Blackwing Dragon (Harper's Mountains 5) (20 page)

Rowan stood frozen in fear. Frozen in awe. His wings weren’t smooth and graceful like hers, but were riddled with holes and folded like a bat’s wings. Lethal spikes protruded along the ridges of his wings. They were the color of night and monstrous. His pitch black scales were scarred and marred, as though he’d done centuries of battle, and his size…

Kane was bigger than Rowan, and bigger than Damon.

The last Blackwing Dragon was the largest living being on earth.

The true End of Days.

Fear snaked in her gut as The Darkness dragged a narrowed gaze to her. Two echoing clicks of his firestarter sounded, and The Darkness blasted into the air, cracking the ground around her feet, causing an earthquake that dumped her backward.

The first beat of his wings flattened her against the ground and stole her breath, and the second was even more powerful. He took to the sky, tucking his clawed feet close to his massive belly scales.

And then to her horror, he rained fire down onto the Smokey Mountains.

“No,” she murmured as she stood and tracked his wide circle. She’d been wrong. Kane couldn’t control the beast. No one could.

Smoke billowed from Harper’s Mountains, and as he sprayed another stream of fire, and another, a sob left Rowan’s throat. She’d done this. She’d breathed life into this monster.

The Darkness circled back around and headed straight for her. Rowan backed up to the tree line and stumbled on a root, fell hard on her back, and stared up in horror, tears streaming down her face as The Darkness positioned himself over 1010.

He opened his massive jaws, exposing a row of razor sharp teeth, and unleashed a spray of fire and lava onto the beloved cabin.

No, not onto the cabin. Onto her treasure.

“Kane, no!” she shrieked, running for 1010.

One. Two. Three seconds of Damon’s dragon fire had almost melted the metal of her treasure all the way through. Four. Five.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as The Darkness destroyed her treasure. As he destroyed her.

Death. This is what Weston had seen—the intentional destruction of her treasure by the man she loved.

Rage rocketed through her body as The Darkness halted his fire, beat his wings in the air, and hovered there, watching her with his lips curled back in a soulless dragon’s smile.

He’d killed her. She would get The Sickening and die, and there was nothing that could save her now. The betrayal was too much.

Rowan screamed his name. “Kane!” And then let her dragon have her body.

She’d never Changed out of anger before, but power pounded through her as she beat her wings against the air currents.

He’d taken 1010, her comfort, her life. He’d taken everything, and for what? She’d freed him! She’d played into his hand perfectly. She’d listened to her dragon for the first time since Byron, and now look. Dragon had gotten her killed.

Rowan slammed into The Darkness’s body and jammed her claws through his scales violently. Spew fire onto Harper’s Mountains, put her friends in danger, and destroy her treasure? She was going to hurt him.

Rowan’s dark silver dragon was smaller, but she was fueled with undiluted rage. She spun them around, beating her wings furiously, pulling them higher into the air as she sprayed a stream of fire across his throat. The Darkness roared in pain and tried to push her off, but she had dug her claws deep into him. He snapped at her face, but she dodged his bites. His Firestarter clicked, but he didn’t rain lava on her. It was the only thing that could really hurt her in this form—dragon’s fire, and he was withholding his, whatever that meant.

She didn’t feel so charitable.

The storm clouds prickled her skin with millions of tiny drops of water as they drove upward through the storm, and now The Darkness was pushing her harder, flapping his demon wings, trying to escape.

The fucking End of Days.
Rowan
was the End of Days. The end of his days.

When he spun them in a barrel roll, she couldn’t keep them up anymore, not like this. She pounded her wings desperately, but the earth was coming. She bit at his armor and blew balls of fire at him, but that didn’t stop gravity. That didn’t stop them from toppling to earth like two atom bombs.

At the last second, The Darkness twisted them hard and slammed to earth first, his back shattering the trees and the ground, shaking the mountains. Why had he done that? Why had he sacrificed himself for her comfort?

Her wind was knocked out of her, but she slid off him, circled around as he righted himself, both crushing trees beneath their feet. As soon as she could draw breath, she opened her mouth and roared her challenge at him. He might have saved her from pain, but he’d still killed her. Still burned her treasure. Still smiled like he was fucking amused by her oncoming slow death.

The Darkness stood and shook his massive, spiked head. He let off a short, barking roar, then another and another.

Rowan’s heart beat so hard in her chest. She wanted to answer him. It was an apology. It was a call to arms. It was an invitation for her to join him in burning the land. Fuck his invitations.

Rowan clicked her Firestarter and pushed gas out of her lungs, sprayed his ribs with fire and charged. The Darkness caught her, latched his teeth onto her shoulder as they rolled over and over, felling forest under them. Rowan clamped her teeth onto his throat and bit down hard. He was bleeding, and all she had to do was hold on, ignite her fire, and The Darkness would be dead.

Dead.

Dead like her.

Kane would be dead. Her heart shattered. Everything had gotten so messed up. With a heartbroken bellow, she released his neck and backed off him. She waited for the fire. She waited for the teeth and claws, but The Darkness just lay there, his head held high, throat bleeding red on black scales. A soft hum was coming from him. It was the same comforting sound she used to make to Harper when they were kids. When she and Wyatt were in a fight and Harper’s dragon needed comfort.

The sound became louder, more prehistoric, rattling at different frequencies. The rage in Rowan’s veins evaporated and was replaced by the weight of what had happened.

Her time with Kane was cut to nothing. There would be no happy life, no more feeling safe. With a bellow, Rowan shrank into her human form and fell forward onto her knees, covered her face with her hands, and screamed as long and as loud as she could.

The Darkness could kill her if he wanted. She was already dead anyway.

He didn’t, though. Instead, he curled his body around her, limping on his missing back leg. Long neck, long body, wings tucked against his back, long tail, he encircled her and let off the comforting sound again as she fell apart in the middle of the destroyed, burning forest.

She could hear sirens now, loud and blaring. The Darkness would kill anyone who threatened him, and she couldn’t risk civilian casualties.

“Kane,” she sobbed. “If you’re in there, Change back.”

The Darkness growled a terrifying sound, but she stood and strode to him, pressed her hands to his face. His spikes pierced her palms, and she winced away. His eye was the size of her face, and his pupil dilated and constricted as he focused on her.

“Please, Kane. You’ve already hurt me. Don’t hurt anyone else.”

His eye softened and seemed to study her for a few moments before The Darkness’s form blurred and shrank until all that remained was the man. Kane knelt by a felled tree, weight resting on his clenched fists and his knees. His ribs were badly burned, and red trickled from his neck. Smoke drifted all around them, carried by the wind.

The sirens were loud now, close. Blue and red lights flashed through the smog, and then black hummers surrounded them.

She wouldn’t ever see Kane again, and before he was taken away from her, he needed to understand what he’d done. “You burned my treasure.”

“Hands in the air, both of you!” an officer yelled. The crack of weapons being cocked was deafening.

“I didn’t, Rowan,” Kane said, placing his hands behind his head. “I didn’t burn your treasure.”

“I watched you!” she screamed.

Kane gritted his teeth and shook his head, eyes trained on her, his hair covering half of his fearsome face. “What does it feel like, Roe? Do you feel loss? Do you feel lost? That wasn’t your treasure!”

“Hands on your head!” an officer said from behind her.

Rowan linked her hands behind her head. “You killed me.”

“I didn’t, baby. I didn’t. I was there. I was in control.”

“Oh yeah? When you burned 1010?”

“No, after, when you Changed. I was there, Roe. I was there!”

“You burned the fucking mountains!” she screamed.

One of the officers, dressed in black gear, jammed a needle into Kane’s neck. The officers were taking him away now toward one of the black Hummers. “I was there, Roe, tell them. Don’t let them take me to Apex.” He was shoved in the back, and right before the door closed beside him, Kane yelled, “Don’t let them take him from me again!”

And as the Hummer picked its way through the shattered forest and disappeared from her view, warmth trickled out of her nose and splatted against the dry leaves at her feet.

Rowan wiped her nose on her bare shoulder, and red smeared across her pale skin.

And so The Sickening began.

A week in this place, and Kane was already going mad. He paced the length of the room, then back to the door and slammed his palm onto it. He had to get back to Rowan. He had to save her because right now she would be sickening without him.

Kane pounded on the door again and was startled when it lurched open. It was Dr. Mir.

“Again?” Kane asked.

“Yep.” A short, squat doctor with a clipboard in one hand and a Taser in the other, he was dressed in fireproof gear, like always.

This wasn’t like the first time Kane had gone through Apex. Other than the first dose of meds to subdue the dragon, Kane hadn’t been given anything in seven days.

Seven days away from his mate, and he wouldn’t be able to hold back The Darkness much longer.

He grabbed the cane by the door and leaned heavily on it as he walked out. “Has she called?” he asked as Dr. Mir followed him down the cement hallway. “Or sent a letter? Anything?”

“Easy Kane. I told you, if she tries for contact, we won’t keep you apart.”

His voice sounded truthful when he said that. Huh. Apex had gone and gotten a soul in the years he’d been away from the program.

Dr. Mir guided him to a cavernous space he called the Changing Room. The walls were made of rock, and electric currents flashed like laser beams around the outer edge. On part of the wall was two-way mirror glass, so scientists could study his shifts and pick him apart. As far as he could tell, Kane had been taken to some deep cave system. Likely very few in the world knew where he was. He could escape, though. He had the power to, but Dr. Mir kept promising if he played nice, good things would happen. And Kane hoped to God those good things were visitations with Rowan.

If she ever wanted to talk to him again.

Kane stood in the center of a large painted X in the middle of the room and waited for Dr. Mir to get into place behind the fireproof screen and give him the signal.

Dr. Mir flicked his fingers. Kane inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and let The Darkness rip out of his body. Only it wasn’t like before when he was a boy. Thoughts of Rowan anchored him to his dragon, and he was there, fully present, driving the animal. The room wasn’t big enough and didn’t leave much space to move around. Uncomfortably, Kane circled, limping on the bad leg. There was no room above to stretch his wings, and they were sore from being tucked up for too long.

“Head to the right,” Dr. Mir said in a bored voice.

Okay. Kane turned his head to the right.

“Now left.”

Kane did it and sighed a breath that dislodged a healthy layer of dirt off the cement floor.

“Am I boring you, Kane?” Dr. Mir asked in an amused tone.

Kind of. He just wanted to see Rowan. Nothing else. He just wanted to see her again.

“Change back.”

This part sucked. They didn’t let him stay in dragon form too long, and the quick Changes hurt his body. They left his muscles feeling pulled, fatigued, and aching down to his bones for hours afterward.

Kane tucked The Darkness away and stood there panting, sweating, balancing on his good leg.

Dr. Mir brought him his cane and grinned. “You have a visitor.”

The pain evaporated in an instant. “Is it her?”

“This way,” Dr. Mir clipped out, leaving Kane to hobble behind the doctor toward the door they came in.

Kane was led down a hallway he’d never been down before. It was lengthy, and his steps echoed for a long time. Kane narrowed his eyes at the back of Dr. Mir’s head. If this was the part where they put him down, Kane was going to burn this fucking facility to the ground.

He didn’t have much fear anymore.

Dr. Mir opened a door on the right and waited for Kane to enter. Kane paused at the sight of the man sitting in the center of the room at a metal table. He knew him. Didn’t mean he wanted to be in the same room as him.

“Go on,” Dr. Mir said.

Kane scanned the room for possible escapes. The door behind him was the only exit, but there was two-way glass in here, too. If things got hairy, he could smash through that and find an escape through there.

“Kane, sit,” the man said. “Please.”

He wore a dark suit, and his dark hair was streaked gray at the temples. His silver eyes tightened at the corners, and his pupils elongated.

“Damon,” Kane greeted him somberly. He pulled out a metal chair and sat down across the table from the blue dragon himself. From the man he’d feared all his life.

“You’ve done well in here,” Damon said. “Better than I expected.”

Kane frowned and cast a glance up at the camera in the corner. Leaning forward, he clasped his hands and asked, “What do you mean?”

“This is my facility, Kane.”

“You own Apex?” he asked through the raging hum of his dragon.

“This isn’t Apex. This place isn’t designed to strip away animals, Kane. It’s designed to rehabilitate them.”

Shocked, Kane leaned back in his chair. “How…but the police arrested me.”

“My people got to you first. I had them on the ground, waiting for Rowan to make her decision.”

“Make her decision,” Kane repeated low.

“To bite you and release your dragon. Wouldn’t have worked if she didn’t love you, Kane. It wouldn’t have worked if her dragon didn’t choose yours. If she didn’t call your animal from you. We knew it would be bad. Knew it would be rough when your dragon emerged because he’d been locked inside of you for so long, but Rowan…”

“Kicked my ass?”

Damon chuckled low, and his eyes lost some of their tightness. “You let her. You were trying not to hurt her.”

“How do you know?”

“Your epic dragon battle was videotaped from three different angles from three different bystanders in the Smoky Mountains. She was tempted to kill you for burning the cabin, and you were going to let her.”

“The cabin was collateral damage.”

“Ah,” Damon said, nodding once. “You managed to do something I’ve been trying to do for years.”

“And what’s that?”

Damon’s mouth set in a grim line. “Prove to Rowan that sheet of warped metal wasn’t her treasure. She clung too damn tight to it. She’s stubborn like me, and like her father. Once she picks something, she picks it.”

“Were you responsible for her luggage getting lost on the plane?” he asked.

Damon gave a slight smile and nodded.

“Were you responsible for her sitting next to me on the plane?”

Another nod. “All I could do was put her in your path though, Kane. You had to rise up and do the rest.”

“I didn’t rise, sir. Rowan did. Your girl is a beautiful destroyer.”

“Just like I always knew she could be. She needed you to show her that, though.” Damon pushed a few buttons on his phone and shoved it across the table to Kane.

A video played.

News stories showed a battle between a Blackwing Dragon and a smaller, gray-scaled Bloodrunner Dragon. Him blowing fire on the mountains and burning the cabin. The battle on the ground after they’d tumbled to earth. And then it cut to videos of Rowan speaking in front of crowds with the Bloodrunners standing behind her.

“Kane’s a good man, in control of his dragon, and the battle was a direct result of what Apex Genetic Testing does to shifters. I demand that the hunt for him be called off, and that Apex be shut down immediately. This is a matter of shifter rights. They have been stripped from my mate, and I want him back.” Rowan looked the camera dead on. “I need him back.”

And then there was home video of Rowan standing over a sink, Harper holding her hair back as blood streamed from Rowan’s mouth and nose.

“It’s okay, Roe, we’ll get him back,” Harper murmured. “Beck, what do we do? Should we take her to him? It’s getting really bad.” Harper turned a panicked look to a woman in a dark gray business suit standing behind them.

“If she stops the tour now, Kane won’t be safe out of hiding. He won’t be safe outside of Damon’s facility. If we don’t take the heat off him, the government and Apex will be after him the second he steps out of hiding. Rowan, you’ll always be on the run, and your mate will always be at risk.”

“I can do this,” Rowan said, steel in her voice. Blood gushed, and she retched. Harper rubbed her back, but the Bloodrunner alpha looked scared.

Beck held Rowan’s phone in front of her. “See if this helps.”

On the screen was a picture Rowan had taken of them. In it, she was kissing his cheek and looked radiant with happiness, and Kane was even smiling.

“It doesn’t work anymore,” Rowan murmured in a weak voice. “I need to hold him. I need to see him. I need the fucking charges to be lifted.”

“Ryder.” Harper looked at the person behind the camera. “Go get some towels. Stop hugging Kane’s prosthetic leg. He’s in hiding, not dead. And shut that damn camera off. No one needs to see this. If I find it on your social media, I’m gonna burn your ass.”

The video went shaky, and then faded to black.

“Fuck,” Kane murmured, grimacing away from the phone. “Let me go to her, please Damon. I can fix her. I can make her feel better. I can stop The Sickening. I’m her treasure. I know I am. It’s my dragon. It was always the dragon. Just…let me see her.”

“Since no one was hurt and since the Bloodrunners, the Ashe Crew, the Gray Backs, the Boarlanders, the Winterset Coven, and Ben Porter’s Red Havoc Crew have been tirelessly rallying for you, it was announced today that all charges have been dropped. I’ve submitted video of your controlled Changes to law enforcement, and they have called off the search for you. This morning it was announced that you are free. You will always be listed as a dangerous shifter, Kane. That’s something no one can fix, and you’ll have to be careful every day. There won’t be second chances—not for a shifter like you. But if you work hard enough, you can still have a good life. With Rowan.”

Kane dragged in a shaky breath as relief flooded his body. All the shifters had rallied for him with his brave Rowan at the head of it all. He’d never cried before, but damn if his eyes didn’t burn right now.

Damon stood and nodded his head toward the exit. Kane rose and leaned heavily on his cane as he followed the old dragon out into the hallway and then through a maze that led them eventually to an elevator.

Damon Daye stood straight-backed and proud, his hands clasped in front of his lap as the elevator took them up. And right before they reached the sunlight, Damon turned and clasped Kane’s hand. “Thank you for what you’ve done for my girl. You take care of each other. Always. And if you ever need anything, call me. You remind me…” Damon cleared his throat and dropped Kane’s hand. “You remind me of all the good parts of your father. The parts I’ve missed.”

Sunlight hit Kane in the face, and he squinted, shielded his face with his hand, and when his eyes adjusted, he could see Damon walking away toward a black Town Car.

The man opened the back door, and the most beautiful sight Kane had ever seen stepped out.

Rowan was wearing a pink sundress and flip flops, and her blond hair was whipping around her shoulders. She was already crying as she ran for him. Kane rushed, leaning on his cane harder and harder. He was ready when Rowan leapt through the air and wrapped herself around him. She buried her face against his neck, her body racked with sobs. And fuck, he never wanted to stop holding her. He pulled her in tight against him, looked up at the blue sky, and tried to remember how to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he chanted over and over.

“It’s okay. I thought you were burning my treasure. I thought you were trying to hurt me, but you weren’t. I love you, Kane, I love you.” Rowan eased back and cupped his beard. He probably looked like shit right now—tired, unshaven, and still healing from the burns she’d given him—but Rowan was staring at him as if she’d never seen anything so stunning.

Kane cupped the back of her head and kissed her. Rowan slid down, stood on her own two feet, and slipped her arms around his shoulders. The damn tension in his chest eased with every moment that he touched her lips with his.

Rowan disengaged and rubbed her soft cheek against his. “Kane, you knew all along, didn’t you?” she whispered.

“Knew what, dragon?” There was no more calling her princess because she’d gone fearlessly to war with The Darkness and won.

Her breath hitched, and a smile stretched her face. Slowly she leaned forward until her lips were right by his ear. And then she whispered something that banished every hurt he’d ever endured.

“You aren’t Dark Kane anymore. You’re
my
Kane.” She leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him gently. “You’re my treasure.”