“Why are they staring me down?” I was proud that my voice didn’t tremor. They wore the look of a predator – well, four predators to be exact – who all seemed to have found what they were hunting.
Footsteps echoed from the back of the room, near the elevators. I wanted to spin around, hating anyone unknown coming at my back, but the far greater danger was in front of me. I didn’t turn from the dome.
A high, familiar voice sounded across the space. “They are the same as the others, they are not natural. They need to be eliminated.”
Okay, now I was turning around. No one talked about eliminating my boys without getting their ass kicked. Louis and Jonathon fell in beside me as we faced off with the fruit twins. And Mischa. My sister had clearly run straight back into the arms of those crazy ass bitches. I glared at Mischa, who remained quiet but didn’t back down from her place in the terrible trio.
“They are unnatural,” Orange said again.
Her words triggered a memory. This moment screamed of the dragon dream – where I’d stood on the opposite sides to Mischa in a war I knew nothing of. Those obscure references which had scared me, made sense now. They’d been talking about the Compasses. Didn’t these bitches know I would never turn on the quads? Not in this life, the next or the one after that.
“There are only two unnatural things in this room,” I said, “and neither of them are inside that dome.” I was determined not to reveal an ounce of my worry or fear but the reality was, the fruit twins were complete and total unknown elements and they did actually scare me a little. Loose cannons are always tough to judge, and I already knew they were slimy and scheming. I preferred foes who came straight at me, I wasn’t great with underhanded. I wished we could have just killed them, but since murder was frowned upon in the supernatural world and I still had a trial pending in Stratford, I probably should find a more diplomatic solution.
Lemon took over the bullshit advice. “You will see tomorrow, there are greater things awaiting you than being mated to a dragon shifter. After we retrieve the weapon from Krakov, you will have little loyalty to those abominations.”
Louis and Jonathon both reached out at the same time and captured my arms. I looked down to find my hands partially shifted into claws and my knees bent.
“Let me go!” I snarled, my voice deeper as my anger took control. “Let. Me. Go!”
My voice was suddenly overpowered by another, a roar much louder, darker, and spine chillingly scary. Braxton had moved forward in the protective dome, standing as close as he could to the edge without touching the white beams of energy – both hands clenched at his side, eyes locked on me like a heat-seeking-missile.
Air whooshed around me as Louis and Jonathon stepped away, both of them holding their arms aloft.
“No one is touching her, Braxton.” Jonathon was using his calm-down-crazy-shifter voice.
The moment I realized that Braxton’s reaction was about me, slivers of cool started to thread through my previous rage. Now, I couldn’t focus on anything but my mate; his expression was terrifying me to my very core. And apparently I wasn’t the only one. Hearing a scuffle, I whipped back around and all I saw of the terrible trio was the ass ends of them as they scurried into the elevator.
Weak. I’d scented weakness on them from the start, and this fatal flaw was why they actually worried me. They would not come at me with honor, they would lie, cheat, and manipulate to get what they wanted. My biggest disappointment was Mischa.
She was a Lebron. Wolves do not cower in the shadow of others. We’re a pack, we stick together, we don’t lie with snakes. You lie with snakes, you either become a snake, or you get bitten and die.
I was guessing that Lienda either hadn’t found her or Mischa had ignored our mother. It was time for someone to have a slightly stronger chat with her. Judging by the expression on Jonathon’s face, and the low rumbles that spurted from his throat every so often, he was going to be the one. She would learn the power of an alpha wolf, that was for sure. The leniency she’d been receiving was about to come to a swift end.
I hadn’t forgotten about Braxton. I was giving him a few moments to calm down. But when I couldn’t keep my eyes from him for any longer … holy crap on crackers – okay, there’d been no calming. He’d separated himself from his brothers, blue flames licking across his tawny skin. Still right on the edge of the barrier.
As soon as we locked eyes, I couldn’t stop myself from stepping toward him. The scent of fear was filling the room. Everyone was afraid. Even Jacob, Tyson and Maximus were keeping a decent distance between them and their brother.
It was a struggle to pull my eyes from the semi-shifted dragon-fire-ball in front of me but I did look away long enough to see that the other Compasses were back to their own hair colors. Why was Braxton still twice his regular size? He remained in a semi state of fusion, minus the scales.