Diamond Dragon (Awakened Dragons Book 4)

C
opyright
© 2016 by Terry Bolryder

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

A
listair checked
the dingy clock hanging in the corner of his cell, torturing him.

It was the only thing they allowed, and the labored
tick-tock
was slowly driving him insane.

Well, it would have, except he had a few other things to focus on.

One was the mangy cat that either had been trapped in the basement dungeon with its mostly empty cells or put there to keep down the rodents.

But since Alistair hadn’t seen any rodents, the cat was looking a little skinny, and Alistair had taken to giving it some of his food at every meal.

He looked up as his other reason for not going insane opened the door at the top of the stairs that led to the basement . She was carrying a tray, as usual.

He tried to read her thoughts, but her mind was often blank. Perhaps they had warned her about dragons being able to read minds. Or perhaps after he’d asked her to escape with him a few weeks back, she was staying guarded, not trusting him.

She’d have to trust him soon. He had to get out of this cell, get the collar restraining his powers off his neck, and get revenge on those who had awakened and imprisoned him.

Bridget, as she was called, glanced at him warily as she set down the tray and then slid it into his cell, under the bars.

He looked at it and raised an eyebrow. “What is that?”

“Oatmeal,” she answered.

“Delightful,” he muttered, turning to call to the cat. “Scrangey, come here.”

The cat perked up and toddled over softly, giving him a grateful glance. He rubbed against Alistair’s leg, but Alistair ignored him. The cat couldn’t do anything for him, and he didn’t have any real interest in it.

But he might as well not let it starve, if only because it was one of the few things keeping him from going out of his mind.

“You know this is inhumane, right?” he asked her, leaning against the wall. “I’m going to get out of here, and when I do, you really don’t want to be on their side.”

She raised an eyebrow, managing to look unintimidated. “I don’t know what’s humane for you. You aren’t human. Also, I don’t know what you did to be down here, but you have to be dangerous.” She looked over. “Also, Scrangey?”

“Because he’s scraggly and mangy.”

She fought back a smile but couldn’t deny the allegations. The cat had black and white fur, but the white areas were a dirty gray, and his hair was clumpy and matted. Poor thing. It had pretty green eyes, though. That was something.

Though Bridget wasn’t willing to free him yet, she sometimes stayed to talk for a few minutes. That was appreciated, if only because it gave him another chance to try and get her to help him out of here.

“I don’t understand why you won’t leave with me,” he said. “Your thoughts have been oddly blank lately, but I know Galen is still bothering you. A wolf doesn’t give up when a human has caught his attention.”

“Does a dragon?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “Because I’ve told you already I’m not helping you escape.” Her eyes darted askance. “I have too much at stake.”

Interesting,
he thought, trying to hop inside her mind. But nope, blank.

Perhaps this human was smarter than he’d thought.

“What’s at stake?” he asked because he had no choice but to let her tell him if she wanted to.

She took a deep breath, and as one hand fiddled with the plain, dirty-blond, straight but unkempt hair over her shoulder, he thought she almost was tempted to.

But then her features went stoic again, her mossy-green eyes resolute. “I’m not telling you.”

That was driving him crazy. Humans always did as he asked them. He’d always had everything humans admired. Money. Power. Privilege. Beauty.

But not anymore.

“I’m trying to get them to give you a TV,” she said quietly, standing up.

“A what?”

“Something you can watch for entertainment,” she explained.

He leaned back against the wall. “One of those picture boxes,” he said. “I’ve seen them in the room with the scientists when they draw my blood. Not interested.”

“No?” she asked, calling his bluff.

But he wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of knowing there were things he wanted and couldn’t have.

No, one day he’d have his power back and could make them all pay. He could wait until then.

“You’re starting to sound a lot more normal,” she commented. “I guess you’re picking up speech from the scientists.”

He shrugged. That and all the thoughts he heard constantly when he tuned into them while they were poking and prodding him. Because mostly they didn’t talk to him. They were too afraid.

They were right to be afraid.

“You look scary sometimes,” she said. “Even with those absurd rainbow eyes.”

He shrugged.

“Do all dragons have rainbow eyes?”

“I thought we covered this.” He sighed. “We’re all different, looks-wise.”

“I know, but I mean eye color.”

He gave her a sharp look, and she flushed and turned away. He felt slightly guilty. She’d been willing to entertain him, and he couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice and demeanor. He was used to everything going his way. Being in power.

In this world, he hadn’t had any of that. And he was chomping at the bit to get some.

“I’m the only one with rainbow eyes,” he blurted. “Satisfied?”

She gave him a small grin. “Yes.”

Then she turned and walked up the stairs. “I’ll tell them you don’t want a TV.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” he called to her, and she nodded and then shut the door behind her.

He listened as her footsteps carried her back to the world where everyone had light and company and fine things.

He was going to get there someday.

Until then, he’d have to bide his time.

* * *

A
few weeks later
, Bridget felt her heart pounding the way it always did when she was getting ready to take food down to the handsome prisoner in the basement.

No, handsome didn’t define him.

Elegant but dangerous. Beautiful, but in the way something is enticing just to trap its prey.

Just his eyes alone had a hypnotizing effect, with those swirling rainbow shades. But then he was also tall, well built, with aristocratic, straight features. High cheekbones. Strong chin. Striking lips that curled as he spoke.

An overall sharp guise about him.

Even when he grinned, a chill rolled down her back. Perhaps it was just the pity she felt for him. She’d known him for months now, as much as anyone could know a prisoner one could only talk to for minutes at a time.

But she really did feel bad for him. They kept him down there with nothing but a cat they probably didn’t even know about, and he never complained when they came to get him, chained, and took him to draw blood.

Aside from the chains, he also wore a collar that apparently restrained him. But she wasn’t sure her employers knew any better than she did the limits of the thing.

But despite the fact that he was supposed to be dangerous, there was something in him that gave her hope. Maybe it was the way he fed the cat. Or named it.

Or maybe she just had a slight crush on him, which was natural when a man was that beautiful and a woman was as inexperienced as she was.

But that wasn’t going anywhere, and that was fine with her.

She had her own purposes for being there, even if she’d gotten in a little over her head. She’d come here looking for a missing friend, Lana, and hadn’t even known about shifters before that.

They’d been ready to kill her when they realized she found their location and was human, but then they decided she could do menial work instead. Something beneath shifters.

Then she’d attracted attention from one of her supervisors, a particularly mean wolf shifter.

Bridget knew the prisoner was right about her needing to get out of there.

But she had to wait for the right time. If she left without any info, then risking her life here would be for nothing.

Plus, what were her options? Run away with a dangerous dragon? He might be the most trustworthy one here, but he could also be worse than any of them, just better at hiding it.

Plus, the
least
evil of a group of human-hating shifters would still be evil.

And if she ran on her own and they caught her, she’d be dead. Right now, they at least thought she was on their side. A shifter groupie who just wanted to be around them, when it couldn’t be more the opposite.

No, for now, she had to bide her time. There weren’t any good options. And the dragon in the basement could be just trying to charm her into releasing him. Probably was.

He was leaning against the wall in his usual gray prison sweats, staring up at her as his stark-white hair streamed over his shoulders and his narrowed eyes displayed a dark array of colors.

A strand of white fell over his face as he watched her approach.

She set down the food as usual, trying to look calm as she slid it under the bars.

She steeled herself against the odd fear that he would like to eat
her
and then cleared her mind. She couldn’t afford for him to see any of her plans or desires. Not when she didn’t trust him.

Usually, she would have stayed to talk for a few minutes, but today, she’d brought a special extra meal for Scrangey. Her heart warmed as the cat crawled out of a corner and stared up at her with a little mew.

He wasn’t cute exactly, not in the way cats usually were, but he was sweet and needed help, and Bridget never could turn away from a creature in trouble.

Probably why she was still talking to the lonely dragon.

She didn’t know his name. He hadn’t offered it, and she didn’t hear the people above call him anything but the dragon or
Project 11
.

But she didn’t need to know his name because she didn’t intend to get further acquainted, no matter how beautiful he was.

If even shifters feared him, then how much more should she as a human?

She was several cells down from the dragon, crouched in a corner, feeding Scrangey tuna from a small bowl, listening to him purr, when she heard quiet footsteps plodding down the stairs.

She looked up, surprised. The scientists never came to get him when she was down here. She glanced at the clock. Not a time they would usually come. Most of the scientists went home in the evenings.

Another chill ran up her spine, and she stood to go, brushing her hair over her shoulder and avoiding the dragon’s eyes as she went.

But she was stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

The wolf, Galen, was handsome—no doubt about that. Tall, broad, with a squar-ish face and wolfish features, no pun intended.

But he had mean, dark eyes. A gross smile, like he was always thinking something dirty.

And he liked to crowd her and torment her with disgusting comments about how he intended to claim her, whatever that meant.

“Galen, what are you doing down here?” she asked, somewhat aware of the dragon’s eyes on them.

She glanced over and saw he was still leaned against the wall and hadn’t touched his food, but his mysterious eyes were narrowed on them.

She felt a keen sense of embarrassment as Galen came forward, backing her toward the corner where she’d been feeding Scrangey.

The cat let out a hiss and ran past them. Thank goodness he didn’t seem to like Galen either.

He ran straight to the dragon’s cell and sat in front of it, meowing pitifully.

Well, he could stop that. There was no way the dragon could help her, and even if he could, she doubted he would. If he were somehow able to get free, he’d simply leave, maybe after burning down the place.

She gasped as her back hit the cold stone wall of the prison, leaving her no escape.

She thought of her options as Galen closed in.

“You don’t get to ask me what I’m doing. I’m your supervisor, not the other way around.”

Too bad there weren’t sexual harassment policies when you worked for a dubious shifter corporation that hated humans.

She tried to dodge to the side, but he put up a hand to trap her.

Shit, she might really be in trouble.

She could kick him in the groin, but she knew he’d barely feel it. She’d seen how strong shifters were, how quickly they healed, how little pain they felt.

In the back of her mind, she’d known this was coming, but secretly, she’d hoped somehow it wouldn’t be so soon.

But apparently, Galen wasn’t a patient man.

He leaned in, blowing his fetid breath all over her. She pushed on his chest firmly, not allowing him to see any fear.

“Get off me,” she demanded. “I know you’re my supervisor, but being your whore isn’t part of my job description.”

A slow clap came from the direction of the dragon’s cell, where he was looking on sardonically.

She turned her attention back to Galen, who looked furious. “You’ll do whatever I tell you,
human
,” he sneered, flicking out a long, silvery claw and drawing it down the line of her neck and shoulder. It cut the side of her shirt, making it drop over her arm, baring her shoulder and part of her chest.