by Starla Night
He backed away.
She muttered an apology, jolted in recognition, and flushed.
Syenite had once kidnapped Cheryl from beneath Kyan’s protection. The burn marks on Sard’s desk were from her rescue.
Before identifying Pyro’s kidnapper, Kyan had returned the favor by taking Sard from beneath Syenite’s protection. Just in case.
Syenite hadn’t forgiven him.
Kyan wasn’t ready to do so either.
Their distrust had been awkward at Carnelian Clothiers. Within the Onyx Corporation home office, it was unbearable.
Cheryl stumbled past Chrysoberyl and threw herself in her usual seat between Mal and Pyro. Mal rubbed her shoulder possessively. Pyro smiled with brotherly kindness. She let her curtain of dark hair hide her face from the others and then, as though forcing herself, she tucked it behind her ears.
“Cheryl, meet our new vice president,” Mal barked.
She forced her gaze to Chrysoberyl, flushing an even darker shade. “Hello.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Don’t worry.” Darcy grinned from the other side of Amber. “She’s human.”
It was the last dig.
The aristocrat erupted. “Who is this human?
Cheryl hunched in on herself, hugging her elbows and leaning away from him.
“Our Art Director.” Mal rested both hands possessively on her shoulders, his growl matched by elongated incisors and a deadly flash of green in his no-longer-so-human eyes. “And my pregnant wife.”
She relaxed and leaned against Mal’s forearm.
Chrysoberyl’s expression flattened. Even he saw the error of antagonizing the Onyx CEO in a small conference room surrounded by Mal’s siblings.
But he masked it with nervous imperiousness. “How dare you expect me to work under these conditions?”
Mal roared. “If you can’t work here, then go join my mother on Draconis! As our company owner, she will cherish a male for entertainment.”
Chrysoberyl closed his mouth and folded himself into the last empty seat. “I will attempt to endure.”
“Good.” Mal shook himself. Green scales retreated under the skin again. “Now, as our new vice president, I assume you studied every product both companies have launched and familiarized yourself with human attire in all cultures in all countries through all time. Now, propose five new products for our next launch.”
Chrysoberyl blinked.
Mal growled. “Well?”
Jasper cleared his throat. “Mal. He has only just arrived.”
“So? Sard Carnelian would have ideas. Is his brother deficient?”
“I am not deficient.” Chrysoberyl huffed. “I am overwhelmed by the crudeness of being surrounded by impure blood.”
“No excuses,” Mal snapped.
Chrysoberyl straightened indignantly. “Sard never worked in this office.” He searched for a target and gestured at Kyan. “What role can he possibly have?”
Mal growled. “He is an officer.”
“Of what?”
“Security.”
“Security!” Chrysoberyl recoiled. “He cannot protect himself from damage. How can he protect me?”
The old anger burned in Kyan. He doused the outward signs. It bubbled, an ice-hot acid in his belly, menthol with fury.
Chrysoberyl’s was a familiar complaint. First, in the Colony Wars, and then in private companies. Do not force me to be on his team. Do you expect him to distract the enemy to death? His officers had finally recognized that he worked most efficiently alone.
Since coming to Earth, he’d forgotten — sometimes for days — about his deformities. His siblings had grown used to his looks and he largely avoided humans except in rare instances where their assistance was required.
“How can anyone concentrate with a ruined face like that darkening this conference?” Chrysoberyl continued. “His presence turns my stomach.”
Kyan would ask Mal to excuse him. Visitors from their new subsidiary would be too distracted. He was better off—
Mal slammed his fist on the conference table, spilling everyone’s coffee. “Silence!”
Chrysoberyl jolted in his seat, his tirade cut off mid-sentence. “But—”
“I will not tolerate these insults in my own corporation!”
“Well.” Chrysoberyl cleared his throat. “That is why I must be the CEO of Carnelian Clothiers.”
“You think you deserve to be the CEO of your brother’s old company when you can’t come up with one product launch idea for ours?”
“I am an aristocrat—”
“You couldn’t lead your way out of a paper bag.”
Chrysoberyl’s mouth flopped. “How dare you?”
“I dare—”
Down the table, Amber raised one finger.
Mal stopped short. “Amber.”
“The inability to recognize the value of assets is a critical failing.” Amber’s eyes crackled with suppressed flames. “If you were CEO, my financial forecast predicts you would declare bankruptcy in less than a year.”
“Bankruptcy? Ri-ridiculous.”
“Want to fight me for the CEO’s seat?” Radioactive red scales flexed across Pyro’s clenched hands. “When my injuries are healed, I welcome your challenge.”
He swallowed.
“I do not recommend accepting that challenge.” Jasper regarded the pale aristocrat with unusual dislike. “Kyan will be the only one standing between you and the grave.”
“He will not dare to attack an aristocrat.”
Pyro grinned. “Nothing I love more.”
“I will ruin you.”
“Right now, you only seem intent on ruining your brother’s good name.” Their sixth brother, exotic two-tone Alexandrite “Alex” Onyx, leveled his impeccable blond head at the aristocrat in disdain. “Sard Carnelian was a ruthless adversary and a brilliant strategist. In you, I see neither quality.”
Kyan’s throat closed.
His siblings rallied around him with more empathy and kindness than he deserved. He would give his life in an instant to protect them. Failures, such as the incidents with Cheryl or Pyro, crushed his shoulders.
As low caste dragons, they’d each grown up tortured. His was the only type that had left visible scars.
Mal removed his fist from the now-cracked conference table. “Since you have nothing useful to contribute, we will adjourn the meeting. I expect a better result tomorrow from a dragon who carries the Carnelian name.”
Chrysoberyl curled his lip, exposing his teeth in a silent snarl.
Mal took his wife’s hand, lifted the frozen introvert gently from her chair, and exited. The other Onyx siblings streamed past Chrysoberyl with silent distaste.
He had not endeared the aristocracy to the low caste Onyx family today.
Chrysoberyl followed Syenite from the room, seething. Would he burst free of his clothes, explode in dragon, and start a fight? It would be unwise. But Kyan had seen lesser dragons behave stupidly. He remained on his guard.
As they neared Pyro’s old office, Chrysoberyl regained his composure and complained, loudly, about the deficiencies of his new workplace — and his new security officer.
“—and he obviously will not ‘stand between me and the grave’ or else Pyro wouldn’t have been injured. I am a higher target. If I am injured, there are no proper medical facilities for one of my blood.”
Jasper overheard and couldn’t help but correct him. “Our ship has a facility.”
“Poisoned with low caste blood.” He sniffed. “I wouldn’t itch my scales with your machinery, to say nothing of trusting it with my life. No, I mustn’t be threatened. I deserve the best possible security.”
Mal turned on him abruptly. “Have your proposals on my desk by midnight tonight.”
Chrysoberyl jerked up short. “Impossible.”
Mal’s green eyes flared. “We do so all the time.”
“But … you …”
“Are quicker, harder working,
and smarter than any aristocrat?” Mal turned on his heels and strode away. “Midnight!”
Chrysoberyl stormed into the vice president suite. “Low caste dragons have no sense of the treatment I deserve.” He demanded to Syenite, “Bring me this human ‘coffee.’”
After a moment’s hesitation, the Carnelian security head operated the espresso machine in the corner of the office.
Chrysoberyl settled himself at his new desk with a disgruntled sigh. His luggage had already been delivered; an impressive stack of cases sealed with the Carnelian family crest.
Atop the chest-high stack sat a human-style gift bag.
Odd.
Kyan’s security hackles rose.
Odd things needed to be investigated.
He strode for the human gift bag, remotely calling through his earbuds for an analysis. The answer from his security team came back immediately, and it was not reassuring.
Something in the room buzzed with a signal.
Syenite delivered the requested coffee.
Chrysoberyl curled his human hand around the mug and glared pensively at Kyan. “How dare you approach my belongings?”
Kyan ignored him and searched the bag.
It was filled with brimstone candy and small tubes of colored, powdered ore. Celebratory items for the takeover they had averted. He dug underneath. A smooth, round ball stood out.
Anything that stood out was bad.
He pulled it from the bag.
It was a shrapnel detonator.
His heart slammed to black and his vision tunneled.
In his hand, the sphere looked too small to be evil. This type he hadn’t seen since the Colony Wars. A portable, easily improvised, shrapnel-throwing bomb. Clean metal lines rimmed in yellow. Usually they were blue, but the wrong color could be explained by scrounged materials.
He set it atop the cases. Burying it meant not only its own shrapnel load was a danger, but also any fragments of what broke off when it exploded. Shooting caused it to detonate.
The only choice was to shelter or escape.
The bomb blinked steadily.
Kyan jumped back. “Get out.”
Chrysoberyl frowned. “What?”
The blinking speed increased. It rose into the air, twisting and whining.
Kyan turned and raced for the vulnerable aristocrat, his arms spreading his trench coat to try to shelter Chrysoberyl from the deadly spray.
Syenite lifted his gun and fired.
Idiot! What security officer had such little sense?
He started to scream.
But it was too late.
The bomb ignited. Shrapnel exploded outward with deadly force.
Chapter Four
“You’re taking too long to counsel patients.” Dr. Richard officiously tapped his pen against his clipboard. “Blondie, some nurses just aren’t cut out for the ER.”
Laura pressed her lips together so hard they tingled.
She was almost done tidying the exam room. Her preceptor had given her permission to sneak away and eat her granola bar, which she actually had on her today. In her pocket. Chocolate cherry peanut butter. Extra nuts.
As soon as Dr. Richard, who couldn’t bother to remember her name and always referred to her by her hair color, finished his lecture and let her escape.
“An ER nurse can’t sit around and hold someone’s hand.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I saw you.” He gestured at the chair where she was still sitting, her patient long gone. “With my own eyes.”
Okay, so, yes.
For one brief moment, the worried young mother who didn’t speak English had gripped onto Laura’s gloved hand while a translator explained her daughter’s allergic reaction. She needed to carry an epi pen and avoid tree nuts. The mother had thanked Laura profusely in her language and walked her now-easily breathing six-year-old out.
So sue her.
Once Laura finished this final clinical, graduated, and passed her RN-NCLEX then she’d be the one diagnosing and wouldn’t have time to stay with patients through counseling.
But she wasn’t working as a fully licensed nurse right now. Her preceptor had Laura take medical histories and make initial assessments. That was advanced med tech work, and it was nerve-wracking enough. Then, Galina approved or disagreed with Laura, teaching her the nuances of nursing only learned by experience.
Dr. Richard would ultimately sign off on her work experience and there was still a chance she could earn his approval — and coveted recommendation. Even though it seemed less and less likely as her clinical wore on.
Laura sucked in a breath. “Thank you for your advice.”
“Be sure you take it.”
Galina peeked in the door. Time to move to the next patient.
Oh, no.
Laura had lost her one opportunity for a granola bar snack. She hated Dr. Richard with the fiery passion of a hundred growling stomachs.
Oblivious to her hatred, Dr. Richard leaned in and did the brow wiggle that meant he was about to make her feel squicky in addition to irritated.
“If you want to hold someone’s hand so much, you can come and hold mine.” He lowered his voice near her ear. “Anytime.”
Outside the room, Galina rolled her eyes.
Laura had to choke back her gag. And to think, she’d once found his symmetrical features, full head of hair, and even teeth to be attractive. Wow, that had lasted about two minutes. “Okay, thank you.”
Dr. Richard stepped closer.
Was Laura about to be treated to a more extended pickup? The kind of gross “flirting” all the nurses received during slower hours in the ER?
Galina must have sensed it too and stepped in. “Excuse me, Dr. Richard. Laura’s needed in Room 7.”
“Well, she’d already be there if she wasn’t sitting around holding people’s hands.” He stepped back. “You’re going to hold people’s lives there soon, Blondie. Make sure your hands are washed, gloved, and sterilized.”
Like she needed to be told!
He departed.
Laura fumed. “In the amount of time he lectured me he could have seen three patients and written ten scripts.”
“Yes.” Galina was five years older than Laura and five hundred patients ahead of her in nursing. “Richard’s taken a liking to you.”
Oh, unlucky her. “Why?”
Galina shrugged and headed out, expecting Laura at her heel. “Don’t let him get to you. The last one he took a liking to quit before she finished her rotation. You’ve got a lot to offer nursing, Laura.”
Laura hurried to keep up. “Why hasn’t someone complained?”
“Patients aren’t the only challenge in this profession.”
Galina had trained under an actual sexual predator now serving time in a county jail. She thought Laura might face worse than uncomfortable banter from an offensive jerk.
Then, Galina sighed. “He’s not completely wrong. You could speed up a little.”
Her chastisement stabbed Laura’s tender heart. “I’ll work on that. The ER is a much faster pace than my other clinicals.”
“Of course. We make life-and-death decisions every moment. Your lack of confidence and constant second-guessing causes you to be slow and slow can at times prove fatal.”
She closed her eyes. Her worst nightmare was making a fatal error, and that was exactly why she second-guessed herself.
But the problems went deeper. Her nature was approval-seeking, whether wearing scrubs or civilian clothes.
She’d made mistakes trying to go solo. Painful enough she was scared to try again.
The bravery she’d shown speaking her mind to Kyan yesterday had been out of character. For some reason, during those few hours in his presence, she’d relaxed and possessed confidence. Vivacity. She’d asked him whatever she’d wanted and stated her own opinions without biting her tongue. She’d shared her real self. He’d even commented on her fearlessness.
And then she’d kissed
him…
The memory of tasting his firm lips filled her with burning heat.
She’d gone home yesterday morning and taken a long, steamy shower with a glass of wine and a delicious fantasy. It was the first time since her great mistake she’d been able to let go of her hesitation, even in private, and experienced the passion she’d once dreamed about feeling with a man. Even if she never saw Kyan again, she’d have to thank him for giving back that part of her sexuality.
The magic had worn off by the time she’d awoken, of course. In her bed, alone.
If only she could be so brave every day, with everyone, she’d conquer fear and become a visionary nurse like in her favorite books and movies.
She’d surely live a more satisfying life.
Instead, right now, even her own preceptor thought she was lacking.
Galina stopped, softening her chastisement with hope. “If you gain anything from this clinical, let it be the confidence that comes with experience. Then, Laura, you will be unstoppable.”
Aw. “Thank you.”
Galina’s smile disappeared into professionalism as she switched to ER mode again. “Room 7. Let’s go.”
“Laura!” Sabrina rushed into the hall and thrust a chart into her startled hands. “There’s a patient for you in Room 2.”
Laura exchanged a questioning frown with Galina. “Room 2 isn’t one of ours.”
Sabrina lowered her voice. “It’s the guy. The guy.”
“What guy?”
“He asked for you.”
“Someone asked for me?”
“He brought in a patient. Another of his kind. You’re supposed to see them. Bob said to do whatever he wanted.”
Bob Kerrin, Director of the Hospital?
Oh.
Ohhhhh.
Kyan’s silent face flashed in her mind. And heat. Inappropriate fantasies of his large, capable hands sliding all over her naked body, in the shower, while she sipped a sweet rosé.
She swallowed. “Just me? Not Galina too? Or a doctor?”
“He asked for you.” Sabrina exchanged significant looks with Galina. “The patient is complaining loudly.”
Which meant it wasn’t serious.
The serious ones focused on drawing their next breath, not expelling it loudly — and pointlessly — at staff.
