by Amelia Jade
She frowned, pausing, as he pulled open the oversized wooden door. “Wouldn’t a simple phone call have sufficed?”
Kase laughed. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no, Jerrik is a little old-fashioned. He likes to hear from me in person. He’s come out to my place several times now; I figured it was only polite of me to come to his office this time, you know? Keep everything even that way.”
“Right. So he’s your boss?”
“Hell no. I just… Look, it’s complicated.” He walked past a secretary, nodding to her, and headed into a hallway off to the right. They went past several doors, then he stopped and opened the third one. “After you.”
She walked in and stopped. “This looks like a police station, Kase. An interrogation room, to be precise.”
The room they were now standing in was dark with the minimal light coming through the single rectangular pane of glass in the wall across from them. Inside that room were two metal chairs and a table in the center. Bright lights shone from the corners, illuminating the entire room.
“Don’t worry about it. Just wait here. I’ll be back soon, okay?” He smiled and headed toward a door she hadn’t seen at first, leading between the two rooms.
“That’s it? Just wait here.”
“You wanted to hang out with a bad boy. Sometimes bad boys gotta do what bad boys gotta do.”
“Most bad boys don’t get caught,” she said dryly.
Kase chuckled, winked, and went inside to sit at the table. Almost immediately his eyes closed and she moved closer. He couldn’t actually be asleep…could he?
Behind her, the outer door opened. “Who are you?”
She jumped, spinning around. “Uh, I’m…um. Kase?”
The person standing in the doorway was, if anything, bigger than Kase. She couldn’t make out many details—he was mostly clad in shadow, a lack of light shining on his face—but she could see that his eyes were hard, and focused entirely on her.
“You’re with Kase?”
“Yes. My name is Michelle.”
“Oh, Michelle. Sorry, I’ve not seen a picture of you before. My name is Jerrik.” The big man stepped forward, suddenly not intimidating at all. He engulfed her hand in his and shook it politely.
“You know who I am?”
“By name, mostly. Though I don’t know what you’re doing with him.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the interrogation room.
“Figuring that part out as I go,” she said with a laugh.
“Lots of history there?” Jerrik was surprisingly easy to talk to.
“Not really, to be honest. We met five years ago and hit it off quite well. Went on several dates. Then he disappeared on me in the middle of one.”
Jerrik nodded. “Did he ask to use the washroom and then leave you with the check?”
She laughed. “No, it was worse! I invited him into my place. I walked inside, and when I turned around to hold the door for him to follow, he was gone. Poof. Disappeared.”
“Is that so?” Jerrik turned to look through the window. “He never mentioned that part to me. So rude.”
“Right?” Michelle couldn’t figure out how talking to Jerrik about this wasn’t embarrassing, but it wasn’t. Despite the fact he couldn’t be anything more than middle-aged, she felt a fatherly calm around him that made opening up easier than it should be, considering she’d met him mere moments ago.
“Our Kase is a good man,” Jerrik said, staring distractedly through the window. “Just a little lost sometimes. He needs a good person to guide him, to keep him on track.” His attention swiveled back to her with a sudden abruptness that had Michelle focusing on his words.
Was he trying to tell her something? To say she was that good person, or that maybe Kase needed her to be that good person? Could it have anything to do with the way he’d calmed immediately the night before after starting to freak out? No, she had to be reading too much into it. That was extremely farfetched.
“He’s okay,” she said. “He’d be better if he’d agreed to fund my lab.”
Jerrik’s demeanor changed from one of casual talk to questioner. “Pardon?”
“I work for a scientific laboratory here in town.” She paused. “Well, I used to work for one, until it was shut down the other day. We lost our funding, I guess. The board who oversaw the lab was trying to bring Kase on as an investor to keep us going, but he declined.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Jerrik turned his gaze from her back to the window.
“Uh, yes? That’s why I’m with him. I went out to see him; I’m trying to convince him to change his mind, so that my team and I can continue to have jobs. To work, you know?”
Jerrik was nodding. “Yes, I can understand that entirely, Michelle. Thank you for that information.”
She looked back and forth between the two men. “Did I just get him in some sort of trouble, Mr. Jerrik? That wasn’t what I meant to do. He’s mostly a good man. I can understand him not wanting to fund our lab; it’s not like it’s a cheap commitment every year. I just…” She shrugged. “I really liked working there, and I don’t want to see any of my team out of work, you know?”
The big man kept nodding. “I know.” He looked at her strangely, then smiled. “You can wait here; it won’t take too long. Unfortunately I must keep the audio off, however, but we’ll be done quickly, I think.” He shook her hand again and pushed inside.
All she heard before the door shut was “Hello, Kase, so good of you to come to me this time.”
Then she was stuck on the outside, watching. Kase opened his eyes and said something to Jerrik, who replied. He kept talking for some time. Kase said several words in response.
Michelle settled in, creating an imaginary conversation in her head of the most ridiculous things she could think of that they might be saying. The dialogue had her laughing, until suddenly Kase slammed his hands on the table hard enough to dent it.
What the hell is going on in there?
Chapter Fifteen
Kase
“Hi, Jerrik.”
“Nice girl you’ve got out there. I can see why you like her. Even if I’m still confused as to why she gave you a shot at all, let alone a second one after how you’ve screwed her over multiple times now.”
“I’m trying to protect her.”
“Right, of course, how could I forget. Because sending her away is totally the best way to protect her. Why, if anything were to happen, you certainly wouldn’t arrive far too late to be of any good.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s the best you’ve got?”
Kase slammed his palms down on the table. “I’m protecting her from me, you idiot.”
Jerrik gazed at the table until Kase was forced to look down at the dents his hands had created.
“How’s that working out for you?”
“It was fine. I’m fine.”
“You’re fine?”
“Yes, except someone—I don’t know who—is stalking me. I don’t know why.”
“You have proof of this, I assume?” Jerrik asked expectantly.
Kase told him about the unexplained worker at the lab the first time he visited, and then about the smashing of the lab—leaving out the fact he’d revoked his funding for it and shut it down—and then finally about scenting someone in his house after he’d returned.
“That’s a major accusation to level,” Jerrik said slowly. “Another dragon came and broke into your property.”
“I know it is, but I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.” He crossed his arms.
“But they didn’t take anything.”
“No.”
“And all you have is that you could smell them.”
“Yes.” Kase was getting frustrated. Clearly Jerrik was skeptical of the whole thing. Why would Kase lie about it, though? What purpose did it serve him?
“Is it possible you could’ve dreamt this all up?”
He snorted. “Michelle saw the evidence at the lab, no
t me. So unless she’s in on it too…”
Jerrik frowned. “Except Michelle told me that you shut the lab down. I don’t want to be rude, Kase, but try to look at it from my side. Is it possible that you lost control when you went to shut it down, and you trashed it, and you just don’t remember it?”
“How the hell did you know that?” he snarled. Kase hadn’t told anyone.
“Michelle told me, you idiot. Although she thinks you were showing up to invest money. She still doesn’t know, does she?”
Kase dialed back his anger. “Of course not. What am I supposed to tell her, that I built the lab and funded it so that she would have a place to work and hopefully be happy at after I vanished and left her sad, because I was trying to protect her in case I go nuts? Yeah, that would go over real well.”
“All I’m saying, Kase, is that—”
“What you’re saying,” he snarled, standing up, “Is that you don’t believe me. You think I’m going crazy. You all do. Well I’m not!” He was shouting now. “This is for real, and I’m going to prove it to you. Then you and all the others can go screw yourselves.” He turned for the door.
Jerrik closed a hand around his wrist. “Kase, listen…”
But he was done listening. Instead of simply wrenching himself free, Kase twisted his arm until his fingers closed around Jerrik’s wrist. Then he yanked. Hard.
The other dragon was caught off guard and flew through the air, landing hard against the far wall.
“Well, now you’ve gone and done it,” he snarled. “Striking a Magistrate. Coltaine is gonna have your head.”
“Maybe he’ll be less judgmental at my trial,” Kase growled back, squaring off with the onyx dragon.
“Trial?” Jerrik laughed coldly. “There’s not going to be a trial. If I don’t put you down, he will.”
“There wouldn’t have been an issue if you’d just believe me,” he snapped, feinting with his right and hammering a left home into Jerrik’s side. The other shifter scrambled backward.
He might be able to overpower Kase, and in dragon form or with powers he was certainly the more capable one. But in hand-to-hand combat, Kase had the edge in training and experience. Although he’d hoped to avoid this outcome, it had been in the back of his head, and was part of the reason Michelle was outside. With her unaware that dragons existed, Jerrik couldn’t use his full abilities, putting them closer to even ground.
Closing in, he dodged a slow hook, struck twice into Jerrik’s midsection, then drove in and up with his shoulder as the big man bent over from the pain. Jerrik flew backward, clenching his jaw.
“You’re done,” he said, the words coming out mangled through his rapidly swelling mouth.
The pair closed, and again Kase went to feint. This time, however, his opponent saw it coming. Jerrik moved to the other side, clamped both hands around Kase’s outstretched arm, and pivoted.
Kase was yanked from his feet, spun around in a circle and through the one-way mirror like a cannonball. Glass shattered everywhere, several shards of it painfully embedding themselves deep into his arm and side as he landed and rolled, coming to his feet.
Now was the perfect time to strike back. He danced in toward the empty hole in the wall, only to come to a stop as he saw Michelle, hiding in the back corner, eyes wide with terror.
“Are you all right?” he asked, pausing.
She nodded. His priorities were different now. Instead of ending it with Jerrik, he needed to get her to safety, before anything bad happened. Then, once he was positive she was out of the way, he could finish things with Jerrik and whoever else.
The Magistrate came through the window after him, but he’d delayed as well, and Kase had taken his time to prepare. He struck up from below, driving Jerrik into the ceiling and then through it to the floor above, where his momentum kept him going. The other shifter shouted something painful, but Kase wasn’t listening.
“Come on,” he hissed, reaching for Michelle and grabbing her hand. “Time to go.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“I told you I was a bad boy. Now you have proof and you want to stick around? Make up your mind.”
“Now is not the time for jokes,” she snapped back, but she got to her feet and came with him. They were out the door and running down the hallway before Jerrik could make his way back downstairs.
Michelle wasn’t moving fast enough, though. They needed to go. So he reached down, snatched her off the floor, and put her over his shoulder.
“What the hell!” she shrieked, but he didn’t have time to listen. The front door was fast approaching and, beyond it, freedom.
He slowed down just enough to kick the door open and escape into the late afternoon. Above them the sky burned pink as the sun set in the west, creating a beautiful panorama with the mountains and the clouds above, but there was no stopping to appreciate it.
“Why am I going with you?” she asked from her perch on his shoulder. “This is stupid. I should stay here. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Kase ran for the truck, even as he heard glass breaking above and behind him. Damn, Jerrik was quick.
“Also, how did you hit him so he flew back like that? I’ve watched professional fights, and even seen a street fight, which wasn’t pretty. In all of those, though, nobody flies around like you two did after getting hit. I know you’re big, but what’s going on there?”
Suddenly Jerrik whipped past, coming to a halt between them and the truck.
“And how did he move that fast?” Michelle asked, forcing herself down from his shoulder as Kase came to a halt. “That’s insane. You were already running faster than I thought you could, then he blew right past you. I felt the wind!”
Kase ignored her, focusing on the threat. “Let us go.”
“Can’t do that,” Jerrik said. “Not you, at least. She can go.”
Michelle looked back and forth. “Where would I go? I have no job anymore, not since it got shut down. I’m not ready to go back to my parents. As weird as it sounds—and trust me, I can’t believe I’m saying this either—Kase is the only person I’ve got around right now. I think I go where he goes.”
Jerrik glared at him as his mate spoke, but Kase shrugged it off. She was a grown woman; she could make her own decisions. He didn’t control her, and the Magistrate should know better.
“Send her away, Kase, or I will.”
“Screw you, Jerrik. Why are you being such an ass? I thought we were on better terms than that. All I asked you to do was believe me. But you couldn’t even do that.”
“Because you’re a liar, Kase.”
“Bullshit. I’m not making this up. What point does that serve?”
“I’m not sure, but there definitely is one.” The two were squared off now, with Michelle standing to the side, looking back and forth.
“Kase isn’t a liar,” she said, jumping in to defend him.
“Tell her to leave, Kase, or I’ll do something I don’t want to. But she has to go. Now.”
“If you harm a hair on her head,” he snarled, taking a step forward.
“I would never do that, you ignorant ass. I’ll just tell her the truth.”
Blood froze in Kase’s stomach. Turning to Michelle, he bit his lip, hesitating only for a moment. “You need to go.”
His mate stared at him. “What?”
“Please, Michelle. I’ll handle this with Jerrik. You need to go, now.”
“What. Truth.” She placed her hands on her hips. “What is he talking about, Kase?”
“I’m begging you, please, just get in the truck and go.” He tossed her the keys, his eyes pleading with her.
“What truth?” she asked, turning to face Jerrik. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until one of you tells me what’s going on.”
Jerrik, to his credit, gestured at Kase, giving him the chance to speak.
“You’re an ass,” he said, looking at the Magistrate. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. If you would j
ust believe me, then none of this would happen. I’m not crazy!”
“Kase!” Michelle snapped. “What truth?”
He bit his lip. Telling her would destroy everything. He couldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t bear witness to the results. What other choice did he have, then? He had to try to distract her, to get her to leave before it was too late. So he did what he swore he would never do.
“He’s just trying to create drama,” he said. “There’s nothing.”
Michelle reared back, eyes widening. “Liar,” she hissed, seeing right through him.
Kase crumbled. She was right. “Michelle,” he said, reaching out for her as she backed away.
“Tell me the truth, Kase. What’s he talking about?”
“I was the one who arranged to have the funding pulled to your lab. I shut it down.” He fell to his knees, holding his head in his hands as his heart broke, pieces falling off it with blazing agony as he watched Michelle work through what he’d just said, her emotions as clear as daylight upon her face.
“So you got the board to shut us down, and then you came and trashed the place,” she accused, her face twisted in anger. “That was you?”
“I did not trash it,” he protested. “This is what I was trying to explain to him. Someone else did it. That wasn’t me. I did not wreck it.”
“He’s losing his mind, isn’t he?” Michelle asked, looking at Jerrik. The Magistrate just looked away.
“Right. Fine. I’m out.” She turned and stomped away.
“Michelle, wait!”
“Shut up, Kase. You should’ve just stayed out of my life,” she called, not looking back over her shoulder. “It would’ve been easier that way!”
He got to his feet to go after her, but Jerrik was there, blocking his way. “Listen to me, Kase, and listen very carefully, because I’m only going to say this once.”
Snarling, Kase clenched his hands into fists. Quicksilver poured down his arms, coating himself in armor as he prepared to fight.
Seeing this, Jerrik spoke quickly. “She had to find out eventually. You know that, even if you won’t admit it. You can’t do anything right now. You need to come in. If you come peacefully, I’ll recommend leniency to Coltaine. Then we’ll try to find out who might be following you. But only if you come with me peacefully. If you fight, or try to go after her, that offer is off the table.”