Page 9 of Dragon's Code

“And then what?”

His smile disappears. “And then I’m going to take what I want,” he replies with a cold sneer.

My heart feels like it’s in my throat and blood is rushing in my ears. I try to think if there’s another weapon in my office, in the hallway, anywhere close by, that I can use. There’s no reason that Raphael should’ve been so prepared for me to hit him with the bat. There’s no way he should’ve been able to stop me so easily.

“Athena,” he says in his melodic baritone voice.

“Get fucked, Raphael. Leave. Now.”

The pounding on my apartment door catches both of our attention, but I recover faster than he does and rush him. I slam him into the wall behind him and charge past him into the foyer. I unlock all of my locks as quickly as I can manage.

It’s not fast enough.

His hand wraps around my throat from behind and he hisses in my ear, “Next time, you won’t have time to get help and you’ll be all mine.”

He shoves me hard and I faceplant into the door. I turn around, gasping.

He’s just gone.

The pounding on the door continues. “Ms. Miller? Are you all right?”

I quickly finish unlocking the door and open it. Rachel and the building security guard are standing on the other side. Rachel looks pale, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open.

The security guard pushes past me, stepping inside. I move out into the hallway and collapse against the wall on the other side. My heart won’t stop racing, my breath is shallow, and the fear won’t stop. The worst thoughts imaginable roll through my mind while I try and pull myself together.

“Ms. Miller,” the security guard comes back out and hands me my phone.

I hold it up to my ear. “Hello?”

“Ms. Miller, I have the police on their way. I recorded everything, but unfortunately, whoever you were talking to, their voice didn’t come through the phone. It’s distorted audio.”

I wish I could say I was surprised.

I’ve never been able to record Raphael. For some reason, his voice and image in pictures are always distorted. It’s the weirdest thing. My technology has always been sound and I’ve tried with several different devices. He says that the camera has never liked him, but that makes no fucking sense. It was one of the things that always bothered me. That always stuck out as strange.

What does he want with me?

I give a statement to the police, though I don’t expect much to come out of it. I pulled up the videos on my own security system, and as predicted, the pictures of Raphael are distorted. You can plainly see someone is there, but no defining features or sound from him.

When I’m back in my apartment, alone after everyone leaves, I feel like there are eyes everywhere watching me.

I reach out to the one person I trust above all.

ATHENA: Kash, I need your help.

ChapterTwo

KASH

Istroll to my brother’s office without much hustle.

We’ve all been on lockdown in a Miami highrise since Levi’s video went viral and revealed to the humans that dragon shifters are real.

Then, to make matters worse, video after video was released on the internet, flooding the reputable websites, as well as the tabloid and conspiracy theory ones, with real footage of shifters and witches doing all kinds of things to scare the humans even more. It was bad enough that the world was afraid of dragons. Now they’re scared of all our allies too.

Grey’s doing, no doubt.

Grey. That fucking vampire.

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