Silver(49)

“Hey, look at us,” Kelsey said. “Already such a good team.”

He walked over, wrapped his arms around her, and placed a kiss on her forehead. “Yes. Yes, we are.”

Then he released her so they could both get to work.



Kelsey was shuffling through papers on Robbie’s desk, seeing if she left any instructions, when she felt an odd prickling on her neck.

She looked up at the empty office, the chairs on the other side of the room, the closed door, and let out a sigh. She was alone, safe at Date-A-Dragon, and there was no reason to be nervous, even if Robbie wasn’t here.

She was in charge, at least for now, while Citrine figured out what was going on, and she would do a good job trying to make sure there weren’t any problems.

She opened the scheduling program and was relieved there weren’t any appointments. That was the last thing they needed today. She looked affectionately at the camera in the club room, where Adrien and Sever were cleaning and setting up just in case.

They’d brought a camera in from one of the private rooms to replace the one that had broken.

It was fun watching Adrien’s big body work. His hands were so beautiful, his movements so sharp, no efforts wasted.

She liked Sever as a person, too. He was very straightforward, though kind of stoic. She would be fine working with him and Citrine, too.

She pulled her eyes away from the screen and back to her computer and then jumped slightly as she caught something in the corner of her vision.

She jerked her head up to see someone sitting in one of the chairs by the still-closed door. It was the woman from before, staring at her with an evil smile, sitting rigidly still.

She had just… appeared there.

Kelsey’s heart was threatening to lurch out of her chest as she slowly closed the laptop and faced the woman. Had she somehow not heard the door because she was watching the camera?

The woman stood, walking forward, and there was something unearthly in her eyes that Kelsey couldn’t ignore this time. Everything about this felt very, very wrong, and though the woman’s movements were slow and deliberate, Kelsey had the feeling that if she made any quick moves to call Adrien, this woman would move quickly as well.

And the threat in the air, feeling as if it could choke her, was very, very real.

The woman leaned over the desk, planting her hands on it. As Kelsey looked up into her eyes, frozen with fear, the woman’s eyes changed from blue to gray, a deep, swirling silver like molten metal. Like no eyes should be.

Nothing like Adrien’s at all.

She was about to scream, but the woman’s hand shot out to cover her mouth as she came around the desk, pinning Kelsey against the wall, still gagged by her hand.

“Shh,” the woman said, putting a finger up to her lips, which still had a hint of that gut-wrenching smile. “We don’t want to alert anyone, do we?”

Was it just Kelsey’s imagination, or was the woman’s voice lower?

The woman let out a deep laugh and threw her head back and then, before Kelsey’s eyes, changed.

Kelsey’s eyes widened as the woman in front of her morphed into a man, a tall man, with the same kind of beauty as the men of Date-A-Dragon but eyes that were much, much crueler. There were lines around his eyes and mouth that the other guys didn’t have, as though he’d lived a very different life.

A mean one.

He grinned at her, fully transformed, wearing an odd, gray metallic tunic that was belted at the waist with some kind of chain. He was tall, like the others, but a little bit lean, though still muscled.

“I’m Mercury,” he said. “Nice to meet you. At least, it’s nice because now I can make sure Adrien never gets a chance to mate you and never gets his powers back. If I can keep even one of the noble metals from achieving happiness for what they did to me, then I can rest.”

She eyed him fearfully, having no idea what he was talking about. But as she’d just seen a woman literally melt into a giant man, she was beginning to accept the world wasn’t exactly as simple as she’d thought it was.

His eyes blinked and his lips turned up as he cocked his head in realization. “Oh. I see. He hasn’t told you. How droll. After the way you fought for him yesterday, I assumed you two had gone back to have a conversation. I was worried it would be too late, but I couldn’t move in until Citrine was out of the picture. He isn’t collared like the other two are.”

Collared?

“Yes, collared,” he said. “As dragons have to be when awakened in the modern world. Otherwise, the oracle worries they will use their powers to wreak destruction carelessly.” He reached out to stroke her hair, though she tried to jerk back unsuccessfully. “The only way to undo the bonds on their powers is to find a human mate.”