by Kimber White
Gasping with pleasure, my Cassia complied. Her fire came from everywhere. I saw stars and colors I’d never even dreamed of before. Spun gold. Brilliant blue. Warm pink brightening to a neon glow.
It was in her. Part of her. Through her. Then she poured it into me. It hit me straight in the heart. A painful jolt, but only for a second. Then, aching pleasure spilled through me.
“Fuck,” I whispered. She did that too. Cassia pumped her hips. Slowly at first. Then, as her own pleasure built, she became wild.
Not a dragon. Not all the way human. She was the one thing that mattered. She was mine.
Cassia wrapped her legs around me. Her fingers raked across my back, drawing blood. Sinful, delicious pleasure.
Her strength nearly matched mine, but Cassia liked to be dominated. A whisper. A touch. I coaxed her. She thrust faster when I wanted. She went still as I commanded.
Her lips found mine as I pinned her wrists above her head. As I held her in place, I felt her gush with renewed desire. Oh, yes. This girl was built to be claimed by an Alpha. She was built for me.
I came inside of her. It left me spent, but not nearly sated. The urge to turn her, command her to all fours as I sank my fangs into the back of her neck nearly blinded me. But I pulled away. Somehow.
I came into myself, but Cassia’s lust still clouded her eyes. They swirled with color and light. Just like her hair. Just like her essence.
She was waiting for it. Raw need poured through her. I knew in my heart we couldn’t do this again. I could hold back this time, but maybe not the next.
Slowly, as the waves lapped against the shore, Cassia came back into herself. I helped her up. A blush crept into her cheeks as she gathered her clothes. I hated that part. She was far more suited to being naked. I knew in my heart she was built for that too. Another time. Another place. I could take her somewhere, just the two of us. God. If I marked her, I knew her Rise would consume her. Her need for me would be absolute. Ten times a day. Twenty. I would take her over and over until finally, she would achieve an earth-shattering Heat.
But that wasn’t for me. Not now. Not here. Not with…
“Someone’s coming,” she said.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I sensed it too.
My fangs dropped. My vision went bright.
“I need you to hide,” I said. “Do that thing you do.”
I expected her to protest. In the afterglow of our coupling, she was still compliant. She disappeared in her shimmer of light, cloaking herself.
“Stay here,” I said. “It’s just a friend.”
I pulled on my jeans and headed up to the road. Cassia and I had stayed hidden in the dunes. Only one person would have figured out I was here.
Maria stood by the side of the road. She’d pulled up in a beat-up Jeep Wrangler. My step faltered as I read the license plate. It was old. Expired. But the Wild Lake Outfitters logo was still legible. My family’s business a generation ago.
“You’re taking a chance coming out here,” I said.
Maria fidgeted, tearing at her thumbnail. “You’re taking a bigger one,” she said.
I stopped a few feet from her. “What is it?” I asked.
“Look,” she said. “This is the last time. Okay? I need you to promise never to come find me again. Hell, don’t ever come to Luna Point after this.”
“Maria…”
“I’ll help you,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I’ll tell you everything I know,” she answered. “But I’m going to need something in return. Something big.”
“I suppose that depends how valuable your intel is,” I said. I felt Cassia behind me, drawing closer. Dammit. I wished I had marked her. Maybe then I could get her to submit and stay put.
“I want to go home,” she said.
Her words stunned me enough I actually took a step back.
“Home?” I said. “You can’t mean…”
“It’s not safe for me here anymore,” she said. “It’s not safe for any of us. They’ve left me alone because I’m too old to take another mate. A first, I thought that made me one of the lucky ones. But now… Colm…the Ring is planning something big. They have…a weapon.”
“What kind of weapon,” I asked.
“First, make your promise,” she said. “You’ll get me home.”
“You know I don’t have that kind of pull,” I said. “I’m not a body smuggler. I…”
“Save it,” she said. “You have the means.”
Fuck. The Dragonstone. Word of it had gotten all the way to Maria. Fucking Cyrus Bach. Now I wished I had just sold the thing to him and let him twist in the wind when his buyers figured out it was fake. If they ever did.
“Fine,” I said. “Tell me what you know.”
“This guy you’re looking for,” she said. “Xander Brandhart. He’s dangerous, Colm. He’s… they’ve done something to him. I don’t know how. I mean, I heard rumors years ago the Ring was dipping into genetic engineering. I don’t know if they hooked up with some uber mage or something. Whatever it is, people are scared. Colm, they’ve been doing…tests.”
“What kind of tests?” I asked.
“You came from the west side of the state,” she said. “Along the southern border. If you’d have bothered to go further north, you’d have seen. Bennet Harbor has been torched.”
Shit. My blood ran cold. Behind me, I felt the same thing happening with Cassia.
“Torched,” I repeated.
“As in incinerated,” she said. “That transport you asked about. It’s to do with that. They tried to launch from there. I told you. The Ring said they intercepted it. All the shifters on it were killed. The women were taken to the Lodge. But that’s not all they did. They set off some kind of, I don’t know…bomb. Like fucking Hiroshima. There’s nothing left but ash and melted steel.”
“How?” I asked. “I’ve never heard about this.”
“They kept it quiet. You know the Ring controls the government.”
“But even in the underground,” I said. “Someone would have said something.”
“They’re all too scared. And the Ring was well coordinated. No one was able to get in or out of here for months afterward. They’ve only recently started opening things back up.”
There was only one thing with the power to cause the kind of destruction Maria was talking about. Dragonfire.
I could almost taste the ash in my throat. God. If they’d turned him. If Brandhart were now working for the Ring…
I felt Cassia’s distress. She was struggling not to cry out.
“What else?” I asked.
Maria looked over her shoulder. “What else do you need?” she asked.
“All of it,” I said. “Don’t you dare hold out on me. If you know they’re holding Alpha’s mates at the Lodge, you know how many. And you probably know what kind of security force we’re talking about.”
“For what? You can’t possibly be thinking about trying to shut it down. Colm, you won’t make it past the parking lot. They’ll scent you coming. Hell, they’re probably waiting for you already. There’s a price on your head. I heard something about you murdering some bear shifter agents working for the Ring.”
I shook my head and let out a bitter laugh. “Call it a misunderstanding.”
She took a step closer. “Come on. I know the deal they made you. Everyone does.”
It got hard to breathe. I felt Cassia go rigid.
“Maria…”
“I heard you’ve got something in the works that’ll let you write your own ticket. I want in on that, Colm. You may have turned your back on the Wild Lake packs, but they haven’t turned their backs on you. And you owe me.”
“How do I owe you?” I asked.
Tears filled her eyes. “Mal Devane was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch Alpha I’ve ever seen,” she said. “He never left his pack unprotected. Except for once. One day. One moment of distraction when he chose his son’s safety over th
e rest of his men. He chose you. He left Wild Lake to come looking for you. That’s when the agents or the Ring attacked. And my husband paid for it with his life.”
She gutted me. The pain in her eyes seared my heart.
“That’s not what happened,” I said, but I knew it was a lie. She was right.
“Do right by me now,” she said. “You know where to find me when you’re ready. Just don’t wait too long. I know they’ve offered you a token for safe passage.”
I stood speechless as Maria turned and walked back to her Jeep. She sped away. When there was nothing left in her wake but dust, I turned my back to the road.
Cassia stood before me, tears streaming down her face. Her pain mixed with mine. It choked me.
“Cassia,” I said.
She put a hand up. “A token?”
“Wait.”
“You son of a bitch,” she said. “It’s me. This whole time. This whole thing. I’m your ticket.”
“No,” I said. “I mean… yes…but I haven’t.”
Her fury rose. I took one step forward, then a blast of heat knocked me backward. I shot to my feet and ran toward her.
But Cassia had already disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
Chapter 18
Cassia
The line between passion and rage is thinner than love and hate. Colm took the full force of my fire. I didn’t stop to see what happened.
I knew.
He would follow me. He would try to explain. He might even succeed. But, at that moment, only one truth pulsed through me.
The Ring had offered him a deal. A token. For me. A token wasn’t just wealth. It meant they would allow him to pass through Occupied, Oasis, and Neutral Zone territories at will. Forever.
In that second of rage, it didn’t matter to me whether he took it or turned it down. It only mattered that he hadn’t told me the truth. I’d been warned about him.
Colm was a war profiteer, just like the Ring. An opportunist. It’s what made him good at what he did and ensured his survival. It was also what would make him betray me.
Well, I had no intention of giving him the chance.
Maria’s words pounded through me. They fueled me as I let my wings out and shot into the air, leaving a stunned Colm far below me.
I’d never gone this high before. Colm. Maria, the road below. Tiny dots. When the air grew thin, I looked north.
I felt myself falter. My wings might betray me. But there it was in the distance, just like Maria had said. The charred remains of a small town. Not a building left standing.
Ash. Destruction. With no blast crater, there was only one power on this earth capable of doing something like that.
Maria had told the truth. This was Dragonfire. My father. Even from here I could feel the rage that fueled him too.
Grief choked me. I couldn’t fly, but I could glide. I turned in the air, stretching my arms in front of me. I dove.
Too far. Too fast. I only prayed I’d given myself enough of a head start. Because Colm would come for me. Even as new hate bubbled through me, lust chased close behind it.
I came down fast. The horizon was a blur beside me. I saw my target.
It was an old pickup truck parked at the entrance to a trailer park. I sensed its owner maybe a hundred yards away. He was cutting grass. Grass? I didn’t think anyone did that anymore.
I landed hard, feeling the jolt all the way up my spine. I righted myself quickly and ran for the truck. It was unlocked. He’d left the keys in the ignition.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, but the old man was oblivious to me. I slammed the truck in reverse, kicking up a cloud of dust. Then, I threw it in drive and rocketed forward.
The Lodge. I closed my eyes.
“Where are you, Mama?” I whispered. She had to be alive.
Tears stung my eyes as reality sank in. If my father was forced to lay waste to that town, my mother’s life was the leverage. Or…she was already dead, and they’d used his grief to turn him.
I drove east, hitting the highway. Luna Point wasn’t big at all. I’d seen faded signs when we came in pointing to gas stations that no longer existed. And I’d seen one big billboard with chipped paint and graffiti covering almost everything…almost.
The Lodge. Exit 18. Two miles from here.
I pulled off just before the exit, driving the truck into a ditch. My teeth rattled as I came to a stop. I climbed out.
It was there. A huge, three-story hotel made to look rustic, like a massive log cabin.
I cloaked myself and made my way to the top of a small hill. I scented the air but found no trace of my father. Was he cloaked too? I’d always been able to see him, even if he was.
“Where are you?” I whispered.
That’s when I saw the patrols. The Ring. They were using bear shifters for this too.
Sweat trickled down my back as I found my wings again. I was tired. Exhausted. The blast of fire I’d used on Colm took almost every bit of power I had. But not quite all.
Taking a deep breath, I launched myself skyward yet again. I saw six bear shifters walking the perimeter of the hotel. The building was U-shaped with a large courtyard and water fountain in the back. The two wings on either side of it were dark. Only the rooms in the front had lights in the windows.
Six bears. That was the light. I just had no idea what to expect inside.
For the first time since I’d left Angel Lake, I wished my uncles were with me.
It got cold. I shivered as I finally retracted my wings. I needed food. Sleep. Time. I had none of it.
What I had was a pair of eyes watching me. I straightened my back and turned toward them.
Colm’s wolf had his fangs bared, saliva dripping from them. He took a defensive stance, his head low, his tail up. If it were any other black wolf, I never would have seen him. But Colm’s pulse beat right alongside my own.
I still felt that same rage racing through my heart. I let my magic drain from me and walked toward him.
“You can stand down,” I said. “If I wanted to blast you again, I would have done it already.”
Colm let out a short growl, then shifted. The air filled with his magic and it sent a wave of desire through me. Even now.
“It’s time to go,” he said. Sweat dripped from his brow. Even in the moonlight, I could see an angry red mark on his chest from where I’d hit him.
“When were you going to tell me?” I asked.
“About your parents? I just found out myself!” he shouted in a whisper. “Christ, Cassia. I was trying to figure out how…to keep you from doing exactly what you just did. Charging up here with no backup. No plan. That’s why I needed to know how well you could defend yourself.”
“She’s down there!” I shouted. “If my father really is responsible for what happened in Bennett Harbor, then they’re using my mother to control him.”
He closed the distance between us but didn’t touch me. I felt like I would have combusted if he did.
“How exactly were you planning on doing anything about that?” he asked. “Don’t you get it? The Ring is waiting for you. If they’ve driven your dad to that, God knows what else they’ve gotten from him. They know about you.”
“Because of you,” I said. “God. I was a fool to come to you. Hurley. Cyrus Bach. Stella. Hell, even Maria. All we’ve done is leave a trail of breadcrumbs. They’ve been playing you from the beginning. They’ve been playing both of us. I’m done. I’m not doing this your way anymore. I’m going it alone.”
He reared back. “Cassia…”
“Try to stop me!” I challenged him. I let my wings pop out again. Colm’s eyes went pure gold.
“You don’t even know for sure if your mother is there,” he said. “You didn’t hear all Maria had to say. The women they’ve taken? The Ring is shipping them overseas. They’ve got a contract with some wolf pack in Russia or somewhere.”
The air grew thick. I couldn’t even let my thoughts go there. The idea of my mother
or any other shifter’s mate being forced into a mating against her will.
“She’d die before that happened,” I said. “My father… God. It would…”
“Turn him into a monster,” Colm answered for me. “Cassia. I’ve seen it myself. That’s what can happen with fated mates now. It’s a weakness. A weapon. The Ring has been actively seeking out mated pairs to do exactly what’s been done to your father. It’s too late. You can’t save him. You can’t save either of them. You can only save yourself.”
I let out a sob. Blood welled I my palm where I’d dug my nails in. “No!”
“I won’t let it happen to me!” he shouted.
I took a step back. “So, this was your solution all along. Lead me here. Turn me over to the Ring so you you’d never have to worry about having your fated mate used against you.”
“No!” he shouted. “God.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the token they offered you for me?” I asked.
Colm’s expression fell. “I didn’t…”
“No more lies. Tell me all of it. Was that it? That’s the only thing you would have cared about more than the Dragonstone I was offering?”
“The fake Dragonstone,” he said. “You’ve been withholding things from me too.” Rage poured through him. Then, in an instant, he let it go. I watched his entire body change. Colm’s shoulders dropped in defeat. A tremor went through him.
Cold horror filled me, and I pointed toward the Lodge. A generation ago, it would have been a place of refuge, escape, solace. Now, it was little more than a prison.
“Are you going to tell me you turned them down?”
Colm flashed his fangs. “The bears wanted you. At the motel when I left. They’d given me a rendezvous point. An old farmhouse off the highway. I was supposed to bring you there. You’ll notice I didn’t.”
I shook my head. “Only because I killed them before they had a chance to get to you.”
“Dammit!” he shouted. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you see? I’ve risked everything. No. More than that. I’ve thrown everything away because of you. There’s a price on my fucking head. I can never leave the Neutral Zone now. They’ll have men looking for me on every border. Every ally I ever had. Every contact. They’ll sell me out in a heartbeat so what happened to Dan doesn’t happen to them. Even Stella.”