by Amelia Jade
She looked away, blinking the liquid from her eyes, tears falling down her cheeks, leaving hot trails behind. A warm hand reached up and brushed them away with a gentleness that didn’t fit his massive frame.
“It changed him. He became obsessed with finding more. With always chasing that next dollar, of getting the most he could out of it. Everything became a cost to him. Including me.”
Callan’s growl was focused fury, and the force of it rocked her back in her seat, a physical thing that washed over her.
She patted his hand, letting him know he didn’t need to go into protective mode. It was all in the past now.
“I worked to come back from injury, but it wasn’t going fast enough for him. Plus, while I was really bad, I couldn’t, um—” she blushed.
“You couldn’t have sex,” Callan provided.
“Exactly. So Doug decided to go find someone who would. And then he got her pregnant.”
Callan’s fist slammed into the ground next to him, leaving a large divot where the grass compacted under the force of his blow.
“He left me, claiming I was nothing but a money-sucking bitch.” She laughed at the memory. “Conveniently he forgot that it was my money that got him to where he was. He called off the wedding, and left me with little more than enough money to get me and my belongings back here to Barton City.”
“And then I came along and started spoiling you rotten, talking about money and everything.” Callan slapped his palm against his forehead. “I should have known.”
“How?” She reached out to rub the red mark where he’d hit himself. “No, this isn’t your fault, Cal. I should have told you that displays of wealth make me uncomfortable.”
The clearing was silent as the two of them digested everything the other had told them, the truths filling in the blanks about the actions of the other. Kathryn wished she’d just told him from the start how she felt. It would have saved a lot of time and worry on both their parts.
The phone in his pocket went off again.
“I think you should answer that,” she said, pointing at the rectangular outline in his pants.
“Maybe.” Callan pulled it out, putting it to his ear. “Hello?”
She sat back, listening though not trying to eavesdrop.
“Hi Colonel Mara, what can I do for you?”
The irritation in his voice was palpable. Right, Colonel. The military. They have his treasure. It makes sense he would dislike them.
“WHAT?” he bellowed angrily, leaping to his feet and looking around. “It escaped? Where is it going?”
Kathryn looked up, their eyes meeting with a connection that should have rocked her to her core. Instead, all she could see was one thing as it grew in the depths of his navy-blue eyes.
Fear. For her.
What could make a mighty dragon like him scared? Ice formed in the pit of her stomach as a fear slipped its inky tendrils through her body. Whatever it was, it scared him. Therefore she should be terrified.
What had she gotten herself into?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Callan
“Why the hell is it coming after me?” he snarled, senses coming to full alert as he scanned the forest, his dragon powers coming to the fore as he prepared to defend Katy with every weapon in his arsenal.
Energy flowed through his body, his powers near at hand and ready to be called upon at any time. His eyes penetrated multiple layers of the forest, searching for sources of heat and movement that humans couldn’t conceive of. He tested the air, picking up the scent of the forest quickly and letting his nose get used to it, so that he would detect any change with ease.
“When it escaped its cell, there was only one thing left behind,” Colonel Mara said with cold precision, furious at having been ignored for so long.
“Which was?” he pressed, exasperated. If time was of the essence, why was she dragging this out?
“A piece of your shirt.”
Callan straightened, fear prickling his spine, leaving goosebumps on his flesh. His shirt. He remembered now how the front of it had been ripped away. Chills rippled across his skin as he thought of the Outsider, restrained however had been arranged at the facility, clutching his shirt in its weird limbs the entire time. Focusing only on him.
Of course it would want to come after him when it got free.
“You need to get out of there, Callan. I’ve notified the others, the Steel Scythes are on their way, but they won’t get there for some time yet.”
Callan had no idea what the Steel Scythes were, but it didn’t matter. His primary job, his only job, was to get Katy to safety. No matter what it took.
“Gotta go. Stay near the phone, I’ll call you.” He slapped the phone to end the call and looked at Katy. “Please don’t hate me, but we need to go. And fast. It’s not going to be very dignified.”
“Callan, what’s going on?” she asked, looking around nervously.
“Trouble. Can you hang on tight?”
She nodded and he lifted her from the chair, pulling her legs to her chest. Then he wrapped both arms around her hamstrings and lower back, his huge reach allowing him to keep her held tight.
“Ready?”
“Does it matter if I say no?”
“Not if you want to live. Now, stay quiet, we need to be stealthy.”
“WHAT?” She hissed the question into his ear, the sound hammering at him with his senses opened up fully. “What do you mean, live? Am I going to die? You said I wasn’t in any danger.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“The alien escaped. Now it’s coming after me.”
“Why would it be after you?”
“I, uh, may have beat it up,” he confessed quietly, creeping through the forest, avoiding every stick as he went. He’d honed his ranger skills centuries ago, when they could make or break the hunt for food.
“The day you came home looking like crap,” she said, understanding.
“Yeah. We heal fast. I was a wreck before you arrived.”
“I wondered why your bruises looked like they were already healing.”
“Yes.” He crept under a low-hanging branch. “Listen, there’s something you should know. Something I’ve wanted to tell you for a while.”
“Let me guess,” she said dryly from her curled-up ball position in his arms. “Now is the perfect time?”
He snorted. “No, now is probably the worst time. Unfortunately, unless we can escape this thing, it might be the last time for me.”
Katy went still in his arms. “What are you talking about, Callan? Can you not beat this thing?”
“I…don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s complicated. Maybe. Maybe not.”
His mate was silent in his arms, and he smelled her fear, hating himself for putting her in such a position. It was his fault that she was here and no one else. If he’d put more forethought into it, he never would have had them so far from society, a car…anything. He also could have answered his phone right away, instead of ignoring Colonel Mara because he hated her for holding back his treasure.
His own selfishness had endangered them both. Or worse. It may have killed Katy if he couldn’t get her out of this. And then he would have seen two women he loved killed. There was nothing he could have done to help Beatrice. The plague had been ruthless, and many others he’d known had been killed as well.
No humans mated to dragons had died, however, and for a long time Callan had held that against himself. If he’d just mated Beatrice, she would have lived. Now he knew it wasn’t his destiny, but that didn’t stop him from knowing that if he were to watch another he loved die, he would not survive the day. His heart couldn’t take it.
“What is it you wanted to say?” Her voice was calm and reassuring, and she rubbed one of his cheeks with soft back and forth motions as he paused, using all his senses to scan for the Outsider before continuing his stealthy passage through the forest.
“Katy. I…�
�� his head snapped around at a noise.
Gathering his powers and getting ready to fight for his mate, he breathed a sigh of relief as a rabbit jumped out of a nearby bush, scurrying past him no more than five feet away.
“Well that was anticlimactic,” she remarked.
He laughed as silently as he could, shoulders shaking.
“By the gods, that is why I love you,” he said, the words coming out easily this time. “You don’t have to say anything at all. But I wanted you to know that, just…just in case. You know, the worst. If it happens. I don’t want you to doubt.”
He came to another clearing, settling down next to a hollowed-out log. Everything about the small clearing screamed Danger, and he wanted to figure out his next move. Katy hadn’t said anything.
There was no warning, no visible sign, nothing to prove him right. Callan just knew that the Outsider was approaching the other side of the clearing.
“I need to go now,” he said, setting her down and into the log. “Stay here, and whatever you do, don’t come out unless you see me.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, eyes tightening nervously.
He squeezed her hand and then kissed her, a soft, tender thing, her taste lingering on his lips when he pulled away. The perfect memory.
“To show this sonofabitch that this is my planet,” he snarled silently.
Black oil-like liquid flowed out from behind his head and down his shoulders as he stood to face the Outsider. It covered his face, leaving holes for his eyes, mouth and nose only, even though they were barely visible. His eyes had gone completely black, as had his mouth.
It covered his entire skin, forming itself into small scaled sections that overlapped each other like shingles on a roof, moving freely with his body, a living armor of acid.
With a savage growl he thrust his hands out sideways. Blades shot forth from both hands, the acid hardening. The blunt chopping instruments had an extruded bit on the end, giving them a very out-of-proportion L-shape to them.
“LET’S GO!” he bellowed, stepping forth into the circle devoid of trees. As he did, horns of acid curled up out of his head, and two spikes rose on either shoulder, each as obsidian as the empty night sky. Smaller spikes arose across his knuckles, forearms and knees as well.
The Outsider stepped into the clearing, looking renewed and invigorated. It must have eaten before it found him, and he found himself ever angrier over those who had lost their lives for no reason.
“It’s time to meet the reaper, bitch,” he snarled, striding forward across the clearing. One hand lifted his sword and pointed it at the matte-black-clad monster. Behind him the earth smoldered and sizzled, his footprints melting permanent holes in the undergrowth as the acid did its job.
“Nobody threatens my mate and gets away with it.”
He charged.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Callan
The Outsider met him halfway. Their blades slammed together, acid and bits of Outsider material sparking clear of the weapons.
He twisted around and slammed both his weapons home, but the creature used its two sword-like limbs to block the attack, though the sheer strength of it seemed to rock the thing. Callan howled with anger, and a stream of acid shot from his mouth, splashing across the bulbous outcropping that they all assumed was the Outsider’s head.
They resembled humans to an almost uncanny degree. Two legs, two arms, and a lump on top of an oblong torso. Any resemblance ended after that though. Their armor was black and chitinous, like an ant, though it reflected no light. Callan whipped his weapons around and tried to sever the head from the shoulders, but it once again stopped him in time.
There was no fear on the Outsider’s face, because it didn’t have a face. There were no features on its body anywhere at all. The only thing that gave it any sort of change in appearance was when it healed or reformed its limbs. The black armor-like material would ripple and hump nauseously, then tendrils of it would shoot out and away from the armor before looping around and back in, like some sort of creeping vine on super-steroids, diving back into itself and stitching wounds closed.
Or in this one’s case, reforming the swords that emerged from the ends of its arms into giant battle-axes.
Callan yelped and ducked out of the way. He didn’t quite make it, a blade slamming into the back of his leg. The motion of his ducking had him moving with the blow. It sent him flying while also chopping through his armor—and the skin beneath it.
He landed, howling with pain as his system tried to repair itself, blood leaking through the acid-armor. Rising unsteadily to his feet, he took some small satisfaction in noting that the blade had lost a large chunk of its blade to his armor. Still, he couldn’t sustain many more attacks like that. It had grown damn strong compared to when he’d faced it down during the transport operation.
And now that it was free, it was trying to pay him back for that ass-kicking in spades.
Fury surged through his body. This was all the military’s fault. Those sons of bitches had had this thing in their custody, a prisoner, and somehow the bloody thing had gotten free?
It was a prime example of why he didn’t want to fight for them. Why the hell should he have to clean up somebody else’s mistakes and deal with their stupid decisions? Because it had to be one hell of a monumental screw-up that let this thing go! Now he was being left out to dry and expected to clean up their mistakes for them before anyone else could get hurt.
Well fuck that shit.
Harnessing the boost of energy that came with his rage, Callan fell into the rhythm of swordplay. He was a master of it, having learned from some of the greatest swordsmen of his age. This wasn’t a brawl; he had no other opponents to fight against or worry about. All of his attention could be focused on the ugly-ass overgrown ant in front of him, his only goal reducing it to a pile of individual pieces.
He clipped one of its battle axes and smashed his fist into its face, the acid-horns on his knuckles punching into the armor, cracking it again. Callan grinned at that. It may have a solid outer veneer once more, but it was obviously not up to strength even after having fed. That meant he had a chance to beat it on his own.
Which was perfectly okay with him. Callan would beat it down, ensuring it could harm nobody else, but after that, he was going to take Kathryn and go far away from all this nonsense. Colonel Mara and General Knefferson—that asshole—could either give him his treasure back, or he would take it. He was beyond caring. If he needed to use force, then he would.
The two of them spun and whirled in near silence, the only sound the crash of their blades as they came together, and the grunts of Callan as he swung with all his might. The Outsider fought in complete silence, an eerie sight to experience.
He upped the tempo without warning, his blades whirling and slicing, stabbing and cutting in a flurry of blows that sent the Outsider reeling, its armor slicing off in chunks as he weakened it with strike after strike. Callan faked one way and dodged the other, getting around the Outsider. He ducked low and prepared to strike upward, impaling it from behind.
The right knee of the Outsider reversed the joint and Callan was knocked backward as he took a sudden and unexpected knee to the face, the blow snapping his head around and knocking a few teeth loose in his jaw. Hitting the ground, he bounced once, ending up on his ass, legs out in front of him.
His tongue played across teeth and he spat blood to the side, getting to his feet. That was a nasty trick he hadn’t expected, and he was about ready to be done with this thing. Instead of getting angrier and letting his temper make him reckless, Callan cooled and stretched his neck, the kinks popping rapidly.
Before he could go after the Outsider though, it moved. Callan immediately dropped into a guard, swords coming up at angles, but even as he did that he noticed that the monster wasn’t heading toward him. It was cutting across the clearing. Toward a familiar hollowed-out log.
Kathryn.
“Oh no yo
u don’t,” he whispered, gathering his strength in his knees.
Callan jumped, flipping himself up and over the Outsider, rotating midair and landing on his feet between the log that contained Katy and the armored invader.
“What did I tell you about threatening my mate?” he snarled, walking forward, swords at his sides. “She is mine. I am her protector and guardian. I am her friend and lover. She is my heart, my soul, and my everything. If you want her, you have to go through me.”
The two combatants slammed together again, Callan fighting with a skill and speed he’d never known before. His swords blurred, moving faster than even his vision could track as he struck the Outsider once, twice, three times in rapid succession. His sword bit so deep into one sword-arm that as he reversed himself, came around and sliced upward with the other blade, it lopped the end of the limb right off.
Purple goo sprayed out, covering the grass until the living-armor sealed over it, the nasty tendrils of it darting in and out of the armor as if dancing for joy at being able to feed on the purple stuff that, as far as anyone could tell, was an Outsider.
Callan whirled and slammed a boot into the thing’s chest, the force of the blow spreading cracks all across the armor. The Outsider flew back, its armor so weakened now that it ended up impaling itself on the end of a broken-off tree stump.
He stood there, swords pointed down, staying between it and his mate. The woman he loved.
Love.
The acid-covered shifter smiled, a terrifying sight to any opponent. He wasn’t happy. Just the opposite, in fact. He was furious. But despite all that, something had clicked inside of him as he thought about Katy, and how he loved her like nothing else.
Love was a powerful force. It had endless permutations and its strength was nigh unlimited. There were few other concepts, forces, or ideas out there as strong as love. It was something he had experienced before, and had been lucky enough to find again. And it was something everyone deserved a chance at finding.
Even if that meant he had to fight for that right.