Dean tried to get up, only to get knocked down again by the terrific wind from Cass's beating wings as the dragon leaped into the air. There was a crash from the cabin and a pair of massive bodies sailed over Dean's head to splash into the lake. Sudden, stabbing pain in his leg made Dean cry out. He looked back, eyes widening to see a large splintered chunk of broken wood from what was once the cabin's porch was imbedded deeply into the back of his right calf.
Castiel's agonized roar came from the lake. Dean looked over to see the two dragons were in the water, locked in mortal combat. Raphael was breathing lightning onto the surface of the water, causing jagged lines of electricity to dance over the other dragon. Castiel was forced to turn and take flight to avoid being electrocuted. That gave Raphael a chance to score some nasty claw and bite marks as he gave chase. The son of a bitch was smart. Knocking Cass into the water had been a hell of a move. The fight had just started and already Cass was injured. Dean reached for the pistol, hidden in its holster beneath his flannel and aimed for the dark dragon. He doubted he'd be able to do any real damage to Raphael, but maybe he could distract it a little, give Cass a chance to regroup?
Before he could fire, a heavy body dove onto Dean's back, nearly knocking the wind out of him. A hand caught his wrist and slammed it again and again on the ground, forcing Dean to lose his grip on the weapon. Dean screamed when the wood in his calf was pushed in further. He kicked at Lanette and managed to throw her off. Reaching back, he quickly pulled the wood out with one hand, scrambling to reclaim his pistol with the other. A well-thrown rock knocked the weapon out of his reach. Dean managed to get up, holding the bloody wood like a weapon and turned to face… Donnie?
Donnie Finnerman squared off with Dean, furious eyes taking in his every move. Dean blinked in surprise. "Raphael… is Lanette?"
"You know she is," he snarled. "You took advantage of her to get us out here so that thing could attack!"
"Ok, one, I had no idea who she was, and two, coming out here was your idea, remember?" Dean reminded. "You've got a lot of room to talk about us attacking you, you damned terrorist!"
Donnie's face darkened. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to? You're the damned terrorist! You, that thing with you, and your whole organization!"
That made no sense to Dean. Since when was the U.S. Army a terrorist organization?
Taking advantage of Dean's confusion, Donnie charged, slamming his shoulder into Dean. Dean stabbed at him with his piece of wood, earning himself a cry of pain just before Donnie slammed him roughly into the ground.
Meanwhile, the two dragons were tearing up the sky. Fire and lightning flashed. Claws and teeth tore at hides. Dean felt buffeted by wind as the clashing pair flew just overhead, feathers drifting down like falling leaves in autumn. To his alarm, blood dripped onto Donnie's face as the other man fought Dean for control of the wood. Feeling it, Donnie looked up, concerned. Dean saw his chance and quickly brought up his knee. His aim was good. Donnie squawked in pain, doubling over when Dean's knee landed squarely in his groin. "You fucking dirty fighter!"
Dean had heard that more than once. Right now, he didn't care. Rolling free, he snatched up his pistol and aimed it at Donnie. "Call that bitch off, right now!"
Donnie managed to stand up despite the pain and narrowed his eyes at Dean. "Shoot me if you have to," he said. "Lanette is still going to beat your damned dragon." He pointed up.
Dean didn't fall for it. "Cass, you alright?"
His answer was a pair of huge, scaly bodies hurtling from the sky to smash into the cabin. Once again, debris was flying, but this time, it was Donnie, standing between Dean and the cabin, who took the brunt of it. He cried out in pain, staggering forward.
A roar came from the ruins of the cabin, but this one sounded less angry and more afraid. Raphael struggled in the ruins, her eyes locked on Donnie. She seemed to have taken the brunt of the fall. Bits of rubble were sticking out of her skin. Her wings were missing patches of feathers. She was burned and bleeding in several places. Some of the debris caught one wing, causing her to hiss in pain when some more of her feathers were removed. She desperately tried to climb out and go to Donnie, but Castiel dove on top of her, sinking his fangs into the back of her neck. She shrieked and Donnie turned, screaming in negation.
"Enough! Boy, you call that dragon off, or I'll blow your brains halfway across this lake!"
In the sudden resulting silence, Dean looked over and blinked in surprise. At some point in the fight, Bobby Singer had come racing to the cabin in an old, beat-up pickup truck. Now he was stomping over, shotgun pointed squarely at Dean's head. "Call him off," he ordered again. "Do it! Now!"
Castiel made a whining sound and removed his fangs, backing away from Raphael. He hissed in agitation, wings going up in warning. Dean winced, seeing the burn marks from lightning across his dragon's skin. Still, Cass looked in better shape than Raphael. Of course, that might not matter for much longer.
"Listen," Dean began, "we're…"
"We know exactly who you are, now that we've seen him," Donnie spat. He'd run to Raphael and was gently running his hands over her scaly hide, wincing as he noted her injuries. "We knew you'd come after us, but we expected you to bring your lackeys with you. We never expected it would just be you and Michael alone."
"Michael?" Dean echoed. "Wait, you think…?"
"Go back to your human form, Michael," Bobby demanded. "Do it, or your bondmate dies right in front of you!"
Castiel immediately obeyed. As soon as he was human again, Raphael pounced, slamming a heavy paw onto him and pinning him to the ground.
"Stop!" Dean screamed as Castiel cried out in pain. "He's not Michael, he's Castiel! What the hell is going on?"
"Castiel?" Donnie echoed, frowning at Dean. "Who's Castiel?"
"I'm the dragon from the last egg," Cass managed. His voice betrayed the effort it was taking him to breathe under Raphael's heavy paw. "It would appear we are having a misunderstanding. Please let me up, so we can talk?"
Dean sat with Castiel at Bobby's table, beer in hand, and glowered across the table at Donnie and Raphael. Donnie glared back at him over his own beer. The dragons declined the alcohol and were sipping on gatorade. They both appeared too beaten and weary to do much else. Both Dean and Donnie were sporting multiple bandages, but both were determined to ignore their injuries in favor of threatening murder with their eyes.
Bobby Singer sat quietly at the head of the table nursing his own beer. The man, a Vietnam war veteran, was a former combat medic. He'd done an admirable job of patching everyone up. Now he seemed to be digesting everything he'd just been told. "So basically, you idjits all have the same story at its base," he began. "Donnie and Lanette ran away from their group because they realized the kind of people they were dealing with. Dean and Castiel essentially did the same thing with the U.S. Army."
"Seems that way," Dean agreed. "We ran away because they were determined to separate us, though, not because they were terrorists. I mean, the way they were going about it was kind of shitty, but it was for a good reason."
"What reason would that be?" Donnie asked grumpily. "If you say 'National Security,' I'm going to come over this table and clock you."
"Like hell you are," Bobbie retorted calmly. "There will be no fighting at this table. We're here to talk, so talk. Tell Dean and Castiel here what you know."
"I'll explain what I can," Raphael said with a sigh. "Donnie and I were never with any terrorists. We belonged to a big cat rescue group, lions, tigers, panthers, you understand. We believed that these magnificent beasts didn't deserve to be locked up in a cage and mistreated by private owners. We worked to expose those owners so that the cats could be rescued, maybe even returned to the wild. Worst of all were those who were experimenting on these cats. We broke into a lab that we learned was bringing in unusually large shipments of meat, expecting to find big cats in need of rescue."
"And you found a dragon instead," Dean guessed.
The couple nodded. "I, as Lanette, was fascinated," she continued. "The dragon was nearly full grown, as large as you are now, Castiel. But it seemed friendly enough, and I remember, as the dragon, being more curious than anything else. But instinct took over and…"
"You joined," Castiel supplied. "The genetic trait that allows humans to bond with dragons isn't rare, but it's not common, either. That would have been sheer luck, or lack thereof, depending on how you look at it."
She gave him a small smile. "You know what it was like, but Donnie didn't understand. He screamed and cried for me, and we bonded. Naturally, the group that was holding me was less than pleased, but decided to make the most of it."
"They tortured me," Donnie explained quietly. "I nearly broke. I would have if my wife hadn't been a storm dragon."
"My metabolism is faster than a fire dragon's," Raphael said proudly. "They'd drugged me while they tried to break my husband. But the drugs wore off, I sensed his pain, and I came for him. We fled. There was only one problem."
"Michael," Dean guessed.
Again, the couple nodded. "They talked about him in my hearing, and how what they were doing to me had already broken his bondmate," Donnie said. "They said with a fire dragon and a storm dragon in their ranks, they'd be unbeatable. So we ran."
"We contacted our group as soon as we could," Raphael continued. "We met with the leaders, proved our story easily enough, and asked for help. But we didn't realize just how radical they really were. Once they understood what I was, all they wanted was to use me to break into public zoos to free the big cats there, even though those cats are often rescued from private owners who mistreated them and couldn't survive in the wild."
"All this time, we'd believed we were doing something good," Donnie said quietly. "But attacking public zoos? We never signed up for that. Some of those zoos had cats we'd helped them rescue from abusive owners. It didn't make sense to attack them. So we ran from our group, too, and reported them as ecoterrorists to the government. We thought the government would help us. Instead, they tried to capture us."
"They went after everyone we knew, our friends and family," Raphael said. "Bobby here was an old friend of my family from childhood and one of the few people they didn't know about. He took us under his wing, helped us hide here."
"The government knows where you are, or at least the general area," Dean told them. "You were seen flying and attacking targets. That's how we knew to look for you here."
The couple exchanged worried looks.
"Don't worry," Bobby grunted. "I got some friends I can send you to who can help you hide, start a new life. You just need to be way more careful about flying around in your dragon form, Lanette."
"I can't help what I am," Raphael said quietly.
"I don't understand," Castiel complained. "We were told that you were part of the same group that had Michael, that they'd stolen your egg when they took him and his bondmate. But you said you contacted the government when you escaped? Why did they tell us you were still part of that group?"
"Don't you get it, kid?" Bobby said. "You've been lied to. It's a damned good thing you got out when you did, or Dean there probably would have gone through the same thing Donnie did."
"They had a better idea," Dean said into his beer bottle. "They were trying to replace me with someone they could control."
"The doctor there was trying to synthesize a hormone we produce when we go into our bonding cycle," Castiel explained to an astonished Raphael. "They were trying to restart my cycle and force me to bond with someone else."
"That would have likely killed you," Raphael gasped.
Dean startled.
"I know," Castiel replied. Dean stared at him. Seeing it, Castiel sighed. "That's the other reason I left. I knew if I survived the attempt, they'd only try harder to force you to submit to them."
"Son of a bitch!" Dean swore.
Castiel turned back to Raphael. "Dean and I need to try to stop Michael. I could use your help?"
But Raphael and Donnie were shaking their heads. "Didn't you realize during our fight that I'm not really a fighter?" she said, looking upset. "I was a big cat fanatic. I wasn't a fighter and I'm certainly not a soldier."
"That's why I was keeping an eye on things," Bobby explained. "I was watching for someone to come after them, but normally Lanette has a good feel for people. I guess she was right all along. You're not so bad, son, but you gotta realize, these two here? They never wanted to be a part of this thing. All they want is to live their lives in peace."
"We'll be hunted for the rest of our lives," Raphael explained, "but that's our fate. Fighting, though?" She shrugged.
"I'm sorry," Donnie said, avoiding their eyes. "We can't help you."
"I understand," Castiel said.
"Yeah, me too," Dean added. "You two go live your lives. Cass and I will deal with Michael and those bastards controlling him."
Grateful smiles met his words.
