He replied to his beast, It doesn't mean I have to be happy about staying behind.
As promised, Lochguard had sent a few Protectors to help keep the peace while Snowridge's precious trusted and experienced few were executing the raid on the dragon hunter drug supplier. One of Lochguard's people, Grant McFarland, happened to be one half of the co-head Protector team in Scotland. Rhydian had never seen a male and female co-lead a dragon security force before, but it seemed to work for them. Wren had even vouched for the pair after working with them both during the art outreach event and the clan leader trials in the South of England.
Grant checked his mobile and then looked at Rhydian. "Still no word from any of the Stonefire Protectors down there yet."
Rhydian glanced at the time. "They've been silent for almost two hours. Once they reach the two-hour mark, the second wave will check to make sure nothing went wrong."
Grant nodded. "Aye, although let's hope it doesn't come to that."
Especially since if it did, they might have to reach out to the Departmen
t of Dragon Affairs. And if that happened, all of their clans could suffer the consequences.
His dragon huffed. We'll succeed. Then nothing will happen because of the unofficial and verbal agreement from the DDA Director.
It was true—the director had said she'd not question how the dragon hunters were captured, provided the operation was successful. We'll see if her word holds. Just because Stonefire places a lot of faith in the director doesn't mean I'll automatically do so.
The DDA had been nothing but trouble to the dragon clans for most of Rhydian's life by implementing tough, often unfair laws and even sometimes blaming the dragon clans for crimes committed by humans.
True, Rosalind Abbott hadn't been in charge during those times, but it was still hard to change his way of thinking simply because another clan leader said to.
His dragon replied, Another reason I want it to go well is so we can go ahead with our mating ceremony tomorrow.
Just picturing Delaney on stage with him, wearing the silver cuff engraved with his name in the old language on her arm, made him smile. Don't distract me with that. We need to focus.
Grant's voice prevented his dragon from replying. "The head of the second wave is calling in. I'll put it on speakerphone."
Rhydian moved closer to the phone inside the security room. Grant said, "Aye?"
A female voice—Eira's—filled the room. "It was a success. A few were exposed to some of the chemicals, but Stonefire's doctors are waiting for them to arrive and will do what they can to neutralize or cure the effects."
Rhydian demanded, "And the hunters? Did you get all of them?"
Eira answered, "As far as we can tell, yes. But it's too early to know if they had partners working in other locations in the UK or even in other countries."
"I'm sure we'll find out more from their documents and computers," Rhydian stated. "For now, help Stonefire with whatever they need and once everyone is safe and looked after, call back with Kai to give a more thorough report."
"Will do."
The line went dead and Rhydian met Grant's gaze. "I wish all of our skirmishes with the hunters and Knights went this smoothly."
The Scottish male nodded. "Aye, although sometimes they're crafty and until the ground is thoroughly searched, we won't know if it was a decoy base or not."
Rhydian opened his mouth to go over what needed to be done still when Idris rushed into the room. Idris was a young Protector, barely out of the British Army, and had been assigned to watch over Delaney with one of the Lochguard Protectors.
At the dried blood at the male's nose and mouth, as well as his lack of breath and frantic expression, Rhydian's stomach dropped. "What happened?"
"Delaney was attacked."
Both man and beast roared. "Where? What happened to Zoe?"
Zoe was one of the Lochguard Protectors helping out. Grant had assured him she was qualified enough to look after Delaney.
His dragon growled. Apparently not.
We'll deal with her later.
Idris replied, "Zoe went to get lunch, and that's when it happened. Someone attacked me and knocked me unconscious. When I finally came to, I heard noises from inside Delaney's new space. I went to check on her, and that's when I saw her standing over the unconscious male. She’d knocked him out and told me to find you since you weren’t taking calls during the operation."