by Riley Storm
Kal smiled.
“What are you doing? What’s so funny?” Viko wanted to know, Kal’s reaction throwing him off his likely carefully prepared speech.
“You lose,” Kal said, smiling even larger.
“I lose? I don’t lose! I am about to kill you.”
Kal shook his head. “In the time it took you to make your little victory speech here, you took too long. The others arrived.” He looked past Viko.
Viko’s eyes went wide and the fire dragon spun—and Kal’s ice-spiked fist punched through his back and out his chest in a welter of gore and scales.
Immediately the fire went out and the grip on his throat loosened. Kal dropped to his knees, the ice melting away as he conserved his strength.
The dead body of his former commander stayed where it was for a moment, then slowly crumpled—revealing the empty courtyard behind him.
It had been a bluff, but it had worked. At a distance, fire was superior, but up close, ice dragons were the more dangerous. The physical impact of his frozen blade would always trump the burning of flesh from fire. Viko had forgotten that in his fury and anticipated victory, and with a little distraction, Kal had made him pay for it.
Permanently.
He didn’t know how long he stayed bent over, his body struggling to cope with the multitude of wounds to it, but in time he heard the beating of wings. The sky was far brighter now. Whoever it was, they were taking quite the risk by travelling in dragon form.
Looking up, Kal half-expected to find more reinforcements to take up Viko’s place.
Instead, he found himself looking at Logan, and Victor, the heads of Aterna and Atrox respectively.
“Kal.” Logan strode over to him, crouching down. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I will be. Just a bit of pain. Flesh wounds, you know how it is.”
Logan grunted in understanding. “What happened here?”
“Viko,” he said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out the pieces of paper. They were a bit scuffed up, but legible enough. “Betrayed us all.”
“What am I looking at here?” Logan wanted to know.
“Schedules.” Kal said quietly. “The ones sent out by Viko for the day the Gate was breached. Look at the times. He let it through.”
Logan was reading it slowly, his eyes widening as he noted the discrepancy.
“He let whatever it was through on purpose.”
“I highly doubt that,” Victor said, snatching the papers from Logan’s hands and reading them. “How do we know that Viko even sent both of these?”
“Because my man said he did,” Logan growled, standing up and looking Victor in the eye. “His word is good enough for me.”
“A disgraced shifter tossed from the Gate Guard, and you take his word?” Victor snorted.
Logan’s eyes tightened. “As you can clearly see, he was set up, Victor. An investigation will be done of course, but right now, I put my faith in Kal.”
The head of clan Atrox glared. “I don’t buy it.”
Logan pulled the pieces of paper back, folded them up and put them away. “Good thing it isn’t up to you then, isn’t it?”
Victor seemed ready to continue the argument, but two cars pulled up then, disgorging more shifters. The next guard detail. Logan whistled them over, explained the situation and told them to start cleaning up.
At that point the guard who had called the clan heads emerged from the building. Victor went off to question him, but he didn’t seem to like the answers he was getting there either. Kal spared the head of Clan Atrox a glare, then pushed himself to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Logan asked.
“Into town,” he rumbled. “Someone is waiting for me. I’ll be at Rocky’s if you need me for the investigation. Otherwise, I’ve got a bar that needs rebuilding. If I leave now, I should be there on time.”
Logan called after him as stumbled by. “Kal.”
He turned back, looking at his clan leader.
“I didn’t want to kill him,” Kal said, anticipating the question. “But he had me beat otherwise. Though he probably did deserve it for purposefully letting through a creature from the Otherworld.”
Logan nodded.
“Oh, and he suggested that he wasn’t the most critical piece of the plan,” Kal added. “Someone else is out there.”
Logan nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll handle it from here. Go.”
Kal nodded and limped off toward his truck.
I’m coming Anne.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Anne
“We’re closed,” she called at the sound from the door.
She had it propped open to let the summer breeze in. It helped to keep the smell of smoke down as she and Liam scraped the surfaces and got rid of any scorching they could find. They’d been at it about an hour now, both of them up early despite the lack of sleep the night before. She suspected they were going to crash rather early that night.
“What a mess,” a familiar voice said.
Anne whirled. “Kal!” she exclaimed. Then she took in the sight of him and gasped. “Are you okay?” she yelped, rushing forward.
He looked like hell. His shirt was torn and covered in blood, his neck was a mass of blackened skin and purple bruises and he was limping. Plus his nose was broken.
“I’m okay,” he said as she stopped in front of him, arms out wide, her hands shaking as she looked him over, unable to figure out what to do.
“You need to go to the hospital!” she gasped. “How are you even walking?”
“Us dragons are a bit more resilient than you humans,” he rumbled. “I’m already healing.”
“This is healing?”
“Did you get the bad guy?”
They both looked over to see Liam standing off to the side with his little scraper-tool, neck craned way up to look at Kal. Of course he wasn’t concerned about Kal’s injuries.
“Yeah,” Kal said, crouching down awkwardly.
Anne bit her lip, seeing the way he winced as he tried to support his weight while talking to her son.
“Yeah I got him. It’s all over,” he said, looking back up at Anne. “It’s all over.”
“Yay, I knew you would!” Liam said, pumping his fist. “I knew it!” He jumped around and started reenacting what he thought it was like, punching the air, kicking and cheering.
“You’re serious?” she asked, looking him over once more.
“I promise. It hurts, but most of it will be gone in a few hours. By tomorrow I’ll be back to normal as long as I eat a lot and sleep a lot tonight. I’ve been hurt this bad before.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she muttered.
“Hey, I won,” he protested. “I fixed it. I fixed everything. I proved I wasn’t the bad guy, that I’m not a disgrace. The traitor was discovered. Everything was fixed.”
Anne smiled. “I’m glad to hear that Kal. I really am. I just wish you didn’t look like you’d paid for it with your body.”
He shrugged, then winced at the movement. “The pain reminds me that I’m not invincible.”
“And that you need to learn to duck,” she added wryly.
Kal mock glared at her. “That’s not very nice you know.”
She giggled, stepping closer. “I’m glad you’re okay. And…that you’re back.”
An arm settled over her shoulders gingerly. But it was there nonetheless.
“It’s good to be back. I missed you,” he said hesitantly.
Anne bit her lip, then looked up at him. “I missed you too,” she said quietly. “A lot.”
With his arm around her, she was able to feel him stiffen as she added the last words. It was the most outspoken she’d gotten yet about…them.
“Kal, I love you.”
If he’d stiffened before, Kal froze now. “What?”
She almost elbowed him in the side, only remembering at the last moment not to. “I said I love you. And you say ‘
what’? Really?”
He winced. “Uh, I mean, I love you too Anne.”
“Better,” she said. “It’s a good thing I love you.”
Kal frowned at her. “Pardon. I didn’t catch that last bit.”
She grinned. “I said I love you, Kal Aterna. And I’m sorry I didn’t say it before, I just…” she glanced over at Liam, who had gone back to scraping already. “I just needed to know that it would be okay for everyone.”
“So he’s okay with it?”
She nodded. “Yeah. But I owe him chocolate cake.”
“Oh, so you’ve raised an extortionist for a son,” Kal said with a chuckle.
“Well, he hasn’t had much of a male role model to show him that it’s rude to do that to a lady,” she said, mirroring his laugh, squaring off in front of him, comfortable as could be in his embrace.
“Ah.”
“Yeah. You know anyone who might be interested in helping to teach him?” Despite feeling confident she knew his answer, Anne still held her breath.
“Oh, I know a few guys who could scare him straight. Why, we could send him to boot camp. Do you think he’s old enough? It would be a lot of physical training. Some yelling. Lots of learning how to fight and—”
She didn’t hold her elbow back this time, though she was careful to be quite gentle about it.
“Yeah, if he’s okay with it, I would be honored,” Kal said, brushing some loose strands of hair back from her face.
“Well, it might take a bit for him to come around fully,” she said. “He’s okay with you and I being together—if it includes cake—but you and him? You’re going to have to work for that one. But you’ve got the whole superhero bit going for you, so I think you’ll be okay.”
Kal nodded. “Got it. Not a problem, easy peasy.”
“Oh really? You sound pretty confident over there mister,” she said with a bit of false attitude.
Her man grinned broadly. “Well sure. You see, all I have to do is take him flying and—”
“Nope. No. No way. Not happening!” she exclaimed. “You are not taking my ten-year-old child up in some rickety contraption strapped to your back. Absolutely not. Is not going to be a thing!”
Kal was alternating between laughing and wincing as he watched her reaction.
“Come here,” he said when he finally got himself under control, pulling her in tight.
Anne’s neck tilted back as he pressed his lips to hers, covering her mouth in a long, deep kiss that reminded her of just how much she liked his body pressed to hers.
“Um. Ew.”
The two of them split apart, Anne fixing her hair for no reason as she slowly turned back to face her son.
“Listen you two,” Liam said, crossing his arms with all the sternness a ten-year-old could muster. “We need to have a talk. There’s going to be some rules about this.”
Anne was forced to put a hand over her mouth as her child launched into his rules about the two of them. Even as he talked, Kal’s hand found hers, wrapping it up tightly.
“And last, but most important,” Liam said, waving a finger at them, placing the other on his hip with great gusto. “No kissing!”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Kal
It was with more than a little trepidation that Kal pulled up to the Gate Guard building.
Four long days had passed since his fight with Commander Viko. Four days spent entirely with Anne and Liam. Things were progressing well there, and he was looking forward to the future, and the changes that were on the horizon. Lots of changes. One of which he was going to bring up with Anne later that day.
After his meeting with Logan.
He was all healed up now, as he’d promised, but the mental scars of everything he had done would be longer in fading, and Kal knew they would never leave him completely. That was why he had thrown himself head-first into the project of Anne’s bar. They had decided to renovate it entirely and, with his money behind it, progress was coming along swiftly.
Another two weeks I think, and we’ll be ready to open up. No more than three, that’s for sure.
Chuckling to himself at the memory of Anne’s reaction when she’d truly learned that money wasn’t an issue to him and she could remodel her bar however she wanted. That was a moment he would treasure for a long time. He’d never heard her swear quite so vulgarly.
Or forget that Liam was right next to her, and have to spend the next ten minutes explaining to him why he shouldn’t copy what his mother had said.
That smile and memory were what fortified him as he walked upstairs to the office of the Guard Commander, noting the damage in the hallways that still hadn’t been repaired, the window through which he’d been thrown only boarded up.
The door to the office was casually placed in the opening, though it wasn’t actually affixed to anything. Kal frowned, then simply came to a halt.
“Knock knock,” he called through it.
“Come on in,” Logan’s voice came promptly.
Kal lifted the door aside and entered the office. He quirked an eye at the haphazardly repaired desk—someone had simply used a pair of two-by-fours and some plywood to attach the two sides to one another. It looked like hell to use.
“We’re roughing it out here,” Logan said, shaking his head. “The next commander is in charge of fixing all this. That wasn’t my purpose for being here.”
“The investigation,” Kal said, knowing what his clan head meant.
“Yes, that bit of nonsense,” Logan said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into Victor, but he was insistent that you were behind it, and wouldn’t let it go. It took the rest of us to overrule him. He’s still not happy about it.”
“Viko was Atrox,” Kal pointed out. “Long ago. Maybe they weren’t as distant as they would have us think.”
Logan nodded. “The thought had crossed my mind as well. Lots of things about Atrox have crossed my mind lately.”
Kal wisely refrained from asking. He wasn’t a clan head, and thus not privy to what was going on in the larger world of dragon politics. That didn’t bother him though. After everything that had just happened, he was glad to be apart from it.
“If you don’t mind skipping the small-talk,” he said instead. “What was the verdict?”
Logan frowned. “What? I thought I made that clear when I said the rest of us overruled him. It was hogwash. The proof was obvious to anyone looking at it. You are innocent. In fact, that’s why I brought you here.”
Kal’s spine straightened. He was relieved to hear that the others hadn’t found him guilty, but now he was worried that there might be repercussions to his actions after all. He had killed three dragon shifters, including the commander of the Gate Guard, even if Viko was a traitor. Bracing himself he waited for Logan to continue.
Leaning past him, Logan called out to someone Kal couldn’t see. “Come on in now.”
Kal turned to see a familiar face in the doorway.
“Gunnar!” he exclaimed, moving to happily embrace his friend. “You’re alive.”
“We finally tracked him down to his vault in the mountains,” Logan explained. “Took us awhile to convince him that we weren’t Viko, but once we did, he came out. Turns out he’d been hiding there all along.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t have given you more warning,” Gunnar said. “But I had to take off in the middle of the night. Good thing I did too, from what I understand Viko’s thugs arrived not more than an hour after I fled.”
“You did enough,” Kal said, clapping Gunnar on the shoulder. “I could handle it from there.”
“I hear you did more than just handle it,” Gunnar said. “I hear you were a one-man wrecking crew, tearing apart Viko’s conspiracy yourself, ending it all.”
Kal glanced at Logan uneasily. The Aterna head lifted his chin, giving the unspoken agreement that he could speak.
“I don’t think it’s that easy unfortunately,” Kal said.
Gunnar frowned. “What do y
ou mean? I thought Viko was dead?”
“He is,” Kal confirmed. “But during our fight, he hinted that there was someone else. Someone even more important to the plan, whatever it is.”
“I don’t understand,” Gunnar said, looking between the other two. “What plan? Who else?”
Logan shook his head angrily. “We don’t know. But we can make one conclusion from all this.”
“We can?” Gunnar said, confused still.
“Viko let the creature through the Gate,” Kal explained. “On purpose. He knew it was coming, because someone told him. Which means there was a purpose behind it. A plan. We just don’t know what.”
“Well shit,” Gunnar said. “That really sucks for me then, doesn’t it?”
Now it was Kal’s turn to be caught off guard. “Huh? What do you mean? Why you?”
“Kal,” Logan said, stealing the conversation back. “I’d like to introduce you to Commander Gunnar, the next head of the Gate Guard.”
Kal beamed. “Congrats Gunnar! You deserve it!” he said, giving his friend a good-natured pounding on the back in celebration.
It didn’t bother him that Gunnar had been promoted from a lower rank than he used to hold, to commander. His friend would do an excellent job. Besides, with the blood of three of his kin on his hands, giving the job to Kal just then would look bad.
And it would take me away from Anne. Which I’m not okay with, so I would have likely turned it down anyway. No, this is the perfect choice.
“Thank you,” Gunnar said with a smile. “But as I was saying, now I need to unravel this mystery about where the creature went, and who Viko was working with.”
“I find it hard to believe we have another traitor in our midst. A second dragon who would deign to work with creatures from the Otherworld,” Kal spat.
“Well, get used to it,” Logan rumbled ominously. “Times are changing. I’ve sent word to the Gates at Pompeii and in the Alps. Warning them to be ready for anything. For now though, we’re on our own. We must work in secret, without alerting the others.”
Kal nodded. “Makes sense. Don’t want to alert them to the fact we’re on to them.”
Logan pointed at him. “Exactly.”