Chapter 38

Bailey

My head lay on Aidan’s bare chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. A camrium cloth tent kept us secluded from the rest of the army, though I could hear people moving around outside. But here, we could pretend to shut out the rest of the world. His hand ran lazily up and down my back, sending shivers along my spine. We’d woke an hour before and made love. Now, we were catching our breath before we rose to face the world.

“Last night was rough,” I said, sighing.

We were twenty days into the war with no end in sight. The Kandoran sent a larger contingent of dragons than usual, nearly overwhelming us. I’d caught Aidan in the sky aggressively tearing into them so fast and hard that more than half were dead before they hit the ground. His raw power was unbelievable. Regrettably, it still left Brody and me with many beasts to kill and only one break all night.

Oddly, the enemy didn’t call a ceasefire for potty breaks.

Aidan kissed my head. “Hopefully, tonight will be better.”

We’d skipped helping with battlefield cleanup this morning in favor of eating and getting to sleep earlier. We’d known we’d need to be back up by early afternoon to go meet with the NAC commander. Hopefully, he would have some good news for us after sending another plane to scout the enemy forces this morning.

“And you can avoid getting bitten again,” Aidan said, pulling up my arm to examine the faint red line that remained on my bicep after Danae had healed it. I’d barely kept from losing my limb.

I sighed. “The coalition and local human forces help as much as possible, but it’s mostly slayers handling the downed dragons. There were too many last night.”

Brody and I had been taking down a particularly vicious one with only a damaged wing to slow it down. While avoiding its shooting green flames, I’d inadvertently backed into another Kandoran who’d appeared dead but snapped at me when I got too close. In my defense, there were dead beasts everywhere. In the heat of battle, it was hard to track which lived and which didn’t when the field was covered with them.

“Next time, I’ll send some shifters to help.” He cradled me closely. “I should have thought of it at the time, but I’d lost myself to battle lust.”

What Aidan really meant was he’d let his beast take over, and when that happened, all he saw was the enemy. It turned him into a killing machine. They’d definitely needed that last night because they’d been severely outnumbered in the air, but it meant he was less likely to notice the situation on the ground. There were lots of Kandoran humans attacking us as well.

Normally, Falcon or Sabryn would have jumped in to help me, but it was so chaotic that they’d just been trying to watch Aidan’s back as he plowed through the enemy. They were there to watch any that tried to come from behind.

From what I’d gleaned, the Kandoran hit our position the hardest last night. We suspected they were either targeting Aidan because of his power or maybe our section of the shield wall since it was in the middle. All it would take is one area to go down for them to infiltrate our safe zone and begin killing innocent families on the other side.

I patted his chest, wishing we had more time. “Let’s get dressed. We’ll be late if we don’t head out soon.”

“Very well,” he agreed, giving me one last kiss.

After cleaning up and getting dressed, we left our tent. The sun shined brightly, but a slight chill filled the air. Fall weather had arrived. Last night, the temperature had dropped to the upper forties, but it didn’t affect the Kandoran. They’d fought as viciously as ever. The dark magic infecting them must have helped with that, but the same couldn’t be said for our side. Our pure dragon forces were already starting to behave more sluggishly to the north, where the temps were five to ten degrees cooler.

Aidan and I stopped to grab biscuits and bacon from the bunker before leaving the camp. We ate and walked eastward, not wanting to waste a minute. Everyone needed to be on the front line in four hours, so we had to hurry if we wanted to accomplish all our goals for the afternoon.

After Aidan shifted, he flew us to the Norman airport, where the coalition had set up a temporary headquarters. It was closer to the fighting but behind the shield. Colonel Melvin usually stayed there to coordinate his forces, though he’d join us occasionally to check on the troops.

I had never appreciated him more than since the war began. He regularly briefed the NAC on the East Coast and negotiated more supplies to be flown in so we wouldn’t run out of bullets, missiles, and other supplies. They’d initially brought enough for ten days, which wouldn’t have been nearly enough. He couldn’t get as much as we would have liked, but every little bit helped.

We entered the hangar, where the commander stood before a table covered in maps. “How’s it going, sir?”

“It could be better,” he said, frowning.

Aidan stiffened next to me. “How so?”

Colonel Melvin pointed at the map toward the Texas panhandle east of Amarillo. “A third of the Kandoran forcesand the three sorcerers are still in this area. They haven’t moved this whole time.”

“How much of their army have we killed so far?” Aidan asked.

“I’d estimate forty percent. The rest are between Texas and western Oklahoma with shields covering them during the day so we can’t hit them.”

“Shit,” I said, rubbing my face. We’d been fighting and exhausting ourselves for twenty days, and we still had more than half of them to face.

The colonel gave me a grim smile. “Honestly, I think we’ve done surprisingly well considering their numbers. I doubt they’ve ever had anyone put up such an effective fight before.”

Kade joined us—from where I didn’t know. “According to the latest translations I’ve completed from my tome, this war won’t last much longer.”

The gray in his hair seemed to have spread in the last few weeks and colored half his strands. He was steadily losing the black, and age lines had begun forming around his eyes. Stress would do that to someone, especially if they were over nine centuries old.

Aidan gave him a hopeful look. “How much longer?”

“They don’t give a specific date.” Kade shrugged his shoulders. “But it hints it will be over before the end of the month.”

We were halfway through October now.

“Any more warnings for us?” I asked.

He crossed his arms. “Only the obvious. The sorcerers won’t come to us until our shield has been broken, and then we’ll have a matter of days to defeat them or suffer atotal loss.”

I shuddered. We couldn’t think of that and had to remain positive.

“We’ll stop them,” Aidan said firmly.

The colonel’s expression was grave. “We’ve been tracking the degradation of the shield. You’ve done a fine job minimizing the Kandoran strikes on it here, but there are some places to the north and south that are down to less than thirty-five percent from the start. I’m realigning some of our forces to assist in those areas.”

Aidan’s jaw tightened. “How much are we losing?”

“You’ll keep a couple of artillery units along your border, but we’re redirecting our patriot batteries and half our troops. I don’t make this decision lightly, but your sections of the shield still stand at seventy to seventy-five percent. From what I’ve observed, the volunteer soldiers from this area have proven quite effective with their fighting tactics. The same can’t be said for northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas.”

I rubbed my temple, feeling a headache brewing. We’d done our jobs too well.

“What about in Texas?” I asked.

He let out an ironic chuckle. “Oh, they’re putting up a valiant fight. The local volunteers have been more than motivated. I’ve been told they target the infected humans with animal traps, snares, spiked ditches, and improvised explosives. The trouble is they are less effective against finishing falling dragons. Half of them haven’t taken the fireproof potion, only four slayers cover that stretch, and no one seems to be working together.”

“Not many of them made it up here for the dome training except the Faegud,” Aidan said, running a hand through his hair. Aside from those humans who already worked closely with the toriq, none of the rest could travel so far to Oklahoma. It wasn’t entirely their fault.

“Exactly.” The colonel shook his head. “And it shows. Every faction is doing what they want regardless of the rest, and there have been some friendly fire incidents.”

That happened in every war, but this sounded worse than usual. I could see why he was worried.

“Is there anything we can do?” I asked.

He rubbed his chin. “Not at the moment. I’m leaving with some of my guys in less than an hour to see if I can work something out to unify them. The biggest problem is getting the local humans and dragons to work together. Hildegard and her son, Lorcan, will assist me.”

Aidan sighed. “I’d go down myself, but I’ll be needed here more if you’re pulling some of our resources.”

The colonel rubbed his chin. “I understand.”

An officer came up, pulling him away for another matter.

“Let’s head to the fortress,” I said, itching to see our son. It had been too long.

Aidan smiled. “Yes, let’s do that. We can grab some warmer clothing while we’re there.”

We waved at the colonel and headed out.

***

We didn’t make it past the fortress gates before Orion came running for us, leaping into Aidan’s arms. He hugged our son closely. Phoebe followed close behind with Leilany on her hip and an amused smile on her face.

“He’s well-behaved until he senses any family coming,” she said, setting her daughter down when she wiggled in her arms. “I don’t know how he always knows.”

Aidan buried his face in their son’s hair, inhaling his scent. It was something shifters did when they hadn’t seen their children or certain other loved ones in a while. He’d explained to me it was a way of reassuring themselves that they were well.

“We think he has some of Kade’s gifts,” I said, reaching my arms out for Orion.

She nodded. “We have also gotten that impression.”

Something about the way she said that made me think my son had been getting visions in my absence. Orion pulled away from his father and leaped onto me. I grunted as I caught him. He wasn’t too heavy since I had slayer strength, but he had a powerful jump that could almost knock me over.

I pressed kisses all over his face. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”

“Me too, Mommy.”

Nothing felt better than having him in my arms again. He could erase all the awfulness of war with his hugs and kisses, making me want to never let him go.

“How has it been going?” Aidan asked his sister.

She watched her daughter kick some loose rocks from the cobblestone path. “It’s been fine here. Orion occasionally has bad dreams, but we’ve been handling it.”

“About the war?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Aidan and I glanced at each other, concern in both our expressions. I hated that our son was still suffering from nightmares, but I had no idea how to fix it. Likely, only the end of the war would make them stop.

Phoebe lifted a brow. “Want to eat some hot food while you have a chance?”

My stomach rumbled. Our rations kept us going, but I hadn’t felt full since the war started. “You can count me in.”

Orion poked at my belly. “It’s loud.”

“Carrying you burns a lot of calories,” I teased.

He grinned. “You can put me down now.”

After setting him on the path, Aidan and I each took one of his hands. We’d set aside our worries and exhaustion for a couple of hours to enjoy time with our family. It was something we desperately needed.