Page 8 of Wrath

Kwan’s lips parted in shock, and she stared at me with an emotion I couldn’t define.

“I have Gomenzi Dragon blood,” I continued. “My need to protect you and to keep you happy supersedes any other feelings I may have towards you. It is not hard for me not to pursue you, because my dragon blood knows it would upset you. This is not what you need from me right now. So, stop fretting. You take however long you need. It’s not like I can grow tired and start looking elsewhere,” I added in a teasing tone. “Until then, I only ask for the honor of your company as a friend, and hopefully as a confidante.”

Kwan licked her lips nervously as she stared at me, a troubled expression on her beautiful face.

“I had not expected that response from you,” she admitted, her cheeks flushed. “You’re very sweet.”

“I’ll take sweet over being called the ‘best booboo-kisser,’” I mumbled.

Kwan’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

I chuckled. “According to Legion, that’s what I am: a nurturer.”

Kwan snorted and gave me a quick once over that had my chest warming. “Nurturer isn’t exactly the word that comes to mind when I look at one of you guys,” she said, a bit of playfulness seeping into her voice. “Badass skull-cracker seems a bit more accurate.”

I laughed. “That one is even better.”

She smiled before her face took on a serious expression. “Thank you for openly addressing the matter and clearing the air. I love Linette and the team. You seem like a great guy. I’m just in a different space right now, and I didn’t want this to become a problem.”

“I will always be honest and straightforward with you, Kwan. Whatever the question, however uncomfortable the topic, I will always be truthful with you,” I said. “Never hesitate to ask me anything. Similarly, should you ever want to just talk about anything, my door is always open to you.”

“You’re not scared of permanently ending up in the friend zone?” Kwan said teasingly, visibly trying to hide how moved she felt.

“You’re my soulmate,” I said with a slow, somewhat smug smile stretching my lips. “You haveno choicebut to eventually become mesmerized by all of my lovely golden scales.”

She burst out laughing and shook her head.

The door of the Infirmary slid open, revealing Nathalie. Her gaze flicked between Kwan and me, curiosity burning within.

“What did I miss?” Nathalie asked.

“Our team leader bragging about his talents at kissing booboos,” Kwan deadpanned.

I gaped at her disbelievingly while Nathalie’s eyebrows shot up.

“Never mind that,” I said with pretend outrage. “But now that you’re here, this young lady will be your responsibility during this mission. As both of you will remain on board, make sure she’s familiar with everything important both here in the Incubator and throughout the ship. I want us off within the hour. After takeoff, we will have the long overdue team meeting. You should find it quite interesting.”

On these enigmatic words, I walked out of the Infirmary with the gazes of both females burning holes in my back.

The team gathered in the massive boardroom of our frigate thirty minutes after takeoff. Typical of the Vanguard, the room had dark grey walls with gold accents. Despite the dark colors, our decorators always did wonders making the room feel welcoming instead of gloomy. The two huge windows looking out onto the void of space were beautiful tableaus in and of themselves.

Standing at the front of the rectangular room with a giant screen at my back and a holographic projector at my side, I watched my team settle down. Loosely scattered around the imposing dark table that ate up a third of the space, they stared at me, their eyes filled with curiosity. As she never liked leaving the bridge unattended, Linette was attending remotely via the vidcom system.

“Sorry, everyone for keeping the goal of this mission such a mystery until the very last minute,” I said in an apologetic tone. “It wasn’t secrecy, but more that I and the other members of leadership have been swamped with the madness of sorting out all those secret locations Varnog was able to get out of General Khutu’s mind. As you know, we have been dividing the locations between the Coalition troops and the Vanguard teams. Our teams are assigned all the sensitive missions, mainly to recover the twisted research and experiments that could become a global threat should they fall into the wrong hands. We’re also tasked with rescuing, whenever possible, any prisoner or survivor of those experiments.”

“Are we rescuing survivors?” Dread asked, his eyes lighting up.

As one of General Khutu’s hybrid sons, Dread felt the constant need to make amends for his sire’s crimes. And so did all of his brothers, named Dragons for their high percentage of Gomenzi Dragon DNA. Even though they had rebelled against the Kryptid General and fought by our sides to free all the other victims of their mad sire’s conquest ambitions, they continued to feel guilt for Khutu’s wrongdoings.

“No,” I said with a sad smile. “This time, we are going to try exterminating the experiments, if possible. Otherwise, we are to safely transport them back to Khepri in the hopes that Liena and Victoria can figure out a way to safely eliminate the threat they represent.”

The team exchanged confused looks, wondering what kind of experiment couldn’t be dispatched on site and might require extreme measures to eliminate it. By default, we never brought to our homeworld anything that could be a threat. Khepri was the seat of the Vanguard. We weren’t taking this decision lightly.

I turned on the holographic projector, and it displayed the 3D image of a fascinating silver creature, which slightly resembled a compact version of a pterodactyl. Except its head vaguely looked like that of a tyrannosaur.

“This lovely creature is a Jadozor. It is often called a silver phoenix for its rebirth ability,” I said while the image slowly rotated to give a 360-degree view of the creature. “It is a peaceful species found on the planet Sokogo that mostly feeds on insects and occasionally on plants. Essentially, it’s considered immortal to the extent that it doesn’t die naturally of old age. A Jadozor experience physicals death following an accident or trauma. Within minutes of its passing, a biochemical reaction takes place, regenerating damaged tissue before setting its heart back in motion.”

“I thought that species had become extinct?” Myriam asked. “As far as I knew, it had become more of a myth or legend.”

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