Chapter twenty-one
Empty Net - When a team removes its goalie for an extra attacker.
Theron
I stopped in the doorway, my entire body going rigid as I took in the scene before me.
Dante. Tied to a chair. His face was a mess of bruises—left eye swollen shut, lip split and still bleeding, a darkening mark along his jaw that made me want to kill everyone. His shirt was torn, and I could see the beginning of bruises on his ribs through the fabric.
They’d beaten him. Tied him to a chair and beaten him, and I hadn’t been there to stop it.
My dragon roared with such fury that I felt my bones start to shift before I wrestled it back under control. Not here. Not now. I had to stay human, had to stay in control, or they’d kill him before I could get him out.
“Theron.” His voice was rough, damaged. “Don’t—whatever he wants, don’t—”
“Quiet,” one of the armed men said, stepping forward with his weapon raised.
I moved before I could think about it, putting myself between the gun and Dante. The security guy’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t lower the weapon. I couldn’t fight against five men with guns.
“Touching,” Odin said, appearing from somewhere behind me. “The protective instinct. It’s one of the things I find most fascinating about dragons. The mate bond makes you so wonderfully predictable.”
I forced myself to turn and face him, though every instinct I had was screaming to keep Dante in my line of sight. “You got me here. Let him go.”
“Eventually.” Odin gestured to one of his men, who handed him a folder. “But first, we need to discuss the terms of your cooperation.”
He opened the folder and pulled out a single sheet of paper—old, yellowed with age, covered in cramped handwriting.
“My father was brilliant, if shortsighted. My grandfather was the forge dragon and refused to share his knowledge with his son, even though my father could… shall we say, spread his wings?” Odin said, holding the paper out to me.
“My grandfather regretted that decision, I made sure of that. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to put an end to my father’s ambitions as well because he was running the company into the ground. ”
“You killed them.” It was a statement, not a question.
Odin shrugged. “Convenient accidents to their mates, and the bonds took care of the rest. But to get to the point. As I said, my father was brilliant if shortsighted. Ahead of his time in ways the dragon community never appreciated. He had theories about metallic transformation that most dismissed as impossible.”
I took the paper with hands that were shaking. Read the words written there.
All metals are but variations of the same song. The fundamental structure differs only in arrangement, in the frequency at which their atoms vibrate. Change the song, and you change the metal itself.
This was impossible, but I had to get him talking. Give Ignatius and the others time to get in place. I’d gotten the first message as soon as I’d left the team plane, been tied and blindfolded like I didn’t know where we were heading.
“Clark—”
"My father wasted twenty years on lead," Odin interrupted with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Twenty years proving what you already know. Stable metals cannot be persuaded to become something else."
I almost laughed.
Of course they couldn't. That was exactly what I'd told Ignatius. Odin was chasing an impossible fantasy.
Then Odin smiled.
"The breakthrough came when I stopped looking at stable metals altogether."
Something in his tone made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
"What metal?" My mind was doing calculations and rejecting them instantly. Not even Odin was that insane.
For a moment, Odin looked almost reverent.
"Enriched Uranium."
I met Dante’s horrified look. The sheer madness of it stole the breath from my lungs.
Uranium?
My dragon recoiled so violently it was almost painful.
No forge dragon would even consider it.
No sane forge dragon.
Ancient dragons spoke of certain heavy metals the way sailors spoke of storms and whirlpools—things best avoided because the cost of exploring them was too high. Unstable metals. Dangerous metals. Metals that behaved in ways no forge dragon could reliably predict.
Uranium sat at the very top of that list. And all the knowledge we had amassed about Odin slammed in to me at once. The defense contracts. The weapons. It was the only way he’d possibly been able to get his hands on something so toxic, and I knew in that instant what he wanted me to do.
I stared at Odin.
Not because I believed him.
Because for the first time, I realized he might actually believe himself.
And that was far more terrifying.
The smile never left his face.
"My father discovered that stability is the problem," he said softly. "You cannot force a finished metal to become something else. But a metal already changing? Already releasing energy?"
A chill spread through my chest.
No.
No, no, no.
The fragments of old stories I'd dismissed centuries ago suddenly surfaced with horrifying clarity.
Not myths.
Warnings. Fabricating enriched uranium was worth an empire.
And in that moment, I stopped seeing a greedy businessman chasing a multi-billion dream.
I saw a man standing on the edge of a cliff, convinced he could teach himself to fly.
The truly terrifying part?
For the first time, I wasn't entirely certain he was wrong.
“Enough.” He pulled out his phone and showed me the screen—a timer, counting down from sixty seconds. “You have one minute to agree, or I’m going to have my associate remove every finger on your mate’s right hand. Difficult to hold a hockey stick without fingers.”
Behind me, Dante made a sound of protest. I didn’t turn around. Couldn’t turn around, because if I saw his face right now, I would lose what little control I had left.
“Don’t,” Dante’s voice was rough, desperate. “Theron, don’t do this. I don’t care, but don’t—”
“Forty-five seconds,” Odin said calmly.
“Please.” Dante was begging now, and the sound of it was breaking something fundamental in my chest. “You have lots of people who need you, players who depend on you. Don’t throw that away for me.”
“Thirty seconds.”
I turned then, meeting Dante’s eyes across the room.
His good eye was wide with panic and pain and something that looked heartbreakingly like love.
The plan was screwed. None of us had thought of this.
One kilogram of highly enriched uranium could unleash explosive power equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT.
But refined into reactor fuel, that same 1 kg provided clean energy worth billions.
I was supposed to distract the guards and pretend to make gold or whatever he wanted.
I wasn’t supposed to… I don’t have a choice.
Ignatius was using thermal imaging because he knew my temperature.
He would know by now where we were. I just had to be the distraction.
Get them away from Dante so he could be rescued.
“I’m not throwing anything away,” I said finally. “And you’re wrong,” I said quietly. “You’re worth everything.”
“Twenty seconds.”
“I’ll do it,” I said, the words scraping my throat raw.
“I’ll attempt the fabrication. But I want five minutes alone with him first.” Enriched uranium was a gas he wanted fabricated into dense, harmless, solid ceramic pellets that could be loaded into a reactor.
It was a process worth billions. And I almost laughed at the pathetic imaginings we had of turning lead into gold.
Odin considered that, then nodded. “Five minutes. My men will be right outside, and the cameras stay on. Try anything, and I’ll have them shoot him in both kneecaps before you can shift.”
He gestured to his security team, and they filed out. The door closed behind them with a heavy click that sounded far too final.
I crossed to Dante immediately, dropping to my knees in front of his chair. My hands found his face, careful of his injuries, and I felt him lean into my touch despite everything.
“You can’t do this,” he said, his voice breaking. “Theron, please. Radiation? Even I know that is fucked up.”
“I’ll survive.” The lie tasted bitter. “Dragons are resilient. I just need you to trust me.”
“I do trust you. That’s why I’m begging you not to do this.” His good eye was swimming with tears. “Let them take my fingers. Let them hurt me. I can live with that. But I can’t—” His voice cracked completely. “I can’t live in a world without you.”
I pressed my forehead to his, breathing him in. Even beaten and terrified, even with blood on his face and bruises blooming across his skin, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Listen to me,” I said quietly. “You don’t need to worry.” I stopped, forced myself to sound firm. “I love you,” I said, and the words were so inadequate they almost broke me. “Desperately. Completely. In ways I didn’t think I was capable of.”
His breath caught, and I saw fresh tears spill down his bruised cheeks.
“I should have told you that weeks ago instead of pretending distance could protect us. I should have been honest about what I am, what you mean to me, what this bond between us actually signifies.” My hands were shaking as I held his face.
“But I was a coward. I love you, and I was too terrified you couldn’t possibly love me back”
“Baby.” His voice broke completely.
“I love you,” I repeated, “but you need to be brave while I do this.” I kissed him.
Carefully, mindful of his split lip, but with every ounce of feeling I’d been holding back for months.
He made a sound against my mouth—half sob, half surrender—and I felt moisture on my cheeks that might have been his tears or mine or both.
“I love you too,” he whispered when I pulled back. “God, Theron, I love you. Which is why you can’t—”
“Time’s up,” Odin’s voice came through a speaker I hadn’t noticed, and I heard the door beginning to open.
I pressed one more kiss to Dante’s forehead, breathing in the scent of him—blood and fear and something uniquely him that my dragon recognized as mate. “Be strong for me.”
“Theron—”