Dragon Scorned

21. River

Iwoke to screaming around me, but at least the headache was gone. Before I could get my bearings, I was yanked out of bed and wrapped in a warm embrace. The scent of fresh autumn leaves surrounded me, and I buried my nose into Nikolai’s neck, inhaling deeply. I wrapped my legs around his waist, locking my ankles over one another.

Yeah, I was getting to be shit at staying away from these men. They just had a way of smashing through my carefully crafted walls.

“My star, I was so worried about you. If that fucker wasn’t already dead, I would skin him alive for daring to lay a finger on you,” Nikolai whispered, kissing the top of my head.

“I’m fine, it won’t happen again,” I told him, snuggling in closer into his hold.

He growled into my hair, “You’re damn right it won’t happen again because I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

I huffed out a laugh, this possessive asshole. “Kai, I don’t need a bodyguard. I made the mistake of letting my guard down. I won”t make the same mistake twice.”

He growled again, pulling me tighter against him, clearly displeased with my answer.

My phone chimed on my nightstand, and I turned to look at it. Kai grumbled something about ignoring it but finally released me so I could see who it was.

I sat down next to Tate and grabbed my phone, opening up the messages.

Hot Prof

You missed our session.

Tate grumbled next to me, “Who the fuck is hot prof?”

Nikolai’s head snapped in my direction, his eyes narrowing on me. I just laughed. They are seriously insufferable.

“It”s Professor Knox.” Both dragons emitted a low growl in response, and I laughed louder. “Are you serious? Intimidated by our professor, are we?”

“What does he want?” Nikolai asked, his voice low and gravelly.

Tate answered him before I even had a chance to open my mouth. “He wants to know why she missed their one-on-one session.”

“My voice works fine, you know,” I snapped. I didn’t need Tate to speak for me, I did perfectly fine getting my mouth into trouble on my own. I didn’t need any help from the peanut gallery.

I ignored the guys’ displeased glare as I messaged Knox back. His response was immediate.

Me

I think getting drugged and almost kidnapped should give me a free pass.

Hot Prof

What happened? Are you alright? Is Tate with you?

I thought him asking about Tate was strange, but I brushed it off. When I gave him a questioning look, he seemed almost worried. I decided to file that away to unpack another time. My folder for thoughts and emotions to unpack was getting ready to burst. I would need to unload it and dissect them all sooner rather than later.

Me

I’m fine, nothing some flying won’t take care of.

Call me weak for not answering his question about Tate if you want, but I did not want to open up that can of worms just yet. There was already too much in my head to deal with, and I didn’t need to add hostility between my mate and teacher to the pile…unless it wasn’t hostility.

The thought of Tate and Knox being together popped into my head. I looked back at Tate and pondered that thought.

Not going to lie, the thought of seeing them together was definitely hot. My dragon preened at that, adding to my confusion. I figured she would be pissed about my mate being with anyone other than me.

Unless…no. There’s no way hot-as-fuck Professor Knox is also a potential mate of mine. The gods wouldn’t curse me like that. Three hot-headed dragons were enough. The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t feel like a curse, though.

I was seriously one lucky bitch to have these men in my life. So, maybe adding one more to the mix wouldn’t be a bad thing, and if he was in a relationship with Tate already…my core clenched at the thought.

I was already turned on just thinking about them together. Gods now I fucking hope they are.

My head snapped up to my name being yelled. I only had a second to brace myself before Nat dove into me. She knocked both of us back onto the bed, squeezing the life out of me.

“Nat, can”t breathe,” I wheezed out, tapping on her arm.

“I was scared shitless. Don’t you ever do that to me again, you overgrown lizard.” Nat pulled back enough so I could see the evil glare in her eyes; I saw the scared look hiding underneath her gaze.

“No promises.” I laughed and was rewarded with a slap to the arm, which caused me to laugh harder. It wasn’t like she was the one almost kidnapped, if anyone should be scared it should be me.

“I mean it.” She glared at me, climbing off of me and sitting on my other side. She left her hand resting on the top of my thigh, her thumb moving in slow, lazy circles.

I really had her scared. I looked between her and the guys, finally noticing the fear in their expressions. My stomach turned at the fact that I had all of them afraid of something happening to me.

“You all look like someone kicked your puppy,” I told them, trying to hide the fact that seeing them like this was killing me on the inside. If Ryder hadn’t stopped that hunter, then I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Realization sunk in, and that had me fearful now. Moonbeam almost had me, and I still don’t know why they want me so badly.

I turned to Nat, finally remembering the folder Jax gave me. “Hey, Nat, Tate said you grabbed my bag. Do you have it?”

“Yeah, it’s in my car.” She said, giving me a questioning look.

I turned to Kai, ready to ask if he would grab it before he turned on his heel and headed out of the room. I snapped my mouth closed, waiting patiently for him to return. Even without our mental connection, this man knew me so well.

A moment later, Kai walked back in, with my backpack slung over his shoulder. I grabbed it off of him, pulling the folder out of it and tossing the bag aside. I opened it up to a ton of different papers, all of them filled with different addresses and corporate names.

“Holy shit,” Nat whispered, grabbing a stack of papers to flip through.

I handed another stack to Tate and Kai, and I would take all the help I could get to go through these.

“Jax said these are all lists of Moonbeam Corporation locations. He said most of them are abandoned but might be worth checking out still.” I told them as they took the stacks of papers I was holding out to them.

I took my stack and settled onto my bed, ready to dive in. My phone chimed and I reached for it. Two missed messages, one from Knox and one from…who the fuck? It took me a moment, reading the message, before it registered that Ryder put his number in my phone and must have messaged himself so he had mine.

Man Of My Dreams

If you want to reschedule tonight we can.

I laughed at what he put for his contact name. Was this guy for real? He was playing with fire, that”s for sure. Tate gave me a questioning look so I turned the phone to him, might as well add fuel to the fire.

My laugh was uncontrollable when he narrowed his eyes, looking between the phone and me. “Jealousy doesn”t look good on you, beastly.”

He growled in reply, causing my laugh to turn into hysteria. I turned my phone back around, typing out a quick reply to Ryder and reading the message from Knox before setting it aside.

Me

No way. Midnight. I’ll be there.

“What are you doing tonight, little minx, and more importantly, with who?” Tate said through clenched teeth.

I beamed a bright smile at him, getting him riled up was so much fun. “It’s Ryder, we”re breaking into the hot professor”s office tonight.”

His eyes widened in surprise as Kai began coughing. He was sitting at my desk and I leaned around Tate to see him, giving him a confused look. “You good?”

He waved me off, turning to continue looking through his papers. What the hell was that about? Damn, I wish our connection wasn’t fucked because I would dive into his head so hard he would have no choice but to let me in. That thought suddenly reminded me of our broken bond.

“Kai, did you find anything out about the drug they used on me? Also, where did you look anyway? It’s not like you can just stroll on into Moonbeam and demand they tell you.” I asked him, watching as his whole body stiffened. Was it something I said?

“Yeah, I took it to some doctor I know that”s a witch. He said there was some drug mixed in with the propofol. He couldn’t tell me exactly what it was, but that it was some kind of blocker. I’m betting they added it in there to block our mate bond connection.” Kai told me, the nervous look gone, replaced with pure anger.

“Well, that explains why I can’t feel you, I guess,” I told him, unsure if he was telling me the entire truth. It seemed like he was hiding something from me. I’ve never wanted to dive into someone”s mind more than I wanted to at this very moment.

Tate and Nat looked back and forth between me and Kai, an identical confusing look on both their faces. I narrowed my eyes at Kai, silently demanding he tell me the truth, because I didn’t fully believe him.

He just turned and continued rifling through his stack of papers. My suspicion only grew, I know there”s something more to his story, what I didn’t know is why he was keeping it from me.

“Hey look at this.” Nat said, pulling a paper out and handing it to me. I finally looked away from Kai and took the paper she was holding out. I scanned the page, looking for what caught her eye.

I was about to toss it aside before I looked at the bottom of the page. It was a clip of a police report, officers were called to the scene of the abandoned building after multiple reports were called in. Lights going on and off and people coming and going. Police claimed it was just kids messing around and closed the case.

“Do you think there’s anything still going on? This was only a month ago.” I asked, hoping to all the gods we would catch a break.

“Worth a look,” Tate said, taking the page from me and looking it over. He placed it in a pile on my nightstand.

After a good hour of flipping through all the papers we finally had two stacks. One for places to check out and one that are dead ends. We came up with a game plan to check out the stack of possible leads before Tate and Nikolai left.

Natalia bound into my room, dressed head to toe in black.

“You ready?” She asked, looking at my matching black ensemble.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I told her before we made our way out the door.

It was about damn time for some fucking answers, and we were going to break into the hot professor’s office to get them.