Chapter One
-Daniel’s POV-
Ruairi roared in my mind as Joseph picked up Amaya. I forced him down though so we could deal with the problem at hand, Fox. “Do you have oil?” I asked, turning to Mathias.
“Yes. One of my warriors is already on her way with a syringe.”
“But won’t that hurt him?” Viola asked.
“It will, but we can’t have an out of control dragon, especially one that just developed.” Rosalie told her, “It will be just enough to put him to sleep. Hopefully we can get him under control once he wakes up.”
Just as the warrior arrived with the syringe of oil, Fox finished his shift and was about to take flight. I shifted quickly through my clothes and tackled Fox’s dragon before he got the chance to take flight. I held him down until the warrior could get the syringe in and Fox passed out from the oil.
-Cian’s POV-
“Mate. Have to get to mate.”
“No. She can take care of herself. Give me back control,” my human side said.
“No. Have to get to mate.” The scent of mint enveloped us, “Mate?”
“No Cian. I’m your mate’s mother,” a voice from the dark said.
“Goddess?” I asked as I vaguely recall our mate saying her mother was the goddess.
Finally she emerged from the black. She took my large head into her hands and placed her forehead against mine. “Yes. You have to give control back to Fox. I can’t reach Amaya, but Fox might be able to. You have to give him control.”
“No. I need to get to mate.”
“No. You have to give control back. He can find her faster than you. Give him control back and behave.” She pulled back, “Fox is more than capable of finding your mate. Let him.”
I nodded my large head and unlocked the mental cage I had placed Fox in to keep him from taking control.
-Amaya’s POV-
I looked around in the black. “Mom!” I shouted, the sense of panic rising inside me. “Mom!” I spun around realizing I couldn’t feel Niamh. “Niamh! Mom!”
I felt a kick to my ribs, “Wake up, filth.” I felt another kick before opening my eyes. I took in my surroundings, looking down at my hands, my heart sank. I was bound by cheap handcuffs, charmed by a sorcerer to bind my magic. I pulled at them, testing my strength, but they didn’t budge. “You can’t break out of those, so don’t even try it.”
I looked up at the man speaking, and someone else in the van scoffed. “I don’t understand why this one is so special. Irons would’ve worked fine.”
The hunter I had my eyes on just shrugged, “He didn’t go into detail.”
They continued talking, but I tuned them out trying to formulate a plan. All together, it would be eight against one should I try anything. When one of the hunters kicked me again, I made my decision. Before anyone could react, I snapped three of their necks. One of them grabbed me from behind, giving me an opening to smash my head against his. He let go of me and howled in pain. I easily killed two more, and was about to go for a third when one of them stabbed me in the side. Pain erupted in my torso, but I kept fighting and soon I was the only one left alive in the back of the van. I searched the bodies for the keys to the cuffs, to no avail. I didn’t get the chance to keep searching because the van came to a stop.
The doors swung open, causing one of the men I killed to tumble out of the back. One of the hunters grabbed an older man by the neck, “I thought you said those cuffs would keep them safe.”
The older man just shrugged, “Only from her magic, not if she’s highly trained,” he threw the hunter off him, “Maybe you guys should train more. It was what? Eight against one? At the odds eight to one it seems like at least a couple of them should’ve survived.”
“If you can charm, or whatever, a pair of cuffs against her, you should’ve been able to protect them.”
I laughed, “It takes a lot of magic to bind another person’s magic and to protect an entire person, let alone eight. There’s nothing he could’ve done to save them. Although I guess he could always bring them back.”
The hunter looked at me as he gripped tightly around the old sorcerer’s neck again, “Do that. Bring them back.”
The old sorcerer sent me a glare over the hunter’s shoulder, “I can’t. There’s too much of my magic binding hers. Even if I could, they wouldn’t be human. They would be mindless killing machines with only one mission, eating as much living flesh as they could find.”
The hunter released the old sorcerer with a disgusted grunt, and turned to me, punching me hard in the face. My mouth erupted with the taste of blood as my teeth cut into the side of my cheek. Before the hunter could get another hit in, I spit in his face and got in several hits before someone grabbed me from behind again. I threw my head back just like in the van, and pulled the hunter over my shoulder, causing her to land on her back with a groan. I was about to put the first hunter in a chokehold, but someone hit me with a bolt of electricity, causing me to fall to the ground. “Fuck,” I said quietly as I release a breath.
“Dear niece, you need to learn when to give up. You’re beat,” Joseph chided behind me.
I chuckled breathily, “Not yet I’m not.”
“Oh, I think you are,” he said, crouching near me.
I swiped my leg out, causing him to fall to the ground on his ass, and pulled the handcuffs tight against his neck, “Dubhlainn. Dubhlainn. Take control. I know you don’t want to do this to your queen. Take control from him.”
Joseph growled and fought against me, “No. You can’t.”
“Dubhlainn! He killed your mate. Take control from him.”
Dubhlainn growled loudly at the mention of his mate, but before I could get him to take over from Joseph, I felt the tendrils of the sorcerer’s magic come over me, causing me to blackout.
