Chapter Five
Corde
He used the delay caused by the thrown grabber to close the rest of the distance between him, Kylie, Jose, and his thugs.
“No,” Kylie said as he slowed his approach. “There’s no problem here. It’s okay. Jose’s friends were just leaving.”
It was a blatant lie, and an attempt to disarm the situation before it got any worse. Corde admired that, and after the look he’d received for dumping Jose on his ass the day before, decided to work with it. Nonviolence was tough for him. He was a warrior at heart, and right now the seven of them were threatening his mate. He wondered if Kylie knew just how much restraint he was exercising by talking first and not leading with his fists. Probably not at all, since she didn’t know he was a dragon—yet—but that didn’t matter. Respecting her wishes was what mattered.
“Ah, all right then. Bring your kid to work day, I like it.”
“Corde,” Kylie said warningly.
“You think this is funny, tough guy?” Jose said, turning his attention to Corde.
“Not really. Seven of you picking on one woman? No, I don’t find anything funny about that at all. Just let it be, Jose, and let’s get back to work.” He gritted his teeth, hating himself for what he was about to say. “Sorry for dumping you on your ass yesterday.” There, he said it.
It wasn’t that Corde was incapable of talking, of resolving his problems. He’d done so on several occasions. Admittedly, they were all when he was severely outnumbered or outclassed and knew it, but still, he had experience doing it, and that was what counted. He could use that now to his advantage to solve this problem without resorting to violence. It would make Kylie proud of him.
Jose stared at him slightly bug-eyed for a moment, before bursting into laughter. “You hear that?” he asked his gang between laughs. “He’s sorry. Big, tall, and a wuss. Apologizing so I don’t beat his ass right here and now.”
Stiffly he cast a look at Kylie. “You still want this solved nonviolently, right?”
“Yes, of course! There’s no need to fight,” she said, giving him a long regard, wondering if he was serious.
“You heard the lady,” Corde said to Jose and his group, who were still laughing. “Let’s do this peacefully. You lot all leave, Jose stays to do his work, and we’ll call it a deal. Nobody gets hurt, okay?”
“If you keep it up, you’re going to get hurt,” Jose hissed, waving his knife in Corde’s direction.
Turning back to Kylie, he clarified the situation. “If they swing at me first, will you hold it against me if I deal with them?”
The gang was all laughing and pointing at him again, clearly unconcerned about what one guy could do to them. Kylie was looking at him wide-eyed, and for a moment he wondered if she’d even heard him.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?” she said at last.
“If Cranky Jose and his backup dancers here swing first, will you be mad at me if I deal with them all?”
She shook her head, clearly not believing how he could be so calm when they were waving guns and knives in his face with a seven-to-one advantage. Corde desperately wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t. Not yet, she was already on the edge.
“I…guess not? Probably not?” she said, shaking her head some more. “Though I suppose that depends on how you handle it.”
Corde nodded once and faced Jose. “Okay, please leave, Jose. I’ll work hard enough to cover for both of us today, Kylie will sign off on the sheet to indicate so, and we’ll call it a day. Deal?”
All he got was more laughter and mockery. His anger was reaching a boiling point now. The muscles around his neck began to knot and he stood up straight, looming over Jose, letting a little fire dance in his eyes.
“You sure you want to do this, Jose? What will it take for you to leave now, peacefully?”
He’d intended the question to be for the leader, but one of the others spoke up. “We ain’t leaving until this bitch is taught a lesson. You don’t speak to none of us that way, got it?” He waved his knife menacingly in Kylie’s direction.
“Does insulting you count as the first punch?” he asked Kylie pleadingly.
“No,” she said sternly.
“That’s right, pussy, ask your bitch for permission some more,” one of the other thugs called, feeling empowered.
Corde was about ready to lose his cool. He took deep breaths, trying to force his muscles to relax. He could do this. A peaceful solution could be found. Turning back, he opened his mouth to tell Jose that. Instead, he received a gob of spit to the face, some of it catching his lip and falling into his mouth.
“Corde, wait!” Kylie shouted, her call freezing him in position. “Don’t do it.”
He spat to the side, then slowly reached forward, and grabbed Jose’s shirt. He lifted it to his face, wiping away the spit, uncaring that the shirt ripped.
“You ripped my fucking shirt, motherfucker,” Jose snarled.
Behind him the gang spread out. Corde’s eyes looked back and forth, but none of the two he’d identified with guns had reached for them.
“Kylie, if they go for the guns, that’s it.”
“They won’t. The police are on their way. They’ll be here shortly and it’ll be over.”
Corde shivered as he kept his anger restrained, fighting against every instinct, urge, and desire in his body to wipe the floor with the arrogant pricks.
The lengths I will go for you, my mate. Anyone else on this planet would not have held such power over me. But for you, I will resist even this greatest of insults.
“Fucking pussy,” Jose spat toward Kylie. “We’re gonna fuck you up after we’re done with him.”
He held his knife out toward Corde, and his other hand lifted his sweatshirt to reveal a pistol.
“Go for it, and you will regret it,” he told the other man calmly.
Jose sneered at him and dipped his hand into his waistband. At the same time his gang reached for their weapons and advanced on him.
“As you wish.” And he kicked him just below his stomach where the gun was held in place by the waistband.
The thug howled as the gun went off, hitting him in the foot even as he was flung backward, impacting another of his gang. The two dropped limply, but Corde didn’t stick around to watch. He charged forward, aiming for the other gun-wielder. This one was already out and swinging around to point at Corde.
Unfortunately for the youth holding it, his opponent wasn’t human, and didn’t give him any more time. Corde slashed in amongst the gang. One giant hand closed over the pistol, pointed at the ground, and then he head-butted the thug, dropping the white-undershirt-clad human to the ground.
A fist smacked into his back. Corde whirled, looming up over the human as he shook his mangled fist and cursed. His shirt hid the dragonbone armor that arose to thwart such attacks, but the man’s fist sure had felt it.
“That wasn’t very nice,” he admonished, then grabbed the man by his throat and belt and whirled him around into the next attacker who was trying to sneak up on him with a knife.
Both went tumbling backward over the ground, leaving patches of skin on the parking lot asphalt as they went. Corde winced. “That’s going to leave a mark.”
There were only two left on their feet now, and neither of them showed any interest in approaching. He could have let them go, but that just wasn’t his style. Especially now that he’d been patient and hadn’t initiated the violence. Kylie would be proud of him for showing such restraint.
Advancing on one of the two, he pointed his finger at him. “You threatened my—” he caught himself just in time. “Kylie. You threatened Kylie. Apologize. Now.”
More fire played in his eyes now, hopefully intimidating him.
“F-F-Fuck you,” the thug stammered out.
“Idiot.” Corde rolled his eyes, shot forward abruptly, and leveled the tough guy with a lightning-quick one-two punch combination to his stomach.
The man bent over, alternating between emptying his stomach and gasping for air that wouldn’t come.
“Fuck this,” the last one said, turning to run for one of the cars.
“Nobody gets away,” Corde snarled, reaching down and snatching up a piece of broken asphalt.
He tossed it in his hand once, then let fly. It hit square between the shoulder blades of the fleeing punk, throwing him off balance. Corde winced as he stumbled and fell face-first into the side of the gray car with a loud Thunk! The now-limp body slid to the ground after that.
Corde spun in a circle, a huge grin on his face. “Look at that. I did it, Kylie. I took care of all of them without killing anyone this time!”
He was mightily impressed with himself. Even in the fight he’d managed to show restraint. Broken bones and concussions were numerous, sure, but he judged that every single one of them would survive the encounter with Corde the dragon. Not many humans had been able to say that in the past. Maybe he was turning over a new leaf!
“This time?”
He swung back around to face his mate, grin dying as he took in her stunned reaction to his words.
“Pardon?”
“You haven’t killed anyone this time?” she gaped at him.
Oh. Shit.
“Ah, that’s not what I meant,” he stuttered, trying to save a situation that was sinking faster than the first boat he’d ever sailed upon. “It was just an expression, a turn of phrase, you know?”
She didn’t believe him. “I bet.”
He sighed and took a step toward her. “Look, Kylie, that’s not how it sounded.”
It was exactly how it sounded.
“I was just proud of myself for not seriously injuring anyone.”
Kylie took a step back before leaning to the side to view the groaning pile of bodies he’d left in his wake. “Right. Most of them are unconscious, some with broken bones, but you didn’t seriously injure anyone.”
He watched her ultra-long hair drape itself back across her body, trying not to get distracted by the smooth lines of her body that the strands clung to as she straightened.
“Exactly. I could have done worse. You saw how easy that was for me.”
She was missing the entire point. He’d saved her! Protected her and come to her rescue. Who knows what they would have done to her if he hadn’t been there. Corde shuddered at the thought. It wasn’t pleasant.
“I did notice. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. How did you do that, Corde?”
He looked away. “A lot of practice.”
“You fight a lot?”
Grimacing he nodded. “It was…required…of me, I guess you might say.” He dared not go into more detail than that. Not yet, at least. In time he would tell her everything, about where he came from, and how it was different then. That he wasn’t a bad person. His world was just very unlike hers, that was all.
“You should get back to work,” she said at last. “The police will be here soon. You’ll have to answer some questions but I’ll tell them you were just defending me.”
“I was.”
“What?”
“I was defending you,” he said fiercely. “If they had come at me, I wouldn’t have waited nearly as long before dealing with them. I did that for you.”
Kylie didn’t seem to know what to think.
On the far side of the parking lot the first police car arrived. Corde waited as close to her side as she would allow while it came near, hoping desperately that he wasn’t going back to jail.
He’d already fucked up with Kylie. If Colonel Mara had to get involved again, he would be even more screwed.
How had it all gone south? He’d worked so hard to do it Kylie’s way, but in the end, he’d still screwed up, driving a wedge further between them than before. This was supposed to have brought them closer.
Maybe it was just his destiny to always be lacking what was needed. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that he’d been pushed away for doing the right thing. He’d just never expected it would be his mate doing the pushing.