Except, he hoped she wasn’t pregnant yet. Before the next time they had sex, he’d have to talk with her. She should have a choice in when she had a child. She wasn’t a sacrifice who’d gone in knowing it would happen.
Yet to have that talk, he needed to take care of the hunter threat. As he dialed Kai’s mobile phone number, Bram stashed away his feelings about Evie. His female was clever, and if he wasn’t careful, she’d catch on that he was hiding something. He didn’t like keeping secrets from her, but in this case, she might become distracted with the news. He needed her help to sort through the information she downloaded. Retrieving Murray wasn’t going to be easy; Evie might well find the answer needed to win against the dragon hunters.
So, as much as Bram wanted to shout from the rooftops that Evie was his true mate, he bottled up his joy and stuffed it deep inside himself. The emotion would be a distraction and he needed to focus on living long enough to see what surprises she had in store for him when he returned. Only when he returned would he be able to claim Evie as his true mate.
Chapter Two
Finlay Stewart watched as five of Lochguard’s youngest Protectors landed in the Stonefire takeoff area.
His lands might be more isolated than Stonefire’s since his clan’s lands were in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands and safer from outside attacks, but he couldn’t risk sending his more mature soldiers. They needed to look after the clan.
His clan didn’t share the same sense of unity he had witnessed amongst Stonefire’s members. No, Lochguard was far more fractured than he liked, which meant petty arguments and fights broke out on a regular basis. Only his strongest Protectors could keep them in check during his absence.
The former clan leader, Dougal Munro, had done a bloody awful job of keeping the clan together, let alone encouraging them to work together as a unit. If things continued as they had over the past six months, his hair would turn gray in no
time.
Finn’s dragon growled and said, Stop it. The past can’t be changed. Work on the future.
If only it were that simple. This threat to Stonefire may well soon be ours, and that worries me.
Gain the trust of our new allies. Then they will help us.
Finn knew that already, but sometimes he still second-guessed himself at winning the right to lead Clan Lochguard. Half the time he didn’t know what the bloody hell he was doing. Only through pure stubbornness had he done a halfway okay job so far. His alliance with Bram Moore-Llewellyn was his biggest win to date.
One by one, his five Protectors removed the satchels tied to their hind legs before shifting into their human forms. The sight made Finn focus back on the present. His dragon was right—if he succeeded in helping Bram, then the Stonefire leader may help him in the future. The dragon clans needed to learn to work together. One day, the British government would stop trying to protect them. Finn wanted his clan to be ready for that day.
As he walked toward his clan members, who were in the middle of removing clothes from the satchels and getting dressed, his dragon said, Working with this clan also means we can see Arabella again. She is a puzzle I want to solve.
If the rumors are true, then she’s been through hell. I can’t force her to come to our lands.
Make her laugh. That will work.
Finn wondered if that were true. Then Arabella’s dark brown eyes, full of intelligence, caution, and a little sass flashed into his mind. She was somewhat damaged, but he wondered what it would be like for the clever lass to simply be herself. We’ll see. For now, we must help our new allies.
Stopping in front of his five young Protectors, he switched into clan-leader mode and asked, “Did you notice any unusual activity on your flight here?”
The leader of the wing of dragons, Faye, finished tying her long, curly, brown hair back with a hair tie before saying, “No, we were cautious and made sure to backtrack to lose any sort of tail. Care to tell us what’s so urgent we had to fly the long way around to Stonefire’s lands?”
At least they had come when he called. For a short while, Finn had worried about if he were still too new a leader to be trusted at the drop of a hat. Sure, these were some of his most loyal Protectors, who agreed with his vision of the future, but that loyalty had never really been tested before. “The Carlisle dragon hunters have more savvy technology than we figured. I couldn’t risk them listening in.”
One of the other Lochguard dragons, Shay, spoke up. “Why would Carlisle monitor us? It’s the Inverness hunters who are the pains in our arses.”
Finn crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, aye? So you’re the new clan leader then, privy to classified information? I must’ve missed your trials and confirmation. Otherwise, you’re speaking out of turn, lad.”
Shay, a lad of twenty-three and barely out of his mandatory time with the British armed forces, paused to collect himself a second before mumbling, “Sorry, sir.”
Finn nodded in acknowledgment. The lad had been making progress with his temper and the present was no time to castigate him in front of the others. Finn would have a chat with him again later.
He then eyed each of his five clan members in turn. “Look, Carlisle’s leader, Simon Bourne, is someone every dragon-shifter clan in the UK should worry about. He’s stealing dragon-shifter bairns and we think he plans to use them to create his own blood farm.”
Faye said, “But that would take nearly two decades of housing a dragon-shifter before their blood was of any use to the hunter.”
Finn nodded. “Aye, but for a man with ambition, time is just one of the many things they use to their advantage.” After quickly filling them in on Evie’s theory, he continued, “With Carlisle so close, Stonefire is their main target. Bram Moore-Llewellyn needs our help. I’m going to turn you over to Kai, the head Protector here, and you follow his orders to the letter, understood?”
Faye frowned. “And what will you do, Finn?”
Rather than tell them the truth of how Finn wanted to make sure Bram focused despite the threat to his mate, he merely replied, “I need to touch base with Bram and go from there.” His wing leader nodded and Finn turned. He said over his shoulder, “Right, then follow me. I’ll give the tour later. For now, just know that if Stonefire falls, Lochguard will probably be next. For all intents and purposes, they are your clan for the next day or two. Don’t fuck up and don’t die.”