Chapter Five
Why, oh, why had Nessa suggested she and Kyle watch hours of boring tapes together? It was hard enough to talk to him, let alone sit next to him, especially when her dragon was panting and clawing at her insides to put the moves on him. Those inappropriate comments about what they should do with Kyle once Nessa stripped him naked wasn’t helping with her concentration.
She sighed. “This is pointless. No one other than me or my foreman ever entered this room.”
Kyle placed a hand on her arm, almost as if he’d just thought of something, and the touch caused her inner scales to glow. Thank goodness for her long sleeve shirt. Since Kyle had freaked when her hands had turned dragon, he’d totally run if she started to glow. She sensed he wasn’t used to being around her kind.
“Could your foreman have removed the explosives and given them to someone?” He almost sounded excited to find someone to blame.
“No way. He never would have done that. As for Acton, who replaced Wendan, he doesn’t have a bone of deceit in his body.” Even after Kyle removed his hand, the heat remained. “Yet the perpetrator had to have gotten them from somewhere.”
“You mentioned that, but even if we could get the company to divulge their customer list, there would be no way of knowing who used the explosives at your mine.”
She blew out a breath. “I think our only hope is to remain more vigilant and hope we catch him the next time he tries something.”
He glanced over at her. “The mine won’t reopen until this is solved, you know.”
She tried to convince herself that Kyle was just doing his job and not being spiteful or following orders from the Royals.
“What if you never figure this out?” she asked, trying not to let her frustration show. “If the mine remains closed, the perpetrator will have won. We’ll never catch him.”
“There is that risk. My men have spoken to most of the workers here, but they claim to know nothing.”
“I’ll talk to them,” Nessa said. “With a little encouragement, they’ll be open with me. I’ll ask them to think outside the box.”
Kyle shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. If they think we are getting close, that person might harm you again. I won’t let that happen.”
His words stunned her. Before she could respond, Birk charged into the room, the lines around his eyes deeper than usual, and Nessa’s heart shot to her throat. She shoved back her chair and jumped up. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“A dam burst over in Grindale Province close to where Gregor Kearn lives. People are losing their homes from all the mudslides, and our men want to help.” He turned to Kyle. “I see no reason not to let them go, unless you’ve figured out who is responsible and plan to let us reopen our mine.”
Didn’t she wish?
“I’m afraid not,” Kyle said. “We don’t have many leads. Yet. How did a dam burst?”
Had it been sabotage? Or was she so focused on evil that she couldn’t think of anything else?
Birk shrugged. “Right now, it doesn’t matter what caused it. We’ll figure it out eventually. These people need our help. I’ll let our dragons know they can fly over there to help with the rescue.”
She pushed back her chair. “I’ll come with you.”
Birk held up a palm. “Nessa, someone needs to stay here. I don’t like the mine being exposed.”
He had a point, though she suspected that wasn’t the whole truth. “How many men are going?”
“Almost all of them. With the mine shut down, they are eager to be useful. Even the humans want to help.”
She glanced over at Kyle. “Do you think it’s some kind of ploy to draw our people there so that the mine will be vulnerable?”
“Possibly.”
She turned back to her brother. “Is anyone speculating if the dam breach was due to sabotage? If I recall, it’s not very old.”
“I don’t know.”
She tapped a finger on her lips. “If our men all go, it would give the person the chance to swoop in and do more damage.”
Birk blew out a breath. “When did you become so distrustful?”
When I was trapped in a mine. “My job is to make sure this place is safe.”
He dragged a hand down his jaw. “Tell you what. I’ll make sure enough men remain here. They’ll stay on high alert until the rest of us return.”
Nessa had the best brother and the best workers. She hugged Birk. “Thank you and stay safe.”
“You too.”
Kyle stood. As soon as Birk rushed out, he faced her. “What are you planning to do now?”
“How about you stay here and finish looking at the tapes, while I speak with the men who are staying. I want to make sure we have all of our bases covered.”
“Good thinking. What could someone do now to harm the mine? It’s already shut down.”
“That’s easy. They could plant remote detonation devices to go off whenever they choose. Once we are back up and running—which we will be at some point—they could orchestrate another cave in. Only this time it could kill a lot of people. If I had been down there with any humans, they all would have died. If that happened, we’d be the first to close our doors.”
“Or I would have.”
“We wouldn’t need to be told. We care about each other. All of the workers would be compensated.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what happened to you growing up to make you so distrustful of others, but you need to be more open-minded.” Nessa hadn’t meant her voice to rise to a near shout, but she hated people who were prejudiced. “Dragons shifters are everywhere on Tarradon. Some good. Some bad.”
Kyle held up his palms. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just that a dragon shifter abused my sister, Lily, horribly. It’s where my distrust stems from.”
“Well, I’ve been treated poorly by humans and dark lighters, but that doesn’t mean I hate all of them. Okay, maybe I do hate the dark lighters since they are born to be evil, but not all humans are bad.”
He leaned closer, and her pulse soared, forcing Nessa to step back to put some distance between them.
“My sister wasn’t just treated poorly, she was badly scarred,” he said, his voice elevating.
Nessa stilled. “Emotionally or physically?”
“Both. She dated a man who she thought was the love of her life. He was good looking, strong, smart, and had a great job. Then one day, he lost his patience and accused her of things that were completely untrue. Back then, Lily wasn’t one to fight back.”
“What did she do?”
“She walked away from him.”
“Good for her.”
“That’s when the motherfucker shot fire at her back and scorched her from shoulder to waist.”
Nessa sucked in a breath and almost grabbed his hand to console him. “She could have been killed from a burn that size.”
Nessa had been harmed once by a dragon’s fire when her back was turned, but with the help of Declan, the injury had been quickly reversed. She’d never forget the excruciating pain before he arrived to help her though. Even her dragon had struggled to cure her.
“It almost did kill her. I don’t think I slept for weeks. Between my job and tending to my sister, life became a blur.”
He loves her. Okay, she hadn’t seen that coming. Maybe Fate did know what he or she was doing when she’d paired the two of them together. “How is she now?” Nessa asked, keeping her tone soft.
His lip curled. “How do you expect? It’s been three years, but she rarely dates. For the most part, except for when she needs to be out and about for her job, she doesn’t leave her apartment.”
This time Nessa placed a hand on his arm to give him some comfort, and that one touch caused her scales to glow. She immediately lowered her hand. “I’m sorry.”
Kyle glanced away. “So am I. You can see why dragons aren’t my family’s favorite creatures.” He chuckled.
He considered her a creature? Or was that merely a figure of speech? “Do you think all dragons are bad?” Nessa was pleased that she didn’t sound too accusatory.
He returned his gaze to her and held her trapped in its intensity for several seconds. “I don’t know.”
Not the response she was hoping for. “Do you think the men who flew out of here to help those in need in Grindale province are bad?”
He shook his head. “You’re twisting my words.”
Was she? She didn’t need to get into an argument with him. “Keep watching the tapes. I need to talk to the men who’ve elected to stay.”
Without waiting for him to respond, she rushed out.
Kyle’s head swam with confusion. He’d spent his life battling his prejudices. When his dad walked out on him, his mom, and Lily, Kyle had decided at the ripe age of seven that marriage wasn’t for him. Then, when he was nine, several large men, who he later learned were dragon shifters, evicted the three of them from their trailer for not paying their rent for two months. At the time, he thought that was terrible and that the government should help instead of forcing them to live in a tent. He later learned his mom had been too strung out to apply for any kind of aid. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that when Lily started dating Nelor, Kyle was not happy with her choice. Unfortunately, his innocent younger sister was a romantic, and Nelor knew just what to say and do to convince her that he was the perfect man.
Kyle’s fists clenched at how he’d held his tongue and stood by while Lily blissfully fell for the asshole. She’d told him that Nelor had shoved her once, but that she’d deserved it. Kyle had tried to explain that no one deserved to be treated with disrespect. Unfortunately, his brotherly advice fell on her deaf ears, and no matter what he said or did, Lily defended the man until the day he used his deadly dragon fire and burned her. Now, his sister was damaged both inside and out.
Kyle probably shouldn’t have told Nessa dragons were terrible. After all, the entire crew had spent tireless hours digging in an unstable pit until they found her. Humans would have assumed the person was dead and abandoned the effort. Then there was the call to action regarding the flood victims. He’d never seen anything like it—or rather never heard about that kind of fast response.
Wanting to learn more about the disaster, Kyle yanked out his cell to check on the story of the broken dam. It didn’t take long to find coverage. He stared at what appeared to be a swarm of black birds scooping up people and then carrying them to safety. While the rescue would be unnerving for the victim, the terror would be short-lived once that person was deposited in a safe and dry location.
Okay, maybe a few dragons were good, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be cautious.
“This just in,” said the commentator. “We have footage of someone sneaking into the turbine room carrying what is believed to be explosives in his backpack. The former dam worker, Jax Delinia, had been laid off two weeks before and allegedly wanted retribution. The dragon shifter is now in custody.”
Great. Another bad dragon shifter. At least the culprit had been identified.
Enough playing around. Needing to tackle this job, Kyle returned to watching the tape feed from the room that contained the explosives. He was just about to press the play button to cycle through a few more days, when he noticed a man with his back pressed to the side of a building on one of the live feed screens. Kyle leaned forward to study the slightly blurred image. The man, whose face was averted from the camera, appeared to have something in his hand, but Kyle couldn’t tell what it was. Perhaps it was the story of the dam that made him think something bad was about to go down.
The man tugged on a locked door, kicked it, and when it didn’t budge, he moved down the building and tested each entrance. Okay, this wasn’t good. Needing to report this, Kyle slipped out of the monitoring room to find Vic. Unfortunately, neither Vic nor anyone else was around.
That left Nessa. Once outside, he looked for her, but the whole place seemed to be abandoned. Great. He wasn’t about to stand by and let this guy do damage to Caspian property. Kyle hopped in his car and headed in the direction of the building where he’d spotted the man on camera. Thankfully, someone had labeled each of the monitors to indicate where the camera was pointed. The map of the complex on the wall across from the monitors told him all he needed to know.
Kyle suspected the man was long gone, but just in case he wasn’t, Kyle parked a couple hundred feet away and headed in on foot. While he wasn’t trained to take down intruders, he had grown up on the streets and learned to fight the hard way. He already had a broken nose, a broken jaw, and a few stab wounds to prove it.
Learning the art of stealth during his troubled youth, Kyle darted toward the building and pressed his back against the side. He could only hope that Vic wasn’t back in the room to see him.
A slight shuffling sound caught his attention, but a quick scan of the area showed no one was near. Darn. As Kyle made his way down the length of the sixty-foot long building that housed equipment, he listened for more movement but found none. Perhaps Nessa or one of the crew had sent this man to retrieve something, and he’d come and gone.
Even though Kyle relaxed a bit, he stopped right before he rounded the corner, and then glanced around it but spotted no one. Oh, well. As soon as he completed a full sweep, he’d return to the office, find Nessa, and tell her what he’d seen. Kyle walked down the last side of the building, and right before he’d reached the end, he felt a pain the size of Tarradon crash down on his head. When his face hit the dirt, darkness surrounded him as he passed out.