There was a clank on the ground beneath his feet, and Ryder brushed away twigs and leaves to reveal another similar-looking cover as the one they’d encountered before.
“Hey, you literally walked into it,” Kira exclaimed, looking absolutely sexy in her tight jeans and a blue sweater. “Talk about lucky.”
“Luck isn’t usually my strong suit,” he exclaimed, lifting it away so they could descend.
“Maybe today it is,” she said helpfully, following him down the long, metallic shaft deep underground. Even when they reached the bottom, there was another set of stairs that led downward.
How deep did these places go?
Once they came upon a corridor, they followed it as it opened up into a shockingly large facility that sent a chill down Ryder’s spine, something tickling at the fringes of his fragmented memory.
Unlike the first lab, this place was full of shiny metal fixtures and things that looked like the stuff of nightmares. Stuff from his nightmares.
There were beds with restraints, objects that looked like computers, and glassed-off areas that reminded him of cages, along with a slew of desks and chairs and things that lent an eerie air to the place.
And when Kira flipped a switch, the lights turned on, and the sterility of it all made him uneasy.
“The light fae went all out with this location,” Kira said, a frown on her lips as she appraised the space. “Most of this equipment is new or never used. You okay?” She watched him closely, her expression guarded.
“I’m fine,” Ryder said with a wave of his hand. “The sooner we’re done here, the better.”
He walked forward, taking the corridor into the main room, and heard a barely audible click beneath his feet. Two tall metal poles he hadn’t noticed at his sides lit up, and before he could even utter a sound, long arcs of blue electricity coursed between the poles.
The effect was immediate and blinding, Ryder’s entire body going numb as he felt his insides lock up as deafening zapping sounds crackled in the air.
Focus, Ryder, he barely maintained the ability to think to himself as he tried to push forward, taking one step ahead to get away from whatever hell this was.
He’d always been strong enough to get through anything.
But as he tried to move, the electricity followed, wrapping around his arms and legs like vises attached to his entire body.
The pain was unending. He was going to pass out or die. He was sure of it.
Behind him, there was the sound of metal wrenching, followed by a crunch and a snap at the fringe of his hearing.
Then the pain blessedly stopped.
Ryder almost fell forward, and he caught himself on a nearby desk as he got his bearings, looking around to see what had made the damn trap turn off.
He turned to look over his shoulder and saw Kira standing near an opened panel on the floor. In her hands, she held two ends of a giant black cord that was double the width of her arms and was currently crackling with sparks where she’d apparently ripped it in half.
She immediately dropped the split wire and ran over to him. “Are you hurt? I didn’t expect them to use an electro-trap. When it went off, I did the quickest thing I could think of.”
Ryder sucked in a breath, feeling mostly fine now that he wasn’t being electrocuted. “All good here.” He sighed. “Thank you. I mean it.”
Kira gave him a pleased smile. “I told you I was strong.”
Ryder chuckled at that, the reminder she was full-blooded fae less unsettling now than it had been when they’d first met. Frankly, after what had just happened, he was glad for her abilities.
He glanced around nervously. “Are there any more traps we should be aware of?”
“As long as we just get to the main terminal and shut this place down, we should be fine. After all, I think they just wanted to guard the back entrance.”
“Main terminal?” Ryder asked.
Kira hummed thoughtfully, pointing toward a large metal slab with buttons like the one in the first lab but bigger, and they headed there together, side by side.
Ryder kept watch around them in case there might be more traps. “Damn. Such a huge facility, and they aren’t even using it.”
She nodded. “From what we know, most of the light fae are still in hiding in the fae world, waiting for their chance to sneak over here once they get a signal from someone that it’s the right time.”
“That makes sense,” Ryder said. Thus far, they’d only encountered small pockets of resistance, like the light fae Dallin had taken care of.
Kira began to hit buttons on the main terminal, and Ryder watched for a minute before his mind became overwhelmed by the unfamiliar characters and numbers that were flitting across the screen.
With the way Ryder’s whole body was still tensed, he just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. It was like the electricity was still going through his mind, even though the pain had abated.
Ryder looked to the side and saw several clear panes of glass about as wide and tall as a piece of paper but thicker and see-through. He picked one up, curious what it was. Only, as his hand met the edges, the glass lit up with text across it.
Interesting.
But as he read over the words, not imagining he’d see anything of use, instead, his eyes settled on a large block of text across the top.
PROJECT UPDATE: DFH 2.0
Out of nowhere, a flash of black and purple stabbed the back of his head, making his mind go blank. But he still tried to keep reading, following what seemed to be a very wordy report on some project the fae here were hoping to continue.
Only two subjects have withstood full exposure to chaos energy, to varied effect. But we’re in the final stages of testing our newest revisions on—
Was this the fae equivalent of an email? He read on, but the words were getting fuzzier on the page. Like his mind was trying to blank out pieces of it.
At the bottom, there were several names, people listed on the report. Were they the ones that had sent this? But try as he might, he couldn’t make his eyes focus like they needed to. Maybe just the zap from the electro-trap had jostled his brain.
Another flash of pain went through his mind, blurring his vision, and Ryder stumbled slightly, grabbing Kira’s attention.
“What’s up? What did you find there?” Kira asked, still typing something in without looking at the screen in front of her.
“This, this thing. It looks like it’s important. Maybe we should bring it with us,” Ryder said. At the bottom, there was a little arrow indicating the next message on the screen, and Ryder clicked on it, hopeful the next message might shine more light.
“Maybe we should—”
Suddenly, the glass in his hand went red like a flashing light, beeping annoyingly. A second later, the glass broke into pieces in his hand, and the other glass devices on the table shattered as well.
“ALERT. ALERT. BREACH DETECTED.” A robotic-sounding voice echoed through the room and halls.
“Did you start the shutdown procedure?” Ryder asked, coming up to Kira’s side as she watched the terminal she’d been working on go completely red and unresponsive.
“No. Whatever’s happening is automated,” she replied, worry in her expression as she clicked more buttons. “I can’t stop it.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Ryder yelled over the deafening alarm. He took Kira’s hand in his, heading for the back door they’d come in through.
But no sooner had they taken three steps than a huge slab of metal slammed downward, shutting off the exit. Nearby, the other hallways connecting the central area closed off in similar fashion.
“SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED. BEGINNING COUNTDOWN.”
“What the hell do we do?” Ryder asked, looking for a way out but not seeing one. He looked up at the ceiling fifty feet overhead.
“They’ve sealed the exits. Even if we get through, the whole place is going to collapse in ten seconds.”
As if on
cue, the voice above them said the number ten, not waiting for them.
Her eyes filled with fear, and he felt something turn to steel inside him. There was no way he would let her come to harm.
“I have an idea. Just one second,” he said.
Ryder didn’t have time to belabor whether or not his dragon looked like a demented piece of filth right now. Instead, he felt the shift overtake him, filling a large portion of the space with his huge body and long tail, keeping his wings tucked in.
Beneath him, Kira watched agape, and when he reached one black claw forward, she stepped into his hand and he wrapped his talons carefully around her and tucked her tiny body as close to his as possible. She pulled her backpack over her head, nestled against his body.
“Five… Four…”
He took in a deep breath, dragon lungs filling with air, and blasted the roof with black and purple flames that burned a hole upward. Above them, through falling earth and metal beams, Ryder could see the sun peeking through, the hole not big enough for his body, though he could maybe punch through the rest of the way.
“Three… Two…”
Finally, he let his wings out and beat with all his strength. Using his head and horns as a battering ram, he went up through the ceiling, crashing through the rooftop and pushing toward the surface, his tiny fae held against his body protected by both his hands as metal groaned and dirt exploded upward and outward.
“One…”
The final number echoed beneath him. And as it did, there was a small explosion, the ground caving inward and engulfing the spot where the lab had been only a second ago, along with whatever secrets it held.
But they were already in the sky, and Ryder flew low over the treetops, keeping between two neighboring mountains as he looked at his claws in front of him to see Kira safe in his grasp. She gave him a thumbs-up, her hair wild and whipping around her face as she did, a few dirt smudges on her cheeks but otherwise completely unharmed.
He let out a low breath and glided downward, landing in a clearing with lush grass and a tiny pond.
For now, Kira was safe.
Nothing else in the world mattered.
What a rush.
Kira looked up in awe as Ryder shifted from his magnificent black-, green-, and purple-scaled dragon to his human form.
His dragon was even more beautiful than she’d remembered.
And his iron will, his inability to ever give up, had saved them from the lab when nothing else could.
As they locked eyes, she noticed his were darker, the orange at the center appearing burnt. He put a hand to his head, looking dizzy, and she rushed to his side.
“Whoa, take it easy,” she said, keeping an arm around his waist as she guided him to sit down on a nearby rock. “I think you just used your head as a battering ram.”
“I used everything as a battering ram,” he said, exhaling roughly. “But I’m fine. I’ve just never shifted that quickly.”
“Have some water,” she said, pulling a bottle out of her backpack and handing it to him while taking another for herself.
Ryder took his and began to down the entire thing in one go. Then he splashed the last bit of water over his face and whipped his head back and forth, sending little water droplets flying around him like a halo of tiny crystals.
“I still can’t believe you got us out of there.”
“My dragon skin is incredibly hard,” he said, shrugging. “I knew I could take it.”
That’s the onyx dragon blood in you, Kira thought, feeling conflicted as always about telling him what she knew.
On the one hand, he’d forgotten his past and wanted it that way. On the other, there was still so much unsaid, so much history that lingered between them that it was difficult to simply leave it all behind.
“So what happened exactly?” Ryder asked, finally meeting her gaze again.
“It’s called a data integrity failure.”
“What?”
“A failsafe the light fae use when their systems detect a risk of information being stolen.”
“Makes sense they want to keep their secrets to themselves,” he replied with a shrug.
“Yeah, even if it means losing them.” She pulled out a Thermos with some coffee she’d made back at the hotel and offered it to Ryder. When he refused, she poured herself a cup and took a long sip, trying to calm her still-rattled nerves. “Normally, it’s pretty easy to work around, but they must’ve had that place locked down tight.”
“Like they really, really didn’t want anyone knowing about it,” Ryder commented, finally standing up, shirt partly wet and sticking to his muscular form as he folded his arms.
Kira swigged the rest of the coffee and replaced the cap. “Taylor might be right. This is more dangerous than I anticipated.”
“As long as I have you to watch my back, I’m not worried.” He sent her a reserved smile. “Thanks for the save by the way. But if you want us to stop, this is your mission. You call the shots.”
She came up next to him, debating whether it was okay to touch him or not. She could still feel residual chaos energy throbbing in the air around him, but it was contained now, harmless to everyone.
Except perhaps himself.
Kira settled on putting her hands in her pockets. “I like working with you, and so far, we’ve been able to face anything. I want to keep going.”
“I like working with you too. I like doing anything with you.” There was the slightest blush on his cheeks, and his eyes darted away. “Besides, this beats sitting around on my ass at home.”
She nodded. “I’m in agreement. What was on that crystal you were looking at?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea. Some project they were working on, but I couldn’t make sense of it. It made my brain fuzzy.”
While Ryder had been looking at the crystal, she’d been looking at files in the system. Some of them referred to the project she’d been assigned to back in her old life.
DFH.
Dragon-Fae Hybrid.
“Being down there, did it bring back any memories?”
He stared at her blankly. “No, why should it?”
She paused, not wanting to pull anything to the surface. After all, this lab probably had nothing to do with him. The lab where he’d been held in the human world had been destroyed.
She didn’t want to dig up the past, but she knew it was following them wherever they went and someday bound to catch up.
“You know, I do remember one thing,” Ryder said, giving her a rakish grin that made all her thoughts zero in on the recent experience of his body, his mouth all over her like a rainstorm.
“What?”
“How hot last night was,” he said, coming forward. And when he reached out a hand to take hers in his, she didn’t resist, grabbing him and holding on tightly.
If this was where the future led with Ryder, then the past could wait for now.
“I have an idea.” His eyes darted to her lips, and she could almost taste his kiss again. “Let’s get back to town and spend the day there. Give ourselves a little time off.”
“What?” she asked, admittedly very curious to see what small-town humans did in remote places like this. What they were like, what they sold in the stores.
“Why not? It’s a long drive back, and we both had a close call. Let’s just relax and get our strength back before returning to the SRP. I’ll even text Ian to let him know.”
“That sounds delightful. Maybe we can try that restaurant that was closed last night. When we left this morning, it smelled delicious.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll fly us back to the car, and we can drive in and be humans for a day.”
11
Kira had to admit it felt good to be a human, at least in a small town on a sunny day with lots of tiny shops on all sides and Ryder beaming down at her.
It could almost be a dream if he wasn’t so real beside her, smelling and looking and just being like him.
S
uch a beautiful day…
“Like my hat?” Ryder asked, giving her a wink and setting the ridiculous newsie cap he’d bought on his hair, which was still mussed from earlier.
It looked oddly adorable, tilting over one side of his forehead, and she flushed as she looked away. “It’s better than you probably think.”
He grinned. “Ah, so my natural sexiness is enough to overcome it, then?”
It was close enough to the truth that it made her laugh unexpectedly, and Ryder just cocked his head and looked at her, puzzled.
“I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me or not,” he said, taking off the hat and shoving it back in the bag. She grabbed it and put it back on his head, jumping a little to do so.
“I’m not,” she said. “I’d never, ever make fun of such a big, scary dragon.”
He chuckled, allaying any worries she might have offended him. “I know. Might lead to some consequences.” His eyes were heated. “Sexy consequences. Like being taken back to my hoard.”
Her mouth fell open. “Do you have one?”
He shrugged. “Nope. I was in a lab when I should have been plundering castles, I guess.”
She laughed because he was being such a dork. Just like when she’d known him before.
And the attraction between them was there again. The easy chemistry.
Their alliance against evil.
How it felt to just be with someone who was so like you that you knew you could spend all of your time with them but so different you could never be bored.
And oh yes, the dorkiness. She wanted to snatch that hat right off his head, kiss him senseless, and drag him down a quiet street just past the bar on the left and—
Ryder cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “Did I tell you that horny thoughts are louder?”
She scoffed, putting her hands on her hips. “Seriously? Or is that just your excuse to be dirty?”
“Seriously,” he retorted and grinned. “And based on what I heard, I’m not the one who’s dirty.”
Her hands clenched in fists, and she spun away from him, almost too embarrassed to move, but froze when she felt him come up behind her, wrapping his arms around her.
Dragon Redeemed (Reclaimed Dragons Book 2) Page 7
