Chapter Four
Kase
His truck shook to a halt, gravel rumbling underneath as he stopped in front of his country house. Ignoring the other vehicle parked in the driveway, he slammed the door shut, forgetting to rein in his strength. The metal door warped upon impact.
“Great,” he snarled, even more pissed off and flustered than before. “Good job, Kase.” Now he’d have to use his other truck until he got that one fixed.
There was a reason he had multiple vehicles. It was extremely easy as a shifter, especially a dragon shifter, to forget just how strong you were compared to the world around you. Even the slightest urge to clench his fist could result in breaking something that would have laughed off a human’s attempts to hurt it.
Apparently, it’s also easy to forget who you are. What you are. Or where.
Flashbacks of his nightmare episode at Fort Banner came and went. A low rumble from deep in the back of his throat was the only external sign besides a flexing and unflexing of his upper body. Although his mind was starting to shut on and off without his permission, the contents of it were still rigorously organized and filed. Shifters had excellent control of their brains and memories.
It made dealing with incidents such as the one he’d caused easier to bear. Over the course of a millennia of life, things happened. That was too much time to spend dwelling over it. Kase had set up funds for the humans he’d hurt and their families, ensuring they were well taken care of and would have the absolute best medical care in their recovery. There was nothing else he could do for them.
Now he had to do it all for him. He needed to buckle down, fight the illness spreading through his brain, and retake complete control of himself.
Otherwise the asshole standing in his doorway was going to end his life to protect everyone else. Including Michelle.
“Hello, Kase.”
“Jerrik,” he grumbled. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
The existence of the dragon enclave was a closely guarded secret known by very few humans, and its location known by none. The tiny, neutral country that had been allowed to form in between the mountain ranges was home to a great many dragons, relative to their overall population, of course.
With that in mind, the enclave had assigned nearly twenty dragons to act as Magistrates to local communities, effectively splitting the country up into jurisdictions. The Magistrates oversaw the affairs of dragons, and the few other shifters allowed into their homeland. Jerrik was the local Magistrate.
“I came to check in on you,” he said lazily. “That is my job, you know. For once things are rather calm. You’re my only problem child right now.”
“Oh, yay. Lucky me, extra attention. Just what I always wanted. Now if you could just go back and tell my mother that,” he snapped, moving to push past Jerrik and go inside.
The big man moved to block his path.
Kase snarled, his eyes glowing silver.
Jerrik’s went pitch black, the onyx dragon not afraid of him. “I’m not here to fight you. Nor to yell at you. I’m here to ask you how your meeting with your mate went.”
“Are you serious?” Kase shouted, turning and stomping away. “Does everyone know that she’s my mate? It was supposed to be a secret.”
The Magistrate snorted. “If you say so, K. Do you have any idea how few dragons try to act like they don’t want mates? Word gets around.”
“I’m not acting,” he snapped, still hovering on the edge of striking Jerrik. It would be a terrible idea, and probably bring Coltaine, the Head Magistrate and a certified badass, down on his head. All that would be left then was a pile of cinders. The nine-hundred-year-old fire dragon did not have much in the way of patience for stupidity, which was precisely what striking Jerrik would be.
“You are acting,” Jerrik fired back. “We both know it.”
“No, I’m not. I don’t need one. I’m fine on my own.”
“Really? Because to me it sounds like you’re trying to prove something.” The anger was gone. Now Jerrik was challenging him, calling him out and daring him to respond.
So Kase did.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Jerrik said slowly, walking across the gravel entryway until he was standing at his side, “that if you weren’t trying to prove something, then you wouldn’t feel the need to go through your life without a mate. You’d be perfectly happy to take her, and enjoy the life the two of you will create together. Simply by saying that you’re okay without her shows that you aren’t, Kase. That you’re trying to prove a point that you don’t need to prove.”
Kase growled. “What the hell are you getting at, Jerrik?”
“Go see her. Seriously, go see her again. Spend time with her. Let her into your life. I cannot stress that enough. Stop pushing her away, and this time try letting her in. You’ve done the solo thing. It’s not working, and we both know you can’t afford another outburst like what happened at Fort Banner.”
He looked away, ashamed of himself for what he’d done. Kase still couldn’t believe he’d actually imagined Outsiders, creating them out of nothing. What if it happened again? What if he had another episode while she was around? That wasn’t something Kase could live with, and he’d be happy for the meeting with Coltaine if he ever harmed Michelle. At that point he would welcome death. Anything was better than knowing that he’d hurt—or, even worse, killed—his mate.
Kase might have kept a physical distance from her, but he’d never stopped loving her. That was precisely why he couldn’t take Jerrik’s advice. If he loved her, he had to keep her safe, no matter the cost to himself. That was a burden he was willing to bear.
“No,” he said quietly. “I can’t. I already saw her today, and it was bad.”
“If you don’t, the next meeting you have is with Coltaine, and he’s gonna be pissed about coming out here. You know that, right?”
“That’s my problem, Jerrik. Not yours.”
The other shifter lost his cool. “No, it’s not, Kase! Don’t you get it? Your actions impact others.”
“Goodbye, Jerrik. Thanks for coming out.” He moved around Jerrik and headed for his door.
“Give me your phone.”
Kase pulled up. “What? Why?”
“Because as the local Magistrate I order you to, for starters, since that seems to be the only way you’ll actually listen.” Jerrik shook his head. “I wanted to come out here as a friend, but if you don’t want any of those either, then I’m going to have to do this the official way. Your phone. Now.”
“What are you going to do to it?”
“Put a tracking program on it that you can’t delete,” he said simply. “So that way I can monitor your whereabouts.”
“I could just leave my phone here.”
“I already put one in your other truck, and I’ll be adding another tracker to the truck you just busted.” Jerrik glared. “I’m not doing this because I want to, Kase. Don’t fight me on it. It won’t end well for you.”
He wanted to snap at the other man, to tell him to fuck the hell off, but Jerrik was right. This was something he was going to have to live with. Kase had brought it upon himself when he’d attacked the battlesuits. Now he would just have to adhere to the rules around him.
Pulling out his phone, he gave it to Jerrik, watching as the Magistrate plugged something into it, tapped some buttons, waited, tapped a few more, and then waited a bit. The phone beeped and he pulled the unit out. “I’ll know if you fiddle with it,” he said quietly. “Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be. I don’t enjoy doing this either.”
“Then don’t.”
“I gave you your choice,” Jerrik said in that same quiet, disappointed voice that hurt more than being shouted at. “I gave you the chance to go see her again, and you said no. Now I have to make sure I can find you, for when things go bad again.” He gave the phone back.
Kase slipped it into his pocket, saying nothing. His mind was fixated on the last sentence Jerrik had said. For when things go bad again.
“You don’t believe I can do this,” he said.
“I’m not old by our standards, Kase. But after nearly four hundred years, you see some things. You’re not the first Quick to try to do this themselves. You won’t be the first to fail, either. It’s just a matter of time before you become a danger to those around you.” He walked past him.
Kase stood there.
Jerrik spoke over his shoulder as he headed for his truck. “Go see her, Kase. Otherwise you’re going to be in trouble.”
Rage as red as blood colored his vision. Kase spun, hurling a solid bowling ball-sized chunk of quicksilver at Jerrik. The other shifter was caught entirely unawares, thrown forward and down. Quicker than any human could move, he ducked into a roll, twisted and came up, extending a palm toward Kase.
A blast of acid struck him in the chest with more pressure than a riot-control hose. Kase barely had time to cover himself in quicksilver before he was flung backward, through a wooden pole that supported the awning over his front door, and then impacting upon the side of the log-cabin house itself.
He rebounded off, hit the ground and lay still, agony spreading out from his chest as the acid ate away at him, burning through his protection.
Jerrik took several steps toward him, stopped, waved his hand. The acid dissipated, leaving behind the wounds, which started to heal almost instantly. They weren’t deep—an hour or two and he’d be fine.
“I didn’t enjoy that,” Jerrik said softly. He walked over to Kase’s truck with the warped door, fiddled with it, then got in his own vehicle and headed out.
Kase just lay there in pain, staring up at the ceiling of the wooden awning, wondering why the universe was conspiring against him. All he wanted to do was live his life his own way. Is that too much to ask? The answer to that seemed to be a resounding “Yes”.
What was he going to do now?