Chapter 24 GIDEON
I wanted to go after Klaus the moment I left the Spook, but if I didn't show up for duty, Jamison would have no choice but to call the MPs and report me AWOL.
It would mean a city-wide search. And once that started, everything unraveled.
I'd end up in the brig, maybe worse. Desertion in this powder keg of a city wasn't something they took lightly.
Of course, no cell could hold the dragon. But letting him loose—here, now—would mean exposure. Questions. Hands reaching for things they didn't understand. I couldn't risk that. Not yet. Not when Klaus was still out there.
No. The smart move was to wait. To endure. To wait for the end of my shift and let darkness fall again. It was the hardest order I'd ever followed.
So I stole clothes from a line strung between two half-standing buildings and made it back to the barracks in time for my shift, I wasn’t the first, and I wouldn’t be the last GI to show up like that.
A few smirks followed me down the corridor.
Raised eyebrows. A chuckle or two. No one asked questions. In Berlin, you learned quickly not to.
I changed back into my uniform, button by button, fingers clumsy, hands still faintly shaking. Not from the shift. From the effort it took to keep the dragon leashed.
Thankfully, no Yaks harassed us that day. I wasn't sure I could have stopped myself from burning them out of the sky if they had. The dragon kept lifting his head at every engine sound, tasting the air, daring me to give him permission.
Soon, I promised him silently. Soon.
He paced under my skin, coils tight, wings scraping the inside of my ribs. He wanted blood. He wanted Klaus. He wanted the man who thought he could reach across borders and histories and take what wasn’t his. Every snap of a button felt like another lock on a cage that was already buckling.
I told myself to breathe. To finish the shift.
To keep my head down. But the moment it ended, I didn’t go back to the barracks.
I went to see Inga first. I needed to. I needed to tell her that I knew where Klaus was, that he was alive, that I would bring him back.
I needed to be the one to tell her about her father, before someone else did it wrong, before fear got there first. I needed to see her face, to hear her voice, to reassure myself that at least this much was still intact.
So I cut west through streets still half-lit, half-ruined, my boots finding the same paths they always did.
Rubble and shadow and the echo of my own steps.
Elke’s building leaned like it had given up on standing straight, but there was light in the window.
That eased something tight and painful in my chest.
Elke opened the door just a crack. Her face told me everything before she spoke. “You’re too late,” she said, and her voice broke on the words, like saying them softly might change what they meant.
The dragon surged in anticipation, sensing blood, sensing loss.
Elke told me about the Russian. About the knock at the door. About the letter. About Inga’s father, a name dragged back from the past like a weapon. She told me how polite the man had been. How calm. How there hadn’t been shouting, just certainty. She said Inga went with him.
The dragon slammed against my ribs, a roar clawing up my throat, hot and feral and desperate to tear the world apart until it gave her back. For a second I thought I might let it happen, that I might tear free right there in Elke’s doorway and damn the consequences.
I swallowed it down until my jaw ached, until my teeth ground together hard enough to hurt.
Inga was gone.
“When?” I asked, though my voice barely sounded like my own.
“Last night,” Elke said. “Only an hour or two after you left.”
The dragon went very still. That was worse.
He paced under my skin, furious, coils tight, wings scraping the inside of my ribs. He wanted blood. He wanted Klaus. He wanted Inga.
As much as it tore at me, I told myself they were safe for now. If her father had gone through the trouble of finding them—of taking them—he wouldn't harm them. Not yet. Dragons were good at patience when the hunt required it, even if every instinct screamed otherwise.
I knew where Gerhard Weber lived—the CIA bastard had given me the address. "High-ranking and untouchable, he'd warned. Ridiculous.
Nothing was untouchable to a dragon.
When the last patrol rolled past the alley behind Elke's house I hid in, I stripped and let the shift take me. Bones cracked. Heat flooded my veins. Claws punched through my skin. My spine arched, and wings burst into existence with a rush of air that rattled loose stones.
I rose—silent, heavy, and deadly—into the night sky. Below me, the border gleamed like a scar across the city.
Checkpoint Charlie.
Surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers swarming with men with guns they thought meant something. I skimmed above them in the dark, a shadow on a darker sky.
No one looked up.
They never did.
Weber's villa rose like a palace in the middle of ruin. A mirage in the middle of a desert. I made out several guards posted at the gate and door.
My dragon snarled.
Prey.
I dropped low, gliding between broken chimneys until I reached the tree line behind the garden. Then I folded my wings tight and descended into the shadows. The first guard didn't even have time to scream.
One clawed sweep—silent and precise—and he slumped into the hydrangeas.
Alive but unconscious. The dragon wanted to finish the kill, but the man in me warned that casualties would raise too many red flags, could ignite the powder keg that was Berlin, and I wasn't about to burn down the city or start WWIII.
Not yet. Not if I could help it. But I would if they forced me to.
I'd do anything for Inga and the kids. Including turning the world to ashes.
One by one, I removed them: the guards at the back entrance, the men patrolling the grounds, the watchman with a rifle too large for his shaking hands. No alarms rang out, no blood that mattered was spilled.
Dragons were made for war.
But we could be quiet when we needed to be.
I slunk to a tall, ornate window framed by velvet curtains. I still needed to find out how many guards were inside to make this clean. I peered inside at a warm dining room glowing with lamplight. Beyond that, voices floated faintly—calm, polite, wrong.
I crept to the next window.
Where I froze. There—in a parlor of silk and gold—sat Inga, Klaus, and a man I assumed was their father.
It might have looked idyllic to anyone else.
But I knew Inga. I knew Klaus. What I saw in their eyes made the dragon inside me bare his teeth.
Inga sat rigid, her hands were folded so tightly her knuckles were white.
Klaus perched beside her, too stiff, too silent.
His eyes darted to the door every few seconds like he was waiting to bolt.
Gerhard sat opposite them, smiling with the smug confidence of a man who believed he owned everything in the room, including them.
My blood boiled. Nobody keeps my people from me. All thoughts of making it clean were gone, the dragon inside me thrust forward, his instincts overrode any rational thought the man might have been still capable of. One powerful leap—
a snap of wings—
a crash of glass—
I smashed through the window in a storm of claws and firelit eyes, shards raining across the floor.
Screams erupted.
Gerhard stumbled backward, knocking over a table.
Two guards burst in with rifles. I roared—a sound that shook the walls—and batted one rifle aside like a toy.
Flames curled from my teeth, scorching the rug but sparing the men.
They dropped their weapons and fled in terror.
Three seconds later, the parlor was empty of everyone but four people:
Inga.
Klaus.
Gerhard.
And me.
I shifted before I knew I was doing it. The terror in Inga's eyes was too much to bear. My bones snapped back, my wings collapsed, and my claws shrank back into fingers. Within seconds, I was kneeling on the shattered floor, glass cutting into my knees, breath heaving.
"Inga," I gasped, "don't be scared. I'm sorry—I'm so sorry—I should have told you what—"
"Gideon!" Her scream wasn't of fear. It was relief.
She ran to me, threw herself into my arms with the force of a crashing wave, burying her face against my neck.
"Gideon, you came," she cried, shaking. "You came. I love you. I love you so much."
I clutched her against me, one hand in her hair, one around her waist. Everything in me—man and dragon—lit up like fire in dry grass.
"Inga," I whispered into her skin, "I'd tear this whole damn city apart for you."
Klaus hovered at first, wide-eyed and trembling from head to toe, but then he rushed forward and pressed himself against my side. I pulled him in, too, my heart ripped open from the deep love I felt from both of them.
Behind us, Gerhard shrieked.
"Du… du Teufel! You MONSTER! You will NOT take my daughter!"
Inga turned, her eyes were blazing with something fierce and broken and finally awakened.
"'He's not a monster," her voice was low and calm, her chin lifted, pointing at him. "You are."
Gerhard recoiled like she'd struck him. I stood, pulling Inga and Klaus behind me.
"We're leaving," I said.
"You'll never make it out," he hissed. "The guards—"
"Are unconscious," I growled.
His face drained of color.
I guided Inga and Klaus outside, into the moonlit garden. Inga clung to my hand like it was the only thing keeping her from drowning.
"Gideon," she whispered, voice quivering. "How… how are we going to get out of here?"
I turned to her fully. "Do you trust me?"
She swallowed. Then nodded. "With my life. With Klaus's. Always."
My heart broke and healed at the same time. I couldn't resist any longer; I pressed my lips to her forehead, wanting to kiss her into oblivion, but this would have to do for now. "Good."
Then I stepped back. Wings tore from my shoulders in a burst of firelit shadow, and scales rippled over my skin as the dragon surged forward. Inga didn't scream—didn't even flinch—she only watched, her expression a blend of awe, terror, and… belief.
When I lowered myself to the ground, wings tucked, back broad and warm with gold scales shimmering under the moon, she understood.
"Cool!" I heard Klaus exclaim.
She helped him climb onto my back, settling him between her arms. He trembled, but excitement flickered beneath the fear.
"He's warm!" he whispered.
Inga climbed carefully behind him, pressing close, hands gripping the ridge of scales along my neck as if she'd done this all her life.
"I'm here," she murmured. "I won't let go."
The dragon rumbled, pleased, possessive, and most of all, relieved that she was safe and with me.
I launched upward. The villa shrank below us, and the East Sector passed beneath our wings in a blur of ruined streets. The night air rushed around us, cool and wild.
Klaus let out a whoop of pure delight.
Inga's laughter—shaky, breathless, disbelieving—followed like music.
And for the first time in my life, with the woman I loved and the child I would die to protect clinging to my back, I felt whole.
A dragon.
A man.
A protector.
A mate.