Fight for Her (Ice Age Dragon Brotherhood Book 4)

by Milana Jacks

  Rose moaned. “I can’t let you do that.”

  I swiped my tongue over her nipple. I’d grown obsessed with her tits. Full and heavy and firm tits. They were gorgeous. “Do what?” Was Rose sore?

  “I can’t let you give up on everyone for me.”

  “I already have.”

  She pushed my chest, and I rolled over to my back, threw an arm over my forehead, and cupped my blue balls. I squeezed. “Rose, baby, come back to bed. Let’s fuck all day.”

  Rose walked to her closet, a neat dent in the wall filled with clothes arranged by color. I spotted the golden dress I’d bought her.

  Rose dressed in a white tank and black tights, then put her sneakers on.

  I sat up on the bed. “I think you think you’re going somewhere.”

  “I have a class at ten.”

  “Which class?”

  “Telekinesis. It’s a one-on-one, as in just me and my…secret coach.”

  “Telekinesis?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You mean he’s teaching you how to move objects with your mind?” Bad news. Cyborgs who could possibly move objects mentally were bad news.

  “He tries. Oddly, I can’t do it anymore. Dad thinks I gotta work on it harder.”

  I threw on my pants. “Back off a little, Rose. Since when can cyborgs move objects?”

  “They can’t.”

  Excellent news. I snapped closed my pants and threw a hand over her shoulder as I guided her outside and to the bar chair. She sat, and I went behind her into the kitchen in search of the black brew that rich cyborgs would pay gold for. “Where is it?”

  Rose pointed. She knew what I wanted. I got the good coffee and cups, and made the instant thing. We sipped while my mind ran a mile a minute. “Okay, tell me about telekinesis.” I needed to contact Knight anyway. Might as well tell him about this too. Whatever this turned out to be. I put my cup down and sat across from Rose. I took her mechatronic hand and ran my palm over it. Rose tried to jerk it away, but I wouldn’t let her. I held her cold hand. “Tell me.”

  “Well. There was this one time when I sat down to eat and forgot my fork. I didn’t feel like getting up. I imagined it landing on the table. And so it did. It lifted and traveled to me. I didn’t tell anyone about it.”

  “When was this?”

  “A few months ago.”

  I nodded. “Go on.”

  Rose continued. “So I read everything I could about…traveling objects and found nothing of importance. One day, we had a class trip to the packaging factory in Pittsburg down on the ground level. On our way out, the teachers gave us half an hour to browse around. I found a little native shop run by a man who worked with cold weapons. He carved them, and they were so beautiful. But besides the steel, there were these wooden figurines he made, and I bought a few.” She looked over my shoulder in the bedroom, then frowned. “Left them in Pittsburg, unfortunately. Anyhow, the man and I chatted, and I asked him if I could stop by again.”

  “Why?”

  Rose shrugged. “I don’t know. When I walked into his store, everything…my body…”

  “Yes?”

  “Brimmed with energy. There was something about the man or the store. I can’t put my finger on it, but I can tell you I could move the figurines.”

  “Did you go back?”

  “Yes, many times. He trained me in hand-to-hand combat.”

  I blinked. “Whatever for?”

  “No reason. I liked holding the knife, and he said I was a natural.”

  Who was this guy? “Then what happened?”

  “One day I went there, and Young, that’s his name, got into it with some level fives. I happened to be there, and when a level five went to arrest me just for being there, I kind of stabbed him.”

  “Kind of?”

  “Mm-hm. A knife flew off the wall and landed in the guy’s back.”

  “Oh, I see. It wasn’t you. It was the knife.”

  Rose chuckled. “Yeah, no, I got arrested for street fighting. Total bullshit. I wasn’t even on the street. I was inside the store.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Dad didn’t bail me out immediately. He wanted me to understand I was being punished for going on the ground level and consorting with the…humans. I don’t know what happened to Young, but I got sick the next day, and a week later, I got worse.”

  “The colonel knows about your telekinesis?” My daughter is talented. She uses twice as much brainpower than a normal human. They must’ve scanned Rose sometime before surgery and discovered that her brain worked at a higher level than a normal human’s. But they attributed it to science. They believed she was their unicorn.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I couldn’t control the surge of emotions inside the interrogation room, so the table flew into my dad’s face.”

  I threw my head back and laughed. “Oh, I’d’ve paid to see that.”

  “I had to explain.”

  “And he believes you?”

  “I showed him. But I can’t move anything anymore.”

  My dragon stirred, and his sorrow weighed heavily on me. I rubbed my chest. I knew why she couldn’t move objects. Swords and just about anything around us were products of nature. As a spirit to an earth elemental, Rose could have manipulated anything on this planet, be it iron, steel, wood, or rock.

  Rose tucked my hair behind my ear. “What?”

  “Nothing.” I cleared my throat. “When do you get off?”

  “Whenever you tell me to.”

  Fuck. Rose was talking dirty to me. I grabbed the back of her neck and kissed the hell out of her. She was my addiction. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Rose headed for the door, then turned around. “How did you know your birthday is the code to get into my house?”

  “I guessed.”

  “I’m gonna change it.”

  “To what?”

  “Not gonna tell you.”

  “I already know.”

  “You’re telepathic?”

  “I wish.” I did. I wished she could hear my thoughts. If she got her spirit, she could’ve heard my dragon.

  12

  Rose

  Arthur stayed behind after I’d left my apartment. Coach Hammer—not really his name, but everyone called him that—held our meditation class on the roof of the tallest building in the military quarters. I’d slept with my Holy Grail. Finally, Arthur had punched my V-card. It was better than my fantasies, and I just wanted the day to be over so I could go back home and have sex all night. Maybe he’d double penetrate me. I looked around at the people who filled the elevator and giggled. “Good morning,” I said.

  People mumbled. Whatever. It was a great morning. The elevator made a few stops and then delivered me onto the roof. I stepped out and shielded my eyes, expecting the blinding sun. I dropped my hand. The sun barely penetrated the plasma today as the plasma’s color was deep burgundy. It looked more like a cloudy day inside the habitat than a spring morning.

  I unrolled the blue mat I’d gotten from my locker and sat down on it, my face turned up toward the sun, even though it didn’t bathe my face. I closed my eyes and settled in to rest my mind and chase off the negative energy. It was easy. I’d slept with Arthur, so I basically discovered the Titanic. No other morning compared to this one. I’d wanted him ever since I’d come to understand things about my body, somewhere around the age of fifteen. I remembered when I first realized that my innocent crush had turned into a full-blown obsession. It’d been that one time when Arthur took me to the marketplace near my brother’s house and spent all morning with me there. I even tried flirting with him. A futile expense of my energy, but it made me realize I loved him. Hard.

  A year later, it had taken a lot of beers to approach him, but I had done it. Suffered a heartbreak when I found out from my brother, Arthur wasn’t gonna come around as often as before. Although I loved my brother and wanted to see him as much as possible, I’d always made sure I attended any ho
liday gatherings because I knew Arthur would be there, and I’d planned to start college in this habitat because this was Arthur’s territory. Life threw me a few curveballs, but life still put me in Detroit.

  Besides, Arthur didn’t seem to mind having a cyborg as a girlfriend.

  I breathed deep and opened my eyes so I could read the habitat’s main clock. The red digital letters on the megatron displayed 10:12 a.m. Coach Hammer was twelve minutes late. I meditated for another ten minutes, then got up to stretch, once in a while glancing at the clock. At ten thirty-five, I took the tube down to the main classroom areas in search of my coach. I didn’t find Hammer, but I found my dad with the Elites.

  I waved and waited for him to finish up.

  Dad walked over and kissed my cheek. “How’s my girl today?”

  Well fucked. “Great, Dad. What’s going on?”

  Dad moved as if to go back inside, expecting me to follow. I stayed and watched the pods lift off. Something settled in my chest. I rubbed it. A strange feeling of…gosh, what was this?

  “Rose?” Dad asked from the platform’s exit.

  “Why are they leaving?”

  “They’ve got a mission.”

  “And me?”

  “You’re staying in for this one.”

  I kept staring at the pods. “You said the best training is on the field. You said you’ll think about it.”

  “I have thought about it.”

  He wasn’t gonna let me join them. The pods moved slowly, really slowly. My heart drummed in my ears. Since the Elites were formed to battle dragons, I presumed they were going after Arthur. He’d surprised us during the first mission. Nobody expected him to show up. Something about my dad’s terse tone told me this was no ordinary mission. My father wouldn’t tell me anything if I didn’t obey him, so I followed him back into his office, a plain white room with large windows overlooking the river.

  Dad stood at the window.

  I stood next to him.

  The red plasma colored everything beyond the habitat. Even broken, sad, frozen, and dirty, nature was still amazing. Under the barrier, we lived in another world.

  My dad hummed a tune. I couldn’t make anything of it. The older generations knew more about music than my generation.

  “How’s your training with Coach Hammer?” he asked.

  “Still nothing.”

  “I’ll find you another instructor.”

  “Dad, it’s not him, it’s me. I can’t move objects anymore.”

  “Nonsense. You’re a new cyborg, and once you’re comfortable with your implant, not only will you be able to move objects, Rose, you will shake the world with your brilliant mind. I have no doubt.”

  I smiled. “Thank you, Dad. About today’s mission—”

  My father laughed. “You don’t give up.”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “You get that from me.”

  Nah. My biological father was also Knight’s father, and my mom had killed him, from what I overhead once when Knight and Mom argued. But still, the colonel had taken care of me and never made me feel like I wasn’t his daughter. I loved him. “I know,” I said and nudged his side. “Tell me.”

  Dad sighed and took a few steps to sit behind his desk. I leaned against the window.

  “We have searched the outer grounds for expansion,” he said. “But that isn’t what I’m searching for.” He paused, and I hoped it wasn’t because he could hear my heartbeat. “I’m looking for him.”

  “The dragon man?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “There are four of them,” I said, my voice shaking. Hopefully, Dad wouldn’t notice.

  “I’m only interested in one. The one who snatched my kid and keeps popping up wherever I go. If I didn’t know better, I would say he has an unhealthy obsession with you.”

  “Me?” I giggled, though hysterical. “I doubt that.”

  “Rose, have you ever met the man at your brother’s house?”

  “Probably. I don’t know which one is which. They don’t have it written on their foreheads.” Dad hadn’t asked me this before. I believed he didn’t want me involved in this mess. Now that I’d joined the military, I guessed he decided I should spill the beans. I never would.

  “We must destroy our enemies.”

  “Um. Okay. Who is the enemy?”

  “Your brother and those like him.”

  My palm sweated, and I sat down across from dad. “Michael is not my enemy.”

  “He is a dragon.”

  “I know, but I’m sure if you talk to him, we can all coexist as we have in the past decade.”

  Dad steepled his fingers. “They started a war the moment the dragon in LA attacked the pods. The winged idiot only gave us an excuse to go after them. They’ve breached our habitats time and time again. We must retaliate, or we look weak. This is something the Cy don’t understand. But oh, they love researching other races and finding the best ways to fix them. They have been fixing us, you see, making us cyborgs, a much more advanced race than humans. But the Cy aren’t very good at warfare. I am.”

  “The Elite is going after the dragon? Outside? They don’t stand a chance.” Arthur would crush them all. Our virtual dragon training was shitty and wouldn’t do against the real dragon.

  “I’ll get him this time.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Dad smiled. It was the first time I thought he might be evil. “I’m certain.” He checked his implant and engaged his com.

  Not knowing what to do, I stood and flexed my hand. I needed to contact Arthur. “Gonna head out for next class.”

  “Stay for breakfast,” my dad said.

  “Thanks, but I ate.”

  “It’s not a suggestion.”

  I sat back down, feeling like the world would collapse on me. Dad said nothing for a while, then got up and motioned for me to follow him. We exited the military quarters, and Dad got behind the dashboard of a pod. In all my years, I’d seen him drive maybe once or twice. It only made my sense of foreboding stronger. There was this weight in my chest I couldn’t release.

  Dad moved the pod and headed down the river. I frowned as we hovered over the bridge, facing my apartment.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  Dad pointed. “Look, Rose, it’s a bald eagle.”

  I glanced at the large bird perched on the bridge. It stared straight ahead.

  “I’ll take that as a good sign,” my dad said.

  The window to my apartment opened, and Arthur appeared. I glanced at my dad, who paid me no mind.

  The eagle descended.

  Arthur shouted. Pain contorted his features as he bent over the window and fell.

  I screamed and unlocked the roof’s latch.

  “Stay down, Rose,” my dad said.

  Restraints wrapped around my body. I wiggled. “What have you done?”

  “Delivered the dragon.”

  I froze. How? How could he know? I said nothing that could hurt Arthur. I sat there and stared at his unmoving figure on the platform as the Elite team appeared at my apartment window. They’d broken into my house and shot him down. I whimpered. “Is he dead?”

  “No.” Dad turned to me, his eyes warm, his face lined with worry. “Rose, now you listen.”

  If I stared at Arthur long enough, he would get up, turn into a mighty creature, and slay everyone in his path.

  “Rose!”

  I jerked my head. “What?”

  “People will talk, presume to know about you and that man. This mission is classified, so you don’t have to tell anybody anything. I’ll handle this.”

  “The fuck I care about what they think.” Dad worried about my reputation. I couldn’t care less about anything right now. I wanted Arthur to wake up and fly.

  “You’re the future of our nation, of this entire fucking planet. I intend to keep you at the top of the food chain. Don’t speak about this man to anyone. Promise me.”

  I opened my mout
h to argue, then left it gaping. As if by magic, a massive black cloud appeared and cast a shadow over several blocks. The Cy ship breached the barrier and extended some sort of a translucent net over Arthur. The pods moved away, as did the soldiers standing on the platform.

  Arthur floated in the air and entered the Cy ship. The bald eagle left the habitat.

  13

  Arthur

  Unfortunately, even if I could move, I wasn’t gonna get a tour of the Cy ship because I couldn’t get past the plasma prison surrounding me. It was the color of deep crimson, a much stronger color than the pink they used on the ground. In dragon form, I shifted my weight to my right side. Pain seared my belly, leg, and left wing. I gritted my teeth and whined, then brought my wing up to examine it.

  As soon as I’d regained consciousness, I changed into dragon inside their ship. Intent on containing me, the Cy engaged the barrier that burned my body, left my skin raw. My color changed from golden to brown with angry red patches of flayed skin. My left wing looked like a kite some six-year-old put together without the help of his dad. All patched up and broken, with holes where the wind could blow through, rendering it useless. I let my wing plop back on the ground with a thud and immediately regretted it. On impact, a bone split. I howled in pain.

  The Cy watched me from beyond the plasma, a group of twelve tall willowy creatures with big black eyes and long fingers. They spoke among each other. I heard them but didn’t understand. It was a clicking kind of a language produced deep inside the throat by moving the throat muscles instead of the tongue. Did they have tongues? How about teeth? Hm. One of the reasons our former leaders had allowed the Cy into Earth’s orbit was because they believed them to be a nonpredatory race. But almost all predators had sharp, pointy teeth.

  I peeled back my lips and showed them my teeth. Show me yours, you ugly bastards.

  The Cy kept their mouths closed while their throats moved. Some pointed at me, others nodded, while some shook their heads. The way they communicated wasn’t so different from our way. One Cy separated from the group. It looked like a male, though he didn’t have a dick between his legs. No Cy had any reproductive organs I could see. It didn’t mean they couldn’t fuck.