by Riley Storm
“It means that ever since I’ve known you, all you’ve done is butt your head in and fuck things up. First the Outreach Center. Now this. What’s next? Are you going to go to my home and burn it down as the final fuck-you to me? What did I ever do to you, Victor? What? Ever since you first saw me, you’ve been trying to fuck me over for something. I’ve never met you!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, fighting back the tears that were building at the corners of her eyes as her frustrations finally boiled over.
“You blackmailed me!” he started, but she shook her head, raising her hand.
“No. Do not act like I started this. This is on you, Victor. You need to grow up and take some responsibility. I don’t know who you think I am, or what that person did, but I am not them. You need to get that through your head. Stop pretending like you’ve done no wrong.” She sniffed, shaking her head. “You need to grow up, Victor. A lot.”
Then she pushed past him, heading toward her car instead of back inside. There was nothing left for her in there. Before she could go more than half a dozen steps, however, a high-pitched noise grew rapidly, revealing itself seconds later to be the sound of a very expensive engine.
A beautiful, sleek car pulled up into the valet parking. Cheryl had no idea what it was, but just looking at it made her wallet feel lighter, as if she needed to pay simply to view it. The engine died.
“Oh, great,” Victor muttered.
The driver’s side door opened upward, not outward, and a figure emerged. One that Cheryl knew, though she’d only met him once, and not when his face had worn such a mask of anger either.
“Aaric,” she said, trying to force a smile onto her face. “How are you?”
“I think you know,” he snapped. “We need to talk. Inside. Now,” he added in a blisteringly furious low tone when she didn’t immediately start walking.
“No.”
The big man looked down at her in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“I said no. I’m not going inside. I have nothing to say to either of you. I have done nothing wrong. It’s this asshole who’s fucking everything up,” she said, tossing a thumb over her right shoulder where she assumed Victor still stood.
“Then both of you. Inside. Right. Now,” Aaric rumbled.
Cheryl thought about ignoring it and heading home, but there was something dangerously uncertain in Aaric’s eyes. He was pissed.
What is it that I could have done to upset him? Cheryl wondered. Curiosity won out, and so she turned on her heel with a sniff and headed back for the entrance, ignoring Victor completely.
One way or another, this was bound to be interesting, if nothing else.
15
A growing feeling of dread came over Victor as he followed the others inside.
“Everyone out!” Aaric shouted as he entered the restaurant.
Patrons and staff all stopped to stare at the current head of House Draconis, though they were not aware of the power he currently wielded. Standing at his side, Victor just shrugged.
“I’d do as he says, people,” was all he added.
Nobody moved.
“Now!” Aaric thundered.
For a moment, Victor thought the fire dragon was going to unleash a stream of flame across the restaurant to encourage everyone to depart, but Aaric maintained enough calm not to do that, thankfully.
But when only a few people started to get up, Aaric grabbed a table and flung it across the restaurant with casual ease. He didn’t speak, but then, after such a display, nor did he have to. The restaurant emptied in good order.
“Was that really necessary?” Cheryl asked calmly. “They were just enjoying their food or trying to earn an honest dollar. You didn’t have to take over the entire restaurant just to talk to us.”
Victor wanted to correct her. To tell her that it wasn’t to talk to them. It was in case either he or Aaric lost his temper and did something they couldn’t explain away. A precautionary measure, which spoke to just how angry Aaric had to be. Something had gone wrong, but the question still remained as to what.
“I just came from the proposed site of our new mine,” Aaric said, shooting Victor a knowing glance.
The blood in Victor’s veins chilled somewhat at that mention. He knew what the purpose of the mine was. Why it was so important. And why it had to be completed as soon as possible.
When Aaric had first been awakened, it had been by a pair of elder dragon shifters who were nearing the time they would pass on. Evil had been coming, they had said, and the dragons weren’t waking naturally to fight it. So, they had awoken them on their own.
Aaric had tracked down the evil which turned out to be a vampire, a species thought extinct since the end of the Roman Empire nearly fifteen-hundred years earlier. As he’d told Victor, the vampire had found something at the site where the Outreach Center was going to go. Something more ancient than the vampire, and perhaps more powerful.
A Naagloshii. A Native-American skinwalker. Shapeshifter. An evil creature, who, if it had returned to full power, would have been more than a match for Aaric.
But the dragon had prevailed in time, killing the vampire and re-entombing the Naagloshii. This mine they were going to dig, on the complete opposite side of Plymouth Falls, was going to be the new location of the tomb. Somewhere the vampires would never find it, or be able to access it, buried under hundreds of feet of earth and rock. Hidden forever.
Victor had seen the tomb, had felt the power within. He believed that. What he had a hard time believing was that vampires were back. Aaric had warned him, had told him, but he had no proof. There hadn’t been an attack in months. If they were truly back, they would know that they should attack now, before more dragons were awoken. If House Draconis reached its full strength, the vampires wouldn’t stand a chance.
All that aside, if something had gone on at the mine, then Victor understood why Aaric was so worked up. But what could have gone wrong? And why would he bring Cheryl into it? Unless…
Unless she’s already started to fuck with the other projects.
“Yes, I remember seeing the site plans for your mine,” Cheryl said calmly. “But what, may I ask, does that have to do with me? I’m not in charge of that.”
“Then perhaps you could explain why this ‘stop work’ order has your signature on it?” Aaric hissed, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket and shoving it at her. “There should have been dozens of people on site, digging deep. But when I arrived, it was empty. Nobody was there!” he bellowed.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Victor knew he was screwed now. She’d started things early. The liar! She must have known he wouldn’t play ball with her entirely and had gone ahead and started messing with everything else.
“Oh. That. Well, maybe you should ask Victor here about that one,” Cheryl said calmly, refusing to take the piece of paper. “I’m sure he can explain.”
Aaric’s head swiveled around like a turret. “You had a hand in this? You? You know why that mine is so important. Why we must get it dug as soon as possible. So why would you interfere?”
Victor inhaled, buying himself a few seconds as he searched for the right words.
“She’s trying to play you,” he said at last. “I had nothing to do with the mine specifically. Cheryl here is trying to extort more from us on the Outreach Center, and she threatened to interfere with our other projects if I didn’t do as she wanted. Except,” he growled, “I did agree to her demands. So, I’m not sure why this went ahead after all?”
He specifically did not mention what the demands were or why she was making them. There was still a chance he could salvage this if everyone played ball. All Cheryl had to do, was not mention the downsizing, but instead stick with the language he’d used, the vagueness.
“Is this true?” Aaric snapped, head whipping back around.
Cheryl snorted. “You know just as well as I do, that we wouldn’t be happy with the way things have gone. Don’t act all surprised.”
Aaric frowne
d. Victor kissed his treasure goodbye. There was no coming back from this.
“Why on earth wouldn’t you be happy? Look at all the property we’ve bought. All the developments we’re making, capped off with the Outreach Center. That’s a massive project!”
“It was, until you decided to slash funding by ninety percent!” Cheryl cried. “Why would you think we wouldn’t try to fight back after you promised so much? This city needs that infusion, and you gave it to us and then cruelly yanked it back, just because.”
Aaric’s face turned to stone. “What on earth are you talking about? Slashing the budget?”
There was a pause, then both faces turned to look at Victor.
“Cheryl,” Aaric said, his voice eerily quiet. “You need to leave.”
“But I—”
“Now.” Aaric’s voice had dropped until it was barely audible. His eyes were drilling into Victor, his attention only on the other dragon.
Well, shit.
16
Victor stood still, waiting as Cheryl looked back and forth between the two of them, and then departed.
“You tried to cut our funding to the Outreach Center?” Aaric asked tightly.
Shifting his weight back and forth, Victor fidgeted uncomfortably. “It’s not quite like that, Aaric, I—”
“Did you, or did you not, intend to embezzle that money in your own accounts?”
“Fine!” Victor snapped, realizing he wasn’t going to fool Aaric; that ship had sailed thanks to Cheryl. “Yes, I was. I was going to take the money, and I was going to leave this shithole of a town behind and go live somewhere else. Somewhere more befitting of our kind, where I could live like the king I should be! We are dragons, Aaric. We don’t need to listen to what they tell us. They should be worshipping the ground we walk on.”
Aaric rolled his eyes. “We aren’t their rulers, Victor. We are their protectors. You know this.”
“Oh, screw off with that holier-than-thou crap. I don’t buy it. Never have,” he growled, smacking a fist into his palm. “It’s all her fault. If she would have just kept her damn mouth shut.”
“Same old Victor,” Aaric said with a sigh. “Always blaming everyone else for his problems. Never acknowledging that you do anything wrong.”
“If she’d just done as I asked,” he started to say, but fell quiet as Aaric’s stare grew harder and harder.
“It’s not her fault for fighting back, Victor. It’s your fault for doing something you weren’t supposed to do in the first place. Can’t you see that? She only did what was natural, because you did something wrong. You started his. She had no obligation to let you screw her over. But you just can’t see that.”
“Whatever,” Victor said, shrugging it off. “You wouldn’t know, so you can’t say. But trust me, she’s the problem here. I just hate dealing with her so much! She annoys me to the core. Should have just kept her mouth shut today, then I—what’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” Aaric said, but he kept laughing. “Really, nothing, I promise.”
“You’re full of shit. What the hell is so funny, Aaric?” he asked, crossing his arms in frustration.
“I was just thinking that she probably thinks the exact same thing about you. Which means the two of you are more alike than you think. Almost as if…” Aaric’s eyes widened, and then he began to guffaw louder, leaning back against a table, holding his stomach with one hand. “Oh, my God, that’s too rich. Too rich. Amazing. I couldn’t have planned it better myself,” he gasped, tears streaming down his face.
“What are you talking about?” Victor asked. “We’re not alike at all.”
“Sure, sure,” Aaric said. “Not at all. Completely different. That’s why you can’t stop staring at one another. Or that your mind is always focused on her. Do you think she’s more attractive when she’s mad?”
Victor’s brow furrowed. “Yes, but I don’t see what that has to—” He stopped talking abruptly as he realized what Aaric was hinting at. “Absolutely not. Nope. No way. Not her. Not possible. She’s too…too…” he grasped at the air, searching for words.
“Yeah, exactly,” the fire dragon howled, wiping away tears. “This is too good.”
“You’re wrong,” Victor said. “Wrong.” He turned to go.
“Get your ass back here!” Aaric snapped sharply, all trace of humor gone from his voice. “We are not done.”
Whirling, Victor stared at the other dragon, giving him his hardest glare.
Aaric just shrugged it off. “You tried to steal. From your own family,” he accused.
“I—”
“I don’t care what your excuse is,” Aaric snapped, cutting him off.
Victor felt the air growing warmer around him. A moment later, he saw Aaric’s skin begin to lighten. The circles of his eyes grew brighter, red flames slowly obscuring the pupil. Beneath the fire dragon’s skin, scales grew visible, the outer shell becoming translucent.
“You must pay the price,” Aaric said. “Thief.”
That word hit home harder than expected. Aaric was right. He’d tried to steal from his own people in an attempt to replenish what had been taken from him. For years, Victor had harbored an intense hatred for anyone who stole anything. A thief was the worst thing in his eyes.
And that was exactly what he’d become.
“I understand you were hurt,” Aaric said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming more melodic as his dragon shone through.
“Hurt?” Victor laughed. “Hurt? That’s one way to put it. But don’t pretend like you understand, Aaric. You have your precious mate. Your Olivia. You love her. You think she loves you. But I want you to picture what would happen if she turned on you. Took all your money and walked out of your life with it while stepping over the shattered remains of your dignity and your heart. All your friends laughing at you, calling you a fool. Nobody there to give you a hand back up. Everyone treating you like you’re a joke, while inside, you somehow still long for what you had.”
Victor’s own dragon burst through, his skin turning a beautiful turquoise as his scales shone through as well. Water filled the air, dulling the heat of the fire emanating from Aaric.
“It fills you with shame, Aaric. To want someone that never wanted you. It eats at you, knowing you shouldn’t care, and yet wanting nothing more than to have her back. All around you, those who called themselves family laugh and make you the butt of every joke. Not once does someone say they’re sorry or offer to help. Nobody buys you beer or wants to be seen around you, because you’re a reject. A poor, dumb, dragon. They avoid you. Cast stares at you when they think you can’t see. And all this time, all you want is to be cared about one more time.”
Cool water swirled in his palm, turning from a brilliant green to forest, to olive green and finally black as it spun faster and faster, growing more intense.
“So, don’t you dare stand there and tell me that I tried to steal from family. I don’t have any family. That became clear to me when nobody cared about me when I needed it. House Draconis is a joke, so yes, I tried to take the money from it, in hopes that maybe it would help ease the pain I’ve been carrying all these years. Pain that was amplified when I was awoken, only to be told that it was a mistake. That once again, I wasn’t wanted.”
His voice nearly cracked and that show of weakness lit a new burst of fury in Victor.
He called in the full might of his power and prepared to strike Aaric. Opposite him, the fire dragon raised his defenses, the room growing brighter than if all the lights were turned on.
“What the fuck?”
Victor spun at the soft, familiar voice.
Cheryl was standing in the entranceway, one hand still on the door handle, blonde hair swishing gently to a stop behind her head.
Then she was gone, backing through the door.
Victor came back around to see Aaric, his fire diminished, staring past him at the door.
“Go after her,” the fire dragon said. “Deal with that. I have oth
er shit I must attend to.” He leveled a finger at Victor. “But we’re not done with this conversation.”
“Whatever,” Victor said and leapt after Cheryl, his brain full of confusing thoughts and emotions.
There was one, however, that was more prevalent, that kept echoing in his brain, growing stronger and stronger.
How the hell was he going to explain this?
17
Cheryl was pushing her way through the crowd of employees and upset patrons, too stunned by what she’d seen to do much more than say ‘excuse me’ or ‘I’m sorry’ as she bumped into people, desperate to make her escape. She had to go, to get out of there.
Why, her brain wanted to know. Why was she so eager to get away?
They had been glowing! She’d seen fire in Aaric’s hand, and something dark and swirling in Victor’s. It wasn’t natural. What were they?
Her panicked and confused brain needed space to try and process everything that had been going on inside the restaurant, and she wasn’t going to get it by milling around with all the other confused employees and patrons. She almost told them to run, that something was happening inside, but her mouth stayed closed, unresponsive.
Get away. She had to get away. Get in her car. Drive…somewhere. Anywhere but here.
Her hands were shaking so badly she dropped her keys trying to take them out of her purse as she walked up to her car.
“Shit,” she moaned, her voice nearly cracking.
“Let me help,” a deep voice said as she bent over, and long powerful fingers closed around her keys.
“Victor.” The name emerged as little more than squeak as she looked up into his face. The normally playful greens of his eyes had gone flat. Serene, like water without a wind.
“We need to talk.”
The words were heavy, full of implications that Cheryl wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to understand.
“No,” she said slowly, backing up another step. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“You need to hear what I have to say,” Victor said heavily, his eyes darting around.
