by Amelia Jade
“No,” she almost snarled, and a ghost of the old fire entered her eyes as she clutched at him. “You will make a fine—”
Once more she fell back into the bed, unable to speak.
“Mom, please,” he pleaded with her, but she shook her head slightly.
“You will make a fine p—”
And just like that, she was gone. Her face slackened and whatever remaining strength she had fled her body.
“Mom?” he asked tentatively.
There was no response.
“Mommy?”
Silence rang out loudly.
Under his fingers, he felt her limbs begin to stiffen.
Gently Zander set her arm down at her side, reaching up to close her eyes. Even as he watched, the white pallor of her skin faded, replaced by a gray tone. Yet one more mystery about dragons, he thought.
Reaching down, he kissed his mother one last time on the forehead, feeling the smooth hardness of her skin as it became rock.
“Goodbye, Mother,” he said softly.
And then he wept. Tears streamed down his face as he hunched over her side, the stone statue that had been his mother’s body resting peacefully in the bed, until he interred it in the Pierce crypts after a period of mourning.
Zander’s shoulders shook as he let it all flow out of him, the grief of her loss, the pain of knowing that she would no longer be there for him to consult, to trade insults with and generally be friends with. His heart ached, and he wished desperately for comfort, to rest his head on someone else’s shoulders and have them tell him it would be okay.
But there was only one person who he could do that with, and not only did she hate him, but everything she’d known about their relationship had been founded on lies.
Well, that’s it, I suppose. She passed before I could bring her a mate. So not only did I fail in that, but I failed Riss as well by not being the man she deserves.
Drying his eyes, he took several moments to compose himself before standing up.
You know what you have to do now.
He didn’t like the idea of it, but it was time. He’d done enough already. It was time to stop the madness.
With one last glance back at the figure of his mother, Zander took a deep breath and fled into the darkness.
Chapter Ten
Riss
She sat with her back to the wall, TV on but muted, and a foot-long metal pole sitting next to her. On the end of the pole she’d used electrical tape to fasten three blades from her knife set, making it a makeshift weapon.
Now she simply waited for the attack to come.
Nothing told her it would, but Riss knew that Jerry wouldn’t settle for allowing her to get away with what had happened. He would seek out his revenge, either through him or the men he’d already sent after her in the past. So she vowed that she would be ready, and would not surrender to them meekly.
No, she was going to make it hurt before they killed her.
Part of her regretted sending Zander away, and that part had grown stronger as time went on. She’d sent him several text messages, but he had yet to respond to one of them. Either he was busy or he was ignoring her, she wasn’t sure what. Whatever he was doing, it meant that this time, he wasn’t going to be able to come to her rescue.
“Hurry up and get it over with, you bastards,” she muttered into the silence, wishing they would just hurry up and arrive.
Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed Zander away after all.
Yes, what he’d done had been brutally horrific, and she couldn’t ever unsee him moving through the men, laughing as he was sprayed with blood from wounds he’d inflicted, his fist crushing another man’s skull even as he choked the life from a second. It was a terrifying specter of death that would haunt her for a long time.
Despite all that being said, however, the truth was, he’d been doing it to protect her. To ensure that she didn’t come to any harm. Was it really fair of her to throw him aside after that?
Dammit.
“Answer me,” she said, sending another text his way.
Minutes continued to tick by with no response. Riss began to jump at every creak and groan the house made as it adjusted to the cooling evening temperatures. She feared shifters jumping through the window, positive she’d heard them climbing over the roof. The squeak of floorboards told her they were already in the house.
But nothing happened. She sat down after her last walkthrough of the house, setting the spear down next to her.
A fist rapped firmly on the door.
Riss screamed and jumped to her feet, shaking hands fumbling with her spear so badly she almost dropped the pointed end on her foot. Finally she got a grip of it and advanced halfway to the door.
“Who is it?” she called, trying not to sound afraid, and failing miserably.
“It’s me,” came a muffled voice.
She frowned.
“Who?”
“Zander.”
“Prove it,” she called back.
“You have a scar on the inside of your right leg, just below a particularly sensitive area you like to have gently bitten.”
Well, that was one way to prove it, she thought, feeling a burning sensation spread across her face at the intimate nature of his answer. Her hand slid several inches below the arch of her leg to the spot in question.
“Okay. What do you want?” she called.
“Can we talk?”
“Just talk?”
“Yes. We need to.”
Steeling herself, Riss went to the door, peering through the peephole to ensure he was alone. Satisfied, she set the spear aside and pulled the table from under the door handle, before sliding the deadbolt across and opening it.
“Okay, talk.”
Zander’s eyes focused past her to the heavy table she’d pushed up against the door as an added boundary. Then they flicked over to her. She noticed the glossiness was gone in his eyes. Replacing it was a haunted look.
Whatever he was going to say, she wasn’t going to like it.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Riss stood in the doorway.
“Fine,” he said. “First, I’m sorry for this morning. I stand by my actions when it came to attacking them first, because I have experience with that sort of situation. But you were right about the rest. There was no need for what I did to them. I could have scattered them without killing anyone, and without laughing about it to the faces of the others. I am truly, truly sorry that you had to witness me stoop to such lows. I can do better, and you have my promise that in the future, I will do better.”
Her eyes stayed focused on his as he spoke, watching them for any hint of lies, but she saw nothing. Zander was dead serious about everything he’d just spoken.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad to hear that. I understand that, in your world, killing is sometimes unavoidable. I get it. But there was no need for it this morning, and I can’t support that.”
“I know.”
No excuses, no more apologies even. Just a simple acceptance of the fact. Interesting. Perhaps there was something in him after all. But his eyes still looked haunted, and if anything it was getting worse. Whatever he had come to say, that had only been half of it, and that had been the easy half, she thought.
“That’s not all, is it?” she said softly.
Zander shook his head.
“What else?”
His jaw worked as she waited, opening once, then twice as he closed it, the right words not coming.
“You want out,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
The big tanned shifter grimaced, the stubble now growing wild on his face bunching up as he did. “I think it’s best,” he said, his big brown and brass-flecked eyes refusing to meet hers as he spoke.
“I see.” She wasn’t sure what else to say.
“You deserve better than me,” he said, and to her surprise, his voice wavered slightly.
“Are you that bad for me?”
There was a n
od.
“Why?”
He shook his head. “You saw what I’m capable of,” he whispered. “I can’t put you in that sort of danger anymore. I’m sorry.”
And before she could say anything more, he disappeared into the night again.
Riss stared out after him for a long while before shutting the door and locking it again. She didn’t put the table back in front of it. It wouldn’t matter. If a shifter decided they were coming in, they would just kick the door in, and a few hundred pounds of wood table wouldn’t slow them down.
“What a stupid idea,” she snarled, shoving the table with all her might.
It moved perhaps six inches.
“Fuck you!” she screamed, grabbing the underside of it and overturning it.
The table just sort of fell onto its side and lay there. It didn’t go flying and shatter into a million tiny, satisfying pieces. Instead it just taunted her.
“Oh, fuck this,” she said, grabbing her purse and her spear. “Thinks he can leave me without anything, does he? No job, no friends, no whatever he was? Probably not even a life after tonight? Well, in that case, I’m going to enjoy it.”
Riss didn’t bother to do any makeup or put on anything more than the work clothes she was still wearing. She would go somewhere where they didn’t care what she wore, but would serve her booze anyway.
“May as well live my last night to the fullest.”
The door closed behind her and she wandered out into the street, her homemade spear thrown over one shoulder so she didn’t stab herself with it.
Hopefully she wouldn’t need it, but the weight was a comforting presence as she stalked the streets to find a place that suited her mood.
Chapter Eleven
Zander
Unbeknownst to Riss, she was not the only one looking for a place to drown her sorrows that night.
Once more, Zander found himself pulled to the Barking Squirrel, as if he’d left unfinished business there earlier in the day. The same waitress was still serving tables when he returned, but besides a raised eyebrow, she gave no indication that she recognized him.
Which was just fine with the Gale Dragon. Right then he needed to be alone, even more than earlier. He would tell everyone else in the morning. They had all known it would come at any point, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.
Then he would have to sit back and watch as Kieran handled everything from there. As his mother had said, if he didn’t find a mate, Kieran would inherit the Pierce name and all that went along with it.
Zander wasn’t sure he wished to be around for that. Perhaps he would go on a tour of some of the other shifter strongholds. As a Guardian, he could generally travel where he pleased, though he still had to file the appropriate travel forms. The difference between him and a non-Guardian were that his were almost instantly approved.
I heard Aerie is nice this time of year.
Beer arrived mercifully quickly, and he tossed it back in one go. The waitress eyed him up. He pulled out another wad of cash and put it on the table. Her eyes lingered for another moment, then she shrugged.
If he wasn’t in such a sour mood, Zander would probably have smiled when she came back with two mugs instead of one. He tossed one back just as swiftly, but decided to sit back and enjoy the third, as much as he could enjoy anything right then.
“Anything else I can get you, hon?”
“Don’t call me that,” he said, anger tingeing his voice, though he didn’t look up from his beer.
“Fine,” the waitress snapped and moved off, her shoes clicking irritatingly on the stained and scuffed hardwood floor. Here and there peanut shells crunched underfoot.
Zander finished his third beer.
“Peanuts,” he rasped as the waitress brought him two more refills.
She just looked at him.
“Peanuts, please,” he replied, pushing another bill on the table.
Like magic, a tray of the hard and salty snacks appeared in front of him. Zander set to work peeling them, trying to lose himself in such a menial task.
It didn’t work.
“Hey darling, I’m gonna be takin over for Lacie there,” a voice said.
Zander looked up. It was a new waitress, taller and less blonde than the first one, but with just as much ‘Don’t fuck with me’ written on her face.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Pardon me?” the waitress asked, her eyes narrowing at his tone.
“I said, don’t c—”
A hand wrapped around the back of his head and slammed his face roughly into the table.
“He was just saying he was sorry,” a new voice said.
Zander snarled and reached for the newcomer as they slid into the seat across the booth from him, but hands stronger than his own gripped his wrists and crushed them against the table painfully.
“Enough,” the voice said in a soft, deadly tone.
A voice Zander recognized, even through the blurry tears that always accompanied a blow to the nose.
Zander had never understood why dragons couldn’t have filtered that auto-response out as they evolved. But for whatever reason they hadn’t, and a blow to the nose would still bring forth tears, even if it only stung. He blinked them back and focused on the person across from him.
“What the hell was that for, Daxxton?” he growled.
Daxxton Ryker was nominally his boss. As the Wing Commander of Top Scale Academy, he ran the school. He was also one of the most influential Guardians in all of Cadia. Although he no longer held the top post of High Guardian, many still treated him as if he did. He was old, powerful, and one of the few known Aurum Dragons in existence. The golden-colored species were even rarer than his metallic brass, or the copper or bronze either. By a lot.
And now one of them had just decided he needed a good face-smashing.
“That was because you were being an insufferable ass to the waitresses,” Daxxton said cheerfully.
The waitress returned with a mug of beer for him, and as Zander watched, his mentor and a man he now called friend smiled and thanked the waitress. Then his expression turned to steel as he looked at Zander expectantly.
“What?” he grumped.
Daxxton leaned forward, his flinty eyes boring into Zander. “Don’t test me, Zander Pierce,” he said, biting off each word, making them a threat.
For several long moments Zander stared Daxxton down, trying to get the better of him, to prove that he didn’t need to listen to anyone.
It didn’t work. Zander glanced away and sighed.
“I’m sorry,” he said to the waitress who was still there.
“And?” Daxxton prompted.
Zander frowned, not sure where he was going, but then he caught on. “And please relay that to the other waitress if she’s still here, or tomorrow if she’s not.”
“I will,” the waitress said and retreated from the table, looking just as relieved as Zander felt.
“Well, that wasn’t too painful, now was it?” Daxxton said, leaning back and taking a long sip.
“Of course it wasn’t. You didn’t have to do anything,” Zander complained.
“Neither would you, if you hadn’t been an asshole to her,” the other dragon said bluntly, staring right at Zander.
“I think I’m allowed a little bit of leeway,” he snapped. “My mother just passed a few hours ago.”
Daxxton’s expression softened. “Zander, I’m very sorry to hear that. Irene was a lovely woman. I shall miss her.”
“So will I,” Zander said quietly. “So will I.”
“But,” Daxxton’s voice hardened again. “That can excuse absentmindedness, distraction, and things like that. It will not excuse you being a straight-up asshole to someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
Zander’s head snapped up, rage spinning furiously in his eyes as he stared daggers at Daxxton, fuming at his tone.
“What the hell were they doing that got so easily under your skin anyway?”
&nbs
p; He relaxed when it became clear that Daxxton wasn’t going to get violent with him again.
“Nothing that they deserved it for,” he relented with an exasperated sigh. “Just me being a grumpy dick.”
“You know, I know you have a temper, Zander. But you’ve never struck me as a dick for no reason.”
“Thanks. I think,” he replied, lifting the glass mug to his lips.
“So, why change that today? Yes, I realize it’s callous. Your mother died, but that’s not enough. Not for the man I know. What else is there?”
Zander hesitated.
Did he tell Daxxton about the terms his mother had set forth for him? About the Pierce name and title, and his quest to see it fulfilled? About how he had failed his mother on her deathbed, and was now shoving the only other woman he’d ever cared about away, because he had only started seeing her based upon a lie. That he could never look at her again out of shame for what he’d done.
How did he even begin to express all that to Daxxton anyway? Daxxton, who, for as long as Zander had known him, had never even been known to be intimate with a woman, let along actually have feelings for one beyond respect and friendship?
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said instead.
“Don’t want to, or won’t?” Daxxton challenged.
“Does it really matter at this point?” he returned, not interested in the semantic banter just then.
“So it’s a girl.”
“Fuck off.”
“Oh wow, you must have screwed up real bad with her.”
“How can you know that?” he snarled.
“I didn’t. I just guessed and you confirmed it for me.”
“You know, Daxxton, for an old dragon shifter in a position of respect and authority, you’re a bit of an asshole.”
“I’m entitled to it,” the Aurum Dragon said, hiding his smile behind the beer mug.
“Dick.”
“Petulant child.”
Zander’s head snapped up at the words, molten eyes blazing with rage. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re acting like a child right now. Man up and tell me what’s going on. There is nothing wrong with sharing how you feel, despite any such things you may have been told by so-called ‘tough’ guys. I consider you a friend, Zander. Now let me be a friend.”
