like a swirling vortex.

“Feels awful to know what’s coming, doesn’t it?” the man in front of her sneered. He wore a white lab coat that was dirty from wear. Stepping back, he gestured to the men behind him.

“Gentlemen? Be my guests.”

They pushed off the wall and came toward her, just as she screamed and released a blast of energy, knocking them all back. At the same time, she jumped out of the chair, no longer tied.

The white-haired man tried to grab her but she knocked him back, tossing him with more of her energy. He hit the wall and then scrambled away, hiding somewhere in the back of the room behind the crowd. Coward.

The wolves she’d knocked down were slowly picking themselves up, and others seemed to be gathering courage to approach her, when the large window at the top of the ceiling shattered and she had to shield her head as something landed among them with a boom.

She looked up to see Sterling in the room, looking pissed. “What have you done with my partners?” he asked.

“I’m here,” she said.

He ran to her, shielding her with his body, and then released another wave that knocked back the shifters approaching. Walls trembled and cracked from the impact of shifters hitting them.

Sterling’s energy was strong, honed in a way hers wasn’t, and he looked barely tired despite using huge amounts of force.

She felt safe and secure beside him.

“Where’s Gentry?” he asked.

“In the dungeon,” she said. “He’s hurt, we have to get to him.”

“I have Quill, the blue dragon, with me. I’ll tell him telepathically where to look. Show me the image.”

She imagined where Gentry was held and Sterling nodded. “I’ll tell Quill. With his healing powers, it’ll be all right.”

“Thank you,” she said, resting against him for a second in sheer relief. “You’re always there for us.”

“That’s my job,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For upsetting you earlier.” He waved a hand and sent another wave of men crashing backwards. “I don’t regret what I did, because I had to do it, but I regret if it hurt our friendship.”

“It’s more than friendship, Sterling, it’s love. And without what you did, I could be dead right now.”

“You did a good job holding them off until I got here. Now you can rest while I take care of them.”

“No, I’ll fight with you,” she said, catching a man who was approaching from behind.

“Nice one,” he said. “If we don’t see Gentry soon, you’ll need to go find him.”

She nodded.

She heard shouting and turned toward the staircase, seeing a tall blond man and a shorter woman with dark hair rushing into the room.

“Drake,” Sterling said, sounding relieved. “Is Gentry okay?”

“I think so,” he said. “We’re here to help, just tell us what to do.”

“Just kick as much wyvern ass as possible,” Sterling said.

“Aye aye, captain,” the huge man said, saluting. He caught a wyvern with a fist to the face and sent it flying out through the open roof. His mate kicked one into the wall.

She looked at Sterling and they both released waves of energy.

Hopefully they would see Gentry soon.

G
entry woke
to a warm blue glow surrounding him. Was he dying? He’d expected to. He’d gotten everything off his chest with Roxy, and had been confident that Sterling would show up in time to save her and the two of them would be all right.

He saw Quill in front of him, looking beautiful as usual despite the grossness of the basement, and thought he must be hallucinating.

“Quill?” he said vaguely, still feeling the poison inside him. “You don’t regret being paired with Drake, do you?”

Quill sighed. “Please. It’s the best thing to happen to me. We’re all happy in our pairs in your region. Why do you think we all showed up to save your ass?”

Gentry blinked and looked around, trying to make out the other blurry figures. A woman knelt beside him, lending more blue to mix with Quill’s.

The gold and black dragons’ mate, who’d gotten healing power when claimed by them.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said.

Sure enough, he could see Ran and Draven, the gold and black dragons, standing behind the healers.

“Where’s Drake?” Gentry croaked out, feeling slightly stronger as the blue flames flooded through him, pushing out the poison. He was more sure he was going to live now.

“You know Drake,” Quill said gently. “Can’t resist a fight. He and our mate who also got dragon strength headed up to help Sterling with the wyverns.”

“So many wyverns,” Gentry muttered. “It doesn’t make any sense… unless…” Unless they had a dragon on their side.

The second he felt well enough to stand, though still weak, he stumbled to his feet and ran for the door.

He took the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping before Quill caught him, desperate to get to the great room and make sure his partners were okay.

When he got to the great room, he saw chaos breaking out everywhere. In the center of the room was Sterling, standing beside Roxy and tossing people into walls.

He ran forward, needing to be next to them, to see they were safe.

Roxy turned to him, looking tired but exhilarated. “Gentry!” she cried out. “You’re okay.”

“I am now.”

Sterling whipped to look at him for a moment and then turned back to his opponents. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m glad I paired with the silver dragon right about now,” he said wearily. “Without your ability to communicate with dragons, I’d be dead.”

“You’d have been dead lots of times without me,” Sterling said. “But without you, I’d have been worse than dead.”

Gentry felt relief flood him as he put an arm around Roxy to stay standing. None of them were perfect, but somehow, their little group had found something that worked.

Drake and his mate seemed to be handling the rest of the wolves, so Sterling put an arm around Gentry to help Roxy get him to the side of the room where he could sit.

Sterling looked over Gentry carefully while Roxy watched their backs. “They got you good. You’ll need a while to recover. And more time with Quill, definitely.”

Gentry nodded and then began scanning the room. It was strewn with the bodies of shifters Sterling and the others had knocked unconscious. But he was looking for something in particular.

“I think they are working with a dragon,” Roxy said. “It was all his plan.”

Gentry nodded. “I was thinking as much, based on their numbers. But who on earth would do that?”

Across the room, Drake picked someone up by the collar and cursed at him. Then he drug him over by the collar of his white lab coat and dropped him at Gentry and Sterling’s feet.

It was the white-haired man from before.

“What do you want me to do with him?” Drake asked, his voice dripping with disgust. “He’s one of us.”

Gentry sucked in his breath as he looked down at the white-haired man who had to have been donating blood to the wolves to create wyverns. It was the man who had tried to take Sterling from their region when he was younger. A silver dragon who had once been his mentor.

He looked at Sterling, who looked equally shocked but even more disgusted.

“I knew he was evil,” Sterling said. “When I was sent to him for training and he wanted to lock me away in a lab for life, I knew. But I didn’t think he would resort to this.”

Gentry knew what had to be done, but he still hated to do it. He’d lied when he told Roxy he didn’t have any extra powers. Well, he’d technically told the truth, because he didn’t think he had anything that could help them in this situation.

Until now.

The man looked up at him with narrowed, crazy eyes. The eyes of a rabid dog that needed to be put down.

“Do it,” Sterling said. “He’s the cause of all this. He took Roxy… Do it. I won’t forgive you if you don’t.”

“I can’t watch,” Drake said, turning away.

The other two mates turned to their dragons, asking what was happening. As a response, the other dragons turned away.

This was another thing only the purple dragon could bear.

Gentry raised his hand over the man’s chest, watching his eyes widen in his face as a shriek came from deep within him. A white—no, silver vapor rose from his chest as his face began to age even further before their eyes.

The cloud rose up in the shape of a dragon, hovering in the air for a moment before disappearing like smoke in the wind. Everyone in the room could feel the presence of something that was suddenly gone.

It would be reborn again, in a worthier vessel, to bring balance to the dragon world. It was the way things worked.

Gentry looked down at the husk of the man beneath him, still blinking, still furious. “You are no longer a dragon. And now, you die.” He summoned all his strength to toss the man away from him, out the broken window across the room. He strode over to watch the dust that had once been a dragon falling lightly to the ground.