by Amelia Jade
Kase closed with his warhammer, swinging the mighty weapon, but hitting only empty air as the Outsider dodged to the side and clubbed him with a backhand. Kase tucked into a roll and came up on the defensive, but the alien creature ignored him, moving relentlessly toward the base.
Turning swiftly, Stoen lifted his tail high into the sky and slammed it down on top of the Outsider. The blow deformed its head and knocked it to the ground. All three dragons poured quicksilver atop it, trying to bury the creature, but it shredded it like paper.
“It’s not working!” Kase yelled, frustrated.
Hel jumped in, swinging an axe. Instead of aiming for the torso however, he brought it down on the rear leg of their target. The blade bit. With terrifying swiftness the Outsider’s elbow joint reversed and it planted its forward leg. The hand reshaped even as it swung at Hel, reforming itself into a blade that dug deep into the shifter’s shoulder.
Kase darted in and slammed his warhammer into what should be the kneecap of the other leg while Hel disengaged and got clear. The hammer shattered upon impact, but chunks of black armor went flying as well. The creature was hurt.
“GO FOR THE LEGS!” Stoen roared over the crash of battle, noting that all of the dragons were struggling to bring their targets down.
Dragons hacked and slashed, blasting the Outsiders with all manner of weaponry. Occasionally they would part enough that the battlesuits chanced a strike, sending volleys of railgun fire, trying desperately to slow the inexorable approach.
Almost as one the Outsiders reached the wall. Stoen was prepared for them to go up and over it, exposing themselves to all sorts of attacks. They didn’t. He watched in horror as his target bashed its way through the steel construct.
They were inside the base now.
Battlesuits pulled back, reforming ranks and unleashing hell on the Outsiders as the dragons waited for another clear shot, taking a precious second to breathe. None of them were down, but several were in rough shape or nursing their injuries, including Hel.
With a roar the battlesuits descended on the creatures. Stoen started to shout them back, but there was no use. They swept down the hill and attacked with precision and teamwork. Though they lacked the sheer power of the dragons, they made up for it with coordination.
For a split second the attack stalled, and Stoen thought they had them. Then the Outsiders recovered, and the first casualties occurred as black-armored weapons stabbed deep into the metal suits, ripping the life from the pilots.
“Get back!” he bellowed, and the dragons went up and over the wall—or following through it in some places—and resumed their battering of the creatures.
The suits fell back at less than a quarter of their number. In just a handful of seconds they’d sustained massive casualties. Stoen knew he was in just as much danger as the humans, but he pressed forward nonetheless.
Early on in the fight with the Outsiders it had been discovered that a mated dragon was somehow impervious to the primary attack. The bond with their mate acted as a shield to their lifeforce, and somehow enhanced their powers on the attack. Given that he wasn’t mated, Stoen could easily find himself on the wrong end an Outsider. These were focused on getting back to the portal however, reporting to their masters. It was that single-mindedness that was keeping him alive.
One of the crimson dragons trumpeted victoriously as their target went down, missing a leg. Stoen saw this and knew what he had to do. Shifting back to human size, he called for the quicksilver that was his birthright and shaped it into a powerful axe. Hel had shown the way; he just needed to hit it again.
Darting forward, he swept in and swung the handle with every ounce of strength he still possessed. The blade whistled as it sliced through the air before digging deep into the chitinous armor. Instead of trying to wrench the blade free as Hel had, Stoen let go and rolled out of the way of the swift attack. Even as he came to his feet he flung his hands up and launched a steady barrage of quicksilver darts at the creature’s face.
“Nah nah nah,” he taunted, trying to keep its attention. “You can’t catch me!”
The creature kept looking forward, and so it missed Kase sweeping in behind it, another hammer in his hands. This time though, he didn’t go for the other leg. He too swung with power, and his hammer crashed into the back of Stoen’s axe. The quicksilver blade punched through more armor with the added force behind it, and with a mighty crack the entire limb was severed halfway between knee and groin.
The Outsider shrieked, a sound that send the dragons to their knees and the humans scrambling to put distance between them it was so loud. Kase swung his hammer wildly, connecting with what would be the head if it were a human. The noise stopped abruptly as the creature toppled backward, unbalanced and with no leg to support it.
Stoen raced forward, noting that the wounded leg was already beginning to stitch itself closed with a disgusting writhing pattern of tendrils of black armor. He hauled back with his right arm, this time going with a spear. As he neared the Outsider he plunged it downward with all the might, and shoved the length of bitterly cold metal as far up the wounded leg as he could.
The internals of the Outsider, purple goop, splashed everywhere as the weapon sank in deep. Stoen pushed more quicksilver through his palms, lengthening the weapon from the inside of his target. The creature shook violently, but Kase pinned its upper half in place by slamming a trident over its neck and deep into the ground.
The armor bulged in several places, then sank back into place, before expanding in other areas. It wouldn’t be much more before…the torso exploded outward, coating everything in the vicinity with a mixture of quicksilver and goop. The Outsider sagged down as the life fled through the gaping hole just below its chest.
Stoen staggered away, seeing stars. He’d pushed a lot of quicksilver into the enemy, through all its defenses, with nothing more than the sheer force of will. That had drained him of much of his energy and he needed to recover before he helped out the others.
The crimsons and the ice dragons were teaming up on another one now, the four remaining shifters coordinating their strikes. Meanwhile the onyx, cobalt, and emerald shifters all chipped away at their targets. Even as he watched the cobalts brought theirs down, one of them reaching to the sky with a hammer of pure energy and unleashing a hellish inferno of lightning directly onto their target.
More suits were lying around, however, downed as they’d tried to stop the advance. So many dead to stop one creature. It pained him to think of the casualties they would sustain when the main invasion came.
“Come on,” Kase said, hauling him to his feet. “Let’s go help before this gets any worse.”
Stoen nodded, and together they charged back into the fray, once again calling on their powers.
Chapter Ten
Rose
“You’re coming,” she said sternly, wagging a finger at him.
“This isn’t appropriate. They shouldn’t be holding a party. We just had the last of the funerals yesterday!” Stoen blasted, his fury boiling over, though he didn’t direct it at her.
He knows better than that.
“You know as well as I do that they need to celebrate, to remember that they’re alive. That’s what this fight is all about, isn’t it? Life versus death. To have life, you need to live it, Stoen. They aren’t out there partying that their friends are dead. That’s not what it’s for. It’s to remind each other and our enemies that we still live, and that they can’t take it from us!”
Rose wasn’t sure when she’d started thinking of herself as part of the “us,” but after seeing the devastation wrought by the attack, and the scores of dead humans who had heroically laid down their lives to give the dragons time to recover, she knew that it couldn’t be anything but. Maybe she wasn’t a fighter, wasn’t cut out to pilot one of the great battlesuits, but that didn’t stop her from knowing what side she belonged to.
“We should be mourning.”
“We have mourned, and we will continue to mourn,” she said. “But the base needs this. The soldiers need it. You know it. Now get up and take me to the party. You’re my date.”
“I am?” he asked.
“Well I certainly don’t know anyone else who would take me. Maybe that cute captain who stopped by the other day. He seemed really nice; maybe I’ll give him a call.”
She was joking, and Stoen knew it, but her words had the desired effect. He got up off his ass and came to her. “Nobody is taking you but me,” he stated.
“So you’re going?”
“Reluctantly. But if you think I’m letting you go with someone who doesn’t have two-left feet and can show me up on the dance floor, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“Two left feet? Should I go find a pair of steel-toed boots instead of these?” She waggled a pair of sparkly deep-purple heels at him.
“No, you can wear those. I like them,” he growled into her ear, a much different tone to it than before.
“Don’t get used to them. Or the dress. Or anything I’m wearing really. It’s all borrowed, and I’m returning it. Which means no ripping it off me if I make a poor decision and take you to bed tonight.”
Stoen frowned. “You mean if I take you to bed.”
She winked. “I know what I said. Now come on, let’s go!” Shimmying in the loose-fitting black sequined dress she watched his eyes rove over her body.
Together they left his room. Almost immediately Stoen linked her arm into his. Smiling, she patted the bunched muscles of his forearm. “Relax.”
“I am.”
She felt his arm again. “Is it always naturally that hard?”
Stoen coughed. “Uh, yes.”
Belatedly Rose clued in to the double meaning of what she’d said. Oops.
“Well, that’s a relief,” she joked. “Glad it’s not the other way.”
“Other way?”
“Always soft.”
“Never a problem,” he stated proudly, before dropping his voice as they rounded a corner. “Especially with you.”
“Good, I like it when you’re hard,” she purred, eyes focused on him with as much flirtatiousness as she could summon in them.
Someone coughed.
Rose whipped her head around to face forward, going bright red as she saw the cluster of people waiting for the elevator, all of whom were looking over their shoulder. At her.
“They all heard that, didn’t they?” she whispered to Stoen.
The quiet shaking of his shoulders as he tried not to laugh was all the answer she needed.
Oh well. Let them think what they want to think.
Rose didn’t care if they judged her negatively for making a crude joke. The truth was, she felt happier and freer than she had in months. Being on a military base combined with the continual presence of Stoen’s massive presence gave her a sense of security and well-being that she’d lacked.
A massive weight was lifted from her shoulders and she intended to enjoy it while she could. Only a naïve fool would believe that she could stay here forever and forget about her past. Eventually they would go back, this time with a plan, and deal with the criminals. Tonight though she was going to push it from her mind, and have fun. With Stoen.
The elevator spilled them out into the evening and they were swept up in the tide of people heading toward the runway, where a giant tent and lights were set up. Music rose over the swell of voices, and in the middle of the throng of people couples—and a few brave and likely already drunk soloists—moved together in time with the beats.
“Let’s go, TLF!” Rose pulled him after her toward the dance floor
Stoen didn’t fight her, but he had a weird look on his face. “I don’t know that one.”
“What one?”
“TLF,” he said slowly. “Is that a new dance?”
Rose giggled and put his arm on her waist. “It’s you,” she told him.
“Huh? What’s me?”
“TLF means Two Left Feet,” she explained as they swayed slowly to the music. “I wanna see what you got!”
The DJ spun the slow track down, and a faster, modern pop song came on in its place.
“Oh I love this song!” she shouted, throwing her arms in the air and bouncing around as the crowd around her joined in.
They danced—Stoen proving that although he couldn’t hold a beat to save his life, he would throw his hands in the air like he just didn’t care—and drank and danced some more. Rose was lost in the night, her cheeks hurting as she smiled more in a few hours than she had in six months.
Rose wasn’t going to say “I told you so,” but it was clear the base needed a night like this. Many of the soldiers couldn’t attend, or were forced to remain sober due to being on duty, but she was positive that much of the base personnel did at least swing by. Everyone she saw had smiles on their faces and left happier than they had come.
The pall that had been cast over the base by the battle was lifted.
“I think I’m just about ready to get out of here,” she said, wiping her brow and making an exit from the dance floor with Stoen in tow. “What about you?”
“I wouldn’t object.”
Grinning, she leaned into him, accepting the bone-crushing hug she got in return.
Stoen lowered his head so he could speak into her ear. “I think I owe you proof of a certain claim.”
Although she bit her lip in response, Rose took a moment to think over her answer. Was she ready to go back to his quarters, to let herself fall into his embrace and his bed? It wasn’t a physical question. The man was hot, and he’d fended off no less than five advances that she’d seen when he wasn’t glued to her side. After the fifth one she’d had a hard time shaking him.
Stoen, it seemed, wasn’t comfortable being treated as the object of interest by numerous other women. It was weird, she thought. When he was talking to them, outwardly he radiated confidence and oozed charm even as he turned them down. But with her, although he made it clear he was interested, that confidence and charm was on far more unsteady ground. Rose could all but see him asking himself if he’d gone too far, or pushed too hard with her when they were dancing, or if his hand slipped down and grabbed her rear, as it had several times during the night.
She was fine with it all, and quite enjoyed the attention from, in her estimation, the hottest man at the party. But she still couldn’t figure out why he seemed to be of two minds about everything he did. It was that bit of doubt, of confusion, that had her wondering if she should wait a little longer to sleep with him.
“Can you get us some water?” she asked, kissing his muscular bicep.
“Of course.”
“I’ll be over there.” She pointed at the edge of the crowd near where they had come in.
Stoen headed out and she made her way through the crowd, satisfied with her decision that yes, she was going to go back with him. The prospect excited her, and after tonight any remaining doubts she might have had about his sexual interest in other women had been banished with emphasis. Stoen only had eyes for her. Now she wanted to see what else he had for her.
That’s so bad. You pervert. Admit it, you want to be fucked silly by this stud of a human.
Technically he was a shifter, but that was a detail she wasn’t up to debating. He looked and felt human, and he was hot!
While she waited for him to meet her with the waters, Rose pulled out her phone, looking at it. She had a couple of texts from her brother, but that was about it. Curious as to what he might want she opened it up.
Teddy had been the one to urge her to look into the missing miners in the first place, after one of his friends went missing. They were a tight-knit community, and her brother hadn’t been the only one worried. The more she’d looked into it, the more Rose had realized just how frightened they were, especially about the police’s apparent inability to do anything about the disappearances. Now
that she knew the cops were corrupt as well, it all made sense, but she’d not told Teddy that. After what had happened, she was glad she’d kept him out of it.
“What are you doing up so early,” she mumbled as the phone registered her fingerprint and unlocked. Teddy was notorious for sleeping in until noon at least, and with the time difference it was only around nine in the morning.
“STOEN!” she screamed, dropping the phone.
Before the phone had settled onto the ground he was at her side.
“What’s wrong?” he stood tall, looking around. He was glaring furiously at everyone nearby, arms out to the side, skin gleaming with a silver glow as he prepared for battle.
Wordlessly she pointed at the phone.
Stoen glanced around once more, then reached down and snatched the phone up. He took one look at the screen. “Who is this?”
“T-T-Teddy,” she stammered, trying to control the heaving sobs that were threatening to burst out. “My brother.”
The snarl of fury Stoen unleashed had people backing up or even outright running away. In short order there was a clear space around them. She watched as Stoen scrolled down, his lips peeling back to expose his teeth.
“What is it?” she asked, before waving off his attempt to hand the phone back to her. “No, I don’t want it. I don’t want to see that.”
The picture of her brother, tied to a chair, broken nose, and bleeding from a multitude of cuts was more than enough of a message for her. She didn’t want to see the rest.
“They want you to come back, denounce the photos publicly, and destroy the originals. Otherwise they’re going to kill him.”
She sobbed, but through the tears her brain was already working. “That must mean they’re starting to feel pressure of some sort,” she said, not bothering to wipe at her eyes. The tears weren’t going to stop anytime soon, so why bother?
