by Amelia Jade
“We’d better have some children by then,” Harlow said sternly.
“I’m surprised you don’t already, judging by how often we hear the bed squeaking,” Corde coughed under his breath.
Harlow’s face went red and Vanek scowled at him. “I tightened the screws, okay? Knock it off.”
Kylie was busy laughing into her hand, the entire group obviously full of joy and happiness. Callan looked around them as they all accepted the given reasons fully, knowing them to be right. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t work that way.
His mate was dead…wasn’t she?
The powerful vibration of his phone in his pocket surprised Callan and he jumped slightly in place in response, drawing the attention of everyone there. The number was blocked, which seemed odd.
He answered it, well aware of all the attention focused on him. “Hello?”
“What the hell is wrong with you, Callan?”
“Colonel Mara?” he asked in astonishment. What the hell was she doing calling him?
“Yes, the one and only,” she snapped. “Now, answer my question.”
He fumbled for an answer, having precisely no clue what the military woman was talking about. “Nothing. I’m healthy as a dragon,” he replied at last, wondering if she’d heard he was sick or something.
“Very funny. How about you tell me just how badly you managed to fuck this thing up and can the pathetic jokes?”
The group around him could obviously hear every word, and they were all snickering and trying not to smile as he was reamed out by the woman who had been the first real person the dragons met upon awakening.
Callan didn’t find the situation quite as funny. “It would help,” he growled, his voice growing deeper as he spoke, “if you would quit berating me and use actual words, facts, and statistics to explain what it is you’re referring to. Since it’s obvious I am unaware of anything being fucked up. How does that sound?”
He thought for a moment she’d hung up on him, but the unmistakable sound of teeth grinding together became faintly audible thanks to his stellar hearing, and he realized he’d managed to truly piss her off. Which was likely not the best of ideas, as Colonel Mara was one of the few people with the authority to unleash enough force to take even him down.
Corde, Vanek, and even Harlow were looking at him in varying degrees of horror, like they couldn’t believe he would speak to her that way.
“Kallore is going to kill you,” Corde said softly, eyes wide and shaking his head back and forth repeatedly. “Oh man, you are so dead.”
Callan rolled his eyes, but didn’t want to respond for fear of being heard. Kallore was Colonel Mara’s mate, a brute of a red dragon and from what he’d understood, very protective.
“Very well, Callan.” Her voice was ice cold, completely devoid of any warmth. “How about you explain to me just how you managed to fuck up so badly that Kathryn had to call the city this morning and withdraw herself from the program?”
He stared at the phone, speechless. Kathryn had withdrawn? Why? And secondly, why the hell did Colonel Mara care about that?
“Well?”
“Kathryn is out?” It was all he could come up with.
“Yes. She left the program, said to ensure you didn’t come around anymore. Since I was the one who pulled strings to get you assigned there in the first place, they of course called me and yelled at me over my candidate.”
“Oh shit,” Vanek whispered softly. “No wonder she’s pissed.”
“What the hell…” Callan was at a loss for words, the revelation that Kathryn didn’t want him around anymore hitting him hard. His stomach felt empty and aching, his heart dull. The colors leached from the objects around him and he felt a strange drifting sensation fill his body.
The pain struck a moment later, snapping everything back into vivid clarity and then taking it a notch beyond, overwhelming his senses for a brief second as his stomach reeled from emotional punch after emotional punch, hammerblows descending upon him.
“You need to explain what’s going on, Callan, and soon.”
“Since when?”
“This morning.”
“I don’t understand.” He sat back into the couch, running fingers through his khaki-blond hair, pulling it hard to the side to ensure it stayed off his forehead. “Everything was fine when I left there last night.”
Colonel Mara sounded like she was choking. “Last night? You were there last NIGHT? Why the hell were you at Kathryn’s place past six, Callan? There are rules in place for a reason, you know!”
“What the hell’s the big deal?” he complained. “Didn’t you want me getting involved with humans in the first place?”
A wordless snarl erupted from the phone so loud he snatched the black object away from his ear.
“Go fix this, Callan. Fix it now.” The line went dead for real this time.
He stared at the little black object of fascinating technology for several seconds, then glanced up at his audience. “What the hell is her problem? I don’t understand. Wasn’t I doing what she wanted?”
The others sort of leaned back, letting Vanek handle it.
“Colonel Mara is, to say the least, a tricky one.”
Callan waited, but Vanek didn’t continue.
“That’s it? That’s all? She’s tricky?”
“Whatever she’s doing will have several reasons I’m sure,” Vanek told him, before sitting back with the others, making it clear that he wasn’t going to say more on that subject. “So who’s Kathryn?”
Callan quickly told them about the program.
Corde chimed in almost immediately. “Is she your mate?”
Yes.
The cry of his dragon in response to the question was unavoidable, but Callan shoved it aside. Maybe she was. But he wasn’t ready to accept that.
“No,” he said heavily. “I lost my mate long ago.”
The room was filled with silence until Harlow spoke up again. “Be that as it may, it seems you upset this woman. I think you should probably go and try to fix things with her. Apologize at least, for whatever it is you did. It’s obvious you don’t hate her.”
Callan nodded, his brain elsewhere as he replayed the events of the night before. Where had he gone wrong? What had he done to make her hate him so much she didn’t want him coming around?
“Yeah. Yeah! I should do that.” Committing to his course of action, he rose from his seat at the massive table. “Thank you so much for breakfast, but I have to be going.”
Harlow and the others all smiled happily. “Go make it right,” she added as he left.
Callan was going to do just that. Now all he had to do was figure out what he’d done wrong first.
Chapter Eleven
Kathryn
She barely reached the wheelchair in time.
Collapsing into its confines, the fabric groaned and squeaked as it suddenly was pulled taut beneath her. Glowering at her legs, she fought to get them to obey, but they refused. Muscles were shaking like Jell-O, and yet all she’d done was try to walk from the living room to the kitchen for a drink of water.
It should have been a simple task, something menial that before her accident she would never have thought twice about. Hell, even the past few days it would have seemed like a trivial journey. Not today. Today it was like trying to run a marathon. Halfway there she’d realized there was no way she had the strength to stand that long, and she’d turned and raced for the safety of her wheelchair.
Now she pushed it toward the kitchen, trying to fight back the tears. It had been like that all day. Unable to do anything. Even simply standing was hard. Forget walking. Kathryn was regressing, and there was no way she could hide it. She wasn’t feeling sick or had renewed pain. It was simple weakness. There was no way around it.
The glass began to pour over in her hand as she held it up into the sink, having to maneuver in sideways to be able to reach. The weight was suddenly too much and the glass slipped from her hand
s, landing in the bottom of the sink with a crash. It didn’t break, but it made a hearty racket that brought her mother in a rush.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, fishing for the lost glass blindly with her right arm, unable to see over the lip of the sink.
“Here, let me get that.” Her mom bustled over to help.
“I SAID I’M FINE!” she shrieked, levering herself up on one hand to find the glass.
“Katy, it’s—”
“DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME IT’S OKAY, MOTHER! I’M NOT IN THE MOOD FOR YOUR USUAL BULLSHIT. JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!”
She finally found the glass and picked it up with an angry effort, the lip pinched between two fingers. The jerk lifted the water-filled cup out of the sink, but as she tried to stop the motion, the wet glass slipped from her grip and fell to the floor, smashing into tiny pieces and covering the cabinets, fridge, table, and her left leg in water.
“FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” she screamed.
“Katy dear, watch your language.”
Kathryn whirled on her mother in a blind rage, words tumbling from her mouth as she spoke things she never would have normally, all her emotions spilling forth in one horrific sentence that her mind never remembered saying.
All through the tirade her mom stayed stoic, only blinking several times until she was sure that Kathryn was finished.
“Very well,” she said, whisper-quiet. “I’m sorry I tried to help.”
The anger fled her faster than water evaporating in the desert. Kathryn’s heart nearly broke at her mother’s tone, the feeling of failure she could see within the other woman. Failure at being the mother her daughter needed. “Mom,” she protested, but it was too late.
Without another word Audrey turned and left the little Pine house, closing the door and locking it with an absurdly heavy finality. Kathryn knew it wasn’t of course, but just then she felt like a pile of trash. What had she said in her anger? All her mother had ever done was whatever it took to make Kathryn happy, to provide her with what was necessary, and to help out.
While she’d been home, cast off by her former fiancé and nearly bedridden from her accident-related injuries, her mother had been the only one there for her. Day and night she’d done whatever Kathryn needed to be comfortable and provided for.
Then her daughter had turned around and screamed at her.
I probably deserve all this after all.
Kathryn was over being weak and feeble. Unable to stand. She just wanted to go back to how she had been before the accident, and before Doug. A young, vibrant woman who enjoyed going to the gym once a week, and daytrips to the beach with her friends. A woman who could provide for herself, physically and emotionally. Who didn’t rely on others to do everything for her, a drain on their time and effort.
The doctors told her she was expected to make a full recovery, and for that, in the back corner of her mind that she refused to acknowledge just then, Kathryn knew she was lucky. Luckier by far than many who were either born or injured in such a way that prevented them from being unable to walk. Luckier than those with diseases that slowly took away their ability to stand. In her thoughts and prayers she gave thanks for that.
But right then she was in a dark place, and none of that mattered. She didn’t think it was ever going to get better, and she hated the world around her, wanting nothing to do with it. She’d called the city up and told them to stop sending anyone. She wasn’t going to be depending on anyone else. From here on out, it was her. Or it was nothing.
Glass clinked against itself as her chair rocked slightly, and she looked around at the disaster that was her mother’s kitchen, courtesy of her overzealous attempt to get some water.
Nothing it is.
Anger at the defeatist attitude welled up in her, and a flicker of energy banished some of the worst of the exhaustion. Looking around she decided that while she might not be able to stand, she could probably get down on the floor and clean up her mess. It was the least she could do for her mother.
She’d just finished getting a bag and some paper towels out from under the sink when someone knocked at the door.
Frowning, she put the cleaning supplies on the counter within reach and wheeled toward the front door. The kitchen was straight back from the door down a little hallway, and anyone could see the mess if they looked, but there was nothing she could do about it.
Reaching the door as it bounced again under a firm rap of someone’s knuckles, she twisted the lock and pulled it open.
“What are you doing here?”
The towering figure at the door frowned at her rudeness. “Good question.”
He stepped past her into the inside of the house, Kathryn pulling back so she could keep him in view. She saw his eyes fix on the broken glass and spilled water in the kitchen ten feet away. He nodded, kept his shoes on, and walked down the little hallway and immediately started to clean up the debris.
“Uh, Callan, why are you here?” she asked again. “I canceled the program.”
“I know.”
“What? You know? And you came anyway?” She almost said she was going to call the police.
“Yes. I’m not here because of the program.” His back was to her as he bent over and swept up the glass shards with a paper towel, absorbing water as he went. The power of his voice carried to her anyway, the gravelly bass filling the tiny kitchen.
“So why are you here?” she asked for the fifth time.
The answer was instantaneous, spoken confidently and without hesitation.
“For you.”
Chapter Twelve
Callan
For you.
He felt the words ring true right down to his core. There was no avoiding it, no classifying it as a case of mistaken understanding. His dragon called triumphantly, urging him to mate with her, to form the bond it desired so badly and was obsessed with having. That it craved desperately, a bond he’d suffered without for too long it felt. She was here, now, right in front of him.
His mate.
“I don’t understand.”
Callan almost slipped up. He almost explained to her the truth of everything. That he was a dragon who thought that she was his mate. It would have been so easy to tell her right then and there. To reveal his real nature to her.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not until he was positive about what was going on between them. Until then, he would need to keep it and his heritage a secret from her. Callan hated not telling the complete truth, but he didn’t want to scare her away in case his dragon was right.
“Because I need to right a wrong,” he said instead, focusing on getting all the glass off the floor.
“You do?”
He tossed the remnants into the bag and started drying the floor, getting the bits and pieces of glass caught up in the paper towel and dropping them into the bag as he went.
“Yes. Why else would you have called and told them to make sure I don’t come around anymore? I clearly wronged you somehow, and I’m here to make up for it.”
Kathryn snorted. “You aren’t much for following rules then, are you?”
“Not when they don’t make sense, no.”
“You don’t think this makes sense?”
He turned until he was looking at her directly, crouched down on his haunches, his massive size making them almost eye level with one another. “No, it doesn’t. Last night we had a good time. And if this is your knee-jerk reaction to your mother walking in, then you must have had very uneventful teenage years to do something like this.”
Kathryn looked away first, her brown eyes unwilling to meet his gaze, knowing the truth it contained.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He smiled gently, taking a chance and resting one hand on her knee. She hadn’t told him what it was that had made her push him away, but she seemed to be relenting, and that was worth something. Callan latched on to that and let the conversation take its own direction now, instea
d of forcing it.
“You could start with telling me if you ever got the water you intended to drink.”
Almost immediately her face tensed up, and he felt like she was about to react negatively. Without warning and without any change on his side it slipped away, her forehead smoothing out and the tendons in her neck relaxing.
“No,” she said heavily. “I didn’t. But I can get it now.”
“I want to ask if you’re sure here, but I get the idea that would be the wrong thing to say.”
Kathryn nodded. “Yeah. I have some energy now though, which I’ve been lacking all day. So I’m going to get my own glass of water. I can damn well do that,” she snarled, though it was clear that was directed at herself, and not at him.
He watched as she lifted herself from the chair, keeping his eyes on her the entire time though he maintained his distance. The superior reflexes of his blood would easily allow him to get close enough to catch her if her legs failed her, but he doubted they would.
Callan frowned as she turned the tap on, the leaky, shaking thing not responding like it should. Eventually Kathryn got it turned on, though her lack of swearing told him this was a long-standing problem. Water filled, she sat back down, not attempting to make a statement by standing while she drank. Kathryn knew her limits, and he was proud of her for not being too stubborn to push them here, like she had at the pool.
Satisfied she wasn’t going to do anything else silly, he finished cleaning up the floor. His mind kept going back to the tap, however, and he couldn’t help but be reminded of the thick portly man in the pictures in the house. He was positive Kathryn would have done her best to help out, but she was in rough shape as well.
“Do you have a tool set?” he asked suddenly, his voice startling Kathryn.
“Uh, what do you mean?”
“Tools. For fixing things. Screwdrivers, wrenches, stuff like that.”
Although he had exactly zero experience with them, Callan had found he quite enjoyed watching videos on the internet about fixing things, making things and the like. Here was a chance to do some good with that.
“Uh, my dad kept his in the basement.” Kathryn pointed tentatively at a door he’d not yet seen open. “But I’m not sure anyone has really been down there since he passed away.”
