CHAPTER 16

Alex

I was all action, all rage, and no thought.I ripped through the air and slammed with every bit of dragon force in my muscles onto Mark, who was waiting for me.But even with his jumped-up strength, he wasn't ready for how hard I hit him.We crashed onto the front landing of the house and turned into a screaming storm of wings, tails, and limbs.

With my knees on his torso, I raked my claws across his neck and chest, drawing blood.Mark reared up his neck and snapped at me, and I slashed my claws across his snout, making him bleed there as well.But as fast as I cut into him, the wounds started to close up behind my claws.Damnit, the steroids also sped up his healing!No wonder bullets didn't stop him.Every shot that the cops took at him and his thugs, as long as it didn't hit a vital organ, must have either gone right through or been embedded in their skin without dropping them.What was it going to take to bring him down?

There was only a second to wonder about that.The next thing I knew, Mark got one of his own claws up and around my throat, and was starting to squeeze.The talons cut into my scales, and I choked while bleeding.I made rasping, hissing noises and struggled in his grip as a reflex.If I'd been thinking clearly, I might have known that the harder I struggled, the deeper his talons would dig into me.

I felt his body lurch with a hard impact from behind.Roaring, Mark dropped me onto the hard wood floor and spun around.The swish of his tail caught me across my chest, cutting into me some more, and I fell part of the way down the front steps of the house.I lay sprawled on the steps while Mark, above me, faced Jake.

My buddy must have jumped up onto the front landing with us while we were struggling, and waited for his chance.Seeing me bleeding from Mark's talons, he must have moved in and attacked from the rear.Jake had succeeded in making Mark let go; my bleeding had stopped, and my wounds were starting to knit, though not as fast as Mark's did.Woozy from pain, I clambered back up the stairs and found Mark and Jake squaring off with each other, their tongues flicking, hissing their challenge.

"Don't tell me," Mark said with contempt."Jake Hudson, the golden boy."

Baring his fangs, Jake said, "Alex asked you where Lily is.What have you done with her?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Mark said."I hope you enjoyed fucking my girlfriend.You won't live to do it again."

Those last words triggered Jake into an insane fury.With as little thought as I did before, he hurled himself forward — right into the hard, cruel, backhanded swing of Mark's fist.Mark's knuckles caught Jake right in the snout with a vicious crack and sent him spinning backwards onto the front deck.Jake lay there, panting and dazed.

Scared that Mark would now jump on Jake and slash and pound him to death, I leapt back up onto the deck myself, my claws at the ready.Mark's speed was incredible.He spun towards me, swinging the same fist that had pounded Jake, and caught me on the side of the snout.I flew back, all the way off the front stairs, and crashed and rolled onto the lawn.

I'd never been hit so hard in my life.Sprawled in the grass, all I could see was a blur of colors.My snout hurt and I ached all over.I felt someone crouching beside me and heard a familiar voice calling, "Alex…?"It was Ross.Attacking Mark, I'd forgotten about the rest of the Firewings — and the police.Shaking my head to bring my thoughts back into focus, I heard footfalls, wing beats, shouted voices, roars and screeches, and the sounds of blows being traded and the electric crackle of Taser beams.The cops, I knew, must be trying to round up everyone, not just the crooks.I couldn't let them get me, or I'd have no chance to help Jake — and Lily.I dragged myself up to sit, with Ross propping me up, and saw that the fight had broken out again in every direction, with bodies flying over our heads, and not only under their own power.This time it was a free-for-all with the police, my buddies, and Mark's steroid-enhanced gang.

Shaking off the pain and dizziness, I took a quick look at the front deck of the house and saw Jake grappling with Mark.Jake had his claws around Mark's wrists, and they were pushing and pulling at each other.Mark was stronger and Jake's legs were starting to buckle.Worse yet, Mark was bringing up his tail with the razor spines towards Jake's throat.One good slash and he could cut Jake deep.Ross and I moved together, getting ourselves out of the path of any cops who might break off from fighting the real bad guys.We hurtled through the air and tackled Mark.We smashed him onto the deck, in the threshold of the open front door, and Jake let go and stepped away.He tensely watched Ross and me grappling with Mark, and waited for an opening.

Mark's damned enhanced speed gave him the upper hand again.Roaring like a dinosaur, he moved faster than we could react and grabbed each of us, Ross and me, by the base of the throat and stood up, lifting both of us with him.We squirmed in his grasp, our legs kicking over the floor, and clawed his arms and whipped him with our tails.Mark let out a long, shaking hiss that sounded like an evil, gloating laugh.

Jake tried to maneuver around us, looking for an opportunity to jump in and grab one of us out of Mark's crushing grip.Mark made his laughing hiss louder and raised Ross up higher.Jake screeched with alarm as Mark flung Ross at him like a sack of potatoes.He collided wings-first with Jake and they both spilled onto the floor.But with Mark's attention divided between them and me, that was when I made the only move I could, the move that Mark would never suspect.I swung out and up with one foot — and connected right between Mark's spread legs, landing a swift, hard kick right in the place that was as sensitive for one of us as for a human male!

A howl that sounded almost as much like a werewolf as a Drake tore itself from Mark Reinhardt's dragon throat.He dropped me and staggered and fell back, twitching on the floor and clutching at his balls.I landed on my feet, giving a laughing hiss of my own, enjoying his pain at my dirty fighting.

Before Jake and Ross could get up, before I knew what was happening, another hulking dragon thug came bounding up the stairs and shoved me aside.Toppling to the floor, I just saw this one thug running into the house to help his boss.As one, Jake, Ross, and I made a dash for the door, just in time to see Mark haul himself up on legs shaky with pain and order the one who'd just entered, "Go to the locked room and get my runaway slut!"

"Like hell, he will!" I rumbled.The three of us at the door prepared to rush Mark, but with unexpected stamina after what I did to him, he lowered his head and charged at us.He hit Jake like a running bull, butting him with his horns, sending him flying off the front stairs and onto the grass, at the same time smashing out with his arms to either side and slamming Ross and me away.He reached the top of the front stairs and called out to those of his followers who were still standing, "KILL EVERYONE!"

Jake picked himself up one more time, hearing that.Ross and I got back on our feet as well.This was it, now.It was do or die time for all of us.

Mark ran back into the house.I moved after him, with Ross right behind me and Jake right behind us.As soon as we were through the door, a piercing scream rang out into the wood and stone space of the living room.Mark stood to one side, breathing heavy, husky breaths, flexing his claws and his tail, looking over to a hallway across the room where the big stone fireplace was.From out of this hall, the one thug who came to Mark's side dragged a struggling and terrified female figure.

Together, Jake and I cried, "Lily!"

The sight of her made me feel as if someone had dropped a stone into my stomach, and I could only guess Jake felt the same way.

Her clothes were torn, her hair a tangled mess.One side of her face was black and blue.She was crying desperately.Through the torn places in her clothing, we could catch hints of other black and blue places, of bruises and cuts.The bastard had beaten her again.He had laid his filthy claws and tail on her again.What Jake and I were seeing now was the life that she had escaped, what she had run away from to come to us.

I had never wanted anyone dead in my life until just that moment.Seeing firsthand what Mark Reinhardt had done to Lily so many times, and what he'd just done to her in this house, what I wanted most in the world was to see him lying bloodied and dead at my feet.

Mark said, "Right now, my men and I are leaving this house — with Lily.And if anyone, you or the police, tried to stop us, my man there will twist her head off."

Lily whimpered in the grasp of Mark's henchman.Jake, Ross, and I reared back, scared to death that this bastard and his thug were crazy enough to do what Mark was saying.

"And maybe if you live through the next few minutes," said Mark, "the last thing you'll see is us taking her away."

If Mark got away with Lily now, he'd take her someplace else, to some other hiding place, maybe one that we couldn't find the way we did this one.We'd never see her again and her life would be over.That couldn't happen.There were only seconds to do something, seconds of unbearable tension that were filled with the sound of her crying in agony, "Alex…Jake…"It shredded my heart to hear her in fear and pain like that.We only had seconds to do something.Seconds…

The thug edged her towards the door.She cried at us in his rough grip, "Alex…Jake…please…"I judged the distance between Mark's henchman and me.He was careful and didn't come within an arm's length of me.

But the moron forgot about my tail.

Like a cowboy cracking his whip, like a rattlesnake striking, I lashed out with my tail.The tip of it caught the henchman across his eyes.He threw back his head, screeching.He started pawing at his face and staggering backward.And when he did, he let go of Lily.

The thug fell against one wall and crumpled to the floor, kicking and squirming, holding his claws over his face.Lily crawled away to the side of the room where the fireplace was.Ross, Jake, and I faced Mark, who stretched his wings and tensed his entire body, and went into a crazed, bloodthirsty roar.

"Sons of bitches!You're dead!YOU'RE DEAD!"

We braced ourselves for whatever was about to happen next.