The pilot looked at Gayle who nodded. He didn't know who Quetz was or how close was he to Dawn, but he was certain of one thing – either it was this boy who was ready to take that kind of risk for his daughter-in-law or it was Brantley who forced him to. Bizarre as it may sound, but Gayle did sense something unusual about Brantley all the while and he was unable to shed the feeling.

"Can you sense her?" asked Daryn. Quetz didn't answer. His blue eyes had become arctic cold. He looked in some kind of a trance.

​​

The pilot lowered the helicopter's altitude. When they were about five hundred feet above the waters, the pilot said, "We can't go below this."

Suddenly, Quetz opened the door from his side and before anyone could protest, he had dived down. Neal looked at him with wide eyes, but then he turned sharply to his left when Daryn followed Quetz. He shook his head. But he knew that Daryn would survive it. As for Quetz, he had thought that the boy was a weredragon and Brantley had assigned him to help them out.

"Keep hovering in this area!" Gayle said loudly to the pilot. He held Daryn's phone and waited for the special scuba divers to contact him.

The Lykae and the dragon hit the water surface moments later.

As soon as Quetz was beneath the surface of the water, he swum down steeply and converted into his normal self – that of a green dragon.

From above, people could see a big, powerful green tail swishing down and spilling a large amount of water. He looked like a loch ness monster.

As Daryn swum deeper along with Quetz, he realized that Quetz had come beneath him and nudged him to ride him. Daryn held the dragon's spike that was right above his neck and balanced himself using it as he slid over his neck.

Sun's light illuminated the ocean only till a few feet below and then it became darker.

'Where are you going?' Daryn gestured by tapping on his head though he trusted Quetz' intuition.

All at once, Quetz came to a stop. He let out a low guttural sound from his throat as he looked to the left. Daryn felt temperature rising through his body. He placed his palm over Quetz' neck. It was getting hotter by the minute. Was he about to breathe fire underwater?

Daryn tapped his head a few times to stop it because it won't be of any use, but the dragon wasn't listening. Sometimes Quetz frustrated him as a dragon. The two didn't actually bond well, and tolerated each other only because of Dawn. Daryn was annoyed at his stupidity, but he couldn't do much as Quetz breathed out fire underwater! And to his utter shock, the fire came out as though the water acted like gasoline. Daryn leaned back from the neck to avoid the heat. The water became so hot, that Daryn had to jump off him several feet away to save himself from burning. The surrounding waters lit bright orange and yellow that dulled slowly.

Daryn hissed at the fiery dragon. He saw him diving further in. Daryn chased him and caught his tail. He trailed after him. As they went lower, he swung his head to the left, and in the dull light, a series of seamounts came into view, and one of them had a small, solid steel structure built over it.

Not able to wait any longer, Quetz simply sped up and crashed against the structure, shaking it and shaking the floor beneath. Daryn trailed after him.

He was stunned. Veins stood out in his neck. His chest rumbled with a roar that got absorbed in the waters. Tremors in his body made his skin flush with heat and the beast inside began to rise.

Protect her.

So this was where Azura had locked Dawn? Was he so mad? Somehow he felt that this didn't fit. Why would Azura go to the lengths of building a very expensive enclosure to keep Dawn prisoner? It was insane. It was not his nature unless— unless someone backed him up.

A water taxi bobbed on the right of the structure, as it remained anchored.

---

Inside the building, Azura was watching Dawn while sitting on his rocking chair. Only two more days and he would take her away. That was the deal. The person who gave the order to kill her was Lily Wyatt, but the person who wanted her was someone entirely he had never even thought of. He laughed like a maniac. They all thought that he would deliver Dawn to them? Well, they could take a hike. He had already told Lily Wyatt that he had killed Dawn. As for the other person, he had to plan on how to get Dawn out of there without their knowledge. Azura used all the money that was given to him and according to the plan he had built this structure. He was offered a large amount of help, however, now he had to hoodwink those people.

"Leave me!" Dawn mumbled for the hundredth time that day.

"No darling," he said. "You will soon be taken to my secret location, away from all of them." He rocked his chair again. For the past few days he had been making rounds of the island where Daryn and Dawn were staying. He would inspect the area and come back to this place. At first he thought he would kidnap Dawn without struggle, but the way things went, he had to hire some humans for the job. It was unfortunate that he had to kill all of them before he went inside to take her. He didn't want people tracing him back. The moment he got Dawn, he had dragged her to the helicopter that was waiting for them. The helicopter took them to an island on the east from where he had taken the underwater taxi to the hideout. The plan was perfect, except for the fact that he had to keep Dawn drugged most of the time.

While he was contemplating on his next set of arrangements, which he had carefully charted out, the room quavered and he toppled from his chair.

"Fuck!" he said as he scrambled back to his feet. The first thing he did was to check whether Dawn was safe or not. She had woken up and was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands holding the sheet tightly in her fists. Her eyes were wide with fear.

Azura gritted his teeth. He knew that sometimes the sea floor was riddled with earthquakes when the tectonic plates moved, but in this part of the topography, there were next to none. He had researched a lot. He went to the intercom and after switching it on, said, "It is nothing. You don't have to be afraid." But she continued to stare at the camera.

---

On the outside, Daryn tapped onto Quetz' sides to calm him and stop him from crashing in the steel building again. As a Lykae his strength was unmatchable and if he wanted he could have damaged the walls with his claws. But he had to control his beast and control the dragon. They had to take out Dawn carefully. She was pregnant with his baby.