Chapter Eight
Kase
His shriek echoed out into the mountains, ringing back to him over and over again, until it finally faded into the distance.
Kase spread his giant wings, moving higher into the sky, toward the peak of the mountain. The huge chromium membrane wings flexed and rose constantly, the ground spiraling away underneath as he flew around the mountain while ascending it. The top was covered in clouds, but he didn’t let that stop him.
Eventually, the ledge he’d carved into the top came into view, and he swooped in for a landing, folding his wings in at his side as he dropped into the stone outcropping. He often came up here at night when he needed to think, or to be alone with his emotions.
Tonight was one of those nights. After getting home from the lab, he’d gone into the woods to take out his anger. Dead tree after dead tree fell to his quicksilver axe, the trunks exploding under his mighty blows. On some it only took him a single powerful chop, while the bigger ones took a few more. In the end, though, they all came down.
After an hour of that, he went back and started hacking the downed trunks into smaller pieces that he could haul back to his house to split. Eventually darkness had fallen on him, and he’d returned to the house briefly, only to take to the sky and head for his favorite roost.
Kase was pissed. Violently so, even now after hours of hacking away at dead wood that couldn’t fight back. There was nothing else for him to take his rage out on now, though, besides himself, and the more he’d worked himself into a fury, the more he had begun to feel himself slipping away.
Up here he could concentrate on the calm. On peace and tranquility. The clouds obscured his view of just about everything, allowing him to sit back onto his powerful haunches and ignore the world below.
“Come back, they said,” he snapped, mocking his friends with a high-pitched whiny voice. “It’ll be good for you, they said. See your mate, she’ll keep you sane, they said.”
He snorted, not for the first time wishing he were a fire dragon and could just burn something with his power. What I wouldn’t give for that right now.
Of course, if he were a fire dragon, he wouldn’t be fighting for his sanity and trying to prove to the world that he could make do on his own. If Kase were a fire dragon, he’d be happily mated to Michelle. They might even have a child or two by now, if he hadn’t been forced to distance himself from her.
He was a quicksilver dragon, though, and there was no point in dreaming about what might have been. No, he needed to focus on reality, and the reality was, he’d fucked up big time. All he should’ve done was what he’d told Molly to put in her letters to Michelle. That he was there to potentially invest, and he needed to spend time with her and the other members—though mostly her.
Instead of keeping it business, however, he’d gone and inserted himself back into her life, after so rudely ripping his way out of it all those years earlier. How she could even begin to think of forgiving him baffled Kase, but he put it down to the power of two mates, and their ability to overcome just about anything.
“You’re an idiot,” he growled, eyeing the snow-covered slope below him. Although he wasn’t an Ice dragon, the coolness was just as home to a Quick as it was their frigid brethren. Unfortunately, it couldn’t numb his pain.
Kase was hurting, because he knew that he would have to do it all over again. He couldn’t stay with Michelle. Although he didn’t believe he needed her help to fight himself, he couldn’t risk putting her in harm’s way. Which was precisely why he was pissed. By letting himself not only flirt, but kiss her, he’d pulled her right back into his own personal hell.
There was no way she would ever forgive him for what he knew he had to do.
Wings flapped in the night sky. Kase looked around alertly, taking a moment to pinpoint where the sound was coming from in the clouds. The mist made it harder to track the movements, especially when the owner of the wings decided to glide for a bit to stay silent.
Suddenly, there was a flurry of sound and a pitch-black shape came hurtling out of the sky to his right. Kase launched himself off the edge of his roost, wings spread wide as he dove at the same angle as the slope, trying to pick up speed as the other dragon sliced through the space he’d just occupied.
“Relax,” came Jerrik’s voice from above.
Kase pulled back on his wings, suddenly angling up even as they began to stroke powerfully, bringing him back up to level with the platform. A gigantic shadow of pitch black occupied almost half the ledge, yellow eyes looking out at him, dancing with laughter as he came back in to stand on the other side, hissing to show his displeasure.
“What the hell are you doing here, Jerrik?”
“I’ve been tracking your movements today. You spent a lot of time at the lab, and then you came home and haven’t stopped moving. When you shifted, your signal was lost.” He stopped talking for a moment. “There’s probably something to be said about that, you know. I should tell some of our scientists. Maybe they can come up with an explanation of just where our clothing and anything on us goes when we shift.”
“They’ve tried,” Kase muttered. “It’s like nothing happens to it. It just sits there. Wherever “there” is. No sensors have ever returned data. Do some research.”
“My, you’re testy today,” Jerrik said, laughing. “What went wrong?”
“Everything,” he snarled, quicksilver dripping from his jaws to spatter against the rock below, hissing and popping as it melted the stone. “Now speak your piece and then leave.”
Jerrik ignored the outburst. “I wanted to come remind you that you’re confined to my territory, Kase. You can’t leave.”
“Why does everyone think I’m becoming senile?” he complained. “I’m not an idiot.”
“This mountain is technically not in my jurisdiction,” Jerrik said with a shrug.
“My house is right down there.” He pointed with a wing toward the base of the next mountain over.
“And the divider runs right between these two mountains.”
“Well too fucking bad. This is my roost, which you’re so impolitely occupying, and if I need to come up here to be alone, I will.”
“I’m not here to arrest you. Just reminding you not to go anywhere else without my permission. You stay here until you’re judged fit to return to duty, Kase. Got it?” Until then, Jerrik had been friendly and conversational. Now his voice hardened, and he spoke with the authority of the Magistrates.
Kase knew better than to fuck with that. “Yeah, I got it. Like I said, I’m not an idiot.”
The onyx dragon didn’t reply, just slipped from the edge and disappeared into the clouds below, where even Kase’s ultra-sharp night vision couldn’t pick him out. In frustration, Kase spat a gob of quicksilver down the mountain. It was extremely unlikely to hit Jerrik, but miracles had happened before.
He didn’t bother to listen for a response. Already his mind was shifting to what Jerrik had said. He was stuck here. I’m on fucking probation. What a joke!
If he had to stick around this area, though, he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself from seeing Michelle. Whether by choice or the pull of his dragon, he would end up seeing her again, he knew that. And every time he did, he would put her in more danger. Only once he’d fixed himself, could he begin to consider bringing her into his life.
So if Kase couldn’t go anywhere, that meant Michelle had to go. It pained him to have to do this, but it was for her own good. His mate needed to be kept safe at all costs, and being in the same vicinity as him was most certainly not a way to keep her safe.
Carrying the heavy burden of responsibility, he pushed off from the ledge and dropped into the clouds like a stone. Angling himself away from the slope he fell just far enough to keep from impacting it, but otherwise he simply went down, without bothering to slow himself.
Once he cleared the clouds below, he angled to the side, making a beeline for his house. He barely slowed himself down, hitting the ground hard, accepting the pain as part of his penance for what he was about to do. It was the absolute least he deserved. Death would almost be more preferable.
Shifting, he went inside and sat himself at his computer, typing up a letter. His fingers moved slowly and methodically, but they never stopped. It only took him one draft to say what he needed to say. He printed it, and also emailed a copy to Molly, so she would know what was going on.
Then he grabbed the gear he would need and headed off into the night, hoping that Jerrik would refrain from interfering with him. This needed to be done, for Michelle’s sake. The drive was long, and heavy of heart, but eventually he pulled up outside the same building he’d fled earlier in the day.
Knowing that if he went ahead with his actions it would be tantamount to admitting his own issues caused Kase to hesitate outside the lab. Just like he’d hesitated five years ago. “Be strong. Everything you do, you do for her. She can’t protect herself, least of all from you, so you have to be strong for her. To do what must be done, and to bear the burden yourself.
Gritting his teeth Kase taped the letter to the door and went inside. He’d found the strength once, he could find it again. Moving to her computer he used a login that nobody knew existed that gave him access to the entire system. He was, after all, the one who paid for everything, it shouldn’t be shocking.
He put down a hefty case that he’d lugged in with him and plugged it in. Backing up all the files to his own storage drives would take a few hours, but he wouldn’t be sleeping that night anyway.
Now when all he could think about was how pathetic it was that he couldn’t find another solution, a better solution.
Maybe in the future I can make this right to her.
Please forgive me Michelle, I’m doing this for you. I just wish I could tell you why, so you’d understand that I had no choice. There can’t be anything left that will keep you here.