Dragon's Frenemy (Dragon Blaze Ops Book 2) Page 15

  Liam’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. No more running off for me. I get it.”

  Fiona smirked as she slid off the desk. “I have a feeling you’re not going to find any reason to be running off again. Not now that Utopia is back here for good.”

  Heat rose in Liam’s cheeks and he lowered his head. Everybody thought she was his mate, did they? Then why did it feel so insurmountable to even try to talk to her again? She’d made up her mind about him, and he didn’t think there was going to be any changing it.

  Dismissed, he headed back to his apartment. Whatever happened next, he would find a way back to her. He had to. She was his mate.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A cold, biting feeling stabbed through her chest where she’d been burned. Utopia whimpered as she tried to roll, to ease the pressure off her injury. Everything had a strange metallic taste to it... Then she realized that it was blood, dripping into her mouth from her split lip. She pushed herself upright and then immediately cried out as white-hot pain shot up both her arms.

  She fell back down, only to scream as agony burst from the burns. She lay there gasping and sobbing from the pain, biting her own cheek hard to try to keep from screaming again.

  Voices came from outside the door, and it burst open. She didn’t even care who it was, she was just too grateful that someone was coming to her aid.

  “Here we go,” a deep, male voice said as thick arms lifted her.

  A woman answered, “Put her in the chair.”

  The man did as ordered. For a stupid, hopeful moment, Utopia thought maybe it was Liam. Her hopes were dashed when she saw the familiar amber eyes of the lion who wanted her dead. She cringed back from him, whimpering in her throat.

  Cooper stepped back, holding up his hands. He looked chagrinned, but she didn’t trust him.

  Luckily, Erica was right there. She steadied Utopia, and looked, alarmed, at the ooze of blood from her lip. “What the hell?” She blocked Cooper’s view as she peeked under the bandages on Utopia’s chest. Immediately, she let out a curse. She stepped back, a crease in her brow. “What did they do to you?”

  “What do you mean?” Utopia fought not to show how much pain she was in. If Cooper sensed her weakness, he’d kill her for sure.

  “You’re not healing. Well, you were healing, but it’s almost… reversed. Did they inject you with anything?”

  Utopia shook her head. They hadn’t done anything. Except… “The Alpha was the one who did this. He used my research to… enhance his abilities. He can breathe fire now. Maybe he did something… I don’t know what, but he could have changed the qualities of dragon fire to be particularly effective against shifters.”

  Cooper let out a noise that was halfway between a growl and a cry of fear. “But how? How is that possible? He’s a wolf. From all the accounts we had, he’s a wolf. Not a dragon. He can’t… Can he?”

  She flinched back from him so harshly that pain spiked through her again. She gasped for air while Erica held her shoulder, keeping her from collapsing again. When the black and white spots cleared from Utopia’s vision, the first thing she did was glance over at Aiden. He was still asleep, oblivious to his mother’s pain.

  There was a small comfort in that. Knowing that he didn’t have to see this.

  “I think you should go, Cooper,” Erica said. Her voice was stiff, angry.

  “Maura is going to want to hear about this, though,” the lion insisted. “And she’s on our side now. I know that. I understand now. I promise, I just want to help.”

  Utopia gazed past Erica toward Cooper. His expression was earnest, with that chagrinned look still in his eyes. He twisted his hands as he met her gaze, then dropped his eyes. Shame came over his features as he shook his head.

  “I understand why you don’t trust me. But please believe me. When they thought I might be a traitor… it made me realize just how I’ve been acting. It’s a horrible feeling, realizing that you’re helping the enemy just by your attitude. If I hadn’t been so angry, then Clementine wouldn’t have been able to use me to…” His shoulders hunched inward.

  Utopia felt herself softening toward him. Hadn’t she first met Liam when he came into the Pack’s base, guns blazing, ready to kill her? Could she really forgive him and not Cooper?

  Thinking of Liam made a whole different kind of pain spike through her. She bit it back and closed her eyes. Cooper was right about one thing. The Academy needed to know everything that she was working on, and the sooner the better. If the Alpha had given himself the ability to breathe fire, then it was a sure bet he’d given others the same ability.

  “My research was in gene splicing. Specifically, isolating the genes that make a shifter the type of shifter they are. The Alpha’s plans were to splice different abilities together and create the ultimate weapon. I had some success already, but it seems that the Alpha was able to put together the pieces I thought I’d left missing…” She flinched again, not out of pain this time but guilt. Whatever he did with his abilities was on her head. Her hands were covered in whatever blood he shed. “I also started to adjust their abilities… Increased the size of wolves, gave them more flexibility. That sort of thing. I didn’t think he could use dragon fire like this.”

  “Apparently they can.” Erica sighed. “I’m going to have to run tests. If this is indicative of what the Alpha’s abilities can do… we need more information. We need that research.”

  “And not just destroy it,” Utopia whispered. A cold ball sunk in her stomach and she slumped in the chair. “I’d hoped it was over. That I wouldn’t have to have anything to do with that again…”

  Erica braced her but gave no words of comfort. Not that they would have been very comforting. Not when this hung over her head like a guillotine. The doctor had a quick conversation with Cooper, but Utopia’s brain was elsewhere. When Liam and the others got that research back, she wasn’t going to be allowed to just drop it and not have anything to do with it again.

  No. The Academy was going to want her to see what the Alpha had done. To continue researching, to see if she could undo what had been done.

  There would be no putting this in her past.

  But if that is what I have to do in order to make up for what I have done, then it’s what I have to do. This isn’t about survival anymore. I have to atone for my past.

  Erica left the room and Utopia tensed, staring up at the lion in terror.

  “Easy,” he said, backing up a step and raising his hands. “I don’t blame you for being afraid, but I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. It’s… It’s actually why I’m here.”

  She reached to put a hand on Aiden’s chest, thinking if Cooper did attack, she could at least try to get her son out of here.

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  The tension eased from Utopia’s body, though her heart still pounded. She tried to tell herself that this was ridiculous—she had already decided she could forgive him, hadn’t she? There was no reason for her to keep being afraid of him.

  Except he tried to kill me twice, both times when I was already working with the Academy. That’s different than what Liam did.

  Erica came back in, glancing at Cooper once before going to Aiden’s bedside. “We’ve run all the regular tests on Aiden. But we’re not sure exactly what to look for in the first stages of the splicing. Would you like to take a look at his results?”

  Utopia nodded. “Please.”

  Between getting more tests taken from her own strange injury and looking at Aiden’s results, Utopia was exhausted within a few hours. Her head pounded, and all she wanted to do was lie down and sleep. She kept trying to think of ways to accelerate her healing, or at least counter-act the damage the Alpha’s dragon fire had caused. Twice it was so hard to breathe she thought she might have to be intubated, but the oxygen mask that Erica provided was good enough.

  Finally, she found that her hormone levels were imbalanced. On a hunch, she compared it to Liam’s and found that both their lev
els were changing in similar ways. Hers, though, was much more dramatic that his change was.

  But what did it mean? Had the Alpha injected her with something after all? Or perhaps it was something he’d put into her before she made her escape, and he’d only activated it once she was back in his clutches?

  “You should check Aiden’s levels, too,” she told Erica. “I don’t know what’s happening, but if it’s affecting him, too…”

  It shouldn’t be fatal. But if they kept shifting like this, it could cause serious problems. Erratic behavior, for one thing.

  Utopia flinched as she wondered if the reason she and Liam had made love was because of their imbalanced hormones after all. Even if she wasn’t sure where she stood with him and she was certain she wasn’t his mate, she didn’t want to think it was all because there was something wrong with them. With everything else going on, she would have liked to have that one thing.

  The door opened and Utopia looked up, her heart jumping as she expected to see Liam. She hadn’t been able to stop herself, every time someone came in, and was disappointed when it wasn’t him.

  This time, though, there was no disappointment. There was a sudden sinking in her stomach as her breath locked in her painful lungs.

  Liam stepped into the room and shut the door carefully behind himself. “How is he?”

  Utopia swallowed dryly and lifted the oxygen mask. “All the tests have come back normal so far. I’m hopeful that the Alpha wasn’t able to start his experiments.”

  “Good. Good. He didn’t have a lot of time, and he must have known we were there already. His wolves came after us pretty quick.” Liam stepped closer. He moved slowly, as though expecting her to tell him to go away and never come back. He knelt beside her. “Please believe me that I wanted to tell you the plan.”

  That pain ripped through her again. She looked away, not wanting to see his eyes. “You could have.”

  “I could have,” he agreed, “but I couldn’t take the risk that it would change things. Please. I needed to make sure that everything went exactly the way we planned. I needed to make sure I could get you and Aiden out of there. Even if it meant lying.”

  Utopia looked up at the ceiling, fighting the tears that burned her eyes. “Didn’t you trust me?”

  Liam flinched. “I couldn’t trust that you wouldn’t feel trapped. That you wouldn’t lose faith in the team. You’d do anything for Aiden. If the Alpha was going to hurt him and you had any sort of bargaining chip to try to save him…”

  She would have used it. Her throat closed over with tears rather than pain as she realized that she would have told the Alpha everything the moment he threatened to take Aiden away. Liam had been right not to tell her.

  It didn’t mean that the sting was any less painful.

  “And what I said before I left… that wasn’t a lie.”

  Her lungs hitched painfully, and she quickly put the mask back on. If nothing else, it allowed her a reason not to speak and reveal how close to tears she was.

  “Everything I said to you… that’s real. I love you, Utopia. I know that we haven’t known each other for long. But I know enough about you. You are brave. You are loyal. You will do anything to protect the ones you love. You’d dive off a bridge head-first without hesitation for that boy. You love so deeply, so true.” His gaze was intense on hers, adamant, painstaking. “You asked me how I could love you, but the truth is, I don’t think I can ever not love you.”

  Utopia turned her face away. Slowly, her heart feeling like dead weight in her chest, she lifted the mask. “Love isn’t enough.”

  Liam’s shoulders slumped. “Utopia—”

  “If I was ever capable of loving you…” She locked away all emotion and looked back at him. “I’m not now. Go away, Liam. I never want to see you again.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Liam rubbed his eyes, trying desperately not to show just how tired he really was. Everything seemed to be falling apart, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. The only thing he could think of was to go straight back on an attack on the Pack, find Utopia’s research and bring it back. The problem with that one was that the person who could okay that sort of mission was refusing to okay it.

  “We can’t risk your team going in again so soon,” Maura replied. Her expression was calm, cool and collected. Why she was always in control of everything all the time was the exact same reason she was the perfect choice to be head of the Magnus Academy.

  That didn’t mean Liam liked it. He wished he could deal more with emotional people sometimes. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel like such a train wreck. “I understand the situation and that we’re all tired and—”

  “Injured,” Cooper, standing to one side, put in unhelpfully.

  “And you are still under medical supervision,” Maura continued. She gave Cooper a mild glare which had him backing off. Her fingers steepled before her as she focused on Liam gain. “Your team has done a lot of work in the past few months. The fact that you were discovered so quickly on your rescue of Utopia and Aiden means that the Pack is recognizing your patterns now. The team has to adjust if they’re going to keep working.”

  “But—”

  Maura shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, I know that this is personal for you, but the importance of the mission comes first. You are not on active duty and you will not be returned to active duty until Dr. Bennet clears you. Do you understand?”

  Liam slumped in his chair. “Then what are we going to do?”

  “My team is ready to go as soon as we get the word,” Cooper said stoutly.

  “Your team? But the Shadow Ops is all about gaining information. If you go on a mission like this, you’ll give up your identities.”

  Cooper gave him a frustrated look. “Clementine has been working with them for who knows how long. What makes you think that she hasn’t already told them who we are? For all we know, the information we got about Utopia’s location in the first place was fed to us. The Alpha wanted dragons, and you were caught easily.”

  Guilt flashed across his face and Liam knew he was thinking about how he was the one to have given Liam the location in the first place. It must be horrible, learning that you were an unwitting pawn in a traitor’s schemes.

  Not that he could actually say it without getting Cooper in trouble.

  “I understand how you feel,” Maura said, bringing his attention back to her. “And I’m sorry that you have to sit back and let others take care of this. I know it’s hard. But it’s what must happen. We can’t risk you or your team getting captured again. We will have other chances to get our hands on that research. Right now, we have to figure out exactly what Clementine told the Pack, otherwise we’ll be walking straight into a trap.”

  Liam understood her point. As much as he would have liked to argue it and say that they needed to move, now, before things got worse. Before it was too late.

  But Utopia was with them. They’d found the traitor, and she could share what she remembered of her research. They weren’t sitting around waiting for something bad to happen. They were still proactive.

  At least the Academy in general was. Liam wasn’t really able to do anything but sit around and twiddle his thumbs. Not that he was thinking of taking things into his own hands again. What good had it done the last few times? He’d ended up captured by the Pack, in trouble with his team, and in more bad situations than he cared to admit. Sure, it had turned out alright, but he really needed to stop being such an idiot.

  Maura dismissed him, and he headed for the hospital. Erica wanted him to stop by to check his bloodwork again.

  When he got there, she directed him to a private room and started taking blood. Normally this was something that a nurse would do. Given the situation, though, and with what had been happening, Erica wanted to oversee everything herself.

  “Have you been feeling different lately?”

  Liam shrugged. “Tired. But I haven’t been sleeping well. Too much going on in my
brain.”

  Erica hummed. “Have you tried taking anything?”

  “No. I usually just go and work out until my brain shuts up.” Liam heard a woman’s voice in the hall and turned toward it, half expecting Utopia to come in. When she didn’t and the voice passed, he slumped. “How are Utopia and Aiden doing? She had a mask on the last I saw her…”

  “Aiden is awake. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with him. Utopia…” Erica sighed. “We’re still not sure why she’s not healing as well as she should be. Last I checked, though, it looked like the burn was finally scarring over. I think she’ll be okay.”

  Liam let out a sigh of relief. “Good.”

  “She’s been concerned about you, too,” Erica continued, an almost sly look to her expression as she glanced at his face. “She’s been quite impatient to see all your results.”

  As much as Liam wanted to feel happy that she was worried for him, he only felt that clench in his stomach. He’d been deliberately trying to avoid thinking about what she had said to him. That there was no possibility of her loving him. Normally if a woman rejected him, he’d leave it at that. He had plenty of other options, after all, and if a woman said no, she meant no.

  With Utopia… he didn’t want to push. He didn’t want to drag her out of her boundaries and admit to feelings that she might not even have. But even if there wasn’t anything between them on her end, he could still make sure she was alright, right?

  After Erica was finished with him, he headed up to Utopia’s room. The door was open, and as he lifted his hand to knock, he heard Aiden’s small voice from behind the curtain pulled around them for privacy.

  “The Alpha said you didn’t love me anymore and that’s why you were gone.”

  Liam flinched. What sort of person would tell a child something like that?

  “That’s not true, Aiden,” Utopia replied fiercely. “I love you. I love you more than anything else in this world. I tried to come back for you. I tried many, many times. If it had been up to me, I never would have left you. I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”