Chapter Twenty-Three
Anna
She pounded furiously on the sides of the cocoon, trying to break the ice, but it was useless. The structure wasn’t solid; she could hear what was going on outside with ease.
The thunderous shrieks of beings far bigger than human were both terrifying and intriguing. Could they actually come from dragons? She’d harbored some serious doubts on that claim, but obviously something was going on out there. The titanic crashes and ground-shaking impacts were more than the battlesuits could ever hope to produce, weren’t they?
She had to get out. The cocoon was like an egg, encasing her, keeping her protected from the outside world. She had to break through to see what was happening. Anna hurled her body at one wall. Nothing happened besides the shell rocking back and forth slightly. While she waited for it to come to a halt an idea came to her.
Once again Anna ran at the wall. The ice-egg rocked forward with the impact. As it rolled back upright Anna ran at the other side. She went back and forth, until the cocoon was rocking wildly. Finally she screamed out loud and jumped at the far wall. The shell toppled over and shattered on the floor, spilling her out dangerously close to a wall.
She looked over her shoulder and slumped backward, but a crackling of energy stopped her at the last moment. Pulling back into a sitting position, she truly looked at what was behind her. It was no wall at all. It was the energy field she’d seen upon first walking into the cavern. Nervously she scurried away from it.
It buzzed and crackled, bolts of pure energy zipping across it from time to time.
“Don’t scare a girl like that,” she muttered, throwing a piece of ice at it.
To her astonishment the ice hit the field and simply disappeared.
“Oookay, I didn’t take any drugs today, but I need to lay off them anyway.” Turning her back on the field, she came to a halt again. She blinked several times, then rubbed her eyes, then pinched her arm.
“Holy shit, he’s a dragon.”
In the far corner of the massive cavern two behemoth scaled monstrosities battled for supremacy. One was as white as fresh snow on a sunny day, the other a beautiful shade of green, scales glittering like polished gemstones.
And they were fighting each other. She watched the white dragon close its jaws around the other’s nose…its snout? And shake it violently. The long neck of the dragon allowed it to truly whip it back and forth. Anna winced as the green dragon’s head impacted off the wall, then was driven into it twice more by Caine’s tail. That had to hurt.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
She turned at the sound of the voice and screamed.
“What?” The black-clad figure looked down at himself. “Oh, right.” The external armor retreated from the person’s face. “My name is Thorne. I’m with the Steel Scales. We’re friends of Caine’s. Are you okay?”
She nodded jerkily, still moving slightly backward. “Are you a dragon too?”
The man’s long blond hair bounced around as he returned the nod. “Yes.”
A black battlesuit came up to them. “They’ve all surrendered,” the suit’s occupant pouted.
Anna gasped as she realized the operator was female.
“This is Carla, my mate.”
“Your what?”
“My mate. My soulmate. We are bound together. Like you and Caine.”
The battlesuit clunked its fist over Thorne’s head. “You idiot,” Carla said from inside. “She didn’t know that yet. Caine has yet to tell her. Way to spoil it.” The suit shifted, and Anna got the distinct impression that Carla was now looking directly at her. “Sorry for him, he’s an idiot. But Caine’s coming anyway.” The suit pointed behind her.
Anna spun to see the white dragon, looking exhausted and weakened, stumble across the battlefield. As it closed it shrank rapidly, until it was Caine coming closer to her. Anna ran forward and embraced him. “Are you okay?” she cried out, helping him as he sank to the ground.
“I will be. Just. Exhausted.” He needed to breathe between the words.
She held him tight. “I’m glad that wasn’t goodbye,” she told him, stroking his hands.
“Me too. Because right now this is heavenly, which is as close as I plan to get to it for a long, long time.” He nuzzled in tighter to her.
“I believe you, by the way.”
He looked up from where his head was resting on her chest. “About what?”
“That you’re a dragon. I believe it.”
Caine laughed, then winced. “All it took was seeing me go up against another dragon for you to believe, was it? Should have told me that earlier.” He started to laugh again, but subsided when his face clenched tight in pain.
“Hush,” she urged, not wanting him to aggravate his wounds. “There’s one other thing I wanted to tell you.”
“There is?” Caine very carefully didn’t move. She could feel him stiffening.
“I…” she faltered. “Caine, I’ve not had a great life. I haven’t had many examples of positive, well, anything, until you came along. You’ve shown me so much. You’ve opened my eyes to the world and made me realize that there is good in it. That people aren’t just using others to get what they want.” She was tearing up, but she pushed on. “My world has been forever changed in the past few weeks because of you, and that was before you told me what you are. I’ve never met anyone so selfless, honest, trusting, and caring as you. I have no real example of it, but I’m pretty damn positive this is what love is supposed to feel like.”
Anna sniffled. “So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I love you, Caine.”
The big dragon shifter sat up so that he could look her directly in the eyes.
“I love you too, Anna. With all my being.”
“Does that mean I’m your mate?”
He jerked. “How did you know about that?”
“Uh, one of the other dragons mentioned it by accident.”
Caine glared around. “Which one?”
“I don’t know.” It was a lie. They both knew it.
Her dragon—and dammit he was hers and she wasn’t giving him up—sighed. “Yes, though I’d hoped to tell you myself. But we dragons only mate once. For life. You are mine. I wanted to tell you long ago. I knew it from the first day I saw you, but I couldn’t tell you how it meant we were bound together. I needed you to fall in love with me on your own.”
“I did.”
Caine’s smile swelled her heart to bursting.
Anna pulled him in close and kissed him, ignoring the sounds all around them as Caine’s friends gathered up all the survivors. Right now she needed a moment for the two of them, and no one else.
They parted for air eventually, and she brushed Caine’s hair back from his face, careful of the cuts on his head, even as they were already healing.
“Caine.”
They both looked up as Vanek came over, accompanied by Colonel Mara.
“Yes?”
“Come with me. You need to hear this.”
She exchanged glances with Caine, and then together they got up and followed as Vanek led them over to where the green dragon was pinned to the wall by a layer of ice.