by Amelia Jade
***
Miranda
She stayed in her room, feeling the house shake from Daxxton’s tantrum. It went on for hours. At one point she thought he was going to come into her room and she would have to fight him. That was not a battle she wanted. Miranda might be a Blast Dragon, one of the stronger of the races, but even she wasn’t so arrogant as to think she could take him on.
But eventually it subsided, and she relaxed a little.
Then his door opened, and she heard him snarl at someone in the hallway.
She’d gone straight for the shower the instant he’d left, needing to wash herself clean of the evidence of their coupling, although she would never let herself forget the memory. Despite any complications that would arise from her sleeping with a Cadian, it had just been way too good for her to forget.
The biggest problem she had, was that she wanted more. More of him, in any way she could get it. Harder. Faster. Slower. More intimate. Less intimate. She craved him. Physically. Emotionally.
But he was from Cadia, and she couldn’t allow herself to do that! What would her people think if they learned she was with someone from their biggest neighbor? Fuck. She hated politics, dammit!
There was a knock on her door. It was so unexpected she jumped a little.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Patrick, ma’am,” came the voice of one of Klara’s resident security team.
She opened the door a crack. “Yes?”
The tall, blue-eyed grizzly shifter looked around, almost embarrassed. “I’m not sure how to phrase this, but, ah, you heard, I assume?”
She glanced past him at the doorway across the hall from her. “Yes, I did.”
He nodded. “Okay. Well, I think you should go speak to him.”
Miranda frowned. “Me? Oh, no. I think I’m the last person who should talk to him.”
Patrick frowned at that, giving her a slight sigh of relief. It likely meant he didn’t know they’d slept together just before whatever had caused Daxxton’s meltdown.
“He’s in the bar, ma’am. I really think you should go see him.”
There was something in his voice.
“Why?”
“Just, please. Go see him,” Patrick pleaded.
“Fine,” she acquiesced. There was something in his voice. Something about why he wanted it to be her that went to Daxxton.
Emerging from her room, she walked down the hallways toward the bar, wondering just what the hell was going on. A drink might help calm her own jittery nerves.
She slowed to a halt at the door to the bar, as the reason why Patrick wanted her to go see Daxxton became clear.
There in the dark the big, strong, powerful Aurum Dragon, one of the most respected dragons she knew of, was hunched over the bar, a bottle of whiskey half-gone as great heaving sobs racked his body.
“Oh no,” she whispered, her feet carrying her toward him before she even realized. “Daxxton, it’s okay.”
She stopped several feet from him, not wanting to intrude.
“No,” he said, the single choked-out word breaking her heart. “It’s not.”
“Can I sit?” she asked, not wanting to intrude if he didn’t want it.
The big man hesitated, but then he nodded. He stopped crying as she sat next to him, wiping the tears away with his shirt, trying to compose himself.
“Sorry you had to see me like that,” he muttered unhappily.
She smiled. “It’s okay. Men are allowed to cry too,” she told him. “Even those like you, who I’m sure feel that society will judge them ill for it. It’s okay, a good cry can be a huge help at times.”
He looked at her, a rueful smile crossing his face for just a moment.
“It’s not going to help my reputation much though,” he said, biting off a sarcastic laugh. “Sorry,” he murmured, shaking his head.
“Don’t be,” she insisted, reaching out and laying her hand on his forearm reassuringly. Miranda made sure not to let it linger, doing it as a friend, not as a lover.
Daxxton nodded and took a deep breath, steadying himself. He eyed the whiskey, and then before she could stop him, he took another drink. It was a short, shallow one though. He shivered slightly and sat up. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger, as if cleared by the booze.
“I owe Klara a big apology.”
She laughed softly. “Yes, I suppose you do, don’t you?”
“And some new furniture. Damn, I doubt that stuff was cheap,” he said regretfully.
Dragons never liked to spend their money.
“Probably not,” she agreed with another chuckle.
Daxxton sobered. “I owe you an explanation.”
Miranda shook her head. “No, you don’t,” she replied. “You don’t owe me anything. If you wish to talk about whatever is haunting you, I will gladly listen. But you do not have to do anything.”
He eyed her. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Just shut up and take it,” he said with a smile, letting her know he was being lighthearted.
Miranda bowed her head slightly, returning the look.
“Come, I want a real seat,” he said, sliding from the barstool and heading for a booth at the back of the room, where they could be alone. The light from the hallway barely carried back there, the gloom darkening around them.
Seated, he took another short sip, swishing it around in his mouth for a moment before swallowing.
“First, I’m sorry for just bailing earlier. I should have, ah, stayed around to help. You know. Clean up,” he said, and she saw his face heat up slightly with embarrassment.
Miranda laughed. “I can handle it,” she told him. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”
He nodded, looking down at the table. “There’s no real easy way to ease into this, so I’m just going to speak. I’ve not told anyone this in a long, long time, so my apologies if it’s disjointed.”
“I’ll follow along,” she said, dismissing his worries.
Daxxton paused, his eyes gazing deep into the dark wood of the table. Miranda simply sat there and waited. Whatever he was about to say, it was going to be tough for him.
“You know that the last big shifter war was over two hundred years ago,” he began.
She nodded.
“Well, there were a number of them before then. I’ve lived through many. At first I fought in them because I wanted to. It was fun, exhilarating. I was young, powerful, and of course thought of myself as invincible.” He snorted. “It seems so incredibly stupid now. We killed so many of our own kind you wouldn’t believe. But that was considered normal, so we didn’t think twice about it.”
Miranda pursed her lips, but still she simply stayed silent, letting him speak.
“Eventually, I grew out of it. I would defend myself, or my good friends, if they came under attack. But no longer did I go to war. I simply protected my being. It was a good life.” He paused, his eyes closing slowly for a moment before opening once more. “It became even better when I met her.”
There was no doubt what sort of her he was talking about. Miranda cursed herself. He had a mate, and she’d slept with him! Anger welled up within her, self-loathing and guilt as well. She was a terrible person.
“Her name was Kyra, a human. She was my mate,” he said dully. “Life was perfect with her around. Nothing bothered us as long as we had each other.”
Miranda noted the past tense there. She was his mate. Her stomach began to fill with ice as she realized where the story was going.
No. Oh no. Please. I’d rather have seduced him from her for a night…
“Everything was going great. I hadn’t had to go fight in decades, and we had our own farm near the mountains.” He sniffled. “There was even a little one on the way.”
Tears sprung to her eyes at the emotion and heartbreak in his words.
“Oh Daxxton,” she whispered, longing to reach out, to touch him. To tell him she was so sorry. B
ut instinct told her now was not the right time. He needed to get this off his chest without being interrupted, or be reminded of what they’d done.
“Then one day, the fighting came again. They had found me.”
“They?” she asked, confused.
“A group of shifters, intent on claiming the area I lived in. They didn’t care that I only wanted peace. That I didn’t wish to fight them. I talked to them, bribed them to leave us alone. And they said they would.”
His eyes darkened dangerously. “I trusted them, and I was wrong.”
She shuddered at the emotion in his voice.
“We awoke one night to the house burning down around us. There was no clear escape for Kyra. She saw the window though, and went for it.”
Daxxton’s voice gave out as he shuddered with a sob.
“The Dragonfire hit the glass at the same time she got there.”
“Oh no,” Miranda gasped, hands flying to her mouth in horror. She knew what Dragonfire could do to a normal human.
Daxxton shook his head. “She didn’t stand a chance. The blast was a strong one. It knocked me out of the house and into the river from the force of it. When I got back…” he closed his eyes. “When I got back, Kyra was gone.”
“Daxxton, I’m so sorry,” she said, but he shook her off, not finished with his story.
“I was distraught,” he said, his voice hardening. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay,” she started to say, but he cut her off with a chop of his hand.
“No,” he snarled. “No, it’s not okay. You don’t understand.”
She frowned. “Understand what?”
“What I did,” he growled in anger, though she knew it wasn’t directed at her. “They left me for dead. But I wasn’t. I was barely hurt. I tracked them down. Followed them to the village they called home.”
His eyes lifted at last to meet hers, and she stared in horror at the golden flames that burned deep within his eyes, so bright they practically glowed.
“I murdered them all. Slaughtered them,” he spat. “Every one of them. Man. Woman. Children. Livestock even. I burned them. Froze them. Tore their bodies to shreds like some sort of beast out of a nightmare. I was berserk. Not myself, not the person I had thought I was.”
He shuddered. “I still hear the screams. Every night, I wake from my dreams, haunted by what I did. I wasn’t human. I wasn’t a dragon. I was just death, and I visited everyone. They cried out for mercy, to spare them, and all I did was laugh.”
“That was a long time ago,” she said, hoping those were the right words. “I don’t believe you to be that person anymore. The Daxxton I’ve met, that I’ve seen, he isn’t like that. He doesn’t attack indiscriminately. He defends those who can’t defend themselves, and helps those who need it.” Miranda reached across the table and took his hand. “The Daxxton I know is a good man. You are a good man,” she said, knowing somehow that she was right, that he was that person.
The young, brash Daxxton might have killed all those people. Yet as horrific as she knew that was, part of Miranda agreed with his actions. He’d not done anything to them, and they’d sought him out, and killed his mate and unborn child. That called for blood. She felt her own dragon stir in anger.
Offspring were more precious to a dragon than just about anything. They came rarely, and often dragon mates only had one or two children, despite their long lives. They were a gift worth protecting. And when that gift was taken…they were worth avenging.
It was a different time, she knew. Such a thing would never happen now. She needed him to see that, to see that he wasn’t a monster. That he had changed as well.
“I don’t know,” he said, but there was doubt in his voice.
“I do,” she said quietly.
Tears flowed down his cheeks. The sobs returned, but his voice was still clear.
“Every time I’m with a woman, I get revisited by the memories though. By the guilt for betraying Kyra by lying with another.” He inhaled sharply. “And it’s worse with you.”
Miranda rocked back, stunned by everything he’d just disclosed to her. “Why? What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything. I did something.”
“What?” she asked frantically. “What did you do?”
His eyes looked levelly at her. The flames were gone, replaced with something else. Something…stronger. “I started to care for you.”
Miranda opened her mouth to reply, but Daxxton’s hand snapped up, covering her lips. His body stiffened and she saw his eyes focus behind her, toward the entrance of the unlit bar.
Chapter Nine
Daxxton
He stared into the dark room, his night vision rendering the deep gloom as best it could. There were still shadows, but he could look into them now, ensuring that nobody was hiding from him.
His nose twitched as the scent of unfamiliar wood tickled his nostrils once again. It was a minor thing, a very faint scent.
But it wasn’t of Cadia, and that was what gave it away.
Miranda had caught on that something was wrong now, and he removed his hand, trusting her not to speak as he examined every nook and cranny of the bar. His eyes looked into every shadow.
But none of them contained anything.
The princess. He mouthed the words to Miranda, hoping she’d follow along with his mindset.
The sharp glint that came to her eyes told him she understood perfectly. Her liege was in danger, and they need to get to her now.
Daxxton slid silently from the booth. The weakened, vulnerable man was gone, and in his place was the trained killer. Someone had managed to get into the Nova Estates, but they would get no further on his watch.
Behind him Miranda came along, her movements matching his.
He was headed for the door with such focus that he barely noticed the inky shadow to his left, reacting a split second before it detached itself from the wall and leapt at him.
The wily Aurum Dragon used his time wisely however, and he summoned his scales. Across his body burnished gold scales the size of silver dollars sprung to the surface, armoring his body in a nearly impenetrable armor. Blades and projectiles would bounce away from him now. The only thing that could hurt him was—
Daxxton roared as a Dragonscale knife penetrated his scales and sunk deep, but he’d twisted away from the blow enough that it wasn’t fatal. His action carried his body away from the outthrust arm of his attacker, and pain flooded his brain as the knife ripped through his skin, fiery agony threatening to overwhelm him as it pulled free of his side.
Combat training took over, and even as he moved Daxxton’s left arm shot out and grabbed onto his attacker’s wrist like a vise. He heaved, the tattered remnants of his left obliques hammering him with blinding pain as he twisted, the motion hurling his attacker clear across the bar, through several tables until he hit the wall.
Behind him Miranda grunted as a second attacker attacked her.
“Careful of the blade, it’s Dragonscale,” he hissed through clenched teeth, unable to help her as his own attacker shook himself free and charged.
Daxxton went to meet him. Knowing his scales would be useless, he channeled that energy into his healing system. It wasn’t something he had told others he could do, because it wasn’t something Daxxton could teach to anyone. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it. And that should come as a very rude shock to his attacker.
Funneling the energy he normally felt upon shifting, Daxxton sent it all into his human body. Nearly instantly his body began to heal. Punctured organs sealed themselves, muscles reknit themselves, and his flesh began to stitch itself back together.
It took a lot of energy, but in the three seconds it took him and his opponent to collide, Daxxton went from being hampered by an injury, to practically whole once more.
The would-be assassin blinked in surprise as Daxxton smiled at him, the Aurum Dragon going on the offensive. His opponent was good, better than any that he
’d fought over the past two days. But it was just as clear that Daxxton was better. Fists flew and were blocked; they ducked under kicks or spun out of the way.
Behind him he heard Miranda cry out in pain, and his next blow blew right through his opponent’s defenses, powered as it was by anger and concern for her well-being. The shifter took the blow right on the chin. He was already backing away though, and Daxxton grimaced as he pursued, not wanting to give his opponent time to recover.
But the other shifter’s foot came down awkwardly on a piece of splintered table, and he stumbled. It wasn’t much. Just a slight wobble. But it was all Daxxton needed. He exploited the opening ruthlessly. His foe had raised his arms slightly to balance himself, and Daxxton simply dove low, delivering a hammerblow to the man’s knee, snapping it sideways with a sickening crunch.
As he rose, Daxxton grabbed the man’s good leg in his left hand and lifted, while his right snatched something from the ground. As the full weight came down on the injured limb, the assassin shrieked and fell to the floor. Daxxton dropped back on one knee and his right hand plunged the shattered piece of table through his attacker’s eye socket and into his brain.
The attacker jerked once and then lay still, his left eye staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
“Daxxton!” Miranda shouted, wrenching his attention away from the lifeless body in front of him.
He spun and darted back across the bar.
Miranda was backing away from not one, but two attackers, both of which had blades in their hands.
“HEY!” he shouted, his voice hammering through the silence at the attackers.
One turned to face him, but the other didn’t flinch as he closed in on Miranda.
Shit. These guys are good.
Daxxton’s hand darted out as he closed, snatching a table from the ground as if it were a feather. He hurled it across the bar.
“You missed,” his opponent said before it had even gone halfway to its destination.
“Did I?” he replied as the table crashed into the back of the attacker near Miranda.
She took advantage of the man’s distraction and her hands whipped around. The sonic blast hurled her attacker backward, through the door and into the hallway beyond.
