The unicorn gave me a self-satisfied smile that led me to unleash every desire I'd had with Hudson upon Jeremiah's face. I shook my head and looked back at the rest of my flight. They were exhausted, overrun, and homeless.
And it was all my fault.
I could take on every shifter in the area if I had to. I didn't wish to; most of them had children or older relatives that they supported, if we ignored the value that their individual lives made up. Worse, they had appearances within the human community to maintain. No one noticed if one or two people stopped coming to work, but hundreds?
My claws raked the ground as I thought it through. There would be no way in which I could disarm or even disable the vast majority of the shifters without putting them in the ground. Desiring to avoid the bloodshed, there was only one clear answer.
"Give us the night to rest and we will continue on our way in the morning. My flight is exhausted. We will give no trouble to anyone who does not climb this mountain; and the humans will surely ignore it for the time being so long as you did not lead them up here."
He shook his head. "You'll leave now or we'll run you off. We were waiting for you up here, you weaselly old drake. We knew where you'd come. What makes you think we haven't told the humans to try to protect ourselves?"
"You haven't, because if you had you'd have left it to us," Olivia said, walking across in front of me.
I blinked at her. "Olivia, leave the horse alone. He knows not what he condemns us for nor does he understand the ramifications it may one day bring to his herd."
"Are you threatening me?" Jeremiah asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.
My eyes narrowed. "I am promising you that this social misstep of requiring us to leave empty and tired will one day become your least favorite moment of your life. I will see your people burn, their manes aflame, their hooves melting, for this. We have eggs in tow."
That made the unicorn pause. He frowned between Olivia and I, and I could nearly see him trying to work out how eggs had occurred between a dragon and a human. I hope it fried in working it out.
"Okay, better plan. The crows and ravens will stand guard here overnight. You fuck up and try to do something to them, you're smoked. We bring in the humans and we watch them kill you and those eggs. And whoever the human girl is. You hold to your word and you get to leave peacefully in the morning. Is that a deal you can live by?"
It wasn't what I wanted. If we had an emergency, we needed to be able to seek human assistance for Olivia. There were venomous snakes, spiders, and all sorts of things that may require a quick trip to the emergency room. Yet, if we were to take her there all that would happen was that she, too, would be stuck chained to a bed and hassled by the police officers. I debated with myself for a moment, two, three, then sighed. "Well enough, I suppose. It is a deal. Though I would prefer the birds be nowhere near my den."
"They'll take to the trees. Give us Hudson and Sadie and we'll back off. You stay here longer than noon tomorrow, the humans still come in and blow your nest all to hell. Okay?"
I snorted at him in turn and looked back at Sadie to watch her pulling her mate as best she could, human and straining every bone in her body to move the werewolf. Olivia walked over to help her, but Sadie shook her head at my new mate. "Iyadre, Nariti," I said. "Take Hudson to his boat."
My wingmates moved into the spotlight. Sadie tensed over her alpha, but whatever Iyadre said, it was enough to soothe her. She stood back as they gathered the broken wolf into their arms and carried back to the Hummer. There, they slid him inside and Sadie hurriedly climbed into the driver's seat. The beast snarled to life and backed up over the muck and detritus as she hurried to get her mate to a safe place.
Some small part of me regretted taking the fight to the wolf in such a manner. It was beneath me to hurt a lower lifeform in such a way. Had I wished to kill him, I should have invoked duel right and burnt him to a cinder on the spot for challenging me. Instead, who knew how long he would be trying to come back from my crushing power?
There was nothing I could do to reverse time. Dragons like that existed, with those powers, but alas; I was not lucky enough to be one of them. The headlights from the Hummer disappeared in the distance and the spotlight went off. Whoever had been behind it, for Jeremiah had been in front of it, had disappeared.
And a mixed flock of ravens and crows stood perched atop my den. There was nothing I could do about it, but I made certain to glare at them as I went inside, anyway.
"I could try to bring them around before we leave. Surely it's easier to transport whelps than it is eggs?"
I sighed at Olivia, wishing the wolves had never turned up. I craved her sweet spot, wished I was atop her and watching her writhe. My wingmates were welcome to do as they wished with the rest of her as she clearly intended to adopt the lot of us, but I wanted her core.
"You are welcome to try," I said.
