Dragon Eruption

by Amelia Jade

  At last though they made it to her unit. She walked up the stairs swiftly, her hips staying rigid and unswaying the whole time.

  The door closed behind them and she moved immediately into the kitchen, fetching herself a glass of water, and then offering another to him. Gray obliged and downed half of it in one gulp, before finishing it off. She refilled it and they settled back, she against the counter, he against the far wall.

  The silence threatened to get awkward once more, but Kelly summoned her courage and began speaking before it could.

  “I owe you an explanation,” she said.

  “Would be nice,” he admitted, a hint of sarcasm to his voice. She thought she detected an effort from him to tamp down on it, and so she ignored it.

  “That man isn’t who I’m sure you think he is.”

  “Who do I think he is?”

  “Another man. Romantically. You thought I was seeing someone else at the same time.”

  There. She’d said it, put it out there, and now they would have to just address it head-on. No sense in sugarcoating things.

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I thought, given the evidence to back it up.”

  Kelly was becoming more irritated with his attitude with every sentence, but she reeled it in once more. He was hurt, and she could give him a little more leeway.

  “Well, I wasn’t. I’m still not,” she said slowly. “I can explain it to you, if you’d like?”

  Gray tossed off half his water, peering at it with one eye, as if to see if he could make it into something else, beer, perhaps. “This ought to be good,” he drawled.

  Kelly knew what he was doing. He was putting his defenses up. Trying to insulate himself from the hurt he perceived from her, to prevent himself from becoming worse. So that the words she was about to speak wouldn’t cut deeper into him than they already had. It made her soul bleed for him, to know that she’d put him through such pain, simply because she hadn’t told him about Jacen from the start. If she’d only done that, then things would have been much smoother on Gray’s end at least. Then all she would have had to deal with was Jacen himself.

  “Listen,” she snapped, frustrated with him. “I’m telling you the truth, and you’re going to listen to it. When I’m done, you’re going to feel dumb, so quit the sarcastic uncaring act already. It isn’t becoming of you.”

  Gray’s jaw dropped open and he started to respond hotly, but Kelly cut him off once again with a savage flick of her hand in his direction. He fell silent, but she could see anger in his eyes.

  Oh well, too bad. It was his own fault for being a presumptive dick the other night.

  “The man that was here,” she said, “was not someone I was seeing. That’s the first, and most important thing to get through your head. I wasn’t cheating on you. I wasn’t even expecting him, he just showed up.”

  Gray nodded. “I know. I chased him here.”

  Her eyebrows went up at that. “What?”

  The big shifter shook his head. “After you’re done.”

  Kelly frowned, but she had made quite the fuss about her getting her words out first. It would be inappropriate to change that now.

  “His name is Jacen. I do know who he is. Unfortunately, I know him rather well.” A hand dropped to her stomach. “You see, Jacen is the shifter I was paired to mate with at the Institute.”

  Gray came upright in a flash. “He’s an Institute shifter?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Or was, I suppose.”

  The Institute was the pseudo-legal organization that had tried to enact a program to breed first hundreds, then thousands of women with shifters, to spread the enhanced shifter DNA through the blood of humanity. After that, once humanity had absorbed as much as they could, the Institute had planned to end the shifter race, forcing them into a sort of breeding servant role, where all they did was offer up their genetic DNA to human women, like cattle.

  Thankfully the Koche brothers had gotten involved, and their penchant for destruction and mayhem had been carried out upon the Institute, resulting in its downfall. But the revelation that an Institute shifter, one of the many who had decided to work for the organization in exchange for large sums of money, was still something that sparked the protective gear in many of the Cadian shifters, Gray included.

  It was evident now, as he moved closer to the door, positioning himself so that he could intercept anyone who came through it before they could get to her. It was a small thing, but she noticed it. But it wasn’t until he’d done that, that the rest of her statement clicked through into his mind.

  It was mildly entertaining to watch his face suddenly go slack, his expression one of utter astonishment, understanding, and perhaps even a bit of sadness.

  “He’s the biological father,” Gray breathed, getting it at last. “He’s the dad.”

  Kelly shook her head emphatically. “He is the biological father, yes. But he is not the dad. They are not one and the same.”

  Gray nodded, his eyes still unfocused as he thought it over. “But that’s why he’s here. He wants to be a part of it, a part of the child’s life. Jacen wants to be a dad.”

  She nodded. “Yes. I haven’t decided if I’m going to let him. He came to me a week earlier, revealing that he was still alive. That was a shock in itself, just finding out he was alive. But then he said he wanted to be a part of the baby’s life. I told him I’d think about it.”

  “And did you?”

  Kelly shrugged. “Somewhat, yes. I wasn’t prepared to make a decision like that so quickly. I wanted to talk to Erika about it too, but she wasn’t available for a few days.”

  “Ah,” he said in what sounded like sudden understanding. “That’s where you’ve been, isn’t it? At her place?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “I wondered where you’d gone to. I didn’t catch your scent while I was here.”

  Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “You were looking for me?”

  “No,” he said, crossing his arms as he leaned on the wall. “I was looking for Jacen. You see, he’s a fugitive.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gray

  The petty part of him felt vindicated by the look on her face.

  There was no denying he felt some satisfaction in dropping the information about the bio-father. Gray wasn’t a perfect human being, and he knew it. But more of him felt sad that she’d just come to terms with the fact that he might be alive, and now she was finding out that when Gray apprehended him, he was going to go away again.

  “It makes sense though. I wasn’t sure why he was being held where he was, but now that I know he was an Institute shifter, it makes more sense.”

  It made a lot more sense. Intelligence would have him, and would have been grilling him about any information he could give him, on the Institute and any of its high-level employees who may have escaped the shifter-led destruction of its operations. Nobody had ever harbored any ideas that they’d gotten everyone involved with the organization’s creation. It had just been too large for that to happen.

  But not only was he a former Institute operative, but he was the father of her child. That knowledge hit Gray in the gut like no punch ever could. He quite literally couldn’t deny Jacen’s involvement in Kelly’s life, if she so chose to have him be a part of it. It hurt worse, because he’d begun to consider the possibility of himself as their father figure. Perhaps even as their dad, whatever sex they were. Gray wasn’t overly concerned with the fact that it wasn’t his, biologically speaking. That meant some, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. Not even close.

  Now though, now he might not even get that opportunity, even if he did end up sending Jacen away. And on top of it all, Kelly was right. He did feel like a tremendous idiot. Gray had been so positive about his read of the situation, that he hadn’t even given her the chance to explain the other night. Instead, he’d just said something unkind to her and walked off.

  “I am such an idiot.”

  A smile appeared on her face. �
�Yes, you are. But you’re a good person too, Gray. Maybe a bit presumptuous at times, but generally still a good person. So I’m not going to hold it against you.”

  He laughed once. “Well, that’s a relief. Thank you.” Then he gave her a curious look. “Why didn’t you tell me though, when he first showed up? I would really have preferred to hear about it that way.”

  Kelly winced. “That one’s on me, no doubt about it. I should have spoken to you about it after it became clear things were getting serious between us.”

  He perked up. “You thought things were getting serious?”

  “Yes…didn’t you?”

  “Absolutely!” he agreed heartily. “I just wasn’t sure that you did, that’s all. But I’m glad to hear it.”

  Kelly nodded. “But you need to tell me about Jacen first. Why is he a fugitive? What’s going on there?”

  Gray steeled himself to deliver her the bad news. “It’s complicated, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know everything. Our intelligence organization had him. I assume they were trying to get information about the Institute from him or something. But he escaped. Nobody wants to take the blame for that, or to admit to the general public that something like the intelligence group even exists. So, they play dumb.”

  Kelly frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  “Politics,” he explained. “By not admitting that he escaped from them, nobody will ever be able to blame the folks in Intelligence for the error. Instead, they just sort of sent verbal, easily deniable word of mouth about him, and expected us to do the rest.”

  “And will you?”

  He shrugged helplessly. “It’s my job, Kelly. On top of that, he is an Institute operative. He worked for them of his own free will, in exchange for money. We killed most of them. At least he’s alive,” he replied, knowing how lame it sounded.

  “What a life,” she muttered. “Living in a cell, being interrogated every day.”

  “It’s not my fault he chose that lifestyle,” Gray said defensively. “I’m just trying to do my job here. I don’t want to start a panic.”

  “A panic? Who is going to panic?”

  “There are plenty of civilians back in Cadia who aren’t ready for conflict,” he told her. “Who would view an Institute operative loose amongst their midst as something to be scared of.”

  Kelly rolled her eyes. “Seriously? I think they’ll be okay.”

  “Why are you being so defensive?”

  “Because he’s the father of my child, Gray. Whether I want it or not, that makes him a little more important than the average shifter.” There was a long pause. “I think.”

  “You think?” He was confused.

  “I don’t know, okay? I’m still trying to figure this all out myself, to make sense of everything that’s going on. I just don’t know. This is a lot for me to take in over the past little bit. You waltzing into my life, and how things are going there, then Jacen showing up, back from the dead. Lots of changes, and I wasn’t ready for any of them. I was just fine cruising along, prepared to do this thing all by my lonesome. Now I have not one, but possibly two men who are willing to help me out, and it’s just got me a little confused, that’s all.”

  Gray nodded. “I understand. Lots of different variables introduced into what you thought was a stable equation.”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “Do you know where Jacen is?” he asked.

  “No. I haven’t heard from him since the night you two duked it out on the front lawn,” she said crossly.

  “Nice and reliable there,” he said, unable to resist the snide comment.

  Kelly lifted her eyebrows, looking in his direction. “Get off your high horse there, mister. Don’t forget, I didn’t hear from you, either.”

  Gray looked away, muttering something about thinking that she was cheating on him, wanting nothing to do with her anymore.

  “Speaking of not hearing from people, Harden is upset that nobody ever told him or his friends that more of their people survived.”

  “They didn’t tell anybody that he survived. I don’t think it was a slight against Harden,” he replied.

  “But what if there are more of them, Gray? What if he and his little circle aren’t alone?”

  Gray shrugged. “I don’t have access to that sort of thing, Kel. Heck, Andrew had to call in a lot of favors just so we could learn about Jacen, and even then all we got was an old photograph. You've told me more about him than we knew, without even trying to. If they have more of them, they’re off somewhere at a secret location that nobody knows about.”

  He sighed in frustration. “And they are our enemy. You mustn’t forget that. They engineered a war that killed thousands. They killed even more simply for the money. Jacen did that. A mercenary. Who knows how many Cadians he’s killed. I have to take him in.”

  There was a long pause, and he thought she was going to resist him.

  “I’m not sure how comfortable I am with helping you to find him, just so you can send him back to his cage somewhere.”

  Gray gave her a long look. “Dammit,” he swore at the end. “Okay, we’ll take him in, but we’ll take him to Andrew instead. Maybe…I don’t know, maybe something can be arranged? I make no promises. But either way, he needs to be found and taken off the streets, so he stops scaring other people.”

  He wasn’t willing to back down on that point, and he stood there, waiting for her to respond, to acknowledge that that was going to happen, whether she liked it or not.

  “You promise not to hurt him?”

  “I promise to try,” he said, meaning each word. “If he comes along peacefully, then there won’t be a need for violence. But I’m not going to risk myself getting hurt, and I’m certainly not going to risk anyone else getting hurt.”

  Kelly looked away, her features torn. But eventually she agreed. “Okay. We’ll find him, somehow.”

  “Thank you,” he said softly, stepping forward and closing the gap between them. “I know this can’t be easy for you.”

  “Probably easier than childbirth,” she said with a little hiccup laugh.

  “I’ll have to take your word for it,” he said with a smile, enveloping her into his arms.

  Kelly didn’t resist. She leaned up against him, her head resting comfortably against his chest, her wavy brown hair straightening gently under each stroke of his hand before resuming its natural form.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kelly

  Heat radiated off of Gray in waves, pulsing out and through her in time with his heartbeat.

  God it felt good to be close to him again. To feel his skin against hers, the touch of his fingers as he stroked her hair gently in long, slow repetitive motions, helping draw her into a peaceful little mentality.

  Kelly wrapped both arms around him, linking her fingers behind his back and holding on tight. She didn’t want to lose him again, she decided. Her entire mental state had been in the dumps for the two days she’d been at Erika’s, alone and without him. Clearly he meant a lot to her, and she was far more happy with him around than she was by herself.

  The more time she spent with the shifter, the more she began to understand what Erika had said, about how it was just so easy with them, about how time didn’t have nearly as much of a meaning with a shifter as it did with a human. Gray just fit with her. He was like an extension of her, and she one of him. That didn’t mean things were perfect. Erika had warned her of that. There would be fights, arguments, bickering. But they would never feel serious or long-lasting. It would simply be a case of them resolving the issue together, and then growing closer as a couple.

  Like now, with the misunderstanding around Jacen. They had gotten over it, and already Kelly was forgetting her frustrations, wanting nothing more than to be held like this. Or to be kissed by him once more. It was weird, and she knew it wasn’t normal to get over something so quickly. But she wasn’t going to force herself to stay mad. If she and Gray were meant to be, then this wa
s going to be the new normal. She could deal with that.

  Gray stepped back from her, his eyes once again sparkling with the bright blue coloring of the seas. He fixed them upon her, reading her, feeling the dissipating tension between them, and if she read his expression right, perhaps even the increasing heat that she felt.

  “Kelly,” he breathed.

  “Gray.” Her voice was quiet, barely more than a whisper.

  “I love you.”

  The words weren’t exactly unexpected, but hearing them still made her tremble. How could he know? How could he be sure that he did love her? After all, it had only been a short period of time. Everything seemed so rushed between them. This should be taking months before they were ready to say things like that to each other, shouldn’t it?

  Yet even as she thought that, her brain was telling her to respond. To speak how she felt about him, to express her feelings. Where was the harm in that? He would just have to deal with however she felt, wouldn’t he? If she wasn’t ready to say those words, then he couldn’t fault her for that. So all she had to do was open her mouth, and tell him how she felt about him. Where she was at. It couldn’t be that hard.

  Could it?

  She gave it a try, blinking rapidly several times in a nervous twitch as she opened her mouth.

  “Gray,” she said again. “I love you too.”

  What? She hadn’t meant to say that! That wasn’t what she’d meant to tell him. She was supposed to tell him the truth, that…her brain came to a halt.

  The truth.

  Did she even know the truth about him? About how she felt? That’s what she’d meant to say of course, but what was the truth? Kelly hadn’t considered that before she’d begun to speak. Instead she’d simply assumed that it was something other than the fact that she loved him. Yet those words had come out of her mouth, and what’s more, they felt right.

  “I love you,” she said, repeating it, stronger this time, more confident.