Page 30 of Fallen for the Two-Headed Dragon

“I’ll be right back,” Chrissy whispered and gave her hand a squeeze. When she returned, she had that practiced lawyer face in full force. She obviously had bad news.

Before she even opened her mouth, Dana spotted it.

Him.

Jackson.

“He’s not supposed to be here!” Dana screeched in a hushed whisper.

“I know. I know.” Chrissy’s voice was somewhere in between her favorite cousin and her acting lawyer. She took Dana’s shoulders and squared her up. “You’ve got this. You’re strong. This changes nothing.”

Dana took a deep breath, nodded, and tried to adapt her facial expression to mirror her cousin’s. Her heart beat rapidly. She hadn’t realized until this moment that she wasn’t only angry at Jackson, but afraid of him. She’d been avoiding thinking of it too hard. Even while talking to police officers and family about what happened, she’d been able to disassociate from the actual event. It was surprisingly easy to do since she’d actually had a great time during her break from reality.

Now, looking at his smug face, seeing plainly how he thought he’d gotten away with trying to kill her, it was real. It was intimidating.

She fought the nervous urge to clean her glasses. Her thumbs pressed into the palm of her hand. Her body tingled with pins and needles. It was just like before debate competitions when she was younger. Her mom had always insisted she give things like that a solid try, while on the inside she harbored a terrible fear of public performances. Her mom only wanted the best for her, of course, which was why she pushed so hard. She wanted her children to live full lives and have real job prospects. One of her mom’s unspoken disapprovals was toward Dana’s choice in career. It was never said out loud, but it was in her mom’s silence whenever Dana brought up her passion.

She tried to tell herself this was just like a debate meet, which she’d always lived through. She would live through this one, too. She was done pretending to fit in the meek little box Jackson placed her in. She was done being the goody-two-shoes girl who lowered her voice when she was angry. She held her chin high, even though her hands were slick with sweat under the table.

Whatever had changed, the judge didn’t seem too happy about it either. He frowned at Jackson as the clerk stated the pertinent information for the record. As the two lawyers spoke, Judge Larson’s frown remained while his full attention was given to both speakers.

Dana tried to listen, but most of her energy was going toward keeping her eyes off the man who’d tried to kill her. She watched the judge instead, barely catching it when Jackson’s lawyer stated the plea of not guilty.

“My client can’t possibly be guilty of this alleged crime. The police officers didn’t find a single mark on her body, not a single scratch! This whole thing is a fabrication, a—”

A wave of terrified screams flooded the park outside the community center. Dana didn’t have to glance out the window to know what the screaming was about.

Her stomach sank even as her heart rejoiced. She wasn’t sure how he was able to sense her, or how the mate bond worked in general. But he’d felt her fear. True to his word, he was swooping in to retrieve her.

While everyone scrambled to get away from the jaws of her lover’s two giant, gnashing heads, she rushed to the window and flailed her arms.

“Rathym!”

Chrissy tugged at her arms and clothes, but Dana shook her off. One of Rathym’s blazing pairs of eyes spotted her through the glass, then landed on Chrissy’s hands on her. The other set found the true source of her fear.

Like a battering ram, Rathym’s head crashed through the ceiling, sending debris and people flying. He landed directly on top of Jackson’s whimpering form and pinned him to the desk.

“Rathym, stop, please!”

In a fluid motion, Rathym’s body burst through the wall and downshifted simultaneously. He grabbed Jackson by the head like a basketball and raised it as though to smash his skull wide open on the desk.

Dana rushed to grab his wrist. He pinned her with furious, confused eyes, his beautiful double irises swirling with hatred and fear. Hatred for those who meant her harm. Hatred for the man who almost kept them from ever meeting. Fear for her life, her spark as he called it, to be snuffed out.

Judge Larson sat frozen in his seat, his skin so pale he looked like he might die from shock. She twisted to face him without removing her hand from Rathym’s wrist.

“Mr. Larson, this is Rathym. The man who saved me and nursed me back to health after Jackson tried to kill me by throwing me off a cliff. He means no harm.” She met Rathym’s burning stare. “Right?”

With a discontented growl, Rathym loosened his grip on Jackson’s head but did not release it. “This man must pay with his life.”

Minutes passed. Dana began to worry the judge had actually died in his chair, his body still tremoring with the aftershock, but eventually, Mr. Larson cleared his throat. His hands trembled as he raised a scolding finger, his teeth chattering when he spoke. “That is not how the justice system works, young man.”

Young man. That was a gross understatement. From what she’d gathered, Rathym was decently old even by dragon standards.

A pathetic whimpering sound drew her attention to the puny head in Rathym’s claws, shrunken under his huge claw-tipped hand. Jackson trembled, tears and blood pooling in the divots of his face, a wet stain on his pants from pissing himself.

Although he didn't stop visibly shaking, Judge Larson bravely heard Rathym’s corroboration of her injuries and ordered Jackson to be held until sentencing. Since there were no officers remaining in the makeshift courtroom after fleeing the scene, the judge himself led the criminal out of the room on wobbly knees.

The next moment, Dana found herself in Rathym’s arms. He scooped her up like a new bride and let his wings fall open.

---