Chapter Twenty
Kaitlyn
When he didn’t immediately answer her question, Kaitlyn became more positive than ever that she wasn’t hallucinating, that she hadn’t misheard the others speaking when she’d first entered the massive cavern. Nor had she imagined what was on the viewing screen on the banks of equipment just to the left of the opening, where she’d stood unobtrusively for a solid two or three minutes before her mouth had been unable to stay silent, gasping in shock at it all.
A battle had been fought here, and recently. She could smell the smoke in the air still, see the burns and gouges on the floor, and even on the walls. Giant talons had marked out a part of the wall, scratched by something definitely nonhuman.
The technicians had been talking about something called Outsiders, and she got the distinct impression they weren’t referring to people who did or did not have access to the base itself. There was something else going on here. There was no immediate sense of danger, so she’d crept closer to the monitor that several scientists had been clustered around, peering at it from the side until she’d gotten her first solid glimpse at the scene.
A massive red dragon had been on the screen, in the very cavern she now set foot in. It was fighting some sort of black…thing. It had whirled around, breathing fire, stomping on its attackers with its feet, and even batted one out of midair with its tail. Kaitlyn had watched in silence, mouth agape as the mythical creature leveled the playing field while the battlesuited humans moved in and finished off the job.
It was only when a blast of energy had arced through the shimmering rectangle that took up most of the cavern floor that she’d lost her cover. The noise had startled her and she’d gasped, taking a step backward. Someone had turned at the noise. Not recognizing her they’d called for guards.
That was when Aric had shown up. Despite how things had been left between them he’d immediately gone into rescue mode, coming at the guards in an attempt to get them to let her go. She felt bad tossing him such a loaded question, but now seemed like the best time to get an answer out of him.
The nearest suit stepped up next to Aric. “Don’t answer that question,” the guard inside the armor said, stopping Aric as he opened his mouth.
Kaitlyn felt the hairs on her arms and neck stand on end as Aric turned to face the battlesuit. He placed a hand on the unit’s torso and her eyes bugged out as electricity surged up and down the humanoid form. Circuits blew and the battlesuit staggered before going dark and toppling over entirely.
Aric stood tall, glaring at the other units, daring any of them to come forward. “I will handle this situation. None of you are needed. You have my word on that. If you doubt it, you’re more than welcome to go bother Colonel Mara. None of you are in my chain of command, but I suspect she will not appreciate the interruption and will respond the way I wish I could.”
What the hell was going on? The command and authority that Aric now spoke with was yet again unlike anything she’d ever heard from him before. His body language and attitude expected obedience from those around him, and she watched in astonishment as he got it. The lead guard, the one who had first seized her, looked back and forth between her, Aric, and then over at the downed suit.
“Get him out of here,” he said, and the other battlesuits picked up their lame comrade and departed. The guard lingered for a few seconds longer. “Don’t make me regret this,” he said, his words directed at Aric. Then he too was gone.
“Well?” she asked impatiently, crossing her arms, still not having forgiven him from earlier.
“Well what?”
“What the hell is going on here? Are dragons real? I saw the video, but it could have been CGI.”
Aric stared back at her, his eyes the calm in the middle of the storm that was the rest of his face. “What if they are?” he asked. “How would you react?”
Something flickered in her head. An idea. Going out on a limb, she tossed another question his way. “Are you a dragon?”
She expected astonishment. Denial. A big flustery reply that would do its best to convince her that she was being preposterous. Possibly all of the above rolled into one, combined with an accusation of how she could possibly be serious? Dragons weren’t real, of course. They were just imaginary. Etcetera.
Instead Aric grinned proudly. “I always knew my mate was a smart one.”
“That’s the second time someone has used that word.” She shifted back and forth, uncomfortable at the base implication of the word and how it had been used.
“What word?”
“Mate. One of the soldiers up top said that it was nice to have another mated pair along.” She leveled her gaze at Aric, pinning him in place. “Just what the hell is going on here?”
“Come on,” he said, gesturing up the tunnel. “Let’s go somewhere you can sit.”
“You didn’t say no to my question,” she pointed out, but fell in alongside him anyway.
“I also didn’t say yes.”
“You didn’t look at me like I’m crazy though, which would indicate that there’s at least some sort of truth in whatever it is that’s going on here. Plus there’s the fact you just called me your mate. That’s not weird at all, considering I’m pretty sure we’re not together.”
Aric walked in silence, ignoring her until they could get to a side tunnel that branched off from the main line. There were several thick, reinforced doors that they had to wait to open, but after that they quickly found themselves back into the main part of the complex.
“This is the negotiation room,” she said as he guided her into an empty room, faintly amused at the irony of it all. “The place where we should have been finalizing the deal earlier today. Remember that?”
Aric nodded, flopping into his seat casually. “Sit.” He phrased it politely, but there was no room for her to do otherwise. So she sat.
“You’re very smart. Which is going to make what I’m about to tell you even harder to accept.”
She eyed him skeptically. “I just saw you electrocute a battlesuit with your bare hand. I’ve already seen a few things hard to believe today. I also saw that…that thing, in the cavern. The energy wall.”
“The portal,” he supplied.
Her eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, the what? Portal? Like, teleportation?”
He shrugged. “Let’s stick to your other question first.”
“Which one? Are dragons real?”
“That one, yes.”
Kaitlyn studied his face, the smooth lines hardened in thought, giving his already chiseled face an extra bit of definition. Big cheekbones, thick lips that were very warm and soft, as she knew from experience. With Aric it was always about the eyes. They stood out like a sore thumb, the hardness of his gaze at odds with the gentle softness of his skin and facial structure.
“The answer is yes. Dragons are real.”
“Holy. Shit.” She rocked back in the chair, standing it up on two legs. “This better not be some kind of fucking joke, because that is not cool. The dragon I saw on the screen, the big red one fighting in the cavern?”
“Most likely Kallore, if it was footage of yesterday.”
Something else clicked. “The alarms. That’s where you went. Were you there fighting too?”
“I was, though not in dragon form.”
“What were those things?” She had so many questions. He was a dragon, she realized, her mind putting what he’d said together. “You’re a dragon? Are you serious?”
Her hand went to her stomach. She was pregnant with a dragon’s child. How the hell did that work? How was that even possible?
“Are you well?” Aric asked, concerned.
“How…how do you appear human?” she asked nervously. Was she going to give birth to a reptile? Was that what was growing inside of her?
The room spun and she began to feel nauseous.