Dragon Obsession

by Amelia Jade

  Dragon Obsession

  Onyx Dragons Book 2

  By Amelia Jade

  Dragon Obsession

  Copyright @ 2018 by Amelia Jade

  First Electronic Publication: February 2018

  Amelia Jade

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.

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  Author’s Note

  Hold on!

  You should know that while this series can be read independently, it is part of a large world that was started with the Crimson Dragon’s series. You can continue through, as each book contains a full story arc with happy endings for the characters, but to get the full experience of the Outsiders Universe, you should really start at the beginning with Dragon Temptation.

  I hope you enjoy! - Amelia

  Crimson Dragons

  Dragon Temptation

  Dragon Seduction

  Dragon Devotion

  Onyx Dragons

  Dragon Fixation

  Dragon Obsession

  Dragon Obsession

  Chapter One

  Callan

  Alarms started going off the instant he exited the barracks building.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said, spinning around, looking to see how he’d screwed up this time.

  When nobody seemed to be paying attention to him, he breathed a sigh of relief. It must have been a coincidence then, an act of perfect timing. Considering he’d made more than a few mistakes since being awoken a few weeks earlier, it wouldn’t have surprised Callan if he had been the one who’d messed up.

  “What’s going on?” he asked one particularly wide-eyed soldier as he rushed past in the khaki-colored uniforms that were the base norm.

  The young man looked up at him, as if he couldn’t believe that Callan had no idea what was going on. “It’s the portal! Something’s going on. They might be coming through!”

  He was gone in a rush before any follow-up questions could be asked, leaving behind a plethora of questions and very few answers. Wanting to get some of those elusive answers, he headed off at a jog toward the only place he suspected he would find them: the portal itself.

  Although it was the last place he wanted to go if something were acting up with it, Callan knew he had no choice. If it were a drill of some sort, it was the only place he’d get the information he needed. His situation was unique on the base, and he didn’t report to any of the units there, so none of them would be of help to him. Only Colonel Mara would be able to help him, and if the portal were acting strange, she would be down there monitoring the situation from the front line.

  It made finding her easy, which was appreciated. What he wasn’t anywhere as near fond about was that by heading toward the portal, he was quite literally putting himself amongst the front rows of defenders if the creatures on the far side finally did manage to put another soldier through.

  An Outsider.

  He’d seen all the video, heard the testimony, and if it weren’t for the portal, he still would have had a hard time believing any of it. Creatures with armor as black as night and the strength of a dragon. It was nonsense! And yet…they were real.

  Jogging up to the tunnel that led down to the portal, he bypassed a group of metal-armored giants assembled in front of the opening, loaded for bear. Muzzles slung beneath both arms, over one shoulder, and probably elsewhere as well. They were one-person wrecking machines, and there were twelve of them just right there.

  “Hey! Don’t go down there!” someone shouted after him as he approached the mouth.

  “I’ll be fine,” he promised, casting both hands out wide.

  The sun was beating at his back, and he used it to help aid him as he cast a huge winged shadow across the tunnel entrance, his arms representing the wings. A long curved neck jutted away from the shadow's body, the unmistakable form of a dragon.

  Everyone cheered at that, but he ignored it. The truth was, if anything came through that portal in strength, they were all dead. It was the one reason he was willing to head back down there to find out what was going on. If it were a single Outsider, he stood a chance of stopping it, or even holding it off until Thorne or Garath—the other two onyx dragons at Fort Banner—returned from their excursions off-base.

  If they were here in force, he wasn’t going to survive for long anyway, so again, he may as well see what was up. It was a rather morbid decision, but one he made anyway. He jogged down the smooth, perfectly angled tunnel. It had been altered that way so that the massive iron plugs weighing hundreds of tons and perched atop rollers near the entrance could slide down the depths of the tunnel until the passage narrowed enough that they came to a halt, effectively sealing the passageway.

  Callan desperately hoped they wouldn’t do that with him down there. That would be unpleasant.

  Reaching the bottom, he scanned the banks of consoles to the left until he spotted Colonel Mara. In the center of the room, a massive rent in the fabric of the cavern hung. It wasn’t silent however; cracks and snaps of energy shot across the nearly hundred-foot-high opening. The borders glowed a bright neon-purple and everything about the murky interior just screamed “something is happening”. No wonder they rang the alarm.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, striding up behind Colonel Mara.

  “Ah, Callan. Good, I wasn’t sure any of you were around.”

  He shrugged, but the colonel had already turned back to the viewscreen and was pointing something out. “Tell me, what does this look like to you?”

  Callan leaned forward, peering easily over the head of the tech seated there, his bulk outweighing the other man to the point of intimidation, the technician slinking lower into his seat to try and get out of the way.

  On the screen itself were the grainy pictures he’d seen of the far side of the portal, where rank upon rank of Outsiders always seemed to just be waiting, statuesque in their stillness, unmoving. From what he’d learned they just waited there like that, like robots that had powered down, waiting for the command to invade his planet.

  Eerie. That was the only word that truly described the pictures and short videos he’d seen. Now, however, something had clearly changed. Two large Outsiders, taller and thicker than any he’d spotted before, stood in front of the others perhaps thirty or forty feet apart from one another. They were larger than the ones the other dragons had apparently fought, though they were not as big as the Walkers, four-legged constructs that rivaled his own dragon in size.

  “Is that what I think it is?” he asked in surprise, looking between the two pillar-like creatures.

  Colonel Mara snorted. “If you think that looks
like an Outsider-sized slingshot, then I would say yes, we’re pretty sure that’s exactly what it is.”

  “Is this live?” he asked suddenly.

  “Yes. We finally have some robots hardened enough to withstand the far side long enough. They only last perhaps thirty seconds to a minute though.”

  “Right. But why would—OH SHIT!” he yelped as the massive band of material that had been stretched around the two suddenly snapped together.

  Without warning he flipped himself over the bank of consoles, accidentally wrecking one by gripping too hard as he launched himself at the portal. Inky black liquid flowed up his forearms and coated his hands, forming into long, slender, curved blades, their surfaces glossy and liquid-looking. Several droplets of the black substance dropped from the blades to the ground, and bare rock hissed and popped as the acid ate away at it.

  “GET READY!” he bellowed at the ten soldiers in armored combat suits who guarded the way back up. They were from the ready squadron, the tubes that housed their battlesuits placed back against the far wall.

  A split second later something came crashing through the portal. It landed, then bounced and rolled several times before coming to a halt, steaming and broken, bits of its matte-black outer shell covering the ground in a spray of debris. It was bigger than he’d been led to expect, but as he approached carefully something inside moved, and he realized what he was looking at was just a protective shell, not the actual creature.

  That thing burst up and out, orienting itself first on Callan, then the portal.

  “Oh no you don’t!” he roared as it took off for the portal at a—what the hell? Why was it moving so slow?

  The Outsider was not anything like what he’d expected. It was slow, ungainly, and awkward-looking as it ripple-humped its way over the ground. Its armor looked melted and unhealthy, full of cracks. Did the radiation on the other side from the nuke really have that much of an effect on it?

  He glanced over his shoulder while he ran, catching a glimpse of the transport pod it had emerged in. The carcass continued to spew steam and melt into an unrecognizable pile of slag on its own. It provided him no answers, but he knew that he needed to stop the creature before it went back through the portal. If it could report that it survived the trip through the radiation zone, more would join it in rapid order, of that he was sure.

  Closing on the creature, he leapt through the air, his acid blades pointed forward as he drove them deep into armor on the Outsider’s back. It wailed in the high-pitched tone he’d been warned to expect as he bore it to the ground, the “head” of it hitting the ground with a thunderous crack.

  Callan withdrew his knives and prepared to strike the head from the body.

  Chapter Two

  Callan

  A shouted command came before he could strike the blow.

  “HALT!”

  He spun to see an older man with ebony skin emerge from the tunnel mouth, hand upraised toward him. While the soldiers on the base wore khaki-style uniforms designed for anything, this officer was in a darker green style. It was instantly noticeable that he was some sort of officer, the ranks on his shoulders as well as the chest full of medals. Callan had seen Colonel Mara in her formal uniform once before, and she looked similar.

  “Give me one good reason,” he snarled. “This is an Outsider. If it wakes up or gets loose, it’s going to do whatever it takes to get through that portal.” He laid his knives against the back of the thing’s neck, droplets of acid dripping off and melting very tiny rivulets into its armor.

  “The reason is because I said so, soldier.” The officer spoke calmly yet with an arrogance that belied the neutral expression on his face. This was a man used to being obeyed.

  “Do I look like one of your soldiers?” Callan challenged angrily. Why were they wasting time discussing this? The thing needed to die.

  “I’m not sure,” the unknown officer said, flicking at one of his nails. Callan thought they looked manicured. “Are you Callan? The black dragon that was brought back into this world by modern human technologies? Technologies that happen to be owned by the army?”

  “It’s okay, Callan,” another voice said from off to the side.

  Colonel Mara came forward, standing near, but very obviously apart from the other officer. “This is General Knefferson,” she said, as if that was supposed to mean something to him.

  “The head of the CDC.”

  Callan blinked. He vaguely recognized the acronym, but hadn’t actually paid too much attention in the courses designed to catch him up on what was going on in the army. He just didn’t care. All he wanted was to get his treasure and go mourn. These bastards weren’t letting him do either, and now they wanted him to keep the Outsider alive.

  “My boss,” Colonel Mara added gently.

  Now he really wanted to behead the creature, just to stick it to her. No, that’s not right. You know none of this is Colonel Mara’s fault. She’s just trying to do her job. Kallore wouldn’t have mated her if she were a bad person.

  “Do you have a plan for it?” he growled, not moving from its back. So far he hadn’t felt any sort of movement to indicate it was alive, but he wasn’t willing to take any chances either.

  “Yes,” she said, motioning to someone out of sight. A moment later half a dozen more battlesuits emerged from the tunnel mouth, carrying a large tube between them. They set it down, and only after it hit the ground with a dull clang did he get an idea of how heavy it was.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “A special cryo-tube,” she said as the metal-clad soldiers opened it up. The inside was pure steel on the outside, but the inside was lined with some sort of synthetic material. The top and bottom had vents on it, but anything beyond that just looked like technology he wasn’t familiar with.

  “A what?”

  “We put the Outsider in there, it freezes it, keeps it from doing anything,” General Knefferson said tiredly. “Just pick it up and dump it in, okay?”

  Callan made a show of dismissing his acid-daggers while staring at the general, before picking the already half-destroyed Outsider up and tossing it inside.

  “There. Done. Now I’m out of here.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Elsewhere,” he snapped. “I’m done with you and your games. First you wake me, and steal my treasure, then you generously offer to give it back if I fight for you? Screw you,” he spat at Knefferson. “I already lost my mate, now I’ve lost my treasure. You have nothing that will work on me.”

  “If you leave now, you’ll never get your treasure back,” Knefferson barked as Callan pushed his way past the battlesuit clad soldiers.

  “Fuck you. I’ll get it back somehow. Good luck convincing anyone else to fight for you. Nobody likes a thief, General Knefferson,” he mocked.

  Callan stormed from the chamber as behind him the giant tube was closed and sealed with huge metal clamps and other locking devices that looked strong. He just hoped they were strong enough. This was a mistake, but he doubted anyone else would acknowledge that until it was too late.

  Footsteps sounded behind him.

  “What do you want, Colonel?” he asked softly, continuing to walk. “I’m not coming back.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask you to.”

  He came to a halt without turning. “So you came to wish me good luck?”

  “Nothing so crass,” she laughed softly. “No, I was hoping to convince you not to leave.”

  “You just said you weren’t going to ask me to come back.”

  “They aren’t the same thing.”

  Now he did look back at her as she approached at a more sedate walk, no longer having to run to catch up with his long strides. “Explain.”

  “Leave the base,” she said. “But don’t go off on your own. Go to Barton City. Meet some of the other dragons that you haven’t yet. Talk to them. Get to know the world that I’m asking you to save. We’ll introduce you to some humans, things like that. B
ut you won’t be based here anymore.” She sighed. “You should know I didn’t want to hold on to your treasure. But after Knefferson saw how much it was…he wanted to use it to fund several other dragons as we awaken them, instead of using it all on you.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Agreed. Until recently he’s stayed at his hidey hole, leaving me and Major Von Kemp to run the dragon program and this base. Now he’s decided to come here, like a jerk. But that’s beside the point,” she said, waving her hands. “Just give us a chance. Please. We need you, Callan, and the other dragons. We can’t do this alone.”

  She seemed sincere. Her face was full of honesty and worry.

  “Fine. I’ll go there. I’ll meet some humans. But I’m leaving in a week.”

  “Okay. One week, no problem. I’ll make all the arrangements for your stay, and set you up to go meet a human.”

  Callan nodded his acceptance and walked away, trying to figure out how she’d brought him around so swiftly. Damn, she was a crafty one.

  So what the hell did I just agree to?

  Chapter Three

  Kathryn

  One arm braced on the counter, she strained to reach the peanut butter. It was on the second shelf up, and it should have been within easy reach. The hand on the counter turned progressively whiter as more and more of her weight was taken up by it. She grimaced and stretched her other arm again, trying to grab the damn jar.

  Her fingers touched the base, spinning it slightly, moving it closer to the edge at the same time. One more and she would have it. Pushing hard she reached up, tilted it, and saw it come toward her outstretched hand.

  Got you.

  The last of her strength gave out, she popped her wrist painfully, and collapsed back into the chair, which wheeled backward into the kitchen table with an uncomfortable bounce.

  “Ow!” she yelped, cradling her sore wrist.

  In front of her the peanut butter jar lost its balance, toppled forward, and hit the ground. The lid exploded off and the thick brown paste-like substance splattered nearby.