When he wanted to be seen he could take on any color in the rainbow. It all depended on where one stood when they saw him. And what mood he was in for that matter. His Dragon preened at the thought. He was a tad conceited that way, but there were not many who could reflect any number of hues.
Cloaked from the humans, he flew for what seemed like hours, employing his own special brand of magic to do so. Diamond Dragons used their powers and their special scales to turn themselves completely translucent, and therefore, invisible to the eye.
It was the only way he could hide himself from modern technology. Right then hiding was the last thing on his mind. He wanted to burn down whole cities and sink the earth in fire and brimstone. To make the world suffer as he suffered.
Neela.
Fuck, he was furiously angry. With himself. With the Loyalists. With Offner. And with the Assembly, those bastards.
Collateral damage? Fuck them. She was a precious female. Too few female Dragons had ever been birthed and Neela was cherished in her lifetime.
How could they dismiss her death so easily? How could they expect him to stand down and not search for her murderers? But that had been the last line of the missive.
You will forward all your investigative research into this matter to Home Office where our own agents will collect and study your research and launch an investigation. You have been cleared of all charges.
Cleared of all charges. Him.
Well, they might have cleared him, but Kingston would never clear himself. And he would never give up the search.
Three
Blood poured from the wound on his lip, but Kingston continued to fight his way to the front line. They’d received a tip through a CI of Byram’s that the Loyalists had holed up in an abandoned factory in downtown Newark to regroup.
After Elena had scouted the place in her sleek Panther form, they headed in. A dozen and a half of the fuckers were nestled inside. Like the rats, he thought with a snarl.
Petty and cruel, the bastards hurled potion bottles full of bits of wire, nails, and glass with nasty little stinging spells inside that activated the objects when released. Like a supernatural dirty bomb.
After the Guardians had almost killed their leader for kidnapping and torturing Storm’s mate, the group had been wreaking havoc any way they could.
The man, Offner, had been unveiled as a Warlock and as a result, the Loyalists had lost any credible standing they’d had within the supernatural community. No one knowingly backed a soulless oath-breaker.
The Guardians finally denounced them for what they were. Liars and perverters of all that magic stood for.
Byram fought on his left and Furio on his right while Elena engaged their enemies from behind. He’d only taken three of his Guardians with him on this trip to investigate Byram’s lead.
The Vampire was inhumanly strong and wicked fast. Elena’s prowess and stealth were her finest assets, where Furio’s lied in his loyalty. Kingston was honored to have them on his team.
True, he was a fierce Diamond Dragon, but he knew he needed them to win this fight. This war was a long one and required more than speed and strength. It needed endurance, presence of mind, and comrades in arms. The Guardians of Chaos always worked in groups, and this was why.
Still, Kingston felt pretty fucking unstoppable at the moment. Truth was, he’d been feeling off balance lately. Neela’s loss compounded with the Assembly’s acquittal of his own fault in her death had left him raw and angry.
He’d done his best by the female, but apparently that wasn’t good enough. No one knew that more than he.
“Your reign is at an end, Guardian!”
Kingston’s head turned just as a green-skinned Gila Shifter leapt into his path. His Dragon snarled furiously in his mind’s eye. The fuckers were like cockroaches to his magnificent beast.
“That’s where you are mistaken, lizard lips,” he reached out with lightning fast hands and had the fucker off his feet and dangling in the air in a split second, “Guardians of Chaos do not rule over anything. We are the keepers of freedom. You are the ones who want to decide who gets to use how much magic, what, when, and where. But that is not up to you.”
Kingston growled and punched the Shifter, dropping his unconscious body to the dirty ground before spinning to meet the next attack. The hall was smoky and the scent of waste, human and Shifter, disease, decay, and rot were damn near overwhelming.
“Fuck, they have smoke spells, King,” grunted Furio as he delivered a back kick to the head of one Bull Shifter who’d decided to try a half-Shift in the middle of the fight but only managed to make his head swell up like a fucking balloon.
That’s what happened to assholes who didn’t respect magic. Shifters were a special kind of supernatural who shared their souls with an animal spirit and could access said spirit through a magical bond that was both sacred and unique.
Maintaining a half-Shift was something only a Shifter with a strong connection to his or her animal and who had exceptional control could pull off. Fuckwit here did not fall into the category.
Obviously, snorted his Dragon.
He rolled his eyes and made a mental note to steer clear of Fergie, Storm’s mate, for a few days. His beast was starting to sound like her. Next thing he knew, the damn animal would start fawning over footwear.
Not fucking likely, growled the beast.
A rapid succession of pops sounded and next thing he knew, the halls were covered in a thick, black fog that nearly choked him. Kingston smashed his fist through a wall. They had at least six bagged and tied, but the rest of the Loyalists were as good as gone.
Afterwards, he made a call to have the prisoners picked up by the local Enforcers unit where they would be tried and jailed for their crimes in supernatural court.
That part of the job was not his concern, and for that Kingston was grateful. He preferred the hunt and the fighting aspect as opposed to the law and order part of it all.
“You ready?” Furio’s eyes were bright red, and he was still rubbing them.
“Yeah, stop that or you’ll make it worse,” Kingston nodded at the Stallion Shifter.
“Fuck, man, it burns.”
He snorted. Yeah, it fucking burned. It always did.. He was more than ready to head back to the Keep. Away from the putrid stink and crowded streets of one of New Jersey’s most densely populated cities, he preferred the stone walls of the haunted old manse any day.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Hours later.
Kingston laid his head back against the enormous claw-foot tub and closed his weary eyes. The water was hot and clear, the way he preferred. None of those pesky bath salts that dried out his Dragon’s scales and had him smelling like Furio’s fruity fucking head of hair.
The fucking Draft Horse Stallion loved his thick locks to be shiny and well-conditioned on any given day, whereas Kingston couldn’t give two fucks about hair. His or anyone else’s.
Well. That was not exactly true. There was a woman, his dream woman, and he meant that literally as in a woman who appeared in his dreams from time to time. She had the most gorgeous hair he had ever seen.
Thick, straight, and impossibly dark. His dreams about her were vivid, especially where her wealth of hair was concerned. It fascinated him. The way it seemed to hang down her back and across her shoulders, like a velvet curtain running all the way past her waist and hips.