The Protector (Fire's Edge #4) - Abigail Owen Page 0,31
widened just slightly, he definitely did.
“Huh. Okay.” Rivin and Keighan both frowned, glancing between them. “Well, Deep showed up right before you got back. We’re headed to the kitchen where he’s meeting with Finn.”
Lyndi and Levi both straightened. “Why didn’t you say so?” Levi asked, all business in a blink, grin gone and shoulders tense.
“I just did,” Keighan tossed back as they descended the stairs then walked through the family room, now empty. No doubt everyone in the mountain wanted to hear from Deep.
They were the last to crowd into the oversize kitchen. She was going to make her way to Delaney and Cami who sat at the long table with Deep, Finn, and Drake, only Levi snagged her by the wrist and tugged her sideways to stand directly in front of him.
He let go immediately, but she didn’t argue or move away. Couldn’t. Her dragon wouldn’t let her, as though she wanted to be around the gold goliath. With way less reluctance than she was willing to cop to, Lyndi stayed where she was, horribly conscious of him at her back. His heat, the smoke and brandy scent of him, his size—like gravity pulling her into his orbit.
Then Deep, who sat right where she could see him, nodded at something Finn had been saying as they entered, and she focused, instead, on him.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat this,” he said. “It’s rough out there and getting worse.”
…
Levi shifted his gaze from Lyndi’s stiff back and the strange urge to hook a finger through hers where her hands remained loose at her sides. Instead, he focused on the man who’d been the original alpha of the Huracán enforcer team, now semi-retired.
A familiar ease settled over Levi, despite Deep’s unsettling words.
With his craggy dark skin, reddish-brown eyes clouded with age, a shock of white hair, and steady demeanor, his old mentor was familiar in a way that bred a certain air of trust. Even now, if Deep had decided to issue an order, the original Huracáns—Levi, Finn, and Rune, had he been here—would no doubt have snapped to obey. Drake, too, though he’d joined the team a little later.
After retiring, Deep and Calla had moved to their cabin. All the men had private cabins. The pair also lived and worked among the humans in whatever role gave Deep the most chance of helping the enforcers. These days, that was as the California State Fire Marshal. He directed the Huracáns from behind the scenes at larger fires where human crews were involved and helped cover their tracks when needed.
But since Drake’s mating, Deep had been doing something else.
“How ugly?” Finn demanded.
Deep cleared his throat. “From what I can tell, a group—or a few different groups—claiming to be enforcers is hitting settlements throughout our territory. The way they deal with each group is different, but the results are the same—growing distrust for us, beyond what the upheaval in the clans would cause.”
Drake’s snarl from the corner he’d stuffed himself into echoed Levi’s dragon who set to rumbling inside him.
“Any idea who?” Finn asked.
Deep canted his head. “I have yet to see them in person. But they are cracking down on everything—mates, the setup of living quarters to fool humans, orphaned dragons. And…”
“And?” Levi asked, voice all dragon. Can’t shift in here, he warned his animal side. The creature, with Lyndi’s scent in his nostrils, was turning dangerously protective.
“Many I spoke with have caught a single name. Roan.”
The beta to the Alaz team? Or another dragon by the same name? What would the Alaz team—who were supposed to be out hunting down Rune—be doing stirring up trouble and making it worse? Like the Huracáns, they were sworn to uphold law and order. There seemed to be no sense to it.
“Fuck,” Finn muttered, running a hand through his hair.
In front of Levi, Lyndi crossed her arms, no doubt thinking of both her boys and the new one they’d been trying to track recently. If these dragons were after orphans, that wasn’t good.
“In the settlements that haven’t broken any laws, these imposters are claiming to be sent by the Alliance, planting stories about how our team is no longer sanctioned, all of you rogue. Seeds of distrust that I can’t un-sow. Not as the former alpha of the team. The distrust runs too deep.”
If trust was eroding, they were fucked. A descent of dragon shifters into lawlessness—or worse, having the people they were sworn to serve come after them—was a no-win situation.