17. Chapter 17
Raz didn’t know if he would survive Kate.
The wetness of her tears on his neck obliterated his heart and curbed the need to Mark her. He cradled her in the hotel room bed, him still sheathed inside her as he tickled his fingers up and down her back. She relaxed into him, but her emotional turmoil drowned him over their link.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, swallowing hard.
Her fingers padded against his chest like a friendly tarantula crawling over his skin. “I’m sorry. I’m such a sap.” Her sigh tickled his chest hair. “I’ve never had someone accept all of me. Even the delinquent and childish parts.”
“Is that why you assumed I’d rejected you after we had sex?”
He felt her wince against his neck. “Not very many people have wanted me. Especially for the right reasons. You even accept my obviously worst-timed giggles.”
“You’re confident from head to toe, and that’s what bothers you?” He nuzzled into her hair—the complimentary lemon shampoo and her natural scent made her hair smell like lemon cookies. “I happen to like them very much.”
“I know. I feel your intentions across our connection.”
“I hope they’re mostly pure. Can’t speak well for my cock.”
She chuckled.
“Normally, dragons can Mark humans with their spirit energy so that other dragons know that they are trusted with the knowledge about us. But this link is like a Mark where both of our spirit energies combine.”
She nodded. “My spirit energy claimed yours as much as yours did mine.”
“Supposedly we were one being that was cleaved in half when we fell to Earth, so we have to find each other to return to our prior existence.”
A cacophony of emotions flew across their link. Raz’s head was spinning with the deluge, and he could only imagine how Kate felt.
“Are you fucking serious?” She shook her head in disbelief. “The dragons are the answer to Fallen returning to heaven?”
“We believe so.”
“How do you know so much?”
“We aren’t the first pair, and apparently it was left in our history that was hidden ages ago.”
“Okay, so we gain this link…and then what?”
“If I link with you once more, your spirit won’t be able to disconnect from your human form. You’ll gain immortality and be able to collect the feathers you lost when you fell.”
She jerked away from him. “I can’t travel in my spirit form? That’s terrifying. Especially considering we don’t know what’s going to happen on the mission.”
“I know. Don’t worry.” He grabbed her hand and placed a kiss in her palm. “It’s instinctual, but I can be a good dragon.”
“I’d doubt that. But then again, I’ve read your spirit.”
He nibbled her palm. She gasped before tearing it from his grasp.
Sighing, he said, “I hope you’ll let me see all your flaws. Accept all of you.”
Her eyes darkened. “When this ends, I hope you still feel that way.” She rolled from the bed, walking to her duffel bags, naked except for what mattered most.
The darkness she’d buried in her mind nagged at him. She was hiding something, and the wiggle of doubt was enough to make him wonder if he really could trust her. He hadn’t been able to vet her like everyone else in his life, and the need to confront her before he risked his team pushed at him.
“Kate.”
She didn’t turn back. “Come on. We have to meet up with everyone else.”
Throwing caution to the wind, he said, “We need to talk about Midnight.”
She threw her head back. “Why now, Raz? You fear the big baddie stealing for Matsuda?”
“My team needs to know what they’re getting into.”
She pivoted on her heels, eyes deadly daggers. “And what if I am her?”
He recalled the way she killed Lukas—the efficient shot taken before Raz even knew she was there. His heart bled at the idea of Kate in that way. She shook her head in disbelief, as if reading disgust on his face.
“I don’t believe you’re Midnight,” he said. “But I believe you know her more than you’re letting on.”
Her face may have been a mask, but the link pulled tight with a kind of stunned stillness. So she did know her. But to what extent? It had to be enough that she felt she had to keep the truth from him.
“Even if I did, what would that change? You can trust me, especially with you and your team.”
Tribunal help him; he did. But that didn’t keep the fear from evoking the bloody image of his comrades killed by his best friend. She’s not Gerard. The link flared with her sincerity, her determination.
“You will get Lucifer’s Bell,” she said. “The plan is solid. I’ve given you what you need. I’ll handle the rest.”
Fear trickled, sweaty and slimy, over the link. His dragon side growled, prowling close to his mind.
“Let me help you,” he said.
She ran her hand through her hair, her voice gentling, and said, “You are doing your part. Now let’s put this aside and go.”
His hands fisted. Heat built in his diaphragm. But he dropped it, fearing he would push her away the more he asked.
Raz’s ringing phone cut off the car stereo as he and Kate drove back to the Dusted Tuck. Raz stilled when the name “Regan” flashed across his car’s caller ID screen.
“You can respond to that,” Kate said into the silence that had pressed at him since the hotel. “I won’t say anything.”
Kate wasn’t the one he worried about saying something, but since it probably concerned Kate, he decided not to hide it from her. He pressed the answer button on his steering wheel. “This is Detective Raz Malone.”
“I know who you are. You can just say hello.”
Raz chuckled. He had answered that way, knowing it would bother her. “I don’t want you to forget.”
She sighed into the phone. “Anyway. Have you detained our asset?”
The temptation to peer over at Kate beat at him. “I’m still working on it. Might take a week.”
“Well, your informant knows what they are talking about. We have Graham in custody for insurance fraud on his Super Bowl ring.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Kate watched the scenery pass by. A calm acceptance rippled across the link, as if she didn’t care that he moved forward with informing his boss about the trackers without asking her what she planned to do.
“We require the trackers soon to bring in the others, so work double on it,” Regan said.
“Are you going to pay me double, then?”
Regan hooted into the line. “When they pay me double, maybe I’ll consider it. By the way, I also found out you paid for Winston’s surgery. I won’t even ask where you obtained that kind of money, but thank you.”
Heat tickled Raz’s throat. “That’s supposed to be anonymous for a reason. It’s not a big deal.”
“We owe you. Keep me updated. We plan to raid, but our warrants might not arrive for another week.”
“Hopefully I’ll hear more before then. I’m going to let you go. Have a great Monday,” he teased, knowing it was the worst day of the week at the field office.
“Piss off.” The line died.
Raz chuckled and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Why didn’t you give her the other trackers?” Kate asked, staring out the window.
Those weren’t the words he expected. “You don’t care that I called her about it?”
“You have a job to do.” She shrugged. “Sure, I would have liked you to tell me. But if you guys figured out the trackers went missing a while ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
His throat thickened. “You really did all that to get to me?”
“It was a stretch, but if you were a Dragon SEAL, the case would be too hard to resist.”
“What if I hadn’t?”
She pushed back into the car door, arms crossed. “I would have forced your hand sooner. Pulled some strings.”
“You have that kind of influence?”
She wiggled her fingers. “My puppets work in coding.”
Disappointment laced Raz’s tongue, and he gave her a look.
She raised her hands. “I know. Not very chivalrous of me, but I try to stay above the law when I can. Don’t get me wrong. Stealing and hacking are fun. But it’s just a game. When I stole to survive, it was never from those who weren’t deserving.”
“How very noble of you,” he teased, though he actually meant it. He turned his car down the last busy street, heading toward the Dusted Tuck. “Anyway, I thought it might be better for you to ask for immunity in exchange for the other trackers.”
“Oh? I’m the asset you’re looking for?”
He nodded and waved his badge at the guard at the parking garage. The guardrail lifted.
“I guess I’ll finally have an identity,” she said.
It had been quite a surprise to find her fingerprints nonexistent—her identity untraceable. “Why are you so off the grid?” he asked as he parked on the second floor. When he turned toward her, she stared at the cement wall in front of the car.
“I had to make sure Matsuda couldn’t find me.” Black threads flowed across the link, including a twinkle of sadness and regret. Matsuda had killed her best friend, and Raz could only wonder what lengths she had to go through to escape him.
“How were you and Matsuda acquainted?” he asked.
Kate fidgeted and didn’t meet his eyes. “We used to work together before I knew how criminal his activities were.”
Her words spoke of truth, but there was a darkness in her mind that sprawled closer to the link.
He was curious about that sensation, and from the way she withdrew from him, he feared there was more to that story, but she wouldn’t be sharing it with him any time soon.
He’d give her time even if time was not their friend.
With protection and comfort at the forefront of his mind, he reached his hand out and grabbed hers. She startled and looked at him.
“You sure you’re ready for the Hackers Gala?” he asked, fear biting into his tone.
She offered a tentative grin. “I have to be.”
“We can regroup and—“
Kate pulled him into a kiss, shushing his next words. With her hands twined in his hair, she said, “Don’t worry, Raz. I got this.”
He stamped his lips against hers once more. “We got this.”
She grinned and pressed her head against his. “All right. Fine. Me and the Dragon SEALs.”
He laughed, and the burden on his shoulders eased. The two of them exited the car and gathered the gear from the backseat. Together, they headed to the Dusted Tuck.