One of them jumped on Eli’s back, and he thrashed his tail, knocking the alien off. The alien hit the lab table, knocking it over. The wooden base cracked and the plumbing of the sink ripped out of the floor, spraying water.
He watched in horror as two of them teamed up to shock Niall. The electricity was so powerful that Niall thrashed, hitting the floor.
With her mate down, Nora nearly lost her focus. “Niall!” she yelled, turning her head away from the alien she had pinned.
He transformed back to human, quickly scrambling to get up off the floor. “I’m fine!” he yelled back. “I’ve had much worse.”
“Yeah, when you were brainwashed!” she shouted, but she kept her hands up and kept the alien where he was, not letting him escape. “That does not make me feel better.”
Niall rolled his shoulders and turned back into a dragon, this time letting the full force of his fire hit the alien.
Eli did the same, but there was still one alien at large who was able to get away from them and attack with his electrical force.
Distantly, Eli felt Owen arrive. He felt him get closer, and then he came crashing into the lab, still in human form. “Holy shit,” he said.
Then, Owen stripped his shirt off and let his dragon take over. Now the fight was fair; it was one-on-one. With Owen, they were each able to breathe fire on the aliens, pushing and shoving them until they were all close to Nora.
Once she had them near her, she was able to expand her field of magic and hold them all. “I’ve got them,” she said.
16
Ava
Ava had no words to express what she felt when she watched her boss, who was, more importantly, her boyfriend, transform from a handsome man into a large dragon.
It had happened right in front of her eyes, but she still couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
She’d watched, horrified as the aliens had grown larger and turned purple. Then, they’d attacked Eli. She’d screamed when the electric pulse hit him, but no one had noticed. He’d fought back, pushing through the electric shocks so he could breathe fire along with Niall.
Niall was also a dragon, apparently. And Nora wasn’t a dragon, but she was something. She had some powerful skills, maybe the most powerful out of all of them. She even glowed. She was able to trap one of the aliens and lock him in place. Once she had him, he never moved.
As Ava had stood there gaping at them, another man came crashing through the doors of the building, wild-eyed. “Where are they?” he’d asked her, but he hadn’t waited for a response. He’d gone barreling right into the room with them, and then he’d turned into a dragon, too.
At one point, Eli let out a deafening roar, a roar so powerful that it rattled the windows in the lab. She was surprised there was even a window left. They’d smashed up most of the lab, but now the fight had wound down.
She stared straight ahead, speechless as the three dragons nudged and shoved the remaining aliens closer to Nora, who scooped them all into her spell.
Once she had them secured, she reassured the dragons that she had it under control. One by one, they shifted back, pulling on the remnants of their clothes. Both Niall and Eli had extra pants, but Owen didn’t. He tied a lab apron around his waist unselfconsciously, though, and he moved to stand with the other two men.
One of the aliens sneered. “You may have us for the moment, but no one knows you’re here. I’ll get free, and we’ll kill you all. It will be written up as an unfortunate lab accident.”
She wasn’t going to stay in the hallway any longer. She couldn’t fight them, but maybe she could help now. She walked into the room, holding her head high. She wasn’t going to let herself be intimidated for being the only human in the room.
“Ava!” Eli shouted. He started to rush toward her, but she shook her head. He needed to keep his attention on the aliens.
“You’re wrong,” she said to the alien who’d spoken. “I know they’re here, and I’ve just called the Garda. They’ll be here soon, and if you still look like that,” she gestured to their purple skin and white eyes, “then you’ll be exposed.” She held up her phone. “I don’t think you want that. Our earth governments are notorious for looking for alien life forms to experiment on.” She hadn’t actually called the police, but they didn’t know that.
One of the aliens bared its teeth, but it was unable to escape. Over the next few minutes, all four of the aliens shrank back to their previous sizes.
She came to stand beside Eli, and he quickly wrapped his arm around her.
Then, he spoke to the aliens again. “We’re part of a large group of supernatural creatures that live all over the world.”
That was also news to Ava, but she wasn’t going to interrupt.
“We have some heavy hitters in our group with the capacity to destroy your ship. Then, you’d be stuck here and we’d turn you over to our military.” He scowled. “And they aren’t nearly as patient as we are.”
“What do you want from us?” the alien asked.
“You’re going to leave and never come back. You’re going to abandon any ideas you have about cloning living beings and using them for your own purposes,” Niall said.
Eli chimed in. “And I’ve tracked your ship to the Arctic Circle. I know where you’re located, the exact coordinates. So, we’ll escort you back there, and you’ll leave. No tricks,” Eli said. “Or we call our witches and wizards in to lay waste to your ship. And then we’ll kill you.”
“No tricks,” the aliens agreed.
“Good,” Eli said. “We’re all going to walk to my car now.”
Niall and Owen stepped up. “We’ll come with you.”
“Nora, would you stay with Ava?”
“Of course,” Nora said. “But you don’t want
