Dragon Soul: Cobalt Dragons Book 3 Read online

  “God dammit.” She’d lost him. There was nothing more Kim could do, not now. The ground was already soft from frequent rains. Any tracks he may have left were going to be washed away with the onslaught of the coming storm. She’d have to backtrack and try again another time.

  Rising from her squat she turned to leave, only instead to be blinded as two bright spotlights pinned her in place.

  “FREEZE!” The very distinct sound of weapons being raised and safeties flicked off reached her ears.

  “I’m unarmed,” she said, slowly raising her hands into the air. “I’m not going to resist, and I pose no danger. In my left breast pocket you’ll find my ID.”

  “What’s that in your hand?!” one of them shouted.

  “A flashlight,” she responded calmly. “Bought from a nearby roadside store. I’m going to lower the hand it’s in and gently put it on the ground, and then slowly step away from it. Okay?”

  There was a slight hesitation. “I get the impression that you’re used to being on this side of things.”

  She smiled. “I am, though not for your country. We are, however, allies.”

  “You’re coming with us. Let’s go!”

  As soon as Kim was three steps away from the flashlight men swarmed over her. She was searched briskly and professionally, without any additional “patting down” that she had expected.

  Interesting. The men were not your typical military thugs. They were completely and totally focused on doing their job, and nothing more. Not one hand, not one single finger, had touched anywhere unnecessary. That was unusual.

  “She’s clear.” They pulled out her ID and read it as she was forced along at gunpoint.

  Four soldiers formed an arc behind her, with spaces between them that were filled with three additional armed soldiers, all of them spread apart enough that she couldn’t get past more than one or two with any sort of wild attack. Kim had no intention of doing anything like that. The best plan was to cooperate at this point.

  Fielding is going to rip me a new one so hard he’ll probably put me back into a coma. Her dressing-down was going to be legendary, she knew it. Maybe she would still have a career after this. Maybe. It all depended on the officers she dealt with at the base.

  They hauled her into a building, and then tossed her into a very obvious holding cell inside it. The bars gave her a view of the windows and the storm that was just starting to unleash its wrath. Nothing about the base itself was visible; her cell was at a lower level than the other parts of the building.

  “Busy evening,” she remarked as all the soldiers hurriedly filed out except for one unhappy and unlucky male ordered to stay with her.

  The guard just growled at her, but said nothing. Ten minutes later a rather harried officer entered the room. He kept glancing out the window, like he would rather be anywhere but here.

  “I’m Captain Leonard, I handle base security for Fort Banner,” he said quickly and primly. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

  “I’m Agent Kimberly Phrasier, as my ID says. I spotted a wanted man in my country at my national airport while working another case. I had very little time to act, and rather than simply apprehend him I decided to track him to try and foil whatever plans he was in the making first. In my haste I didn’t check the destination of the flight.” She paused, shaking her head at the stupidity there. “I tracked him to the—”

  A rumble from outside caused Captain Leonard’s head to whip around. The fingers of his right hand darted to his gun belt. He caught himself and turned back to face her, but his left hand started to drum on his thigh repeatedly. An unconscious action then.

  “I tracked him down to just outside your base,” she continued, frowning at the captain. He didn’t let anything show through. “There was a rip in the fence. I figured he had entered through it, and went after him.”

  “And then what?”

  She shrugged. “Then I either failed to track him, or he never actually went through the fence. Your men caught me and brought me here.”

  “I see. And how do I know you’re not a foreign national trying to steal American secrets?”

  Kim snorted. “Why would I carry around a piece of identification that says exactly who I am and who I work for?”

  “Yes, yes of course. You’ll forgive me if I find it rather odd just where you’re coming from.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say it’s a bit too much of a coincidence if you ask me. Now, what were you really doing here?” Captain Leonard fixed her with a stare hard enough to be worthy of her respect.

  She slumped. So much for working with an officer who might understand her. “I told you. I’m Agent Kimberly Phrasier, I work for the—”

  Captain Leonard cut her off with a violent slash of his hand. “Of course. But there are no signs of this fugitive, only you. Can anyone corroborate your story about him?”

  Of course not. There was nobody else who would likely even remember the case. After all. she’d been a civilian police worker at the time. It had probably been marked unsolved. Kim almost suggested he contact her government for corroboration, but he didn’t seem too keen on that idea. So what else was she supposed to do? Who else could help her?

  Kim laughed. “No, that would just be too easy if someone could. Not unless you know a Pyne Barillo.”

  Captain Leonard’s poker face was good, but not good enough.

  She leaned forward, her body language suddenly attentive and alert, despite her jet lag and exhaustive pursuit. “You know him, don’t you?” she whispered.

  “I’m not familiar with anyone by that last name,” he ventured after a minute, eyeing her suspiciously. “But how many Pynes could there be,” he whispered under his breath. She realized he didn’t know he was talking out loud.

  “He’s tall. Very tall. Six foot seven, perhaps. Slate gray hair. Last I saw it was often left unstyled. Said it helped differentiate him, though I never understood that. He’s kind of a giant, it’s hard to mix him up with someone else. Eyes of the deepest, noblest royal blue, and features that would lend credence to any claim he might make about being northern European royalty.”

  The more she described him, the more she recalled the federal agent who’d worked with her on the Flinn case. She could still recall the shock in his eyes as their car was run off the road, into a ditch, and flung at a pole. Those eyes, so regal. Warm and inviting to her, but cold and precise when aimed at an enemy.

  She recalled the way his looks could drop a suspect with fright, or threaten to fling her clothes off with just the right hint of flirtation. It had all been very professional and nothing had happened, but she’d allowed herself to imagine what taking him to bed—or far more likely in his case, being taken to bed—would have been like. The only word she’d come up with was “fun.”

  Then the accident had happened and she’d never heard from him again. Until now, perhaps.

  Captain Leonard was staring at her like he’d seen a ghost. “Stay there,” he said, getting up and rushing out.

  “Where am I going to go?” she asked the empty room beyond her.

  In the background lightning flashed. Rain began to patter at the windows, coming down hard enough now to make its presence felt.

  Without warning the sky lit up so bright she was forced to shield her eyes. Thunder blasted through the building, rattling the windows and even the metal chair she was sitting on. When her vision returned she realized she wasn’t alone.

  “Holy shit,” the person in front of her said in an emotionless, flat, completely stunned voice.

  She thought she recognized the voice. Lightning flickered again, and this time Kim saw his face.

  “Holy shit,” she echoed.

  There was a long minute of silence as they just stared at one another.

  “Kim, you and I are going to have a long, long talk about a lot of things,” Pyne said, stepping forward into the light, his eyes searching hers. “But truthfully? You have ab
solutely horrific timing. Tell me right here, right now—are you a threat to me, anyone on the base, or the base’s security itself?”

  “Not unless Morgan Flinn is here,” she said without hesitation.

  “Great, just what I need. He’s going to have to wait too.” Pyne stood up straight, snapped a finger at the guard. “Get her out of the cell, but keep her safe. She’s no threat, understood? Don’t let her boss you around, but don’t treat her like a prisoner.”

  “Yes sir!” the guard said emphatically.

  “Terrible timing,” Pyne repeated.

  Then he was gone.

  Kim just sort of stared as Captain Leonard rushed out after him.

  “What the hell is going on around here?”

  Chapter Three

  Pyne

  “What the hell took you so long?”

  He dropped to the ground, dragon wings retracting into the skin over his shoulders. Time was of the essence, and flying in human form, only partially shifted, was the fastest way he could have gotten back to the walls of the base.

  “You are not going to believe who just showed up,” he said, taking his position on Aric’s right, his twin brother Rokk on the left.

  The pair of cobalt dragons looked over at him, ignoring the sight before them.

  “Well, who? Are you going to tell us?” Rokk asked when he didn’t immediately elaborate.

  “It’s Kim,” he said breathlessly.

  “Kim? Like, Coma-Kim?”

  “Don’t call her that!” he snapped. “But yes. Her. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, though I have an idea. But yes, it’s her! She’s here. She tried to break in.”

  Outside sheet lightning filled the sky, illuminating the pair of beings making their way toward the base with a ponderous shuffle-hump that just seemed wrong to his eyes, each step threatening to turn his stomach. Even after having fought them several times, and in the simulators countless more, it never ceased to scream “wrong” to him.

  “Well, I guess you’d better survive this battle then,” Aric joked. “Shame for your mate to just show up like this and then you to pull a harebrained move and die out there.”

  “Shut up,” he muttered, more nervous than the others.

  Two Outsiders approached the base—two of the three remaining ones that had broken out through the portal weeks ago now. Two very well-fed Outsiders. He shivered. The life-stealing creatures from another planet could quite literally suck the life from any living thing. Including him.

  The other dragons, like his brother and Aric, or the ice dragons to their right, or the onyx and emerald dragons that flanked the Outsiders to slowly driving them forward, were all mated.

  “It’ll be okay,” Rokk said quietly, pitching his voice so only Aric and Pyne would hear it. “I understand. We all do. We’ll watch your back, brother.”

  He nodded his thanks, knowing they meant that in the most literal of ways. A mated dragon, as it turned out, was impervious to the Outsiders’ ability to steal life. The strength of their mate-bond, something forged from pure “life,” acted as a shield. Nobody understood how; it made no sense according to any laws of science that they knew of, but it worked.

  Aric and Rokk were protected like this. Pyne was not. And the Outsiders heading toward them were the biggest he’d ever seen. Every time they fed, they grew a little bit. Normally around seven feet tall, the pair coming at them were easily twelve, maybe thirteen feet tall. They’d killed a lot of people.

  And now they had to be stopped before they could enter the portal, returning to their world with intelligence and who knew what else. Twelve dragons would stand together to fight them. Twelve. It was going to take all twelve of them to bring the bastards down.

  The ground started to rumble. Pyne glanced behind him. They stood halfway down the hill that started just after the border walls. As he watched, rank after rank of metallic robot-looking constructs crested the top of the hill, armed to the teeth with advanced weaponry designed purely to put an Outsider down and keep it there.

  They weren’t robots though, he knew that. They were combat battlesuits. Future-tech piloted by a human on the inside. Iron Man-lite, really. He thought about that for a second, realized the irony of the name of the base when compared to that, and then focused on the oncoming enemy some more.

  Behind him the suits came to a halt, and weapons began to deploy. He didn’t look, but instead waited. A few seconds later the space behind him lit up. Missiles raced overhead and began impacting on the massive constructs. They shrugged them off and kept coming, but the suits kept firing. Every bit of damage wore them down, even if it was just flecks of armor coming off.

  He spread his feet slightly wider as some of the bigger defenses on the wall started to fire. Pyne desperately hoped those were automated. He knew what would come to the fixed guns.

  A moment later one of them spun crazily as a boulder the size of his chest impacted it, hurled at immense speed by the inhuman creatures. Ground nearby flew up as the other Outsider missed its target, jarred by a missile impact.

  As if on cue the skies opened up, drenching the combatants on both sides. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed so loud it left his ears ringing for a moment after. Something whizzed between him and Aric so fast it left a hole in the rain that was visible. A suit behind him disintegrated as it was flung backward, a missile firing straight up into the sky before exploding.

  “They’re getting slaughtered,” he ground out. “This should be our fight.”

  “It is our fight,” Aric said. His arms began to glow blue as energy flowed down his skin, turning them into energy blades. “And it’s time the Outsiders knew that.” He surged forward, clearing the wall in one giant leaping bound.

  Pyne was a half step behind him, in time with Rokk, the dragon twins operating on a frequency that none of the others could tap into. Blue light streaked through the air after them like a rooster tail.

  To their right three other ghostly apparitions moved forward, the white of the ice dragons a sharp contrast to the blue of the cobalts.

  Aric went high.

  Rokk went low.

  Pyne went straight down the middle. They tore into the Outsider. A split second later the bright green of the emerald dragons attack followed, and the battle was joined.

  Dragons roared, inhuman sounds erupting from their throats. Suits fired precise bursts from their portable railguns. Missiles exploded.

  Humans died, and dragon shifters were sent flying away as they bellowed in pain. The Outsiders moved forward, unyielding.

  “Screw this,” Aric replied, and they broke orders, shifting into their dragon forms.

  Pyne agreed and followed suit. They could hit harder this way, and it was nighttime in the middle of a storm. Nobody could see them, even if they were outside the base. He unleashed a mighty blast, calling down lightning from the storm above, directing it into the tiniest of cracks that had been blasted in the Outsiders’ armor by dozens upon dozens of coordinated strikes from six dragons.

  A bolt of blue shot away from Rokk, and a moment later a stream of green from an emerald dragon exploited the hole. The Outsider stumbled away as its right arm separated at the shoulder.

  Dragons shouted their triumph and the ground shook as the suits stomped in celebration.

  The Outsider pushed itself to its feet, the black exoskeleton armor already sealing the hole and regrowing the arm.

  Pyne lowered his head and charged back into battle. The others overcame their hesitation and followed suit. They’d hurt it. Now all they had to do was hurt it again, and again.

  The only question was whether they could stop it before it reached the portal.

  Not willing to let that disaster happen, Pyne grimaced, his dragon teeth flashing in the lightning-filled sky.

  They would get by over his cold, dead body.

  Chapter Four

  Kim

  As per Pyne’s orders, the soldier let her out of her cage. Immediately she rushed to the windo
w.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” she asked as something exploded in a flash of fire.

  Rockets shot at unseen targets, and other heavy things fired at intervals as well. She could make out plenty of human-looking objects, but they didn’t move.

  “Um. A drill,” the soldier said nervously. “That’s why you need to stay in here, so you don’t wander into the middle of it. They’re testing out some new stuff I think.” He shrugged. “They don’t tell me much.”

  He was lying through his teeth. The grizzled look, scars on his face, and casual way he held his weapon, not to mention his stance, all screamed of a professional with a lot of years of experience. Not the innocent and unknowing guard he was trying to play.

  “Do me a favor?” she asked, facing him square on and giving him her best glare.

  “Whatssat?” he asked in a slow drawl, dropping the façade.

  “Just say you aren’t allowed to tell me, and don’t give me some bullshit line about you not knowing about it.” She tossed a thumb back over her shoulder just as something big lit up the sky. “Okay?”

  The soldier grinned, pleased to recognize one of his own. “You got it, ma’am.”

  “Thank you. I understand security, but I despise being treated like I’m an idiot.”

  There was a chuckle from behind her, but nothing more.

  A mighty roar penetrated the building so thoroughly she grabbed the sill for support as everything shook. Lightning and other sources of light turned darkness into daylight for a moment. It was too brief for her eyes to believe what they’d seen, and then just like that the darkness returned save for more explosions and violent lightning strikes.

  It grew fiercer, and then slowly seemed to subside. What the hell was happening here? A drill was clearly horseshit, but what enemies did the United States have inside their borders that would assault a military base like this? Something fishy was going on. And why the hell was Pyne here, of all places? What was her government’s involvement?