by Amelia Jade
“I’m well aware of that. Despite my prolonged absence from your lives, I’ve not been living in a hermit hole,” Morgan said cheerily, much to her annoyance.
“Do you have the pictures?” she snapped, hand flashing out, palm upward.
“Of course.” A bright green-colored USB stick dropped into her palm and disappeared into her pocket in a blur. “And the backup,” she said, hand going back out.
Morgan laughed freely. “Not until the money is mine.”
She couldn’t argue that. “Show it to me then.”
He stepped away from Pyne and took out a gray thumb drive. “This is the sole remaining copy of the pictures.”
“It had better be,” Pyne interjected. “There’s a clause in the contract that states if you or anyone else publish them, or if they are even ‘accidentally’ leaked or stolen, then they automatically revert back to my ownership. So it’s in your best interest to ensure that doesn’t happen,” he said with a feral grin.
“I am a man of my word,” Morgan replied. “You and I don’t see eye-to-eye anymore on that, but I’m not a liar.”
“Just a thief and attempted murderer,” she spat.
His eyes twinkled. “Oh she’s feisty, Pyne. I like the new version of her. The old one was too by the book. This one has emotion. I can see why you’ve claimed her.”
Kim was confused. How the hell could Morgan know anything like that? He was making assumptions even she wasn’t. Pyne hadn’t claimed her. What an old-fashioned term too. Claim? She wasn’t his property.
“If you can see that, then back off,” Pyne snarled, keys clattering as he used more force than necessary. “It’s not like you’re going to get the chance to interfere anyway.”
Kim kept her composure, but Morgan’s head snapped around to stare at Pyne. “What did you just say?” he asked warily.
“I said you’re not going to get the chance to interfere,” Pyne said, trying to sound just as forceful. “You’re going to have your money and you’re gonna be out of our lives. Got it?”
The criminal took a step backward. “No. No I don’t think you meant it like that at all. You’re sounding angry now, but the first time you said it you sounded almost…smug. Like you were expecting to come out on top of this.”
He took another step back as Pyne turned around.
“Oh, you rascal,” Morgan laughed, pointing a finger and wagging it like Pyne had been a naughty child. “Almost. But not quite.”
Then he took off down the ditch and across the small field before entering the woods, heading in the opposite direction of the base, toward the trees and beyond that the nearest mountain.
A moment later Pyne swore and took off, shouting something that sounded like an apology over his shoulder as he moved like a blur after Morgan, the pair of them both nearly faster than her eyes could keep up with.
In seconds she was alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Pyne
Idiot!
Stupid, stupid moron. How could you have done something so blatantly stupid? This isn’t about you, it’s about Kim, and you just fucked up something big.
If he was gonna fix it, he was going to have to catch up to Morgan. Too bad he wasn’t just some human like Kim thought.
He leapt over a fallen log, then was forced to wrench his body to the side as a dart of silver shot past him. It impacted on the tree behind him and shot right through it, tumbling out the far side to flop to the ground, steam rising from the super-cold metal.
I fucking hate the damn Quicksilvers.
Their power was as the name suggested, quicksilver, a near-frozen metal that hurt whether it drove the sharp end through you, or froze your skin solid. They were fairly rare as far as dragons went, the chromatic colors like his cobalt line, the onyx, ice, crimson and emerald dragons being much more populous than the metallic lines.
But they were a pain the royal ass.
Thankfully he’d waited until they were well into the brush to start flinging his powers about. Pyne saw a flash of black move ahead of him and a split second later a lightning bolt shot out to vaporize the spot Morgan had just occupied.
“Too slow! Always too slow, Pyne. That’s your problem.”
He raced after the rogue dragon shifter, but Morgan kept up a steady and unpredictable stream of quicksilver bullets, forcing him to slow his pace to be ready for the next one. Once he singed Morgan’s pants, but that was as close as he got for some time.
“Ten years ago you were just as slow. I honestly thought you’d put up more of a challenge,” Morgan taunted again. “I took all your money then, and now I’m going to take it all again today.”
Lowering his head, Pyne put on a burst of speed, bringing Morgan into view. A blast of lightning flung him back through several small saplings and into some thick brush. Grinning at the shrieks that followed he realized it had been a thornbush. Justice.
“You didn’t take anywhere near all my money,” he shot back, running around the bush just in time to see Morgan disappear over a slight rise.
Keeping to the left he circled it, watching as a burst of quicksilver erupted from the ground like a spear, ready to impale him if he’d gone up and over in a direct pursuit.
“Do you really think I’m that stupid?” he growled as a hailstorm of tiny darts shot in his direction. They were small enough that the large tree he ducked behind protected him. Mostly. One was larger and he felt instant pain as it dug half an inch into his thigh, but no lasting damage was done.
He cleared away from the tree before a pair of much larger frozen metal spikes penetrated the wood. The tree, with nothing to support it, groaned and crashed to the ground between the two of them, giving Morgan cover to escape once more.
“You’re so overconfident,” Morgan called, his voice echoing slightly through the woods as things thickened up, limiting his vision, forcing him to rely on sound and scent to track his quarry, which made the going slower. “There is no way this ends well for you, Pyne. You’ve screwed her over now. I hope you know that.”
He let his anger at the truth of Morgan’s comments simmer, but prevented it from boiling over. This was a game of cat and mouse. Anger would only make him more prone to mistakes. He needed to play smart if he was going to bring this asshole down.
Creeping around a rock outcropping, he yanked his head back as Morgan appeared, stabbing at him with a quicksilver staff with pointed ends.
“Ack!” he grunted, batting the strike away and letting energy from his reserves cover his hands. On his left hand a large circular shield of energy leapt into being, while on his right the arm itself became the weapon, energized and as sharp as any metal blade.
“You’ve been training I see,” Morgan observed.
The asshole was much older than Pyne, reaching well into his fifth century of life. It shouldn’t have been a fair contest, but Pyne had been training harder than ever before since coming to Fort Banner, and his powers were growing astoundingly every day. He could do things now that most dragons wouldn’t dream of, and he wasn’t even mated! When that day came his powers would blossom anew.
If he hadn’t just permanently fucked things up with his mate by opening his big mouth.
The two dueled back and forth around the landscape. Up hills and down creek beds, their strikes toppled trees and split rocks, the cracks echoing wildly up the ever-increasing slope as they slowly climbed the mountain.
Around them the undergrowth began to thin.
Pyne blocked a strike, swept his sword arm up, and with a vicious burst of power split the staff in two. He reared back and deposited his size-fourteen combat boot in Morgan’s chest. The move was unexpected; most dragons didn’t engage in physical close combat, choosing instead to battle with their powers.
Morgan still fell into that category, and the shock on his face was complete as the air in his lungs stayed still but the rest of him was flung backward, bouncing and rolling over once, gettin
g to his feet while struggling to breathe.
“Asshole,” Pyne said, advancing, weapons at the ready.
He swept Morgan’s feet out from under him, depositing the man on his rear once more. “Stay down,” he ordered.
Morgan scrambled backward in a circle, forcing Pyne to go after him. Morgan’s hands dug deep into the dirt as he pushed himself away from the energy blade.
“I don’t want to do this!” he growled. He needed the man alive, despite his desires for just the opposite.
“Funny,” Morgan said suddenly with a grin. “Because I do.”
Something in his expression warned Pyne, but there was nothing he could do as loops of quicksilver shot up and over him, trapping him. Too late Pyne realized Morgan hadn’t been retreating in a circle, he’d been depositing quicksilver into the ground until he needed to call upon it.
Now two-inch-thick bars of it held Pyne down like a net. He slashed at them with all his might, but they just parted like butter and grew back.
“Enough of this,” he growled, reaching out to the sky and pulling down energy, ready to blast Morgan with a lightning bolt from the sky.
“I agree,” Morgan said blithely and stabbed his hand forward.
Quicksilver shot from it, spearing Pyne through the gut and pinning him to the ground.
A second one pierced his closed hand and slammed it back. That, combined with the agony of the brutally cold metal piercing his body, was too much. The power faded as Pyne howled in pain.
“Like I said,” Morgan taunted. “Too overconfident.”
Then he disappeared into the forest, leaving Pyne to extricate himself.
Every little movement brought new levels of agony, but he couldn’t stay there. The quicksilver inside him was killing him. Gritting his teeth, he conjured up the strongest blade he could, focusing it into something no more than six inches long. It glowed bright blue-white, practically crackling and sparking.
He took an excruciating preparatory breath and then sliced the blade through the spike in his gut, and then quickly across his other hand. The tops of both fell off, leaving him still impaled, but with freedom in sight.
A few more swipes of his hand and most of the cage fell apart. Pyne screamed bloody murder as he picked himself up and ripped the darts from the back of his stomach and hand before curling into a ball as warmth spilled from his body, his lifeblood coating the detritus on the forest floor, the dry leaves and twigs soaking it up.
Moaning in agony he lay still, trying to let his advanced healing stitch him back up. Chasing after Morgan was a lost cause today, but he had to get back to Kim, to head things off with her bosses.
It was going to be a close race, and Pyne wasn’t sure he would be able to win. He was in bad shape.
The warm embrace of his lifeblood grew stronger.
Chapter Fifteen
Kim
She was halfway between the car and the woods when she stopped.
“This is stupid, Kim. Don’t do this. Don’t go into the woods. You’re not equipped for it, and you saw the way the two of them moved. You’re not going to catch up to them.”
It took her some time to convince herself of that, but eventually she turned around and walked back up to the car. At about that time several of the others appeared.
“What happened?” Rokk asked, looking warily at the woods, as if he knew exactly where they had gone.
Something caught the attention of all the tall men, and their heads turned to the forest at once. Rokk seemed to pale slightly, but then he shook his head and focused on her. “Well?”
“Pyne…he screwed up,” she said, sighing. “He taunted him and Morgan picked up on his plans, and he fled over there.” She pointed at the woods. “But you all already knew that, didn’t you?”
They all shared looks with one another, but nobody spoke.
“Exactly. Does someone want to tell me what’s going on? Should I be worried?”
“There is nothing to worry about,” Aric told her gently. “But it’s not our place to say any more.”
The others conferred, and all of them left except for Rokk.
“What’s going on?” she asked as Rokk prepared to head down into the forest. “Why are they leaving?”
Rokk didn’t answer, because her gasp cut him off. Behind him, emerging from the woods on unsteady legs, was a blood-drenched figure that she would recognize anywhere.
“Pyne!” she shouted and rushed to his side, nearly outpacing Rokk, who hurried after her belatedly. He then moved past her in a blur before supporting his twin brother.
Then she was there and doing her best to help him with the other side. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Rokk, we should put him down. There’s a lot of blood on his clothing. He’s badly hurt.”
She gently peeled the shirt away from the circular wound. The flesh was jagged and torn, but to her astonishment, underneath that, it was clearly healing already. Fresh pink skin was stitching the wound closed bit by bit. The flow of blood was stopped, most of it already dried.
“How is that possible?” she asked, staggering away in surprise, her brain having a hard time comprehending what she was seeing.
“It’s a long story,” Pyne said. “And one that, while I want to tell you, I can’t. Not yet. Not until we get this bastard.”
She shook her head. “You’re hurt bad. You’re going to be laid up for a while.”
“Tomorrow,” he said, wincing as he took a deep breath that looked like it hurt him a lot.
Her heart ached; she wanted nothing more than to share his pain, to ease his burden, but there seemed to be nothing she could do. With his miraculous healing ability, he would be as good as new, like he said, probably by the next day.
“This isn’t believable. Are you some kind of mutant?” she asked. “Is that what this is, a mutated gene?”
Rokk and Pyne exchanged knowing looks, but again remained silent.
“That would be cool. It’d be cooler if it’s transferrable.”
She paused, frowning. “Wait, you’re not aliens in disguise as humans, are you? I’m really not interested in that, so if you’re going to eat me or disintegrate me with a ray gun, can you just do it now instead of dragging it out?”
Both of them started to laugh, until Pyne collapsed to the floor groaning in agony. “Stop,” he hissed. “Hurts. Laugh.”
“I wasn’t joking, but I’m glad you found it funny.”
“Not alien,” Pyne wheezed. “Promise. Just…I’ll tell you later. Talking is painful.” He lapsed into promised silence, curled up on the ground.
“What do we do now?” she asked Rokk, feeling helpless. The car was still a few dozen yards away, and up the incline of the ditch. She couldn’t carry Pyne there, even if that wouldn’t put him into extreme agony.
“Now, we wait around until he’s feeling up to moving and getting in the car. Then you drive him back, get him cleaned up, and do whatever you can to help him out. Wash his back. He’ll want the wound cleaned carefully, and whatever else on him needs cleaning. Then feed him. A lot. As soon as he’s healed enough he’s going to be ravenous, so don’t skimp out.” Rokk glanced down. “He likes hot sauce on everything,” he added quietly.
“You’re a fucking liar,” Pyne growled. “You know I hate anything spicy, you dick. Why are you doing this to me? She actually cares for me, and she would have listened to you!”
Rokk was too busy laughing to respond.
“He really is going to be okay, isn’t he?” Kim asked. “No twin would be this casual about something if he thought his brother was going to die.”
“Yeah, he’ll be fine. He really is hurt bad. That gut shot is a painful one. But he’ll heal up okay. He’s just going to be whiny until he does, so take what he says with a grain of salt.”
Rokk waited around until Pyne was okay enough to get up, then he helped him into the back seat of the car. They got Pyne positioned on his side, so nothing wo
uld be rubbing open wounds. Then, as promised, he left on his own, leaving it up to Kim to get him back into the base and into his quarters.
That’s going to be interesting.
“I’m sorry,” he said while she was putting the car in drive.
“What?” Her foot paused on the brake. “Sorry? For what? Bleeding all over the military car? Not my problem.”
He grinned, but refrained from laughing. “No, not for that. I’m sure there’s some unfortunate screwup that will clean it. No, I’m sorry for screwing that up back there, and I’m sorry for lying to you.”
“Lying to me?” She was instantly on her guard. “What did you lie about?”
“Morgan and I go back. We have a history,” he hissed as coughs racked his body, turning his face white with agony.
“Figures,” she said as calmly as she could. “Is that why he was able to read your intent so easily?”
Pyne nodded. “Probably. I just shouldn’t have spoken.”
“What’s your past? Tell me everything.”
He nodded, bending over suddenly, his face scrunching up. She could see each time the stab of pain hit him—his eyebrows twitched violently. Kim desperately wanted to be able to do more for him, but she couldn’t. It was beyond her. But she could listen to what he had to say.
“Morgan used to be my financial advisor. He worked for the banks, and was high up. I was busy doing other things, and so he would manage my money for me.”
This was the first she’d heard of Pyne having “money.” He spoke of it in the casual way that only the ultra-rich can refer to their excess funds as simply “money.”
“One day he came to me, said he had a sure-fire win. An tech firm was skyrocketing up the indexes, and if we got in now we could easily triple or quadruple our money. Easily, he said. They were doing something new, something different.”
She nodded, wondering if it was the same company associated with a horrible crash, lawsuits, and more as the fallout spread. It had been a big deal.
