Kragen

by Chloe Cox

  Kragen held her up with just the pressure of his hips, his hands free to roam. He grabbed hold of her hair again, but this time he tilted her head back, exposing her neck.

  In another moment, she felt cool fangs teasing her skin.

  “Never say that I do not want you, lubcha,” he murmured against her, his breath hot on her neck. “And never say that I am a coward.”

  He dragged his fangs lightly along her neck as he breathed in, scenting her in the cool night. When he was done, Kragen positioned her head so she could look up into his eyes. Andie was half gone. This close, for this long…

  She was losing herself to the hunger.

  “You are mine any time I want,” Kragen said, his eyes blazing. “As I am yours. You insult me by comparing me to other males.”

  At the phrase “other males”, his lip curled up in disgust.

  “Then stop acting like them,” she said.

  Kragen’s nostrils flared.

  “When I claim you,” he said, “you will be disciplined for that.”

  Deep in her hunger haze, Andie woke up.

  “When?” she asked.

  Kragen’s eyes widened, and then he growled, softly, just before he kissed her.

  Some little piece of Andie's mind was still functional enough to scream against this, to say she hadn’t gotten what she wanted yet, that she needed him to come clean, that this wasn’t a good idea. But it was quickly obliterated in the firestorm that erupted from that kiss.

  All thought evaporated. There was nothing but sensation, the feeling of his body against hers, and of the place where they met. His kiss was hot, hungry, wet, his mouth claiming hers. Waves of liquid heat rolled through her, a pulsing frisson from her lips to her core. It was like some new kind of orgasm, commandeering her entire body in the build-up.

  Andie was lost.

  It was Kragen who pulled away, growling, his arms wrapping around her as he looked over his shoulder. Andie blinked. Her brain was still back in that kiss. She wanted more of that kiss. She wanted that kiss for the rest of her life.

  Which is maybe why it took her a second to realize how much danger she was in.

  Beyond Kragen’s shoulder, partially covered by a tree, stood another Leonid. He looked pale blue in the moonlight, his eyes an angry yellow, his hair dark, like Kragen’s. His expression was murderous. And he had a weapon—a gun of some kind—pointed directly at them.

  “Unhand the female,” the other Leonid said, “and maybe I will take you in alive, you traitorous bastard.”

  13

  Kragen roared his anger, but he didn’t move his body. He was protecting her, positioned between Andromeda and the Leonid who threatened her.

  His own blood brother.

  “Magnus,” he growled.

  “Remove yourself from the human female, Kragen,” Magnus barked. “Do it now.”

  Only someone who had known him a very a long time could hear, in his voice, the strain that belied his fury. Magnus would kill Kragen if he could. Kragen was sure of it.

  “Kragen…”

  He looked down. Andromeda looked up at him with bright eyes, and everything in his perception dulled, once again, compared to her. He could feel the kuma radiating off of her, giving him strength. He didn’t even need to drink. She was the most beautiful female in the known universe.

  “We have to do something,” she whispered.

  Kragen could still hear Magnus, yelling at him, from somewhere far away. He allowed himself another moment to stare into his mate’s eyes, aware that it was merely a fraction of a second. His senses were all functioning at a level he’d never experienced before, the energy from his lubcha’s kiss supercharging his entire body. His mind. His kuma.

  He had heard of this. The sudden sense of perspective, on knowing your mate. A reorganization of what you believed mattered. Of who you were.

  At that moment, he was the most powerful Leonid in existence.

  Quickly, he touched his forehead to hers. There was no time to explain. She needed to know where the warehouse was located and how to get there from here.

  She gasped. “What was that?” she said.

  “I gave you knowledge,” he said. “Use it. When I turn around, you will run from here, back to the warehouse. You will stay there until I return. Do you understand?”

  “No!” she said. “And yes, but I don’t want to leave—”

  “This is an order,” he said again. “Understood?”

  Slowly, she nodded her head. He saw her swallow.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Kragen!” Magnus roared in Leonid behind him. “Stop stalling for time, you piece of shit!”

  Kragen didn’t wait. He whirled around and unleashed his stored up kuma, wielding it as a weapon as he charged at Magnus. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. He had enough time to observe Andromeda run off safely, enough time to realize that he did not feel Magnus’s presence, the way he would sense another powerful Leonid’s kuma, enough time to marvel at the stars overhead.

  Enough time to realize that he should thank Magnus for interrupting, because Kragen could not be sure that he would not have found the limit of his self-control. Andromeda was his mate. He would die for her, he would kill for her, and he would fight his own body for her, but he did not know how much longer he would win. Because every primitive cell in his being wanted to claim what was his. He wanted to love her, discipline her, fuck her, leave his seed in her. There was nothing else in this world worth caring about.

  And he would never forgive himself if he claimed her, knowing what lay in store for her afterwards.

  He should thank Magnus.

  At the last second, he pulled back, his loyalty to his blood brother overpowering the primal urge to destroy anything that threatened Andromeda. It was easier, now that he knew she was safe—he could feel her running away, would know if anything else threatened her.

  The blow he delivered merely sent Magnus flying back into the woods, where he crashed with a sickening crunch into a tree. Magnus shook his head, rising on one knee, and removing the safety catch from his weapon.

  Kragen owed him. He would let his blood brother live.

  As soon as he got that military-issue phase rifle away from him.

  Andie was no longer entirely human. She’d left that part of her behind, somewhere, and now she was just a mad, running thing, made of pure wind. It was oddly peaceful.

  Except for that human part of her, screaming in her ear. Ok, she hadn’t left it behind. She’d just pushed it out of the driver’s seat.

  She ducked under a low-hanging branch and then leapt over a stupid bush that was in her way, and once again marveled at how Kragen’s kiss had turned her into the track-and-field Olympian version of herself. She’d been running straight out for almost five minutes, and she felt like she could go forever. This was not normal.

  Nothing about that kiss had been normal.

  Don’t think about it, Knowles.

  Every time she did, the mark on her breast started to burn with a new urgency, and it was everything she could do not to turn back. Which was insane. Because Kragen had touched his forehead to hers and suddenly the knowledge of how to get back to the warehouse from where they were was in her mind, like she’d known it all along. Because apparently he could do that. What the hell else could the Leonids do?

  Don’t think about that, either.

  Andie could see more moonlight filtering through the trees up ahead, and in a moment she burst through the scraggly tree line that bordered one side of the abandoned warehouse.

  She wasn’t even winded. Leonid kisses were some powerful stuff.

  Directly in front of her was the wide expanse of the old parking lot and loading area. It was surrounded by a wire fence with barbs running along the top of it, but some kids had cut holes in it long ago. Beyond that, yards of moon-bleached cracked and broken asphalt, warped where the toughest saplings had punched through searching for the sun. Automatically she search
ed out the window she’d escaped from merely hours earlier. But with Kragen’s knowledge in her brain, she knew a better way to get in.

  “Can’t believe he hides a key under a can,” she muttered to herself.

  Granted, it was one can amongst many littered along the side of the warehouse. But after all that stuff about alarm systems, she expected a little more. It didn’t matter. She didn’t have time to gently mock Kragen in her head, or come up with witty one-liners, or ways to tease him later. Which were all things she wanted to do, for some reason. But no. No time.

  Because he was facing another Leonid.

  A Leonid who wanted to hurt him.

  A Leonid who was armed.

  Worse, that Leonid seemed to know Kragen. He’d called him a traitor, in English. For Andie's benefit.

  Whatever was happening was personal. And when Andie thought about Kragen fighting another Leonid who had a giant space gun while he had nothing but his fangs and his fists and a wound that still hadn’t healed completely, her throat constricted. Her heart hurt. The bottom dropped out of her stomach.

  She couldn’t leave him to face this alone.

  She wouldn’t leave him to face this alone.

  Andie found the side door, just as it was in the image Kragen had implanted in her mind, and let herself in. As she passed through the threshold it felt like she passed through…something. A chill. A wave of something. But whatever it was, it let her in.

  She could see why he’d needed to “tell” her about the side door. The entire warehouse’s main floor was an overstuffed machine graveyard, the aging, rusted skeletons of industrial might stacked deep and high, rising to the height where they were illuminated by moonbeams from the high windows. Kragen must have scoured for all the abandoned machinery in the industrial park to build this obstacle course. Anyone trying to enter the warehouse through the usual entry points would find themselves in an impenetrable metal maze.

  Andie followed the only path available to her, which led to a narrow stairwell, which in turn led down to the floor on which he’d made his home.

  There were still candles burning low in bowls of water as she walked in. Feeling the heat rising in her, she avoided looking at the bed, and pushed forward. She went straight for the room where she’d seen Kragen exercising, thinking she’d find something there, anything.

  Nothing. No space guns. No sword. Not even a broken pipe or something. Just that weird hologram machine, which was now mockingly silent. It made sense that Kragen wouldn’t leave powerful alien weapons lying around, on the off-chance kids did break into his warehouse lair or something. But still.

  For the first time since that kiss, Andie felt anxiety rising in her throat.

  There was only one place left to check. She probably wouldn’t be able to get down there. It was locked, there were chains. It was probably…

  He’d left the lock in the key.

  Andie stared at the giant door that barred the way to what she’d deemed the murder basement. If there was anywhere in the building likely to hold a cache of crazy space weapons, this was it. The last time she’d seen it—a whole, what? Seven hours ago? So basically a lifetime—it had been shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the small window up at ceiling level, and from the strange living metal of the door and the chains that surrounded it. Leonid metal. Stronger than any known substance in the universe.

  None of which mattered anymore, because the maze of random detritus and equipment that had been piled in front of it—and which she’d used to climb up to the window—had been cleared, and while there were still heavy chains crisscrossing the barred door, the lock that held them in place had a freaking key in it.

  Kragen had left in a hurry.

  He’d left when she’d called.

  And he’d left the key in the lock.

  Before she could overthink it, Andie got moving. She scanned the piles of crap now surrounding the door and nearly cheered when she found a crowbar. After that, it was just working up the courage to turn that key.

  Andie thought of Kragen, outgunned and alone, and turned the damn key.

  14

  Kragen was losing blood.

  Fast.

  He winced as he pulled back the wire fencing that circled the perimeter of his chosen hiding place, and paused, one more time, to gather his focus.

  He had been shot with a phase rifle. He should be dead. The only thing that had kept him alive was the kiss from his mate.

  Andromeda.

  Even still, he had to concentrate not to lose consciousness. The blow to the stab wound in his side that had never healed would have been enough to fell a less-determined Leonid; he could already feel toxins seeping into his blood from his damaged organs. And the burns from the phase rifle went deep, as they were designed to do. The blast radius was centered on his shoulder, but the wound spiraled down his side and back, to the now-open stab wound.

  If that could not stop him, nothing would. Nothing, until he knew she was safe.

  Kragen locked eyes on the side door of the warehouse, barely visible in the dark, and put one foot in front of the other.

  He had nearly destroyed Magnus.

  His blood brother.

  And he would do it again, for her.

  Kragen had had no choice but to strike at Magnus’s mind, but that did not change the outcome. He had only pulled back when he realized Magnus was strangely undefended, as though his blood brother had been starving for kuma for a long time. Perhaps as long as his other brother.

  And Magnus had not been wearing the uniform of the Royal Guard, but of the Judicial Masters. He had been demoted after what had happened. Because of what Kragen had done.

  Because of who, exactly, Kragen kept in the basement of this very warehouse.

  So close now.

  Kragen could feel her warmth stirring in his heart.

  And then he felt something else.

  Something darker. Something larger. Something that had been lurking for a long time, asleep in the deepest depths of Kragen’s psychic awareness. For a moment, he didn’t understand, because it felt like nothing else he’d ever experienced. The hunger was immense. It was the single-minded drive of a predator.

  There was only one thing in the universe that would feel like that right now.

  One Leonid.

  He leaned against the side of the warehouse as he opened the side door and stumbled into darkness. He didn’t understand. He shouldn’t be able to feel him, not like that.

  And then he understood.

  Kragen wasn’t sensing his lost brother in the basement.

  He was sensing Andromeda.

  She was with him.

  With a roar, Kragen broke out into a run.

  Andie was in the dark.

  Seriously, it was pitch black in the sub-basement. The only measly double-filtered moonlight streamed in from the crack in the extremely heavy door that she had managed to pry open just wide enough so that she could squeeze through with only minor boob squishing.

  She was fucking terrified.

  Every October, she and Kat had done a scary-movie binge. Even when they lived, briefly, in different states, they had Skyped and scared themselves silly with as many horror movies as possible. So Andie had at least a graduate-level education in how to avoid likely horrible deaths, and a heavily guarded, chained, and padlocked basement was definitely on the “avoid at all costs, you freaking dummy” list.

  But Kragen had protected her with his body when someone pointed a giant space gun at them. He’d risked exposure to save her in a parking lot. And she knew, without a doubt, that if he were in her place, he wouldn’t just hang out and wait for her to deal with it.

  And if she wanted a partner, someone who would trust her as much as she trusted him…

  Granted, she wanted a partner who would hold her down by her hair and show her that he owned her ass, but still. She wanted a partner.

  You have to be as brave as he is.

  If there were weapo
ns that could help him down here, she would find them. She’d just have to avoid whatever the hell else was down here, too.

  As quietly as possible, Andie felt her way down the first step into the dark. Then the second. Her breathing echoed loudly in her ears, and her palms stuck to the guardrail, moistened with sweat. Her heart thudded in her chest as her body forgot all about Kragen’s kiss, and remembered all about survival.

  Andie made it five steps down before she started to shake.

  She counted her breaths until she felt her heart start to slow down, and her brain start to think beyond no no no no no.

  And then she remembered her cell phone, and nearly laughed out loud.

  Her phone didn’t provide much light, but it was enough to show her the corrugated metal stairs in front of her.

  Andie was all the way down the stairs, standing on an unfinished dirt floor, before she realized her phone was also bright enough to wake something up.

  She put the phone to sleep and stood statue still, frozen and silent.

  And she waited.

  You are just on an adrenaline high from having space guns pointed at you, she told herself. You haven’t seen or heard anything weird. You are just messing with your own head.

  And besides, Kragen wouldn’t send her somewhere dangerous. She knew that, more than she knew anything else.

  Then she thought: He didn’t send you to the basement.

  Andie blinked in the darkness. When she opened her eyes, she almost thought she could see something. A little bit of light.

  The kind that lived in Leonid metal.

  Or maybe she just thought she could see, as soon as she heard the slow, heavy clang-clang-clang of Leonid chains sliding past each other as something large and strong stirred.

  Andie stopped breathing.