Dragon Eruption

by Amelia Jade

  Gray smiled. “I would love to.”

  Air shot from her lungs as she sighed in relief, letting herself be wrapped up in his arms.

  “You have no idea how happy it makes me to know that you’d consider me fit to help raise your child.”

  Kelly shook her head. “No, if we’re going to do this, Gray, it’s not my child. It’s our child.”

  He shivered a bit at the pronouncement. Not out of fear, though he was petrified about the idea of being a dad, about doing a terrible job of it and not raising her—no, their—child properly. But no, it was her decision that they would be in this together that made him shiver in excitement and anticipation.

  Gray kissed her, and she him. He wanted to hold onto that moment forever, to always be able to cherish it in his mind.

  They stayed like that for a long time, whispering nothings to each other and kissing lots. Eventually though, it was time.

  “I need to go,” he said with a wince. “I know, terrible timing, but I need to get back to the embassy, to talk everything over with Andrew and bring him up to speed. He needs to know about Jacen, and that we want to try and work things out.”

  Kelly nodded, and she tossed the covers back, rising from the bed and tossing her pajamas on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, slipping into his boxers and then his pants.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said, as if he should have known all along that was her plan.

  “Uh, you are?”

  She snorted in a very unladylike manner. “Of course I am. I want to make sure that Andrew understands what’s going on, and that I’m privy to any decisions regarding Jacen.”

  Gray almost said no out of habit, but then he shrugged. “Of course you are.”

  Kelly gave him a sidelong glance as she pulled on a bra. “Of course I am.”

  He stuck out his tongue at her and sat on the bed to pull on his socks and shirt, then waited for her to finish up.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Kelly

  She flashed him a smile. There was no particular reason behind it. Emerging from the bedroom, she caught his eye as he waited by the door for her to catch up. His face beamed back at her, and she couldn’t help but giggle at the happiness on it. Things were going so well now that she’d talked it over with him, and put them back on track. She couldn’t wait to just spend every waking moment with her mate, learning everything about him, and telling him about herself as well. They knew the basics of course, but there were decades of each other’s life for them to learn. That was going to take time, and she just knew it would continue to get better.

  It didn’t.

  There were several heavy thudding noises from outside.

  “What the—” Gray started to say, turning for the door.

  He didn’t reach it. The rectangular piece of wood exploded inward, taking Gray out and sending huge slivers of wood flying across the room.

  Kelly yelped and ducked into the bathroom, barely avoiding the flying shrapnel.

  “WHERE IS SHE?” a wild voice roared.

  A voice she knew well.

  “Jacen?” she shouted, stepping back into the short little hallway between the main part of the unit and her bedroom. “Jacen, what the fuck?”

  He was standing in the middle of her ruined door. His hair was strung out around him, his beard ratted and tangled with leaves. His eyes were huge and unsettling as he looked around the unit before settling them onto her.

  Beside him Gray stirred and started to get up. Jacen turned and saw the body for the first time.

  “What is he doing here?” he snapped. “Is he hurting you? I’ll stop it.” He slammed a clubbed fist into the top of Gray’s head.

  Something snapped and Gray slumped back down limply.

  “GRAY!” she shouted and ran toward him.

  Kelly came skidding to a halt as Jacen produced a wicked knife that curved in upon itself.

  “No. Leave him,” he snarled and advanced on her.

  Kelly backpedaled toward the bedroom.

  “What are you doing, Jacen?”

  “I’m here to rescue you of course. To keep you safe from him and the rest of his kind. Don’t you know that?”

  Kelly stammered, unsure of a reply at first. Save her from him? But she didn’t need saving. Then she took in his appearance, and the wild, feral look in his eyes, and it all made sense. Jacen wasn’t right in the head. He was delusional, under the impression that Gray had coerced her into letting him stay, instead of it being a mutual thing.

  “Jacen, you’ve got it all wrong,” she said gently. “Gray isn’t hurting me, he’s not forcing himself here. He’s a friend.”

  “A friend? He tried to kill me!” The pupils in his eyes had shrunk down to nothingness as he stared at her. “Friends don’t do that, Kelly. They don’t do that. You should know.”

  She had no idea what he meant, and wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to find out either, so Kelly just kept her mouth shut and kept backing away.

  “Come with me,” he said. It wasn’t a request. “We’ll get out of here. I’ll keep you and the baby safe.” His eyes dropped to her stomach.

  Kelly flinched and held a hand over the modest swell of her belly. “I don’t know,” she said slowly.

  It was the wrong move.

  Jacen hissed in surprise. “You would deny me my child?”

  The knife waved menacingly in front of her. She was almost to the bedroom now, but that wouldn’t matter anymore. He would just break the door down and take her anyway. But Kelly had to try. She backed into the bedroom, slammed the door shut and shuffled sideways and put her back to the wall.

  Outside Jacen roared and he burst through the doorway, moving into the middle of her room in one move. It was what she’d been hoping he would do. There was now a solid five feet between him and the door. While he was still roaring with anger she slipped back through it and ran for the front of the house.

  Jacen realized swiftly what she’d done and came after her, but with no front door to hold her back, she was home free if she could just get outside. She was almost to Gray when he caught her, a hand grabbing her arm and yanking her to a stop. The curved knife came to rest against her belly and she went still immediately.

  “Now, that wasn’t very nice of you,” he said, his voice taking on a detached tone, as if he wasn’t all truly present. “Trying to run away from me like that? What did I ever do to you?”

  “What, you mean besides burst into my home, assault someone, chase me around, and threaten me?”

  The knife was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. Jacen whirled her around. His eyes were wide, the whites showing, his pupils practically invisible. “Threaten you?” he asked, sounding horrified. “Oh no no. That’s not what I’m doing, Kelly. That’s not what I’m doing at all.”

  She felt her eyebrows rise of their own accord, despite her desperate attempts to keep them down. “Oh really?” her mouth said, unable to stay silent. “Because, to most people, that’s exactly what it looks like. I mean, you just put the knife against my stomach. Our child is in there, Jacen, and you put a knife to it!”

  He shook his head, hair flying around, bouncing like crazy. “You’ve got it all wrong, Kelly. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to save you. You and the baby. You’re in danger, and you don’t know it.”

  “Trust me, I know I’m in danger,” she said dryly, astonished at the words that kept coming from her while her life was in mortal peril.

  Jacen didn’t get it. “You know?”

  “Uh, yes.”

  “Good. Then this will be all the easier.”

  Fear slithered into her belly, coiling like a snake as he spoke.

  “What is going to be easier, Jacen?” she asked, unsure.

  “Come on,” he said, tugging her arm and leading her through the door. “There’s no time to waste.”

  “Jacen?” she asked, her voice wavering. “Jacen, what are we going to do? What is going to be eas
ier?” Her feet stumbled over the remains of her door as they passed through it, leaving the unconscious Gray in their wake.

  She looked back, hoping to see him rise up to come to her rescue. Something was clearly very, very wrong with Jacen. Perhaps it was a result of a blow to the head from Gray when they had fought, or maybe it was something he’d been working toward since before he came to her. The damage might have been at the hands of those Intelligence people Gray had mentioned. Kelly had no idea, it didn’t really matter just then. All that mattered was that he had something planned, and it gave her the shivers to even hear about it.

  “Jacen, what are we going to do?” she asked, tugging him to a halt at the top of the stairs that led up to her unit.

  He turned and gave her a crazed grin. “We’re going to save the child, Kelly. We need to get it out of you, and take it far, far away from here, where it will be safe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gray

  Pain.

  It was the first thing he felt. It surged through his system like a tsunami, building and building, until it burst through the mental wall his brain must have erected around him and slapped him back awake in an explosion of agony.

  “Ffhhmmnggg,” he groaned, holding one hand to his head.

  Wood splinters shivered and slid away from him as he struggled to sit up. Something in his neck screamed in protest as he did, adding its own torture to the process of coming back to consciousness.

  “Ow,” he said, looking around through the stars still in his vision.

  What the hell had happened?

  He put a hand down to steady himself, and felt something puncture it. “What the fuck?” he snarled, glancing down at his hand long enough to remove the two-inch-long sliver from where it had embedded almost half of its length in his skin.

  Tossing it away, he noticed more like it in varying sizes. What the hell was he doing lying in a pile of wood chips?

  No, they weren’t wood chips. They were the remains of the door that had come crashing in on him. Gray remembered. He’d heard thudding, the sounds of someone taking the stairs six at a time. A split second later he’d been spun to the floor by the door as it imploded, and then something really hard had hit him on the head.

  A new emotion replaced the pain as he took stock of his body and assembled his memories of what had happened. Anger flowed through him, strengthening him, infusing him with its blood-boiling power.

  Gray had been sucker punched.

  A deep, thundering growl filled the room, vibrating the bits of wood on the floor as he splayed his fingertips and got to one knee. The noise grew lower, shaking some of the larger chunks as well. Gray stood up, a hulking, brutish figure in the darkened shadows of her apartment. His shoulders rose and fell violently as he inhaled several times, blue eyes gone hard and steely, hardening into icy chips.

  “Kelly?” he rumbled, his voice the sound of an avalanche as it picked up speed down the mountainside.

  There was no answer.

  His footsteps made the foundation of the building tremble as he lumbered forward toward her bedroom, noticing the second destroyed door there. There were no other signs of a fight, and he concluded they must be gone.

  Gray turned and shouldered his way through the door, taking out a chunk of the frame as he went, not even noticing as drywall remnants fell behind him in a long trail, like a cape made of white dust. He reached the front door and went outside.

  His bear was near the surface now and he tested the air, locating her scent easily along with that of another shifter, who could only be Jacen. He filed it away in case he was unable to catch up with him and needed to track him down later.

  And kill him.

  Gray walked to the edge of the stairs and simply flung himself forward. Concrete cracked and broke as he landed right on the ground, disdaining the slow way. Rising from the slightly crouched landing position, his booted feet strode forward. Each time his feet struck the ground the concrete cracked as he summoned the power of his bear to him, wrapping it through his body and infusing him with the strength of its size.

  Up ahead, around the corner of a building, he heard a scream.

  He sprang forward, each long stride carrying him ten feet forward as he picked up speed, coming around the edge of the building, intent on nothing more than rescuing Kelly and breaking the other man’s neck.

  How dare he do anything to Kelly! How dare he threaten her unborn child! Gray was going to make him pay for what he’d done, and he would ensure that it never happened again. Ever. To anyone.

  The pair of them were visible far ahead. Jacen was walking forward with Kelly at his side, one hand wrapped around her arm in a vise-like grip he knew she would never be able to break. Not unless Gray intervened somehow. He prepared to run after them, but Kelly pulled several feet away with an unsuspecting move, and it brought Gray to an immediate halt.

  He’d seen the sunlight flash against something long and metallic that was pressed up to Kelly’s stomach. A knife. Shit. If he came charging at them, the apparently crazed shifter would simply shove it into her stomach, killing both Kelly and her child. Gray was filled with bloodlust, but the threat to his mate reached through even that and slapped some cold sense into him.

  Another plan was needed. A smarter one.

  “Think,” he rumbled to himself, stepping back out of view. “You need to do this smart. Engage your brain.”

  The red fog faded briefly from his mind, and was replaced with a map of the complex that housed all the residence buildings of the women under Cadian care. It was a rough square overall, but the inside of it was winding and zig-zagging, a result of the various curves of the land and the easiest way to build as many buildings as possible.

  Jacen was currently taking Kelly through the middle of it. If he kept going though, eventually they would break out of the complex and into the forest beyond, where he could shift and haul off Kelly that way.

  Gray needed to stop them before that happened. Approaching from behind wasn’t an option though. Jacen would know. The wind was blowing from the north today as well, and it would carry his scent well before he could get close. No, Gray needed to get around them, to lie in ambush, where he could deal with the knife first to keep Kelly safe.

  Unfortunately, there was no easy route to do that. By the time he got around, Jacen would be far too close to the perimeter for comfort. He needed a shorter path. A path that didn’t exist.

  So make one, a part of his brain suggested, replaying simulated images of Jacen bursting through the door into Kelly’s house.

  Too dangerous, he decided. He could just as easily kill someone if they happened to be in the way of his wild charging. Going through the buildings wasn’t an option. He paused and rested an angry hand on a railing leading up to a random second-story unit. The metal warped and shrank under the pressure his hand applied.

  He couldn’t go around. He couldn’t go through either. Angrily he kicked the bottom stair, shattering it. Pieces flew in every direction, even farther up the stairs.

  Gray jerked. The stairs. Up the stairs.

  Without thinking, he launched himself up the stairs. Hitting the landing, he flexed his legs and flung himself onto the roof. Two strides and once he was sure the area below was clear he landed. One step and a powerful jump and he flung himself a full two stories up into the air onto the next roof, landing as quietly as possible, his limbs spread apart to absorb the impact.

  Then he scrambled over the top, jumped down, and zipped across. He alternated taking the stairs, and then jumping straight to the roof as he landed in backyards and front yards of the units. It was more tiring than just barging through walls, but he easily got ahead of Jacen and Kelly, and without making too much noise either.

  He hoped.

  Peering through a bush, he saw their shapes as they came forward, Kelly still struggling and trying to call out for help before Jacen could shut her up with the blade, alternating resting it on her stomach and then he
r neck.

  A crimson filter dropped over his vision once more, and Gray’s arms tingled with power as he prepared to make his move.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Kelly

  “Stop struggling,” Jacen said. “Or else I’m going to have to kill you now and just take the baby.”

  She stopped. Not because of the threat, but because of how he’d said it. So mild and calm, like someone stating that two times two is four. There was no doubt in his statement that he’d do it, no hesitation or uncertainty. He just simply would. Without a second thought. Kelly shivered at the knowledge that someone could be so cruel.

  No, it wasn’t cruelty. That would mean he was doing it on purpose, that it was his desire to scare her witless and into submission. The more Kelly saw of him though, the more she realized that he wasn’t sane. Jacen was operating in a delusion of his own making. The idea that he could simply take the child from her and it would be safe was so unbelievably stupid that no rational being could come to that conclusion.

  Which meant that he was no longer rational. As such, he could not be expected to do things like value her life, or stop himself from killing her if he said he would. So Kelly did the only thing she could think of. She complied with his demands, went along as willingly as she could, and tried not think of what was going to happen when they got to wherever they were going.

  In an unexpected bonus, the sudden acquiescence and cease in resistance resulted in Jacen dropping his knife, carrying it by his far side instead of pressed somewhere against her. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief at that, but didn’t allow it to affect her current actions. If there was going to be a time to escape, she wanted to ensure she was able to do so. Having him ready to attack her wouldn’t help. So she played it as cool as possible.

  “It’ll all be fine,” he said from her left, over and over again as they walked down the sidewalk. “Once the baby is safe, everything will make sense.”

  Somehow she doubted that.

  Up ahead the path went on a diagonal to the right, putting them near the edge of one building. Kelly thought briefly about trying to escape down the alley between buildings, but immediately figured it as stupid. Jacen would catch up to her easily, and there was nowhere for her to go for help.