Page 72 of The Dragon's Captured Heart
“Why? If we’re to be together, there should be no secrets, brother. So, tell me what you did to stop Callum?”
“I said no more!” he shrieked, lunging for my throat.
My eyes bulged out of my head as he tightened.
“Shhh,” he said, all of a sudden calm as he squeezed the life out of me, looking down with a serene, glassy-eyed face that betrayed the violence he was inflicting. “You’ll understand soon. I did what I had to do. I—”
“You killed your own sister,” a new voice growled.
Cleye looked up just in time to see a fist connect with his face.
“Are you okay?” Cal asked me as Cleye slammed into the stone wall on the other side of the room, shattering much of it.
I could only nod as I sucked in precious air.
“I’m sorry I took so long. I’m here now, though,” he assured me. “I need you to know that—”
“Get away from her!” Cleye screamed, interrupting whatever Callum was going to say. “You will not defile her again! She’s mine!”
Callum’s blue-green eyes darkened dangerously as he turned to face the other dragon.
“You,” he said with white-hot anger. “You killed your sister. Mymate. You slid a scale into her heart and left her. You robbed the world of a good person. Now, you come after Madison? A woman who has captured my heart, something I thought impossible after what happened before. You threaten her as well? You’ve tried to take everything from me, and I will not stand for it!”
Callum roared as he charged. I could only watch, still tied to the table, as the two of them went at it.
The room shook. Bits and pieces of the ceiling fell with every blow. Cleye may have lost his mind, but he hadn’t forgotten his training. At one point, Callum was too slow, and a punch sent him tumbling through the air until he crashed into the wall.
Cleye came at him so fast he was a blur, but Callum got the upper hand by flinging an unexpected hunk of stone, then striking while Cleye had flung his arms up to protect his face.
Both men were battered and bleeding, but neither was giving up. The fight went on as they circled, neither one wanting to hurt me. I struggled to free myself and get out of the way so Callumcould fight without worrying about me, but it was futile. I was too well restrained.
“Just get out of my life!” Cleye howled at one point. “She doesn’t want you! She belongs with me!”
“You’re delusional, Cleye, and you know it,” Callum growled, wincing as he spoke, one hand pressed to his ribs where Cleye had landed a vicious kick at one point. “That isn’t Noa. Noa isdead. You need to accept it and move on. She’s gone, and neither of us can bring her back.”
“Lies!”
“I’m not lying. Trust me. For the longest time, I wished I was. I wished there was something I could do to bring her back. But there isn’t. And you know what happened once I awoke to that realization?”
“I don’t care!” Cleye charged.
Callum ducked the wild punch and drove straight up, the force of his shoulder flinging Cleye up into the ceiling, lodging him halfway through to the next floor.
“I realized,” Callum continued, unfazed as he reached for Cleye’s dangling feet. “That there was something to live for after all. That I’d been overlooking it. Blinding myself. But not anymore, Cleye. Now, I see her. And she’s perfect.”
Yanking hard, he whipped Cleye back down. The crazed dragon shifter's head slammed into the stone floor with a sickening crack. Cleye moaned woozily.
“That’s why you won’t be able to take her away from me,” Callum growled, his right hand covering itself in flame. “Because I love her.”
What?!
The fist fell, and Cleye’s nose disappeared in a spray of blood.
“I’m sorry you lost your sister,” he said.
His fist rose and fell again.
“But it’s over.”
