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Dean knew he shouldn't have let Sam go on his own.

Although "on his own" included a full party of Royal Knights under his command, Dean should have still gone with his baby brother instead of allowing the other to convince him that there was no need for worry, and that the whole operation would only take a few days at most to be done with.

It wasn't the first time they received notice of supernatural creatures wandering inside the kingdom's southern borders, trying to take advantage of the laxer control there to attack the few small villages scattered about those drier lands, and it wasn't the first time Sam gathered a group of Knights to hunt them down.

It was, however, the first time that only one of them walked out of it, claiming they were ambushed on their way to the location of the latest attack by what appeared to be a well-armed – well-prepared – group of humans. He was injured during the fight but he managed to see the kingdom's youngest prince being captured before he completely lost consciousness and was left for dead by their assailants. When he came back to the world, he patched himself up as best as he could, found one of their horses still alive – if a bit freaked out – and rode for the closest Knights outpost at full speed.

It had taken almost twenty-four hours for one of their messengers to arrive at the castle with a hastily written report of what had happened, twenty-four hours since Sam was taken prisoner and in which his continuous wellbeing depended solely on the mercy of his captors.

The news was, understandingly, not taken well by the rest of the Winchester family.

The decision to send a rescue party in the hopes that Sam had not been brought beyond the kingdom's borders was taken quickly, the only setback being that John kept insisting he should join the search too, until his impulsive plan was vetoed not only by his wife, but by Bobby – the eldest member of the Knights and the one taking their command in Sam's absence – too.

If it weren't for Castiel's fortuitous presence at his side when the messenger arrived, Dean knew that he would have ended up cornered by his mother and his unofficial uncle as well: when he brought up the possibility of him and the dragon preceding the other Knights by flight, it was much more difficult to argue against the fact that the more quickly they reached the location of the attack, the more likely they were to find a fresh trail to follow. It resulted in a grudging admission that he had a point from everyone present – even though he was sure his parents silently swore to find a way to make him pay for the worry he would put them under with these bouts of rashness of his.

He had to promise he wouldn't throw himself headlong in at attempt at saving his brother all on his own, but then again the crown prince made sure to keep his fingers crossed behind his back, and it wasn't his fault if no-one thought to check.

"This still strikes me as a rather brash idea," Castiel couldn't help but point out once they were high in the sky, Dean safely cradled in his front paws while the wind whistled around them: the prince had insisted he should go as fast as he was capable of, and if it weren't for the dragon's keen hearing and loud voice, talking wouldn't be possible at all.

"Duly noted," Dean replied curtly, eyes roaming the ground as they flew closer to the point where his brother was attacked. There was no need to glance at him to know that the prince was too filled with worry to care about his tone: the fact he was leaning his head over the edge of Castiel's paw in order to take a better look below them in spite of his reservations towards flight, was telling enough.

"There!" he pointed when the obvious leftovers of a skirmish entered his field of vision. Even from this far high he could see that they weren't the only ones interested in what happened there: a few armed people were lingering about in the clearing, moving every so often to check the woods before coming back to the man that seemed to command of the group.

"I believe those are members of your Royal Knights," the dragon commented, blue eyes squinting as he focused his attention on the land below them.

"Must be from the nearby outpost," the prince mused aloud realizing they would send someone to gather the bodies and try to find out where the attackers had come from. "All right, can you land somewhere you won't freak them out?"

"No, there are too many trees," Castiel replied, his tone grave and apologetic while he continued, "The best I could do is the clearing itself."

Oh, well, Dean supposed he would just have to quell any eventual panic on his own then – it wasn't like they could harm Cas with their weapons anyway.

"Fine," his body instinctively tensed when the dragon veered his course to start descending towards their target in slow spirals. As soon as the other landed, Dean was quick to jump to the ground and place himself between Castiel and the Knights staring at the winged creature in frozen alarm.

"Who is in charge here?" he asked before they could decide that unsheathing their weapons was a good idea, and most of them reluctantly focused their attention on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Cas starting to sit on his hind legs, tail curled in a loose arc behind him and head held high to squint at the armed humans with quiet consideration.

"That's me," came from his left, where a man was making his way towards him. He was almost as tall as the prince was, but so gangly that it made Dean wonder if he would be able to go around with a full-armor on instead of the lighter wear the Knights from that far south seemed to favor.

"I'm Garth Fitzgerald IV, I take care of the nearby outpost," the other continued a friendly grin on his face, that contrasted sharply with the wary looks that his subordinates were still sending at the dragon perched at the edge of the clearing and staring back at the scene with distracted curiosity.

"Your Highness, it's so good to have you here!" he exclaimed with an exaggerated bow, as if he weren't quite sure how to do it properly, but knew from common knowledge that it was how you were supposed to address royalty, "I mean, it's not good with your brother being kidnapped and all that, but it's good to see you again! The last time it was during my knighting ceremony, and I know you probably didn't even notice me since there were a whole lot of other people getting knighted, but, wow, it's still very good to see you, especially from so up close!"

Dean blinked, feeling his forehead crease into a frown while a headache threatened to burst out in full strength somewhere at the back of his mind. He hadn't been near the country's borders in a while, but he had been under the impression that most Knights stationed that far south tended to be either old grumpy veterans or people good with their swords that wanted to keep those regions as free from monsters as possible...not this.

"Yeah, all right, nice to meet you," he finally managed a terse reply, "Now what can you tell me about the people who got my brother."

"Well, we've checked all around here, and there were several different trails in different directions..." Garth started to explain, his cheerful demeanor unfazed by the prince's curtness, "I sent scouts to see if they can track the kidnappers, they should be back in a few hours if you want to wait for their report."

Dean couldn't stop a grimace from emerging on his face at those words: he had hoped the Knights' presence would mean him and Cas would be able to move sooner than expected – avoiding to blindly search for any trace of Sam's current whereabout – but it looked like they weren't going to be that lucky.

With a dark grumble of acknowledgement, a clipped "Fine" that came out half filled with frustration and half with worry, he stalked back towards where the dragon was sitting, still waiting for the prince's return.

"Did you hear?" the human asked as soon as the other's head lowered to meet his gaze.

"Yes," the dragon confirmed, blue eyes peering at his face with attentive carefulness: Dean had no doubt that Cas already noticed the way his shoulders were tight with tension, like he had no doubt that the reason why the winged being was studying his expression with so much intensity was to catch any sign that he might start to lose his composure.

"Any suggestions?"

"It would seem like a good idea to wait," Castiel supplied, "I don't think I would be able to find any concrete trace to follow if I were to fly with this much foliage occluding the ground from my sight."

Dean sighed, unsurprised by that reply, while he rubbed his face in frustration. "Yeah, I kind of thought that too," he admitted, the idea of just waiting without being able to do anything that could help him get to his brother making his belly twist with worry.

"Dean..." the quiet rumble made him raise his gaze once again on the dragon. Cas had tilted his head on one side, watching him now with just one of his big blue eyes.

"Samuel is going to be all right," there was something reassuring in the slow and confident way in which he said those words, and the prince was grateful for it. "He is strong and clever: he will find a way stay safe while you search for him."

A weird expression passed briefly through the dragon's gaze once he finished, as if he wanted to add something else to what he just said, but he seemed to immediately think better of it, deciding to lean closer and press his snout against Dean's chest in a comforting gesture instead.

"Thanks," the prince mumbled, his cheeks reddening a bit while he returned the courtesy with a gentle rub between the dragon's nostrils.

"Hum...Your Highness?" Dean's head whipped around, startled, to find a young dark-haired Knight standing a few feet away and staring at both them with a kind of wary wonder painted on his face. "Is that your dragon? The one everyone talks about?"

"My dragon?"

That was a new one.

His dragon. Wasn't the winged creature still technically his former kidnapper?

"I know we are a bit out of reach" the Knight continued, seemingly taking Dean's silence as surprise rather than the confusion he was actually feeling at the moment, "but words got here too about...uh...your Highness being able to control a dragon..."

Control a dragon. Control a dragon!

Since when was Dean able to control Cas? The dragon did whatever the fuck he wanted more times than not!

"Most people don't just do that, so the news spread pretty fast about the fact that you...uh...trained one for yourself?"

Trained!

Yes of course, that made complete sense! Sure! Why not! How could he not have thought about that! It was the easiest answer to why a dragon would be so comfortable with hanging around him without causing mayhem like any other average dragon would do. Of fucking course!

What the actual fuck.

What the actual fuckity fuck!

Dean really needed to make an official announcement about Cas and his current not-quite-ally-but-definitely-not-enemy-either status to the whole country. In fact, he probably should put it into practice as soon as they managed to drag Sam out of this mess: he was pretty sure the dragon was relatively safe from harm, even if he were to be attacked by a raging crowd convinced they were saving their land from the "evil beast plaguing it", but he would really rather nip the whole issue in the bud if possible.

When he brought his attention back on the dark-haired young man that had caused that little internal debacle, he found that a few more of the other's fellow Knights had slowly crept closer and were now standing at varying distance from both him and the dragon at his side.

"Uh...?" was all the prince came up with, his forehead creasing in confusion while he took notice of the sort-of-intimidated, sort-of-awed expression on their faces.

Seriously, what? Was this about Cas?

"Can I do something for you?" he asked, his worries about Sam momentarily put on hold by the scene before him. They all looked pretty young, now that he fully took in their physical appearance – in fact, they couldn't have reached adulthood long ago – and he wondered exactly why that outpost seemed to lack most of the older, more self-assured Knights he was used to see at the castle.

Were they sent here for their training?

"We were curious about the dragon," one of them replied, a dark-haired girl who straightened her back and sent a challenging glare in his direction when he turned his attention on her.

"Krissy!" Dean heard one of the boys closest to her hiss in her direction, stepping a step towards her as if he wanted to drag her away before she got herself into trouble. She ignored him.

"I mean it's not like we get a lot of friendly dragons around here," she commented, sending a quick glance at Castiel in an instinctive attempt at making sure that the creature before her was, in fact, not about to jump on any of them.

"...so we wanted to know how you trained it...uh...your Highness," the title was added at the last instant, as if she had forgotten she was technically talking to her crown prince.

It made Dean's lips quirk up in amusement.

"Hey, Cas?" he nudged the dragon's snout with his elbow, "How did I train you?"

"You didn't," the winged creature quipped back, "You bribed me with the shiningness of your soul and the pleasure that came with your company," he added, voice lowering in a deep rumble that made clear to the prince just what kind of pleasure he was referring to. Dean would have swatted him on the closest nostril – the only part of Cas' muzzle that would have felt, at least partially, the hit – for those words, but he was distracted when an exclamation of surprise rang through the air.

"Holy shit, it talks!"

Oh, right, that was another thing he should probably made people aware of: dragons weren't, in fact, brainless creatures of mass destruction.

Well, Dean considered while studying the huge outline of his friend's scaled body out of the corner of his eye, maybe they are a little bit creatures of mass destruction, but they are definitely not brainless.

"Of course he can talk," the prince sighed in the end, "And I didn't 'train' him or anything like that: we're just friends," he concluded with a shrug and a slow grin that was supposed to be encouraging but probably came a bit more awkward and embarrassed than he meant it to be.

" 'We're just friends' he says," he heard the young female Knight that had addressed him first – Krissy if Dean heard right – mutter to herself once her initial bewilderment subsided, "Sure, being friendly with a dragon is totally normal and average."

"Cas is perfectly harmless," Dean rolled his eyes, already knowing where that whole discussion was going to get them and ready to reiterate for the umpteenth time how his mate was far more rational and unwilling to start a fight than a lot of people he knew, but he was interrupted by the sudden repetitive thud of hooves hitting hard ground in the familiar rhythm of a gallop.

A silvery paw shifted closer, as if his dragon mate were instinctively getting ready to protect him, and the prince couldn't help a little grin from raising to his face, before he turned his attention back towards the sound. His gaze fell on the trees lining the clearing just in time to see a redheaded woman in a light leather outfit emerge from them, riding a gray horse.

At first she didn't seem to notice either Dean's or Cas' presence – in spite of the dragon's considerable size – and, as soon as she entered the glade's edge, all her attention focused on Garth who, on his part, was already moving closer to approach her.

In one fluid move she hopped to the ground and then the two of them began a quick conversation filled with wide hand gestures and an undercurrent of urgency that made Dean tense in anticipation: was she one of the scouts Garth talked about?

"Cas," he quietly attracted the dragon's attention and waited until the other's head hovered closer, "Can you...?" and he waved a hand towards the two Knights still deep in conversation.

"Yes," Castiel replied, huge head cocking on one side while he listened carefully to what was being said at several feet from them, "I believe you should approach them."

Dean didn't have to be told twice: with a new spring to his steps at the prospective of having some kind of news about his brother, he quickly closed the distance between them and the two Knights until he was towering over them with all the authority that only someone trained from infancy to become the future King of the country could muster up.

"So?" he asked, curt and to the point, while he fixed his piercing gaze on the smaller man now staring back at him with startled surprise.

"Uh...oh yeah, yeah, this is Charlie, your Highness," he explained once recovered from the prince's sudden appearance at his side, "She's one the scouts I told you about."

A pair of excited eyes rose to meet Dean's, recognition passing through them before a large smile spread on her face.

"Prince Dean Winchester!" she exclaimed, her gaze roaming all over him as if she were remembering something, "I think I saw you once at the castle while I was there for some business," she narrowed her eyes in a studying squint that was reminiscent of the confused look Castiel usually gave him when Dean used a phrase or expression that the dragon didn't recognize.

"I'm pretty sure you were flirting like there was no tomorrow with one of the stable guys..."

"Yeah, no that never happened..." the prince automatically replied, eyes narrowing in a dirty glare while his body tensed in alarm. He had to work very hard on ignoring the jackknife reaction of checking if his father was nearby to hear that comment or not: John might be now aware of Dean's preferences, but old habits were a hard thing to eradicate, and the prince was pretty sure he wasn't going to be comfortable with people knowing who he actually leaned toward anytime soon.

"Seriously, your Highness?" the female scout rolled her eyes in disbelief at his instinctive attempt at defending himself, "To be honest there are only so many things you can use to justify the lean-over-and-whisper-in-their-ear move without making it sound stupid – I would know, I used it on a good amount of ladies before!" she added with a shrug and a friendly smile that made Dean relax just a bit. "And really you shouldn't be embarrassed about a bit of guy-on-guy action! Especially since the news of you having some kind of boyfriend already spread pretty much everywhere!"

Uh?

"I have a what?!"

"Oh! I didn't know that!" Garth chimed in, the news apparently pleasing him so much that a wide, bright smile lit up his whole face, "Congratulations!"

Dean grimaced: what was wrong with the people in that outpost?!

"Yeah, dark hair, blue eyes, silent and sort of mysterious?" Charlie continued, ignoring both interruptions while her mouth bent into a grin, "I think someone mentioned hipbones to die for..."

"How do you even know that?!"

Castiel's hipbones when he was human might be the stuff of legends, but that didn't mean anyone but the prince should be privy of it – in fact, he was very attached to them, which was reason enough why no-one else should land their gaze on them without his opinion on the matter.

Dean would have said with a good degree of colorful wording just what he thought about the gossiping nature of his castle's inhabitants, but Charlie's attention was finally caught by a certain creature's presence now hovering even closer behind him, cutting any further development of that particular conversation short.

"Again, your Highness, you really don't need to be so defensive about—IS THAT A MIRROR DRAGON?!"

Dean wasn't sure how it happened, but one moment the bubbly redhead was in front of him and the next she was standing next to Castiel's head, her eyes huge with a mixture of surprise and delight, while she bounced excitedly from one foot to the other.

"Hey..." he tried to catch her attention back, but she seemed too enwrapped in the sight before her to hear his call. In fact, she looked just a second away from reaching out and start stroking Castiel's snout.

"Wow! Your scales are really shiny!" Charlie gushed in the meanwhile, watching the way her image was reflected back at her by the dragon's long neck, "And look at your horns! Not even a dent in them! You must treat them very well!"

Watching the exchange between the redheaded woman and the dragon was a bit like watching a collector of rare beasts examining a potential new addition to their collection, except without the general air of desire to own and more with the kind of excited glee that the prince was used to see on little kids when they found a new shiny bug to show off to their friends.

It made Dean's previous tenseness slowly seep away from his body, his shoulders relaxing and his lips turning upwards in the hint of a smile when the dragon tilted his head on one side and regarded Charlie's fussing with curiosity.

Cas' blue eyes where following each of the woman's movements, the three protrusions on the back of his neck rising and flattening back – much like a cat's tail might swish more or less tightly behind them, depending on how you approached it – while his nostrils flared every so often to pinpoint her scent properly.

"Hey! Stop that!" Dean warned when the redheaded scout tried to reach for one of those same protrusions, his voice coming out harder now: he was fine with the fussing – it was kind of a nice change from the irrational fear that the dragon tended to strike in people – but touching his mate without the other's explicit consent was another matter altogether.

Quickly pulling her hands back against her chest, Charlie turned sharply towards the prince, her eye wide and startled as if for a moment she had forgotten there were other people around.

"Uh, sorry," she apologized, embarrassment clear on her face, "I've never seen a dragon from this up close and they..." she added with a wave of her hand in Castiel's direction, "...look just so awesome!"

With a deep sigh, the prince let his gaze swing briefly to his mate. He really couldn't disagree with that particular sentiment, not when giant blue eyes were staring back at him with adorable puzzlement, nor when Charlie, although easily excitable, at least didn't address the dragon like one would a wild animal – it was more than he could say about the rest of the people who were introduced to Cas so far.

"Cas is male," he gently specified only to receive a wide grin from the redheaded woman in return.

"He's still pretty awesome!"

Dean couldn't help shaking his head with a weary smile on his face. "Now that you're done fussing over my dragon...did you have anything to tell me about my brother?"

"Oh, shit, right!" with a grimace at the realization of how the dragon's presence had made her lose her focus, Charlie sheepishly added, "Sorry, your Highness, I got distracted for a second there."

"Just 'Dean' is fine," the prince commented distractedly, while she began relaying what she saw.

There were several different sets of hooved footprints that left the clearing and entered the forest around it in an evident attempt to mislead any eventual pursuer, and Charlie, as one of the best scouts and trackers the outpost had, was assigned to follow the ones leading south-east towards the kingdom's southern border: if the younger prince had been indeed forced beyond them, then they needed to be ready to intervene to his rescue as soon as possible, as the more deeply he was dragged inside the lands of their neighboring country, the more likely it would be for any intervention on their part to be taken as a declaration of war.

While Dean had no intention whatsoever of abandoning his brother, he really didn't want to start a war either, and so he was very pleased to see that, in spite of his weirdly chipper behavior, Garth had the foresight of sending the best they could offer to take care of that matter.

Charlie explained that the footprints she followed did leave the kingdom's borders, but not by much, and they brought her to one of the old, disused outposts that belonged to the era when their neighboring country was still prospering. It was now mostly in ruins, but half of it was still habitable and she had seen enough to confirm that there were people living in there and patrolling the area like they expected to be attacked at any given moment.

"The only problem is..." Charlie continued with a quick glance in Castiel's direction and an apologetic grimace, "I don't think you'll be able to get there by flight, not if you're trying to be sneaky about it. There are too many trees for him to land anywhere near the outpost, and even if you kept your distance there is still the chance their guards will spot him: his type of dragons kind of can't avoid looking like giant flying mirrors..."

Dean had to admit that she had a good point there, but at least that was easy enough to solve. With a meaningful rise of his eyebrow, he turned towards Cas and locked their gazes together. He watched as amusement filled the other's eyes before he blinked and his mate was standing in front of them in his human form, blue irises peering at him through dark eyelashes and chapped lips quirked up in a tiny smile that was only for him to see.

The prince couldn't help matching the other's expression with a grin of his own, while he watched the dragon close the few feet of distance between them until only half a dozen inches kept them apart.

"Oh!" the startled exclamation made him glance towards their two spectators: Garth seemed mostly in awe by what he just witnessed – a reaction that might be amusing but was still quite understandable, given the situation – so the prince's gaze only lingered on him for a few instants before turning to the woman at his side.

Charlie's eyes were staring back at him with unconcealed shock, her eyebrows so far high up her forehead that they were now hidden by her bangs. Dean would have guessed once again that it was due to the fact that the giant lizard previously standing next to them had suddenly turned into a man, but the truth was that he could also see something like realization filling her gaze, and it made him tense in return.

"Is he—?" she tried to ask, only to snap her mouth back shut when she saw the look on his face. Her lips pinched into a considering purse and Dean could feel his own cheeks become warm under her scrutiny.

"Oh!" she repeated, as if his reaction answered her unxpressed query, before turning to the gangly man next to her. "Hey, Garth! Can you get them a couple of horses or something? We're gonna need them if I've to show them what I found."

"One is enough," Dean managed to correct before Garth cheerfully turned to comply with Charlie's request, "Cas can't really ride worth a damn..."

"He really doesn't need to: he can fly," the redheaded scout replied with a chuckle, before raising her eyebrow in amusement once they were alone. "How does that even work with him being a dragon and all that anyway? I mean, I get that he can turn human, but wouldn't that be weird for him in the long run?"

Dean and Cas shared a look: the prince wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that line of inquire from someone he just met. Charlie's cheerfulness and openness might help him feel more at ease in her presence than he would normally be even with some of his oldest friends, but he still was reluctant to tackle that particular topic with anyone.

A light squeeze around his wrist made him glance sideways to find blue eyes peering back at him with the kind of quiet reassurance that the dragon always directed at him whenever he noticed Dean's internal distress, and the light brush of the other's thumb against the back of his hand made the prince sigh and close his eyes for a few instants.

"It just works," he replied in the end with a short shrug, "It's not like I ask him to look human at all times – it's just more convenient for certain things," he paused, licking his lips before continuing, "I actually like him like he normally is."

He could feel his cheeks grow aflame in embarrassment at that admission, but the sensation was quickly sedated when gentle fingers brushed against his own in a silent show of pride and comfort. When he glanced back at Charlie to see her reaction, he saw a pleased smile quirking her lips.

"Aww, that's cute!" she grinned, "You know, you kind of have a super-manly dude reputation going around, but, really, you're more of a blueberry muffin, aren't you?" she added with a sly wink that made Dean's face burn to new and brighter shades of red.

It had been a long time since anyone managed to embarrass him so throughly in the span of a conversation – in a way, Charlie's straightup honesty was kind of terrifying! – and he was very grateful when Garth unwittingly came to his rescue with a gray and white horse quietly clopping at his toes.

"By the way," Dean addressed the other man once he helped Cas to climb up behind him, an arm immediately wrapping around his waist and blue eyes peering at the side of his face while the prince continued, "why are there so many kids here anyway? They can't be more than trainees..."

Garth's face seemed to fall at those words, as if the query reminded him of particularly unpleasant situation.

"Yeah, hum, about that..." he sighed, glancing at Krissy and the other boys and girls now squabbling about something they couldn't hear from where they were standing, "we had a lot of trouble with werewolves in the last few months and there were some casualties. Jody Mills – the one in charge of the outpost further east – said she would send us some backup until we got a more permanent solution, but they still have to arrive..."

"If you still need help once I come back with my brother, I'll have more Knights sent here to help," the prince promised, his forehead creasing in displeasure at hearing the precarious situation they were in: normally when the ranks of a border outpost thinned down, they would quickly be filled up back again to avoid attacks from the malevolent creatures that still crawled aplenty in the region further south from their kingdom.

Either this situation had been going on for a while, or the monster activity in that region was worse than they originally assumed.

"Thanks, man! That would be great!" Garth grinned with gratitude as he saw them off. Dean nodded a last time in a gesture of farewell, before turning his attention on following Charlie while she led the way on her own gray mount.

The scrawny guy was easy to please, but there was still something about everything that he was told that made the prince's insides tense with anticipation: first his brother was kidnapped during a hunt; now Garth told him that monsters activity had been more on the rise than they originally thought – so much so that his outpost now lacked experienced Knights to keep it going.

It couldn't be a coincidence.

In fact it was suspicious as Hell.

"Dean?" the low rumble against his ear pulled him out of his own thoughts and he glanced at the dragon behind him. He could feel the other's hand gently rubbing his middle in comfort – Castiel having probably perceived the sudden tenseness in the human's body – while a pair of blue eyes studied his expression with purposeful focus.

"...'m fine," the prince sighed in the end, letting their horse's reins go long enough to rub his fingers against the ones still resting on his stomach. He could feel his mate shift closer so that his chest was pressed against Dean's back, but the prince didn't comment on it, finding the warm contact comforting.

"Hey, Charlie!" he called while he prompted his mount to flank hers. They were going at a brisk pace, not quite a galop – as the lack of an actual road and abundance of trees made it impossible to sustain one without risking to meet a trunk face-first – but quick enough that it would make them save a lot of time compared to going on foot.

"You said you travel a lot, right? Have you noticed more monster activity than usual recently?"

A frown made its way on the redhead face, her lips pursed into an expression of consideration before she carefully answered, "Not personally, but I've heard stories from the other outposts guarding the borders and the towns nearby it: I mean, aside from the usual vampires and werewolves, there were people claiming they had to deal with a rugaru...a rugaru! When was the last time that happened?"

Well, shit.

The last confirmed sight of a rugaru was dated at least five decades before.

Fuck suspicious, the situation was entering worrisome territory scaringly quickly.

"To be honest I don't think it's a great idea to go rescue your brother on your own – even with a dragon at your back and calls," Charlie continued in the meanwhile. "You still are our crown prince and all that..."

"I told him as much," Castiel's gravelly voice came from above Dean's shoulder in a low grumble of displeasure, "but he wouldn't listen."

"That's because it was a shit idea," the prince huffed back, while he sent the other a frown. The dragon had already expressed before his disagreement with Dean's plan of trying to rescue Sam with their own hands, but he thought that Cas had let the matter go when he verbalized no further complain on the matter.

Apparently the dragon simply understood that there was no way Dean would let Sammy in the hands of a bunch of assholes more than necessary, and decided to give the prince his support in spite of his disapproval of the whole situation.

It was kind of nice.

"Oh, wow! You know our language too?" of course there was no way his internal musing wouldn't be interrupted by Charlie's excited query. She had prompted her horse to move closer to theirs in order to peer at the dragon with renewed interest and curiosity gleaming in her gaze.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Cas tilt his head, directing a slow blink back at her: he looked a bit perplex of being suddenly addressed when she had not done so before, and the prince could feel the way the other's hand twitched for an instant on his belly.

"That would be the case, yes," the dragon carefully replied, eyes squinting in a scrutiny of his own, as if Charlie's query had been enough to pique his interest somehow.

The admission seemed to please the redheaded scout more than anyone dealing with a – supposedly vicious – dragon normally would. The grin on her face grew brighter, and her eyes sparkled again with the same kind of light that Dean was used to see in his brother's gaze whenever he stumbled upon an old and forgotten document to study and put back to good use.

It made him cringe a bit internally, because the object of Charlie's attention was not a crumbling piece of paper, but his mate.

"Why did you word it like that?" he asked to try and divert her apparent eagerness to further question the dragon now wrapped tightly against his back. "You make it sound like you knew he can speak."

He didn't quite completely expect the "Because dragons can speak their own language, duh!" he received in return, and it made him turn his head to silently ask the dragon if she was telling the truth.

When Castiel nodded in confirmation, the prince's mouth opened with a small "Ah..." of surprise: in the months since Dean first met the other, it had never occurred to him that perhaps his mate was used to communicating with his kind differently than what he did with the human.

It made sense in hindsight, but it made him also wonder what other things he still didn't know about his mate.

In fact, it made him realize that, aside from certain everyday things – like what Cas usually ate – he didn't know a whole lot about dragons in general, as, while he was sure the other would satisfy his curiosity without fail, Dean had simply never bothered to ask.

"You seem to know a lot of things about dragons, much more than your people usually do," Cas commented in the meanwhile, his tone marked once again by a note of curiosity at Charlie's uncharacteristic knowledge on the subject. The look on his face was intrigued – if Dean had to find a word for it – and he imagined that having a human other than the prince not treating him like a dangerous beast must be pretty novel experience to him.

"You hear all kind of things when you travel a lot," she replied with a grin, "and I kind of like dragons in general, so I might have collected a book or two – or three or four – on the subject!"

"What about that 'Mirror Dragon' thing you called him?" the prince asked, feeling a bit more curious about Castiel's kin now that he had noticed his lack of knowledge on the subject.

"That's his subspecies," Charlie easily explained, her eyes bright with delight at being queried more about something she evidently was passionate about, "or at least how humans call them, since their scales are kind of like mirrors."

It was true, Castiel's scales – especially when freshly cleaned – were one of the most reflective materials Dean had ever seen in his life. In fact, he clearly remembered the dragon mentioning that at nighttime, if the moon was visible and he flexed his wings in a certain way, he was able to redirect its light much like a lighthouse would. The whole concept had been so intriguing that the image it evoked in the prince's mind had stuck with him ever since.

"You know, it's kind of like dogs," the scout continued, "they can have different breeds and stuff, right? Well, there are so many kinds of dragons, with different colors, breath types, and sizes, that most books on the subject agree they probably have a similar classification."

"It is a pretty apt analogy," Castiel conceded with a little frown, as if he wasn't quite sure how he felt about being compared to a dog. "Generally those that share the same characteristics as myself are mistaken for Silver Dragons."

"...which are different," Dean concluded.

"They are bigger, still very shiny but really not as good mirrors as Castiel here is," Charlie explained, "they are also supposedly more dangerous?" she added with a quick glance at the dragon, as if asking confirmation in that regards.

"They aren't generally malevolent," Cas answered, his forehead creasing in a pensive frown, "but they are very stubborn and self-righteous: once they are convinced to be in the right, it is impossible to change their mind. They also tend to think that it is their duty to eradicate any kind of evil in the world, but their standards of good and evil are very self-contained, and they tend to disregard the opinions of their allies as inconsequential," he sighed, eyes diverted from both the humans and looking in the distance, as if he were recalling to mind events he had witnessed in the past. "It has made for...eventful squabbles with the more malicious members of our kind."

There was a kind of sadness in Castiel's gaze while he said these last words, and although his tone didn't betray anything of what was passing through his mind, Dean knew instinctively that there must be more there than they were being told.

He had no way to further enquire about it without risking upsetting his mate, however, and so he decided he would wait: once Sam was saved, they would have as much time as they needed to talk about it anyway.

******

The rest of the journey continued in much the same way, with Cas and Charlie offering all kind of informations about dragons, and answering every query that the prince posed to them – Dean suspected that they were both teaming up to distract his mind from worrying excessively about Sam's current location and well-being – until the redheaded scout declared they were about to pass the kingdom's borders and should stop to at least eat something before marching on.

From there only a couple of hours of travel separated them from the old outpost that was their goal, she explained, and it would be best to be ready and alert before entering potentially hostile territory.

Although the prince felt a bit restless at the idea of wasting any more time, he had to admit that she was right: while he did want to rescue his brother as soon as possible, getting themselves captured because they didn't have enough strengths in them wasn't going to help anyone either.

"...so you see, I'm sorta of an independent contractor," Charlie explained as she chewed on a piece of dried meat. They didn't have much food with them, as the redhead was the only one with provisions on herself – Dean and Castiel having left the castle that morning too hurriedly to think about it – but they managed to find a few bushes of berries to add to what they add.

They had stopped at a quiet little clearing they encountered on their way, sitting in the shadows casted by a nearby tree to consume their meal while they let their horses rest, the dragon and the prince sitting next to each other, their shoulders almost touching, and the younger woman in front of them.

"Garth was short of people for the outpost, so when I was passing by about a week ago, he asked me if I could give him a hand while they waited for a refill in the ranks."

The prince nodded, having already heard about that particular issue from the gangly man himself. It was no wonder that Charlie seemed to know so much about so many different topics if she was used to travel around rather than being constrained to the smaller territory that a single outpost would guard.

"Charlie, you said you hear a lot of rumors during your travels, right?" the prince asked, waiting for a nod from woman before continuing. "What do you know about Hel?"

Hel was, according to the delegation they received almost three weeks ago, the new name that Queen Lilith decided to give to her kingdom – the previous one having gone unused even by its people after the decades of destruction that plagued it.

The only problem was that, aside from its name and the fact that they apparently wanted to renew the old trading deals, not much was known about what was going on inside its borders. There weren't any guards forbidding people from passing through or anything of the sort – thanks small miracles for that, or sneaking inside would have been much more difficult! – but the general abundance of monsters that seemed to come and go from within its confines tended to keep people away from it anyway.

Not only that. There was also the issue of the delegation itself: Dean could still remember the way the hairs at the back of his neck raised at the sight of the middle-aged man and the two women who came to talk with his father, as much as he remembered how John's mood had seemingly dropped to twitchy unhappiness soon after their departure.

He didn't dare to ask what actually went on – seeing as he was forbidden to participate to begin with – during the negotiations, but it was clear that his father didn't trust Lilith's people in the slightest.

It made Sam being kidnapped and dragged inside Hel's border all the more suspicious.

"Not much to be honest, I haven't had the chance to properly inquire about it yet," Charlie replied with a short huff, "but I do know some stuff," she explained while scooting closer.

"For instance, you know the current queen is a woman named Lilith, right? Well, the Lightbringer family – the one she says she belongs to – doesn't seem to be recorded anywhere or remembered by anyone: no source I consulted so far regarding these territories mentioned it, not even once."

Dean frowned: he had heard about smaller families suddenly rising to power before, but appearing out of thin air? It was entirely new.

"Not only that," the redhead continued, eyes now shining with the urgency to share with the prince what little information she had about that unconventional kingdom, "but, according to rumors, the way she supposedly seized power was pretty weird too. I mean, the whole country was half-destroyed, but still there should have been some other pretenders to the throne to contest her claim, right? Instead nothing. Smoothest change of management ever seen in a kingdom. She professed herself to be the new queen of Hel, and that was it."

There was something in the way she relayed these bits of knowledge, all wild gesture of hands and eyes blazing of frustration like she had been thinking about it over and over again for quite a bit of time, that made uneasiness crawl up Dean's spine. The worry for Sam that he had managed to keep contained up to that moment, returned with a vengeance and the lines of his face slowly moved to set into a grim frown.

"And lastly there is the timing," Charlie concluded. "Now, I try not to be suspicious until I've enough information to form at least a decent opinion, but...how did she know the two dragons wouldn't start fighting again?"

She couldn't, Dean's mind quickly supplied, it was dumb luck.

Except there was a nagging feeling at the back of his skull – like he was missing a crucial piece of information that made the whole picture blurry and muddy to look at – and he couldn't help but notice, out of the corner of his eye, how his mate had shifted closer during Charlie's considerations.

"Cas?" Dean moved his attention on the human-shaped dragon, "Want to join the conversation?"

For a few instants Castiel didn't reply, his gaze fixed somewhere far into the forest while he pondered on the pros and cons of indulging the prince's proposal, then a short unhappy grimace twisted his lips and his blue eyes swept back to his two companions.

"Miklaglyoblien and Lishelarnamlion," he said by way of introduction, only to roll his eyes and let out a frustrated sigh when he was met by twin confused stares.

"The two dragons you were talking about," he specified, "Miklaglyoblien, a Silver Dragon, and Lishelarnamlion, a Gold Dragon."

"You know them?" Dean asked with a bit of surprise in his voice: while it was true that the prince knew of at least one other dragon his mate was on friendly terms with, it was also equally true that Cas wasn't one for socialization when it could be avoided.

"I know about them," Cas corrected, his mouth once again pinching in displeasure.

"They have...a certain reputation among us," he explained in a tone from which it was clear how much he disapproved of their actions, "they don't get along well with one another in spite of their similarities, and every few centuries their disagreements grow so far in number that they inevitably decide to solve them by finding a new territory each time and use it as their personal battleground."

And that would explain Hel's most recent past of destruction.

"Damn, that's..." Charlie started, only for her voice to falter into silence and her face to fill with pity.

"Pretty fucked up," concluded Dean, forehead drawn in righteous outrage at the idea that the reason behind all the death that the two dragons had caused was because of some petty endless squabble they had going on.

They all fell into a rueful silence, their meal proceeding with an aura of sadness and sorrow wrapped around it, until Charlie spoke again.

"But wait..." she raised her gaze back on Castiel, her lips pursed in confusion, "aren't Silvers and Goldens supposed to be on friendly term?"

At her query, the expression on the dragon's face became pained, as if he had just swallowed a particularly bitter medicine.

"Yes, that would be their normal interaction," he replied, and Dean was sure that, if Cas were back to his usual body, his tail would be twisting and swishing in a show of contempt, "but while Miklaglyoblien retains all the stubbornness and self-righteousness of his kind, Lishelarnamlion leaves much to be desired to the amiability and wiseness that Goldens are famous for, and, although no dragon would say it to him snout to snout, he acts much like a small and spoiled hatchling would."

Sometimes Dean forgot that there were reasons why dragons were generally considered the bestial equivalent of a cataclysm, such as an earthquake or a particularly strong storm might be. He was so used to Cas' accommodating and mild – usually benevolent towards human – nature, that it was difficult to remind himself that his mate was not, in fact, the standard, but rather a rare exception among a bigger bunch of dicks.

In an unconscious need to show his gratefulness for being granted the opportunity to hoard not only the dragon's friendship for himself, but also his affection, the prince reached out to entwine their fingers together, his thumb caressing the back of Castiel's hand while he caught the other's gaze with his own.

He watched as the lines of frustration on his mate's face slowly melted away, his lips parting to let out a soft, noiseless sigh of gratitude, before he squeezed back in a silent thanks. Dean really really wanted to lean closer and kiss the other's stupidly chapped lips until they were full and red and glistening from where his tongue had dragged over them.

"Oh, wow! I heard about it, but I didn't think it was this, uh..." of course there was no way the prince would be allowed to continue down that road – and perhaps it was a good thing that Charlie interrupted them, as it truly wasn't the right moment to get lost into each other.

"My sources really weren't kidding about the whole 'soulfully staring at each other' thing."

Dean rolled his eyes. He really needed to find out who kept spreading these rumors about him and Cas, before they escalated in some kind of wild romance story.

"Whatever," he replied before pulling himself back on his feet. "We've wasted enough time here: we should get moving."

******

When they stopped again, the sun had already started to set, the forest around them having grown steadily darker as the trees' shadows grew in length. They had been climbing up a gentle slope for a while, the path now rougher – a sign of disuse – and the undergrowth wilder than it had been so far, and they were supposed to continue up that road still for a handful of miles before reaching their goal.

"We should leave the horses behind," Charlie explained when Dean sent a questioning glance in her direction. "We're almost there and if we're still gonna do this the sneaky way they really can't come: there are a lot of places to hide for us, but if there are still sentinels around like the last time, the horses just make too much noise to get closer without being noticed."

They didn't have to worry about them running off unsupervised, as long as the animals had enough food to eat, they were trained to linger were they were left for at least a few days, and go back to the outpost they came from only if there was no sign of their riders during that time.

The last two miles were a nightmare.

At some point during the hike, Dean started to feel fidgety and irritable, his mind taking advantage of the short distance now separating the prince from his baby brother to remind him of the fact that anything could have happened to Sam in the almost two days since he was kidnapped: there was no guarantee that his capturers didn't decide to move further inside the borders after Charlie located them, and the prospect of losing even that little lead they had was slowly churning at Dean's insides.

His mood didn't increase once night fell and they were left to navigate through the woods with only the stars as their point of reference, while they nibbled on the berries that were left from their previous stop. He supposed he should be happy that at least the trees were now more sparse and the moon was high enough to light their way, but not even Castiel's proximity or his attempts at soothing Dean's mind seemed to work anymore.

It must have been way past ten when they finally came in sight of their destination: partially shrouded in the shadows casted by the main building and ringed by a mostly crumbling wall, was the old outpost that supposedly was being used to hold Dean's baby brother captive.

Like Charlie said, the thing had been abandoned since at least a century before – when the two dragons Miklaglyoblien and Lishelarnamlion started their latest dispute – and, while it seemed to be still standing on its foundation solidly enough, the eastern side was deteriorated by the long time of neglect to the point that the roof had collapsed and dragged part of the second floor down with it. It was difficult from the distance separating them and from the lack of light to gauge exactly how far inside the building the damage went, but the prince reasoned that, after all the trouble they went through to capture their precious hostage, Sam's kidnappers would probably keep their captive as far away from potential harm as possible.

"I can't see any of the guards around," Dean glanced at the women crouching next to him in the high grass, keeping his voice barely above a whisper.

"There were at least two of them the last time I was here," Charlie replied, straining her sight to see if she could make out any sentinel hiding in the dark.

Could they have decided to pass the night in the building without leaving even one men or woman to keep guard outside? It didn't seem like a smart thing to do considering the situation the kidnappers were in: even if they had hidden their tracks better than they did, a rescue party could still stumble on them at any moment. Perhaps they believed to be far enough inside Hel's borders, that King John wouldn't dare to send an armed party after them.

"There."

Castiel quiet murmur made both humans turn to follow his gaze. At first it was difficult to make out what had caught the dragon's attention, but, once their sight became more used to the darker shadows gathering near the wood's edge, they saw a soft glow peek from the other side of a still-standing piece of wall at about seventy feet from them, its orange and trembling light tipping them off on the fact that the source must be some kind of fire.

Signaling for his two companions to be quiet and follow him, Dean made his way all around the pile of bricks blocking their sight, his body kept low and eyes darting about to make sure there was no-one else around, until he could see two men gathered around a small campfire. They didn't seem to have noticed their presence, one of the two looking about ready to fall asleep where he was sitting, while the other leaned against the wall with a bored expression on his face, the lack of action in the last two days and the late hour having made them both drop their guard.

"What now?" the whisper breathed low at just a few inches from his ear made Dean turn to glance at the redheaded woman at his side, her eyebrows drawn together in uncertainty while she waited for his reply.

"We should take care of them," the prince replied, his voice equally quiet to avoid it being heard by the object of their discussion. If they intended to sneak inside the outpost, leaving these two men as possible backup for the kidnappers hiding in the building didn't seem like a smart idea at all.

They didn't strictly need to actually kill them – and Dean didn't completely mean his words to imply anything like that – knocking them out and bind them would be enough, but there still was a small part of him which took that opportunity to remind him that these were the same men who had no qualms in killing their Knights during his brother's kidnapping.

Why should they show them mercy, exactly?

"Wait here," when Castiel's quiet order reached them, it took the prince a moment to understand what the other had in mind, and by that time the dragon had already sneaked his way through the thick undergrowth and vanished in the shadows.

With a silent curse, Dean brought his attention back on the two guards, his heart picking up a hammering pace in his chest at having no control over – or knowledge of – what Castiel had in mind.

"Should we...?" Charlie started to ask at his side, but he shook his head before she could finish her query: even if he had no idea what the dragon intended to do, he trusted the other implicitly. Additionally intervening without prompting might mess Cas' plan up.

It sounded all extremely reasonable inside the prince's head, but it didn't mean he had to like it.

Minutes passed in silence without any sign of what the dragon was up to, until a thin layer of anxious sweat was coating Dean's forehead and his eyes were starting to ache for how long he had been staring at the two guards without daring to turn his attention away even to blink.

Then the guard leaning against the wall started to sway.

He fell on the ground with a dull thud, while his companion startled awake, eyes wide at the unexpected sound and head whipping around to stare at the other man now laying in a heap of limbs among the dirt. A frown made its way on his face, lit by the soft glow of the fire, and he had just started to pull himself back on his feet with the intention of checking on the other more closely, when he too stumbled and dropped like a bag of bricks.

"Dean...?" Charlie's hesitant voice reached him in a silent query, but Dean had no answers for her. He had never seen anything like this before.

"Cas?" the prince tried, a bit louder now that the guards had lost consciousness, and the dragon finally appeared in his line of sight: he was making his way next to the two men on the ground, his steps measured and slow, only stopping when he stood next to the fire. His eyes shifted back on his companions still hiding in the trees, and in the soft light they looked deeper, darker, as if all the knowledge in the world was contained behind them and waiting to be used.

Without uttering a word, Cas raised his hand and gestured for the two humans to come closer, silently letting them know that there was no reason for them not to join him now that his job was done.

"I used a sleep charm on them," the dragon explained as soon as they were closer and, when Dean flicked his gaze to the two bodies slumped on the ground, he noticed the relaxed and regular swelling of their chests that confirmed the other's claim.

"Unless someone purposely tries to wake them up, they will remain like this until morning."

"Handy," the prince commented with a low, wary chuckle while he idly studied the two sleeping guards. It was the first time that he witnessed the dragon use his magic on actual people and, while he knew his friend wouldn't exploit his powers for maliciously purposes, it still made the more instinctive part of his mind shiver at the notion of being put into a defenseless state so easily. He had no doubts that Cas wouldn't harm a fly unless severely provoked, but at times he was still taken aback by the proof that his mate was, indeed, a creature born out of magic rather than whatever humans were made of.

"I could have as easily killed them," Cas absently considered aloud, his head cocked on one side, while he peered back at Dean with an expression the latter wasn't entirely sure how to read, "but I thought you wouldn't approve of it."

"No, it's fine, you did good," the prince replied, studying him. It was difficult to interpret the look on the dragon's face, but there was a crease between the other's eyebrows that could as well be the beginning of a discontent frown.

"Cas?" he called when he saw no reaction to his words, and waited for his mate's gaze to lock once again with his own: in the dim light, his eyes seemed to give off an unnatural blue glow, far eerier than what Dean was used to.

"You ok, buddy?" he carefully asked, only to see Cas' mouth press into a hard line. There had to be something wrong – the prince had no idea what specifically, but he could tell the other was unhappy for some reason.

The dragon hesitated, blue gaze skipping away for an instant from their shared look and pink tongue peeking out to wet his lips, before he went back to staring Dean in his eyes.

"Do you intend to go inside?" Cas asked, his voice coming out just a bit rougher than usual.

"That was the idea," the prince shrugged, not entirely sure what the other was getting at now: he thought he had made plenty clear that he had no intentions of leaving his kid brother in the hands of his kidnappers longer than strictly necessary, so why was the dragon showing uncertainty now?

"We need to get to Sammy as soon as possible," he added, feeling, under Castiel's scrutiny, like he had to reiterate that point.

The frown on the dragon's face deepened and a sound much like the low growl of an annoyed wolf, left his throat.

"Cas, I thought we agreed on this already..." Dean frowned. He could sense Charlie's gaze on the both of them, bouncing back and forth between them, but he couldn't feel like he cared at the moment.

"Yes, yes, we need to save your brother," the reply came latched with so much discontentment that it made the prince take a step back in surprise. He had never heard Cas use that tone with anyone, nor he had ever seen such deep dissatisfaction on his face before. Generally his mate's mood swinged somewhere between disinterest and amusement, and the only time he had seen the other show outright frustration towards anything was when discussing his father's past marriage attempts.

"Dude, you said it was fine!" he shot back once the initial disconcert subsided, only to be shushed by Charlie when his voice became too loud. The look on her face was becoming increasingly alarmed the more the conversation went on.

"I was not pleased, but it was fine before," the squint Castiel send him with those words seemed to be trying to will him into being a reasonable adult. Dean didn't like to be looked down upon, especially by the one guy – dragon, whatever! – who kept mentioning how important and precious he was.

"And now it's not?" he asked, his tone stuck somewhere between exasperated and downright confused.

"I can't protect you properly in there!" Cas finally seemed to snap, the frustration on his face changing in the span of only a few instants to anger, fear, and finally back to frustration again. There was a metaphorical wall now covering what was really going on inside the dragon's head, but Dean took in the way the other's eyes were still a fraction too wide, and all his willingness to fight slowly deflated to a background hum in his mind.

"There are wards against magic inside," his mate continued, blue eyes darkened from disquietness, "I can feel them from here."

"So you won't be able to use your powers?" Dean frowned with a quick glance towards the old building standing at a few dozen feet from them. There was no-one around aside from the two guys on the ground still snoring their way through the whole conversation, and if people really were hiding inside, they were giving no sign of being aware of their presence so far.

"No, not completely – the warding is strong yes, but not enough to make me helpless," the other slowly admitted after a soft sigh, as if he were gauging if telling the prince this would make him more likely to run inside or not, "but major spells – shapeshifting, charms of the mind like the sleep spell from before – I don't think I will be able to use them without strain."

Dean studied him carefully before he took a step closer.

"Cas," he said, watching the other's face for any sign of the reaction his next words would gather, "I can take care of myself. You don't need to protect me or anything like that: I have my sword, and I can fight, and I have no intention of just barging inside and pray for the best. When I said we'd do this the sneaky way, I meant it."

"I can't let anything happen to you," there was a confused frown on Castiel's face now, like he was having difficulty understanding what the prince meant with his promise. "You're mine to protect."

Dean should have probably considered this before – even in his single-minded focus to save his brother – because Cas was now staring at him like the prince was already lost to him and the dragon had no way of preventing him from walking to his demise.

"Cas..." he started only to pause and swallow loudly. This was not the right moment to feel like he should maybe drag the other back in the woods and show him just how much he really wasn't planning on dying that night.

"Cas, Cas, hey..." he tried again, wrapping his hand around the other's arm when it became clear to him that if he wanted to close the distance between them he would have to do it on his own. "No-one is going to harm me, all right? I'll be fine, I've always taken care of myself, remember?" he hoped his tone was comforting because he didn't have much experience with it, not when Cas was involved in any case.

"You on the other hand...can you keep yourself safe, if you come inside with me?"

"Of course," the dragon frowned, as if unsure why the prince was worrying about him now, "as I told you already, the warding will limit my powers, but not erase them completely," he explained while he sent a quick glance towards the ruined building that was the cause of that whole discussion.

"Blessings and stamina charms should still work, and I believe I still will able to heal minor wounds," he explained, shifting his shoulders in what Dean realized to be an aborted shrug. "It would be easier if I were in my body, but unless you want me to demolish the whole complex, I will have to make do with this form."

Cas still didn't look happy, the prince noticed while he absently rubbed his thumb on the arm under his fingers, but at least he seemed less agitated than before. It was kind of flattering that the dragon cared for him so much that he would start fretting over his well-being even when it was not necessary, but Dean had everything under control, really!

He had his fair share of experience fighting foes far stronger and more dangerous than a few kidnappers, and even if they ended up being trained warriors of some kind, the prince was not an idiot: he really meant it when he said they would do this the sneaky way.

"Then it's decided," he stated, giving a last reassuring squeeze to Castiel's arm before turning to the redhead now staring at the two of them with her lips pursed and her eyebrows pinched together in speculation, "Charlie, you'll stay outside and stand guard; if the other Knights get here before we come out, let them know we're inside."

"To be honest, that sounds like a terrible idea..." she commented in return, but Dean ignored her protestations, having had enough discussions for one night.

"Cas, you take this," the prince continued, unsheathing the knife he kept on his belt – one never had enough weapons on themselves, according to his father – and offered it to the dragon at his side. "If your mojo is going to be down for the count, at least you'll have something else to protect yourself with."

It took Castiel a few moments of staring at the short blade, before he reached out to take it from Dean's hand. His long fingers wrapped around the hilt, and then he raised it to his face, watching the light from the fire skitter over the metal.

"Take out your sword," he quietly ordered, his gaze shifting back on the prince until the latter followed his instructions. When the blade was lifted between them, Cas moved closer to press his hand against its side, and his lips parted to murmur a few words in a language Dean could not recognize, until a soft glow emanated from the weapon and then subsided soon afterwards.

"What was that?" the prince asked while he watched the dragon repeat the whole proceeding with his knife.

"A blessing against evil," Castiel explained, carefully studying him as if waiting to see his reaction. "It is not permanent, but it will last for the night."

"Why, though?" Dean replied with a frown, eyeing his blade in an unconscious attempt at seeing the invisible magic wrapping it, "We aren't fighting monsters..."

"Dean," there was something in the dragon's tone – like he was missing something obvious – that made him squirm, "what would these humans need warding against magic for?"

"Uh, for protection?" he replied, the frown on his face growing deeper while he tried his best to understand the other's logic and what seemed to still be bothering him.

"Against what?" Castiel retorted, a bit of frustration coloring his voice. "The ones coming to your brother's rescues are humans, are they not?"

This wasn't making any sense, and the prince sent a quick glance in Charlie's direction to see if she had any idea what the dragon was trying to imply: she returned his gesture with a wide-eyed shake of her head.

"Cas, what are you trying to say here?" he finally asked, attention shifting back on the other while something akin to dread started to settle at the base of his belly. "That they are actually monsters or that they expect monsters to go after them?"

The look on the dragon's face only grew darker at his query, his eyes narrowing to such a degree that only two thin slit of blue were now staring back at him. His lips were pinched together, his shoulders straight and his body so still that it was difficult to notice even the rise and fall of his chest.

"I'm saying..." he slowly started, his voice deep, and low, and brimming with so much power that the prince felt a shiver run up the base of his spine, "that they are counting on you following them and took precautions against the possibility of you bring 'your dragon' with you," he paused, tongue peeking out to wet his chapped lips.

"You know how your people feel about my kind: even with this type of warding, they wouldn't dare having to deal with one of us."

Dean had no idea what to make of the other's claims: his jaw dropped, his eyebrows raised, but it took him several instants to finally getting his mind wrapped around what had actually been making his dragon so antsy so far.

"Dude, are you saying this was a trap to get to me?!" he tried to keep the disbelief out of his voice, he really did, but there were times in which even decades of having to deal with people coming from all levels of nobility failed him. "That's paranoid, Cas! If they wanted to kidnap me, they could have done it in a thousand different ways – easier ways – instead of this!"

He probably came out more incredulous than he meant to, because out of the corner of his eye he could see Charlie wince at his tone – to be fair, between his father's own paranoia in trying to keep his eldest son as safe as possible, and Castiel's own almost constant presence at his side, kidnapping him might be sightly more difficult than it normally would, but Dean still firmly believed that no-one would go through all this trouble just to get to him of all people!

"Perhaps," Castiel frowned, seemingly not bothered by the fact that his mate was staring at him like he had suddenly sprouted a new head, "but I would much rather err on the side of precaution than the other way around."

"Well, he kind of has a point there," Charlie intervened, trying to pacify the tenseness between the two of them with careful words, "better safe than sorry, right?" she added with a wary grin in the prince's direction that made the latter frown, not entirely sure why she seemed to believe he was the one she should be addressing with that tone: Cas was obviously the one needing to relax the most!

"Fine," he grumbled, his lips pursing into an unconscious pout when he saw the dragon give the redheaded scout a small nod of gratitude. With a bit more stomping than it was actually wise he walked away towards the main building of the ruined outpost, refusing on principle to turn around to make sure he was being followed.

It was only after he walked all the way around its perimeter, that he acknowledged Castiel's silent presence again in order to peer at him with a wordless query in his eyes. There was no way that using the main entrance could ever be a wise idea – no matter how you looked at it – but the only other access was on the collapsed side of the building: there, among the rubbles, one of the internal doors connecting rooms to the adjacent corridor still stood, but there was no telling how stable the structure was there.

Dean tried to give it a careful shake to gauge the situation under his mate's considering gaze, but it seemed that – in spite of the state of everything around it – it was still firmly locked, and a more forceful approach would be needed if they decided to get inside by that route.

"You don't happen to know any spells to get us inside, do you?" he asked, voice instinctively lowering down to a whisper now that he had no idea if anyone would be waiting for them on the other side of the door. He still felt a bit miffed about the other's overprotective behavior, but he decided to bury any kind of displeasure until after Sam was safe back home with them.

"No," Cas replied with an apologetic frown on his face, before stepping closer and press his ear against the smooth – if dusty – wooden surface stopping them from going inside, "it doesn't sound, however, like anyone else is in a reasonable vicinity to hear us if we were to use a...more blunt approach to solve this particular problem."

Dean supposed it was fair enough and, barely leaving enough time for the dragon to pull away, he kicked with all his strength. The lock snapped with a loud crack, and the door slammed open against the internal wall, so loudly that it made him wince and strain his ears to make sure no-one was rushing to find out what caused that sound.

A few minutes passed, the silence growing thicker in the air, but no armed guard popped up from the other side of the corridor now open to them. The prince slowly let out the breath he had been unconsciously holding and peered at his companion out of the corner of his eye. Castiel's expression was dark once again, but he didn't look about to comment out loud again on how stupid the idea of saving Sam on their own was, so Dean turned his attention to the dark passage and took a few careful steps inside.

Judging by the little light that filtered through the door, the corridor appeared to be still mostly fine – there were no rubbles or pieces of wall laying around, nor suspicious creaking sounds from the ceiling signaling the structure was about to collapse – but the lack of windows made it difficult to see at more than a few feet from where the prince was standing.

He was about to consider going back to the campfire and bring back some kind of makeshift torch, but a soft, blue-ish light at the corner of his eye caught his attention before he could give it any more thought. When he turned around, he found Castiel still lingering near the entrance, a small stone – glowing in the same way the ones in his cave did – in his hand.

"I don't know how long it will work," the dragon murmured, closing the distance between them with so much hesitation that it made Dean frown in return. "I am not certain to what degree the warding is affecting my magic."

It was when the other finally stood next to him that the prince noticed the tiny, barely-there shiver shaking his body. Castiel looked pale in the low light, blue eyes standing out in the shadows casted by his messy hair, shoulders tense and slightly hunched forwards, his lips pressed in a hard line.

He looked smaller.

"Cas," the prince began, eyes now roaming up and down his mate's body with sharp attention, "you ok?"

For an instant, Dean was convinced the dragon would just shrug and deny anything was wrong: his lips parted, his forehead creased into a frown, but then he just let out a slow sigh and glanced away in what looked suspiciously like embarrassment.

"It's uncomfortable," the dragon admitted, voice latched with frustration while he still stubbornly stared at somewhere in the dark end of the corridor.

"You wanna go back and wait with Charlie?" the prince couldn't help but offer, worry and guilty at having dragged the other in this mess mixing together and making him step closer. "I promise I'll be careful, you don't need to come if you don't feel like—"

"No," he was interrupted by Castiel's curt reply, the other's eyes snapping back to his face in the form of an annoyed glare. "It feels icky and oily – like tar – but it is not painful. It would be worse to be unable to ascertain your undamaged state."

From the look that those words left on Dean's face, it was easy to tell that he wasn't at all convinced by his mate's explanation, but, before the prince could further reassure the dragon that – in spite of popular claims – he wasn't a damsel in distress and was perfectly able to take care of the situation without being constantly guarded, Cas was already moving ahead of him, glowing rock held in front of him to light the way.

They didn't say another word after that – seemingly both accepting the unspoken rule of keeping as silent as possible while they checked room after room for any sign of Sam's kidnappers – until, just before a sharp turn, Castiel stopped right in the middle of the corridor, head tilted to one side and gaze lost in the distance.

He looked a bit like a cat perking its ears in order to better study a new sound, and it would have brought an amused smile on Dean's lips in spite of the situation, if the dragon didn't decide to hurriedly close his hand around their source of light, casting them both in the shadows.

Every nerve in his body suddenly tensing at the other's reaction, and knowing better than to ask aloud what was going on, the prince waited and listened.

Thud. Thud. Thud. The familiar sound of heavy boots against hard floor could be faintly heard in the distance, and it didn't take more than a handful of seconds before it was followed by the soft edge of a lighter moving closer and closer from the other side of the turn they were walking to.

He reached out with the intention of catching Castiel's attention, but the dragon was already moving: in a series of swift moves that were just a little bit too graceful and quick for a normal human being, he turned around, eyes shining of an eery blue even in the shadows, and grabbed Dean by the closest arm.

They were already hiding through the threshold of the closest room when the prince's brain finally caught up again with what had just happened: Cas was standing in front of him, silently shifting the door closed and only leaving a small crack through which they could safely watch the newcomer pass by.

Making sure not to cause even the smallest sound, Dean slowly unsheathed the sword resting against his side.

By the time the dark shadow of a man obstructed their vision and then walked past them without noticing their presence, the prince's heart was hammering almost painfully in his chest: while he had no fear when it came to head-to-head combat, waiting games weren't something he had ever been particularly comfortable with. His eyes followed the figure as it slowly moved through the corridor: he was holding a torch in his hand – the cause of the light – and his steps were sluggish with boredom. He couldn't be taller than Cas – in fact, the prince suspected him to be at least a few inches shorter than the dragon – and he didn't look particularly broad or dangerous.

Should they try to sneak up on him and get some information about Sam's whereabout?

His mind hadn't soon conjured that thought, that he saw Castiel's head twitch in a way that was reminiscent of a hawk focusing its gaze on a prey, and then the dragon was off before Dean could even wonder what the other was about to do now. With a low hiss of alarm he tried to grab for any part of his mate he could reach, but his hand closed on thin air, and he was left to stare in disbelief and awe as the dragon fell into steps behind the unaware man with the soft and soundless pace of a stalking feline, knife in his hand and ready to attack.

The guard didn't notice his presence until it was too late: with sharp and deadly moves, like a whip cracking in the dark, the dragon shoved him back against the wall, his free hand clutching around the human's throat while the other pressed the tip of the knife against his chest in a silent warning. For a few instants the man struggled – an instinctive reaction to the sudden assault – but he suddenly froze when Cas leaned in to growl in his ear something that Dean wasn't able to make out – a threat probably, although it didn't really matter.

As the prince stepped out of his hiding place and moved closer, the guard kept staring at the dragon with what looked, in the trembling light cast by the torch now abandoned on the floor, like a weird mix of both fear and derision. The first one made sense – heck, the guy had a knife pointed at his heart! – but he had no idea what to make of the second one.

"Got here to retrieve your pet dragon?" the man snarled and in the dark his eyes seemed to flash of inky blackness before going back to their lighter hue. Dean wasn't an idiot, and he certainly had been drilled his father's paranoia during his teen years enough to never dismiss what seemed to be a trick of the eye.

"What the fuck are you?" he asked in a low demanding growl, his mood – already tense to begin with – now outright hostile at the prospective of his mate having been right and his baby brother being in the hands of monsters. With careful attention, he took in the rest of the guard's appearance in an attempt at determining what kind of creature he was dealing with: if it weren't for the sight the prince caught before, he would look perfectly normal.

"A daemon," it was Cas who replied, his voice coming so filled with venom and disgust that it made the prince peer at him out of the corner of his eye: the dragon's eyes were narrowed in a thin, dangerous line, his eyebrows drawn together in a loathful glare, and his lips parted as if in an instinctive attempt at baring the fangs he didn't possess in his current form.

Turning his attention back on the still-snarling creature in the other's grasp, Dean slowly started to feel like his insides were made of lead: he might be good at fighting monsters of all kinds, but daemons were a whole other class of foes from what he was used to.

Daemons were evil spirits, born out of malice and everything that was wrong in humankind. While most monsters only attacked people in order to satisfy their hunger, daemons liked to toy with humans for the pure pleasure of seeing them suffer. Now that he knew what he had to deal with, he also noticed the faint smell of sulfur that always seemed to linger to them, but the most troubling part was that there wasn't a real way to kill a daemon – not that Dean was aware of – the most you could do was to banish them back to the plane of existence where they came from for a limited period of time.

The thought that Sammy was in the hands of these assholes made Dean's inside twist in both worry and outraged rage.

"Where is my brother?" he growled, stepping closer to glare right in the creature's eyes. The daemon didn't look impressed, his face twisting into a sneer before a wide grin pulled his lips upwards. Once again his eyes flicked black and this time they remained that way.

"Now, wouldn't you like to know that?" he purred, "You don't need to worry about him, my people are taking good care of him right now."

"You are not people, you fucking—" Dean prince snapped in return, voice raising until he was a step away from outright shouting.

"Answer the question, filth!" the rest of the prince's rage was buried by the deep growl of Castiel's voice. It made both the human and the daemon freeze to stare at the dragon, now that the latter's patience seemed to have finally snapped. There was something in the way he held himself that made him look taller and broader, his features sharp and dangerous like a panther crouched in the shadows and about to jump on its unsuspecting prey.

The air between them smelled of fire, and thunders, and storms, crackling with power and magic barely contained in that small and frail husk that was Castiel's human body, while the dragon's blue eyes shone with silver fury, lips drawn back to show white teeth and face twisted into a snarl that promised nothing but a painful and slow death if the daemon insisted on wasting their time.

It made something entirely inappropriate perk up with interest below Dean's belt.

When he glanced back at the daemon, he saw that all the bravado the creature had been showing so far had drained from his face, now pale and covered in a thin layer of sweat. There was something the prince was probably missing – something that only the daemon could sense – because as threatening as Castiel's demand had been, the creature's current fright seemed like a bit of an overreaction.

"I-I can't!" the daemon replied, trying again to struggle against the dragon's hold on his neck, only for the latter to press his knife a bit deeper, enough to bite the flesh under his clothes.

"I'm sure you can," Cas retorted, tone flat and cold eyes peering at the other without blinking.

"You don't understand! Did you not get the memo of how daemons work?! They'll kill me if I do!" the evil creature was starting to sound slightly hysterical and Dean wondered once again what was going on. A choked gurgle left the other's lips as soon as he uttered those words, and then a silver light started to glow deep inside his throat, a whimper of pain soon following it.

"Cas? What are you doing?" Dean asked, glancing in the dragon's direction to study his reaction.

"Giving him an incentive," Castiel answered without losing a beat, words coming out of his mouth lacking even the smallest hint of hesitation.

Dean stared at him, eyes wide in alarm because what the Hell was going on now?!

His dragon wasn't usually so ready to fuck people up! He was supposed to be the level-headed one between the two of them, not the other way around!

"I do not believe you understand the situation you are in," Castiel continued towards the daemon, head leaning even closer so that he could breath his next threat directly on the other's face, "If you do not answer you will die. You will die slowly, and painfully. Every little part of your being will be burned piece by piece until nothing will be left of you other than your foul sulfuric smell," he paused, his lips quirking upwards in a tiny grin filled with so much loathe that it made a shiver of uneasiness run up Dean's spine.

"You know what I am. You know what I can do to one of your kind..." he trailed off, the following silence far more explicit than a thousand words could be about what that the dragon could or would do to the creature if the other didn't comply. Dean had no idea if there was anything backing Cas' threats up – not with the warding dwindling his powers – but the way they were spoken made something like wariness settle in his stomach.

The daemon looked torn, his eyes flicked about, landing for a few brief instants on the prince, who made sure to keep his face devoid of any sign of the anticipation he felt, and then he finally glanced back at the dragon still keeping him pressed against the wall by his throat.

"All right, all right. Geez, you're fucking pushy for a dragon," he finally acquiesced with a grimace, "aren't you supposed to care only about your hoard? What are you even doing being his lapdog?" he nodded in Dean's direction, "he can't be that good to fuck, so what's the deal with..."

There was probably more he wanted to spit back in a last sign of defiance, but it ended in a choked moan as he started to struggle again, this time in pain rather than in an attempt at getting free from Castiel's grip on him.

"Answer the question, daemon," Cas' words were a low, powerful rumble that sounded far too loud for the small frame he was currently inhabiting, "I won't ask again."

"He's on the second floor!" the creature yelped, hands raising in an instinctive attempt at trying to claw the dragon's one off his throat but trembling too much to find any purchase. "Second room on the left just up the stairs in front of the main entrance!"

"Good," the dragon rumbled back, glancing at Dean who nodded in return, and then starting to loose his hold. The daemon took a shallow gulp of air when whatever pain Cas had been inflicting him seemed to retreat, his eyes were black once again, and his body was still shivering from the aftermath of what he had gone through.

His gaze bounced warily between the two in front of him, before letting out a quiet question, "Can I go now?"

Castiel stared back at him, blue eyes bright in the warm light of the torch still resting abandoned on the floor, and loosened his grip until his fingertips were just grazing the other's throat. He leaned over to lock his gaze with the daemon's.

"No," he replied flatly in his face, before raising two fingers and pressing them on the creature's forehead.

With both horrified and rapt attention – the same you would feel in watching a predator descend on an unsuspecting prey, biting, ripping, and clawing every part of its victim it could get a hold on – Dean watched as the dragon started to recite an incantation in the language he had come to recognize as the one his mate used to conjure his spells: as soon as the first few words left his mate's lips, the daemon's back jacknifed back into a wide arc, his eyes going wide, while a muffled scream of pain was lost before it could make it out of his throat, and then darkness upon darkness began to gather in his gaping mouth, swirling and swarming like thousands of tiny black insects buzzing around a rotting carcass.

The prince knew theoretically about the banishing spells needed to send a daemon back to their plane of existence, but witnessing the results firsthand made his stomach clench with the need to throw up.

The black swarm contorted on itself, swirling and twisting as if it was still trying to resist the magical force compelling it to leave, and then suddenly it darted in the direction Cas and Dean came from – the closest exit available – the empty body it had been inhabiting hitting the ground with a dull sound, looking for all intents and purposes like a discarded doll.

"Dude..." Dean couldn't help but breath out, his face scrunched up in a grimace of disgust at the foul smell the creature left behind.

"I said I wouldn't kill it," Cas replied, his voice coming out curt and irritated, "not that I wouldn't banish it."

"Uh, yeah, no, that wasn't it..." the prince glanced at him carefully, noticing that the displeased frown was back on the other's face and that his grip on the knife Dean had given him was so tight that his knuckles appeared white in the dim light.

"Cas? You good, buddy?" it was the third time he asked about the dragon's wellbeing that night. Generally, when in the other's presence, Dean could relax in the knowledge that nothing fazed Castiel's quiet composure.

And yet this was the third time in just a few hours that he felt disquieted enough by the other's weird mood to ask out loud if everything was fine. He had to be missing something again: he had thought that his reassurances that he could take care of himself would have been enough to quell his mate's restlessness, that showing him firsthand he had no intentions of just getting himself killed before he could save his brother would help his dragon relax at least marginally.

Castiel looked tenser than ever.

"You should go back outside," the unexpected gravelly rumble dragged him back from his worried musing.

"What?" he blinked, his mind still trying to catch up with what his mate had just requested of him.

"Dean, go back outside," Cas sounded outright snappy now, frustration covering his face while he turned to stare at the prince with dark, narrowed eyes, "I will bring your brother to safety, but you need to go back outside and wait there."

Like Hell he was!

"Like Hell I am!"

Dean trusted Cas, and he knew that the dragon truly meant it when he said that he would save Sammy on his own – heck, the prince was ready to entrusting him with his own life if required of him! – but there was simply no way he was going to sit back and cower in a corner when his baby brother was in danger.

The other's mouth twitched, as if he were trying his best to keep himself in check in spite of Dean's impossible recklessness, and then something that sounded like an aborted snarl left from deep inside his chest.

"There are daemons here, Dean!" the dragon loudly retorted, the only thing keeping him from outright shouting was the need to not be found out by their enemies, "I can't keep you safe and looking out for Samuel at the same time!"

"Cas, you don't need to! That's the whole point!" the prince hissed back, starting to get tired of having to repeat himself over and over again: did the dragon truly believe him to be so defenseless?!

"I told you I can take care of myself!"

He had no soon finished uttering those words that suddenly Castiel's face was at only a few inches from his own, blue eyes boring into his with a crazed glint that made him tense in alarm, his hand twitching in an unconscious need to reach for his sword.

What was going on?! Why was his dragon – his peaceful, sort of clueless, and generally understanding dragon – suddenly acting like...like...well, like he belonged in one of the stories he and most people were told when they were kids! Ones in which dragons were violent, possessive creatures prone to destruction, and which all agreed in one thing: if you see a dragon, run.

He could feel Castiel's breath on his face, warm and wet, and coming out in low hisses through his clenched teeth, while the other's nostrils flared and trembled as if smelling Dean's fear in the air.

"You're going to do as I say," his voice was low when his spoke, a rough rumble vibrating with power and the silent promise of punishment if his demands weren't met with complete cooperation. "You're going to do as I say, and stay were you won't be damaged."

"Damaged? Am I you property now?!" the prince's eyes widened while he searched the dragon's face for a sign that he misunderstood – that the other wasn't implying anything of that kind – only to be met with a wall of unadulterated jealousy and greed.

"Yes, you are!" the dragon finally shout, eyes ablaze, the shadows casted on the wall by the forgotten torch seemingly taking the shape of enormous bat-like wings closing up around the unruly piece of his hoard that was the cause of his rage.

Dean was going to feel sick.

"Fuck you, Cas," he finally whispered in return, voice coming out lower than he meant to, but not for that less filled with purpose.

"I'm going to help my brother," he said as he stared right in the dragon's eyes, fear vanishing in the face of righteousness, "and I'm going to do it now. If you want to help then follow, otherwise go fuck yourself."

He didn't wait for Castiel's reply to turn around and walk off in the direction where the daemon had first come from. There was a heavy weight on his chest, trying to make him focus his attention on what had just happened between him and his mate, but he shoved it down like he was used to do with everything else: he had more urgent things to think about.

He could feel the weight of the dragon's stare on his back, but he refused to acknowledge it in any way, shape, or form, even when he heard the sound of soft steps following his lead, or when a familiar blue glow shifted closer to help hims see his way through the dark corridor.

There was no doubt that Cas wanted to continue their discussion – Dean could feel it in the way the back of his neck prickled under the other's silent scrutiny – but, not only the prince was sure he would end up saying something he didn't mean if they talked now, he also couldn't allow himself to split his focus.

They didn't find any more guards even as they arrived at the building's main entrance: from what the survivor had said, they hadn't been attacked by a particularly large group – what really was their downfall was the fact that they had been taken by surprise, and what now the prince could safely say to be daemon interference – so it made sense that whatever was left of it was currently keeping watch on their precious captive.

Carefully they walked up the stairs that lead to the second floor, straining their ears to make sure that no-one was coming down from the opposite direction, and then paused once they reached its top. From where they were standing, it was easy to see the soft light filtering from underneath one of the doors at their left – the rest of the corridor being completely shrouded in darkness aside from Castiel's own glowing rock – and with a quick nod of his head, Dean signaled the dragon to follow him.

He didn't allow his gaze to linger on the unhappy scowl that still pulled at his mate's features, nor he commented on it aloud when the dragon hovered at only a few inches behind his back, deciding instead to maintain all his attention focused on trying to hear what was going on the other side of the door.

The wood was thick, making it difficult for sound to pass through, but the prince was still able to make out two voices snapping at each other in annoyance: the first seemed to find the whole situation "fucking ridiculous" and was insisting they should just go back to their master with "the human kid" instead of wasting their time there, while the other replied those weren't the order they received to begin with.

It made Dean chew his bottom lip in tenseness, and he had to force himself not to glance at the dragon still breathing down his neck, like anything more than a feet of distance was too much to properly keep the prince safe. Cas was right, wasn't he? Sam wasn't the real target of the daemons and fuck, the prince really really hoped his mate couldn't hear what was going on inside, because he was sure this whole mess would end up blowing up in their fucking face if the dragon felt even the vaguest suspicion that Dean was in danger.

"Whatever! I'm going for a walk, this place is making me go fucking insane!" the first voice suddenly said, loud enough to be clearly heard even through the closed door, and soon followed by the sound of approaching steps. Dean had just enough time for a short moment of panic, before he felt himself being dragged across the corridor and into one of the empty rooms at the other end of it.

The prince and his dragon companion managed to hide just in time – Cas having closed his hand around his glowing rock and shrouded them once again into darkness – before a disgruntled guy walked out, hands in his pockets and unhappy scowl on his face while he seemed to be muttering something under his breath. Through the ajar door, Dean managed to take a peek inside the room where his brother was being held, before it was closed once again. He noticed at least other two people, another guy busy glaring at the back of the one who had just left, and a smaller woman facing a corner of the room the prince wasn't able to see clearly from where he was standing.

He had no doubt they were both daemons.

When the annoyed man slammed the door behind himself and stalked off in the direction from where Dean and Castiel arrived, the prince bit his lower lip in consideration: while it was a good thing that there were now less people guarding his brother, they should probably take care of the guy now that he was alone instead of risking him coming back at the worst time possible.

Slowly Dean inched back into the corridor, while he kept his eyes steadily on the retreating figure to make sure he hadn't been heard. He was about to start following it, when a swift shadow darted past him: Castiel apparently decided to take on this foe on his own too.

Normally the prince would watch in fascination how the dragon moved even in his current human body – he would admire the way the other's muscles shifted with feline grace and his steps didn't make even the softest of sound when hitting the ground – but this time he had to grind his teeth together to restrain himself from remarking out loud that he could have done the same thing on his own.

When Cas wrapped a hand around the daemon's mouth and quickly jabbed his knife through the creature's nape, a silver flesh lighting the wound for an instant to sign its death before subsiding once again, Dean frowned.

"Cas?" he quietly tried when the dragon was back at his side, but his mate just shook his head in return. There wasn't much light to see by – not with Cas' enchanted rock being currently snuffed out – but enough of it came from the window at the end of the corridor, that Dean could tell the other's mouth was still turned downwards in an unhappy grimace.
"Let's get this over with," Castiel rumbled back, blue irises staring at the prince through narrowed eyes, before nodding in the direction of the room where Sam was being held.

The prince's lips parted as if he wanted to say something, but his mouth closed again when he realized that he didn't really know what would help soothing his mate's distress. He wasn't good at using his words and, truth be told, he wasn't even sure he actually wanted to do something in that direction before he and Cas had a long, long talk about what the fuck was going on inside the dragon's head.

Eyeing the closed door, he turned his attention back on more urgent matters. They needed a better plan than simply barging inside: if the only ones guarding Sam were the two daemons he saw earlier than between himself and Cas they could probably take them, but if more of those same creatures were waiting inside, then they needed some kind of advantage.

"Can you make your light thing stronger?" he whispered in the dragon's direction. Castiel squinted at him return, studying his face while he tried to understand what Dean's intentions were. Then realization seemed to strike, and he nodded, stepping closer to the door, the rock he had been using as magical catalyst so far kept tight in his fist. The prince took his place in front of him – back against the wall, sword ready in his hand – and caught the dragon's gaze with his own for a few tense moments.

When he was sure that Castiel's attention wasn't split with his inner turmoil, he slowly nodded for the other to proceed with their plan.

Carefully, trailing his fingers on the door's handle before twisting it in his grip, Castiel let it silently slide open of just enough inches for them to peer inside. The two daemons from before seemed now engaged in a deep discussion at the other end of the room, their attention turned on each other rather than towards the door.

Now that there was no-one hindering their line of sight, Dean studied the two of them more carefully: the woman was petite, with blonde short hair and a wicked slant of her lips when she replied to her companion's words, but the prince's gaze didn't linger on her too long, his attention snatched by the guy standing in front of her instead.

With an audible click he clenched his teeth to avoid letting out an even louder curse: he knew that guy. He was one of the Royal Knights – Brady something or something, his mind vaguely supplied – and he was supposed to be part of the group that his brother had been leading when he was captured.

Apparently they just found out how it was possible for the daemons to take Sam so easily by surprise.

It made Dean fume with rage, and it took all of his self-control not to storm inside and drive his blade into that asshole's face. His grip on his sword tightened, so much so that his knuckles started to hurt under the stress of it, and his limbs began trembling with barely contained fury. He could feel his blood rise to his face, threatening to turn his vision red with outrage and the need to avenge his little brother for how he had been betrayed by one of his own people, but he forced himself to take a few slow, deep breaths to calm his mind.

No, the asshole would pay, but not at the cost of blowing up their advantage.

"...besides!" the loud snort from the blonde female brought his attention back on the two daemons, "If you could be trusted to do your job properly, we would already be back instead of hiding here."

"I already told you it's not my fault!" Brady snapped back, "What was I supposed to do with that dragon lurking about like a creep?! I couldn't start to form a plan that, oh! There he was! Staring at everything and never leaving the prince's side!"

And of course they were targeting him instead of Sammy!

"Yes, because this isn't going to drag that dragon on our heads anyway," the blonde rolled her eyes, sending a glance in the far corner of the room, outside Dean's line of sight. "Do you really think that if the 'valiant and radiant prince Dean' follows us to save his precious little brother, the dragon won't stalk him even here?"

"At least we've the territory advantage here..." Brady tried to protest, but he was interrupted by a short, derisive laughter.

"You're an idiot," the female daemon replied. "As if that would be enough to stop a dragon obsessing over anything. I don't even know why Lishelarnamlion thought that putting you at the head of this operation was a good idea to begin with."

Lishelarnamlion? Why did Dean have the impression he should know that na—

Shit!

His head snapped back to stare at Castiel, still standing against the door. The dragon's eyes were wide, and the prince could see in the way his feature contorted that apprehension was once again getting a hold on him. Instinctively Dean reached out to squeeze his mate's wrist, silently pleading him to please, please focus again until Castiel's gaze slid back on his own and the dragon seemed to relax at least marginally under the reassuring motion of the prince's thumb rubbing his skin.

With a slow nod to let him know that he was fine, Castiel squeezed the rock in his hand in a silent query, and, when he saw the prince's answering sign of assent, he knelt down to let it roll inside the room.

It took all of a few beats before painfully white light spilled through the narrow opening, making Dean pull back with a soft hiss, and it was soon followed by loud cursing and the sound of someone stumbling against furniture in an attempt at bracing themselves. The intense brightness lasted for just a handful of seconds, but when Dean was able to turn his sight again on the door without feeling like his eyes were trying to leak out from their rightful home, he found that Castiel had already slipped inside, his vision untouched by the magical light.

"Dammit, Cas!" with a low growl of frustration he followed suit, sword in one hand and eyes scanning the room as soon as he took a step inside. Brady was leaning against a table, shaking his head and blinking his lids in an attempt at regain his eyesight back, while the blonde he had been talking to was now near the only window in the room, a grimace of pain on her face as she let out one curse after another. There was a second male daemon standing near the furthest corner at his right, next what appeared to be a bound, gagged, and equally blinded Sam, but Castiel seemed to be already on that.

Trusting his mate to take care of his opponent with ease and put his baby brother to safety, Dean turned to the cause of that whole mess, and stalked towards Brady instead. The daemon was starting to recover from the unexpected assault to his eyes, and he managed to unsheathe his own sword just in time to parry the prince's attack. He stumbled under its weight for an instant but he was quick to regain his feet.

"You just had to say it, didn't you?!" he shout at his blonde companion without turning his attention from the enraged prince now raining blow after blow and forcing him to take a few steps until his back hit the wall.

"Fuck!"

There was a flash at Dean's right, and he didn't have to look to know that Castiel must have killed the other male daemon in the room – he recognized the white-blue light from when the dragon almost choked the one that told them where Sam was being held.

"Looks like it's only you and snarky over there left," he commented before driving his blade through Brady's shoulder. With a shout of both surprise and pain – as if he didn't really expected for the prince's weapon to actually being able to damage him – the daemon let go of his sword, his wound pulsing with the soft glow of his flesh burning from the inside out.

"What is that?!" Brady tried to pull away only to end up whimpering in distress when the prince pushed a little deeper.

"Dragon blessing! Handy, right?" the satisfied grin that spread on Dean's face while he replied was maybe unusually cruel for him, but he couldn't find it in himself to care: he was stressed, tired, and had been ricocheting back and forth between worried and angry far too many times in less than twenty-four hours to feel particularly forgiving at the moment.

"Now start explaining why a dragon would join forces with daemons in order to get to me," he added with an impatient growl, only to receive a derisive sneer in return.

"Ah! You're pathetic!" Brady shot back, "You can threaten me all you want or even kill me, it won't make a difference: I'm loyal to my master, and I will tell you nothing."

"Fine by me," the prince growled darkly while his eyes narrowed. He didn't feel even the littlest bit of remorse as he pulled out the sword from the other's wound with the clear intention of driving it in his chest this time around, but the blonde daemon interveined before he could go through with it.

"All right, Chuckles," she said as she pointed her own weapon – a long knife similar to the one the prince had given to Cas – at Dean's throat. "We got the memo: you're peeved that we snatched your precious baby brother from under your nose," she sounded amused in spite of the situation, as if she didn't particularly care if her fellow daemon was killed, but wasn't stupid enough not to take advantage of an obvious opening when she saw one.

"Now drop the weapon."

"You aren't going to kill me," Dean snorted in return, his weapon never wavering from where it was pressed against Brady's chest while he sent her a narrowed glare out of the corner of his eye. "For whatever reason, your 'master' wants me alive."

"Sure he did," the woman readily agreed with a grin. "Never said we couldn't cut you up a bit if you didn't come quietly though!" she concluded, twisting her grip on her weapon with the intention of driving it in Dean's shoulder.

The prince tensed, ready to jump away: he wouldn't be able to avoid the blow completely – he knew that instinctively, not with the knife so close to its target – but he could still avoid the blade from cutting too deep if he was quick enough.

He didn't need to.

As soon as the blonde daemon turned her weapon with the intention to strike, Castiel appeared behind her with a speed that would have been impossible to achieve for anyone else. Fire and rage were boiling in his blue eyes, and his skin gleamed with a silver sheen that made obvious how inhuman he truly was in spite of the current shape his body held.

With a lunge not unlike a snake assaulting an unsuspecting mouse, he grabbed the daemon by her hair, and with a merciless pull he dragged her away from the precious human she was threatening to harm. One of his hands closed around her neck and then he was shoving her flat against a nearby table, lips drawn back in a snarl to bare sharp fangs instead of the flat teeth a human would have in their place.

There was a distinctive patch of scales running up the side of his neck and face, wrapping around his right eye.

"Easy, Clarence," the daemon cooed in return, showing no fear even in the face of such an evident threat, "you keep draping yourself all over a girl like that, and she might start to get the wrong idea about what you want from her!"

"Shut your mouth, you!" Dean snapped back, turning his head to glare in her direction, and only receiving a loud snicker for his trouble.

"Aww, Chuckles! Don't be jealous!" she shot back, "I'm sure you get plenty of action from him for the both of us!"

"Be quiet, daemon," Castiel voice filled the air between them in a dangerous rumble, his eyes narrowing to thin blue slits. The creature in his grip seemed to consider his order for a few instants before her mouth twisted again into a grin too wicked to be properly considering teasing.

"Naa, I think not," she replied as she let her gaze trail all over his body in appreciation and winked at him. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips in a slow, lascivious way, before she flattened them again in a tight line and sent a quick unimpressed glance at her fellow daemon.

"By the way, oh mighty leader: I told you so."

It took a moment too long for both the dragon and the prince to realize what she was doing, and by the time they recognized what her intentions were, her mouth had already opened to be filled by the buzzing darkness that was her innermost self, and they could only watch helpless as it darted out of the window with a speed to rival Cas' own.

The body she had been using to host her being fell on the floor with a dull thud, and then suddenly the dragon's eyes were sharply focused on the daemon still at the tip of Dean's blade, the prince turning his head just in time to watch as Brady opened his mouth with the obvious intention of following his companion's example.

Fuck dammit!

He raised his sword with the intention to strike – there was no way he was letting that fucker run away without at least trying to stop him – even though he instinctively knew that he didn't have enough time to kill him, but maybe if he could just sink his blade again in the fleshy part of the other's belly the pain would be enough to—
A silvery white hand slammed on the amassing darkness, grabbing it as if it were a seething living thing, and then yanked at it until the dragon's fingers were wrapped around the frightened daemon's mouth in order to keep it firmly stuck inside.

"You are an eyesore," the dragon's voice had dropped even lower – so much so that it made the prince's clenched teeth tremble against one another, as a shiver ran down his spine – and then the daemon's eyes and mouth began spilling blessed light from their corners, while a choked scream of pain left the creature's throat.

Even in his still angered and frustrated state Dean had to admit that seeing Cas so filled with smiting purpose made his insides squirm with eagerness, but the sight before him was also kind of horrifying.

It was a bit like watching a writhing animal be slowly consumed by a roaring fire.

The smell of burned flesh filled his nostrils, and, when the dragon finally let go of the daemon, the latter slumped in an ungraceful heap on the floor, two burned holes now in place of his eyes. It didn't move even as Dean carefully nudged it with the tip of his boots.

"I thought your magic was bound..." he carefully commented as he turned to peer at his mate. The patch of scales growing up the side of his neck had expanded to include most of the skin above his cheek, and Dean had the distinctive impression his right pupil was deformed into a vertical oval somehow.

He looked tired.

"It is," was the grunt he received as reply. The prince would have inquired about the other's health, but the dragon didn't leave him even enough time to open his mouth, already herding Dean towards the captive Winchester with the kind of briskness that made it clear just how done he was with that whole adventure.

When the prince turned his attention on his brother, Sam's gaze was bouncing between the two of them with a light frown pinching his forehead as if puzzled by the exchange he had just witnessed. There was a gag preventing him from speaking out loud, and Dean was quick to kneel at his side to remove it.

"You ok, Sammy?" he asked while he made short work of the rope bounding the other's arms behind his back.

"Yeah, yeah," the younger prince was quick to reassure him. "Just a twisted ankle and some bruises, I think, but I'm fine."

"Here, let me give you a hand," Dean immediately wrapped one of Sam's arms around his shoulders, his eyes searching his brother intently to make sure that he wasn't being lied to, while he helped the other to pull himself back on his feet.

Cas had not moved from his spot near the window, he noticed when he sent a glance in the dragon's direction. He was peering outside, his face lit up by the soft glow of the first rays from the rising sun, eyes half-closed, and his forehead creased in a frown. His shoulders were slumping just enough to make a knot of worry tie Dean's insides.

"Cas, you good?" the prince called, but the dragon didn't reply in any understandable way: he limited himself to turn his head in his mate's direction and stare back at him with a blank, unreadable expression on his face.

"Uh, Dean? Is he all right?" Sam whispered, his voice coming quiet and barely loud enough for Dean to hear it. "He looks...different."

Dean had no idea how to answer that. The dragon had been acting weird since they left the castle to search for the younger Winchester – he had been moody and displeased, worried for Dean, which the prince could understand – but this unresponsiveness was not something he had seen before.

"Your people are here," Castiel's words came in a quiet rumble while he tilted his head to the side.

He wasn't blinking at all.

"Uh..." was all that Dean managed, too busy studying the other's face to acknowledge the dragon's words more eloquently. Blue eyes peered back at him without letting out anything of what was going on behind them.

"We should go back outside," he added while he moved past them and towards the door. "The warding is starting to itch."

Sharing a silent glance of puzzlement that ended with a little helpless shrug on Dean's part, the two brothers slowly followed him through the corridor and down the flight of stairs, until all three of them were finally back outside.

The sun had just started to peek above the horizon, its rays filtering through the trees surrounding the abandoned outpost and making them squint at the sudden brightness. It still took only a few moments to spot the small group of Knights standing at the edge of the clearing, where one of them – who Dean highly suspected to be Jo, judging by the blonde hair and the familiar way she waved her hands in the air – was animatedly talking with Charlie.

The older prince had no doubt that other Knights were currently scouting the area to be certain it was secure.

"Hey! Mind giving us a hand here?" he called, making the two women turn at the same time.

Jo was the first one to reach him.

She also seemed to decide that punching his shoulder with all her strength – which in spite of her small size was a force not to be underestimated – was a perfectly valid way to explicit her displeasure with his excess of initiative.

"That's for not waiting for us!" she glared at him, before turning her attention to his brother, her gaze softening at the sight of his limp. "You ok?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded, ignoring the way Dean rolled his eyes at the obvious disparity of treatment they were receiving. "I got a busted ankle and a few bruises, but it's nothing serious."

Letting out a hum of acknowledgement, she waved for one of her Knights to come closer and ordered them to get the younger prince back at the horses to check his injuries while the other were still looking around the area.

"Anyone else inside aside from the two Sleeping Beauties we found with Charlie?" she asked while Dean handed his brother over to the newcomer with just a hint of reluctance in his movements: now that he had Sammy back were he could make sure himself that the other was fine, he really wasn't too keen of leaving him in the hands of someone else.

"The ones we found, we got rid of," the prince shrugged before asking, "did Bobby send you willingly or were you planning on following us anyway?"

"Ah! As if they would be able to make me sit this one out!" she laughed, "Besides: I'm driven, they know that," she added, her gaze drifting sideways to focus at a few feet away on his left.

"Hey, Cas!" she cheerily greeted him. "Thanks for keeping Dean out of trouble!"

The dragon didn't reply, he just stared back at them with his head cocked on one side. If it weren't for the fact that Dean could see the other's chest rise and fall with each breath he took, he would have started to worry that he had been turned to solid stone.

"Uh," Jo sounded as puzzled as the prince felt, but she seemed to chalk Castiel's behavior up to his usual dragon weirdness. "Anyway, are you coming back with us?" she asked once turned her attention back on the man in front of her.

"I mean, we'll probably rest here for a while – and you can catch some sleep, since you kind of look like shit to be honest," she continued with a shrug when Dean turned his confused frown on her, "but afterwards are you coming back with us or are you going with Cas?"

Well, that was easy enough to answer: there was no way he was letting Sam out of his sight until his baby brother was safely back inside the walls of the castle.

"I'm gonna come with you."

He had barely spoken those words, that long fingers wrapped around his arm in a painful grip, and then Cas was suddenly there at only a breath away from him, their bodies so close that the prince could feel the other's warmth ghosting over his skin even through the fabric of their clothes.

"No, you will not," Castiel's eyes narrowed, his blue irises digging holes into Dean's own.

The prince's frown deepened while he instinctively tried to pull himself free from the dragon's unrelenting hold, "It's not like we're in a hurry this time. You can still fly above us or something..."

"Dean," if possible Castiel's voice dropped even lower than his usual gravely rumble, "there are daemons trying to steal you under the orders of another dragon. I will not let you go around unsupervised and on your own."

"Whoa, daemons?!" Jo's face filled with alarm at the news, but Dean ignored her in favor of focusing a glare of his own on his mate.

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Castiel's eyes narrowed even further. There was still that patch of scales marring almost half his face, and in spite of being reduced to two thin slits, his eyes were glowing with the fierceness of anger boiling deep inside his gaze.

"It means," the dragon replied, his slow enunciation in sharp contrast with the emotions raging inside of him, "that I will be the one to take you back, and you will be staying with me in my nest – where I can watch over you and keep you safe – until this whole situation is resolved."

What the Hell! Again?!

"I told you already: I. Am. Not. Your. Property!" the prince snapped, eyes narrowing in challenge.

"YES, YOU ARE!" Castiel finally shout, his voice exploding with the kind of force – like thunders striking the earth in a sign of heavenly rage – that made one wonder how it was possible for it to come from the small human-shaped body he was wearing.

Dean flinched, his eyes widening in startled fear at the sudden outburst, and for an instant he felt like a mouse – a small defenseless mouse – in front of a hunting cat. Blood left his face, leaving it clammy and cold, and his hands began trembling under the possessiveness and sheer hunger in the dragon's gaze.

For a few long moments he didn't know what to do or think, trapped under the force of the other's stare – did Cas really think of him as something he owned? Was this what he meant when he claimed Dean was 'hoard'? (Was Cas going to harm him if he didn't comply?) – until his pride finally kicked in, turning his fear first into outrage, and then into anger.

"Fuck you," he growled back, not caring if it wasn't a smart move to answer in kind, "I belong to no-one, and you can be damn certain I don't belong to you!" he said, stubbornly refusing to shift his gaze away from the other's. "If you can't get that into your thick lizard skull, then you can gather your bullshit, and fuck right off, because we are done!"

In hindsight, his mother was probably right when she lamented the lack of self-preservation instincts that seemed to plague the men in their family.

He had not soon uttered those words that every inch of air was squeezed out of his body, his chest crushed under the weight of a huge paw, and rocks digging into his back while two enormous blue eyes stared at him from twenty feet of height above him.

The sun's rays were being reflected by the mirror-like scales of Castiel's body in a painful brightness that made him clench his eyes shut, and his breath was coming out in choked little wheezes as he tried his best to take in as much air as possible under the crushing load on his ribs.

"You're mine," he heard the other's voice thunder so that everyone could hear him and know whom the prince belonged to.

One of Dean's arms was free from the dragon's hold, and he tried a weak attempt at pushing the closest clawed finger away from his body. He could feel his consciousness slip away with every breath he didn't manage to fully take, and soon his hand fell back at his side, too heavy for him to move anymore.

"You are hoard, you are mine," there was a tiny hint of panic in Castiel's voice, he noticed in a small corner of his mind, as if the idea of being deprived of the prince raised some kind of visceral deeply-ingrained reaction inside of him.

"I will allow no-one to damage or steal you from me!"

"I can see that," the prince would have replied with a snort, but his lips wouldn't move, and his eyes wouldn't open, and he could feel darkness creeping up on him at the edge of his mind.

"Castiel! You're choking him!" a voice shout – Jo, it must be Jo, she was the closest one after all.

And then the weight on his chest was gone.

He took a gasping breath, and then another, his lungs filling with the fresh air they had been starving for, and his eyes opening again just for a moment.

Two blue orbs were staring back at him, wide, and startled, and filled with so much horror that it made something inside the prince grimace in displeasure. This was Cas, and Cas never looked like that: Cas was strong, Cas was confident, Cas never wavered from his convictions.

The look he was being sent – like the dragon had just realized what kind of capital offense he had perpetrated at his expenses – was just plain wrong.

"You dumb lizard," he wanted to say, "you dumb stupid lizard, we could have solved this in another way," but unconsciousness finally reached him, and he closed his eyes once more.