Tipping The Scales: Knox (Mate Craze)(43)

“My brother,” I gasped at the knowledge. I knew there was some contention between us long ago, but I had thought it was long gone. Apparently, I was wrong.

“So you see, little Alpha, it’s better if you just hand it over. We have the upper hand.”

I laughed, no longer afraid. “You have no upper hand. Kallie is alive and well. I believe I’m the one with the upper hand now.”

The witch’s saccharine laugh pierced my ears. “So foolish. Just because she appears to be fine, doesn’t mean she is. In a few minutes the effects of our taking on her form will weaken her into a coma. She will be comatose and you will be back in the throngs of the Mate Craze. There is nothing you can do. We already know the location of the treasure. All we need is some of your blood to unlock the cavern.”

“You mean you think you know where it is.”

“Your brother told us. We simply plucked it from his mind not less than twenty-four hours ago.”

I smiled and looked at Kallie. “My brother doesn’t know the real location. My father was the one who didn’t trust my brother. He never did trust him. He made me promise to tell everyone a different location to the real treasure. It is guarded by the spirit of Odin’s ravens in a place that can only be accessed by a dragon. Now, who is foolish?”

In an instant, Rhi’s mother reached out with bony knuckled fingers and her eyes became bloodshot as she spoke. “You.” My veins were the first to pulse with her power. Her poison flowed through me while my heart began to arrest. I faintly remember dropping to my knees while her voice and power throbbed between my temples.

“Die now, dragon. There are other ways to find your treasure.”

She was right. In the event of my death, Samson would find, in my will, the location of the real treasure, and it would be theirs in an instant.

I looked to Kallie who was screaming or crying, maybe both. I watched as she reached out to me and instantly everything became a blank.



The next thing I heard was her yelling, beating on my chest.

“Knox. Don’t you dare! I swear if you don’t wake up right this instant, I will kill you myself. Rhi, do something! What kind of a witch are you? Do something. It’s the least you can do.”

I heard her far away, but the more she spoke, the closer she became. In my silent state, I begged her to keep calling to me, keep calling to us.

“Knox. Look, Rhi. His eyes are fluttering. I think he’s waking up. Well don’t just stand there, do something. No, I don’t care. I’m fine. I’m fine!”

Wake up. Mate. Pain. Blood.

Sometimes I wished the damned beast would speak in full sentences.

“I’m here. What’s wrong?” I tried to sit up as fast as I could, and in so doing almost passed out again from the amount of pain radiating in my head and chest. I opened my eyes to see Kallie in front of me. Her arms were around her chest, holding herself together.

“You’re hurt. How badly? Let’s get you to the hospital.” I got up, but it was already too late. In keeping me alive, Kallie had sacrificed her own well being once again. “No. Damn it.”

“It’s okay. I wanted to save you. I needed to save you. That’s what I wanted to do. I know you didn’t want me to, but I had to. I couldn’t let you die.”

She collapsed then. Her hair splayed out in a million directions while her body, once full of life, flopped to the ground before I could catch her.

“Do something!” I screamed at Rhi who looked to be almost as distraught as I was. Her hands were shaking, but no matter what she tried, my mate’s body was losing steam second by second.

“You have to. Do it. You know what you have to do. There’s no other choice. She will die if you don’t. Now, Knox!”

Looking down at Kallie’s form, there was only one choice to save her life, but I didn’t want it to happen this way. There were few humans who survived the change, but I knew that my mate was strong and well. If anyone could survive it, it would be her.

“She will hate me.”

“But she will be alive.”

“She will leave me.”

“But she will be alive.”

“She will be alive.”

I repeated those words like a mantra, over and over while I conjured my bravery to do the unthinkable. I would have to change her to a dragon just like me. Her scales would be the same as mine-the teal and red of an Alpha born.

“I love you, Kallie. I do this out of love.” In seconds I was changed into a dragon and hovering over the human that I called my own.

Mine. Ours. Dragon.

I huffed out a breath that made Kallie’s hair blow before doing what I knew to save her. I tried, as gently as I could and bit down on her thigh, near her carotid artery to insure that my blood would enter her bloodstream immediately. I allowed the wound to bleed out some and then, with my own talon, slit a cut across my front leg and allowed the blood to seep into the wound.

The only thing I could do then was pray that it would work.

I turned back into human form and gathered her in my arms. I had to get her back to my cabin and allow her to rest while my clan took care of the mess.

“She killed them. I don’t know how in the hell she did it, but she went after them like an animal. One minute you’re dying and the next she’d taken my knife from its sheath and my parents… my mother.”