To Wed A Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance (Weredragon Warriors Book 2) (9 page)

He heard Zul's snicker loud
and clear.
You can't mate in dragon form, dumbass! She's not
dragon, she's human! D'oh!

I'm on patrol
, Edriq
answered.
You don't have to cover my area.

Zul stopped snickering and
the mirth drained from his voice.
Oh, fuck,
I see them
!
Slayors!
F—what the…!
There are
at
least a dozen of them,
and they're surrounding a house. I'm
going in…

As Rohan roared a question,
Zul's dragon mind snapped off suddenly. That meant that Zul was no
longer in dragon form. The guy had probably shifted to human form
and dropped himself right on top of a Slayor or two.

Edriq immediately engaged his
dragon senses to locate his brother. He banked sharply and flew in
the opposite direction. He knew where Zul was and he had to get to
him swiftly.

Slayors usually carried out
their attacks in small groups to avoid detection. They usually
hunted in twos or threes, but sometimes a larger pack of up to seven
was sent to get rid of a target.

Zul had sighted more than a
dozen Slayors converging on a house. Something was not right. Well,
when it came to Slayors,
not right
was an understatement.
But—if this was a trap, he needed to get to Zul in time.

Zooming in on Zul's location,
Edriq made a quick, silent descent and shifted to human form. He
dropped to the ground in a crouch, his knives in his fists.

He was in front of a stately
double-story house. Edriq leaped over the fence and was running hard
towards the house when he heard a scream.

The scream died almost as
soon as it started.

Edriq cursed viciously as he
kicked the front door in and barged into a blood-splattered living
room.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE

Edriq saw the bodies of a
middle-aged couple slumped on the couch. The cushions were red with
their blood and the body of the Dracan male was horribly mutilated.
From the position of his body, it looked like he had died trying to
shield his human wife, but he couldn't save her.

The female's throat had been
slit from ear to ear.

The twitching bodies of two
Slayors lay on the floor, their black blood seeping into the carpet.
Another was crumpled at the foot of the stairs, his pale, yellow eyes
open and unseeing.

Sounds were coming from the
back of the house. There was the sound of glass shattering and as
Edriq ran out the back door, he saw Zul tearing across the backyard
in hot pursuit of seven Slayors. The big guy was covered in black
blood and his face was a mask of raw, uncontrolled fury.

Edriq let his knives fly and
brought down two of the fleeing Slayors.

Zul didn't look back at him,
just kept charging after the Slayors.

Edriq saw Rohan drop out of
the air at the other end of the street, cutting off the Slayors'
escape.

Between them, Rohan and Zul
would finish off those Slayors.

Edriq turned back to the
house. The house was silent and heavy with the stench of death.

Edriq stared at the dead
couple on the couch and swallowed. He and his brothers were too late
to save them. But maybe they could save the rest.

There had to be others. It
didn't make sense to send so many Slayors just to attack a
defenseless couple.

Very quietly, Edriq pulled
out his gun and ascended the stairs. A floorboard creaked but the
sound wasn't made by him.

Edriq raced up the stairs and
saw a long, dark shape moving silently across the floor.

Edriq pulled out his gun and
shot at the Slayor, but the black serpent slithered under a door and
disappeared into a room. Screams and terrified cries pierced the
air.

He was right. There were
more Dracans in the house.

“Shit!” Edriq
wrenched at the door knob. The door was locked from the inside.

He rammed his shoulder
against the door. The door slammed open and Edriq saw two black
snakes advancing towards the bed.

The couple's three daughters
were huddled together on the bed, using their pillows as shields.

Zul had stopped the Slayors
from reaching the rooms upstairs but he had overlooked the snakes.
Two of the Slayors had shifted to snake form and slithered along the
shadows to reach the girls.

The eldest daughter was a
young woman in her twenties, and she was bravely trying to beat the
snakes back with a pillow as her two teenage sisters clung to each
other behind her.

“Get away!” she
shrieked. “Get away from my sisters!”

The smaller snake launched
itself at the youngest girl. Edriq fired three shots in rapid
succession.

The girls screamed as the
snake thudded to the floor. Its venom landed on the bed covers and
ate a hole through the fabric.

“Look out!” Edriq
bellowed as the other Slayor spat a jet of venom towards the girls.

The girls instinctively
raised their big, fluffy pillows to shield themselves. The venom
landed on one of the pastel-colored pillows that were covered with
hearts and burned through the cover. A jagged, hissing hole appeared
where a pretty, rainbow-colored heart had just been.

A knife whistled through the
air. The blade struck the snake in one eye and the Slayor screamed
as he shifted violently back to human shape.

Half blind and mad with pain,
the Slayor roared and charged straight at the three terrified girls.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

Edriq squeezed off two shots
and the Slayor jerked as the bullets burrowed into his chest. But
the bastard slowed down only to yank the knife out of his eye socket.

With a horrible non-human
cry, the Slayor raised the dripping knife and lunged forward. The
blade slammed down as Edriq fired again and again.

The Slayor collapsed on top
of the screaming girls. With the blood roaring in his ears, Edriq
rushed to pull the dead Slayor off. Did the bastard bury the knife
in one of the girls as he fell on them?

Edriq flung the body away and
saw the knife sticking out of the shredded pillow. He almost sagged
in relief.

“You're safe now,”
he said, extending a hand to the girls.

“They killed my
parents,” the eldest whispered. Her voice quavered but she
refused to cry. She was trying to stay strong for her younger
sisters.

“Who are they?”
the youngest girl sobbed.

The other teenager hugged her
little sister and turned her tear-strained face to Edriq. “
What
are they?”

Edriq glanced at the eldest
sister. How much had their parents told them? He knew that some
Dracan families didn't tell their children and grand-children about
where they really came from. Draca was no more. Earth was their
home now, and they didn't want the younger generation to be haunted
by the specter of war and violence. They wanted a different life for
their kids, a better, safer, more hopeful life.

“They are Slayors,”
the young woman said at last. She lifted her eyes to Edriq and
gulped. “You saved me and my sisters,” she said in a
brave, steady voice. “May we know your name? I'm Julia Taekka
and these are my younger sisters, Jayne and Jaymin.”

Edriq nodded. “I'm
Edriq Haeken.” He turned around at the sound of footsteps
behind him. “These are my brothers, Rohan and Zul.”

Julia held her sisters close
to her as she stared at the three fierce, formidable males in the
room.

Swallowing repeatedly, Julia
said, “You're the three soldiers. The last three Draca's
Dragons.”

When Edriq gave a subtle nod,
the young woman went on shakily, “When I was a young girl, my
dad told me a little about our past. But he never told my sisters.
He told me our grandparents came to Earth on the last ship out of
Draca. He said three soldiers defended the whole ship of civilians
against the Slayors. When I asked him, he said that we have nothing
to fear now. We're safe...from the Slayors,” she said in a
pained whisper.

“Your dad didn't lie to
you. For a long time, we were safe. But the Slayors found us,”
Rohan said grimly as he stepped forward. “We will fight them.
I promised my father I will protect our people. I will keep my last
promise to him.” After a pause, Rohan asked softly, “Do
you girls have someone you can go to? A relative or friend...”

Julia nodded. “I'll
take my sisters with me. I live with my fiance, Mario. I came home
tonight to spend time with my parents...” A small sob escaped
but she pulled herself together and continued, “—and have
a sleepover with my sisters.” She managed a tiny smile. “I'm
getting married.”

“I'll get rid of this
now,” Zul said and started dragging the Slayors' bodies roughly
out the door.

“What are you going to
do with the bodies?” Julia asked.

“We'll incinerate
them,” Rohan answered. “We're...”

“Dragons,” Julia
finished. “I know.”

Rohan turned to the two
younger girls and said, “Pack quickly. Take what you need and
go with your sister.” Then he said to Julia, “The police
will be receiving an anonymous call soon. They'll send a squad car
out here, and they'll discover the crime scene. There will be no
evidence of Slayors so it will look like a burglary gone wrong or a
senseless, random act of violence. When they question you...”

“I'll say that my
sisters were having a sleepover at my place,” Julia replied
without hesitation. “There's no need for the humans to know
that we're aliens. Being hunted by Slayors is bad enough. We don't
need to be hunted by humans too.”

Smart woman
, Edriq
thought.

“Once you're ready,
Edriq will fly you back to your place,” Rohan said.

Edriq nodded to acknowledge
the command. When Rohan and Zul left to take care of the bodies,
Edriq stood guard at the room door. He heard the two girls
questioning their big sister about Slayors and dragons, and he heard
the anger and accusation in their voices. “Why didn't you tell
us? We tell you everything! What else are you not telling us?”

Julia was going to take her
sisters back to her fiance's place. He wondered what Julia was going
to tell her fiance.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

Nora knocked on the door and
shuffled her feet anxiously. She had rushed here straight after
work. Her shift ended in the afternoon so it was still nice and
bright. But even if it was pitch dark, she would still have come.
Mario wasn't just her colleague. He and Julia were her friends, her
only friends, come to think of it. The rest were just acquaintances,
people you had a drink with but didn't know you very well.

Mario had taken a few days
off work to be with his fiancee. Mario had texted her, telling her
that Julia's parents had been brutally murdered while Julia's sisters
were having a sleepover at their place.

It was a terrible time for
the family, and Mario and Julia were like family to her. They always
invited her to dinner and when there was a new movie out, they would
always suggest watching it together. Her long and erratic hours as a
paramedic meant she had little time to socialize. Mario and Julia
definitely understood the demands of the job, and they sometimes
tried to set her up with some of their single friends. But once they
saw she wasn't interested, they didn't press the issue.

“Oh Mario!” she
said as soon as the door opened. But it wasn't Mario. It was a
young girl of about twelve or thirteen.

“Hi, I'm looking for
Mario and Julia,” Nora said with a gentle smile. The girl
looked like a mini Julia. She was going to be a beauty when she grew
up. “You must be Julia's sister.”

The girl nodded. “I'm
Jaymin.”

“Who's at the door?
Who are you talking to, Jaymin?” Mario's anxious voice boomed
down the hallway.

“It's me,” Nora
called out.

“Nora!” Mario
shooed Jaymin into the house and threw the door wide open. “Come
on in,” he said, giving her a big hug. “Julia's in the
kitchen.”

Nora entered the kitchen and
saw Julia pulling a large tray of muffins out of the oven. “She's
been baking the whole day,” Mario mumbled under his breath.

Nora saw a mountain of
muffins on the kitchen table. She went to take the tray from Julia
and set it down on the counter. Then she pulled the woman in for a
long, tight hug.

“I'm so sorry, Julia,”
she whispered. “So sorry.”

Julia's back was stiff and
rigid and Nora could feel her trembling as she fought against the
tide of her emotions. “I can't break down,” Julia
whispered. “If I don't keep baking, I'll start crying. And
once I start, I'm afraid I can't stop. I don't want Jayne and Jaymin
to see me break. I'm all they have now.”

Nora gripped Julia's
shoulders and forced Julia to look at her. “No,” Nora
said fiercely. “We are all here for you and your sisters.
You're not alone. You hear me?”