by Amelia Jade
“I can handle it,” he boasted.
“Perhaps. But show me first that you’re ready to learn.”
Kallore wasn’t sure he liked the way Kyen acted as if he were the leader, but he decided to go along with it for now, until he knew more of what was going on.
“What do you have planned first?”
The other dragon pulled open the door and walked out to stand next to Lianna, the pair of them obviously comfortable around each other. Kallore’s eyes narrowed. Could they be…? He tested the air. No, they weren’t mates. Still, she was cute, he thought, following the other dragon out of his cell. He’d been asleep a long time, maybe she and he could—
The metal door clanged in his face as Kyen shut it.
“What the hell?” he snapped, stopping suddenly, his passage cut off as abruptly as his thoughts. “Let me out.”
“Not yet. Not until you can speak their language.”
He put his hands on the door and flexed his arms, expecting the material to give way. Instead it barely budged. Kallore heaved and grunted, his mighty arms flexing with the strain, but whatever it was made of, it wasn’t the shitty stuff he was used to.
“What is this?”
Kyen smiled. “I told you there had been some changes. This is one of them.”
The pair of them started walking down the corridor, white coats swishing back and forth as they did.
“That’s it? You just wake me up and leave me here?” he shouted.
“Quit being so dramatic. I’m going to get devices to help you learn the language.”
Lianna said something he didn’t understand.
“She says to lie back and relax. You’re going to need to focus.”
Kallore stood, stunned as they disappeared around a corner, talking excitedly to each other. He thought about getting angry, maybe trying to melt the bars so that he could get out, but decided against it. Kyen wouldn’t have awoken him if he didn’t have a reason for it. Whatever it was, it had to be serious, despite his attempts to keep the mood light.
Walking back to the straw bed, he sank down into it.
Just what had he gotten himself into?
Chapter Three
Kallore
“Kyen I am bored,” he rumbled, the bedframe creaking as he levered himself up and to his feet.
There was no response.
“Kyen?” he pressed, resting his broad hands on the cool metal of the bars that held him captive.
That was a loose word. He could break out if he chose, overpowering Kyen and forcing his way out. But the past four days had been so filled with language classes that he’d been too exhausted to bother, his brain fried. But he felt he had acquired the working basics. Enough that he could converse with relative ease. Dragons had an innate ability when it came to picking up languages, and despite his long sleep, it appeared he’d kept that skill intact.
“Speak in their tongue,” the dragon shifter replied from where he sat.
“Fine,” he said, switching to English. “I am bored. Now are you happy?”
Kyen nodded sagely. “Yes.”
“That’s great. I’m glad you’re in a good mood. Can we do something now?”
“Fight.”
“I don’t want to fight you.”
Silver hair bounced as Kyen shook his head. “Not me.”
“Who then? The only other person I’ve met is Lianna, and I’m not interested in hitting a woman, though occasionally I’d make an exception for you.”
Kyen just smiled, that grating, irritating, knowing smile that drove Kallore mad sometimes. Gods he hated it when the other dragon looked at him like that. It made him feel like a child. Which, in some ways he was. Kyen was old, even for a dragon, probably early fifties or so in human years. He even had some hairs that were truly gray, and not silver, if one looked close enough.
“Excellent question. For whom? Or what?”
Rolling his eyes, he tried to decipher the question. Eventually he gave up and cracked the knuckles in one hand, wondering if he could beat the answer out of the other dragon.
“Speak plainly. I’m not interested in your games today. I’ve not seen the outside of my cell in four days. Riddles are not on the list of things I will put up with today.”
Taking pity on him, Kyen spoke again. “What would you fight for, Kallore? If someone asked you to fight on their side, would you say yes?”
He shrugged. “Depends on what I’m fighting. Or why, I suppose.”
Whiskey-brown eyes flicked open at last, brightening with a tinge of orange as they focused on him. “So you won’t fight for just any reason?”
Kallore paced across the cell to his bed, where he sat down heavily on the edge. “Why do I get the feeling that this just became a deep discussion about morals and ethics?”
“Because it did?”
“You know me better than that, Kyen. I’m not evil. Now, who do you want me to fight for?” Despite asking the question, he already suspected what the answer was. What he didn’t know was why. Or against what.
“The humans.”
Well, no surprise there.
“Have humans lost the ability to fight since I took a rest? They were getting quite adept at it the last I can remember.”
Kyen snorted. “Oh, they can fight themselves just fine.”
That answered one question. He wasn’t going to be fighting humans. “Other dragons then?”
“No, not that I’m aware of. Most of our kind went to sleep, Kallore. Just like you. I’m not aware of any groups of still-awake kin, though they probably exist.”
“Doesn’t sound like they need me then. I’m not going to fight for them. What do I owe them?”
“How about for the fact they brought you back into this world?”
Kallore’s deep booming laughter filled the cell and the hallway beyond. “Oh, now that’s rich,” he chuckled. “You awaken me from my dreams of paradise and treasure, so that I can sit around in a cell with you for days on end. Why would I thank anyone for that, uh, pleasure?” he finished after searching for the proper sarcastic word.
The older shifter just stared at him. “It is the right thing to do.”
“Then you do it,” he shot back.
Kyen’s voice was darker when he spoke again, containing an element to it that Kallore hadn’t heard before. “You know I do not fight.”
He started to respond, but was cut off with a swift chop of the hand. “I am doing my part though. I did it by waking you, and I will continue to do what I can to aid them.”
“Oh come on,” he groaned, lying back into the bed, stretching across it lengthwise until his shoulders hung off the back, his feet still firmly planted on the ground.
One thing was for certain. The bed wasn’t designed with dragons in mind. He felt positively huge in it, missing his bed back home, the one that could have fit three of him with ease. Now that was comfort.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and he sighed, wondering if Lianna was going to chime in as well. Kyen got up and there was the sound of the door opening, and then the dragon shifter padded away down the hall.
Kallore sniffed, the smell of sunshine and spring meadows abloom reaching his nose. He perked up slightly. Whoever it was, it wasn’t Lianna. She smelled more like metal and cleaning agents from all her time spent in her lab, as she called it. Whatever that was.
The two of them continued their war of silence, neither party speaking as they took the measure of the other. Eventually the newcomer spoke. Kallore chalked up a mental point on his side.
“What would you fight for?”
The voice behind the question intrigued him more than the question itself, but he forced himself not to react to it. He stretched languidly, his arms pushed to the ceiling as he let his muscles pop and bulge.
“Treasure,” he said at last.
“Treasure?”
There it was again. That voice. Honeyed silk that gently reached out to caress his ears, yet mixed over a steel that cou
ld harden it in an instant if necessary. The reaction within him was instant and burning. Kallore flexed his arms, trying to drain the blood from elsewhere lest it give him away.
“Yes, treasure. Gold, diamonds, rubies, etcetera.”
There was a pause. “That can be arranged. What else?”
Finally he couldn’t resist any longer. The smooth pull of her voice reached out and forced him back into a sitting position so that he could see her. Her voice and her scent were like aphrodisiacs, and he had just become their victim.
The snarky reply he’d had ready died in his throat as he regarded the woman standing in front of his cell, arms resting behind her. She was short, with a body that spoke of once being hard but now turning softer and curvy, filling itself in deliciously. Short brown hair kept serviceable but to a length where she could still consider herself feminine. Eyes of a beautiful amber blinked, the rich medium-gold warmth locked on to him with an intensity that would scare him if he weren’t an all-powerful dragon shifter.
The almond shape of her eyes narrowed slightly as he continued to evaluate her, and Kallore thought he saw the soft skin of her cheeks tighten under his scrutiny as well. Nostrils flared, drawing his attention to her small somewhat snub nose before latching on to the full roundness of her lips.
He was full-out staring now, and he knew it, but it didn’t matter. Never before had he seen such beauty. The crisp, clean lines of her greenish-beige uniform spoke of a personality that liked order and adherence to standard. Kallore took it all in, forced to summarize her look with one word.
Mate.
It practically screamed out at him. The label on her shirt read “Mara,” but it may as well have been a spelling error, because there was no doubt in his mind what she was to him.
“So, nothing else you would fight for besides treasure?” she asked when he failed to reply.
You.
He longed to speak the word out loud, to confess to her that the burning in his body, the rushing sound in his ears as blood raced through his system, the fullness he felt inside of himself, was all caused by her. That he would go to the end of the world and back again in her name, if that’s what it took to keep her safe. Kallore would leave all in ruins, flaming wreckage scattered to the four winds, if they so much as spoke to her without politeness.
His entire being now existed for no other reason than to be with her. The roaring in his ears intensified and he thought he was going to explode with the need to be next to her. It was all he cared about now.
And it was exactly what he couldn’t have.
That much was obvious in her stance. Casual as it may be, he could see the way she was guarded, her eyes hiding the truth behind a wall of metal and rock that even he in all his power couldn’t force to come down. If it were a contest of strength he would tear the base apart around them as he carried her off into the distance. But it wasn’t, and he could see that much from the start.
This Mara, she needed a gentler touch. A lover’s caress, not a guardian’s strength. Kallore would need to be careful with her, treating her like the most delicate flower in the entire field, if he wished to one day have her as his own.
“Yes,” he replied hoarsely. “There is more.”
She waited patiently. Gods he was in love with her already. She wasn’t going to play games with him. All she wanted was a straight answer. He forced himself to repeat the answer in his head a dozen times over before he trusted his lips to speak it properly without giving him away.
“A mate.”
“A mate?” she asked, puzzled. “Is that like a friend? Are you Australian?”
Kallore shook his head. What was an Australian? Some kind of pet, perhaps? There was still much of her world and language he hadn’t picked up on yet. He’d have to find out; it sounded awesome. “No. A lover. A mate. My mate. I would fight for her, the only woman I will ever be with.” He stared at her the entire time. She needed to know that he was serious, that he would fight for his mate. For her. That nothing would stand between him and her.
“Very well. Where can we find this mate of yours? Was she sleeping near you?”
She’s right in front of me.
He sagged, the agony at not being able to tell her the truth sinking its claws deep into him.
“I’m not sure,” were the words that came out of his mouth, each syllable a lie that stabbed him with a thousand needles.
He was lying to his mate. Always had he sworn to himself that he would be up-front with her, never hiding anything from her.
She’s not your mate. Not yet.
There was truth to that statement, and he latched onto it in desperation, thankful for anything that helped him cope with what he’d just done.
“So treasure it is?”
He nodded once, not trusting his voice to work. It wasn’t that treasure was unappealing, but compared to his mate, even the brightest of gold was a dull standard to compare her to. The truth was, she had no comparison. There was nothing that would ever seem as beautiful to him as she did, standing there in her drab-colored uniform, grilling him about why he would fight. It was the most wonderful sight he had ever experienced.
He was a dragon though, and if he couldn’t have his mate in his arms, the next best thing would be a massive pile of treasure. It was a distant second, a very, very distant second. But it sure beat waking up to Kyen’s face hovering over him.
She turned to go.
“Who are you?”
The words slipped out, stopping her.
“I’m your instructor.”
He frowned. “My instructor? For what?”
“Everything.”
She gave him a cold look as a smile blossomed on his face, and then she strode out. Kallore ached that his mate had left, but he couldn’t stop grinning. Whatever they wanted from him, it seemed he was going to get to spend a lot of time together with her. Which would be perfect for winning her over. He vowed to be the best student she’d ever had.
Now if he could just figure out what he was learning, he would be set!
Chapter Four
Elin
“This is ridiculous.”
It was something she’d said or thought hundreds, if not thousands of times by now ever since she’d been briefed on the actual requirements of her mission.
Dragons? What nonsense was this that they’d cooked up? It was obvious to her that someone, somewhere, was having a really bad day. She sat back in her chair and pressed the Play button. She was still sifting through the information that had been available to her once she’d been confirmed as the new commander of Base Stark, which itself was of recent construction. It was so recent it still had that new base smell to it. The aroma was similar to that of a new car, but unpleasant. So perhaps nothing alike after all.
Elin was paging through reports, ignoring most of them, trying to figure out if there was any legitimacy to this whole “dragon” thing when the image on her screen changed. It caught her attention, and she watched as the oddball scientist Kyen stepped into view. The sound was muted, preventing her from hearing what he was saying, but before she could go back and turn the audio on, her world changed forever.
“So that’s a dragon.”
She reset the video by ten seconds and watched it again. Then again. And a fifth time. Then a tenth. Several minutes later she sat back into her chair, watching the beautiful platinum-silver dragon. Off to one side she could see the other scientist Lianna, who worked hand in hand with Kyen. She was talking and saying something.
Kyen reared back and the huge wings at his side unfurled, spreading wide and blocking much of the room behind him. They were semi-translucent, and the tips were equipped with what appeared to be a single claw or talon of some sort. Spikes ran down the entire back of his body, ending at his tail which sported a clump of them. That, she decided, would be one nasty weapon.
Lianna waved her hands and shouted something, and suddenly the dragon was gone, shrinking nearly instantaneously until all that r
emained was Kyen. Major Mara frowned as the middle-aged man walked back to the camera, a little smile on his face, but otherwise still looking and acting like the oddball scientist. For a moment she wished he could be the one she had to deal with. He was nothing like the man she was supposed to train.
Kallore was taller, more muscular, far more arrogant and self-centered, and probably a huge playboy on top of things. Her teeth ground together at the thought of just being around him. He was a brute, plain and simple. A beast blessed with gorgeous features and a body straight out of a mail-order magazine, assembled piece by piece. She hated the fact that he was attractive. It was just going to make spending time with him even more difficult.
Rising from her desk, she decided it was time to confront the inevitable. They would have to begin training him sooner rather than later. Humanity needed him to fight for their side, and to fight well.
“Linny, is the obstacle course finished?” she asked her aide, stepping out of her office after ensuring the computer was locked. All base personnel were aware of what they were doing, but she still didn’t want to risk the information getting out to the general public.
The last thing they needed was to start asking why the army needed dragons to fight for them, because that would lead to the worst question of all. What was it they were fighting that humanity couldn’t stop?
“Yes, Major, it’s all ready to go.” Linny smiled. As one of the other few females on base, Linny had an idea of how working with Kallore was going to be challenging at best.
“Excellent. I’m going to get Kallore and put him through it. See how his body holds up after being inactive for so long.”
The pair shared a knowing smile. The walk from her office into the bowels of the base didn’t take long. She stopped at the intersection of the corridor that would take her to his cell, working up her strength, putting her guard into place. The video screen showed him lying sprawled out on his bed.
“I don’t bite. There’s no reason to be scared and stop there,” he called out to her.
Irritated, she clamped down on her natural response. Engaging in his banter is exactly what she wanted, and if Elin wanted to keep what was left of her already ragged reputation intact, she needed to deal with him in completely professional manner, with exactly zero slipups. She couldn’t afford to screw it up. Not again.
