Page 33 of Bad Blood Alpha

Chapter 12

Flynn said, “Okay then. If they were Al-Maddeiri, did you recognize them? Or the place where they were being held?”

Kira shook her head, trying to think. “Only that it looked like someone had taken a draken castle and turned it into a lab. Stone walls and modern scientific equipment, all together in one room.” She frowned. “And magic, too, I think. That’s the only way they could possibly have caged a dragon.”

They could be anywhere, she realized. This world, the Dragonlands, somewhere else.

She added urgently, “I have to help them. Even if they’re not…from my house. I think—I think I’m the only one who can hear them.”

Flynn’s brows drew together, and she could feel the anger surging through him. At her? Or at whoever was keeping shifters as lab rats?

Either way, it wasn’t his fight. He had no reason to help her. But he surprised her.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll help you look for them. See what we can find out. But it might take some time—we don’t even know what world they’re in.”

She nodded. She didn’t want to state her fears out loud—that she didn’t think they had that much time.

Their words echoed in her mind. Please don’t let us die here.

She shivered, and Flynn drew her closer, stroking her back. She was suddenly aware that he was naked, the long muscles of his thigh hard and firm where her bare leg was draped across his.

She had on nothing but the borrowed t-shirt and her panties. Flynn’s chest was warm, the fine hairs on his chest soft under her cheek. She could hear his heartbeat, slow and solid.

She’d been held by men before, but she’d never felt this safe.

“Right now I need to know about you,” he was saying. She could feel the vibration in his chest from his deep voice. “Do those visions always get you like that? Because that looked fucking dangerous.”

She shook her head. “That was the worst,” she said. “Usually they just give me killer migraines, and sometimes seizures.”

“Oh, only seizures,” he said. “That’s all right then. Except, this time your goddamn brain almost ruptured. Fuck it all, why didn’t you tell me about this?”

She hesitated. “I was going to. I was…hoping you could fix it. But now I know you can’t.”

“Why not?” He sounded annoyed, as if he didn’t like that she thought there was something he couldn’t do. Then he backtracked. “Why did you first think I could?”

When she remained silent, he said quietly, “After all I’ve been through with you tonight, Princess, the least you can do is tell me.”

Absently, she picked up one of his dreadlocks from where they spilled down over his shoulder, letting it slide through her fingers. It was rough and wild, like him. Not like the cool, disciplined Lion Guard she remembered. They wore their hair short, in a regimented style.

There was nothing regimented about Flynn. She wondered what kind of man he’d be now, if he’d grown up in the Guard.

He waited for her to speak, still holding her, running his fingers through her hair, brushing it back.

It was so hard to say this out loud. She’d been running away from it for four years—telling herself that when she found Flynn, it would all be fine.

A few dutiful nights between the sheets. Maybe even one would be all she needed. He’d do his duty, and she’d be cured.

Businesslike sex with this man? What the hell had she been thinking?

She said, “I told you. All that power the Al-Maddeiri bound into me when I was five? It was supposed to be unbound when I was twenty-one. When I mated.”

When the two of them mated. Once again, she was aware of every inch of his skin that touched hers, of his nakedness. She swallowed hard.

“Our bond was supposed to make me strong enough to channel it. And the unbinding ritual would multiply it somehow, so that it would spread through every other dragon in the House and make their powers strong again.”

Flynn said quietly, “There aren’t any others.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Either way, the power wasn’t meant to be bound this long. It’s going haywire, and I’m not going to be safe until I figure out how to make it stop.” She took a deep breath, then blurted out, “I was going to ask you to have sex with me.”