by Amelia Jade
“I should be furious at you.” She crossed her arms. “I am furious at you. But…I don’t hate you.”
“I can make this right,” he assured her.
“You came here to do just that, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Everett threatened your life if I didn’t give him the backup data.” He blew out air between his lips. “It was him, you know. That mystery person I thought worked in the lab, and then the person who broke into my house that day? That was him.”
“Was he the one who trashed the lab as well?”
“I would assume so. Maybe some of his goons, but I’d bet it was Everett.”
Michelle bit her lip. “So, are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Going to give up the data?”
Kase shrugged. “That depends on your answer.”
“My answer? Answer to what?”
“You know the question,” he said gently. “You just need to find the answer. Your answer.”
Michelle looked away, chewing on her lower lip some more. Her head bobbed up and down idly while she thought. Kase heard footsteps coming back down the hallway. Everett was returning.
“Do you have your answer?” she asked as he stood up.
Kase smiled at her, a sad, almost haunted thing. “Michelle, I’ve had my answer for years. I was just too scared of myself to admit it.”
“Well this is touching,” Everett said, sarcasm dripping from his words as he mocked them. “But I think your time is up. Give me the data or she—oomph!”
Everett fell back as a blob of quicksilver took him in the face unexpectedly.
“My answer, Michelle, is that I’ve always loved you. Now I’m going to prove it.”
She frowned. “But how? We’re in a prison, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Kase smiled. “By giving in,” he said softly, his skin brightening from pale-yellow until it began to glow silver, turning shiny. “By embracing my inner demon, not fighting it. Just as I’m doing with my feelings for you.”
He turned toward the bars of the cell as his body turned to quicksilver.
“H-how!” Everett gasped through the burned flesh that remained on his face as he flung away the last of the quicksilver.
He did so just in time to watch Kase flow through the bars, his body melting and reforming around them, until he emerged on the outside, his skin hardening until he was made of pure quicksilver from head to toe. A metal man.
“Because I’m in love,” Kase snarled, and lunged.
Everett wasn’t about to go down without a fight, however. He spat a ball of gas at Kase, but the sleeping mist had no effect on him in his current state.
Kase connected with a fist, rocking the other dragon back. Everett spun with the impact, wheeling around and delivering a kick to Kase’s midsection. Kase flew back, smashing into the cell with a violent Bing! The metal reverberated and he felt it on his body as he got to his feet and started forward.
Everett snarled a challenge and scales erupted down his body like a bird flattening its feathers, falling into place. A copper helmet flowed up the sides of his head, molding to his cheekbones and hardening. Kase ducked a vicious punch, noting his fists were now covered in a vast array of scales, sharp edges all pointing out. Getting hit by one of those would suck.
The punch turned out to be a fake and Everett’s right fist caught him in the shoulder. Quicksilver shrieked and peeled off him in slivers from the blow, even as he was driven to the ground once more. Kase was getting mad. He hadn’t planned on losing this fight. He was supposed to be saving Michelle!
Lashing out with the palm of his hand, he caved in Everett’s knee, and shot to his feet with a brutal two-handed uppercut that smashed teeth. His opponent stumbled back, twisting off balance and falling to the ground.
At the same moment Kase punched his fist in the air in triumph, his vision flashed, strobe lights went off, and brilliant white light began to glow from every surface.
“No,” he whispered in anguish as the room flickered back briefly before returning to the new norm. “Not now. Please not now.”
“Kase?” Michelle called from the cell. She must’ve recognized that something was going wrong. “Kase, you can fight this. You can do it! I have faith in you.”
He looked over his shoulder, meeting her eyes as light poured in from all sides, threatening to overwhelm him. “I can’t!” he shouted, closing his eyelids, though it did nothing at all. “It’s too much.”
The sound of someone moving over rock warned him of Everett’s return. He lashed out with a booted foot, giving his foe no warning at all. Everett’s eyes went wide and he flew back, smashing into the far wall before he and chunks of rock fell to the floor. The dragon shifter lay still, working to regain his breath.
Kase, meanwhile, was close to fainting from the pain of his vision. He wanted to tear out his eyeballs, to do anything to stop the brightness and pain from lashing out at him. It was growing hot as well. Too hot. The heat—he couldn’t handle it. He needed to get out. To make it stop. To run. To—
Soothing calm wrapped around one of his hands. A moment later, his opposite bicep sagged in relief. Opening his eyes, he saw Michelle pressed up to the bars, her arms outstretched through them. She was barely brushing his skin.
“Come closer to me, Kase,” she shouted over the roar in his head. “Please!”
His body wasn’t listening. It tried to pull him away. Darkness was bad! It was evil.
No. Darkness is my friend. The light is a lie. I need her. She needs me. We’re two halves. Neither can reign supreme. Too much light is just as bad as too much darkness. We need…shadow.
Which was what he saw where they met. Screaming as he fought for the slightest control of his body back, Kase did the only thing he could. He yanked his hands out from under him. The lack of support pitched him backward—and put his head in reach of Michelle.
She lunged for it, wrapping both hands around his temples and stroking gently. “You’re okay now, Kase,” she whispered into his ear as blissful shadow swirled out from where she touched him, blasting through the light and taking a firm hold of him. “I’ve got you now. I’ve got you.”
In the corner, Everett got to his feet, a ball of gas forming in his hand. Kase knew that if he made it concentrated enough, the gas became lethal. It wasn’t corrosive, like that of the onyx dragons, but it simply put a person under, and they never woke up. If he hit Michelle with that, she wouldn’t recover.
The light grew stronger, surging forth in renewed battle. He thrashed violently, throwing Michelle’s hands free for a moment, but she fought back, holding him tight as she leaned in close and kissed him on the forehead with ultimate tenderness.
“You’re okay now, Kase. I have you, and I’ll never let go.” She hesitated. “I love you.”
Something burst inside Kase. A damn he’d never known existed crumbled and he began to shake. It took him several moments to realize he was crying.
“I love you,” she repeated.
He lifted a hand to his head, gripping hers in it. “I love you, too,” he replied.
She wiped away a tear. A human tear, clear and watery. “Now go kick his ass.”
Kase grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
Quicksilver pooled underneath him as he opened himself up to his power and let it flow.
“Better get back inside the cell for a minute if you don’t mind,” he said, noting Everett almost ready to throw his weapon.
Michelle yanked her arms back a moment before the quicksilver flowed up the bars and across it, forming a solid wall that easily deflected the thrown ball of gas.
“You just tried to kill my girlfriend,” Kase said, getting to his feet.
He hurled a spike of quicksilver at Everett. The other shifted dodged, but the spike penetrated the wall and kept going. There was something behind it. Kase tossed several more, and eventually part of the wall caved, revealing a large cavern behind.
Running forward, he tack
led Everett and the two of them went through the wall. Rock exploded everywhere. They bounced and rolled. Kase jabbed up, his fingers flat, calling quicksilver to him. It coated his hand in a knife-sharp edge, and he stabbed it deep into Everett’s gut.
The other shifter howled in pain and kneed him in the balls. Kase rolled off him, holding his quicksilver dick and nuts in one hand as he shuddered with agony.
“Cheap shot,” he managed to gasp.
Everett opened his mouth to reply, and Kase shoved a quicksilver spear through the opening and out the back of his neck. Blood poured everywhere. He yanked the weapon out. Everett sank to his knees, a look of shock in his eyes as his copper armor darkened, stained with blood.
“Don’t ever threaten my mate,” Kase snarled, whipping his arm around and plunging the tip of his makeshift dagger deep into Everett’s ear.
The copper dragon’s eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.
Kase wanted nothing more than to sit back and relax, but a rumble from above him had him getting to his feet in a panicked rush.
“Stupid load-bearing walls,” he muttered, waving away the quicksilver obscuring the cell as he dashed back through where the rock wall had been.
“COME ON!” he shouted, freezing the lock on the door and shattering it.
Michelle was through it a second later as the first rocks clattered down around them.
“Run,” he urged as they made their way back up the long corridor. The entire complex was crumbling behind them.
Up ahead, the ceiling started to fall. Kase surged forward, spreading his arms wide. Quicksilver filled the gaps, turning his back into a giant saucer that caught everything. Michelle didn’t hesitate, diving to her knees and crawling under him while he supported the load.
With her safe, he flung himself clear, got to his feet and caught up with her. The roaring grew louder, and he started to panic. They didn’t know where the exit was.
Think, Kase. You can find it. Think.
He lifted his nose suddenly, testing the air. “This way!” he shouted as they reached a cross corridor, taking her hand and pulling her along.
She was too slow; the cave-in was catching up to them.
“Sorry!” he said, snatching her roughly into his arms and charging down the tunnel at breakneck speed. Smaller rocks and debris fell on them constantly. A mighty rumble signified that they were about to be buried.
Ahead, he saw darkness, and stars in the distance. Beautiful, beautiful stars.
“Kase?” Michelle asked, looking over his shoulder. “Run faster!”
“Hold on!” he hollered.
Something clipped his ankle, and he fell forward, curling his body around Michelle. They bounced and flipped several times, but every time he managed to keep her from hitting anything but himself, until they rolled to a stop.
A cloud of dust exploded out of the tunnel behind them as the entire complex crashed in on itself, burying Everett and everything he had with him.
“We made it,” he said, coughing as the cloud around them slowly dispersed.
“Did you?”
“Huh?” He looked up to see the remaining wolf guards standing in three clusters nearby. There was almost a dozen of them. “Don’t you mutts ever stop inbreeding? Where do you keep coming from?” he asked, tiredly getting to his feet.
“You’re going to pay for that comment,” one of them said, stepping forward.
“Whatever you say, you flea-bitten mongrel. Just bring it on already.”
The nearest cluster started to fan out. At the same time, a shape dropped from the sky behind them. Kase had a moment to frown in confusion. Then a beam of fire the size of his wrist lashed out at the wolf guards. It didn’t burn them. It was too intense for that. The sheer power acted like a laser, bisecting the guards.
As the other two clusters turned to look in surprise, a second beam lanced out, severing arms, heads and torsos indiscriminately. The third group had a second to dive for cover, scattering so they weren’t all clumped up.
“It makes no difference,” Coltaine said, and with a flick of his hand, the five remaining wolves self-combusted.
There was no other way to describe it. One moment they were there, the next their bodies were burning to ash from the inside in one of the most gruesome and terrifying displays of power Kase had ever seen. Five piles of bright embers dropped to the ground, and that was the end of it. It was over.
“Sorry I’m late,” the head Magistrate said as a second dragon fell from the sky, shifting as it came. “But someone let themselves be knocked out by a two-bit copper dragon and its laughing gas.”
Jerrik walked out of the shadows, glaring at his boss. He didn’t, however, speak up.
“Everything all settled here?” Coltaine asked casually.
Kase looked at Michelle, lifting her from the ground and holding her tight. “Everything is perfect here,” he said. “Now, can we just go home? I’d like some time with my mate. We have a lot to discuss.”
“And a few things to do,” Michelle added suggestively.
The group shared a laugh.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Michelle
“Oh, I keep meaning to give this to you.”
She stirred, the sheets falling off her breasts as she sat up. Kase slipped from bed, padding across the floor completely naked. Tilting her head to the side, she admired him from the rear. “You have a cute butt,” she said.
And it’s all mine.
The stray thought dragged her back over the past three days, since they’d returned to his place following their harrowing escape from the cave. She’d been near hysterical for the first twenty-four hours, working to process everything she’d seen and heard.
Not only had her life been in mortal danger, but the world as she knew it had been rocked to the core. Once in a positive way, and once in a completely shocking manner. The biggest of course was that Kase was a dragon shifter. Actually. No word of a lie, she’d witnessed him turn into a huge platinum-scaled lizard that took to the sky.
She’d not yet worked up the courage to climb on, but Kase had made the offer. Eventually, after she’d taken some more time to accept it wasn’t an illusion or magic trick of sorts. A practical joke gone awry, perhaps. No, it wasn’t any of those, but the idea of being astride his back as he launched into the sky, without anything between her and the ground, was terrifying.
While that was the biggest change to her world, it wasn’t the most important. That would be the blossoming of her relationship with Kase. Like a rose, it had grown up around them, but only now was it unveiling its beauty to the both of them. They had spent nearly every second together since coming back, and it only left her craving more of him. Knowing that Kase felt the same, knowing it on a level she couldn’t quite explain, made her smile every time she thought about it.
Like right now.
“Thank you,” he said, giving his hips a shake as he reached into a bag on top of his dresser. Walking back over to the bed, he slipped in underneath the covers and pressed something into her hand.
“What’s this?”
“It’s for you.” He pulled back his hand to reveal the object.
It was a key. “I already have a house key,” she said with a frown. “What’s this for? And I swear, if you say your heart, I’m going to be so unimpressed with your originality.”
Kase chuckled. “No, my heart has no more locks upon it. You’ve stripped it bare, and I’m okay with that.”
She smiled happily and snuggled into his embrace. “You’re cute. But seriously, what’s it for?”
“It’s for a vault at a bank nearby.”
“A what?”
“A vault. They didn’t have a safety deposit box big enough.”
“Big enough for what?”
“The rack I had to use to store all backups of your research data.”
She gasped. “You saved it all? I thought you were lying to Everett about t
hat. Then it just…it just sort of slipped my mind.” Embarrassment at how easily distracted she’d let herself become since returning flooded her face, warming the skin.
Was it that, though, or was it perhaps something else? Shame, maybe, that she’d allowed herself to come first when her father so desperately needed her in the lab working on a cure. Instead of doing that, she’d let herself indulge in the pleasures of the flesh and the mind with Kase, thinking only of her own happiness.
The lab was trashed, though, so how could she go back to work anyway? No sense in berating herself so severely over taking a few days, right? Maybe with data in hand, another lab would take her in, let her get back to work. That was something she would handle in the morning, not now.
He nodded. “Of course I did. I wasn’t thinking straight about a number of things, but I wouldn’t just flush away all that work you’d done. Took me several solid hours that night to get it all.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have been stealing it in the first place,” she joked, elbowing him under the covers.
Kase took it stoically. “Can’t steal something that I own.”
She shrugged, not wanting to get into even a light-hearted argument with him. “What matters is that you saved it. Thank you. Now I can go about finding somewhere to let me work on it.”
Kase frowned.
Her eyebrows came together. “What?” she asked, puzzled over his reaction.
“What do you mean about finding somewhere to work on it?”
Michelle pulled away from him slightly, propping herself up on one elbow. “Kase, I can’t not finish what I started. We were so close to finding a cure. My father is sick; I need to do this. If you think I’m—”
A long, meaty finger pressed itself to her lips, silencing her. She lifted an eyebrow, letting him know that what he was about to say had better be damn good for shushing her like that.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t finish it,” he admonished gently. “It’s not the what. It’s the where that I question.”
“Huh?”
He snorted and kissed her gently. “Sometimes you’re so blind it’s funny. I love you dearly, you know that, right?”
Michelle nodded. “I do. It’s one of the things I love about you, that you always tell me.”
