by J. K Harper
The UTEI man tutted and shook his head. His voice sounded positively oily when he spoke. "On the contrary, Ms. Santos. You did just as you should have, and you led us right to it.” He smiled broadly. “My actual employer is the one who now possesses the treasure. As we had planned all along. You simply hurried along the process in a way we never anticipated."
This time, Shane gasped out loud.
"I don't understand," Gabi said, voice still a whisper. She suddenly shivered in spite of the heat of the day already starting to seep over the island. "Who—what are you talking about? Your actual employer? You mean UTEI?"
"UTEI!” Shane's voice yelped in alarm. “Jesus, Gabi. Are you mixed up with them? What the hell have you done?" The disgust and growing rage in his tone felt like a physical punch to Gabi. Yet she deserved no less.
"Oh, I do work for UTEI, yes, indeed.” Another smirk. “However, UTEI works for someone else. The bigwig in a certain gold trade, shall we say." He chuckled to himself, as if at a private joke.
“I don't understand.” Gabi felt utterly impotent and helpless each time she thought or said those words. It was pissing her off, but it was true.
“In due time, you will.” The oily voice was almost enough to make her literally gag. “I simply wanted to extend our deepest thanks for your help in retrieving the gold, Ms. Santos.” He executed a smarmy bow at her, doffing an imaginary hat with a derisive flourish. Shane gaped at him just as she did. “Your—special meaning to its owner was the key we needed to its recovery.”
The odd hesitation as he said that just confused her more. She felt ever more lost, as well as anxious and distressed. “I—then you did take it. All of it.”
“Naturally. We have been after that particular hoard for many years now. It was well worth the wait.” His brilliant white teeth gleamed at her as he bared them in a nasty smile.
Hoard. Gabi's stomach lurched in renewed horror. She took a step back from him. Oh, god.
“So dreadfully sorry we'll have to renege on our part of the bargain and not pay you after all,” he went on. “You fell into that trap too easily. Humans.” He contemptuously shook his head as Gabi's stomach plummeted. “Always so greedy. And so foolishly led.”
With a bark of laughter, the man lifted a hand in mocking farewell as he started to turn away. Almost as if an afterthought, though, he paused and swung his head back around. "Oh, and Gabriela?" He lowered his glasses from his eyes and looked straight at her.
Gabi was close enough to him still to see the odd, bright green glints glittering out from his eyes. More jolts of shock ripped through her at the familiar sight.
"Do give our regards to Kai, and tell him we thank him greatly for his contribution. He will know who we are.” A positively sinister smile then crept over the man's face. “Such a terribly sad thing, when he lost his mate. She fought valiantly, that one. Too bad," he sneered right in Gabi's face, “he wasn't man enough to save her in time.”
With that, he turned and walked down the dock, whistling a jaunty tune. He disappeared around the corner as Shane and Gabi stared after him.
The world around Gabi seemed to lurch, although she knew perfectly well she was still standing on solid ground. Mate? Kai had lost a—mate? She wasn't quite sure what that meant. Somewhere in her heart, though, she knew it must be a terrible thing to have lost. Something that must have scarred him deeply.
Because a mate sounded an awful lot like the sort of partner for life a dragon might have.
“What a freaky weird guy. And you.” Bitterness coated Shane's voice as he took a step away from her. "Gabi, what the hell? You had a hand in this? UTEI? You got mixed up with them? Treasure hunters." He spat out the words in disgust. "They have no reverence for real historical work. I can't believe you did this. What was possibly worth getting mixed up with a bunch of low-down, scummy treasure hunters? They're nothing more than thieves. How could you not have told me?" He shook his head, as if trying to clear cobwebs from it.
Gabi's voice came out a hoarse croak. "My grandmother, Shane. I had to do it. For her. I had no choice."
Staring at her sadly, but also like she was the most foul thing he'd ever encountered in his life, Shane shook his head again as he backed off another step. "You betrayed us and all of history. Nothing is worth that. Nothing."
Her breath going ragged as the shock began to turn into angry, helpless tears, Gabi clenched her fingers. Feeling more sick than she ever had in her life, completely drained of willpower and energy, she stared, unseeing, toward the laboratory building that had housed her dreams for the last several years.
Shane flicked his glance over Gabi's shoulder. "Sailboat coming in. If I'm not mistaken, it looks an awful lot like the one your boyfriend had the other day." His tone was cold. Stricken.
Faintly, Gabi protested, "He's not my boyfriend."
“Whatever.” Shane's muttered voice ground into her heart. “I'm out of here.” Turning on his heel, her friend strode away down the dock as well, tremendous hurt and rage pouring off of him with every step he took away from her.
With another shaky breath, Gabi turned to look back out over the ocean. Yes. It was Kai, coming in on his sailboat. Wondering whether some sort of strange, magical dragon shifter abilities allowed him to somehow sense wherever she was—which really wasn't that far-fetched, considering the fact that he could turn into a dragon in the first place—she stared at his beautiful, sleek boat as he quickly and easily slid it into a slip on the other side of the dock. Her heart stuttered, mimicking the uneven rhythm of her thoughts and emotions.
He was here. That had to be a good thing, right? Because it didn't look as if he'd disappeared into a pile of gold-less nothing, like he was about to fade into oblivion. He was here, solid and real and alive.
He also looked utterly hollow. From rage.
Kai stepped out of the boat in a fluid motion, landing on the dock with a heavy thump. He strode directly over to her. As he drew near, Gabi saw something else in his expression as well. Pain. Grief. But most of all, his features resembled that of a granite mass.
Unyielding.
Unforgiving.
"Where is it?" The strange, booming sort of snarl beneath Kai's words made Gabi's heart lodge in her throat. His dragon. His dragon boomed beneath his voice. Clearly very close to the surface.
Well, damn. Apparently the loss of his gold did have an effect on him. It made him terrifying. Wondering wildly if Kai would dare shift into a dragon right there on the dock that was publicly visible to many despite the early hour, she tripped herself up by then immediately wondering if he would be visible to anyone else but her.
Completely stymied by the confusion of her own thoughts, Gabi stared at Kai with her mouth slightly parted as she tried to get out words that would make sense.
"I—it's gone. You went down there?" Gabi knew she was hedging even as she spoke. To her own ears, her voice sounded guiltier than hell.
Kai, clad in board shorts and a dark gray T-shirt that left none of his delicious musculature to the imagination, close-cropped hair still wet from what must have been his swim down to the ship, loomed over her. He actually loomed. Despite her instinctive trepidation, Gabi felt the flare of her usual fire surge to life.
Narrowing her eyes behind her sunglasses, she forced herself to straighten her own spine. "Don't come swooping in here all scary like that. It won't help anything." Despite herself, her voice wobbled a bit.
He didn't budge, lips pressed into a thin, hard line. Then he snapped out, "This is no longer a game, Gabriela.
His voice bit off her name as if it was something distasteful. Gabi recoiled as the painful shock of it slapped at her. "My treasure is gone.” Kai's voice was flat. “And somehow, I know you had something to do with it."
When she didn't reply, completely uncertain as to how she could possibly respond with anything that would help, Kai savagely ripped the sunglasses from his face. Gabi sucked in her breath. She'd recognized pain in his expression. Yet that wa
s nothing compared to what she could see in his eyes. The usual bright green flecks dancing in them seemed dull.
The loss of his gold did hurt him. Literally, physically hurt him.
She hadn't completely understood the importance of a dragon's treasure to his well-being.
She had been more than a fool. She had been callous and selfish.
Stumbling over her words, completely lost as to how to handle this, she stuttered when she spoke. “Kai, I never, ever meant for this to happen. You have to believe that. They didn't tell me they were going to take everything. They were supposed to take just some of it to sell. Not everything. And when I first agreed to it, I had no idea about”—she waved one hand around, trying to encompass everything she was having difficulty articulating—“you.”
She squeezed her other hand tightly. Something in her palm cut into her skin. Uncurling her hand, she looked down. The tiny gold nugget glittered up at her. She'd forgotten she'd been holding it again during the entire boat ride back into shore. As she looked back up at Kai, she saw his eyes had fixed on it as well. His pulse beat in his forehead, neck cording as he clenched his jaw.
Shaking, Gabi held it out to him. “I was returning it to your hoard,” she whispered. “That's why Shane and I went down there this morning. My—my grandmother told me I had to return it to you as soon as possible. She knows about your kind. She knew you needed it.” Gabi's voice trailed off into silence as he just stood there, staring at the tiny piece of gold in her hand with an expression that shared nothing of anything he might be feeling or thinking.
Then, after a long moment, a ghastly smile spread over Kai's face. He shook his head. Absolute deadness settled over his features, although she could still see pain clawing its way out of his eyes. "It doesn't really matter anymore," he said, his voice flat. Frozen. "It is too small and will do me no good. You betrayed not only me, but also apparently the team of people you considered friends. Unforgivable," he whispered. “Everything you've done is unforgivable.”
Gabi almost forgot to breathe, trapped by the horrible deadness of his voice. It felt as if an abyss yawned beneath her feet, threatening to suck her down. Her horrendous shame and fear whirled around inside of her, blending together in a sickening concoction. Kai's expression didn't change.
“It wasn't on purpose." Gabi's voice sounded hoarse to her own ears. Ragged. But even as she spoke, the truth of his words settled into her very bones. "But you're right. I betrayed everyone." She felt light-headed. “Especially,” she forced out against the bile rising in her throat, “you.”
Kai stared at her for another long beat before he gave a single, curt nod. "Yes." The simple word echoed with the hideous truth. Voice grating, he went on. “Let me explain something. In the dragon shifter world, we don't usually marry, the way humans do. We mate.” His voice snapped out the word, quickly. As if it hurt to say it. “We discover our mates. Our destined mates, with whom we are meant to spend the rest of our lives."
Gabi felt cold chills shudder all over her despite the warmth of the sun. She stared at Kai in shock.
“My true mate," and suddenly he thrust his face toward hers, speaking the words with savage enunciation, "the only mate I will ever have, died five years ago trying to protect our mingled treasure hoard. She gave her life to save us. You?" He barked out a cutting laugh that sliced into Gabi so deeply she literally wondered if she was bleeding. He hissed out the next words, his face hollow. "I don't know what you are, aside from someone I never again wish to see."
Gabi's mouth was so dry that she couldn't get any words out. Not that she had the slightest idea what to say.
Without another word, Kai turned and walked away from her, his stride stiff and jerky. Leaving her standing on the dock, alone.
Before she could even try to find her voice to call out to him, her phone angrily buzzed. Looking down, she saw a curt text from Everson. Just had a chat with Shane. You'd better call me right this second, Gabriela. If anything he said is true, you're done with the team as well as the university.
Closing her eyes, Gabi sank down onto the slowly sun-warming surface of the dock, curling her hand back around the cold, useless lump of gold. She had just lost everything in life that she cared about. Including, she knew with a soul-rending jagged whip of pain, the one person—the sexy, amazing, heartbreaking dragon shifter man—she'd just realized she wanted more than anyone else in the world.
The one she knew without a shadow of a doubt she had fallen in love with.
The one she had just lost forever.
16
Kai charged forward, his right arm cocked back, then released the full power of a rage-filled punch.
The speed bag exploded in a shower of its innards, the red faux leather that had contained it seconds before, and the twisted metal from where it had been attached to the anchor holding it to the platform. Rotating around from the force of his own forward momentum, Kai was spun into his older brother. Eli didn't bother to steady Kai, opting instead to simply step backward so that Kai stumbled to a graceless halt. Letting out a string of inventive words, Kai glared first at his brother, then at the punching bag.
Eli lifted a sardonic eyebrow. "Well. I can see that the immediate removal of your hoard has not quite yet affected all of your power." Narrowing his eyes a bit as he studied Kai, his brother then said more slowly, "Or is there something else going on?"
No. Not even bothering to glare at his older brother, Kai stalked over to the full-body punching bag in the corner of his home gym and began pummeling it with enraged grunts.
Eli, as well as Kai's parents along with two of his other siblings, had arrived in Los Angeles several nights after Kai's world had thoroughly imploded yet again. It had pained him to call them, particularly because of his angry pride at not having had to rely on his family's strength for the last several years, but even he knew this loss was a family matter. Somehow, everything had gone to hell, and he was in no shape to even begin figuring out how to fix it.
The dangers of a death-spelled hoard being filched by another dragon were far greater than that of a regular hoard being stolen. Oh, that sort of theft was still a crime of the greatest moral reprehensibleness, as well as one punishable by death according to every dragon council codex worldwide. Truthfully, Kai had never truly worried about such things for his own hoard. Lazy, criminally-minded dragons often spent an entire lifetime stealing bits and pieces of other dragons' gold hoards in order to enhance their own power and lengthen their own lives. The Long family, however, was a very old lineage that was strong in numbers as well as power. Other dragons never bothered to try taking their gold, knowing it would be a fruitless endeavor.
Kai grunted again as he thumped the punching bag even harder. It was clear he had been too complacent in his belief that both the death spell and the additional concealing spells he and his family had placed on his treasure hoard at the wreck of the Santa Maria would keep it forever hidden from sight. They forgot to count upon one unforeseen factor: the presence of humans who were just as greedy as dragons, even if they didn't understand the true nature of the treasure.
They'd also never counted on the presence of Gabi, who had betrayed Kai beyond all repair. Even if it hurt so much he thought he might die from the pain of being without her. That sense of pain, of feeling anything, infuriated him even more than the theft of his hoard.
Kai slammed his left fist into the bag this time. Its seam popped in the back from the force of it. The faint scent of sawdust drifted through the air in this corner of his gym. Jaw clenched, he attacked the bag again. And again.
"That hasn't been helping for the last twenty minutes. You really think it's going to start helping now?" Eli's voice, practical and annoyed at Kai as ever, served nothing more than to fuel Kai's anger.
With a roar, he attacked the bag with the same fury and rage with which he had assaulted the smaller speed bag. Slowly but surely, the seams on the back and sides ripped more and more with each fiercely aggressive pun
ch.
In between each slamming punch he threw, Gabi's stricken face rose before him, the way she had looked when he had seen her on the dock and realized the truth of what she had done.
Slam.
No matter how hard he punched the slowly tearing bag, he couldn't erase her sweet, gorgeous, thoroughly despairing face from his mind. Or her voice, imploring him to listen to her.
Slam.
Her devastating lies that had destroyed so much more than she was capable of understanding.
Slam.
His final punch ended the bag's stability. Ignoring the judgment and disappointment he could feel boring into his back from where he knew his brother stood glaring at him, Kai savagely finished the job until the punching bag was nothing more than an empty sack hanging from its anchor, the contents of its insides littering the floor of the gym.
For several moments, only the sound of Kai's gasps as he slowly cooled down and the far-off steady thump of waves meeting shoreline down below the house filled the room. Finally, once Kai's breathing had returned to normal, his brother spoke again. "What was her name?"
Kai's head snapped around to glare. Eli stood there, arms crossed across his chest, regarding Kai with a great deal more compassion than he would have thought. Wary, Kai didn't answer.
Eli blew out a less patient huff. "Kai. The long reach of the Long family," and here his slightly mocking expression as he uttered the inside family joke made even Kai wryly twist his lips for a second, "found out what happened. Sort of." He eyed Kai for another moment. When he spoke again, his voice was more hesitant. "Look. There's a theory about how everything fits together. Before I tell you that, though, I want to know her name."