“Did it feel like this with Quinn?” Luc asked. Or, maybe that was Marc. Kenji couldn’t tell.
He paused, staring at the dragons before him.
“Did you pace and wonder where Quinn was at all hours of the day? Did you feel pride in every little thing she did, even when it drove you to the edge of insanity?” The dragon man asked. As he leaned forward, Kenji noticed the way the dragon man scratched at his shaven face. Marc, then. The dragon had grown a beard not too long ago to blend in while they attempted to rescue their mother.
Kenji’s eyes flicked toward Noelle, barking orders at the dragons who were not used to their structured dominance, but his mind was still with Morgan. The woman was resourceful and acted on instinct half the time. More than once, Kenji had feared for her safety, but the woman had gotten them out of tight situations.
With Quinn, he’d worried, but not to this extent. He’d be doing something and think of her, worry slapping him in the face for forgetting about her. Morgan was there at the edges of his mind at all times. He ached to be able to reach out and feel her, to know she was safe.
“It doesn’t matter how it feels,” Kenji grumbled. He did not want to have this conversation. About to turn away from Marc, he paused.
Noelle appeared beside them, her usual expression of pissed off traded for slight concern. Kenji felt his heart jump into his throat and his first thought was of Morgan. His hand darted out for the phone, but Noelle jerked it back from his grasp.
Instead, she handed it to Marc. The three of them could hear Dane’s voice on the other end, Hector Avila’s voice somewhere in the background. Both sounded on the precipice between panic and exhaustion. There were sounds of growls and shouts in the background.
GOE had entered the Territory and were demanding their stolen goods be returned. Kenji’s eyes flicked up, recognition slamming into him.
“They want Isaac and Oliver. Don’t they?”
Noelle nodded, her jaw pressed tight. The air around her began to warm so much that Kenji had to take a step back. She mumbled a soft apology and sucked in a breath through her nose, slowly like she might be counting as she did so. He understood. This was his friend’s mate they were talking about. Kenji and Isaac had fought side by side and, he had to admit, he kind of liked the guy.
GOE were acting presumptuous. What made them think they could demand people from the dragons? What was next? Kenji knew the brothers, as they looked to one another, feared GOE might demand their mother returned to the GOE facilities, too. It made him wonder why GOE thought they had any claim on living beings? There had to be something behind them making them brave, but Kenji didn’t know what they could have.
He could have slapped himself in the face. GOE was a worldwide organization. It was a collection of like-minded people, creating a global hivemind against dragons. The U.S. installations were emboldened by their international cousins.
“How do we cut them off from outside support?” Kenji blurted the words out and the other dragons turned to look at him. Marc still held the phone to his ear. He hoped Dane was on the other end, listening in. “The U.S. branch of the organization is getting ballsy because there are a good number of other organizations throwing their support behind them.”
Anya stepped up, chewing her lower lip while her mind worked at the problem. “We have to make them look awful. Right now, they won the trial so they look like victims. If we can make the U.S. branch look evil, the other branches will pull their support to keep from looking like they were in on it, too.”
“How can we do that? The world already thinks we’re a bunch of liars.”
Anya’s hesitance unfolded into a sublime smile. “That’s what makes the internet a wonderful thing.” She turned and plucked the phone from Marc’s grasp. The dragon man moved to argue, but let it drop after a sharp look from his brother.
“Dane, get someone with a cell phone to record your next meeting with GOE. Don’t be obvious about it or else they’ll start to lie to cover their tracks. Don’t hesitate, don’t edit the footage. Upload it to the web as soon as it’s over.”
They could hear Dane slowly agree, it took the leader of the Territory a long moment to catch on to her plan. Once he understood, his mood rose. He found a fighting strength and hung up so he could set up their new plan. For all their sakes, Kenji hoped this worked. At the very least, th ey needed GOE to back down for a little while.
Getting a retrial instated would help, but they couldn’t do it if they were locked in the Territory and detained anytime they set foot outside the area. It was no wonder Morgan wanted nothing to do with him and his world. It was a difficult life. One that no one should have to endure.
Noelle pocketed her phone and her mate turned back toward Kenji. “Dude, just go get her. If you feel this way, she does, too. The mate bond doesn’t force love, it shows where there is an opportunity of love, the best possible kind of love.”
“I won’t force my affections on anyone else.”
Noelle sighed, dramatically. “I will drag you out those doors myself if I have to. You’re being a stubborn man. Marc was in your shoes, he knows what he’s talking about. Just leave. We have everything covered here.”
Kenji shot a surprised glance down at the short dragon woman. Her words were laced with well-meaning venom and it threw him for a loop. Marc, standing just behind her, shrugged as if to say that was how Noelle worked.
“Besides, you’re distracted,” Noelle added. “If anything were to happen, you’d be a liability because your mind isn’t here with us.”
“Tell that to my brother,” Marc said with a snort. “If anything, ask Morgan to come back here with you. She’s already been targeted once. You’ll know for a fact that she’s safe and you’ll actually be of some help.”
The two parts of Kenji were torn. The beast inside him wanted to run after their mate, to sniff her out and drag her back with them. Duty demanded he stay and wait this out with the others. He was charged with their protection and he wanted to take this new role in his life seriously.
In the end, the beast won. It helped that the others damn near shoved him out the door.
Chapter Eleven
The streets were quiet. Everyone had tucked in for the day after GOE’s display of power around town. It made the streets seem hollow, not even a ghost making a sound.
Kenji felt every hair on his neck rise as he walked through town. His form was painfully obvious, the only shape on the streets. Thankfully, even the GOE trucks had disappeared. He could only hope it was because the dragons on the Territory were keeping them busy and not because GOE had wrangled up half the town. He told himself this would soon be over. Dane and the dragons on the Territory would upload a video of the GOE agents asking for them to hand over dragon lives. Liana would let the world know GOE paid the jurors to side with them.
This wouldn’t last forever, but it felt like it would. Kenji’s felt like his whole like had been struggling against one thing or another. Before GOE, his struggle had been fitting into an American society as a Japanese American. The time for that hadn’t been great before he found his way into a GOE facility. Beneath the ground, he decided his life before wasn’t so bad.
Lucia Avila helped him escape and he dedicated his life to helping the family she’d assembled, but it’d been an empty life. He’d laid claim to Quinn because he’d thought they were meant to be, only to have her slip out from between his fingers.
Morgan, he thought. Would Morgan escape him, too? He prepared himself to be denied, prepared himself to say good-bye, until he heard a scream split the air. His heart thumped. The beast propelled him toward the source of the sound.
They both knew the sound and it terrified him.
Kenji burst onto the street to find a group of black-garbed agents in the doorway of a diner. They were struggling, hauling a woman out by her arms. She struggled and growled in their grasp. Kenji felt a small amount of pride rise beside his fear. He stepped toward her, but the people inside the
diner beat him to it.
Humans jumped on the agents. The diner patrons pulled aside dome of the flock and made it easier for Kenji to wade through the chaos. Morgan, with defiance written on every inch of her face, let her whole body drop to the floor. The agents slumped with her weight and gave Kenji an opening.
He grabbed the two agents by the collar of their bullet-proof vests and pulled them back. His smile was tainted by the vengeful beast inside of him. He could feel his eyes bleeding into his dragon shape and the tips of his teeth sharpening. It took the agents by surprise and their grip on Morgan loosened.
Morgan now safe, he hauled the two agents out the door and flung them out onto the street. They rolled across the pavement, grunting and cursing. The diner patrons shoved the rest of the agents toward him and, despite his confusion, he took the opportunity to toss them out one by one.
The agents scrambled to their feet, but a woman stepped in front of Kenji. Her hair was peppered with silver streaks, but she stood tall as if she were a creature two feet bigger.
“We’re all humans, you morons! If this is how you treat humanity, I shudder to think of how you might treat anyone else.” The woman scolded them in a motherly fashion and it seemed to work. Their hands paused over their weapons.
Kenji eyed the stun guns. He wasn’t about to let himself get hit by another one. Grabbing Morgan and leaving should have been his first priority, but he found himself lingering. He watched the human woman threaten to call their mothers, a strange response in a time of violence.
Kenji laughed and turned toward Morgan. She looked pleased to see him and it sent a thrill through his chest, one that zinged to lower places. He was ready to wrap his arms around her and carry her off somewhere private.
Then, he lost control of his body. His limbs seized and he had only a moment to think, Fuck.
***
A scream filled Morgan’s mouth, but never escaped. She watched Kenji fall to the floor and everything hit her at once. She loved him. She needed him in her life. No one was going to take that away from her.
Steeling herself, she dropped to her knees beside him and gripped the stun mechanism in his back. The electrical current bit through her, but she pushed through it and yanked the thing out. It skittered across the ground and she turned to glare at the agents.
They were swarming around Kelly, her scolding suddenly falling on deaf ears. They were men and women of orders, doing as they’d been told. Morgan moved to put herself between Kenji and those orders. She wouldn’t let them take the last thing she had. She wouldn’t let them take the last freedom Kenji had.
Behind her, Kenji struggled to his feet. She looked back with surprise. His face was lined with anger and strain. With a groan, he forced himself to his feet. He toward behind her and glared at the agents before her. Kenji made no movement to retaliate. He didn’t have to.
The agents startled and each of them looked down at the buzzing comms attached to their waists. They looked at one another in surprise. Behind them, a diner patron shouted for people to look.
Morgan glanced back to see him staring at his phone, mouth slightly agape. Kenji let out a breath and his hands gravitated toward her, as if to assure himself she was there. She wanted to say she would always be there, that she’d made the decision if he’d have her, but the roar of people inside the diner overpowered her.
Kenji leaned in and whispered in her ear, his hands on her shoulders more for support at that point in time. “A human mate told the Territory leader to record GOE after the agents entered the Territory.”
She spun around to face him, her lips parted in question.
“GOE wanted a pair of dragons back, dragons they’d experimented on and enhanced. They saw the men as their possessions and thought they could get away with the claim behind the walls. We made their request live to the world.”
Morgan’s eyes glanced around the room, at all the screens lit and the faces peering down at them. The scene they’d recorded was going viral. How many people would see what GOE was doing? Morgan hoped they would see it the way she did, would realize what was really happening around them.
Kenji’s eyes left hers and moved back to the agents behind her. There was an unspoken threat in them. If they touched her, he would retaliate. They looked as though they didn’t know what to do. The comms on their waists called them back, the voice on the other end clearly not happy.
The voice commanded them to back off. The agents were to convene back at the facility, nothing more stated where anyone could hear. Morgan’s heart surged with hope.
Yet, the wall still stood.
She stepped into the warmth of Kenji’s body and told herself she could fix it. Her eyes moved toward where Kelly stood. The human woman had stood up for Kenji and Morgan found herself extremely grateful. When Kelly met her gaze, she nodded, an unspoken agreement passing between them that Kenji missed.
Morgan knew her plans were laid into place. In that moment, she wanted to get Kenji alone. There were some questions she had for him. Inside Morgan was a churning ball of emotions she need him to help her sort out. At least, right then, Morgan had a good idea of what was happening to her. If anything, she wanted his confirmation.
Chapter Twelve
The Embassy, a place she hadn’t been to since the day she met Kenji, was filled to the brim with dragons. Morgan didn’t think she’d seen this many dragons, even during her time on the Territory. She certainly didn’t recognize any of them.
Once past the door, even though she’d asked him for a moment alone, Kenji gravitated toward a dragon hunched in the corner. He knelt before the scared dragon woman and placed a hand on her knee, his touch feather light in case he offended her. His eyes were sincere as he promised her she was safe there. He even turned and pointed at another dragon in the room, a short, Asian woman who, in turn, glared back.
“She’s been attacked by GOE and kicked their ass. If anything happens, you run and hide behind her because nothing will ever get past her.”
Morgan smiled. Across the room, a bronze skinned dragon piped up.
“What am I? Chopped liver?”
His twin smacked him and told him to hush, earning smiles from all around the room.
“Don’t worry, Luc,” the dragon woman Kenji pointed to said. “You’re a big bad dragon boy, too.”
He stuck his tongue out at her and a round of hushed laughter rolled through the room. The mood lightened and the air felt breathable again. She hadn’t realized how tense the room had been until Kenji prompted the light banter.
Kenji stood and Morgan moved to take his hand, tugging him away. The room of dragons could have him back in a moment, once she was through with him. Though, if the tight feeling in her stomach was any indication, it might be more than a moment until the room of dragons could have him back. He saw the look in her eyes and his brows shot upward, his pace picking up.
Morgan picked a room at random, trying the door knob and happily finding it unlocked. Inside, there wasn’t much more than a conference table and a ring of chairs around it. Morgan ignored the chairs and moved to throw her tired body onto the table. It’d been a long day and once she stopped moving, the echoes of what they’d done earlier came back.
Her thighs ached and she found herself craving more. Was she insane? Was it like a drug? Morgan needed to know; she needed to understand.
Kenji pulled out a chair across from her and placed himself between her bent knees, her legs hanging off the edge of the table. His hands ran up her thighs, comforting and soothing. When he bent and placed his cheek against her inner thigh, looking up at her with his dark eyes, she felt her world spinning away from her. There was nothing else, just her and the man at her knees.
“I’m sorry about all this,” he began. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I didn’t mean to screw up your dream. Whatever I can do to fix it, just ask.”
Morgan pulled her gaze away from him and looked toward the ceiling above her in order to gather herself.
A jumble of words rose through her throat, all begging to be said at once which ended in nothing coming out. Her lips gaped, struggling to find something.
Kenji pulled back, the warmth of his cheek leaving her and his hands on her legs tensing with concern. He was about to pull away completely, but she reached and grasped his hands to keep them where they were. She wanted to assure him this wasn’t bad. It wasn’t that kind of we need to talk.
She laughed at herself. She wasn’t even sure she was in a relationship with him yet and they were having those kinds of talks.
“How does a mate bond work?” she finally croaked out.
Kenji’s body pulled back, his spine suddenly ram-rod straight. Morgan sat up, panic hitting her in the chest. She reached out to him, fingers working to grab and hold him before he could bolt. Had she been wrong? Had she mistaken lust for a mate bond?
Men were always wary of commitment. It was no wonder she’d nearly scared him away. But, the look in his eyes and the way his fingers tightened around her thighs, almost possessively, told her that was not the issue here. He pulled in a haggard breath and a small smile crept into the corners of his lips.
“Is this because…?” He couldn’t finish his sentence, hesitation butting its way into his mind.
Morgan found herself smiling. It was the kind of smile that felt a bit dumb, a wide grin that crept in and emboldened her from the outside in. “I, uh, I think so.”
Kenji leapt out of his seat and grasped her face in his hands, bring her mouth to his for a kiss. Each of them smiled into the kiss, making it sweet and awkward all at once. The kiss slowly deepened, their smiles fading only a fraction while he nipped her lips and his hands drifted down her neck and onto her shoulders.
Finally, Morgan pulled back. She put her hands on his chest, her head spinning. There were still a number of questions she had to ask and she couldn’t fall into his touch and forget them just yet.
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