by Lila Felix
I huffed out a breath that made Kallie’s hair blow before doing what I knew to save her. I tried, as gently as I could and bit down on her thigh, near her carotid artery to insure that my blood would enter her bloodstream immediately. I allowed the wound to bleed out some and then, with my own talon, slit a cut across my front leg and allowed the blood to seep into the wound.
The only thing I could do then was pray that it would work.
I turned back into human form and gathered her in my arms. I had to get her back to my cabin and allow her to rest while my clan took care of the mess.
“She killed them. I don’t know how in the hell she did it, but she went after them like an animal. One minute you’re dying and the next she’d taken my knife from its sheath and my parents… my mother.”
“Are they dead?”
“They are. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I’m sorry. I know they were your parents.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged and helped me lift Kallie’s lifeless body into a car I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t lifeless, but it felt limp. Her smell was better. The dragon’s blood was pumping through her system already, healing what needed to be healed and improving what it saw fit, though I could see nothing other than the wounds that needed improvement. She was perfect just the way she was.
“She’s going to be pissed, but I think she will understand.” That was the last thing I heard before I passed out in the car with Kallie in my arms.
18
Kallie
Pain.
Darkness.
Pain.
Darkness.
More freaking pain.
Over and over again, the cycle repeated, going from excruciating pain to what I assumed was passing out. Not that I ever was completely conscious.
The blacking out was probably for the best. The guilt of bringing Rhi’s parents to Knox was almost as over-whelming as the guilt I felt for taking their lives. Not that I had a choice. Rhi couldn’t do it. She was theirs, even if their evil made her wish it weren’t so. Knox couldn’t do it since it was he that was dying. That left me.
Murder. I was now a murderer. I couldn’t even claim self-defense. Not really? I wasn’t the one being hurt. True, they had left me to all but die, but in that moment I could have escaped and gotten away. I couldn’t leave though, not with Knox there, writhing in agony… his life flowing out of his body. I could feel him slipping away through our connection, the very connection I had failed to acknowledge until that very moment.
Knox. Had I saved him? It was all too blurry in my mind. I almost wondered if parts of it were a dream. If only the pain could be a dream.
“Kallie.” A voice pulled me through the fog that was now my brain. “Kallie.” It was Knox and he sounded so very far away, although slightly closer than the first time I heard my name. “Kallie come back to me.” He was there, beside me. No, not beside me, under me. I gave a slight squirm. Yeah, my chair wasn’t one. I was on Knox’s lap.
“Sleep now.” I all but begged, the darkness pulling me back. At least the pain was subdued a tiny bit. I no longer wanted to scream in agony. I wasn’t ready to get up, but things were definitely on the upswing. It didn’t hurt that I was with Knox, my Knox and his warmth surrounded me like a down comforter.
“There you are my brilliant, wonderful, brave, and fierce mate.” His voice was off. It was him, to be sure, but he sounded, dare I say weak. No, that wasn’t right. Apprehensive, maybe?
“Knox.” I tried to form the question that was racing around in my head, but my vocal cords failed me. All I could muster was Knox.
“You don’t need to talk now.” I cracked open my eyes, and saw him for the first time since the incident. He looked healthy, but riddled with worry. Probably over me. I did that to him. Was he ashamed of what I had done to save him? Was I worse off than I dared fear? “Rest.”
Stay. Stay. Stay. Mine.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I vowed at his words. Or were they his? They sounded so very faint as if they were being whispered from another room. I pushed myself up, or at least attempted to, to no avail. I was still in bad shape. A grunt escaped my lips as I gave up my attempts.
“You can’t even sit up, love.” He held me a little tighter with what I was sure was a means to keep me from trying to get up again. I liked it a little too much and it lulled me back into snuggling contently. “Of course you can’t.”
“Then why did you beg me to stay?” Nothing was making sense. Nothing except staying in Knox’s embrace anyway.
“What exactly did I say?” Knox rubbed my cheek gently as he asked, the question holding more importance than it sounded from the look in his eyes.
“Stay. Stay. Stay. Mine.” It sounded stupid now that I said it aloud. I was probably just imagining things in my pain induced stupor.
“Did it sound like me?” He quirked his head, a slight smile forming on his lips. It was a genuine, happy smile and not one made while mocking someone, so I had hesitation in answering him.
“Nothing sounded right.” It actually still didn’t. My ears were acting oddly, probably from the pressure of my injuries on my body.
“Promise not to get mad?” His body tensed beneath me. This was not good.
“What?” I tried to sit, but my body just wouldn’t cooperate.
“I had no choice,” he whispered, tears forming in his eyes. Suck, what was I missing? “You were dying.”
“But I’m not dead.” I found myself consoling him as best I could, whatever was concerning him no longer my top worry. Seeing Knox like this hurt me because apparently I was all in with this man, as crazy as that felt.
“No, because I did something… something you should have had a choice in.” My mind traveled to all sorts of dark places from hurting my friend, starting a fire. “I changed you.”
“Changed?” My voice cracked, the question barely a whisper. Surely he couldn’t mean I was not me. I mean I felt like me, but he was a freaking dragon so who knew what powers he did or didn’t have?
“That voice you heard. It wasn’t mine. It was your dragon. She wanted me to stay. I’m hers.”
All the pieces fell into place. I was now a dragon. A fierce dragon, who at the moment was unable to sit up or think clearly, but a dragon. Did that mean I had to stay here, with him? And more importantly, why didn’t that bother me, especially since I was finally close to my life goals. Yet, a nagging part of my brain told me I wasn’t a dragon. I couldn’t even feel her as Knox put it. Plus, the voice sounded far away not within. I tried to sit again and this time I was successful, not that I climbed off of his lap. I needed him. It didn’t make sense, but it was the way it was.
“My dragon? I don’t feel a dragon.”
“You’re supposed to be mad not in denial.”
Truth was, I wasn’t either. I was curious and confused, but I believed his words and at any rate I was feeling better. There was no denying something was different about me. I scootched off his lap, twisting my body so we could look each other in the eye. A tinge of hurt passed through his eyes, so I put my legs on his lap and grabbed his hand with mine to silently reassure him, the compelling need to make the hurt go away taking over.
“I’m not in denial, just shocked. I don’t feel her.” And that actually made me sad. If she were there like Knox was so sure she was, why couldn’t I tell? When Knox told me about his dragon I was in awe of many things, one of which being his connection to this other part of himself. I just wasn’t feeling it and feared I may be broken.
“And the mad?”
Silly dragon.
“Not mad.” I gave his hand a squeeze. “You saved me. I probably didn’t deserve to be saved being that I committed a double homicide, but you saved me nonetheless.”
The guilt hit back hard at the realization of what I had done.
“You saved me first. If it weren’t for you, we would all be dead.”
He wasn’t wrong. The entire ordeal was surreal. How could t
wo people be so evil that they would choose money over life? Heck, they chose it over their own daughter.
“Not Rhi.” Although the words didn’t feel quite truthful. Part of me knew that people that evil could kill even their own flesh and blood.
“I’m not so sure about that. Her parents oozed evil.” His words confirmed my instincts and sent comfort through me. Was this a mate thing? A dragon thing? I didn’t know, but I accepted the comfort and allowed his gentle tug of my hand to bring me into a hug.
“I never liked them, but I never once had an inkling that they were more than just craptastic parents. What happened to Rhi? I… I killed her parents.” I was babbling, but all the thoughts needed a way out.
“She’s at the B&B. She promised to wait there until we figured out what next.”
“You mean with her parents.” Poor Rhi. They might have been evil, but they were hers. She would never forgive me for what I had done. Sure, she made some pretty huge mistakes when it came to me, but in the end she helped me when self-preservation would have told her not to.
“No, they are ash now, their ‘what’s next’ is done.” He spoke it like he was reading a news report, no emotion. While the emotional side of me was glad they were ash, the logical side of me knew it didn’t change a thing. I was a murderer.
“Oh,” I gasped at what this all meant.
“What do you mean by oh?” His concern was palpable.
“I mean… you don’t have to protect me… I know I’m going to be arrested.”
It was worth it to have him still be alive. Not that I would tell him that. He would blame himself. I might not know him well, but I knew that much.
“No, love, you’re not.”
“But I killed them.”
“Killed who? There are no bodies.”
“But I…”
“Saved the dragons, starting with their Alpha. We are all indebted to you.”
“Then what about Rhi? I’m all confused.” His words made sense. They were crystal clear. What that actually meant beyond today though, that what had me all caflustered.
“Rhi may have some consequences for her actions, once we determine what her actions actually were. Same with my brother.”
Samson. I didn’t know Samson and wasn’t quite sure his part in all of it, but I knew a good chunk of Rhi’s. She made bad choices to be sure, but in the end she came through. If it weren’t for her none of us would be alive.
“She saved me. Saved us.”
“That may be so, but she was also the one who put you in harm’s way.”
Tears welled in my eyes as he spoke. What would happen to Rhi? Jail? Worse?
“She is staying at the B&B, not jail, because she saved us.”
“She won’t die, will she?” I pleaded, tears now flowing.
“Not without my say so, and I have a feeling me saying so would put me in bad graces with my mate.” He wiped my tears with his thumb.
“But you left me.” And once again insecurity reared its evil head. He had left me and I still had no clue why, his excuse at the time completely insane.
“To save you from a fate you felt obligated to.” His lips met the top of my head in a sweet kiss. He was doing it for me. In typical guy fashion, he was doing it wrong, but it was for me nonetheless.
“Obligated or not, it was mine to choose or not choose.”
“I see that now.” Regret hung heavy in the air.
“I don’t have a choice now.”
“Because I changed you.”
“No, because I love you.” And I did too. We might not have known each other long, or for that matter had a good start, but I loved him. He was mine. And if what my dragon said was true, he was hers, too.
“And I you.” He kissed my head again before standing, lifting me as he did and making his way to the connecting bedroom. It smelled like home. Knox was home.
“Now sleep, love.” He kissed my lips chastely before placing me gently on the bed and covering me with the quilt folded at the foot of the bed. “When you awake, you will feel as good as new. Possibly even better.”
“And then will I feel her?”
“Then, you can meet her.”
My heart started to pound with excitement. If my body weren’t still so beaten and broken, there would’ve been no way I could sleep. As it was, though, my body was begging for it.
“Hold me while I sleep,” I begged, for it was begging. I wanted him here when I woke, as selfish as that was. He was the Alpha and shit-storm was just on the dragon’s doorstep, and I wanted him all to myself. I was oddly okay with that.
“Don’t worry Kallie, I’m never letting you go.” And with that he climbed into the other side of the bed and wrapped his arm around my middle as I let the slumber take over.
19
Knox
Even as I held her in my bed, with my dragon and hers conversing in a way that only our animal souls could, deep down I knew that any second she was going to wake up, angry and loud and hating me with every scale on her dragon body that she had yet to see. I had to admit, I was as curious about Kallie, my mate, in dragon form as she was, maybe more. I’d been waiting for her my whole life.
“How come you have scales? Am I going to keep some scales after I change? What if there’s a big scale on my face!”
She’d woken while I was self-absorbed and was now facing me, stroking the scale that just wouldn’t go away. I assumed that it would after I changed with her, but I wasn’t sure. Maybe it would just fall off like a scab.
“This is because it took a while for you and me to make a decision to be together. I guess I made that decision for you, didn’t I?”
I couldn’t help myself and ran a finger down the length of her arm and let it skip down to her lovely hip. She shuddered beside me. I knew what kind of effect I was having on her—it was probably half of the one she was having on me.
“Do you feel her now? You two getting acquainted?” I teased, now rubbing a lazy circle on her chest.
She linked her finger in mine. “Yes? I’m not sure. It’s like someone is talking to me, but in the background from a distance. She’s keeping her distance on purpose. I’m not sure she likes being my dragon.”
I chuckled a little, but then sobered. It couldn’t be easy for her to know how to deal with this being my mate—our mate—and having another being inside you.
“There’s not a chance in hell that she doesn’t like being yours, just like there’s not a chance in hell that I don’t love being yours. It’s just in our nature. We are perfectly content being yours.”
She raised up to rest her head on her hand. “Oh? Just perfectly content?”
She teased me so well. “No,” I bent down to whisper in her ear after curling her hair over her ear. “Personally, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve waited for you all of my life. And now that you’re here and you’ve accepted the mating, I couldn’t be more complete.”
She smiled and the blush crept form her cheeks to the top of her chest.
“So, what now? What do we do now? What do I do now?”
Before speaking, I took her hand and placed it over my scale, the one that guarded my heart. “There’s a few things. Do you want to know the dragon things or the mating things?” Her blush increased and it was all I could do not to pin her down and teach her rather than tell her.
“Mating things first.” She was almost breathless, and I hadn’t even explained anything to her yet.
“First we would, almost like a human wedding, say some vows. That’s the tamest part of the mating. Then, you would… you would have to bite me and mark me as yours.”
She didn’t seem as shocked as I thought she would. “Okay. Then I’m assuming we…”
“Yes.”
“But… as humans, right? I mean we don’t have to… as dragons?”
I laughed so hard and loud that she crossed her arms over her chest and rolled over—she was pissed off. “Don’t be mad. I’m in love with your
candor. Your truth. Your brutal honesty. We mate as humans, but that probably won’t stop me from being frisky when we are dragons. Does that help you?”
She nodded, still pretending to be angry, but she wasn’t. I could feel her now, her feelings and her desires coursed through me like blood through my veins.
“When do we do all that?” She looked back at me.
“Anxious?” I waggled my eyebrows and got another slap on my bicep.
“We take things slow. Whenever you are ready, we can move forward. For now, we are fine and I am more than happy with this, for now. You are my mate and there are no vows that can make that more permanent to me. You are mine for always and I am yours. The rest is just-formality. Plus, I am the Alpha, so you will be announced as the Alpha female.”
Her brown eyes showed alarm. “Do I have to do stuff? Are there like responsibilities? I still have to finish school, Knox. There are still things I need to do.”
“Hey, none of that will change.” I hooked my finger under her chin to gently make her look at me. “Everything you had planned is still first and foremost. After you are finished with school and more settled, if you want to take on some clan responsibilities, you may. If not, there are other people who can and already are handling them. You priorities are my priorities now. I’m not sure you understand.”
With her hand now on my waist, she pulled me toward her. The heat from our bodies joined as our dragons reveled in the new coupling.
“Explain it to me. How did your father explain it to you?”
“He said, ‘Your mate is before yourself. Her needs come before yours. Her desires become your own. Your hearts are joined as one and your lives become inseparable. For you, there will be nothing more important than making her happy because in her happiness you will be the king of the world.’ ”
Her eyebrows bunched together. “But what about your dreams and wants and needs? What happens to those?”
My father never told me the answer to that question, but I knew it. “The same is true for you. If we are both the most important things to each other, then nothing either of us needs or desires will ever be overlooked. As the mating bond grows stronger, you will feel me and know what I need. It becomes easy.”