by Amelia Jade
“So what do you say, Kal? Can you tell me?”
Elin hadn’t expected him to just open up to her, to spill the deep, dark secret that he was harboring. She knew that was too much to hope for right away. But a continuing dialogue seemed perfectly reasonable to her. Instead, she was greeted with silence, the only acknowledgment that she’d spoken a haunted tint to his blue eyes, fading them out of their usual striking clarity.
Nothing.
“Fine.” She felt defeated, and angry. Angry that after all she’d been through, he couldn’t do something for her. “Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through for you? I risked my reputation and job by giving in to temptation and sleeping with you,” she snapped, her frustration boiling over. “Years of personal choices and restraint, shoved to the side to make room for you in my life. All because you insisted that you were meant to be here. That we were mated. A pair. That we shared some sort of bond between each other that only you could tell was forever.”
Kallore cringed away from her, but she wasn’t letting up. The mighty dragon was going to have to learn some humility if he wanted to be with her, and that started now.
“So here we are. I’ve opened my life up to you. I’ve shown you my weakness, my vulnerabilities, and the parts of me that are broken. You know all about it now. No secrets on my end; it’s out in the open. Yet when I turn around and ask for the same from you, you refuse? What the hell kind of relationship is that? Let me make this clear to you, Kal. This is a relationship of equals, do you understand that?”
He was looking at her now. “Yes. I get that.”
“Then you need to treat me like one, and stop trying to protect me from whatever it is you’re hiding. You can’t save me from everything, Kal. I’m an adult, I need the freedom to make my own choices.”
Opposite her Kal, who had risen to his feet at some point during her tirade, staggered backward, his face draining of all blood. She tried to get his attention, but his eyes were focused elsewhere, seeing something else.
“Kal?” she stepped forward, but he backed away. She stood still, shocked at the rejection. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
But there was still no answer. Elin sighed, suddenly drained, weary from her efforts to reach out to him, and still unnerved by the way she’d almost been turned into a roast turkey in her sleep.
“I’m going to my quarters for the night.” Grabbing her uniform she changed, annoyed that sweats and a T-shirt weren’t appropriate attire for her to move between rooms in, but decorum had to be maintained.
The entire time she waited for Kallore to snap out of his funk and stop her, but he didn’t. He stayed where he was, his mind someplace else, unwilling to acknowledge her. She paused at the door, glancing back at him one last time, but there was nothing. With a sigh she pushed the door open and walked into the hallway.
Things had been going so well! Or so she’d thought. Turns out, they weren’t after all. Kallore couldn’t even fight for her to make her stay. He wasn’t willing to utter a single word, anything, that would acknowledge he wished for her help, her presence…anything! It angered her, especially as she’d told him after all her own personal rules and lines she’d crossed to give him a chance in the first place.
Maybe it was a mistake after all. She shouldn’t have gotten involved with him. This was one of the exact reasons why she’d always maintained a no-military rule when it came to men. Enlisted, officers, private contractors, ex-military. All of them had been strictly off-limits to her, to ensure that this sort of shit didn’t happen. Now she’d gone and broken all of her rules for Kallore, and it was blowing up in her face. Everyone was going to know it too, because she’d passed two guards already, unable to avoid them unless she took a major roundabout route to her quarters, which would raise even more questions. Her wall held up until she heard the latch click shut on her door.
Then the tears fell.
There was no recovering from this, she thought.
She and Kallore were probably done.
Chapter Eighteen
Kallore
He saw her again. In his mind. Standing there on the edge of the sea.
“Are you sure Mom isn’t going to be mad at you for bringing me here, Kal?”
He laughed. “Of course not, Prill, I’m here. I’ll keep you safe!”
She laughed and raced to the end of the path. “I always loved the water. It’s so beautiful. I could just sit here and listen to the waves all day. Don’t you love it, Kal?”
“Of course, Prill. Of course.”
He watched his sister as she danced and played in the surf, splashing water everywhere and soaking her outfit. Later their mother would yell at him for letting it get encrusted with salt water, but the smile on her face was worth any punishment. His sister meant the world to him.
“Look, Kal. Shark!”
He followed her outstretched hand, noticing the single fin sticking up in the water about a hundred feet or so offshore.
“Good eye!” he called. “I wonder what brought it so close to shore.”
“That’s an easy answer, silly!” she called back, prancing through the waves as they crashed onto the sandy shore.
“It is?”
“Of course! They came for me! But you won’t let them get me, will you, Kal?”
He shook his head. “No I won’t, Prill.”
At eighteen years of age, he was still a juvenile for a dragon, considered a baby by many, even though he could shift in and out of his dragon form at will now. Prill was only nine, and she hadn’t yet begun to learn the intricacies of shifting. For now it was just something that would come in the far-off future for her.
“Here sharky sharky shark!” she called, chasing into the surf.
Kallore rolled his eyes. She just wasn’t going to give up. Although she might not be able to shift, she was still stronger and faster than any human. He feared little from the shark, but still, better safe than sorry…
“Prill, come back,” he called. “Stay closer to land, okay?”
“Aww, but I wanna play with him!”
Kal just shook his head and pointed back at the shore. Meanwhile his eyes scanned the surface, looking for the telltale fin of the shark. But it was gone. Oh well, maybe it had moved on.
“It’s gone anyway, Prill. Come back.”
“No, it’s over there!”
He followed her hand as a fin crested the surface. Followed by another. And another.
“Sharkies!”
The fins were too close together to be multiple sharks though. And as he watched, they moved in a serpentine manner. Together.
“Prill!” he barked. “Get back here right now. Danger!”
His little sister stopped her headlong dash into the surf and looked back at him. Kallore wasn’t focused on her any longer. Instead he reached inside himself and tapped the power at his core that represented his dragon. Fire.
“Kal?” Prill asked nervously.
“GET BACK TO SHORE. NOW!” he roared.
Prill screamed and ran for shore. Kallore ran into the water, realizing she wouldn’t make it in time. The Aquarius dragon reared its head at last, the fins resolving into spikes that ran from the base of its neck down the back of its spine. The giant maw opened, water and fish tumbling from it as it lunged at Prill, thinking her an easy snack.
Kallore’s firewhip lashed out, singeing the other dragon’s snout. The rainbow-scaled dragon reared back in pain and surprise. It turned to focus on him. He readied himself for the change. The other dragon was bigger than him, and they were in his element, but he didn’t care. All he had to do was delay long enough for Prill to get out of the water.
A wave rose up out of nowhere and buried him as it crashed over his body. The firewhip was extinguished as waves rolled him under the surface, then picked him up and flung him up onto land. He bounced hard, rolled once and came to his feet in a crouch, toes and fingers digging into the sand as he stopped his momentum.
“Kal!�
� Prim screamed.
His neck snapped around just in time to watch his sister get dragged under the surface for the first time by a dozen tendrils of water, like tentacles of liquid. She thrashed and fought, throwing them off. Water hissed and evaporated as it touched her, a sign that she was using what little powers she had to try and protect herself.
“I’m coming, Prill! I’ll save you!” he shouted, dashing back toward the water.
He moved the fingers of his left hand in an intricate dance, fire swirling around them as it congealed and grew in size.
“Hey, waterbrains! Try this on for size!”
With a flick of his wrist he sent his prized creation, a snake of living, breathing fire at his foe. As it flew through the air he fed more power into it, growing it in size and strength, until it was bigger than a dog. Then a cow. By the time it hit the water dragon it was the size of an elephant.
The water dragon thrashed and fought as the snake encircled its neck and began to burn the scales. But as it reared up out of the water, it looked at Kallore, and did something he was completely unprepared for. It smiled, and then simply collapsed into the water.
A great gout of steam exploded outward as the firesnake vanished, the cloud enveloping the dragon, Prill, and even reaching out to swat at him before the wind blew it away.
When it was gone, all that remained was him and his sister. She struggled to the surface and started wading in the rest of the way, even as he ran for her.
“Prill!” he shouted again, happy that she was alive.
“Kal! Thank you. You saved m—”
Her voice was cut off as the water dragon erupted from behind her, snatching Prill up in one massive paw and then diving back into the surf, humping its way out into deeper water. She didn’t even have time to scream.
Kallore bellowed in rage and dove into the water after it, desperately trying to catch up, but the water dragon was nowhere to be found.
He’d lost her.
“I’m so sorry, Prill,” he whispered into the empty room. “I should have saved you.”
She had trusted him to save her. Just like Elin was trusting him to save her. But he couldn’t be trusted to save anyone. She deserved better than that in a mate. She deserved the ultimate protector, and that wasn’t him.
Kallore had wanted to reach out, to speak to Elin. To tell her about the nightmare he’d been having. The one where the figure in the water wasn’t Prill, it was her, and the attacker wasn’t a dragon, but an Outsider. He’d watched it suck the life force right out of Elin, and the imagery of that would haunt him for the rest of his life, he was sure.
As it turned out though, it might not have been a nightmare after all. He may have lost Elin anyway. She’d not asked much of him, but Kallore hadn’t even been able to provide her with that little bit of trust, and confide in her.
She shouldn’t have to worry about that. If Kallore truly was her mate, then he should be the infallible, all-powerful protector that she needed. The one who could save her life anytime, or who could tell her the emotions he was feeling. That wasn’t Kallore though. He was broken and unfit to be the mate of someone as perfect as her. Not when he couldn’t tell her that she was safe with him, and not truly mean it.
His younger sister had believed he would protect her. But he’d lied. He hadn’t been able to save her either. Now he’d lost them both.
After the death of his sister he’d told his parents and immediately left, never to return. After wandering the planet for a century he’d finally had enough and fallen into a deep sleep, one from which he’d never expected to awaken. Until Kyen had brought him back to life and introduced him to Elin.
Intelligent, funny, and brutally honest Elin. The perfect woman for any man who could see her beauty. He would be the luckiest man alive if he could find a way to make things work between them.
The smell of burnt…everything, wafted into his nostrils and he crinkled his nose. Maybe some fresh air would help. Getting up, he headed for the surface of the base. The cool night air washed over him the instant he emerged into the darkness. There were lights around the base, and somewhere out there he knew a pair of men were patrolling the perimeter. With most of the base being built into the ground and the side of the massive hill, there was very little visible besides several outbuildings, the guard post at the entrance, and a variety of vehicles parked at the motor pool.
With a sigh he leapt onto the roof of the main building that housed the entrance, visitor facilities, and armory. It wasn’t the first sleepless night he had spent gazing up at the stars. They were far enough removed from any city that, despite the spotlights that illuminated much of the perimeter, the sky itself was still ablaze with millions of twinkling dots.
One day he would love to travel among them. That, perhaps, had been the most amazing thing he’d read about in human development. Putting a man on the moon. Amazing! Kal would love to go into space. To look down upon the earth from higher than he could ever hope to fly. What a sight that would be.
If only Elin could join him.
What the hell was he to do now? Things between them seemed irrevocably ruined.
They aren’t completely wrecked. All you need to do is go to her and tell her what is going on. Why you’re a failure, and why you can’t protect her. Tell her the truth, and then let her decide.
If only it were as easy as thinking it. Kallore knew what the best way to handle it was. Confess everything. But then she would know he was a liar. That he was incompetent, and that his inability had gotten his own flesh and blood killed. Like his parents, she would want nothing to do with him. Everyone had disowned Kallore after that, the pain of the loss too great for their little village to bear.
So he’d left.
And now he would leave again. Elin would find someone else who could protect her. Someone who would be able to do it. Someone she could trust.
Rising to his feet, he jumped down from the roof and moved to a flat open area, preparing to shift. This was for the best. Just leave. She would be safer this way.
Kallore closed his eyes.
In the distance gunfire erupted, followed by a scream that was cut off abruptly. A moment later alarms began to blare and emergency lights flashed on. There was only one thing it could mean.
They were under attack.
“ELIN!” he shouted, changing direction without thinking and heading for the entrance. He needed to get her to safety. Everything else was secondary.
Chapter Nineteen
Kallore
As he rushed for the entrance to the underground base his keen eyes pierced the darkness, searching for whatever enemy was at the gates. Another burst of gunfire was quickly silenced. He frowned, noting the lack of incoming fire.
Two more guards appeared from the entrance, looking alert. They leveled their weapons at him initially, but quickly realized he wasn’t the threat.
“Over there!” He pointed an arm in the direction their comrades had been.
The two soldiers dashed off into the night, intent on rescuing their friends and protecting the base. Kallore slowed to watch. He was at the main entrance now, and whoever was attacking them would have to go through him to get to Elin. The back doors were carefully hidden and never to be used except in an emergency. He felt confident enough to pause and gain additional information before he reached her side. They would need everything he got.
This action put him in perfect position to witness the horror that came next.
Both soldiers reached the closest shelter, a parked personnel carrier. They carefully eased their weapons over the hood and around the rear, looking into the darkness for their attacker. They should have been looking underneath instead. An insidious shadow of glossy black rippled out from under the vehicle.
“UNDER THE TRUCK!”
But his warning was too late. The Outsider simply reached up and ripped the lifeforce from their bodies. Two husks collapsed, and the stomach-churning figure burst its shell, growing ever bigge
r as new muscle strands arced out and back into its body in a nauseating display.
“By the gods,” he whispered, stunning by the casual arrogance with which it killed. This was no creature of his planet. It was some sort of demon from the beyond.
Behind him the door to the base ground open, emitting another four soldiers.
“Stay back,” he snapped, one hand outstretched behind him to ward them off. “It’s an Outsider.”
He could hear the men whispering amongst themselves, but he ignored what they were saying. The all-black creature had heard the door opening, and its faceless head seemed to be oriented in their direction now. It humped and rippled as it came forward, almost seeming more humanlike now that it had absorbed the essences of the soldiers. Kal feared what would happen if it got its hands on many more.
“Where did it come from? I thought we closed the portal.” The one soldier behind him spoke loud enough that even Kal couldn’t ignore it. The fear in the guard’s voice was evident, as was the calm acceptance of the fact that he was about to die.
“We thought we destroyed the first trio that came through,” he replied softly. “I think we’re seeing the first evidence that you were wrong. Very, very wrong.”
“But why is it here?” The voice sounded slightly stronger, infused by the hope that perhaps Kallore could make a difference.
If only the dragon had as much confidence in himself as the men did.
“It must have tracked me,” he answered. “My lifeforce is much stronger than yours. It probably acted like a beacon the moment you woke me up. It just took it this long to get here.”
There was a long silence as the Outsider grew closer, seemingly in no hurry to close the distance.
“Can you kill it?”
Kallore stuck out his right hand and called for his fire once more. “Let’s find out.”
He stepped forward and without warning the whip shot out, catching the Outsider around the shoulder. It left a red score along what he supposed was the chest of the oddly shaped being, but nothing more.