Fury of Ice (25 page)

Goddamn, he was fucked. In an endless freefall. Tumbling so fast he was in for the mother of all face-plants if he didn’t pull his head out of his ass. And his body out of the nosedive.

He thrust his wings out, using the webbing like a parachute. Air caught and held. Rushing into an updraft, he flipped in midair and made a tight turn. Thank God. He was airborne again, able to maneuver, gain speed, avoid the enemy.

Bleeding like a sieve from innumerable places, he searched the sky and—

Motherfuck. The yellow-scaled pissant was persistent. And as the Razorback came at him again, Mac dodged, avoiding another body shot as he flew around the curve of a water tower. Another rogue met him on the other side. Brown with a horn in the center of his forehead, the rogue swiped at him. Mac twisted, trying to compensate, his newfound dragon instincts screaming in warning.

Too late.

The Razorbacks were smart, working in tandem, tag-teaming him—one herding him from behind, one coming at him head-on—using his inexperience and their skill to hem him in.

Dark eyes aglow, the brown dragon exhaled. A thick, green cloud shot from his mouth. Noxious fumes rolled out in front of him. The cityscape faded behind the toxic fog. The yellow Razorback banked hard, dodging behind Mac, splitting wide right, and…

Bam.

The toxin hit Mac full in the face. He gagged. His throat closed as his lungs seized. Pain squeezed around his rib cage, made his eyes water and…oh, man. The stuff smelled nasty and tasted worse, a bad mix of dead fish, Pepto-Bismol, and paint thinner.

Racked by a fit of coughing, Mac wing-flapped, desperate to gain altitude. The rogue inhaled again. Mac flew harder, chest heaving, struggling to get out of the way. Goddamn. This wasn’t good. He had a bull’s-eye on his forehead, and he’d lost momentum. He might as well pin a frickin’ sign to his chest. One that said, “Hit me here. Kill me dead.”

A second before the rogue hammered him again, movement flashed in his periphery. A white streak, more blur than actual substance, rocketed passed him. Frost rolled in its wake, blanketing the air, icing up building facades, killing the poisonous gas. The brown-scaled rogue shrieked, trying to change course.

But Rikar was faster. With a nifty flip, his XO grabbed hold and torqued the rogue into a full-body twist. The tilt-a-whirl took both males up and over before Rikar let go, hurling the asshole like a shot-putter and—

Clang!

The sound warped the air as the enemy dragon collided with the water tower skull-first. The rogue’s neck whiplashed, but the hard-headed asshole didn’t fall. He bounced, rebounding off the steel. Shaking off the should’ve-been concussion, the male growled and came back for more.

“Mac!
Go!”
Rikar shouted.
“Get out of here!”

Mac snarled. No way. Not in this lifetime.

He refused to leave Rikar. So he was inexperienced. Didn’t know what he was doing. Could hardly tell his claws from his tail. Big deal. There were too many Razorbacks. B and Rikar needed him. So fuck it. Whether his XO liked it or not, Mac was sticking around. If nothing else, he was an excellent distraction. With Jackass and Fuck-Face chasing him around, the bastards wouldn’t be able to blindside his friends.

Stupid, crazy-ass idea? Maybe. A serious case of ego? Absolutely.

But no retreat meant
no retreat
. And Mac had something to prove. Even without dragon combat training, he belonged here. Among the Nightfuries in the heat of battle. He felt it keenly, knew it deep down where truth lived and honor made a home.

“Rikar,”
he said, firing up mind-speak.
“Split wide right.”

Rikar growled a warning.

Mac didn’t care. All he wanted was—

Rikar banked right.

The second his XO cleared the line of fire, Mac exhaled. Water-acid streamed between his fangs. The yellow dragon dove, heading for a rooftop. Shit. He’d missed. Snapping his head around, Mac spotted Fuck-Face. He tucked into a spiral and breathed out again. The Razorback drew up short.

The bastard wasn’t fast enough.

Mac slimed him, coating his left side. As the deadly splatter went to work eating a hole in the Razorback’s wing, the male screamed and plummeted toward the ground. Mac rocketed between two high-rises. Windowpanes rattled as he zeroed in, timed it just right, sliced his enemy on a flyby. The sharp blade of his tail sank deep, cutting through hard scales to reach the beating heart beneath soft flesh. With a sudden implosion, the rogue ashed, turning to dust in the midnight breeze.

“Good boy,”
Rikar said.

“Fuck off
.
”
Frickin’ guy…he could stick his praise up his ass. And rotate.

His XO laughed and, white scales flashing, attacked another Razorback.

Mac swung around and searched the skyline. One down. One to go. His eyes narrowed, but…nothing. No flash of yellow scales. No fireball hurtling through the air. Scanning the alleys between buildings, Mac sped over rooftops, flying fast, looking for the enemy dragon.

“Come on, Jackass,” he murmured. “Come out and play.”

Seconds ticked by, slipping into more. Something flashed in his periphery, and Mac spotted him. Stupid Razorback. Jackass was the same color inside and out. Yellow. The coward was in full retreat, flitting between buildings, using the rooftops for cover as he slunk away from the firefight.

Mac growled. Uh-uh. No way. He refused to let the rogue escape. Not after taking hit after hit from the bastard. The Razorback would pay for each bruise, every cut, all the stitches Mac would need once the fighting was over.

Wings spread wide, Mac streaked over an apartment complex, hoping all the balconies were empty. The last thing he needed was to come face-to-fang with a stargazer. If he did, the guy would get a load of something he really didn’t want to see, but without Rikar, he was hopeless in the cloaking department. Didn’t know how to go dark and silent like the other Nightfury warriors.

Man, he really needed to read that handbook. The one entitled
Fangs and Claws: A Rudimentary Guide to All Things Dragon
.

But oh, no. Not him. He didn’t do anything the easy way. Ass-backward was more his style. So when it came to the Razorback up ahead, he planned to do it the hard way. The strategy went something like…

Hit hard. Hit fast. And hope for the best.

Cranking his kill-o-meter all the way to lethal, Mac rolled in hot. Thirty feet out, the yellow dragon’s head snapped around as though the male sensed his approach. Jackass hissed and changed course, wheeling toward him instead of away. Ah, wasn’t that sweet? The rogue wanted to play, and Mac knew the perfect game to teach him. One called kick ass.

As he came within range, Mac lashed out, aiming for the Razorback’s throat. The rogue pulled a roll-and-dive. Fuck. He missed by an inch, catching nothing but air. Not wasting a second, Mac flipped up and over. He struck again. Jackass tucked his wings, but not fast enough. Muscles pulled along Mac’s side as his claws raked yellow scales. Blood sprayed, splashing up his forearm. The rogue shrieked. Mac twisted in midair and hammered the back of Jackass’s skull. His talon cracked against bone. The brutal sound pinged off the steel and glass, reverberated between buildings.

Winging out, the echo reached the ocean.

Mac blinked. Jesus. The ocean.

The perfect plan. A midnight swim
and
a dead rogue. Oh, goody. Two for the price of one.

The Razorback flipped into a tight turn. His speed supersonic, the dragon came at him like a shark, attacking from below. Mac banked hard. Wind whistled in his ears. The smell of saltwater infused him as he flew toward the water.

Thirty seconds away, the bay sparkled beneath the clear sky, choppy waves illuminated by city lights and the full moon. White streaks streamed from Mac’s wing tips, then curled behind him in the cold air. Right on his tail, the wisps blew into the rogue’s face. He caught a flash of fangs from his periphery as Jackass snapped at him.

Mac changed trajectory. Flew hard for Seattle’s shoreline, leading the Razorback where he wanted him to go.

Come on, you little shit
.
Come on
.

Wings vertical, Mac flew between two warehouses. Industrial cranes soared up ahead, dark sticklike silhouettes jutting skyward from a concrete pier. He flew between them. Over stacked shipping containers and a bobbing ocean freighter and…

Eureka. Elliott Bay, dead ahead.

Straightening out, Mac increased his wing speed and glanced over his shoulder. The rogue was still there. Beautiful. Jackass had taken the bait, was staying right on his tail.

Dipping low, Mac came in like a viper over the bay. Fine mist washed over his scales. He breathed deep, loving the scent of ocean brine. With a quick shift, Mac wheeled toward the rogue. Jackass wing-flapped, surprise flaring in his shimmering eyes. Trying to compensate, the Razorback sucked in a breath. An orange ball of flame gathered at the back of his throat. Before he could release it, Mac struck, hitting the rogue head-on.

Timed to perfection, he grabbed the rogue’s tail. Sharp spikes ripping at his talon, Mac yanked hard. The Razorback squawked, clawing at thin air as he got dragged down and—

Splash!

Saltwater rushed over Mac’s scales, filled his nose, his mouth, his lungs, and…

Oh, yeah. That was wicked good. Nothing better than deep blue waves, a whole lot of cold, dark, and wet. Not that the rogue appreciated it. The male was too busy squawking, splashing, flailing around. And as the rogue struggled to lift himself clear of the water, Mac took over.

Baring his fangs, he grabbed the SOB by the scruff of the neck and pushed his head under. A second later, he allowed him to surface. Watched his enemy sputter and heave, beg in the moonlight for his life. But mercy wasn’t part of the plan.

Dunk. Hold under. Let the bastard surface. Listen to him beg.

Mac repeated the roll over and over. When Jackass went limp and begged for death instead of life, he took pity and dove, dragging the rogue deep under the surface of the water.

Jackass had wanted to play. It wasn’t Mac’s fault that he was now in over his head.

The last rogue turned tail and ran, streaking across the night sky like a long-tailed comet. Rikar watched the Razorback bug out, wanting to go after him. Hunt the enemy down. Make ’em pay. That was his motto. But not tonight, apparently. He had bigger fish to fry.

One that Bastian kept insisting was his responsibility—lucky him—but the addition to his to-do list was the least of his problems at the moment.

He couldn’t see Mac anywhere. Had lost sight of the male in the cityscape while slashing the turquoise dragon’s throat. Hmm, such a
nice
memory. Too bad the here-and-now wasn’t as pleasant. Where the hell had their new boy gone?

Rikar scanned the dark horizon where land met water. Worry twisted his gut up tight. It didn’t make any sense. He should be able to track the cop. Feel him from anywhere.

He’d connected to Mac’s core energy while getting him through the change
.
Now he recognized the guy’s vibe as well as he did his Nightfury brothers’. Unique to the individual, each male possessed a signature, a signal they sent into the world like radio waves. Once a male linked to another, he could track a fellow dragon for hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles.

Made it hard to disappear. Get good and ghost if a male close to you didn’t like the endgame. Shit. He should know. B had come after him a time or two. Of course, the opposite was also true.

So, yeah. Getting a lock on Mac should’ve been easy. But
easy
wasn’t in the mix. The male’s signal was muffled by something, a thick barrier that distorted the beacon. But at least Rikar could feel him now, and that meant their boy wasn’t dead. Yet.

That might change, though, when he got his hands on him.

The male had disobeyed a direct order. Refusing to retreat when he told him to. Rikar frowned. Freaking cop. Mac had balls made of steel. And although he respected him for it, an equal and opposite reaction had him by the throat. One that wanted him to rearrange Mac’s face for scaring the hell out of him.

Rikar shook his head and kept searching, mining Mac’s energy vibe. God, he’d almost lost the male tonight. One false move and Mac would’ve been nothing but ash. Another urn on a shelf. Another name carved into the wall inside Black Diamond’s Hall of Memories.

Reveling in the night chill, Rikar exhaled long and smooth. Frost rolled between his fangs. The icy mist washed out in front of him, then blew back to coat his scales as he increased his wing speed. Wood smoke and the smell of furnace oil drifted on the autumn air, held high by the north wind drifting in over the city. In another month winter would come, settling over Seattle like a frosty blanket of mmm, mmm good.