by Riley Storm
I’m still coming to terms with the fact that vampires exist, after all. I doubt I know the full extent of what I’m getting myself into.
That was just it though. Cheryl didn’t see how she had any choice. Those workers were in trouble, and that was just as much her issue as it was Victor’s. They were a part of her town, and they needed help. She couldn’t just stand by, not when a bit of bravery on her part could help them out.
“You need to let me do this,” she said softly.
Victor’s façade cracked. Just for a moment, she saw past the tough scaled exterior that didn’t seem affected by anything, peering into the center, seeing the rest of him. The part he only showed to certain people.
“I don’t…” he started to say, his jaw trembling for the barest of instances.
“Victor,” she whispered, reaching up to stroke his cheek while gently pulling his face down to where she could kiss him. “It’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” he said bluntly. “I…I can’t.”
“You can,” she said, tilting his head down so she could rest her forehead against his. “You can and you will. Because you know this is how it has to happen. How it must go down. We’re not leaving them,” she growled, her voice growing harder. “Not while we can do something about it. They didn’t have a choice, and now they’re suffering. I do have a choice Victor, and I’m making it.”
“There’s no changing your mind, is there?” he asked heavily, resistance caving as she shook her head in answer.
“No, no there’s not. We have to act and act fast. I’ll go there and draw them out. You two come in and save the day. We free the Thralls, kill the vampires, and everything will be safe.”
“For a bit,” he muttered. “Until the vampires send reinforcements. We need to stop sitting on our asses and letting them come to us. We need to go after them. Hunt them down and stop them before they can do any more damage!”
“There’s the Victor I know,” she said, kissing him in short, fierce bursts. “There will be a time for that. After we free the workers. After.”
He returned her kisses, and then some before wrapping her up into a giant hug that left her both feeling secure, and also terrified, as the reality of what she was about to do sank in.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promised fiercely. “Not while I can still draw breath will you come to harm.”
Cheryl shivered at the potential finality of his words.
34
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
Cheryl looked over at him but didn’t immediately reply.
They were crouched in the lee of a pile of concrete piping overgrown with weeds and other growth across the street from the construction site. The brightly lit construction site.
Victor didn’t like the looks of that. He couldn’t see a lot of figures moving around, but he’d seen enough to know the Thralls were active. The vampires would be driving them hard, to dig fast without regard for their own safety. To the Nacht, as the dragons often thought of the vampires, the Thralls were expendable labor. Useless creatures they could always acquire more of.
Tonight, we show them that they’re wrong. That these are men and women, real people worth fighting over. Tonight, they find out the dragons are back, and that we’re not about to roll over and let them do as they want.
His fingers tightened and old concrete crumbled in his grip. Looking down, he stared wordlessly at the shards in his palm before crushing them to dust and letting it sift down into the earth below.
“You know that it’s our best bet,” Cheryl said quietly, rehashing the same argument they’d been having for the past several hours.
“I don’t like it.”
“I know you don’t,” she said, reaching out to take his concrete-dusted hand, holding it tight.
Is she squeezing for her own reassurance, I wonder, or mine? It’s eerie sometimes how easily she can read how I’m feeling, before I even know I’m feeling it.
Another spotlight blazed to light across from them. Although they were slightly elevated over their target, it wasn’t by enough for him to see into the center of the construction site to get a true picture of what was fully going on.
That lack of knowledge, of intelligence to supplement their plan, was eating away at Victor.
That’s not what’s eating away at you, and you know it. What’s bothering you is right beside you. Just tell her.
He tore his gaze away from the lights and focused it on Cheryl instead.
“I don’t want you to do it.”
It was the closest he’d ever come to opening up to her with his words. To revealing the truth behind his unspoken objections to the plan. He waited, wondering how she would respond.
That was, perhaps, his biggest fear of it all. Just how would Cheryl respond if he were to be open with her, to tell her the truth he suspected lurked at the bottom of it all?
You only suspect because you haven’t allowed yourself to truly think about it. To analyze it. You shy away every time your brain starts to focus on it. Like now, you’re going in circles, discussing it in oblique side-references, but never going straight on. Coward.
“Shut up,” he hissed angrily.
“Pardon?” Cheryl asked, eyebrows shooting up.
“Sorry,” he said, feeling pained. “I…my brain. I was talking to myself. Not you.”
“Oookaayyy,” she said, shaking her head, the long hair drawn back into a braid bouncing around wildly, the light-colored tresses easily visible in the dark, even without his augmented vision.
“I’m just tense,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Of course. I understand. I’m not exactly feeling rock solid confident over here either.”
Victor felt a slight tremor run through her body. Now it was his turn to squeeze her hand. “You can do this,” he said, hating himself for giving her courage, for propping up this insanity of a plan.
You don’t have a choice. The longer the Thralls are under the spell, the more their minds deteriorate. You have to get them free as soon as possible. Stop bitching about what the plan is and start doing your best to ensure it succeeds without any casualties!
“Are you giving me a pep talk?” Cheryl asked.
Biting his lip, Victor nodded. “I guess. I’m not so great at those types of speeches. But if there’s one thing I believe in, it’s you.”
He danced dangerously close to the line with that statement.
Tell her!
Cheryl smiled weakly, looking at him expectantly as if she thought he was going to continue. To say something else important. Something they both wanted him to say. At least, something he hoped they both wanted to say.
But he couldn’t. The words didn’t come to him.
Victor was scared. Scared of how she would react. What if she didn’t feel the same? What if here, now, with everything on the line, she said he wasn’t…wasn’t…
He couldn’t even finish the thought.
Coward. You can’t even say the thought in one sentence.
This is a terrible time to tell her. She needs to focus on the plan, not on me and what I might tell her. What if she’s too busy thinking about that and screws up and gets herself hurt, or worse, killed? I can’t do that to her, I’d never be able to live with myself if that were the case. No, better to get this taken care of, then sit down and lay my cards out.
“I…” he said, then faltered, trailing off.
Cheryl’s gaze never wavered. She was focused on him, and only him.
“I think it’s time,” he said weakly.
“Oh.” Her eyes dropped to the ground and she mumbled her reply. “Yeah, you’re right. We need to get on with it. Can’t stop waiting around for nothing.”
“Yeah,” he agreed awkwardly, cursing himself internally.
Why was it so hard for him to talk about his emotions? Why couldn’t he just find the right words to express how he was feeling?! It was easy. Just
open his mouth and force the sounds out in the right order.
He couldn’t though. Something held him back.
“Okay, watch my back,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze and standing up.
Victor knew as soon as she didn’t deign to kiss him that he’d fucked up—and fucked up bad.
If there was a moment to confess to a woman that he cared about her, that he truly, deeply, and fully cared about her, that had been it. Right before she’d stood up.
And he’d missed it. Like a stupid buffoon, he’d hummed and hawed and avoided making the tough decisions, saying the things that were hard to say. Like always.
“You draw them out, I’ll finish them,” he said quietly.
Cheryl gave him her toughest smile and then disappeared around the side of the concrete cylinder.
Idiot. You may have just lost more than the moment. You may have lost her.
“I know,” he said quietly, to nobody but himself. “I know.”
Regret filled every inch of his body, and only mounted with every passing moment as she drew further and further away, like an avalanche started by the barest of snowflakes, it grew inside him.
What are you going to do about it?
35
She waited for him to come after her. To jump up and race over to her and tell her whatever he had failed to hide behind those turquoise eyes.
Yet with every passing step, her hopes dimmed, and her thoughts about Victor drew down. He wasn’t coming, she realized, and maybe it was because he didn’t care.
No, that wasn’t true. She knew he did. It was impossible to miss. He had shown it in every way that mattered, except one.
Saying it.
For whatever reason, Victor was having a hard time speaking it, saying that he cared about her, or that he maybe even felt stronger than that. She didn’t know why, but he did.
Nothing was stopping you from speaking up either.
That was the flip-side of the coin, she realized, as rough, uneven dirt gave way to the asphalt of the road that separated where they had been hiding and where she was headed. Her running shoes—picked up by a polite man named Francis who apparently worked for the Drakon family—made little noise as she did her best to creep forward.
The closer she could get without giving away her presence, the more likely it was to generate a bigger reaction. According to Victor, he hadn’t been able to see any sign of sentries or watchmen. Everyone seemed to be at the center of the site, part of the dig as they searched for that creature, the Naagloshii.
Victor had explained to her what it was, and why they were so desperate to find it and unleash it upon the dragons. Just knowing something like that existed was terrifying, so she found it reassuring to know the vampires would never find it. Not there, at least, and she’d been told the defenses of Drakon Keep were impressive enough to keep all but the strongest of vampires at bay.
Circling back around to her original train of thought, Cheryl realized her brain was trying to shy away from it, refusing to acknowledge she was just as much at fault for not revealing how she felt. Shirking responsibility wasn’t usually something she did, however, so what was it then? Why had she stayed quiet, letting Victor take the lead?
Because you’re scared.
Maybe she was, but could anyone blame her? The sheer number of things she’d learned in the past several days was enough to leave anyone a terrified mess. But that wasn’t it, was it? The vampires, the Naagloshiii and whatever else lurked in the dark, those were scary but they were external threats. They could be handled by a very simple expedient of killing them.
There was one thing she couldn’t just kill.
Commitment.
There, she’d said it. Not in general. Cheryl didn’t find the idea of being with someone for the rest of her life scary. In fact, it was something she’d often, in her most vulnerable of moments, found herself longing for.
But she’d never contemplated the idea of committing herself to one person for literal centuries.
You’re making a big assumption that Victor views you as his mate. That seems to be a pretty big thing to dragons. Wouldn’t he tell you? Besides, he said there was a connection, a bond between the two sides that happened when they were mated. You haven’t felt that.
Maybe she hadn’t, but perhaps it was because they weren’t there yet, she countered to her own mind. He’d never said it was instantaneous, only that fate chose who it would be. Fate may or may not have chosen her to be his mate, but Cheryl still had to accept that, and until she spoke those three words, she held herself in reserve.
And that was exactly why she hadn’t said anything. She didn’t know if she was ready for that.
You still should have told him that you don’t hate him. That you have feelings for him. Neither of you have acknowledged the change yet. Not enough.
After. She would do it after they’d dealt with the vampires.
The front gates were chained shut, but whoever had done it had left the chain plenty loose. Easing it open, she slipped between the two gates with only the barest hint of metal clinking against metal. No alarm had been raised yet, and so she wondered if she’d been spotted.
Closing in on the center of the site, the sounds of action grew louder. She could hear excavators going, and the sounds of dirt and debris being dumped. Other tools and sounds of people doing stuff reached her ears, but one thing was conspicuously, and eerily absent.
Voices.
She didn’t hear any shouts, any talking, absolutely nothing. If there were indeed dozens of people frantically digging, she’d expect to hear all sorts of shouted commands and vitriol between the workers. But not a single word reached her ears.
Nor did anyone come looking for her. Cheryl was walking in the open now, like she’d been instructed. Her excuse was that someone had called in about the noise, and being a city worker, she’d been the one to come down and investigate.
Nobody was confronting her, however, and she was growing more nervous with every step. Where were the workers? Would the vampires even show themselves? What if this was all a mistake and she was about to be captured and turned into a Thrall herself?
Still nothing materialized as she rounded the last corner to see the giant pit. The dirt was flowing swiftly, and they were already a long way down, but she didn’t see anything inside.
Several of the workers noted her presence but none of them approached her, leaving Cheryl to stare at the activity from a distance.
Something was wrong here. Something was very, very wrong.
Alone and vulnerable, Cheryl had never felt more afraid.
At the sound of footsteps behind her, she whirled.
36
Victor waited.
Patience was never one of his strong suits. Despite having already seen a century and a half of life, he was still young as far as dragons went and the ability to let things unfold was still a skill he was working on.
“Did you tell her?”
He snarled silently at Aaric as the fire dragon dropped into a crouch next to him. There was no sense in taking out his frustration on the other shifter though. Aaric had given the two of them plenty of space to talk before Cheryl went in, hanging well off to one side, where even his dragon hearing wouldn’t be able to listen in. It wasn’t his fault Victor hadn’t been able to speak his mind.
“Come on Vic, what sort of a better opportunity are you waiting for?”
“The one where I’m certain she feels the same as me,” he growled. “The one where what I say now doesn’t distract her from what she’s about to do and possibly get her hurt, or worse.”
“What if she is hurt, or worse?” Aaric asked. “Then you’ll have missed your chance forever.”
Victor glared at him, only the severity of their situation preventing him from lashing out. “Thank you for such a great outlook on the situation. It’s really helping me feel better here.”
Aaric shrugged. “If I don’t show you the gravity of your error, y
ou’ll never truly understand how important it is to say these things sometimes.”
“I will say it,” he snapped. “I don’t need you to lecture me.”
Aaric just sighed, but thankfully, he remained silent, letting it go.
“Where are they?” Victor asked thirty seconds later, ears straining for any sort of sound.
“I don’t know.” Aaric sounded tense. Worried.
“Something is wrong.” Victor voiced both their concerns. “I should go in there.”
“No, wait!” Aaric hissed, but it was too late.
Victor ignored the protests and vaulted the concrete piping with casual ease, landing on the far side and jogging across the ground. His only concern now was getting to Cheryl. He should never have allowed her to act as bait. This was a terrible idea and he should have put his foot down.
But it was too late now. No alarm had been sounded, but every instinct told him something was very, very wrong inside the construction site. The closer he got, the more his nerves stood on end, his senses screaming at him.
He couldn’t make heads or tails of it though. They didn’t pick up anything. No movement, no noise, he couldn’t even smell danger. So, what was it then?
Gravel crunched underfoot in the gloom as he made his way into the construction site. Unlike Cheryl, he simply crushed the chain holding the gate closed with one hand and pushed it open. The chain-link gates creaked loudly as he strode inside, but Victor no longer cared if he was spotted.
He wanted the vampires to know he was here. That he wasn’t afraid of them.
Following Cheryl’s scent, he ran deeper into the site until he found her, standing still, watching the workers frantically dig. She was safe. Unharmed.
His approach alerted Cheryl and she spun with a gasp. Once her eyes landed on Victor though, her expression morphed to a frown.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed. “You’re not supposed to come after me until I sound the alarm!”
