by Amelia Jade
Oh yes, he knew who that movement belonged to. She walked like that in his mind, in her knee-high black boots with white shirt and black vest, occupying almost every waking second when he wasn’t immediately focused on something else.
“See you outside,” he said quickly, ending the conversation abruptly and ignoring the odd looks from them at his change of tone.
He rose, grabbing his food tray, and departed the area before Rhynne could see him.
It may have felt good to open up to his friends. But Rhynne Nova was another matter entirely.
***
They were high in the air once more. It was a beautiful early summer day. He was glad for it, the winter having been long, cold, and lonely.
It was hard to believe that in just a few short months, their first year at the Academy would be over. They would spend many more years training with the instructors, perfecting their skills, growing stronger, and learning to hone their powers. But much of it had been instilled in them already, including the work ethic necessary to proceed to the next level.
In three months he would find out if he was a graduate or not. The previous nine had been grueling affairs, with little downtime and long, arduous days. Dominick wasn’t expecting the next three to be any easier either, but he found himself looking forward to it.
His talk with his friends had momentarily lifted the cloud of darkness that was perched on his shoulders lately, and a ray of sunshine was beating down on him.
“Ready?” Zeke asked from next to him.
“Oh sure. Nothing like plummeting through the sky,” he said dryly.
In the air below them were the other instructors. Blaine, Zander, and a little farther below, even Daxxton had come out for this exercise. After Dominick’s previous stunt had gone awry, he’d convinced Asher to take him up. On his first try, unencumbered by his relationship with Rhynne—or lack thereof—he’d jumped free and shifted well before coming close to the ground.
After demonstrating his ability in front of the others, Blaine had determined them ready to move on, and hadn’t bothered to hide how impressed he was with them.
“Most cadets need dozens of tries before they nail free-fall shifting. Good job,” he had said.
Now they were set to try the reverse.
Once more, Blaine had partnered him with Rhynne. He’d thought about arguing, and he’d seen the glare Rhynne had shot at Blaine. Clearly she wasn’t happy about the pairing either.
Did he know about what had happened between them? Dom wished fervently that Rhynne would let him in, so that they could at least discuss things and perhaps even be civil with each other. He would do anything that would let him at least be close to her.
His thoughts were cut off as Daxxton, from far below, launched a small fireball up toward them. Dom knew he wasn’t aiming at them, and the powerful bolt shot up between the trio, before eventually losing power and dissolving into the air in a shower of sparks.
That was their cue.
“Well lads,” he said to the others. “Shall we commit suicide together?”
Asher barked a laugh. “Let’s!”
Lightning clouds appeared around Dominick as he did something no sane person would do.
He shifted in mid-air. Moments later, his body began to change within his clouded sphere of black, shot through with the continuous bolts of lightning.
At the same time he suddenly began to fall, dropping swiftly from the air toward the ground far, far below.
The shift finished swiftly, and the protective cloud around him evaporated.
“Oh shit!” he swore.
His target was far closer than he had thought. Dominick had just enough time to spread his arms and legs wide, using the air rushing by to adjust his course slightly before he was forced to curl up into a ball and prepare for impact.
The breath was slammed from his lungs as he impacted upon the ocher-colored left wing of Rhynne and bounced up, his legs flailing rapidly. He hit again, this time closer to where the wing joined her shoulder.
Dominick gathered himself, sliding across her back and getting his legs under him, then standing up as he slowed. He walked out across her other wing, which Rhynne was holding out wide, soaring easily through the sky.
“Well done Dominick!” Daxxton said.
“Thank y—”
His acknowledgment of the compliment turned into a yelp of distress as the wing, once so firm beneath him, suddenly disappeared as Rhynne banked to the side without warning.
Dominick plunged from his perch in stunned surprise.
He looked up at Rhynne, just in time to see her look of satisfaction at having pulled a fast one over him.
Angrily, he focused on himself, touching the ball of lightning in his mind, calling forth his dragon. His animal was angry as well, and it came to him in a brilliant flash. This time the lightning clouds didn’t dissipate. Instead, they actually exploded outward as his power overwhelmed the sphere.
His dragon was already aimed downward and he swept his wings out wide, slowly easing back until they caught the air. It propelled him through a swift loop until he was winging his way high into the air, his blazing eyes focused intently on something.
A red dragon.
“Dominick!’ Blaine called warningly, but he ignored him.
This had gone on too long.
He managed to refrain from unleashing a blast of lightning at her, but it was a close thing. Doing so would have seen him expelled from the Academy, however, and Dominick wasn’t looking to do that.
All he was doing was showing that he was tired of the way she was treating him. Being polite hadn’t done a damn thing, and today he had quite literally been pushed over the edge.
He slammed into Rhynne, his larger sapphire-blue dragon crumpling her wing in on itself as they collided and began to spiral out of the sky.
Rhynne responded instantly, folding her other wing in tight against her body, but Dominick was too close now. He matched her, long jaws full of razor-sharp teeth snapping at each other as they locked talons, trying to inflict damage on the other while simultaneously defending themselves.
He disengaged as they fell, maneuvering himself until he was above her slightly, at which point his long tail swung around and slapped Rhynne in the side of the head. She roared in anger and her teeth clamped down on his neck momentarily, easily slicing through his protective scales.
Dominick responded by digging his talons into the soft skin on her shoulder where her wing joined, ripping into it deeply as blood poured out and over his feet.
“Enough!” Blaine thundered as his dragon approached the pair. Green fumes began to gather near his mouth.
Dominick pushed off of Rhynne and dove away, headed for the stone circles in the rear of Top Scale. Behind him, he heard the others doing the same.
Rhynne landed next to him as he was halfway through his change. He strode forward toward the ball of smoke and flame that surrounded her as Blaine passed overhead, seemingly content to let them settle their differences once they were on the ground. For the moment at least.
“What the hell is your problem?” he roared as the powerfully built Rhynne appeared out of the flames, her unusually stern expression even more reserved just then. “Are you trying to kill me?”
She snorted. “No more than you’re trying to kill yourself, Dom.”
He shook his head. “So what, you thought you’d just do the job for me?” Lowering his voice, he continued. “Ever since, since, that,” he didn’t elaborate, knowing she would understand, “you’ve treated me like nothing more than a piece of garbage. I get that you regret it, that you wish it never happened. But face it. I wasn’t an ass to you, I didn’t try anything more. But you just became a stone-cold bitch. So tell me, right here, right now, what the hell is your problem with me, Instructor Nova?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he used her formal title.
“That will be enough, Cadet,” she replied, ignoring his questions and trying to impose h
er authority over him.
“No, no, I don’t think it will. You need to get off your damn high horse, and treat me like a person. So tell me, why the hell are you treating me so poorly?”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t help the fact when I come upon you at a seedy bar after just getting into a fight with some nobodies.”
Dom’s jaw dropped open.
“Wow, you really do think I’m a lower class than you, don’t you?” He laughed in her face. “For your information, those ‘nobodies’ were pawing at the waitress and basically trying to force themselves upon her. I’m not really into that, so I stepped in and helped her out. That’s what the fight was about,” he practically spat at her. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to judge others. Just because we weren’t all born high and mighty like you, doesn’t make us useless pigs.”
Dominick pushed past her and headed inside. He needed a beer.
Leaving Rhynne there sputtering for words wasn’t ideal, but it had to be done. He hated himself for speaking so harshly to her, but something was affecting the Rhynne he’d known, and perhaps a change of tactics would better get through to her. He could only hope she didn’t despise him forever for saying those things. He wanted her too badly for that to happen.
If only he could convince her of his true feelings, and make her see that everything would be okay if she were with him. It might be difficult given the expectations placed upon her, but together they could weather it, he was sure of it.
Chapter Four
Rhynne
Just because we weren’t all born high and mighty like you.
The sentence echoed around in her head as she walked down the cobblestone street. Downtown Cadia was a decent enough size, housing a large chunk of the population, though many lived in their own small enclaves outside the city.
But many thousands lived inside it. Human forms and shifter forms all shared the space between buildings equally. Very few of the shifters had vehicles, so it was mostly foot traffic.
To her right a pride of lions meandered by on some unknown errand, while a lonely grizzly bear walked about five paces in front of her, ambling slowly down the road in the slow, uncaring way that only a two-thousand-pound beast on four legs could.
Overhead a solitary Pegasus flew by, its brilliant horn glittering in the daylight.
After the dust had settled, Rhynne had been told to take a couple of days off from the Academy to cool herself. Blaine had also said that before she was reinstated, she would have to sit down with him and tell him what was going on.
She frowned at that, the sentence once again echoing through her head.
What was wrong with her? She wasn’t this cold, this mean. Dominick had a point when he told her that he hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve her coldness.
Not that she dared tell him about the flames, of the burning desire that her walls were hiding from him, and the world. She couldn’t. Not now, possibly not ever, no matter how much it hurt her to keep them contained. Her parents would kill her, disown her, and…
And…
What else would happen?
The presence of someone at her side distracted her from that particularly nasty line of thinking, one that she wasn’t sure she was quite ready to confront yet. There were, apparently, some parts of herself she wasn’t proud of.
“Rhynne?”
Fake-sounding surprise in the tone.
“Hello Garviel,” she replied, turning to face the newcomer and trying to sound polite, even though she wanted nothing to do with him just then.
“How lovely to see you here,” the shifter from Fenris said as he came up alongside her, easily slipping his arm into hers.
Rhynne managed not to violently pull herself away.
Barely.
Who was this guy, and why did he think it was okay to just touch her like that? She had met him all of once, for thirty seconds at a party. He did not have the right to be that friendly with her, no matter how easy on the eyes his classical good looks were.
Still, manners were manners, and she was in public. The last thing Rhynne felt like dealing with were the results of making a scene. So she endured his proximity, hoping that it would be a short, quick thing. Her eyes began to discreetly roam the streets ahead of her, looking for anything that might provide an exit from what was sure to be an awkward conversation.
Unfortunately things seemed calm in Cadia. She saw no signs of chaos or disorder that she could attend to under her Guardian persona, nor did she see any friends who might be able to rescue her.
She was going to have to stick it out.
“How have you been?” he asked, his voice oozing false cheeriness. “We only got to talk for a few brief minutes. It didn’t seem fair. I just had to track you down.”
Holy shit this guy is persistent.
“Honestly, I’m having a pretty shitty day, Garviel, and no, I’m not feeling overly prone to talking about it right now,” she told him bluntly, trying not to sound too caustic.
Not that he was likely to either pick up on it, or acknowledge it. This guy is all about the show.
“That’s terrible, Rhynny. Can I call you Rhynny? Why don’t you come with me? We’ll spend a day on the town and help you forget all about it.”
What the hell was he talking about? A day on the town? This is Cadia, not some metropolis of human creation, bud. The list of things to do in town that she was interested in doing with him was a very short list indeed. It was just her luck that the trash dump was on the far side of town too.
“Sorry Gar-Gar,” she said with patronizing cheer, “but I have other things I have to do today. I’m a big girl; lots of big girl things to do.”
She saw the barest hint of anger flash through his eyes. It was gone instantly, but she’d been looking for it this time.
“Just for a bit,” he pressed. “I promise, it’ll be fun.”
Rhynne hesitated. She didn’t have anything else that she needed to be doing that day. Hell, she’d been wandering around aimlessly before he showed up. Could there be a huge amount of harm in seeing just what the hell he had up his sleeve? It wasn’t like she was in any danger from him here in Cadia.
“I’m only in town for a little bit longer,” he continued before she could answer. “Then it’s time for me to make the long trek back to Fenris. It would certainly make the trip go faster if I could say I spent some time with you.”
To her surprise, there was actually a small amount of what sounded like genuine desire in his voice now, cracking through his outer shell.
A pair of wolves loped into view from around the corner of a building up ahead and moved past, both of them dipping their heads at Rhynne in a sign of respect. She was well known in Cadia, having made a reputation for herself as a tough but fair Guardian and keeper of the peace.
That thought jogged something else in her brain. If she was seen out and about with Garviel, then others would know. They would talk about it, and word would get back to her mother.
And to Dominick.
“I’m sorry,” she said as nicely as she could, removing her arm from his. “But I can’t today. Perhaps I’ll have some time later.”
She made to dip her head at him before leaving, but his hand shot out and fingers wrapped around her wrist, halting her escape.
Rhynne slowly turned back to face him, her eyes flaring at the impolite treatment. She allowed flame to seep into her gaze as she hit him with the full brunt of it, but he didn’t seem to care. There was an answering flicker deep inside of him, one as cold and white as ice.
So you’re a Frost Dragon, are you? Interesting.
“Let go of me,” she said, her voice full of cold steel. “Now.”
“Why do you have to keep running from me, Rhynne? Can’t you see that we’d be perfect together? Us coupling would be the smart thing, for both of us and our families.”
She laughed, a single, solitary sound of disbelief. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, and you’re going
to turn around and walk back the way you came. Understand me?”
“Now, Rhynny, there’s no need to get like that,” he said, but his fingers didn’t move from her wrist.
So Rhynne—most definitely not Rhynny—moved them for him.
Her arm swept up and around swiftly, breaking his grip as she clamped down on his wrist and pulled. Garviel came flying at her, but Rhynne easily stepped out of the way, twisting his arm up behind his back while her left hand came around and cupped the back of his head, pressing it hard against the cold stone wall of the building next to them.
“Do not touch me again. Like, ever. Got that, Gar-Gar?” she asked with false sweetness.
He grunted and tried to break free, but she twisted his arm up higher. Garviel may well have been stronger than she was, and capable of getting free, but she would snap his arm in at least two places before he did. Rhynne hoped he would do the right thing.
“Very well,” he said as his struggles subsided.
A shadow loomed up behind her.
“Everything okay here, Guardian?” a deep voice asked, emphasizing her title.
“Just dandy,” she replied, releasing the Ward of Fenris and stepping back as he turned, rubbing his shoulder.
“Yes, just a simple misunderstanding, really,” Garviel said, already reassuming his fake persona, acting as if it were nothing.
Rhynne turned and looked up at the giant bearded man. It was Ranger, one of the more well-known grizzlies in town.
“Thanks, Ranger,” she said with a smile, patting him on the shoulder. “Like he said though, just a misunderstanding.”
The big grizzly snorted, telling her he knew better, but he nodded anyway, respecting her decision.
“Take care, Miss Nova,” he said and headed back down the street, whistling a jaunty tune as he did.
“Get out of my sight,” she said to Garviel as he looked at her questioningly.
“We’ll talk about this some more,” he said. “You’ll come to see the truth in what I’ve said.”
“Whatever.”
The tall, handsome Frost Dragon who was utterly annoying gave her one last up and down look, and then spun on his heel. She noted he carefully moved to the opposite side of the street from Ranger.
