Page 22 of In the Line of Fire
11
Soleil
Things moved at lightning speed after the historic meeting between the shifter and witch councils. Damien took Adan up on his offer, just not in the way the demon had probably expected. Figuring his vast experience at keeping prying ears away from confidential conversations had taught the hotel owner a thing or two about how to successfully eavesdrop, my mate asked him to obtain information from the Mac Catháin coven.
Adan took the request a step further, cutting through all of the doubt by calling up the high priestess and asking her how much she’d pay for a tip about my location. By the time we made it back to the Veles hold’s property, the demon had a recording that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Keane witches were behind the attacks against me.
The next day, we traveled to Bear Creek to plan our attack against the coven. Within twenty-four hours, twenty witches and forty shifters—mostly wolves, bears, tigers, dragons, and lions—had gathered in Carrick McMahon’s town. And only twelve hours later, we surrounded the Mac Catháin coven compound, ready to wipe them off the face of the planet.
Our group consisted of Damien, Dean, Denica, Trey, Carrick, Audra, and two of Carrick’s sons, Alasdair and Braden. His youngest son, Camden, had stayed behind in Bear Creek with the rest of their family to protect Carrick’s grandchildren in the event that things went horribly wrong during the upcoming fight. Damien had been careful to surround us with the people he trusted the most.
“You sure you’re good to use that?” Dean asked, gesturing at my gun.
I was armed with a fully automatic shotgun, and the drum was loaded with specialized shotgun shells that contained a small amount of high explosives. The shells were supposed to be limited to military purchases since they were able to breach intermediate barriers and defeat light vehicles, but Damien’s dad had somehow gotten his hands on them for me. The shotgun could fire three hundred rounds per minute, and the shells could penetrate through half an inch of steel armor. I felt invincible with this shotgun in my hands. “My dad started teaching me to shoot when I was seven. I’m more than good to use this baby.”
Dean flashed me a sly grin. “Did your dad ever make you shoot from the back of a dragon while it was flying?”
“I’m sure he would’ve if we’d had a dragon shifter to ask.” I wagged my brows. “That’s got to count for something, right?”
Denica walked over and grinned at us. “I totally would have been in on that training session if I’d known you back then.”
“You missed your chance.” Dean flung his arm over his daughter’s shoulders. “No way will Damien let you give Soleil a ride now.”
“Damn straight,” Damien agreed. “The only dragon my mate rides is me.”
Denica laughed hard, bending over at the waist and slapping her thigh. When she pulled herself back together, she looked at Damien and said, “I was going to tease you about being jealous of your own sister, but then you had to go and make me giving Soleil a ride while in dragon form sound so damn dirty. Now I can’t even give you a hard time. Well played, big brother. Well damn played.”
“Enough fun and games, kids. The time has come for those of us who are shifting to get into our animal forms,” Dean growled.
I followed Damien over to a clump of trees, taking his clothes as he started to strip. When he was down to his boxers, he pulled me against his chest and stared into my eyes. “I hate the idea of the wrong person seeing your animal form and realizing you’re a phoenix, but if you find yourself in a situation where you need to shift to be safe, then do it. We can figure everything else out as long as you come out of this okay.”
“You’re worrying for nothing.” I clenched his clothes in one fist and patted his chest with my other hand. “The odds of me permanently dying today are incredibly slim. The dark practitioners want me alive, and iron to the heart is the only thing that can kill me. Nobody on our side who’s using a gun has ammunition made of iron. Bullets need to be softer than the rifling of the barrel. Otherwise, the gun will shred itself. So I’m in no danger out there.”
He heaved a deep sigh and his grip on my hips tightened. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be reasonable when it comes to you.”
“Which is why you put me in the safest position possible during the battle—on your dragon’s back,” I reminded him with a smile.
“Right.” He claimed my mouth in a deep kiss, shoved his boxers down his legs, and shifted to his dragon’s form. Flames swirled in those familiar green eyes as the magnificent beast stared down at me.
I stroked his green and purple incandescent scales, murmuring, “Hey there, big guy. Take it easy up there for me. I’ve never ridden a dragon before, so I’m not exactly sure what to expect.”
His tail wrapped around my back, pulling me close. I spread my arms and embraced as much of his huge body as I could reach. “Let’s go kill some bad guys.”
He flattened his body low to the ground and stretched out his tail. Slinging my shotgun over my back, I straddled his tail and climbed until I was all the way on his back, near his neck. He lifted into the air, and I let out a loud squeal. “Oh, my gosh! Riding on your back is so cool! We definitely need to do this again when we’re not heading into a battle so I can just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Damien swept low, and I waved to the rest of our group. Dean and Denica were both in their dragon forms, Trey had shifted to his tiger, and Audra was surrounded by three bears. When Damien circled back, I braced myself and put the shotgun to my shoulder. After taking a deep breath, I fired. The gun spat bullets at the ten-foot wall surrounding the compound, exploding the cartridges on impact. When the dust settled, Audra cast a spell to send a huge wave of water crashing toward the bullet-riddled concrete. When the water receded, Dean and Denica took flight while the others entered the property through the gaping hole in the wall.
Several earth witches worked together to cast a spell, and the ground began to tremble. Their voices rose in unison, the words unintelligible from my spot in the air. It was impossible to miss the impact their chant had, though. A crack opened up and spread toward the back of the house. The dark practitioners began to yell from inside the dwelling, having just realized they were under attack. But they were too late to mount a defense. The group we had pulled together was too powerful to defeat. Even if the magic the Keane witches had was stronger, our numbers would have been enough to overpower them.
Dean, Denica, and Damien blew streams of fire at the house. The front half of the building exploded. I was blown back by the blast wave and barely managed to stay on Damien’s back. He dipped low as a huge ball of fire shot into the sky, turning to smoke when Audra and another water witch drenched the house with water.
Lightning streaked across the sky, and the ground continued to shake. Shifters poured into the wreckage, tearing through the bodies of the witches who tried to escape. Some of them tried to cast spells to defend themselves against the shifters, but the witches fighting on our side unleashed spells of their own to counter everything the dark practitioners tried. Between their magic and the shifters’ brawn, the Keane witches and warlocks didn’t stand a chance.
The land beneath me looked as though it was the scene of a movie with blood spattered on the smoldering walls, smoke drifting from burning embers, and dead bodies sprawled everywhere I looked. The team Damien had assembled left a swath of wreckage in their path until only one witch remained.
She stood in the center of all the fallen witches, her red hair whipping around in the vortex of air spinning around her body. Her green eyes locked on me, filling with rage. “She must be the high priestess,” I screamed in warning as she lifted her hands.
She sent a gust of wind in my direction that would have been strong enough to blow me off Damien’s back, but my mate was too skilled at battling in his dragon form. He ducked low and to the left, taking the brunt of her air spell in my place. I readied my shotgun, and when he dipped back to the right, I drilled three rounds into the witch before she realized what I was doing. She didn’t even have the chance to scream before the high explosive in the bullets ripped her body apart. Her body just fell to the ground in an unrecognizable heap of bloody and torn flesh.
“Yes,” I screamed. “Got her!”
I was filled with the oddest combination of euphoria and incredulity. It was difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that we’d managed to kill all of the dark practitioners in less than thirty minutes when I’d been running from them for three years. I must have earned a crap ton of good karma to deserve a mate who pulled off what felt like a miracle to me.
