by Vella Day
“Any suspects?”
“Several, but I’d rather not point any fingers until I have more proof.”
Kyle could respect that. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with some of your men to see if they know anything.”
“Of course. Just make sure you don’t get in the way of the dragons. They’re trying to dig down to find Nessa. I’m using them since they can move the debris faster and more carefully than any bulldozer.”
Kyle had no intention of getting anywhere near those beasts. “My men and I will respect their space.” As much as Kyle wanted to mention that he’d be closing the mine, the man’s grief had reached him. There would be time later to tell him all operations would have to be stopped in order for Kyle’s team to investigate.
As Kyle headed over to check with Dennis, he studied those standing around, wondering if any of them had a hand in the destruction. Those who were in human form seemed terribly distraught at what had happened—hands waving, voices raised, and frequent glances at the collapsed tunnel. Two men stood off to the side, and Kyle headed toward them.
“Excuse me,” Kyle said, “Did either of you see what happened?”
They both shook their heads. “This mine isn’t operational yet. Both of us were at another site when we heard the explosion. We hopped in our vehicles and came right over,” the taller of the two said. Because they weren’t in the trenches digging, Kyle assumed they weren’t dragon shifters.
“Did you see anyone skulking around this mine in the last couple of days?”
The shorter, beefier of the two stood up straighter. “No. I can tell you this. It wouldn’t be anyone who works here. The Caspians take care of us. No one would hurt Nessa.”
“Who else is down there with her?”
“Nobody. She went alone.”
Humans would never be so foolish. “That doesn’t seem very smart.”
“Nessa said it was too dangerous for workers to go down there since the walls hadn’t been certified as safe.”
Something wasn’t adding up. “Yet she went.”
“Yes. She didn’t want her father to invest any more money into the venture until she was positive gold was down there.”
Either the girl was fiercely loyal to her father or not very bright. “How long was she below before the explosion occurred?”
They both shrugged. The taller one nodded toward his friend. “As Ernie said, we weren’t here.”
“Could Ms. Caspian have accidentally set off a charge?”
“No, way,” Ernie said. “She’s an expert. Hell, she gives classes on how to use explosives safely and effectively. Besides, this was her baby. She fought to have the mine excavated in the first place.”
Kyle mentally crossed her name off the list. “Do any employees have any grudges against the family?”
They both looked at each other. “Like we said, the Caspians treat us well.”
“Darnax Gorman didn’t think so,” Ernie said, looking over at his partner. “He was pretty vocal about wanting more pay and fewer hours.” He returned his gaze to Kyle. “He was the foreman here before he was fired.”
“I remember now. He was let go right before the first incident,” Kyle added.
“Yes.”
Kyle had personally checked him out, but he had an alibi at the time the cart carrying some minerals derailed and pinned Ed Hollix, causing him to lose his leg.
“Do you know where I can find Darnax now? Last time I checked, he’d moved from his downtown apartment.”
“Gorman cut off all communications with us. He could be in another province by now for all I know.”
“Thanks for your time.”
“I hope you find out who did this,” Ernie said.
“So do I.” In too many of the smaller mines, the workers were closed mouthed. It was refreshing to meet with men who believed he was trying to find the source of the problem.
Kyle approached his second in command. “Did you find out anything useful?”
Dennis shook his head. “I spoke with their new foreman. He said once they dug the shaft and rigged up the car to take Nessa to the bottom, they removed all explosives—for safety purposes.”
“Can he explain what happened?”
“He refuses to speculate. I think he knows something, but he isn’t talking.”
Interesting. “It’s not looking like we’ll be able to get down there. That means we’ll have to look around the surface.”
Dennis nodded. “I have my men searching the area for any signs of explosives now.”
“Good.”
The dragons were making incredibly fast progress digging, but it might take days if not weeks to reach the end of the mine. Losing a daughter would devastate anyone. Kyle totally understood why Laird Caspian had almost come unhinged.
Exhaustion was taking a toll on Nessa. She needed water in order for her dragon to heal her. The cuts on her legs were closing up, and her wing was slowly repairing, but her energy was draining too fast. Fixing her crushed chest had taken a major toll on her animal.
Nessa was forced to stop and catch her breath once more. She had dug up a good fifty feet, and it seemed as if she’d spent several hours doing that—or had a full day passed? While she was pleased with her progress, she’d had to support herself with her legs while she pressed her damaged wings against the walls. Her muscles constantly quivered and threatened to give out. The width of the tunnel was now about eight feet wide, barely large enough to wedge her dragon body into the space. Even though it was a tight fit, it took strength not to slip.
She opened her mouth and aimed her fire once more at the wall of rocks and soil directly overhead. Clay and dirt rained down on her and caused her to lose purchase again. Nessa slipped a few feet, forcing her to press harder against the wall to keep from tumbling back to the bottom. Tears fell, but she refused to admit they were tears of desperation. She wanted to believe it was her dragon’s way of cleaning her eyes.
Nessa refused to give up though. Never in her life had she quit, and she wasn’t about to start now. “Blast away the dirt, scrape, scrape, scrape, melt the walls, and then climb upward. Repeat, repeat, repeat,” she huffed. Her mantra was the only thing keeping her going.
Nessa’s legs were like rubber, and her talons had dulled to nubs. Worse, her breath was giving out, meaning her fire was growing colder.
Since her fingers didn’t have much strength left, she closed her eyes for a second, but awoke with a start when wind flew past her. Oh, shit. She was tumbling. On instinct, she stretched out her wings and flapped, forgetting she wasn’t outside. The result of that momentary mental lapse caused one wing to fold in half, preventing her from stopping her descent.
It was the adrenaline from the intense ache that reminded her to extend her claws in search of an outcropping to hang onto. After several misses, she finally latched onto a thick rock protruding out of the side. Her muscles shook as she tried to keep a hold. When Nessa finally succeeded in stabilizing herself, she looked up. Well crap. She estimated she’d dropped over twenty feet. Defeat blanketed her, but she pushed it aside.
Once her breath settled down, she gathered the courage to push upward once more. This time, however, the pain from the broken wing made traveling more difficult.
Her dragon wanted to heal Nessa’s wing, but she told her inner animal not to waste her strength. Nessa needed energy for her fire.
Because she couldn’t sleep, it was wreaking havoc with her ability to stay focused. Each foot of progress took more and more out of her. It seemed like she’d been trapped for days, but it probably wasn’t more than ten or twelve hours.
On her next fire blast, she stilled then shook her head. She must be hallucinating because she swore she heard voices. That was impossible though—wasn’t it?
Fueled by the fact that help might be on the way, she inhaled then shot out a big flame. Even though her talons were next to nothing, she clawed and dug while clinging to the sides of the shaft. One thing she promised hersel
f was that she would not fall again.
Inch by inch, she traveled upward. She estimated she’d already cut through about one hundred feet of the collapsed shaft. Only one hundred more to go. She could do it. Her progress might be slow, but she would get there.
Nessa wasn’t sure what happened next, but suddenly large talons broke through the dirt above her and grasped her wings, tugging her upward. Her wing ached, and her chest hurt, but the fresh air was totally glorious. When those same claws placed her on her back, she let out a sigh of relief and passed out.
The shouts caught not only Kyle’s attention but that of the worker he was speaking with.
The man turned to him. “It sounds like they found her!” He took off at a sprint toward the large pit.
Kyle and many others followed. The big question was whether Nessa Caspian was alive or dead. The dragons who had been excavating crawled up the shaft and then shifted into their human form. Their bodies were covered in dirt, and while exhaustion was clearly written on their faces, a sense of excitement bounced off them.
“We have her,” someone shouted from deep down in the pit. “She’s alive. Someone call for the ambulance.”
Nessa Caspian had been trapped for only twenty-four hours. How had they reached her so quickly? The man he’d been speaking with said it took weeks to dig the tunnel the first time.
Her father pushed his way through the crowd. “Where is she?”
The pain in his voice tore at Kyle. What he wouldn’t have given for such a caring dad. Hell, he would have been satisfied to have had a dad at all.
What am I thinking?
Sympathy played no role in his job. He also couldn’t lose sight of the fact that these were dragon shifters. While he hadn’t known many, the one he did know had hurt his sister badly.
A siren off in the distance moved toward the collapsed mine, jarring him out of his less than pleasant mental ramblings. A short while later, a vehicle arrived with the name Caspian Ambulance blazoned on the side. Having their own medical team on site was a necessity since they were far from town. Two men dressed in blue uniforms, carrying a stretcher, rushed to the pit.
Not able to see her because of the crowd, Kyle edged his way back to the ambulance to wait.
A few minutes later, about twenty men emerged from the crowd carrying a huge dragon—one that wasn’t moving. She was covered in reddish brown dirt, but a hint of purple scales were interspersed throughout the black ones. Kyle had never seen a dragon up close and personal, and despite his intense dislike for the creatures, this one was rather beautiful.
“Is she alive?” he found himself asking one of the men huddled around her.
“Yes, barely. Please move out of the way, sir.” They set Nessa down carefully.
Kyle did as the man asked, though he wasn’t sure how they were going to take her anywhere. The ambulance certainly wasn’t large enough to hold her.
Kyle studied this woman who had somehow managed to survive despite the odds. She cracked open one eye, and he could have sworn she looked straight at him. Pain, along with something else, filled her ever-changing eyes that went from forest green to purple. As much as he wanted to ask her questions, the woman deserved time to heal.
Her wing fluttered, and then when she opened her claw, it was as if she were trying to tell him something. She grunted, and his pulse soared. Kyle looked around to see who else she might be looking at, but no one else was in her line of sight.
As much as he wanted to ask how she was doing, she couldn’t have answered him. A loud rumble sounded off in the distance and disrupted his thoughts. A flatbed truck, large enough to hold Nessa, rolled toward them.
Mr. Caspian charged up to Kyle and got in his face. “I want you to find out who did this to my daughter. I don’t care what it costs or how many men you need. I’ll pay whatever it takes to find the guilty party.”
Kyle was stunned by his offer. Lack of funds had always been an issue at his firm until recently. After the first incident at the Caspian mine, the government had suddenly upped their funding. “I will do my best, sir.”
The air in his chest seemed to deflate. “I appreciate that.”
Nessa was loaded onto the back of the flatbed, and Mr. Caspian hopped into the passenger side. A second later, the truck took off.
Conflicting emotions soared through him. Kyle wanted to find the Caspians guilty, but from what he’d just seen, they might not be. Without a doubt, this would be the hardest case Kyle had ever worked.
Chapter Three
Nessa awoke to a darkened room and had to blink several times to rid the grit lining her eyes. Only when she reached up to swipe her face, did she realize she was still in her dragon form. Why hadn’t she shifted? Her mind spun. Oh, yeah. She’d been trapped in a mine, and her dragon had protected her. From the way her chest and wings throbbed, her dragon was working to heal her.
The horrible memory of the dirt pummeling her body over and over again raced back, sending chills from her head to the tip of her tail. An image of her shooting fire at the large stone tunnel walls surfaced. Somehow, she didn’t remember making it to the top. Yet here she was—safe on the floor in the large gathering center of her family’s mine building.
Not quite sure if she was healed enough to shift, Nessa did it anyway. The moment she changed though, she realized that had been a mistake. Blood covered her pant legs, while her shoulder, chest, and wrist screamed in pain. Clearly her dragon hadn’t finished healing her. Nessa should probably shift back into the dragon form again, but she needed answers first.
Nessa slowly sat up and then rose to her knees. When her head stopped spinning, she chanced standing. No sooner had she taken three steps toward the exit when Greer, her younger sister, rushed in. “What are you doing up? Sit down.”
Nessa looked around at the empty room. “Where, on the floor?”
“It doesn’t look comfortable, does it? Let’s move you to a more private place. I want to check you out.”
Not only was Greer her younger sister, she was a healer—and a very good one at that. Greer wrapped an arm around Nessa’s waist and led her out of the large room. Birk, her older brother, was standing watch in the hallway.
His eyes lit up when he saw her, and he placed a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay, Nessa? You gave us such a scare.”
She felt broken and weak, but if she told him every muscle ached, he’d insist she return to her dragon form. “I’ll be fine. Greer will heal me.” Her sister must not have believed her injuries were life threatening or she would have called in their cousin Declan, who was an even more powerful healer.
Nessa turned to Birk. “Why are you standing watch outside the room?”
His eyes widened. “Seriously? Someone tried to kill you. Once word gets out that you survived, it’s possible he’ll try again.”
She waved a hand. “I don’t think the explosion was aimed at me but rather at the mine in general. Once we excavate the gold that’s down there, it might put other miners out of business.”
“For your sake, I hope they were only targeting the mine.” He nodded at Greer. “Where are you taking her?”
“Just to the office at the end of the hallway. It’ll be easier to work in there.”
“Sounds good. Can I get you anything, Nessa? Coffee? Water? Food?”
She smiled, but even her cheeks hurt. “You are sweet. Ask me again once Greer does her magic.”
“Sure thing.” Worry creased his eyes, indicating he wasn’t convinced Greer’s magic hands were strong enough “I’ll stay here and pretend you’re still inside in case someone tries to harm you again.”
Birk was being his usual overprotective self, but she loved him for it. Nessa stood on her tip toes to kiss his cheek when her ribs protested. She winced. “Thank you.”
“Nessa?” Birk asked.
“I’m good, or rather, I will be soon.”
Once they entered the small office down the hallway, Greer made her sit. “Everyone has been
so worried about you.”
“How long have I been unconscious?”
“About fifteen hours,” Greer said.
“Holy crap.” Her dragon never took that long to heal her. The injuries must have been more serious than she realized. “Who saved me?” Her memory had blocked it out.
“At least twenty men worked together to reach you. I think almost every dragon shifter volunteered to help dig out the collapsed shaft. It was incredible to watch. Other than to drink something to keep hydrated, they never stopped. One of the men finally saw your talon poke up through the dirt, and he reached in and grabbed onto you. Then all of them together lifted you out.” Greer sniffled and swiped a finger under one eye. “I swear I thought you were dead. How did you get so far up the shaft? I would have thought the explosion would have collapsed the whole thing.”
“It did.” Nessa explained her method. “I was so tired. My wing was damaged in the blast and my chest was crushed, but I figured if I didn’t do something, I’d die down there.”
Greer very gently hugged her. “I’m glad you didn’t. You’re not out of the woods yet though. I want you to close your eyes and relax so I can do my thing.”
Nessa held up her hands, indicating she’d obey. “Does Dad have any idea who set the charges?”
“Are you sure it was explosives?” Greer asked.
Nessa tilted her head. “From the sound and force, it had to be.”
“Well, you don’t need to be worrying about that yet. Think healing thoughts.”
Her sister could be pushy when it involved using her magic, which was a good thing since Nessa was very determined to find out who had been responsible for the mine’s collapse. Its safety was her responsibility.
While she’d seen Greer do her magic numerous times, Nessa hadn’t been the recipient of her talents in a long while. With her eyes closed, Nessa could only imagine that her sister’s hands were hovered over her ribs and sore shoulder.
“I’m going to touch you, so this might be a bit uncomfortable,” Greer said. “The injuries are worse than I first thought.”