Depth (Apalala Clan Book 2)

by Dzintra Sullivan

  The dragon looked up and locked eyes with him, bringing him back from his flesh ripping fantasy. Q smiled at the beast below. He was sitting with three females. Q knew the dragon wouldn’t do anything in front of three breakable humans, let alone the mall full of witnesses.

  Wait…Q thought. Not all humans. Q reached harder with his energy. Phoenix he confirmed to himself, mostly human, but somewhere very deep inside that female was a phoenix waiting to burst free. Q hadn’t seen this woman before, nor had he felt such a constrained phoenix. It was almost as if she didn’t know, or if she did know, it was only a recent discovery. Q’s head tilted. How can someone not know they were phoenix? Questioning his own mind he thought, Adopted? Perhaps. Q’s empathy for his own kind came through, as he thought of his own missing daughter. A phoenix not aligned is a danger to the whole species. Whether this woman knew of her history or not was unimportant, she wasn’t aligned, she sat with a dragon, therefore her ‘notice to terminate’ had been signed.

  A group of humans drew his attention back to the dragon, as he looked closer. The phoenix was shifting in front of a gathering crowd. The gasps of horror floated up to his ears. They enraged his beast, he wasn’t something horrifying. The phoenix was a majestic and powerful bird, one that should be worshipped by all that breathe. Holding his control tight, he saw the woman run from the rest.

  The prey was separating itself for him.

  Perfect, he thought. She is mine.

  Q took two steps back into the group of people now trying to look down upon the activity below and vanished in search of his kind.

  Cinders was hoping that the maintenance crew had already finished and were well gone from her office. She was coming in late today, having had some meetings with production people in the morning. As she got off the elevator, she noticed that the hallway was void of all people. She thought it must have been a drill she missed the memo for. Cinders shrugged and walked to her office.

  Pausing, she looked at Ally’s desk, it didn’t look as if she’d been there all morning either. The same paperwork laid there for her attention that Cinders had given her the previous evening. There weren’t the regular three cups of coffee in varying temperatures and stages of being drunk on her desk either.

  “That’s odd,” Cinders said. She didn’t think she’d given anyone the day off. She shrugged as she pushed her door open and walked in.

  That was the very moment she understood what was going on.

  The moment she felt the dart hit her chest.

  The blackness beginning to creep over her body like a horrifying blanket of death.

  Cinders’ eyes flicked around as she stumbled from wall to the chair, grabbing hold of it in a failed attempt for stability. It toppled over in a loud crash, as her legs went out from under her. Her body crumpling to the floor with a thud that echoed around the room. Cinders’ panic-stricken mind could barely instruct her body to pant with basic survival needs, let alone get her limbs to respond to her screams to run.

  As the inky black hole of reality swept across her eyes, the face of a man looked down at her. “Your daddy is looking for you.” The smile that she saw on his face made her brain scream with foreboding despair. With all her remaining strength she pushed her mind, demanded that her body get up. Run, you useless fucker, she spat venomously at herself. Run. Run. RUUUN. Aaargh, she screamed at her limp, unresponsive, numb flesh.

  He’s going to kill you… was her last thought as the blackness took hold.

  V hadn’t heard from his brothers, and in times like this, it was important to all follow the directives. Attor had gone after Taryn, the other brothers had heard the description and taken off to find the bird. He needed to get his woman back to the hotel and sort out a fresh new problem named Kylee.

  V followed the two of them into the suite, placing the mountain of bags on a waiting table as he looked around. “Wow! So that’s what twenty-five K a night gets me, huh?”

  “You should see the spa.” Payton grinned cheekily. She knew her man needed to know she was all right, and joking was a good way to show him.

  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Kylee spun around to glare at them both. Her chest pumping with a now released anger. “Don’t you come in here all like… look at my pretty fucking bath. Don’t be going on like… I didn’t just see a beak… a fucking beak, come out of my friend’s face.” Her walk to the kitchen was loud and filled with nervous energy. A clink of a bottle as she grabbed a beer and walked back in with a fresh determination on her face. “You both better just fucking tell me what the actual fuck is going on. I swear to God… a fucking beak!”

  “Kyls,” Payton started to say.

  “No. Not you…” Kylee interrupted her. “I don’t think I could take it coming from your mouth. If I have to deal with lies and fucking deception, I don’t want it from the mouth of my longest fucking, best, fucking, fuckity-fuck… friend.” Inhaling after her long spat, she added, “Yeah?”

  Payton nodded as she sat on the chair in the living room. She shrugged, and let V take over. It was true, she had lied and deceived her friend. Her only hope now was that it wasn’t at the cost of her friendship.

  V swept his hand as he asked Kylee to sit

  She shook her head and started to pace. “I process better walking,” she said to him.

  V nodded and took a seat opposite his mate. “What do you want to know?”

  Kylee’s head spun quicker than any horror movie V had ever seen. The look of rage on her face put the exorcist’s chick to shame. “Don’t fuck with me, boy,” she said bluntly. “Just explain all that.” Her hand shot out in the general direction of the mall at which they had just come from.

  “We’re just as surprised at Taryn as you are. We didn’t know she was a bird shifter. A phoenix to be exact. Until the same time you did,” V said calmly.

  “Then how in the great Lord’s whorehouse are you not as freaked out as I am?”

  “Possibly because I’m a dragon.”

  Kylee froze mid-step, her head turning slowly. “I told you not to fuck with me. I’m seriously not a motherfucker to fuck with. She had a beak. A fucking beak came out of her face. Now, you’re going to sit there and say, ‘hey, I’m a dragon.’ Are you fucking kidding me?” Kylee’s voice was at a fever pitch, her ability to speak coherently was questionable right now.

  “She likes the word fuck?” V looked at Payton with a questioning look on his face.

  “It’s her favorite.” Payton nodded with a grin.

  “She uses it well.” V laughed.

  The sound of glass smashing made them both jump. Kylee stood there, panting with a rage that was finally free to react at will. Her hand swung limply from where she’d thrown the beer bottle against the wall.

  “Kyls, he isn’t lying.” Payton stood up but sat quickly as her best friend’s rage-filled eyes flipped to lock on to hers.

  “Kylee,” V said smoothly, he raised his arm to hook a finger in his collar, pulling it down to expose his neck, his shoulder and the upper portion of his arm. Closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths, he let a partial change come over him. Changing part of your body was something that wasn’t easy to do. Most dragons only did all or nothing. They took the shape completely, in either human or dragon form. The ability to concentrate enough to control individual parts of the flesh was something that only came to the dragons who took time to study and practice. It took decades to be able to partially change at will, with a control that wasn’t putting humans or others at risk.

  “Fuck me…” Kylee exclaimed as she leaned in, her brain struggling to process that she was seeing V’s skin split into three perfect gills with a splattering of opal colored scales snaking from his shoulder, up his neck, and down his jawline. She looked into his now black eyes, her mind blank, she was lost for any words that could accurately convey what she was feeling. V grunted slightly as he pulled it back again. The trail of scales vanishing with the graceful delicacy they had come. His skin mended wh
ere the gills had split, returning his neck to a completely human appearance.

  “Isn’t he amazing,” Payton whispered, in complete awe of her mate. He never failed to cause her to stare in bewilderment at what he was.

  “You knew about this?” Kylee turned to look at her, the words no longer held anger. They had become void of all emotional attachment. Kylee’s brain had reached its limit, and she was functioning on autopilot.

  Payton nodded. “It took some adjustment… but yes. I knew.”

  “When?”

  “When I fell off the cliff. He saved me.” Payton left out the part about him capturing her and holding her against her will in a cell. That was all water under the bridge, no need to dig up old wounds.

  Kylee inhaled and exhaled loudly as she took a seat heavily on a chair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Payton winced as her best friend’s words found emotion finally. She’d hurt her, the pain lacing around those five words threatened to rip their friendship apart if she couldn’t answer it correctly.

  “I asked her not to,” V spoke with the firmness of a leader. “I am Prince Volos, first in line to the throne of the Apalala Clan. I will, one day, be king, and Payton will be my queen. My loyalty lies with my people. Invisibility is not only a request of all paranormal species living in amongst the humans but for us, personally… it’s a survival skill we need from attacks like today.”

  “All paranormal species?” Kylee repeated those words slowly.

  Payton nodded. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? Like… really crazy.”

  “Taryn?” she asked. Then added quickly, “Your brothers?”

  V grinned. “All dragons. I am the eldest, and might I say most handsome, too.” Winking at his mate as he continued, “Taryn is a phoenix. But to what degree, I don’t know. Phoenix are sworn enemies of the dragons. It’s a battle of unending blood loss that’s spanned millennia between our species.”

  “So Attor has gone to kill her?” Kylee’s voice cracked. This was a lot to take in, and she was trying her best to keep basic sanity about her thoughts.

  “Oh, God, no.” Payton shook her head. “Fate has chosen Taryn as his mate. He has gone to find her and keep her safe.”

  The crease on Kylee’s forehead increased as she said, “I thought you said the phoenix and dragon were enemies?”

  “Fate has a weird sense of humor.” V laughed. “What I need to know, Kylee…” He looked at her, his body turned, so she had his full attention. “Can you be trusted to keep this all to yourself? Can we expect that anything you see, hear, or know will stay between us?”

  Her head flicked between her best friend and the dragon prince. She thought for a moment in silence before asking, “What if I said, no?”

  Payton turned her head to her mate, she hadn’t ever thought of that possibility. If V said he would kill her, she didn’t know how she’d react. Her breath caught in her throat as she awaited his response.

  V took a breath as he answered, knowing that his mate’s feelings had to be taken into consideration. “I have a friend of the clan, she’s wiccan and will be able to remove the last twenty-four hours from your mind,” he said. “This is normally what would happen if we were to be discovered by a human. However, if you were a human we could trust, a human that wanted to be a part of the bridge between human and dragon, I know Payton would love to have her best friend in the Nest.”

  “Nest?” Kylee asked.

  “Oh, Kyls, that’s our beautiful clan home. It’s underwater and just amazing. Please say, yes. Please tell V you can be trusted. Oh, oh, oh…” She bounced on the chair like an excited puppy. “Come live a double life with me, it’s really cool.”

  Volos looked at her, his face serious as he said, “Kylee, this is serious. I won’t have the safety of my people put in danger because a human has loose lips. My loyalty is to my people. If you choose to join us, then you will become part of my clan. Just the human edition. We have a few human affiliates so you won’t be alone, and of course, there is her.” V laughed as he looked at his mate, she was grinning with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning.

  Kylee nodded. “Okay, I’m in,” she said. “I might be bat-shit crazy, but okay. I won’t have anyone say my lips are loose. After all, I do my Kegels religiously.” A nervous laugh bubbled up from Kylee’s chest, she wasn’t entirely sure what she’d just signed up for, but she wasn’t one to walk away from an adventure.

  Payton squealed as she jumped up and down into the arms of her best friend.

  Laughing Kylee said, “Does this mean I get a mountain all of my own, too?” Wiggling her eyebrows at the thought of having a muscle-clad dragon to play with, she smiled. “Can’t believe Taryn was the lucky one to bag and tag that hunk of handsome.”

  Payton laughed. “I will see what I can arrange.”

  Standing outside, Attor let the cold breeze sweep across his face as he closed his eyes. She had run with a determination to vanish from the face of the earth. The thing she wasn’t taking into consideration was that she was his mate. He knew what her energy felt like, he just needed to concentrate. The sounds of a busy city faded into the background of his mind, as he stood perfectly still. The wind created by the cars that zoomed past in the rhythmic ebb and flow of traffic, helped him tune in to a particular beacon.

  Attor knew which way she’d gone. Casting a quick glance left he leaped out to a chorus of honking horns as he ran across the road. A few blocks later he felt she was close. Stopping to refocus, Attor saw a small shape huddled under a tree. He walked closer to her. Silently placing one foot in front of the other, he was ready to follow again if she bolted.

  “Taryn?” he whispered, her head flicked around like a bolt of lightning. Her face had fully returned to human, but the streaks of blackness that ran down her cheeks from tears being shed broke Attor’s heart.

  “Why?” she sobbed. “Why, Attor? Why did you follow me?” her voice was barely audible between her sobs.

  Attor stood still for a second, his brain repeated her question. Why did I follow her? He stopped thinking and spoke from his heart. “Because I love you.” The words flowed so smoothly from his tongue, he knew they held only truth.

  “You love me?” Taryn was startled by the words that he had said.

  You went there, big boy, no backing out now. His brain pushed him to continue. Attor walked the last two steps to sit down beside her. His knees bent as he rested his linked arms on top of them. Attor stared out through a small gap in the surrounding buildings, where he could just see a sliver of the blue ocean. His upper arm rubbed up and down on hers as he breathed slowly because he wanted the words he chose to be perfect.

  She needed perfect.

  She deserved perfect.

  He had to be her perfect.

  “In dragon lore, it’s deemed that if fate casts you in a fortunate light, a mate of their choosing will be sent. The perfect soul that balances out the unevenness of life. This gift that fate bestows is one that should be treasured beyond all else. Fate doesn’t grant every dragon this fortune, so when one finds that they had indeed been chosen to receive a true match for their soul…” He took a breath slowly. “To treat it with anything less than pure joy would be casting insult at the goddess herself.”

  “And the dragon has no choice?” Taryn asked.

  Attor knew this was pivotal to her understanding, but wanted to be as honest as he could be. “I guess the choice is a freedom everyone possesses, however, it’s not a choice of mate. Fate sends you a gift, if you don’t want to unwrap it that’s the choice, I guess.” Attor shrugged as he looked over at her. “Fate sends an unequivocal signal when it’s a mate.”

  “A sign?”

  Attor nodded, smiling as he watched her breathing return to a more normal pace, and the tears not rolling with the same freedom he had seen earlier. “Indeed, a sign.” He laughed lightly. “It’s really weird… but I don’t want to bother you with the details.” He pushed her playfully with his shoulder
.

  “Tell me…” A small smile crept on to her face as he taunted her gently. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to be.”

  “True, you’re at a loss aren’t you?” He winked. “Okay, well… it’s said that when a dragon meets his true mate… the perfect match for his soul that she would be encapsulated by the scent of a decadent dessert. A smell with such sweet accuracy that it blinds her to all other smells.”

  “Lemon pie,” she whispered.

  “Lemon pie,” Attor repeated with a soft smile.

  “I am your mate?”

  “You are the most beautiful gift sent to me by the goddess herself. While at the beginning the shock was overwhelming, I now couldn’t be more grateful for having the opportunity to share a future with such a captivating creature.”

  “Creature is right…” Her head dropped at being reminded of her beast.

  Attor shifted his weight as he moved to face her. Sitting on his hip, he reached over and hooked a finger under her chin. Lifting her face to look into his eyes. He was so taken by the intoxicating beauty that stared back at him. Lowering his lips to hers, he kissed her ever so gently. Attor felt his body explode with a million tiny electric shocks as he closed his eyes and kissed her again. Brushing his lips softly against hers, he breathed in her scent deeply. Attor was standing at the gates of his own personal nirvana, begging for her to respond.

  Taryn placed a hand on his chest and pushed him back slightly, seeking his eyes as he opened them. “What about…?” Her voice teetered on a cliff face, the smallest wrong movement threatened to topple her down into the black abyss of self-loathing below.

  Attor’s lips tilted up at the corners. “I won’t lie, I was apprehensive for about three and a half seconds.” He nodded. “Then I got completely lost in the amazing gift which has been bestowed to me. I can’t wait to know everything about you. I’m eager to forge a unique bond between us, one that hasn’t been seen before. You never know, we might hold the key to ending the war between our species?”