by J. K Harper
Despite his inner anguish and rage, exacerbated by the sense of his thoroughly demoralized dragon lurking somewhere in the shadowed corners of his mind, Kai couldn't prevent an instinctive flare of protectiveness. "Why do you need to know her name?"
To his surprise, the sympathy in his brother's eyes intensified. "Because," Eli said in a softer voice, "the way you just answered my question tells me that the theory was right."
Annoyed now, Kai snapped, "What theory? And her name," he ground out, "is Gabi. Gabriela. Now tell me what in the hell you're talking about."
Stalking over to the open windows that led to the balcony outside the gym that overlooked the ocean, Kai stood in front of them to let the ocean breeze caress his face. Even just saying her name was painful.
"Because," his brother said, stepping beside him to also regard the ocean, "there's a very good reason that she was the one who somehow managed to break the death spell."
"I know that!" Kai roared, clenching his fists at his sides. Apparently, destroying two punching bags still wasn't enough to soothe the turmoil he so desperately wished he could replace again with the numbness that had been his friend for the last several years. Inside, his dragon stirred in the shadows, rumbling. "That's what I was trying to figure out. Why she could break it. How.” He slammed one hand into the palm of his other, still gripped by frustration. “Obviously, she was working with whichever dragons wanted to steal the gold. They somehow figured it out, got her close to it, and had her break the spell. It's the only explanation, even if I don't fully understand it yet."
More firmly, his brother said, "No. That's not the only explanation. We think," and by that, Kai knew he meant the entire family, "she wasn't a willing partner in this. I think it was at least partially a coincidence. Also, that she was used. Your Gabi."
Kai barked out a laugh as he watched the waves roll onto the beach, draw back, then roll back in. A seagull made a hoarse call as it flew several hundred yards down the beach. "You're talking in circles. Spit it out."
With a thoroughly exasperated sound, Eli grabbed Kai's shoulder closest to him and half spun, half pushed his brother around so that Kai was looking at him. Automatically, his fists clenched again. To his surprise, though, his brother didn't rise to it as he normally would have. Instead, though his expression was still annoyed, something in his eyes stirred with so much sympathy that Kai's mind stumbled over itself. Inside, his dragon quietly roared again. But not in confusion, like Kai.
In despair, frustration, longing.
Longing for the woman he had claimed as his own.
"That," his brother said, gently jabbing a finger at Kai's chest, "is exactly what I'm talking about. I can see your dragon right now. He's close to the surface. Our esteemed mother, who is right in all things," the corner of his mouth lifted in a long-suffering grin, which Kai couldn't help but answer with a snort of agreement, as they both along with their other siblings bore the brunt of their mother's unerring rightness about the world and each of their paths in it during their entire lifetimes, "had a hunch. Apparently the information they discovered while they're up in San Francisco has confirmed that."
Their parents had traveled to the Bay Area, checking leads as to who had taken Kai's treasure, while his other brothers were spread out in Southern California following similar leads. Kai had been too enraged, despairing, and, he angrily admitted, feeling bitterly wounded by the machination of the theft of all his gold and Gabi's role in that to want to help. He'd refused to do anything but stay here in his home, beating the hell out of his gym as he tried to find that numb center. He knew perfectly well that Eli had been assigned to keep an eye on him.
After another long stretch of silence, he wrenched away from Eli and threw up his hands. "Tell me, dammit. What was her hunch?"
Eli kept his gaze steadily on Kai's as he responded in a quiet voice. "As it turns out, Kai, she is your mate. Gabi. That's how she was able to break the death spell. It was designed to break automatically when you once again found a mate." Though the words were direct, the tone was still filled with bottomless understanding and compassion. Very gently, he added, “Or when your mate happened to find your hoard.”
Kai forced himself to stand still as a thousand things suddenly seemed to swirl around at once. His dragon roared again, and again, each time more strongly and with conviction. Thoughts crashed around in his mind as he tried to put all the pieces together. Hope, that damned stupid little emotion, flung itself wildly at the fortress he'd built with relentless intensity.
His mate. Gabi was his mate. Logically, it made complete sense. Yet...
"Impossible," he said in the most dismissive tone he could muster to mask everything whirling around inside of him that threatened to break free and shatter all that had been holding him together for the last several years. "I would have known. Dragons always know when they meet their mates. I knew when I met mine. She died. That was all." He bit out the words.
His brother nodded, never looking away from Kai. "That's true. Except, however, in cases where a dragon has convinced himself that he can never again have a mate. Except in cases where a dragon has convinced himself that the potential pain of losing another mate is not worth it. Except," Eli's eyes bored into Kai's, "in your case. That woman is your mate. Looking at you right now, I can tell she is. You're not angry just about the gold, Kai. You're angry because you think she betrayed you."
"She did betray me!" The words exploded out of Kai with such force that they ended on the bellow of his dragon strongly trying to come out of him in his human form. The green of his dragon's eyes were probably overtaking his. He saw his brother's eyes respond in kind in automatic reaction to the threat of another dragon bursting out from the human side's control. But his brother, the steadfast, responsible, always-in-control older brother of the family, held his ground. "Kai, she's your mate."
Kai's dragon boomed and roared inside him, demanding to be let out. Kai could actually feel his wilder form pushing at him below the surface, as if the sharp ridges of his spine were about to come pushing out of his human skin. He struggled to control it, shocked by the tumult within him. Desperate, he jumped on the only thing that would keep him focused. Anger. "She is not my mate! That's impossible."
Not backing down an inch, his brother countered, "Of course it's possible. Why couldn't it be possible?"
Half blind from the struggle to keep everything in check, Kai shouted, "Because my mate died! My mate died, and I cannot have another."
The heartrending truth of those words ricocheted around the room. Oddly, though, their impact didn't shred Kai as he'd feared they would.
Stepping closer to Kai, the green flecks of his own dragon's eyes brightening, Eli shot back, "Then why are you so angry at this Gabriela? Why did you care so much about what you perceived as her part in the theft of your gold?"
"Because I love her!"
Kai's bellow rang around the room, seeming to shatter the very air as he stared with shock into the pleased, nodding face of his brother. Eli at least had the grace to not say anything more as he watched Kai grapple with the truth of what he'd just said.
He loved her. He loved Gabi.
Because she was his mate.
Even if she weren't, he knew with every molecule rushing and zipping inside his body that he would love her anyway.
Love. Just the word itself sent a bizarrely calming effect through him. His dragon still rumbled beneath the surface, but it was now based more in satisfaction and acceptance. He loved her. That was why it hurt so badly to know that she had betrayed him.
Dazed, he said it again. “I love her. Oh.” The truth of that statement smacked him like a thunder clap.
Then the other implications stemming from that realization flashed through his mind just as quickly.
"They used her. The dragons who stole the hoard used her to get close to it." His voice went flat. Dangerously quiet. Turning his head, he looked out at the deep, wild blue of the ocean, which beckoned to hi
m as she always did. He listened for the faint call of his gold, but there was still no answer. All the truths washed over him, leaving him with a clear vision that he abruptly realized he'd been lacking for years now. For all the years since his mate had died.
His first mate.
Yes. This made sense. As he stood there, letting his mind tick over everything in this new, cool reflection of all the recent events, it made every bit of sense. His first mate, Leilani—even as he consciously thought her name to himself, he realized with a slight jolt that it was not accompanied by the jagged snap of pain to which he had simply responded by freezing it out—her last thought had been of him. Her very last, utterly selfless act had been for him.
Death spells were not always consciously set. The death spell happened when a dragon died very close to his or her gold hoard. The last thoughts of the dying dragon became inextricably bound up into the spell that protected the gold.
In her last moments, protecting their mingled gold hoard against the very same sort of evil, lazy dragons who tried to steal treasure from other dragons, her thoughts had been of Kai. She must have known she was dying, and had known what that would do to him. Her last thoughts had been that he would once again find true love. That he would once again find a mate.
Kai swallowed hard, staring out over the ocean. Yes, Gabi had been searching for his treasure for her own ends. Yet her coming across it had broken the death spell unbeknownst to both her and him. The dragon treasure hunters she already had been mixed up with could not possibly have known anything about the specifics of the death spell. No one could possibly have known.
No, his brother was right. Different characters and ambitions had all clattered up against one another upon the discovery of the Santa Maria and the ancient treasures she held, setting into motion a chain of events that ended up here. Now.
A chain of events that had brought Kai a gift such as one he never believed he would again have.
A new mate.
Gabi. The true mate, he realized in the incredible bubble of clarity that still surrounded him, of his heart and soul.
The mate from which he had walked away, convinced she was only out to hurt him for her own gain. To raise her own star on her career path, to elevate her cachet in the eyes of her peers, and, most importantly, to save her grandmother. But even the short time he had spent with Gabi told him she was honest and forthright. She was utterly passionate about her work.
She had only betrayed her own personal values in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to save someone she loved. It was not her fault that through her actions she had unwittingly stumbled into the vile schemes already in place by others far more devious, and deadly, than she. Kai would have made the same desperate sort of choices if his back had been up against the wall. Anything to save those he loved.
He could understand that.
Kai had been a fool. An utterly blind fool. He had allowed the years of freezing out the world to shield himself against the massive pain of the loss of his first mate to also freeze out his ability to comprehend anything beyond that self-absorbed pain.
He turned back to look at his brother, who still gazed at him silently with that mix of compassionate yet knowing understanding on his face. "You've been pissed at me all these years because I wouldn't get my head out of my own ass and start living again, haven't you.” Kai made it a flat statement rather than a question. “It wasn't that you really wanted to have a bigger hand in the business again. It was that you saw me floundering, and nothing you did, nothing any of you tried to do, helped."
His brother nodded. "I'm your all-knowing older brother," Eli said, deadpan. "Why on earth would you ever have listened to me?"
Despite himself, Kai snorted a bit.
"So," Eli said, rocking back a bit on his heels as he gave Kai a questioning look. "Now that you figured all that out, what's your next move?"
Kai's thoughts still clicked along with a clarity as deep and wide as the ocean.
"I need to go find my mate and abjectly apologize to her," he said simply, shrugging with total acceptance of the truth. “Then just hope she forgives me.” His voice hardened. "Before I can do that, though, I need to go find those thieving dragons and kick some ass to get my treasure back. Get my full power back. You in?"
Eli's smile turned into something dangerous. "Absolutely, brother of mine. That was the other thing I wanted to tell you," he said, his voice tipping toward the lower registers as his own dragon surfaced, making the jade lights in his eyes brighten even more. "We wanted to make sure you first understood what Gabi was to you. Then, we wanted to tell you some more good news. We know exactly who took your gold, and exactly where it is. So.” He jerked his head towards the open doors leading outside. “You ready to go get it back?"
Kai was already heading for the door. "Hell, yeah. Kick their ass, get my gold, then go find my mate. That last part, though," he added over his shoulder as he took the stairs from his balcony down to the beach two at time, his brother at his heels, "I can handle on my own."
"I should hope so," Eli muttered.
Kai just laughed as they burst out into the sunlight, heading straight for the water to streak hard north in their dragon forms and kick some major ass.
17
The fan blew with desultory effort in the middle of the living room, doing little more than to stir around the oppressively hot air. Southern California was gripped by a heat wave the likes of which hadn't been seen in well over a decade.
"It's fine, corazon. Leave it. The heat's not that bad."
Gabi aimed a vicious glare at the broken air conditioner set in one window of the room. It had fizzled to a stop shortly after dinner last night, leaving the house hot and uncomfortable until the unspecified time this morning the cheapest repair guy she'd been able to find would be able to get here. She glanced at the clock on the wall as she pulled her hair away from her sweat-sticky neck. Already past 11am. She'd called twice this morning, but the guy said he was running around town fixing other broken units. They would just have to wait their turn.
Pasting on a smile as she glanced at her grandmother, trying to conceal her concern, Gabi tried cajoling her yet again. "Mateo's place has air-conditioning, so does mine. You know it won't take long to get—"
Her grandmother, stubborn as anyone in the family, held her slightly trembling hand up toward Gabi. "The repair company said they will be here soon. They will. We just have to wait. Stop worrying about me."
Gabi turned away and headed toward the kitchen to pour them each another glass of iced lemonade, shoving a sweaty hank of hair off her face as she went. She also needed to hide what she knew was her troubled expression.
Abuela was dying. Gabi knew it, her grandmother knew it, everyone in the family knew it. Oh, it wasn't going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, or likely even the next month. But they had exhausted their options for treatment, and all she was getting now was what her insurance still covered. Which, frankly, just wasn't enough.
Gabi had nothing left to offer but hope in an attempt to keep her own spirits up as much as she could for her grandmother.
She only broke down when she was alone. She couldn't afford to show anyone the complete failure she felt like.
Everson had fired her the same morning she and Shane had realized that the Santa Maria had been ransacked of her treasure. Gabi may have made a horrifically stupid bargain with the devil that was UTEI, and she may not have mentioned it to anyone, but never in her life had she been an outright liar and she wasn't about to start then. She'd called Everson and told him everything straight up, trying her hardest to keep her voice from shaking as the memory of Kai's flat, dead eyes still haunted her.
She knew Everson had been almost overwhelmed by his disappointment in her. He told her he would still write her a good recommendation when she started looking for another job, but he would also tell the truth about why she had been let go from the most prestigious university in the state, not to mention what was by far th
e most prestigious underwater archaeological team in the country.
Gabi knew that her chances of being hired in a reputable academic setting ever again were zero to nil. Her only options would be community colleges, the thought of which made her cringe since that would be boring classroom-only time. Or, of course, finding work with a commercial treasure hunting operation like UTEI. Places like that tended not to care about someone's tarnished academic history. They just cared about getting employees who could deliver on the job.
The funny thing was, no one seemed able to get ahold of UTEI. She'd been certain that the news would be trumpeted around the world about UTEI's "discovery" of the century. Despite checking every news outlet possible for the next several weeks, she heard not a single whisper. Nothing. And each time she tried to called UTEI, no one ever answered.
Slowly, she realized they had not been the treasure hunting corporation she had believed. They had no intention of ever putting any of the gold on public display. Clearly, they had acquired the Santa Maria's treasure—Kai's treasure—for a wealthy private collector with no intention of letting anyone in the world ever see the gold again. They'd apparently delivered on that end, and seemed to have deliberately fallen off the radar.
That realization had sunk her more soundly than the ship itself.
Worse, she strongly suspected they had some sort of tie with the so-called “bad” dragons of the world. Her UTEI contact was a dragon shifter, she was certain. Her reaction to his presence had told her he was not a nice one, either. The whole situation, she'd realized over the weeks since everything had happened and she'd had plenty of time to think about it from every possible angle, had been some sort of elaborate set-up.
She'd somehow played right into their greedy hands.
Gabi poured the lemonades for herself and abuela, brought them back out to the living room, then returned to the quiet, dull motions of her morning. The repairman arrived. He fixed the air conditioning, charmingly flirted in Spanish with her grandmother, who seemed to love it, and cut them a deal because, as he said, her grandmother was the prettiest lady he'd seen all year, which caused more blushing. Gabi couldn't help but smile at that, even as she had her worry spike again when after the man left her grandmother went to an enormous coughing fit that she clearly had been holding in the whole time he was there. Hiding her fear, Gabi simply brought some water and re-fluffed the pillows behind abuela's back rather than saying anything more.
