by Amelia Jade
Yawning, she pulled her feet up onto the chair and reclined it back. If they truly were going to America, then it was a long flight, and she wanted to catch some sleep before—
***
She woke up with a start, body tensing before memories returned, informing her that she was still safe, and was still curled up on a seat in Stoen’s private plane.
It also informed her that she was now curled up into his side, one of his large arms draped around her, holding her tight as she slept, her head on his chest. Great. Just what I need right now. My body betraying me while I sleep, putting me into close contact with him.
Rose stifled a giggle as she was randomly reminded of the “crazy-hot” scale that girls were often compared to.
Now I understand it all too well. He’s gorgeous, and actually kinda nice. But a nutjob all the same, with his talk of dragons and bears and wolves.
Easing her way into a sitting position, she gently lifted his arm—and it weighted a ton when deadweight—over her head and placed it on his lap. Stoen stirred, but didn’t immediately wake.
Rose got up and moved to the seat facing him to put a bit of space between them. Outside the sky was dark, and the land below them the same.
It’s probably not land anymore. We’re probably over the ocean by now.
Like always her attention slowly returned to Stoen. The amazingly protective Stoen, who could run like the devil, fight the force of the airplane’s pull, and also afford a private plane. Thinking over all that, she realized she didn’t really know him.
Yes, they’d gone on several dates and she knew a bit about him, but she didn’t know him. Yet despite that, he’d not left her mind much since she’d declined his surprise proposal.
“Hey, Stoen. Wake up.” It was time she changed that. “I have some questions.”
One eyelid lifted, and, seeing her staring back at him, stayed open. With a begrudging effort that was visible even to her, he hauled himself to a seated position and opened both eyes while simultaneously emitting a huge yawn.
“Feel better now?’
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I need to sleep. I’m exhausted.”
“The chase wasn’t that demanding.”
He eyed her. “You’re forgetting time changes. I’d been awake for something like forty hours straight since you called.”
Her jaw dropped. “Oh, Stoen, I’m sorry. I…go back to sleep. It can wait.”
The big man smiled gently. “No, it’s okay. I’m up, ask away.”
“Okay. Shifters.”
“Yes. They exist. This is real life. No, I’m not lying. No, I’m not crazy. Yes, I realize it makes me look that way. No, I’m not trying to scare you. Yes, I really can shift into a dragon when I’m not exhausted and out of energy like right now.” He flashed her a look that said he’d expected this. “Anything else?”
“Come on,” she argued. “You can’t expect me to believe that, can you?”
“I can, and I do,” he said, dropping the air of uncaring gentleness he’d adopted for one of serene seriousness. “Tell me, how do you think I could run so fast in the park? How one of the men following us—wolf shifters, by the way—was able to rip off the bumper? What about me closing the door while taking off? No human could do those sorts of things, Rose.”
Running her tongue over the front of her teeth, she lost herself in thought, trying to come up with reasonable explanations for those actions. She couldn’t, of course, because there weren’t any. But that didn’t automatically make his story legitimate.
“Maybe I’m hallucinating,” she suggested. “I could be sick, need drugs. Or maybe I’ve been exposed to something that’s making me dream all this up. That would be a far more plausible solution.”
“And would you make such a connection if you were in that sort of state? Most people can’t accept that they aren’t seeing reality.”
“I can’t accept it.”
“Yes, you can,” he urged. “And you will. When we get there.”
Rose looked at the roof of the plane, exasperated with Stoen by this point. Her questions weren’t really getting her anywhere. “Where are we going again?”
“American military base, to fight creatures called Outsiders that are from another planet. Or dimension, or something. We don’t know.” Stoen yawned casually.
“We’re going to fight aliens?”
“I guess you could call them that,” he mused. “Nobody ever really refers to them as such though. They’re just called Outsiders. They’re not from here.”
“Where do they come from?”
“A portal under the mountains.”
“What do they—wait. Why the hell am I going along with this? I’m going back to sleep,” she snapped. “Maybe when I wake up you’ll make a bit more sense.”
“I am making sense. You just need to see my dragon face. Then you’ll be a believer.”
“As if it could be so easy,” she said with a snort, stretching out across the seats after lifting the armrest and closing her eyes.
“I’ll prove everything to you.”
Rose fell asleep with a frown on her face.
He sounds so serious…
Chapter Seven
Stoen
The wheels screeched as they touched down on the tarmac at Fort Banner, bringing both him and Rose to full wakefulness. They’d strapped into their seats during the landing approach, but both were still drowsy. He came alive now though, because once they landed he could finally show her that he wasn’t a liar.
“So dark out. What time is it?” she asked.
“About eleven o’clock at night.”
“This time change is going to mess me up big time.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “We’ll manage.”
Although he’d slept much of the eleven-hour flight, Stoen had spent a good amount of it deep in contemplation. After being awoken for a brief interrogation, he couldn’t stop wondering why she’d felt the need to quiz him like that. It seemed so…sudden. The one answer he’d landed on wasn’t comfortable, but it made sense.
Rose didn’t feel like she knew him.
There was chemistry between them, neither could deny that, and he doubted that neither of them wanted to. They worked well together, but just because they formed a good team didn’t mean that they knew much about the other. For instance, he’d had no idea she was a private investigator before he met her.
Or the fact she was on the run. She managed to hide that from you.
Stoen tried to prop up his ego by telling himself that he hadn’t been looking for secrets from her. Why should he have been? After all, he wasn’t hiding any from her, except about being a shifter, and he’d told her that as soon as he could.
And look how that fared. Maybe you should have waited to tell her some of these things. There’s a difference between lying and waiting until the right time.
He looked away, not wanting Rose to see the anger that he knew was reflected on his face. All his friends had told him the same thing. To wait. To date her some more and let things happen naturally. After all, what was a few more months or even a year or two for a dragon?
Stoen, however, hadn’t been patient. He’d wanted to make her his own without delay. After the first date he’d bought the ring and begun planning the proposal, and no amount of arguing from anyone had been enough to stop him. He’d rushed into it.
They hadn’t even slept together at that point! The kiss in the park to fool the wolves, that had only been their second kiss. It was ridiculous. Shame burned at him as he remembered the way everyone had looked at him after she’d left. He could still feel the pity burning into his shoulders. It had been a most humbling experience, and as much as he wished to pursue Rose again, he wasn’t sure he could handle a second such incident.
Not yet at least. He wanted her close, but the idea of exposing himself like that, in such a raw and open way…it scared him. Stoen had a hard time
admitting that, but it was true. He was scared of being hurt again.
You know what will happen if you don’t. If you try to go it alone. You need her. Not just because she’s your mate, but because she’s also the cure for what’s going on in your brain.
Stoen knew that, like all Quicksilver dragons, eventually he would go mad. It was a scientific eventuality, predicted by the genes of his particular sub-race of dragons. The only thing that seemed to fix that bond was finding and bonding with his mate. Which meant that no matter how painful it might be, he had to overcome his fears. Otherwise he’d lose so much more than his pride.
The jet taxied to a stop and the pilot emerged, opening the stairs. “All safe and sound, sir.”
“Thanks, Don,” he said, gesturing for Rose to lead the way. “It was a smooth flight.”
“Just doing my best. I’ll have the crews go over every inch of her, see if that car caused any damage.”
“Car?” Rose asked.
“Yeah. What do you think caused that huge bump as we were taking off? We ran over the rear of one.”
“Holy shit.”
“It wasn’t pretty,” he admitted. “But we’re safe now.”
Rose got to the bottom of the stairs and looked around. “Holy shit, you weren’t lying. We’re on a military base.”
“I wasn’t lying about anything. I can show you if you’d like.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
She looked back and up at him as he jumped the last few stairs, glad to be up and moving. That was too much time spent cooped up in a plane over the last two days for him. He needed to be out. To stretch his…wings.
“There are what,” he paused to do some math, “eighteen dragon shifters on the base now. At first it was all classified, but by now everyone who works here has been cleared to know about us. We regularly go out in our dragon form for night patrols of the mountains. Come on, let me truly blow your mind,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her away from the jet. “It won’t take long.”
“Odd, I’ve never heard a man admit to that before.”
He frowned. “Did you just insult my sexual prowess?”
“No, you did that. I just remarked on it.”
He shook his head, but couldn’t shake the smile from his face. Finally his mate was going to know he wasn’t crazy. It might not make her fall instantly in love with him—okay, it definitely wouldn’t—but it would make her believe him, and that was worth something.
“Anyway, you can save all your smart-ass remarks, because you’re about to eat shit for not believing me,” he said with a grin.
“Riiighhhht.”
They cleared the plane, and he took her by the shoulders.
“You’re serious about this,” she said as he backed away.
“Deadly.”
“I have to admit, you’re making me doubt myself with how adamant you are about being some sort of shapeshifter. I’m going to be ready for any sort of magic trick though, I’m warning you.”
“No tricks. Just the truth.”
He jogged backward, until there was plenty of space between them. Stoen wanted to impress her, not terrify her by being right beside her when he shifted. There was only one chance for a first impression, and he wanted to make his count.
Closing his eyes, he spread his arms and opened the conduit in his mind that connected him to his dragon. Calling it forth, he urged it to flow through his veins, changing him into the mighty scaled beast that all other shifters feared.
Nothing happened.
“I don’t see any change,” Rose called.
“Just hold on a second. This never happens.”
“Performance anxiety is a perfectly normal thing. You shouldn’t be—”
He cut her off. “Shove it.”
Angrily he smacked his dragon. He caught images of food. It was hungry. Well, so was he, deal with it. Time to prove to Rose that he was for real. Time to show his mate.
That thought got the attention of his dragon and the power surged forth.
“It’s okay, Stoen, you—oh my fucking God it’s a dragon.”
His vision was obscured for a split second as he shifted, but when the transformation was complete he saw Rose, sitting on her ass, hands over her mouth, speechless.
Fuck yeah.
“Told you so,” he said, sticking out his long lizard tongue and winking one giant yellow eye.
“I’m on drugs. What was in that food on the plane?”
“We ate the same food,” he said. “You’re not drugged. You’re just learning that the world you thought was all explainable and was without major secrets was lying to you.”
“Right. Yeah, that’s all. It was just hiding dragon-men.”
He laughed, a deep booming sound that startled Rose back a pair of steps.
“It’s okay. You can come up close. I’m not going to hurt you. I want you to do whatever you feel is necessary. The last thing I want is any more claims of trickery. There are no mirrors or illusions involved, I promise you.”
At first she refused to move. Stuck to the spot, Rose kept shaking her head over and over. Stoen eventually stopped trying to force her. Instead he just sat down, then rolled over and got back to his feet.
“It’s not animatronic either. I can do anything.”
“Can you fly?”
He spread his wings, leapt from the ground, did a slow circle around the plane, and came back for a smooth landing on the opposite side of Rose. “Anything else?” he said tiredly.
“Can you breathe fire?”
“Only the reds can do that. I have the gift of quicksilver. A bitingly cold metal that will burn you just as easily as fire, but can be hardened as well.”
“Quick...silver?” she sounded unsure. “Is it dangerous?”
“Only if you touch it.”
“Can you show me?”
He shrugged, opened his maw, and twin streams of silver shot forth from the sides of his mouth, intersecting about five feet past the edge of his snout. The metal hit the ground and piled up quickly, obeying his commands until it resembled a taller, rough version of Rose.
“Sorry, I’m not an artist. That’s about the best rendition I’ve got.”
“I...I don’t know what to say.”
He basked in the feeling of righteous victory. It felt good.
“So if you’re real, then that means that the people chasing me really are wolf shifters. Which means…Stoen, what the hell have I gotten myself into?”
“Whatever it is, I’ll protect you,” he promised, baring his teeth in a menacing snarl.
He would fight to the bitter end for her safety, but Stoen still didn’t have an answer to her question.
What were they up against?
Chapter Eight
Rose
The sun was shining brightly overhead, and for once she wasn’t exhausted. They’d landed two days earlier, and truthfully, she’d spent most of those two days asleep or in the cafeteria. Stoen had been busy with his dragon buddies, planning for something, and so she’d been left to her own devices a lot of the time.
Like today. She was out walking around the base, exploring, learning what she could, and trying to come to terms with certain things. Like Stoen being a dragon. And having dragon buddies, and that whatever she was involved with, it was really bad. Why would shifters be after her? Were all the people involved shifters? She didn’t know. If they were, why were they so intent on kidnapping all these human miners? What use could they possibly have for them?
She passed by another of the massive hangars that housed a squadron of battlesuits. That had been another surprise, to see that big-screen technology was a reality. No more movies about comic-book superheroes; they had the real thing. Larger, less flashy, because this was the American military after all, but shit, the things existed! She couldn’t deny that.
Peeking her head in, she stared up in awe at the eight-foot-high suits, r
espect for their operators growing in her every time she saw them doing any sort of exercises or training. It was impressive.
Several times she’d discreetly asked around about shifters with the operators of the metal suits. Each time she’d been caught off guard by their willingness to talk with her about them once they saw she had a clearance level high enough. Given that she wasn’t military it made sense to be cautious, but like Stoen had said, she’d seen two different dragons take off the past two nights, heading deeper into the mountains.
It was getting hard to deny that her reality hadn’t just been permanently and irrevocably changed. It still remained to be seen whether that was for the better or not, but so far it seemed okay. They were all part of the “good guys” as far as she could tell, which was important.
Walking on from the hangar she ascended the hill that eventually became the slope of the mountain. She’d never been up this way in her wandering, but it seemed to be a fairly active part of the base.
“What the hell is that?”
As she neared the top her eyes spotted a huge hole in the side of the mountain. Poised outside it were massive concrete cylinders on rollers that would guide them right into the hole. Curiosity got the better of her and she approached. People were visible near the opening, and as she looked down it, she could see lights and other bodies moving farther down at what appeared to be a side tunnel.
But as soon as she started to descend a guard materialized out of nowhere.
“ID please, ma’am.”
“Oh,” she said, startled to see that he had his gun out and one hand on it. He took his job seriously then. The private investigator in her noticed all sorts of these things.
“Here you go,” she said, holding it out and preparing to continue on.
“Sorry, ma’am, you don’t have clearance to proceed. I’m going to have to ask you to turn back immediately.”
The guard was polite but firm. And both his hands were now on his rifle. Even if he hadn’t raised it just yet, he could in a second if she tried to fight.
“Of course, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I wasn’t cleared. I’ll go.”