It was the crying that did it. His dragon didn’t care if he stood there and obliterated himself one atom at a time with angry light, but the second tears sprang to his eyes, he felt it reconsider. All I know, Damian thought as he swallowed, grabbing hold of his emotions again to hide them, swallowing down his pain and fear, putting all of the armor back on that he’d let Andi crack, is that we cannot crush her. She doesn’t have our scales.
His dragon went still and slowly sank in on itself until it disappeared, leaving him on the ground, scorched.
Chapter 4
At some point the lasers must have turned off, and his body had gone to sleep to heal because the next time he woke it was to the delicate pinpricks of Grim’s teeth, nipping at his fingers. “Damian,” Grim said, letting go as he roused. “The others are waiting for you.”
“Why?” he asked, sliding a hand over his face and rolling flat. He was a mess, but it didn’t matter, because things weren’t going to get better any time soon.
“I believe they’ve got actual enemies for you. So you can stop fighting yourself,” Grim said, sounding peeved.
Yes. Fighting, his dragon said agreeably, unfurling in his mind, before gently continuing. You like fighting, don’t you, human?
In general, yes, Damian said, then snorted. Is this your way of trying to be nice to me? His dragon didn’t respond as they walked down the hall.
They reached the conference room quickly, where the rest of his team was waiting, and Mills sucked in air at the sight of him. “Oh, Damian.” She was dressed in business casual, black pencil skirt and a flowy cream-colored blouse, for their presumable business meeting, her long hair tidily up in braids, quite a contrast to what little was left of his suit on him, and all of his body smeared with green. He knew he reeked of sweat, blood, and ozone. “Grim, you should’ve made him shower.”
The cat hopped up onto the table and yowled an apology Mills couldn’t understand.
“He says he did the best he could,” Damian translated, his voice a rumble. “And he told me there was a fight coming up.”
“Yeah, about that, Damian….” Jamison began, sounding hesitant.
“Are you cosplaying the Incredible Hulk intentionally? Because if so, good job,” said an unaccustomed voice with a slow ironic clap. Damian turned his head, scanning across his crew’s faces until he found someone new in their midst. Stella, the small and likely insane werewolf girl Andi had saved last night, now wearing black motorcycle leathers.
What was it Andi had said? That Stella had warned her?
“You,” he said, rounding the table, angling for the woman.
“Whoa, D,” Zach said, putting himself in Damian’s way, his crisp black suit making him look every bit like an unsuspecting bystander.
Damian shoved the werewolf aside without thinking, knocking him back into the wall so hard he bounced. Jamison ran out the door as Austin ran to his brother’s side, and Damian continued on for Stella. “What did you tell her?” he demanded.
“Tell who?” Stella asked, instantly jumping up and pulling out her handgun as she backed away. “I know you’re a fucking dragon, but this is a Ruger Super Redhawk loaded with 454 Casull. It can take down a buffalo.”
“Damian, I know things are rough right now,” Mills began, appearing at Stella’s side. “But we invited Stella here, to help us with the hunters. Remember them?”
Damian cleared the distance between them until the muzzle of Stella’s gun was resting against his sternum, rising and falling in the rhythm of his breath. “What. Did. You. Tell. Her.”
Ryana appeared on Stella’s other side. “Really, brother? Did murdering one little human do this to you? You’re very out of practice.”
Max ran forward to sweep Ryana back to safety as Damian heard Austin say, “Oh, shit, are we really doing this?” and then a mottled gray and black wolf the size of a picnic table leapt out of nowhere and careened into him. Zach. Damian swatted it back and then felt its fangs clamp on his hand and wrist—yanking him to one side as it fell. The pain traveled up his arm slowly, like it was coming from a great distance, and it was absolutely nothing compared to the pain in his soul since he’d left Andi behind.
“Zachariah!” Mills snapped, and then another werewolf ran at him from the side, a shaggy auburn blur, buffeting him with its shoulder, knocking him down. “Austin! Cut that out!”
Damian knew they were his friends, that he shouldn’t fight with them, that there’d be more appropriate fights to come, and yet, he moved his hand inside Zach’s wolf’s mouth to grab hold of the inside of his lower jaw and squeeze. The wolf whined, but it didn’t let go, and his brother’s jaw found the meat of Damian’s thigh to viciously bite and pull.
“Boys! Stop it! All of you!” Mills demanded. She strode forward to put a foot on his chest. Her hair was down now and it seethed like a living thing, winding itself around each of his limbs.
“You murdered her?” Stella accused him. She hadn’t used the wolves’ distraction as an excuse to run away; instead, she’d moved her half-cocked gun up for a headshot.
“Of course not,” Mills answered on his behalf, as a strand of her hair came up and wrapped the barrel of Stella’s gun, too, whipping it away from the woman. “Explain yourself!” she demanded. “Starting with you, Damian!”
Damian lay there, gnawed on by werewolves, strangled by magical hair, and it was all he could do to keep breathing. Not because of anything they were doing to him, but because she was gone. The day his entire crew had prepared for, for when he’d finally go wild, was here—only, instead of it being his dragon’s fault, this was all him.
“Andi left me,” he confessed. “To protect me from her uncle and her brother.” He let go of Zach’s jaw and the wolf began to release his arm in turn.
Stella took a step back, retrieving her weapon as Mills’s hair proffered it back to her. “Well, she’s not wrong. He’s a fucking scary dude.”
Jamison ran back into the room with his dragon-shooting armature on, the weapon making a high-pitched whining as it charged. “Back it up, buttercups,” he announced, focusing the aiming light on Damian.
Mills waved him down. “We’re all right,” she said, then stared down at Damian. “Aren’t we?”
Damian was fairly sure he’d never be ‘all right’ again but he forced himself to answer, “For now.”
“Hell of an operation you’ve got here,” Stella told Mills, as Ryana wrested herself free of Max’s arms to come back to the fray, peeking her head over his so that she was upside down in his field of vision.
“So, you didn’t murder her?” she tsked. “For shame.”
After that, Mills tasked the two wolves with making sure Damian showered, shouting, “The three of you…go cool off!” They herded him down the hall like oversized border collies with a reluctant sheep, if that same sheep could also become a fire-breathing dragon. Grimalkin brought up the rear, hissing any time a wolf so much as looked his way and they went into the communal showers outside the training gym together.
Damian stepped under the nearest shower, with the remnants of his suit still on him, and let the hottest water hit him, listening to the sickening sounds of his friends changing back to human nearby. The first time he’d ever seen his friends change on a no-moon night, and it was to stop him. He really was fucking cracking up. But he had unfinished business with Andi—no matter what she thought. He had to pull himself together.
“Take off what’s left of your shirt and pants, Damian,” Grim counseled, hopping between the water jets. “You need to get clean.”
Damian did as he was told and saw the river of blood pouring out of the wounds on his arm where Zach’s fangs had pierced him, and again, on his thigh where Austin had. The blood swirled, a watered-down emerald green against the shower’s bright white tile. The amount of blood leaking out of him lessened as his wounds healed from the inside out.
“Dude, I cannot believe I bit you,” Austin said, coming up beside him to clap his shoul
der hard, staring at the green splashes on the floor. The tattoos Austin had rippled over his muscled chest and down his arms. “So let me just say, Zach started it.”
Zach snorted, coming up beside them both. “Thanks.”
“It’s true!” Austin protested, with a lopsided grin, before shaking himself like a dog. “What the hell were you thinking, shifting?”
Zach groaned. “I wasn’t. I’m sorry, Damian…you were coming in hot—”
“I was,” Damian agreed, waving his friend’s apology away as the last of the green washed off of him. “I…don’t usually let my emotions get the better of me. I should be the one apologizing. I’m sorry.” No matter what Andi believed, he was scary.
It was just a mystery to him that somehow her uncle was scarier.
The werewolf brothers shared a pointed look. “Are you…okay?” Zach asked.
“If you’re asking if I’m going to dragon-out on you, the answer’s no.”
“What about the rest of it?” Austin pressed, one eyebrow high.
Damian inhaled, considering the honest answer: No. I am fucked up. And I am going to remain fucked up for quite some time. Possibly forever. But he couldn’t let on. He didn’t want to worry them anymore than he already had.
Zach put a serious hand on Damian’s shoulder before he could speak again. “Do you want to talk about it? Before my brother offers to take you to a strip club, I mean.”
“That’s not my only go-to, Zach,” Austin snarked before rebounding. “Although now that you mention it…pussy does solve a lot of problems.”
Damian took a deep inhale. “Not when the only pussy in the world I want is worried her brother is going to kill me. Or me, him.” Austin hissed and Zach winced as he turned the water faucet off. “You see my conundrum,” he went on. Grimalkin materialized a set of towels nearby, and each of the men took one.
Austin cinched his, appeared thoughtful, and then held his hands up like he was selling products on a TV infomercial. “Have you thought about alternate sources of pussy?” he asked.
Zach rolled his eyes to the heavens, and not for the first time, Damian thought it was interesting that their tattoos matched, because nothing else about them did. He stared at his brother flatly. “Not helping,” he said, then faced Damian. “Did you tell her? The mates thing?”
“Of course not.” Damian sighed. “I wanted to, but she’d already gone through so much tonight. Besides, it’s not like it’s a magic wand. We’d still have the same problems.” Damian raked a hand through his wet hair.
“But if she’s your mate, then this is temporary,” Zach said, trying to logic things out. “She can’t escape fate, right?”
“Purportedly. Only I forgot the part where she’s also fated to fight by her brother’s side.”
Austin groaned. “I mean, really, Damian. There’s so much no-fate-pussy out there.” Zach went to punch his brother’s shoulder as Austin danced aside. “Wait, I know a guy. Two doors down from me, third hallway. Wears goggles, shifts into a bear? Named Max?”
“I’m not using the Forgetting Fire on Andi to erase her memory of her family. That’s fucking dark.” Damian glared at the shaggier wolf.
Zach moved so that he occupied Damian’s field of vision instead. “Okay. I agree that my brother’s an idiot, and that things are hard. But let’s acknowledge that this is not a problem we’re going to solve tonight.”
Damian stared into Zach’s eminently reasonable ice blue eyes for a long moment, reminded of all the reasons why he let Zach run Blackwood Industries without him. “Agreed.”
“Good. So let’s focus on the now. Mills and Jamison have some targets for us to take out. You like beating things up. These Hunters sure as shit deserve to be beaten. It’ll be an easy win. Let’s go take it.”
Damian slowly nodded.
“Thanks, coach,” Austin said ironically, bobbing up in front of his brother, his rust colored hair just beginning to dry. “And when we’re done?” he said with a dangerous grin. “I know this place by the interstate. Pussy as far as the eye can see.”
Damian went up to his room to get dressed and brought his orrery down with him from his office. It chimed musically as he took the stairs. By the time he returned to the conference room, Mills’s hair was rebraided. “So, Andi’s gone?” the witch asked, her brow furrowed with concern.
Damian sat down again beside her, putting the orrery down between them. “She’s trying to protect me from herself. Her brother told her she’s going to fight by his side, so she’s trying to take herself out of the equation.”
“Destiny doesn’t work like that.” Ryana crossed her arms, frowning at the thing Damian had brought.
“That’s what I told her, but she’s human.” Damian spread his hands out on the table. “She doesn’t want to betray me. But she doesn’t want to look at me and know that I’ll have to kill Danny. So, although it pains me, I cannot blame her.”
Max grunted, putting both his elbows on the table. “No one said it has to be you who kills him, Damian. We’ve got plenty of weaponry.”
“And don’t forget the big gun,” Jamison said, gesturing at the armature he’d set down in the room’s corner.
“I’m fairly sure any one of us vaporizing him will feel the same to her.” Damian shook his head.
Zach cleared his throat. “So, is there a solution to the Hunter problem that doesn’t include killing him?”
“For as long as he’s a traitor to dragonkind….” Ryana said, letting her voice drift meaningfully.
“Yes, sister, your opinions on traitors are well-known.” Damian snorted.
“She’s right, D,” Austin said, and Ryana gave the shifter a begrudging nod. “I know you care for Andi, but he’s on the other side. This is no time to get soft. I mean, would he hesitate if he had the chance to kill you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t met the man before,” Damian muttered, but then realized that wasn’t true. “Wait, we did see him fight in Rax’s casino that one time.” Danny had come in, wild and half-draconic, to save Andi from the other Hunter—back before Andi’d realized all of her family’s Hunter ties.
“I remember that fight,” Mills said, tapping a finger on her lips.
“Yeah, we saw him stick his claws through that guy’s eyes into his brain. Who could forget?” Jamison’s lip curled in disgust.
Damian would’ve…because of everything that night that’d come afterward. Him in Andi’s bedroom, satisfying her thoroughly before holding her as she drifted to sleep in his arms. He realized all he had of her now were memories. His hands moved to the edge of the table and grabbed hold, like he was trying to pull his happier past closer.
“Just how strong is he?” Ryana asked in concern.
“Damian was born a dragon. He would win,” Max said, sounding certain. “If he wanted to,” he amended. “Which he’d better.” Max’s tone changed to the stern whipcrack of Damian’s youth, when the bear-shifter had put him through his paces in the Realms.
“I would,” Damian agreed. “But what then?” His jaw clenched and he stared at the grain of the wooden table, thinking hard. Why wasn’t there an easy solution? How could he thread this needle, survive, and still keep Andi’s gentle heart?
Zach cleared his throat. “Okay, so, what’s with the crazy desk toy?” he asked, gesturing at the thing Damian had brought with his chin.
Damian took a deep inhale and tried to focus. “You heard Lee’s talk of the Joining in the car, yes?”
Austin grunted. “It sounded pretty made up, like he just wanted an excuse to kill people.”
Damian looked over at his sister. “Do you think a Joining and a Conjunction could be the same thing?”
Max’s head snapped toward her too. “Why is he asking?”
“Because that’s why I’m here. The prognosticators said one was coming. It instigated the war in the Realms that I escaped,” Ryana told him.
“What the fuck’s a prognosticator?” Stella asked.
; “Good question,” Austin said, looking to Damian for translation.
“This is my orrery,” he said as answer, pushing the thing forward and flicking one of the hovering crystal globes. It made a melodious sound as it flew out of orbit on its chain, and then swung back into its original path. “I brought it with me from the Realms, and each of these represents a different Realm,” he said, pointing at them in turn. “I can’t claim to understand all their interactions with one another, largely because they’re practically random. But there are people of the Realms who stare at these all day long—crazy people, called prognosticators—who claim to make predictions of future movement based on prior movement.”
“That’s not an incalculable amount of objects and motion, Damian,” Jamison mused, rapping his metal fingers on the table thoughtfully. “I wish you’d shared it sooner. We could’ve—”
“Been charting it all this time? Why? It has no bearing on earth. Or it didn’t until now, perhaps,” Damian said with a shake of his head. “But with Lee’s talk of a Joining, I’m worried it’s the same as what we call a Conjunction.” He used his hands and forearms to press the line of hovering globes into a chiming line. “It’s an alignment of the Realms creating a rift on each one, allowing anything that wants entrance through, up, or down to whichever Realm it seeks.”
“That seems bad,” Stella murmured.
“The strong will survive and the weak will perish,” Max intoned.
“Kind of like the Book of Revelation? Where all those old guys had wild end-of-the-world visions?” Jamison asked.
“If believable people had actually experienced it once before and then written books about it afterward, then yes,” Ryana stated.
Dragon Mated: Sexy Urban Fantasy Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds Book 4) Page 6
