Chapter One
This damn mine would be the death of her yet.
“Come on, come on. Where are you?” Dragon shifter Nessa Caspian tapped her nails across the rock face, determined to find the gold vein. Her ability to locate metals by touch had yet to fail her, so why couldn’t she sense any now? She was sure the gold was there.
Nessa closed her eyes, throwing out more energy to sense the vibrations. Her father’s words of worry came back to her, cutting short her concentration. “You have a gift Nessa, but opening a new vein is dangerous, especially at two hundred feet below the surface.”
Dangerous? Hah. Even if the electricity failed—shutting down the elevator between here and the surface—she could still fly up the shaft to escape.
You better be right, her dragon said. If you aren’t careful, and there’s another accident, the Mining Consortium will close us down.
Her hands shook at that terrible thought.
Sure, the wealth that this gold could bring her family and their miners would be great, but more than anything, she wanted to prove to her dad that she had the ability to find the perfect mother lode. She’d inherited this talent to read vibrations from rock from her father’s great-great grandfather. No one else in the family could find gems and metals the way her ancient relative had—until now.
Once more, Nessa ran her nails across the cold rough rock, sensing small tremors. Before she could identify the source, the wall suddenly shook, and her pulse soared. This was it! Nessa could almost taste success.
Her dad hadn’t wanted to dig this deep, but she’d promised him that she’d take every precaution. It was why she’d refused to allow any other workers down here with her.
An even larger vibration tingled in her fingers, returning her attention to the elusive vein. When a high tinny sound accompanied the trembling, her heart slammed against her rib cage. The frequency coupled with a distinct pitch signaled a metal was present. She wouldn’t celebrate yet though. There was a fine line between gold and copper and between silver and platinum, and Nessa needed to be right this time.
After absorbing the sensations for a full minute, she was convinced the frequency and intensity of the trembling matched gold’s signature. But the only way to be sure was to dig into the rock face and see the metal in its pure form.
Leaning back, she extended her arms and pointed to the area she believed contained the thick gold vein—not merely gold flecks embedded in the rock—and partially shifted her hands into her dragon talons.
She smiled at what she was about to do. If anyone on Earth had a mother lode like this, they’d celebrate for years. Hell, it might even make the history books in her realm of Tarradon.
Unlike other dragons, the fire coming out of her talons had laser precision and was coupled with an extremely hot flame, better than any store bought blowtorch. Mouth breathing fire just went everywhere, which made it useless in this situation. Plus, she’d have to be in her dragon form to do that.
With total concentration, Nessa bored through the rock, sending bits and pieces of sediment in every direction. A shard of rock flew at her, cutting through her shirt and slicing open her skin.
Oh crap. In her excitement at the discovery, she’d been careless and had forgotten to initiate more of her shift. Stopping for a moment, she concentrated on turning her human skin into protective dragon scales.
Phew. That was close. She then continued drilling. Even though the heat blew back in her face, forcing her to squint, it didn’t stop her from making progress. After a minute though, her hands shook from the intense power needed to keep the flame going.
Don’t fail me now, she demanded of her body. Two minutes turned into four. Then, on the next push, the shine of pure gold bounced back at her. “Yes!!”
Heart pounding, she cut off the fire and extended her claws on one hand to dig out a sample. The gold had somewhat melted, making it easy to scoop out. Extracting a small container from her pocket, she lifted the exquisite metal to her nose and sniffed, hoping it had the scent of a rose or some exotic flower. It didn’t, but a girl could dream. As much as she wanted to paint her body with the stuff in celebration, she placed the scraped metal inside the box. Impossible to remove all of it from her hands, her talons glowed yellow.
She wiggled them before letting her hands return to normal. With the exploration complete for now, Nessa fully returned to her human form.
Excited about her find, she collected her light and headed back to the elevator. See, Dad? This is the mother lode. Told you I could do it.
Ten steps from the metal cage that would take her swiftly to the top and let her bask in her glory, the entire wall exploded, jettisoning her backward. Her mind failed to comprehend what was happening other than to tell her she was in deep shit.
Without any conscious thought on her part, her dragon took over and did the shift for her, taking the brunt of the blast. The force slammed Nessa’s animal into the stone wall so hard that she crumpled to the ground. She tried to bring in her wings to avoid more harm, but something stopped her. As much as she wanted to check out the damage, between all the dust and the flying rocks, she had to keep her eyes closed until the dust settled. A sharp object pierced her skull, and she moaned at the intense ache. Where had the detonation come from? She was the only one down there.
Rocks continued to fall on top of her, and dirt lodged under her scales. Seeking as much safety as possible, she lowered her head and waited for the onslaught of rubble to stop, hoping against hope she wouldn’t be buried alive.
Seconds passed and then minutes, as more aftershocks shook the area. When silence finally surrounded her, she took a deep breath to assess the situation and was immediately sent into a coughing fit. Her dragon had never coughed before, and she didn’t like it one bit.
When Nessa opened her eyes to check for injuries, she had to shut them immediately. Rocks were pressed against her snout and silt fell into her eyes. While she didn’t usually jump to conclusions, it was pretty obvious she was trapped hundreds of feet below the surface—all alone and with no means of communicating with anyone. Damn.
While both of those facts made her situation dire, she was a dragon after all—one with some magic at her fingertips—no pun intended. Nessa should be able to get out of there. The big question was how long would it take her, and would she live long enough to reach the surface?
The one glimmer of hope was that everyone on the surface would have heard the explosion. Sadly, there was little they could do about it. She was too far down for them to drill a new tunnel. Hell, it had taken them a month to build the shaft in the first place.
When she blew out a breath, her chest screamed in pain. Really? She chanced opening her eyes a smidge and found a mammoth rock sitting on her chest. Not only that, one wing sat under a ton of rubble. Well, double damn. It was worse than she’d feared.
Sure, she was scared, but she was more pissed than anything. This was the third accident in as many months at her family’s mine. It might be better to die down here than have to go through the humiliation of having the Mining Consortium shut them down. Her father had already received two warning letters. After this, it would be lights out for them for a long while. Since she was in charge of the safety of the mines, she’d be the fall guy.
It would be one thing if Caspian Mining had been guilty of neglect, but they hadn’t been. Nessa had been meticulous at keeping everyone out of harm’s way.
She grunted. She wouldn’t reach the surface by feeling sorry for herself. No one was going to save her, which meant it was up to her to figure something out.
The first thing Nessa had to do was move that huge boulder off her body. To do that though, she needed her claws—claws that were trapped under a mountain of debris. Ugh. This wasn’t going to be easy or painless. Using much of her energy, she worked her claws upward inch by inch. Because one of her wings was not accessible, it wouldn’t be of much use until she could free it.
Slowly but surely, Nessa edged her talons to the surface, tossing small rocks aside along the way. When one talon broke into view, she took a big breath.
“Ouch. Damn it.” Why couldn’t she remember that inhaling deeply was painful?
Move the damn rock, her dragon complained.
“I was planning on it.” Sheesh. The only reason she vocalized her comment was to help feel less alone. “I’m sure help is on the way.”
In a month maybe, her dragon shot back.
She refused to listen to such negativity. Grabbing one side of the boulder, Nessa pushed while she lifted her right wing a few inches. While not totally free, it was enough to help her move the rock to the side. In the process of shoving it out of the way though, several ribs cracked.
Don’t move, her dragon said. Let me heal you.
“I have no place to go. Have at me.”
As much as she wanted to pick the debris off her half-buried wing, she waited. And waited some more. Hurry, she pleaded.
I’m working as fast as I can.
To save energy, Nessa tried to slow her breathing and relax, but that was no easy task.
Okay, I’ve done what I can to repair the ribs, her dragon said, but you will be sore for a while.
I’m okay with sore. Thank you.
She didn’t need her animal wasting any more energy healing her—energy she needed to help her get the hell out of there.
Moving more rocks, she finally managed to free her right wing completely and part of her left wing.
Exhausted from the exercise, Nessa leaned back and tried to figure out what had happened. Where had the explosives come from? She hadn’t brought any into the shaft, so what had gone off? This mine was far from all of the others, so there was no reason for anyone to be excavating near there. She didn’t want to consider that someone wanted her dead. She’d always believed the employees were grateful to her and her family for keeping them safe, but clearly she’d been wrong.
Nessa pounded a stone in frustration and instantly regretted her burst of anger. More pain sliced across her chest. After waiting a minute to catch her breath, she opened her mouth and shot a hot stream of fire straight at the rock in front of her. The scorching force blew right through the middle. Having a bit more room to maneuver, she began to claw away the rest of the rocks and dirt from the bottom half of her body. Because she was fifteen feet tall, it would be a huge chore to create enough room for her to stand and then spread her wings—but she had to try.
After several hours of labor, she finally had that space and stood up—or as close to standing as she could manage. Her left wing hung at an odd angle, and both of her legs were severely cut, but that wasn’t going to stop her from carving her way out of there, no matter how long it took.
Knowing what she had to do, Nessa began shoving the larger rocks to the side. By heating them to a high degree, they fused, providing stability to the walls. She just hoped like hell she didn’t have to repeat this process for two hundred feet straight up. She’d never make it.
Kyle Harper’s cell phone rang. When he saw it was his sister, Lily, calling, he smiled and pushed back his office chair to get more comfortable. “Hey, there.”
“Kyle, there’s been another accident at the Caspian mine,” Lily spit out.
He bolted upright. She worked for Avonbelle Insurance Agency—the agency that insured miners. “When? Was anyone hurt?”
As the head of the Mining Consortium, he would be in charge of investigating the disaster—the third one in three months at this particular mine. He straightened his shoulders and inhaled. As much as he didn’t like shutting anyone down, he’d do it if the miners’ safety was at stake.
Closing this particular one wouldn’t upset him too much either. After all, it was run by dragon shifters, and he knew quite well that most of the fiery creatures were evil.
“I don’t know any details,” she said.
“I appreciate the heads up. I’ll head on over there now to find out as much as I can.”
Lily huffed. “I bet it was the owner’s fault.”
He understood why she was a bit prejudice against dragon shifters. Her last boyfriend, a dragon shifter, had burned her back so badly she’d been hospitalized for two months. Her hatred of the species seemed well deserved.
“It’s my job to keep an open mind, or at least pretend to.”
She grunted. “I’ll have to stop by at some point too. Whoever is injured will want to be compensated.”
After he hung up, Kyle grabbed the folders from the last two incidents and headed out, ready to get to the bottom of what happened.