by Amelia Jade
“What the hell is going on?”
The guard didn’t respond, but she fell silent as it became clear just what it was. Ivore had come to the office as well. Hell of an entrance. Much better than just walking in like she’d done. More dramatic and tense. She could just imagine what things were like in there right now. Ivore had come to rescue her. Maybe he could wipe the smug look from her guard’s face.
On the screen Ivore stopped in front of Malkin’s desk. His anger was visible. She could see the way his arms were bunched up, huge biceps threatening to rip the shirt apart at the seams. She watched as his chest rose and fell, the deep breaths of someone on the verge of flying off into a rage. How had he found out that Malkin had her? She hadn’t told anyone where she was going.
“I thought we had a deal, Richard.”
Violet frowned. What was he talking about?
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Malkin responded, sounding far too calm for someone confronted with a dragon that could rip him apart. “I never agreed to anything. You came here, caused a lot of damage and then left, as if that were enough to make me agree.”
Ivore was seething now, his shoulders hunched forward the way they did when he was really frustrated. Violet watched as he forcefully restrained himself. She wondered just what would happen if he were to let himself go. Just how much damage could an angry dragon cause?
“Either way, it’s over now. You’re going to back off.”
“Again. Why would I do that? Why is it that nobody has a plan these days?” Malkin’s voice cracked slightly, showing some of the psychotic persona he managed to hide so well unless provoked.
Ivore, to his credit, didn’t flinch or back down at the revelation that the man he was talking to was insane. Maybe he’d already known that. Violet wasn’t sure.
“You’re going to do it because we’re going to make a bargain.”
Violet shook her head. “No, don’t do it, Ivore.” She knew what he was planning now. Why he had come to the offices.
“A bargain, you say? And what sort of bargain is that?”
Malkin was leaning back in his chair again, in the exact way he’d done to her as well. It was like seeing the scene replayed in real time, only with Ivore in her place.
“You leave Violet alone. In exchange, you get me. I won’t resist.” Ivore seemed to deflate as he spoke, leaving him looking exhausted and almost defeated.
“No, Ivore. Don’t. I’m right here!” she cried out. “It’s a trick, dammit. He already has me!”
If Ivore gave up, then there would be nobody to rescue her. She’d been wrong in assuming that’s why Ivore had shown up. But he had no idea she was there; he was just coming to make a bargain, almost like she had.
She sat back. He was coming to sacrifice himself for her, just as she’d done. His motives were different, more pure. But they begged another question, one that had been raised by Malkin and that she still wasn’t positive she had an answer to.
Did this mean that Ivore loved her as well?
It was no surprise that he liked her. The dragon hadn’t made any attempt to hide that, despite her constant back and forth on how she was going to act around him. Violet hated herself for the way she’d treated him now that she looked back on it. Her insistence on wallowing in her own guilt had meant she’d led him on, only to shut him down when she remembered she wasn’t supposed to be interested in anyone.
Yet despite all of her actions and her rudeness, he’d been honest, straightforward, kind, and caring beyond anything anyone could ever hope to ask for. His patience with her had been remarkable. She’d given off confusing signs, and each time she backtracked, he’d not gotten mad, but had apologized for pushing her too far, too fast. Never mind that it was she who’d opened herself up to these things.
So what did it all mean? Did Ivore love her? It seemed odd to think that he might, but things were just so different with him. The concept of falling in love over the course of a few weeks would have had her howling with laughter, but that was before she met Ivore, and before she’d seen how happy Andria could be mated to Cowl.
Violet wondered if she could have the same thing with Ivore if she just opened up to him. She had no reason not to trust him, not after seeing him try to bargain for her life with his own. All she had to do now was figure out a way to find him, get him alone, and confess everything. Reveal to him just why she was so messed up, and then find out how they could work around it.
On the screen Malkin was speaking again. “Her life for yours, is that it?”
Ivore nodded. “Yes. You let her go, leave her alone, stop attacking her, everything. Her store is to succeed. You aren’t to stop it.”
“That’s quite the sacrifice.”
“She’s worth it. For her I would sacrifice anything.”
That clinched it. How could he not be in love with her? She couldn’t let someone so selfless sacrifice himself for her. Nobody else was going to die so that she could live.
And that included herself. She just needed to get his attention. The problem was, the door was soundproofed. How was she going to get his attention through it? Somehow she would need to convince the guards to open it. Simply asking was out of the equation. They were goons, but they didn’t look stupid enough to fall for that trick.
“Got any water?” she asked, thinking maybe they’d open the door to pass it through.
“Go fuck yourself. We give you that, then you’re just going to start complaining about having to pee.”
She recoiled at the rage from the guard, using her surprise to cover the smile that tried to blossom on her face. He’d given her an idea. It was the most embarrassing thing she’d probably ever done as an adult, but it should work. It had to work.
On the screen, four hulking brutes had entered Malkin’s office, fanning out behind Ivore. She needed to act, and soon. Time was running out for her dragon.
Her dragon. It was the first time she’d ever thought of him as hers, and something about that acknowledgment rattled her to her core. She had someone. Someone who wanted to be with her, who seemed to only notice the good in her. But she wouldn’t have him for much longer if she didn’t act. Violet closed her eyes and willed her body to relax.
It took the guard longer than she’d expected to notice, and in that time the men on the screen had advanced, taking Ivore by the arms and preparing to escort him from the room. He stood there, head lowered, shoulders slumped forward to stare at the ground.
“I don’t feel good,” she groaned suddenly, leaning forward. “Something’s wrong.”
The guard stepped around to the front of her, blocking the screen for a moment, and that’s when he finally picked up on it. “Eww, what the hell, woman? Did you piss yourself?”
She opened her legs slightly, the stench of fresh urine immediately multiplying in the air. “I don’t know. I feel sick.”
The guard shook his head, moving over to the door and sliding it open. “Yo man, get some towels or something. This bitch just pissed herself. It fucking stinks in here.”
She waited until he was fully into the conversation, the door sliding open just a bit wider as he relaxed, confident in talking to his fellow guard. “IVORE!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs.
The guard whirled with a swiftness that belied his bulk, smacking her across the face. Violet’s head rocked to the side and blackness swept in at the corners of her vision as pain drilled itself into her head. The world was swiftly becoming a smaller and smaller hole as darkness closed in, but she was able to focus on the television screen one last time.
Ivore’s head snapped up.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ivore
He heard a scream of some sort. It was faint, and he couldn’t make out what it was saying, though it was definitely feminine. Maybe it was the secretary. If someone had just freed her from his ice, she might be in hysterics. That would make sense.
Everyone else in the room reacted to it, however, growing slightly mor
e nervous. One of the guards even shuffled slightly in place. Curious as to what was going on, he tested the air, forcing himself to inhale deep, ignoring the pain from the swelling in his nose. His chest rose with the inflating of his lungs, but it was what he caught in the air that caused his head to snap up.
Violet had been here, and recently.
“Don’t even think it,” Malkin warned, but it was too late.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY MATE?!” he bellowed, throwing off the guards with an angry flex of his arms. They didn’t go as far as he’d like, their own reflexes nearly as good as his. Shifters, then. He’d suspected as much based on how tightly they’d clamped on to his arms.
“Do anything and she dies!” Malkin shouted as Ivore exploded into action.
Cold, icy fury pooled within him, and he drew on that, using it to wield his dragon powers to their fullest. Ivore pulled his arms in together, willing the ice to rise up across his body, pulling energy into him as the shifter guards readied themselves to attack. A moment before they charged he flung his hands out wide.
Icicles ripped from his skin, spreading out in all directions as he unleashed his power on the room. The guards got their arms up in time, but the force of the impact drove them all back several steps.
Malkin, due to his age, was too slow to react. A pair of foot-long icy darts struck him in the shoulder and leg, flipping him back over his desk and out of sight. Ivore didn’t have time to enjoy it as he was buried under a pile of shifters. They bore him to the ground, delivering kicks, elbows, and fists along the way.
Ivore’s hands hit the ground, and he let his power flow out across it. Once more the ground grew hard and slippery, the purest of ice. He pushed it out wide to the edges of the walls, coating every exposed inch. The shifters around him began to struggle for balance, at least one of them muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “not again.”
He got to his feet, the ice always providing him with even footing. It was his ally. He’d been using it since he was a little child, and now with over two centuries of experience, it came to him as naturally as breathing. The other shifters didn’t stand a chance.
Stomping down with his foot caused the ice to heave up and outward in a ripple, spilling those who had regained their footing to the floor. The ice was a living thing under his control, reaching up to grab at the shifters, securing their limbs to the ground, rendering them immobile. It was child’s play, really.
“Where is she?” he snarled, grabbing Malkin’s desk and hurling it across the room to explode against the wall, peppering several of the pinned shifters with splinters.
What he saw beneath it paused his rampage. Instead of cowering, Malkin was lying in a pool of his own blood, shivering weakly as he looked up at the ceiling. The two icicles were still embedded deep in his shoulder and leg. By the looks of it the one in his leg had nipped the artery. He was going to die in minutes, bleeding out on his office floor.
“Aw hell.” He cursed himself; he hadn’t been meaning to kill the old man. Not yet at least. He wanted him to atone for his sins before meeting his maker.
“I go to see my sons,” Malkin said, a strange smile twisting at his features. “At your hands. How appropriate.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Ivore muttered, taking a knee. “We didn’t kill them. You fed them the drugs. You knew what they were, what they would do. You wanted more money, and in the end, it killed your kids.”
Malkin shook his head, back and forth as much as he could. “Didn’t. Not me. Drugs came…elsewhere.”
Ivore frowned. “No, they came from you, Malkin. You’re the one dealing them, putting them out there to infect every shifter you can.”
The old man coughed, spitting up blood. “Were given to me. T-test batch.” He was growing weaker by the second.
“Who gave them to you?”
Malkin’s eyes closed.
“No, dammit. Who gave you the drugs? Who sold them to you?!” Ivore shook him gently, but it was too late, he was gone. “Fuck.”
All along he and his brothers had assumed that Malkin was behind the drugs. The pills were laced with DNA from the Outsiders, the alien creatures he and his kind had been awakened to fight. While it seemed to work on transforming dragons into something different, it had killed Malkin’s sons, both of whom were wolf shifters, like most of his goons as well. The explosive revelation that someone else was dealing the drugs set everything they’d been working toward back to zero.
Ivore rose to his feet. There would be time for all that later, however. He needed to find Violet, and get her out of here. The scream had come from nearby, but not from back toward the hallway. That meant one thing: a fake wall.
He eyed the glass on his left. It certainly wasn’t there. That only left two sides. One of the shifters managed to break free of the ice as he passed, clawing at Ivore. The ice dragon formed, flung, and hit the shifter in the gut with an icicle all in one smooth move. The guard shrieked in pain, clawing at the icy dagger in his stomach. Ivore barely reacted.
Behind him there was shouting, and the floor trembled. Moments later a tremendous roar filled the air as something came through the door. Something big.
Ivore blinked. “Oh. They have a bear.”
The massive creature pawed at the ground, ripping huge gouges from the icy covering. Unlike the wolves, it wasn’t affected by ice. Behind it more guards piled into the room. All of them had metal grips attached to their boots. Apparently Malkin had done some planning.
One of them stepped around the huge grizzly. He had a large tank on his back and leveled a long tube in Ivore’s direction. A gout of flame leapt from the nozzle, billowing outward as it reached for him.
“Oh shit!” He reached for the floor and poured power into the ice, forming a wall between him and the flame. Fire met ice and the wall exploded under the sudden change. Ivore hurtled backward, plunging through the wall into a hidden corridor beyond.
So it was the back wall. I knew it.
He got to his feet, taking a spare second to build a stronger, thicker wall of ice in front of the hole before he took off, using his nose to follow her scent. Violet was here, and he was going to rescue her. Nothing would stand in the way of that.
“VIOLET!” he bellowed as the trail grew stronger.
Rounding a corner, he skidded to a halt. Wood paneling on his left, windows outside to some sort of courtyard he’d not noticed before on his right. Not much in the way of options.
A terrified-looking guard stood in the middle of the hallway, one thick arm wrapped around his mate’s neck, the other gripping the side of her head. “Stop right there or I’ll break her neck.”
Ivore knew he could do it. The man was a shifter. It wouldn’t be a challenge.
“Violet, darling, it’s going to be okay,” he said, raising his hands.
Behind him the bear came charging through the wall. Ivore had to think fast.
Violet’s eyes were dark with fear, more brown than gold, a sight that drove his dragon wild with fury. He was going to get her out of this and make sure that nothing ever caused his mate to look at him with eyes like that ever again. A line had been crossed, and Ivore was done playing nice.
“Get on your knees!” the guard shouted, the bear drawing nearer.
“Now you know I can’t do that,” he said, lowering his hands but keeping them out wide. “And you know if you do hurt her that you’re going to die within a second, right? You are aware of that? So why don’t you just let her go, and the two of us will leave, and you can live. I’ll even punch you in the face so you can tell your friends I knocked you out, and you won’t be in trouble.”
The guard hesitated. He wanted to accept the offer. So why wasn’t he? Ivore’s eyes shifted left as a second guard walked out of an open door he hadn’t even noticed, so focused was he on Violet.
“That won’t be happening.”
The bear finally rounded the corner. Ivore snarled. “Violet, darling, close your eye
s, okay? I’m sorry about this.”
Violet closed her eyes. The guard holding her opened his wider. “What are you sorry about?”
Ivore reached out, feeling the water in the air, the moisture. Although he was better with ice and snow, it was all essentially the same thing. In the end, water became ice. All it needed to do was freeze. And that’s just what Ivore did. He froze the air. Specifically all the air in the guards’ lungs and around their faces.
Both of them reached for their mouths in surprise as they could no longer breathe, skin turning blue swiftly. Ivore reached for Violet, grabbing her before she could fall.
“Question for you?” he asked as the bear came charging down the hallway at them.
“Now?” She looked over his shoulder at the bear. “What is it?”
“How are you with heights?”
“Heights? Wh—AHHH!” Her question turned into a scream as he hurled them out a window.
But they didn’t fall to their deaths as she might have thought. Instead, they began to slide, slowly at first, but accelerating quickly as their angle sharpened.
“What the hell is going on?” Violet screamed.
Ivore had to shout to be heard over the rushing of wind as they descended the stories swiftly to the ground. “Ice dragon, remember? Ice slide, baby. One of the first tricks I ever learned.” He laughed. “I never thought I’d ever actually use this in a serious situation though.”
He guided the track of ice into some gentle, sloping curves, slowing their descent as they banked around them, until eventually he could hop out onto the ground. The slide was strong, but even the bear wasn’t that dumb. He quickly shifted back into his human form before jumping after them.
“Violet, go hide in that corner and close your eyes, will you?” he said, pointing to one corner of the courtyard.
They were in the middle of the building, surrounded on all four sides by structure. Ivore knew it was time to end this. He closed his eyes, freed his animal, and in the blink of an eye his human form was gone. A huge beast bigger than a city bus took its place, slowly shaking gigantic membranous wings of snowy white.
