Dragonfury 01 - Fury of Fire

underbelly as he circled the debris field, looking for bodies in twisted metal and burning medical supplies.
    Crouched between a rusted-out car and the garage wall, arms locked around Myst, Bastian stayed perfectly still. The big male circled again, giving Bastian a clear shot from his vantage point on the ground.
    He didn’t take it. The approach was all wrong, the sight line way too easy.
    Hovering above the crumpled ambulance, eyes glowing like beacons in the night sky, the Razorback waited. Bastian counted to seven before the rogue gave up and banked left, dipping low over the sad-looking house. As the tip of his brown tail disappeared behind the peak of the roof, Bastian shifted right, keeping them hidden behind the Buick while he improved his view.
    The jack-offs were getting smarter.
    Usually the Razorbacks attacked en masse, without care for the consequences. Sending in a lone soldier to draw him out was new for them. Smart as far as strategy went; dumb-ass stupid in terms of outcome. Did the idiots really think he would take the bait?
    Probably. He sometimes did—just to keep things interesting—but couldn’t now.
    Not tonight.
    Tonight the battle strategy revolved around one thing…protecting Myst and the precious bundle sleeping in her arms. He sure as hell wasn’t going to risk them. And the idea of Myst’s death? Yeah, no way he would go there.
    Bastian pulled Myst a little closer. She’d stopped fighting him—thank Jesus. But, shock had set in and she shivered, air coming in raw rasps as she struggled for each breath. He wanted to apologize for that: for her fear and what she was about to witness. She deserved better, had been through hell already, and didn’t need the added trouble of discovering dragon-shifters in her tidy little world.
    It couldn’t be helped. Circumstance had dealt her a bad hand. All he could do now was make sure she lived to see another sunrise.
    Sheltering her, Bastian drew the edges of his leather trench coat around her. Curled into a ball between the spread of his thighs, she turned her face into his chest. With gentle hands, he tucked her head beneath his chin, lending his heat, absorbing her chill while he scanned the perimeter and listened hard. Fire licked towards the night sky and long grass rustled as enemy claws touched down in the backyard.
    The sound carried on the damp wind, the infinitesimal snick louder than a gun being cocked at close range. Battle-lust roared through Bastian, tightening muscle over bone, urging him to shift, to make the rogue pay for coming near Myst and the baby. He locked himself down. Patience was the priority, caution an absolute must. The cloaking spell was doing its job, hiding them from enemy eyes—making the pack improvise and change tactics.
    Bastian understood the Razorbacks’ strategy. They couldn’t attack what they couldn’t find. Shit-for-brains in the backyard was a smoke screen, a decoy sent to draw him into the open for the others to tear apart.
    And yeah, there were others.
    Five, counting the one sniffing around the dilapidated shed.
    On a normal night, the small pack wouldn’t have presented much of a challenge. Not when he and Rikar closed ranks. But with a female and child to protect? The sliding scale went from mildly irritating to FUBARed in a hurry.
    Rikar pinged him from outside the fighting triangle—a three-mile separation that prevented the enemy from detecting him. “ Bastian…what the fuck are you doing? ”
    “Waiting.”
    “For what?”
    “The decoy to move.”
    “Hell, they’re getting smarter,” Rikar said, soft growl tinged with amusement.
    “Not exactly what we need tonight,” he said, not liking the odds.
    Bloodthirsty to the point of obsession, the Razorbacks were goal-oriented and single-minded—Bastian gave them full marks for that—but they fell short in other areas. Intelligence, for one.
    Made his job easier most nights, if not entirely interesting.
    Opening his senses wide, Bastian mapped the imprint of each, measuring the electrostatic signature all of his kind carried. Like a fingerprint, the impression was unique to the individual, a code written in his DNA. The ability to dissect a dragon’s strengths and weaknesses from a distance was an unusual talent. Most never acquired the skill. Bastian excelled at it. He knew to the degree how powerful each male was, down to the color of his scales and the poison he exhaled.
    The group hunting him was young, more ballsy than