17. Bexley Blackforge

Chapter 17

Bexley Blackforge

"How?" It was the only question that came to mind as I tried to hide the tension and fear in my voice, my gaze holding his. I couldn't see past the soldiers surrounding him, their attention mostly on the crowd behind them. I could, however, feel those he held captured, their terror marking the air around us.

I felt physically sick. I'd failed at my job. Somehow we'd missed something. Or someone had helped him…

"Your friend"—he nodded towards Aurora's unconscious form—"is far too trusting. Came right to the damn gate and opened it. Didn't know if we'd have to use that option, but it worked out well."

What about the medical team? I wanted to know what happened to them, but I didn't ask. I didn't want to give him the opportunity to give me an answer that would only further throw me off.

Inhaling, I gently put Aurora down and stepped back, my steps on the stone echoing in the silence between us. I tried to search for my parents, the other dragons, or even Rachel in the crowd, but none of the faces were ones I recognized. But they recognized me, and the hope in their eyes had me feeling like I was going to spiral. I needed to fix this, and I had absolutely no idea how.

That was by far the most terrifying aspect of this situation. I had no idea how to fix this without bloodshed or lives lost.

Those were innocents in there: women, children, the elderly. Families who made their homes in the rogue lands. None of them wanted to be part of this war, and now they were right in the damn center of it.

"What are you planning to do? What could you possibly want?" I hissed, resisting the urge to look upwards to see if my parents had emerged to see what was going on. Holding out hope that they were hiding rather than captured.

I needed backup. I wasn't confident in taking on Linan by myself, let alone the ten guards that accompanied him—especially if they began attacking the others. This was why I'd needed to learn to fight.

"Well, the first depends on you," Linan said as he stepped down onto the first stair, his hands casually placed on his hips as if surveying the land around him. Despite his rather relaxed disposition, I couldn't help but notice the gashes in the arm and chest of his bloodstained clothing. I hoped one of my mates had done that to him.

The longer I looked at him, the more I realized that he was more beat up than he was letting on.

"I did plan on slaughtering them. Every last one of them. I planned on having a repeat of what happened here only eight years ago."

My fists tightened, and I focused on controlling my temper. He was goading me, trying to get me to attack him. That way he would have an excuse to react only more cruelly—to punish me by hurting those behind him. Or by capturing me.

"But…" he drew out, "I suppose I could be convinced otherwise. You asked what I wanted, but you forgot the most important question, Bexley."

"And what's that?"

"The why. Why am I doing all of this?"

"Power," I immediately bit out. "Your reasons don't matter though?—"

"But they fucking do!" he roared, snapping in a hot second from relaxed and indifferent to red-hot rage. I stepped back, wavering in my boldness as he flashed a manic smile. "So go on, little dragon, and ask."

"What do you want and why ?" I hissed.

At this point, without a plan, my best option was to delay until…well, obviously my mates wouldn't be coming back anytime soon. Maybe until my parents and the others made themselves known? I had no idea what I was supposed to do, but all of those people were relying on me.

"Let's start with the why," he said, taking out a pocket knife and flipping it open, then shutting it and flicking it open again and again. I knew the action was meant to be threatening, and I would have loved to say that it didn't work…but that would be a lie. "Did you know that I went to DIA with your father and his friends? That we were all there around the same time?"

When I didn't respond, he narrowed his eyes. "Well, did you?"

Why was he insistent on having me be an active part of this conversation? This was insanity. Still, I couldn't exactly refuse. "No."

"Of course not, which means you didn't know how they made my life hell. Every. Single. Chance. They. Had. For four years I was made to feel worthless, powerless, and they enjoyed it—they found it amusing!"

Something about that didn't sit right, but I didn't have any information to counter it.

"They always made me feel second best, so I promised myself that when I left DIA, I would never feel that way again. And for some time, we kept our lives separated. Despite all being leaders, our paths rarely crossed. I took pride that I had something they never would—dominance over the city."

"The city is ruled by all the?—"

"Me," he snarled. "It's ruled by me. Only me. The others are just pawns. Your parents—all of the storm dragon leaders—wanted me to be a pawn as well. They wanted to consolidate power and turn all four dragon clan territories into one massive kingdom that could easily take over the city."

"That was never the plan," I whispered. Was that truly how his brain worked?

"It was. Everyone is always looking for power, and they're no different. So the ‘why' is because your parents, their parents, deserve to lose everything. They deserve to feel the same way I felt when they were making my life hell— pathetic and broken ."

The only thing that felt pathetic was that he was willing to do all of this—sacrifice this many lives—for revenge. I had no way to know if he was telling the truth, and maybe my father and his friends had treated him horribly, but this seemed like an extreme reaction.

"That's what you want then?"

"That is what I want. Along with the territory and everyone's prized possession… you ."

A crack of thunder and a bolt of lightning hit the ground next to me as several figures dropped from the sky. Relief immediately filled my chest as I found that Celine, Marilyn, my mom, my dad, and Rachel had arrived. But not just Rachel…

"What are you doing?" I asked my mom in a hushed whisper, panic catching in my throat. She was crouched behind me so that Clanguard couldn't see her—or the knife she held to Olivia's throat.

"I'd wondered where you'd gone. And look, you've even gained some strength back." Linan chuckled. "Good for you."

My dad stepped forward, giving me a small nod. Knowing what he wanted, I stepped to the side, revealing my mom and Olivia. Dad now served as the barrier between Clanguard and the rest of us.

Silence. Absolute silence.

"You fucking bastard." Clanguard's voice was distorted as he let out a ferocious snarl, his skin sprouting fur as if he were about to shift. Holy crap, talk about a reaction! I was starting to think that any part of Linan that had been ‘calculating,' as his sons had regarded him, was long gone.

"It appears we've found a weak spot then," my dad said coldly, in a voice I'd never heard. "Yet somehow I find it hard to believe you care that much about your child when you had her locked up for years."

Clanguard froze, and I watched as he schooled himself, taking some deep breaths before barely getting out, "I don't give a fuck—" Olivia flinched. "But my wolf does."

"Or you do care," my father drew out. "You're something of a liar, Linan. That story you told my daughter is missing a few things, isn't it?"

"No," Linan snarled.

"Oh, I disagree. How about we discuss why we even noticed you in the first place? Why the women on campus were so scared of you. Why the prey shifters were treated like second-class citizens. Let's discuss how your father continuously bought your way out of trouble—until we showed up. We did treat you like the shit you were, because the way you treated others was inhuman."

Linan's teeth sharpened into canines. "Well, that isn't exactly wrong, is it? I mean, look what happens when that isn't the case. My own sons are fucking mated to a rabbit shifter."

"Yes, they are," Rachel voiced loudly. "And they're far better people than you." I was both surprised and beyond proud of her for speaking up for herself, especially when she hissed "jerk" under her breath.

"You had potential, Linan," Celine said. "But your own family fucked you up so bad that you treat others like they don't exist. The only one at fault for this is you."

"And now that you've attacked my family," my mom said, standing and keeping the knife to Olivia's throat, "I plan to do the same—but more successfully than you."

Clanguard offered a dark amused smirk. "Do it—slit her throat! The brat looks just like her mother, ungrateful bitch."

Olivia's small sob had me nearly shaking. I knew my mom wouldn't kill her, but I didn't understand what she was playing at. I didn't like the terror on the little girl's face.

I'm not sure what caused me to snap—to finally reach my limit. It may have been as simple as everything my mates and I had had to go through because of Linan, or because I was now aware of what he had others endure because of his insanity. Or maybe it was the tears on Olivia's face…but something snapped.

My dragon seeped out under my skin, and this time there was no pushing her back.

The sky cracked with thunder in a direct reflection of my anger, and I stepped forward to stand next to my dad. "You are what's wrong with this territory," I hissed, the wind increasing and my power building as I took another step forward. My dad went to grab my arm, but the lightning shimmering over the top of my skin gave him pause. " You make people think it's okay to treat someone worse because they aren't as big or strong. You are the problem, and you deserve to die because of it."

Linan moved down the steps and hit his chest with his fist. "Do it then—kill me. You absolutely do not have the will or strength to kill anyone. You are nothing, Bexley Blackforge—just a prized possession."

Lightning rocketed down from the sky, hitting the stone we stood on. Shards exploded into the air, the wind howling as I took another step towards him. The manic light in his eyes told me he wasn't going to back down, and when another surge of power hit me, I knew my mates had arrived. They were flooding me with magic, giving me the help I needed. The sky above me swirled, and an instinctual part of me knew exactly what to do.

"This ends now!" I screamed over the wind. The guards in the doorway took cover as several things happened at once.

Clanguard darted forward and buried his half-shifted claws into my ribs, his teeth trying to slice my throat and just barely missing.

I pressed my hand against his heart, my head falling back as lightning rained down from the skies—all four lines of storm dragon power combining in me at once.

Enraged roars of my mates sounded in the sky, and my words were a whisper to the man in front of me.

" Goodbye , Linan Clanguard."

A wall of lightning came down from the sky, completely surrounding Linan. My skin burned, my fingers numb, but I didn't release my grasp on him until I didn't have a choice—until his skin melted away, my eyes absorbing every single moment of it.

For just a moment, everything was absolutely silent… before my power rebounded.

A scream left my throat as I was blasted back, a vacuum of power causing everything to shake. I was slammed into the wall of the estate perimeter, screams filling the air as my entire body radiated with pain. My gaze, though, didn't leave the corpse on the stairs. Not even as the world tried to tear itself apart in reaction to such a massive surge of power. It was like when we went through a portal times ten, storms and tornadoes threatening to lift the very earth around us.

Yet I was numb to it all. All I could hear was silence.

"Bexley!" I stared up at Jagger in surprise, realizing he'd probably been trying to get my attention for some time. I was suddenly aware of the world around me as Jagger helped me stand, but I nearly fell to the ground again when I caught sight of the estate.

Or what was left of it.