Embers (Scales 'N' Spells 4)

Restless, he looked the other way, checking everyone’s readiness. The vans to take the rescued Jaeggi were all waiting, drivers standing at the open doors, ready to load people in. Everyone taken from the Jaeggi tonight would go straight to the Sodalicium in India. With their magic so broken, that was the best place for them. The Abe would be able to heal them, put them back on the right path again.

And who better to keep an eye on them?

Gunter couldn’t focus on that, though. That was for after. What he wanted to know was where his mate was. His eyes stared at the Jaeggi town as if he could suddenly see through walls.

Even in the darkness, he could feel Alric and Baldewin’s eyes following his every step like he was the ticking time bomb. No one spoke to him, which was for the best. All he could do was pace and hold on to the tattered shreds of his patience.

Nikki, Nikki, Nikki.

It had been too long. Far too long. Nikki had said fifteen minutes, tops. A quick in and out, plant the timer, hoof it back to Gunter. Nikki had no intention of lingering inside and getting caught. It wasn’t like they had to go into the interior of the town, just the outskirts. They didn’t want to be there when the ward went down.

Even now, the entire town was surrounded with dragons and mages, ready to blaze the Jaeggi town to the ground. Nikki absolutely shouldn’t be caught in the crossfire.

Come on, Nikki. Come on. Where are you?

The itch pricking along his flesh was growing worse. At first, he’d thought it was his own anxiety, or his dragon’s relentless rage and frustration. But this was different. Outside of him.

No! This was coming from Nikki. The faint twangs of pain, of panic, didn’t make sense because they weren’t coming from his own body. They were coming from his mate through the bond.

Nikki was in trouble. Someone was hurting his Nikki.

Alric was right at his side, and his head turned sharply, snapping at Gunter in warning. “Be quiet, why are you growling like that?”

“Nikki’s in pain,” Gunter said, not even trying to keep his voice down. “They’ve been caught.”

As he spoke, his dragon clawed at the inside of his brain and body, leaving him feeling like talons were slicing through his organs in its desperation to break free. Claws were sprouting from his fingertips and scales were popping out across his flesh already. He couldn’t hold his dragon in for much longer. Cold logic and control were needed, but neither he nor his dragon gave a damn about either when it came to Nikki.

“You sure?”

“Panic, fear, determination—I’m feeling all of that from them. They’ve been caught.”

“Shit.” Alric stayed hunkered in dragon form a little longer, taking advantage of the trees. Then he shook himself from head to toe. “I have a feeling the game is up. If they caught Nikki, odds are they know the rest of us are here.”

“Or at least that some of us are here,” Baldewin corrected on his other side. “I wouldn’t barge out into view just yet, Hoheit. I doubt they’ve figured out they’re surrounded on all sides. We can’t tip our hand just yet.”

Alric grunted in agreement, but Gunter was barely keeping himself standing in place when all he wanted was to throw himself at the barrier.

Baldewin growled. “Did Nikki get the timer planted before they were found?”

That was the question. And Gunter prayed, as he’d never prayed before, that Nikki had been successful. Otherwise, Gunter had no way of reaching them. And that thought terrified him as nothing else could.

Losing Nikki when he’d only just found them—inconceivable. Gunter’s mind flinched from the possibility, unable to even consider it without shying violently away.

Gunter was out of sight, yes, but with a clear vantage point of the main road leading into the town. He’d positioned himself here for a reason, because he could both track Nikki’s approach into the town and also monitor the activity of people going in and out. He kept staring in the direction Nikki had disappeared, willing his mate to somehow burst through the ward, even if for a second. To escape for one moment, so Gunter could swoop in and cover them.

Come on, Nikki. Please, Liebling, come on.

Alric uttered a particularly foul curse. “They’ve caught on, alright.”

Cameron, sitting on Alric’s back, leaned forward in a creak of leather. “I can’t see like your dragon eyes can. Is that Nikki?”

Gunter’s head snapped around, back toward the main road, and he felt his heart seize up in his chest. For once he was not happy about having cat-like night vision.

No. God, no.

There was Nikki, alright, and held very strongly between two beefy men, Thomas right behind them. It seemed less a restraint and more a support, as Nikki was hunched over like their ribs were hurting, blood visibly trailing from a split cheek. Their eye was already blackening. Gunter’s eyes swept Nikki over from head to foot and back again, rage coursing through his system like quicksilver.