by Amelia Jade
Marie buried her head in her hands. “I’m so dumb. I should have taken that down when things started to get serious between us. I can’t believe I kept it up. Of course you were going to find it!”
He reached across the table, pulling her hands away. “You’re not dumb, Marie. He hurt you. Pain is understandable. Maybe you shouldn’t keep beating yourself up over it, though. That you don’t need to do. He sounds like an expert at this. It’s not your fault he fooled you.”
Marie didn’t pull her hand away. They were going to make it through this. He knew it now. Any earlier doubts he’d had about her not being his mate had been fueled by a centuries-old anger that, instead of harboring on his own, he could now let free by pretending he was enraged at how she had been treated. It wasn’t perfect, but it certainly helped.
It shamed him to think he’d acted so crassly toward his mate, and he knew he needed to do better. She was likely to be hesitant about jumping right back to how things had been, so he would have to keep a careful eye on her to ensure he didn’t push too much, too fast. But it could be salvaged.
Garath hadn’t lost his mate.
On top of that, he felt he knew a way to help her out. It would cost him a lot, but for Marie he would do anything.
Now all he needed to do was have a word with Colonel Mara. If anyone could find Liam, it was her.
“Do you want to go?” he asked calmly. “I’ll speak with Colonel Mara. I’m sure we can get you the rest of the day off.”
“Yes. I think we have some talking to do.”
“Me too.” He paused, halfway out of his chair. “I promise, Marie, never to jump to conclusions about you ever again. I will always ask questions before I get mad.”
“Good. And don’t you dare ever leave me without telling me again. Got it?”
She tried to sound stern, but he could hear the hurt she was trying to cover up. Walking around the edge of the desk, he swept her up into his arms. “I promise,” he whispered, holding her tight. “I’ll never leave you again. You have my word.”
And he meant it.
Chapter Eighteen
Marie
“I want to help.”
She looked down the couch at him. “Help with what?”
True to his word, he’d convinced Colonel Mara to allow her to leave work early, and the two of them had returned to her place. They’d gone straight to her basement and taken down the wall with Liam’s pictures on it. Marie explained the various shots she had, of the sightings she’d seen. Liam liked to be in the spotlight, so she knew it was only a matter of time before he turned up on one national broadcast or another. Television or newspapers were most likely, but in this age she wouldn’t put it past him to get on board with social media either.
Garath had been both impressed and a little weirded out by how thorough she’d been in her pursuit of him, but could Marie be faulted for that? He’d stolen something precious to her. It wasn’t just a car. It wasn’t just her father’s pride and joy. It was much, much more to her.
It was a memory. She could remember driving down the back roads as a child, her hair longer and lighter then, the locks flapping wildly in the wind. The top would be down, golden rays of summer sunshine beating down upon them, kissing her skin with a bronzed tint. Her father laughing and turning on the radio while they sang along to the classics from his childhood.
They were good memories, and something she’d continued to cherish as she got older. Her father knew this, and he’d ensured that the car was well taken care of even as he aged and couldn’t do it himself. All of that, all of the money, had been done so that one day she could have the car, and perhaps take her own kids out and give them similar memories.
That was what the car meant to her. That was what she’d lost when Liam had stolen it.
“I want to help find him, and your car.”
They were sitting on either end of the couch, a full seat between them. They’d forgiven each other, but cuddling wasn’t something she was interested in just yet. That would take a bit more time, for the moods and emotions to settle and dissipate. For now she was still ticked at him for disappearing. That didn’t just evaporate.
“That’s nice of you, but I don’t think he still has it. Odds are he rode around in it for a bit and then sold it to someone else. I’m not expecting to get the car back.”
Garath frowned. “Something tells me he doesn’t give up a treasure like that so easily.”
“A treasure?”
“Sure. It’s a classic car. One of only a few ever made, you said it yourself. That’s a treasure.”
It was a good coverup, but she didn’t think he’d meant it that way.
“I don’t want to raise that hope again. I accepted long ago that I would never get it back.”
In fact, she’d never accepted any such thing, always maintain a bit of hope in the back of her mind that maybe she would get beyond lucky and he would still have the car with him in storage somewhere perhaps, something like that. That was why she’d tried to search the military motor pools. It would be just like him to use the government to store his own stuff.
“We’ll see,” Garath said, but he didn’t elaborate.
She nodded, pulling her knees in to her chest as best she could around her thick stomach, trying not to lose herself in the blackness of despair that always came whenever she thought of the car.
“Hey,” he said softly, and slid across the couch. Thick arms wrapped around her, pulling her in to him.
Marie didn’t fight. It felt too good. He lifted her up easily into his lap, holding her tight to his chest where she could rest her head, hearing the thump-thump of his heart as it beat steady.
“It’s going to be okay. I promise you that, Marie. We’ll find him, then we’ll both get our revenge on him.”
Marie frowned into his chest. “What? What do you mean both?”
“Uh, yeah. You know, because he hurt you. And that makes me angry. So we’ll get our revenge on him for what he did to you.”
“I don’t think that’s what you meant.” She sat up, sliding off his lap and back onto the couch, sitting so she could face him. Steeling herself, she asked the next question. “Do you know Liam?”
He almost played it off. Everything about him remained neutral, except for his eyes. The gray of his irises did that darkening thing she’d seen before, where they became nearly black.
“Garath?”
He sighed. “I’m going to show you something, Marie. I want you to tell me if this means anything to you.”
“This isn’t where you take your pants off to try and seduce your way out of this, is it?”
“No.” A faint smile appeared for a few moments, but vanished just as quickly. “Not like that.”
He cupped a hand so that she couldn’t see, moving one finger over his palm. Then he turned it around to reveal to her what he’d drawn.
Marie couldn’t move. If Garath had a near-perfect poker face, hers was atrocious. There was absolutely no hiding the fact that it did, in fact, mean something.
Garath nodded. “I thought so.”
She didn’t understand. How could Garath know that drawing a dragon would mean something to her? Did he know that Liam was a dragon? Was he on file somewhere? Maybe that’s what Garath did; he was a special team working with the military to hunt Liam down? That would explain why he was at the base.
But it wouldn’t explain some other things that suddenly started adding up. Garath’s height. His build. His immense strength. She vividly recalled him lifting the Jeep over the cinderblock wall. A light went off in her head.
“No,” she whispered, sliding back across the couch. “No it can’t be. It’s not possible.” Her back hit the armrest, the space between the as big as possible without her getting up.
This wasn’t happening. Not to her. Not again.
Garath pleaded with her. “Marie.”
“You’re one of them?” she asked, aghast at the revelation. “Of course. How coul
d I not have noticed before?”
The answer came to her even as she asked the question. She hadn’t noticed because she didn’t want to notice. Accepting that Garath was a dragon would mean having to cut things off with him, and she didn’t want to do that.
But how could she trust another dragon after what the first one had done to her? She’d sworn off dragons, promising herself that if she somehow came to be more than friendly with another of the mystical, magical shapeshifting creatures, that she would immediately cut it off without hesitation. As nice as they might seem, Liam had seemed nice at first too.
It had all been there in front of her. His near-complete obliviousness to how the world around him worked. His strength, beautiful good looks and mass of muscles without apparent gym time. His stamina in the bedroom could have been written off to others, but now she understood all too well. It was born of centuries of sleeping with women, just like Liam had.
She laughed. “I can’t seem to get away from dragons. I get dumped by one, but I come after him for some reason. He doesn’t even have my car, but I couldn’t leave it alone. Then I find you, and you’re amazing, but you’re not what you say you are. You’re a dragon too! I must be fucking addicted or something.”
Her hysteria was growing. How many of these flying creatures could there possibly be out there? She’d thought Liam to be alone, but just in the past year she’d met two. Her mind was drawn to the hulking giant that followed Colonel Mara around, or some of the other similar men she’d seen on base over the past few months.
“How many of you are there?” she asked softly.
“Marie…”
“How many?”
“Um, there are seven of us that I know of. Eight if you include Liam.”
Eight. And she was right in the middle of two.
“Listen, Marie,” he tried again, but she wasn’t having it. Couldn’t have it. Not with another dragon. Not again.
“No.” She blinked back the tears. “Garath. I can’t. Not again. I trusted one of your kind once, and he played me for a fool, took me for everything I was worth. Now you expect me to just let you in so it can happen again? I’m not stupid, Garath. I know what your kind are like!”
He tried to protest but she shook her head. “You need to leave. Please.” She hated herself for being so nice. Dragons didn’t deserve her kindness. They didn’t deserve anything from her.
The next man she dated was going to be short, bald, and pudgy. That way he definitely wouldn’t be a dragon. End of story.
Garath paused halfway to the door, turning back. “Marie, I can explain.”
“Maybe you can. But right now, Garath, I need to clear my head. To think without you using your dragon charms on me.”
He snorted. “Those are not an actual thing. I do not have powers of seduction. Those aren’t dragon powers. Whoever told you that was lying.”
“Really? Have you looked in a mirror? I’m talking about this.” She drew a circle in the air around his face. “And those.” Pointing at his muscles. “And those.” More muscle pointing. “Your dreamy looks, broad shoulders, and unfairly tight ass. Those are your charms. I can’t focus with them around me. Please, just go. I…I can’t think right now, and I have a lot of thinking to do.”
Garath looked ready to argue his case some more. He was stubborn and persuasive, but she wasn’t going to let him get the best of her. Already wary from earlier, it wasn’t too difficult to stay focused until he gave up and left, leaving her alone.
A few minutes later Chip came out of the bedroom where he liked to mess up the covers after she left for the day. He jumped up on the couch and nuzzled right into her, his big eyes asking if anything was wrong.
“Good boy,” she said, wanting to ensure he didn’t think he was in trouble. “What a good boy.”
She snuggled down into the couch and cuddled with her dog, trying to unwind the situation. Her life was in shambles, and she didn’t know where to go from here. Everything was growing more complicated, and it made her want to throw up her hands and quit. Just pack up and leave town, leaving it all behind.
Marie knew she had it in her to do it. It’s what she’d done after the aborted wedding. The humiliation was too much for her to handle so she’d fled, leaving it all behind. Maybe one day she’d return to her hometown. Maybe she wouldn’t. For now she needed to decide what do about Garath.
He was a dragon. That should tell her everything about him, shouldn’t it? Dragons were not to be trusted. Isn’t that what she’d learned after Liam? That they looked pretty, but were dangerous? Like the Venus flytrap, gorgeous to look at, but would suck her dry if she stayed too long.
And she’d stayed too long with Liam. Now she was dangerously close to doing the same thing with Garath.
Chapter Nineteen
Garath
“How did things go with your mate?”
“Poorly.” He didn’t bother to hide his disgust.
How could he have been so stupid? It didn’t matter that Marie couldn’t see that he was different from other dragons, that he wasn’t going to leave her. It was his fault for slipping up. And so soon after he’d told himself he couldn’t afford to! It was like he’d jinxed himself by even thinking it, dooming himself to wreck things between them just as they were patching them back up.
He hoped Marie would eventually come around, that she would realize what they had was different than anything between her and Liam. It left him irate that the other dragon had tricked his mate into sleeping with him. When he caught up to the silver dragon, he was going to kill him. It would be that simple. He was done with words. All that remained now was to see it through.
“Well, all is not lost.”
“Right.” He glared. Colonel Mara could sit in her chair and act smug as much as she wanted, but he saw through her act. He’d heard about how she’d maneuvered the other dragons while they tried to win their mates. Like a fairy godmother she’d pulled the strings emotionlessly, doing whatever was necessary to get the dragons to fight for her.
Well, it wasn’t going to work with him. He’d seen it coming, and he was ready for it now. He wasn’t going to deal with other dragons, and that was final. He was going to find Liam and kill him. Then he was going to find Marie’s car, and the two of them were going to drive off into the country in it, leaving Colonel Mara, the other dragons, the portal, and the Outsiders behind.
End of story.
“I’m serious. There’s hope for you yet.”
“Speak plainly, human.”
Kallore wasn’t there to protect her, and Garath wasn’t in the mood to be taunted with the “I know something you don’t know” routine that the colonel was currently trying to put on.
“God you’re no fun.”
“This isn’t a game, Colonel,” he said icily. “Some of us have real emotions invested in this, not just the price for admission and popcorn.”
“I have the entire fate of the world invested in this, if you want to drill down to it. So don’t give me your whiny little story. Boo-hoo, you fucked things up with your mate and you’re sad you can’t fix it right away. Well guess what, shithead, if I fuck up, the world dies. We all die. So, let’s go. Do you want to compare who has more invested in this?”
It was the first time Colonel Mara had revealed to him the barest hint of her true emotions. She’d always been strong and ready to take on any challenge, but for a brief moment, he saw beyond that. Beyond the walls of forged steel she kept up around her inner core. This, he realized, this was what Kallore saw in her. The inner strength that kept her going despite the literal weight of the world’s population resting upon her small shoulders.
There was no shame in admitting she had more going on. “My mistake. It was inappropriate of me.”
“Forget it. It’s over. Here.” She shoved a folder at him with no name on it.
“What’s this?”
“Open it and find out.”
He slid the manila folder open. The first page w
as a picture of Liam. He turned the page. It was more. There was information. Locations. Dates. Times. He compared them, and realized that as he turned the page they were getting closer to the present date.
“You found him.” It was obvious. The military was quite adept at that. “Where is he?”
Colonel Mara shook her head. “It’s not that easy.”
He snarled and slammed both hands onto the table, leaning over it angrily. “You will tell me where he is.”
“Or what?” she challenged, completely unafraid. “You’ll hurt me? Kallore and everyone else would rip you to shreds before the day is out. Hell, you wouldn’t make it out of the base before the Steel Scales brought you down. Trust me, they’re badasses.”
Garath flexed, but he knew it was an empty threat. She was right. There was nothing he could do to intimidate her. This woman worked around dragons regularly, and always emerged victorious. Now he was beginning to see why. She was ruthless. She had to be. The world demanded it from her. Who was he to think about that sort of self-sacrifice?
“What do you want from me?”
“You.”
“I am Marie’s. No other woman shall have me.” He didn’t even mention how Kallore would react.
Colonel Mara rolled her eyes, frustrated. “Not like that.”
“Then how?”
“Your dragon. I want you to fight with us. Join the Steel Scales. They could use you.”
“No. I won’t work with other dragons.”
“Goddammit, Garath! You need to get over this image you have of every dragon being an asshole! I don’t know what happened to you, but you need to accept this and move on. Stop putting every dragon into the same mold. You want the location, you sign up. Plain and simple.” She sat back, her eyes flat. “I think your mate might appreciate knowing where he is.”
It was a low blow. She knew it. He knew it. Bringing Marie into it was an asshole move. Even more so because it would work. Garath couldn’t deny that being able to bring Liam to justice for what he’d done to her, and perhaps even finding her car, would help put some closure on her past. Maybe it would even give him the chance needed to patch things up with Marie and move on, so she could see that not all dragons were assholes.
