“No. We might not be a match for a dragon in our bear form, but Lucius didn’t have any problem getting off a grenade or two into his gaping mouth while he was spewing fire. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Damn, Lucius. You’re a beast in human form too, buddy,” Fallon told the shifter in the front passenger seat. “What about the others? Did we lose anyone?”
“Yeah, a couple. Tanner and Sal are gone.”
“Fuck, man. Bodies?”
“Nothing left of them. That thing turned them to ash, and with the house lit up, it’ll just look like part of that.”
“And the dragon?”
“Fell down over the house and I’m sure shifted back into human form. At worst, they’ll find a dead body inside and think he was an arsonist that got caught up in his shit.”
“All right. Where are we going?”
“The cabin. Olcan said it’s the only safe place if anything happened while he was gone.”
“Where has Olcan gone to,” Niamh asked, but she was met with silence.
“Can’t say,” Lucius replied.
“Can’t or won’t?” she asked.
“Both,” he told her.
Niamh lay her head back against the seat. Her mind was whirling with thoughts. When would all of this end? Why was a dragon after her? Had Sorley sent it or was it something Olcan had done that brought it around to visit? She obviously wouldn’t be getting any answers from these guys. She’d have to wait for Olcan to turn back up, if he ever did.
The thought of never seeing him again was devastating, but she tried not to dwell on it. Instead, she tried to think only positive thoughts. He would be back. He’d come back safely from wherever he was. It was obvious that he’d not only put men on the house but had planned for just such an attack. What had he known? Did he have information that something was coming or was he just being prepared? Would she be running for the rest of her life, and would the cost of her safety be the man she loved?
She closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat, trying to push it all out of her mind as the car sped down the highway to whatever came next.CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXOlcan
“THERE THEY ARE,” OLCAN said, pointing to the line of black SUVs ahead.
They were on a remote part of the highway, going full tilt toward their destination. The SUVs looked fortified, but he knew they weren’t. Sorley’s men had requested them from the wrong source, someone loyal to the Boston Bears. He’d provided them with SUVs that merely looked the part. They were outfitted with hidden cameras and tracking for a local director who planned to use them in a film that hadn’t panned out and they’d been purchased by the rental company for “other purposes.”
“Carter? You in?” Olcan asked.
“Yeah. I see them,” he replied from the satellite hookup in Olcan’s dashboard. “Four vehicles with four men each. All but the third one. It has three men. Based on the photos I’ve found, that’s Sorley in the back of that one.”
“Aye. We’ll pick them off from the back then,” Olcan replied, his comment now directed at the cars behind him. “You ready back there? Shites about to hit the fan. I think all these guys with Sorley are human, but I can’t be sure until we get close enough to grab a scent. Prepare for anything, even dragons.”
“Carter, you got the disable codes?”
“I do.”
“All right, kill them before they get sight of us.”
That was the other advantage of them having chosen their rental poorly. The company had the ability to disable them in the event of theft or whatever other reason they deemed important. They’d provided Carter with everything he needed to track them, even viewing them on screen and killing their engines.
“All right, they’re dead, and they’re trying to figure out why. It’ll only be a matter of seconds before they realize something is more wrong than just engine trouble or fuel loss,” Carter told him.
Olcan hit the gas, making a quick pass around the line of SUVs and parking sideways in front of them. He wasted no time in piling out of his car and shifting, heading straight for the third vehicle.
“What the fuck?” one of the men said as he climbed out of the vehicle with an automatic rifle.
The rest of the clan followed suit, parking their vehicles so that they surrounded the convoy and shifting for attack. Normally, they’d fight these kinds of thugs on their own level, fists and guns, but they couldn’t afford the time lost in doing so. This had to be done quickly before any dragons could be called in to interfere and without Sorley escaping.
Despite being outnumbered, he came out of the third vehicle, making a beeline for the large ginger bear in his sight. It was obvious that he remembered the McNally’s were all that signature color, a deep reddish-orange coat, and he went for the first one he saw, which happened to be Olcan. Alpha against Alpha as the other bears quickly dispatched the other men and turned to watch, knowing not to interfere with such a fight.