Emmitt was running for it, so close, but Vyr held out his hand, and the tiny needle-capped vial snapped into his palm as fast as a bullet. And in one smooth motion, he slammed it into his arm as he smiled wickedly at Butte. “Run,” he snarled. “Run like the devil’s behind you. Because he is.”
And then the massive red dragon exploded from Vyr’s body. A suffocating wave of power pulsed from him and the walls blasted outward. His Firestarter clicked, and the dragon aimed, and spewed a stream of fire. Butte and Emmitt’s screams filled her head. She didn’t even want to see. Nox’s blond grizzly was sprinting for her, followed closely by Torren’s massive silverback. They reached her just as rubble rained down, and covered her body with theirs.
Flames devoured everything, and the heat blistered her skin. She squeezed her eyes closed and didn’t open them again until her skin cooled. There was nothing left but Vyr, Nox, Torren, her, and piles of ashes covering the floor.
Why wasn’t her body working? Was it the drugs Butte had given her? Or was it her inability to control the enormous white paws with six-inch, curved, razor-sharp black claws that had replaced her blunt human hands? Was her body broken because of the animal? Because of the bear? Or was this what it was like to be frozen in terror?
Beaston and his son had been right. There was fire everywhere. Vyr was indeed total destruction. He stretched his ripped-up, blood-red wings, shielding her and Nox and Torren from the debris that fell from the ceiling as he arched his massive, red-scaled head back and opened his jaws, spraying magma at the roof.
“Fuck,” Torren said in a growling, inhuman voice. “We need to move. He’s gonna level this place.”
He shoved Riyah out from under a massive chunk of ceiling that shattered on the floor with a plume of dust. Light filled the room, and above them, Vyr had blasted a huge hole in the prison to expose the sky. It wasn’t big enough for him to escape. Or so she thought, but just as Torren gripped the scruff of her neck to pull her away, Vyr roared, bunched his muscles, and rocketed up into the sky like an enormous crimson missile, the walls of the prison exploding outward as he escaped his hell.
“Vyr, no!” Torren bellowed. But it was too late. The Red Dragon was pissed, and now he was free to unleash hell on earth as he saw fit.
But far above, just as he reached the clouds, a blue dragon locked onto him with his claws, and both spewed fire and snapped at each other. Damon.
Something monstrous and black flew over the opening of the destroyed prison. Dark Kane was here and so was Roe’s dark silver dragon and the two green dragons, Harper and Diem.
If Riyah knew how to cry from relief in this body, she would have. The dragons weren’t here to hurt Vyr. They were herding him toward the west, taking turns swooping in. Pushing him. Taking hits from his fire and refusing to burn him back.
Outside, the roars and snarls, calls and caws of countless animals filled the air. Beside her, Nox roared and Torren beat his chest loudly, like a war drum. And then something happened, something deep within her. Rocked to her core and shocked at all that had happened, she answered the call of her new people. She struggled to her feet, lifted her head to the sky, and screamed. Only it didn’t sound like her voice anymore scratching up the back of her throat. Instead, a bellowing roar shook up from her chest and rattled the ground beneath her massive paws.
Tomorrow would have to take care of itself. She would have to learn how to be this new creature, and she would have to accept all that had happened. Her future had just been thrown into chaos, but really, that had begun long before now. It had happened the day she saw Vyr. She hadn’t been born for a steady, easy, normal life. Neither had her mate. But right now, she wanted to celebrate the victories.
Vyr was still alive.
The Red Dragon was still alive, and the man she loved was whole.
Nox and Torren stood strong beside her, and somewhere out there in the woods that surrounded the prison, she knew Nevada and Candace were with the rest of the shifters of Damon’s Mountains, Kane’s Mountains, and Harper’s Mountains.
Damon had been right. She hadn’t been alone.
Riyah wanted to cry and scream and laugh and yell and roar with the relief that wracked her body in waves.
She’d heard it many times and uttered it herself, but this…right now…was the first time she’d ever felt it to be true.
Everything was going to be okay.
Epilogue
Vyr slid his hand over Riyah’s thigh just to feel her. The dragon felt steadier now, but only when she was right beside him. She didn’t realize the power she had over him.
His life wasn’t dark and hopeless anymore. Big changes had begun the day his crew had decided he would be their alpha, and it had turned around completely the day Riyah decided he was hers to save.
“What’s the surprise?” she asked. But her voice quivered with excitement, and he glanced over at her to find her cheeks flushed and her eyes the bright blue of her polar bear. Beautiful mate. Snow white fur when she was Changed, and eyes that stayed the color of frost now while she learned to control the animal. She was a warrior when Nox felt like fighting another bear. One month moved into his mansion, and she was already gaining control of her Changes with the patient guidance of Nevada and Candace. He loved watching her with the girls. She fit in with them, and took care of them, had their backs like they had hers.
“I’m so damn proud of you,” he murmured.
“For not guessing the surprise?” she asked, her dark eyebrows furrowing.
“No, I mean, I’m proud that you’re mine. Proud you’re my mate. Proud you picked me back. Me. Who am I? A damaged dragon, but you’re good and powerful—”
“A polar bear witch,” she teased.
“My dad fell for a bear shifter, and now look at me. Dragons and bears,” he said and huffed a laugh. “I’m lucky.”
“We’re lucky,” she murmured, smiling at him so sweetly. God, he loved her. Loved her with everything he had because this woman smiling at him from the passenger’s side of his truck had dragged him out of the shadows and made his life manageable. No. Manageable wasn’t a big enough word for what she’d done.
She’d made his life happy, and hopeful.
He pulled through the last of the trees into the clearing around the old sawmill where he’d set up Riyah’s surprise. But where he’d expected to see the dilapidated and abandoned sawmill he’d bought for Torren all those years ago, the weed-riddled grounds in front of it were covered with people.
And not just any people. People he recognized. People he’d quietly loved all his life.
The Ashe Crew, the Gray Backs, the Breck Crew, the Lowlanders, the Boarlanders, the Boodrunners, Blackwings, Red Havoc, and lastly…his Sons of Beasts.
“What the hell?” he murmured in shock as he pulled to a stop in front of the crowd.
“I know you meant to bring me here for a surprise, but I had one for you, too.”
“You did this?” he asked.