Dragon Devotion

by Amelia Jade

  How far she would have let things escalate remained a mystery to her, because the boundaries had never been pushed. They had barely been leaned upon. He was a fantastic kisser, and she could still feel the faint burn from where his lips had touched her, but that was where it had started and ended.

  What was so wrong with her that he hadn’t wanted to continue? Harlow couldn’t help but assume that it was something about her. Maybe she wasn’t up to his level when it came to kissing, or even worse, perhaps her breath stank.

  The cab approached, her mind filling with all sorts of things she’d done wrong that had dissuaded Vanek from trying to be more intimate with her. She got in and told the driver where to go, her back thudding into the seat as she half-sulked. He’d barely kissed her goodnight, a chaste thing suitable to friends.

  Was that it then? After kissing her had he decided he just wanted to be friends? On the ride home her head began to pound with a dull aching thud as it ran in circles trying to figure Vanek out.

  Chapter Eight

  Vanek

  “Vanek!”

  At last it registered to him that whoever had been calling his name had been repeating it for some time now.

  “What?”

  Corde came up to him, eyes of steely gray filled with concern. “You okay? What the hell was that all about? We’re supposed to be out here looking for an Outsider together, man. Together. How am I supposed to trust you if you just stop? You’re supposed to have my back!”

  They spoke in low, hushed tones, trying not to draw too much attention to themselves. Neither was much concerned about the locals, despite the seedy-looking nature of the part of town in which they now walked. Their size and body language meant that everyone gave them a wide berth.

  No, it was what they hunted that had Corde on edge. It should have Vanek on high alert as well, but his mind continued to wander.

  “Sorry. I’m good,” he said, trying to shrug it off.

  “No you aren’t. Spill. Did something happen with your mate?” Corde was facing him, standing slightly to the side so that they could watch each other’s back with ease.

  Vanek pushed his hair back over his shoulders, wondering not for the first time if he should cut it. It was a new age, after all, a new time. He needed to leave the past in the past eventually. But a part of him, no matter how hard he tried, couldn’t bring himself to do it, to sever the link with his old crew.

  “No, nothing happened with her. Everything is fine there,” he reassured his friend. “We had our first kiss earlier tonight.”

  “Where is the problem then? Your mind is elsewhere, comrade, and I need it here, with me. These things are no joke to fight.”

  Vanek grimaced unhappily, his eyes constantly scanning the street in front of him for threats or danger. “I know. That’s what’s got me distracted.”

  “Huh?”

  “This whole bullshit about putting us back to sleep, Corde.” He looked at his friend, trying to hide the pain and fear in his eyes. Fear that he wouldn’t be good enough. Again. “If I can’t kill one of these things, then they’re going to do it. They’ll put us all back under.” He snarled, a silent, visible gesture of the frustration building in him. “I can’t let them rip you and Kylie apart, or Elin and Kallore. I will not have that on my conscience as well.”

  He saw Corde’s eyes narrow at his last words, and abruptly looked away, unwilling to discuss it further. Not here. Not now.

  “Vanek,” Corde said sternly. “You need to realize something.”

  “What’s that?” His eyes resumed looking out for a danger they’d been unable to find.

  The pair of them had even gone looking for it. Almost every night since Corde had recovered they’d been out patrolling the streets, searching everywhere for any signs of the Outsider. Elin had kept an ear on the hospitals in town, in case any reports of people coming in who had simply "died" for no apparent reason showed up, but again, nothing had come of it.

  Everything they had done had been fruitless. How was he supposed to kill something they couldn’t find!

  “You’re not alone in this.”

  The words caught his attention, dragging his focus over to his friend though he fought it tooth and nail the whole way. Corde too had stopped looking at the street, and was once more looking at him.

  “We could just run off,” Corde said after a moment. “The six of us. Just up and go.”

  “Kallore would never do that. Elin wouldn’t leave. He’d stay with her.”

  “Probably. The four of us though, we could disappear. Kallore is content living on the base with her. He doesn’t need treasure. They’d probably let him stay.”

  Vanek smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder. “They’d never let us go, Corde. Ever. You have to know that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re too strong. Too powerful. They can’t let something like us go free. They’d hunt us down, and either kill us or use our mates as blackmail.”

  Corde’s face twisted into an angry visage as he acknowledged the truth of their situation. They were stuck. The military had freed them, and now it was threatening to imprison them once more, after they’d found what they’d always lacked in their previous lives.

  “Even if we do find this thing,” Corde said, resuming his lookout, “we still don’t know how to beat it. After I realized that I could draw power from the knowledge that Kylie cared about me, I thought I had it. But even that wasn’t enough to kill it.”

  Vanek pursed his lips in thought. Whatever the Outsiders were, they were getting stronger with each confrontation. He had a theory that this was, in fact, the same Outsider. The other dragons shared his thoughts on it, though the military disagreed. They didn’t think it could have healed so quickly, even though they had firsthand evidence of how fast the dragons could heal.

  “It’s changing tactics too,” he said. “First it came at Kallore, trying to kill him right away. But with you, it blended in, adapted, learned our ways. It tried to use other humans to do its dirty work, since it knew you would have a hard time killing them.”

  Corde snorted, the sound loud in the quiet night air. “Not bloody likely. I only restrained myself because Kylie was insistent that I not use violence. I did it for her, not by my own moral code or anything.”

  Vanek smiled. He’d heard about that challenge, and hoped that if it ever came down to it, Harlow would let him do what he felt was necessary. He would honor her request not to kill anyone, but he’d seen the way she cursed at her float and hit it when it didn’t obey her desires. After seeing that, part of him wondered if she would get to it first. The girl might have a bit of a temper.

  “I feel like there’s something we’re missing about fighting these things. Something that we don’t quite yet understand. It’s there, at the back of my brain, I can feel it. It just won’t come out for me to understand.”

  Corde just shrugged. “I hope you figure it out. I really don’t want to go back to sleep. This world is messed up, but there’s also a certain attitude to it that I like. There’s a big drive for life here—everything is just so vivid and real compared to…well, before.”

  “It’ll come to me.” I hope. There’s not that long left. Just a little over a week until the deadline.

  The time was swiftly counting down. Vanek hoped he hadn’t just lied to his friend, acting like it was going to all be okay, when in reality it was about to come crashing down around them.

  Going through that again just wasn’t an option. He couldn’t lose this team. They needed a leader, and they looked to him for that. Vanek wanted to be that person, the one they could come to for advice, who would lead them into and through glorious battle alive when the day came and the Outsiders arrived in force.

  “Come on,” he said, taking charge once more. “Let’s complete our route and get back home. I’ve got some research to do before I go to the warehouse tomorrow.”

  Corde shook his head and smiled as he flicked his hair o
ut of his face with a twitch of his head and resumed his jog. “You’re still doing that?”

  “Of course. It needs to be fixed. We haven’t even started the woodwork of the inner box or the engine repair either. Plus we still need to clean up and detach the massive wire frame of the statue that was attached to it. Lots to do, my friend. Lots to do. Let’s go.”

  They set off into the night, heads moving left and right as they scouted out yet another section of the city, looking for clues, any clues, about the creature's whereabouts. It was still close, he could feel it in his bones, human and dragon.

  But where?

  Vanek swallowed nervously. He hoped they could find it in time.

  He didn’t want to lose Harlow.

  Chapter Nine

  Harlow

  She flicked on the lights in the warehouse, whistling a tune as she headed over to the workbench they’d set up for the tools and spare parts. Using her cell phone light, she found the plug and bright lights flared to life nearby.

  The overhead ones would take almost ten minutes before they were fully bright, and she didn’t feel like waiting around for them in the dark. Hands on her hips, she surveyed the wreck of the lead float. It didn’t look as bad as it did, but they still had a lot of work to do. Vanek was an excellent help, but too often they got distracted with talking to each other, and they’d accomplished far less than she’d hoped by this point.

  Frustrated at the mess that still sat half on the float, she grabbed a pair of wire cutters and started attacking the wire-frame structure. She separated it from the float strand by strand, careful to stay clear of any that were under high tension, coming back after she’d released some of it from elsewhere. Slowly but surely the entire thing sagged to the floor, and eventually she was able to tug it somewhat clear of the float.

  Huffing and puffing she took a break, glancing at her phone.

  “That’s odd.” More time had passed than it had felt, and it was far later than Vanek normally showed up.

  She started to think about texting him, wondering if he was okay, or if he wasn’t coming in today. They’d not actually discussed it at dinner the night before, but he’d been there every day before without telling her, and she’d just sort of assumed that would continue. Had she been wrong?

  Maybe things were worse between them than she’d thought. Had his lack of further attempts at intimacy with her the night before translate into him not coming to help anymore either? She sure hoped not. His help had been invaluable, and was the only thing that was likely to see her bring her company back up to its full complement of six floats.

  That, and she wanted to kiss him some more. After going home she’d spent the night alone, tossing and turning on her bed with thoughts of him in her mind until she’d finally had enough. Giving in to the desires of her body, she’d slipped a hand under the waistband of her pajamas, images of Vanek shirtless as he sweat and worked on the float with her running through her head.

  Even now she felt her throat constrict at the intensity of her memory of the results of all that.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  She jumped as his voice sounded from her elbow.

  “What the hell have I said about sneaking up on me?!”

  He winced. “Sorry. At least I didn’t do it in the dark?”

  “You better have something really special planned for afterward if you do that,” she said. “I didn’t think you were coming today.”

  Vanek eyed her progress, and then went over and hauled the mass of wires fully clear of the float without a word. She followed him over, trying to figure out what was going on between them.

  “I didn’t mean to be late. Sometimes life has other plans though, you know?” he said, his voice strained, though she was sure he intended for it to come off lighthearted.

  Harlow glanced at the ruined float slowly coming back to life. “As a matter of fact, I happen to know exactly what you mean by that. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  It was a lie. The first one she’d ever heard him tell her. That you picked up on at least.

  She put the wire cutters down and crossed her arms. “I had fun last night,” she said, hoping that might broach the topic of why he was acting so strange around her.

  “You did?” Vanek perked up slightly at that, his face relaxing as he faced her.

  Harlow watched his features, the soft tanned lines in his forehead diminishing as he looked at her. His thick brows were still knotted together somewhat, concern and what looked like frustration evident in them. Trying to look into his eyes to understand was a failed experiment. She’d done that right away but the normally reddish-orange-tinged chestnut irises were cloudy and unreadable.

  She noticed that he’d pulled his hair back today, tying it off so that it stayed mostly clear of his shoulders and side of his face. It was a new look, but she liked it. The black mane was thick and exotic to her, but she couldn’t understand how it hanging down didn’t drive him crazy. It was why she kept hers so short; it was easy to keep out of the way with a single bobby pin. Two if it was being unruly.

  “I did.”

  “Me too,” he said, cracking the first smile she’d seen from him today.

  That was it. He wasn’t smiling. Before Vanek had been all smiles, laughter and jokes. Full of life and a vitality that had been sucked from her at some point without her noticing. It was what she liked most about him. He was just so exuberant and happy to be alive. Not today, though. Today he was somber and almost depressed.

  Harlow wanted to find out who was responsible for this and have a word with them. How dare they treat him so poorly he was unhappy and morose! Vanek was too good of a person to suffer that sort of mistreatment, and she immediately hated whoever it was that had put him in a funk.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” she said meekly. “I…wasn’t sure.”

  Vanek looked away. The lighting was dimmer on this side of the float, away from her workbench, but Harlow was almost positive she could see his skin flush a slightly darker shade, starting in his neck and reaching up to his face.

  “I promised you good food and laughter,” he said with a stubbornness that caught her off guard. “That was my word to you. I broke that word, and I’m sorry for crossing that line with you.” He spoke to her, though his mouth was aimed away.

  “What? Vanek, what the hell are you talking about?” she asked, stepping around until they were facing each other once more. “Do you think I’m mad?”

  “It would be your right. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

  Harlow tried not to laugh in his face. She tried very, very hard. It was impossible though, and she couldn’t quite hold it in. “Oh Vanek. You are like a man stuck out of time. Too noble and honest for us.”

  She reached up and grabbed his strong chin, the stubble prickling her hands as she forced him to meet her eyes.

  “You aren't mad?”

  “No. Vanek, I’m my own woman. If I didn’t want that to happen, it wouldn’t have happened.” She looked skyward. “For heaven’s sake, have you seen yourself in a mirror? You’re gorgeous. Who wouldn’t want to be kissed by you?”

  “I don’t know, but if they aren’t you, I don’t care,” he rumbled.

  “Well, I’m one of them. Not just because of that of course. You’re kind, charming, smart. Let’s just say that there are plenty of reasons I’d be okay with kissing you. Or being kissed by you.”

  The big man seemed to straighten, as if she’d lifted an enormous load from his shoulders.

  “You’re sure you were okay with it?”

  “Positive!” she said. “I was more surprised that you didn’t do it again. I was thinking that I’d done something wrong, or that maybe you had decided you didn’t like kissing me.” She clamped her mouth shut just before she started babbling, biting her lip so as not to say more.

  “Oh.” He looked away for a moment, then looked back at her, some of the fog but not all disappearing from his eyes. “I scr
ewed that one up, didn’t I?”

  She giggled and touched his arm. “Maybe, but you can still fix it. Starting by telling me what’s going on.”

  The big man sighed heavily. He looked around the warehouse, gathering his thoughts. “It’s this thing at work. A big deadline that I have, and it’s getting really close. And I am not having any luck with the project.”

  “You have a job?”

  In hindsight it wasn’t the smartest question. It just sort of slipped out. Of course he had a job. How else did he afford everything? The admission of it just caught her by surprise, since not once since they’d met had he ever discussed work, or his job, or anything like that. She’d just sort of assumed…hell, she hadn’t. Harlow had been so grateful for help with her own work that she’d never questioned his.

  “Yes, I have a job,” he replied, sticking his tongue out playfully.

  “It’s just…you’re never busy during the days. What do you do?”

  “I am sometimes,” he admitted. “It’s more of a freelance thing. It’s tough to explain.”

  Harlow wasn’t having any of it. “Why are you dancing around the question? Do you do something illegal? Are you a mob boss? That would totally fit. I could see that now. Don Vanek,” she said with her best accent. “The shipment is late. What? Yeah, I had Vinny ‘dealt with.’ We won’t be making that mistake again.”

  By the time she was done Vanek was holding his sides with laughter at her impression.

  “No, I’m not part of organized crime,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Almost the opposite, actually.”

  Harlow’s stomach tightened at that admission.

  “You work with the police?” That wouldn’t be so bad. She could work with that. Probably.

  “The military, actually. We’re trying to locate something, but I’m not having a lot of luck.” He shrugged. “It’s all kind of top secret. You know what that’s like, right?”

  But Harlow barely heard him. “Yeah,” she said dryly. “Yeah I know what it’s like.”