by Amelia Jade
Linny could admit that to herself now. She’d come to that conclusion not long after Rokk had told her. Running barefoot across concrete was an odd time to realize she was in love, but she wasn’t going to fight her mind and her heart’s conclusion. Speaking out loud during the incredibly short briefing that the dragons had been given had felt wrong, but she hoped her hand over her heart gesture had been enough.
“What do you mean, Major?” she asked, trying to deflect the topic for another time.
“I mean that you were paying an awful lot of attention to the dragons.” He paused. “Or perhaps to one of them in particular.”
Linny choked back a strangled noise. How had he figured that out?
“It’s Rokk, isn’t it?”
“Sir, I don’t—”
“Oh can it, Linny. I’m not blind. I know how the dragons work. There’s something going on between the two of you. It’s obvious for everyone to see.” He paused. “Though he sort of gave it away himself.”
“What do you mean?” She was intrigued. The major wasn’t someone she’d pegged as a supporter of the idea of her being with a dragon.
“Rokk came to my office the other day. After you’d been hurt in the cage. He was…upset.”
She snorted. “Yeah, I just bet he was a little upset, wasn’t he.”
“Just a little. In fact, I think he was very restrained. He only ripped the door off and verbally tossed out two generals, instead of tearing the entire wall down and hurling them out the window.”
Linny choked on laughter. How could the major be so lighthearted at a time like this?
He’s doing it for you. He needs you at full capacity, and you’ve been a distracted dumbstruck idiot.
“I understand, sir. Thank you for enlightening me as to the depth of Rokk’s caring for me.”
Major von Kemp laughed once, then subsided. “He’s a little protective. That was when he demanded—not asked, you understand—for the surveillance cameras outside the hangar. If we didn’t have them, I think he might have torn the entire base apart to find your saboteur.”
She chuckled at the image. “You might be right, sir. I’m glad that we didn’t have any issues with that.”
There was a long pause as they reached the operations area, passing through security doors into the underground bunker.
“Sir? There were no issues, right?”
“We still haven’t found them, Sergeant.” The major was acutely uncomfortable admitting that.
“Great. So he could be after me still. Lovely,” she said bitterly. “Stupid guy isn’t even competing in the show anymore and he still wants me gone.”
Major von Kemp was noticeably quiet after her little tirade. She could have chalked it up to them entering the operations room, but she decided to push. “You know something, don’t you, sir?”
He sighed. “We checked his quarters. It wasn’t pretty, but Singler definitely had an obsession.”
“I just don’t understand that.” She ran a hand over her head. “I never had any interaction with him before. I don’t recall running into him once. How could he be obsessed with me?”
He shifted back and forth on his feet next to her.
“Major?”
“Um, you’ve got that slightly wrong, Sergeant Cantor.”
She blinked. “I do? What do I have wrong?”
He sighed. “It wasn’t you that Singler was obsessed with.”
“What? It wasn’t? Then who—ROKK?!” she cried. “Are you telling me that he was obsessed with Rokk?”
“I am. Now please keep your voice down.”
Several techs were looking her way in irritation as they tried to keep the massive battle screen up-to-date with current information, listening carefully to the reports streaming in.
“Oh my God. No way. He loved Rokk. Which meant I was nothing but…”
“Romantic competition.”
Linny snorted, covering her mouth. But she did it again, unable to stop laughing. “I don’t believe it.”
The major pulled out his phone and hit a few buttons. “This was his room.”
“My goodness,” she gasped. His quarters were covered with pictures of Rokk. Covered. “I don’t know what to say. I just assumed that…I…wow. I did not see that coming. I was the enemy because Rokk liked me instead of him. Damn.”
“Yes. Now, if you want to pay attention, your dragon and his friends are almost there.”
All around them the room fell silent as on the board the blue icons of the cobalt dragons closed with the white markers of the ice dragons.
The battle had begun.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rokk
Pyne saw it first.
“Down there.” He angled himself toward the fight and the other two followed suit, the trio of fresh dragons losing altitude in time with one another.
Ahead of them was the most apocalyptic scene Rokk had ever encountered.
“My God,” he whispered as a trio of missiles soared in from one of the remaining battlesuits, impact on and near the Outsider. The force of the explosion pushed it back, but not down.
In response the matte-black armored creature reached down, picked up a boulder bigger than a beachball and hurled it at the suit. The owner dove out of the way, just barely escaping. His suit was battered and pieces were missing, an indication that he hadn’t always been quick enough.
“So few,” Aric whispered.
Only four machines were left standing. Together they cornered the Outsider against a cliff face that was so steep it was practically vertical.
“Where are the whites?” Rokk mused as they approached. He didn’t want to interfere with whatever battle plans the dragons had laid.
“There’s one of them,” Aric said as a human figure stepped out from cover and unleashed a hail of spikes made from ice at the Outsider.
For a moment Rokk’s spirits were buoyed by the attack, but he soon realized it was little more than a nuisance at this point. The ice dragon had only used one hand, and he bent over in exhaustion afterward. His hair was ragged and several wounds crisscrossed his body, including one that was still freshly bleeding.
Twin shrieks echoed off the mountains. Rokk’s attention was pulled upward as two more white dragons fell from the clouds. They fell in circles around one another, weaving a pattern with snow like DNA. Or a tornado.
“Is that an…what do you call that, an icenado? A frozocane?” He didn’t know what term to use.
“Icenado works for now, and yes, it does appear to be one,” Aric agreed.
They watched in awe as the two dragons went down, and down, the tunnel of ice and wind whipping around with them, starting to spin on its own as they laid the trail. Forty or fifty feet off the ground the dragons spread their wings and pulled up as hard as they could, angling away from the Outsider as it threw boulders at both of them.
The first dragon dodged, but the second took the boulder straight to the head and it collapsed in a limp heap, bouncing and rolling through the dirt and rocks as it lost momentum.
Then the icenado hit and the Outsider was obscured from their vision.
“Fire!” one of the suits yelled, and what looked to be all of their remaining missile ammunition hurtled into the ice storm raging about the alien being. Yellow-orange fire rippled outward, dispelling the magical ice.
Rokk, Pyne, and Aric all came in to land in front of the battlesuits just as the smoke cleared. They all returned to their human forms. In the close confines of the edge of the valley, mobility was going to play a big part in their ability to win the fight.
The front armor of the Outsider had a nick. All of that, for one measly little nick.
“What’s the plan?” He shuffled to the side, both sides in a state of momentary truce as they evaluated one another. The dragons shuffled uneasily. The Outsider stood still. Waiting.
“Let’s see what a fresh strike does,” Aric mused. He lifted his head to the sky and with a shriek a bolt of lightning
as wide as a child was tall sizzled down out of the heavens to impact upon the Outsider.
The armor split slightly on the shoulder, spewing purple goo as the creature was flung off to the side, crashing right through a boulder before slamming into the cliff face behind it. They watched as it got to its feet, the armor already rippling and shooting fresh tendrils across the wound in a sickening display that made their stomachs lurch.
“Well shit,” Aric said mildly, then leapt to the side as a basketball-sized rock whipped through the space his head had occupied a moment before. “Go go go!”
Rokk leapt into motion, moving to his right, expecting Pyne to do the same. He wanted to get the thing moving to one side, so Aric could hit it from the other. The next thing he knew he was pinwheeling away, the wind knocked out of him.
“Wha—t the f—uck—just—happ—ened?” he wheezed, trying to relearn the ability to breathe.
A boulder came flying at him, and he rolled out of the way of that. As he did he saw a second body working to get up off the rocky ground. Pyne.
“Dammit, Pyne! Now is not the time for us to do this ourselves. We’re a team; we need to act like it.”
He looked over at the two ice dragons that remained upright. They were both completely beat, with nothing left in the tank, but even then they’d managed to fight like a team right until the end. He and Pyne were fresh; this should be easy for them to do.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, getting to his feet and keeping an eye on the Outsider.
Pyne shot him a glance.
“Just give me the orders, brother!”
Above them the sky grew black, clouds that had been hovering over the mountains all day plunging into the valley where they now squared off against the strongest enemy any of them had ever faced.
“You know,” Rokk said conversationally as the Outsider came at him. “This one seems bigger than the ones in the simulator. Do they all get bigger when they feed?”
The thing coming at him was easily eight feet tall and probably outweighed him by a hundred, if not two hundred pounds. He waited for it to charge, noting how quickly it moved for a beast its size.
“NOW!” Pyne shouted.
Rokk didn’t hesitate. He leapt to the side and kept moving, getting out of the way.
Behind him Pyne unloaded with his crossbow, the foot-long bolt of energy slamming into the Outsider. It flew backward under the impact, but again very little in the way of damage was done.
“We’re going to need a bigger blow to end this thing!” he shouted.
Overhead thunder crashed.
Aric hit it with another blast called down from the heavens. The Outsider was hurting now, dripping purple goo down its side from the wound along its back, but it was healing, just like the first one. This creature was far stronger than they’d ever encountered before.
“Got any bright ideas?” Aric shouted.
The others had withdrawn, having done their part. They had nothing left to spare. The cobalt dragons were it. Rokk needed to come up with a plan. Aric was fighting valiantly, but he was too busy doing that to come up with any ideas.
Lightning flashed across the sky.
Rokk looked up. “I have an idea!” he shouted.
“Good. Do it!”
“Buy me some time. I need a minute or two.”
Aric glanced over at him. “Yeah sure. No problem. I got this. Big deal.” A rock hit him in the midsection, sending him flying backward.
In any other scenario the look on his face would have been priceless. Not in this one.
“Go,” a strange voice said from behind Rokk. He turned to see the ice dragons, two standing alone, supporting the third. “We will help buy you the time you need.”
Rokk wanted to turn down their offer. They were too weak. It was too dangerous. But he couldn’t. He had to accept it. He nodded, running to the nearest rock. His legs flexed and flung him from the ground even as his body shifted and reshaped itself.
Mighty wings beat and he gained ground. Looking around, he found Pyne.
“When I say so, hit me with every damn bit of power you have left, you understand me?”
Pyne didn’t argue this time, he just nodded. “Got it. Go.”
Rokk flew higher and higher, into the storm that had been brewing all day and spurred on by the blue dragons as they fought below. The ground disappeared below as the clouds swallowed him. Lightning raged. Rokk went right for the darkest, most powerful concentration of it.
Then he opened himself to the storm and called the power to him.
The sky went berserk. Streaks of lightning shot in from all sides, impacting against his scales. Rokk ignored it, absorbing every hit and reaching out to the storm, inviting it in to his body.
It never would have been possible if he hadn’t had to save Linny from the cage. The power that had filled him that day had taught him how to harness it. How to bring it in and power himself up. He now invited the storm in, taking its power.
Electricity skittered across his skin, jumping from scale to scale. It lined his mouth, bursts of it shooting between his teeth. His eyes glowed with bright white power, and Rokk knew he was about to burst. But still he accepted more. His muscles screamed in protest, sinews practically bursting.
Then, and only then, when the storm had nothing left to give, did he tuck in his wings and dive. Clouds rushed by as the wind built. He plummeted downward, the air starting to shriek from his passage.
Rokk cleared the storm and below him he saw the fight. The ice dragons were scattered by one mighty blow from the Outsider. Aric, frantically trying to hammer a blow, only inflicted minor wounds.
And Pyne. Pyne, waiting off to the side, as Rokk had asked of him.
“NOW!” he bellowed, and yet one more surge of lightning rushed to meet him from the ground.
The instant it connected Rokk howled. Not in pain, but in release.
Blue-white energy poured forth from him, connecting him to the black creature on the ground. A torrent of lightning and raw power burned into the earth in a perfect circle as he continued to fall.
Below him the other dragons scattered and dove for cover. Rokk was forced to shield his eyes as his very scales and wings began to glow, his entire body voiding itself of the power he’d absorbed.
Then the ground was there and he was forced to pull up. It was too close! He bounced off the ground hard, rolled, flipped, and slammed back-first into solid rock.
“Ow.” He tried to get up, the world spun crazily, and Rokk decided that the sharp, pointing, uncomfortable spot of earth he’d landed in would be just perfect for a short nap. How had he ended up here? Where was he anyway?
The questions caused his head to start hurting and he lay back down on the cool rock, triple eyelids fluttering closed.
“Rokk?”
“What is it, Aric?” he asked sleepily. “I’m tired.”
“You’re hurt, is what you are.”
“I am?”
“You just fell from the sky and forgot to pull up.”
Blurry memories returned to him. Yes, Aric was right. He’d been falling. Then there’d been a flash. Lots of pain. Then the earth. “Oh. Okay. That makes sense. I’m going to go to sleep. I’ll tell it that you’ll pull up.”
There was a snort from above, but Rokk paid it little mind. Darkness was calling.
All of a sudden ice draped itself across his snout and flank.
“YIPE!” he shouted, bolting upright, the fog dispelled from his brain—and replaced by a massive headache—as the cold made him shiver. “What the fuck is that?”
He turned to see a trio of men—dragon shifters, he realized—looking rather smug and chuckling in his direction.
Lifting his head he opened his maw. Blue-white energy played across his teeth, and the haggard-looking group of men withdrew.
“That’s what I thought,” he muttered.
“Rokk, get your shit together,” Aric snapped.
“I’m fine. Jus
t was out of it. I remember now. Don’t tell me that Outsider is still standing. That would be really depressing.”
Aric just responded with silence.
Curious, Rokk turned in the direction his friend was staring. “Did I do that?” he asked, awed at the sight before him.
Aric just nodded.
Where the Outsider had once stood there was now a circle nearly forty feet across. Everything inside it had been burned, incinerated by the power Rokk had unleashed. No fire could do what he’d done. Only the pure energy that was the birthright of the cobalt dragons could have done this, and even then it would have taken an astronomical amount of it.
“How did I do that?” he asked softly. “I’m not mated. I shouldn’t have been able to wield so much power.”
“I have no idea.” Aric was speaking just as quietly. “I am mated, and even if I’d thought of the idea, I’m not sure I could have taken that much in. You have an affinity for that sort of thing, my friend. Well done.”
He nodded, words failing him. “Are those two stumps in the middle of its feet?”
“I…think so?” Aric didn’t sound confident. “It sure looks like some feet and a little stump of a leg. Stupid thing must have been damn tough for even a part of it to withstand that sort of attack.”
“Yeah…but I still don’t understand. I told Linny that I loved her but she never completed the bond. She didn’t say it back.” He bounced his head to the side. “Of course, I didn’t give her the time. We sort of had a situation.”
Aric was looking at him curiously now.
“The Outsiders, you idiot. I told her how I felt just before we rushed off to potential doom.” He shrugged. “It seemed like the smart thing to do at the time, okay?”
This time his friend laughed. Nearby Pyne just stared at the devastation, not partaking in the conversation at all. That was a situation that needed to be resolved, and soon. Something was eating at his twin, and it wasn’t the contest, he’d decided. This was something more serious.
“Maybe the bond doesn’t need her to say it?” Aric suggested. “Just to know it in her heart? This aspect of the dragon bond is still so new and unknown to us. In all the thousands of years of our kind, we’ve never known it to power us up, for lack of a better term. And it only seems to work against the Outsiders.”
