by Reus, Katie
She snickered. “I don’t think you’re wrong about that. He is a terrible flirt. With males and females,” she added.
Yeah, he’d picked up on that as well. The guy seemed like an equal opportunity flirter, and it was all harmless as far as Rhys could tell. He didn’t want to talk about that damn lion, however. Didn’t even want to think about him. His only concern was Dallas. “So we’re going to start where we left off yesterday?”
“Yep. We can start here,” she said as she pointed to her map. “And then move inward this way. There’s really not a way to tell which is the best position to start. For all we know, the location is on the outskirts of the circle. It’s just a crapshoot.”
“There’s no way to narrow it down any?”
She paused and shook her head. “Not really. I mean, if I knew which coven was behind this or had a personal relationship with one of the humans or vampires taken, I could try a few other tricks. But then I’d get into some gray areas.”
He wanted to push her a little but she was already giving so much of herself and it wasn’t really his business anyway. The old Rhys would have pushed her, demanded information. But…he was trying to be better. For her. He’d spent so many years racing after his vengeance and he was ashamed of who he’d become. Ashamed he’d let hate consume him.
“If you get tired or hungry, we stop. Okay?”
“You’re very bossy,” she murmured as she glanced at the upcoming house, scanning it for the invisible crest.
“I’m right.”
She didn’t respond one way or the other, just made a sort of humming sound.
At least she’d brought a bunch of snacks in her bag, mainly nutrient bars for protein. And he’d brought a satchel with containers of water. He wasn’t going to be unprepared today.
“So what’s your Hibernation like?” she asked, the random question surprising him. “You don’t have to answer,” she added, adjusting her bag as a breeze rolled over them. “I was just curious. The whole concept of Hibernation is kind of foreign to me.”
He nodded at a couple out walking their dog and sidestepped them on the sidewalk before he fell in step with her again. “Mainly I’m unconscious the whole time but I occasionally dream. It’s like, well, a really long sleep. For the most part, it’s supposed to be a time for our brains to truly rest and reset. My kind ages differently than humans, or even you, as you know. And because of that, the way we store our memories is different. It can be difficult to compartmentalize so many memories, good or bad. Because if the bad outweigh the good ones…” He lifted a shoulder. A dragon could go truly mad. He almost had.
Her expression thoughtful, she nodded. “That makes sense. I can’t imagine carrying around so much pain for thousands of…” Wincing, she looked up at him. “Sorry. I know you lost your sister. I wasn’t trying to bring that up.” She winced again. “And I’ve done it twice.”
Because there wasn’t an ounce of maliciousness in her tone or expression, he reached out on instinct and squeezed her hand. “I know. It’s okay. I haven’t actually talked about her in a long time.”
“You can talk about her to me if you want.” She scanned the next house.
He knew she didn’t find what she was looking for because her shoulders slumped just a little bit. Rhys wished there was more he could do to help her, that he could actually contribute.
As they continued, he realized he was still holding on to her hand. He told himself to let go of it, that it was the smart thing to do, but he couldn’t force himself to let go. And she wasn’t pushing him away. So he linked his fingers through hers and his dragon practically purred underneath the surface.
Finally, you do something right, his dragon sniffed imperiously.
He rolled his eyes at himself. His beast could be such a jackass sometimes. Even if he was right.
He started to talk about his sister. “She was kind, definitely the best of all of us. She was younger than me, but she still liked to mother me. She sort of bossed all of us around.” A smile tugged at his lips. “We didn’t mind though. To us, she could do no wrong. Your friend Avery kind of reminds me of her. She’s got that same sunny disposition.”
“She’s one of the kindest people I know.”
“Eilidh was like that. She was so trusting, just believed there was good in all people. There was this cranky old human who lived on the outskirts of a nearby village—one my clan protected. He was mean to everyone, raging and bitter even to children. I assumed he was simply an angry human. But she told me it was because he had lost his wife and baby when she went into labor. Eilidh said that dragons were lucky because when they lost their mate, they died too. She said no wonder he was so angry and bitter all the time. Eventually he came out of his depression and ended up marrying again and having a whole brood of children. If it hadn’t been for my sister’s kindness, I don’t know that he would have made it through that winter.”
She squeezed his hand tight, her gray eyes filled with warmth. “I’m so sorry you lost her.”
He nodded once, his throat tight.
“You said…when dragons lose their mate, they die too?” There was surprise in her voice, which made sense.
His kind didn’t broadcast their weakness. Or maybe it was their strength. He wasn’t sure. It was simply the way dragons were. And his sister had been right—if he was ever so lucky to be mated, he wouldn’t want to continue without his other half. “Correct.”
“You feel like expanding on that?” She looked over at another yard.
“No. But…it is exactly how it sounds. If a dragon is mated, whether to another dragon or not, if their mate dies, they die too. And if a non-dragon mates a dragon, that becomes their burden to bear as well. They will die if their dragon does.”
“Wow.”
He lifted a shoulder, surprised at himself, but apparently he couldn’t keep secrets from this intoxicating female. “I was supposed to be with her that day, the day she was taken,” he suddenly blurted, even though he’d had no intention of telling Dallas this at all. “I promised her we would go swimming even though the waters were ice-cold. We’d planned to go in dragon form. But I was late because…” He cleared his throat.
“Because?”
For some reason he didn’t want to tell her this. “I got distracted by a female.” And he’d hated himself ever since.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s not a crime.”
“I know.” But the guilt was still there, deep inside him, and it wouldn’t go away. If he hadn’t been thinking with his dick, things could have been different. “Eventually we figured out what had happened. Through some of her friends we discovered who she’d gone to meet when I didn’t show up that day. And eventually we found her…bones.” It hurt to even say the words.
Dallas squeezed his fingers again, but remained silent and steady. A soothing presence, just letting him talk.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” she murmured when he didn’t continue. “Only one person is at fault here. Which I think you know. But that guilt you’re carrying? It’s not yours to hold on to.”
He knew that, could say it until he was blue in the face. But it didn’t change the fact that he hadn’t shown up that day. That he’d broken a promise. That he’d let his sister down. That if he hadn’t been so stupid, his sister would still be alive.
“She could’ve taken her another time, if it hadn’t been that day,” Dallas continued quietly. “Sometimes there’s nothing we can do to help people, to save them. I’m not saying our fates are written in stone, because I don’t think they are. Sometimes bad shit happens. And it sucks.”
He squeezed her hand, but froze when she suddenly stilled in front of two gates overgrown with green tangles of ivy.
Past the gate he saw a two-story home with simple, clean-looking construction. White shutters open against the windows, wide balconies on both upstairs and downstairs, and the house was a simple pale blue. There weren’t any hanging plants on the balconies, no cha
irs, nothing. The neighborhood was quiet, with a few dogs barking nearby and some kids laughing. He didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, didn’t see anything… But the back of his neck prickled in awareness. “What do you see?”
“I see the crest.” Her words were quiet enough for his ears only. “Do you see any video cameras?”
He scanned the two big gates and the surrounding wall but didn’t see anything that stuck out to him. Just pretty ivy growing over the edge of it and a huge house beckoning them from inside. There was something else there, however, scraping at his skin. He rubbed the middle of his chest and looked around.
“There’s something here, a darkness,” she whispered as she strode up to the gate. Using the magic he’d seen her control before, a rainbow of colors sparked from her fingers, then the lock opened and the gate swished forward without a sound.
“I’m texting King.” He pulled out his phone, already scrolling to the Alpha’s name. King’s wolves hadn’t come with them today and now he was cursing that they hadn’t.
“Okay, but I’m going in.”
He reached for her forearm, but she was too fast, striding forward ahead of him.
Cursing, he hurried after her. “We don’t need to do anything stupid.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said, looking around the empty yard. The house was large and well-maintained, but the yard was…plain, only a few potted plants. The lawn itself was trimmed neatly. Something was off, however, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He simply sensed it, right on the edge of his vision. It was there, but it wasn’t.
“Stay back,” she murmured. Then she stepped forward and held out her hands, pressing forward with her fingertips as if she was touching a wall.
And that was when he saw a ripple in the air, as if she’d touched a waterfall. Colors sparked everywhere, and he saw the huge dome of…raw magic surrounding the house.
Hissing, she jumped back, her fingertips bleeding.
His dragon roared, beating against him. “Hell no.” He scooped her up into his arms and raced right back out the gate. He might want to charge in there, but he’d seen enclosures like this before. They would be hell to penetrate. Heart racing, he held her close, the need to keep her safe a live, visceral thing pulsing through him.
“Rhys, let me down,” she demanded, squirming in his arms.
He only let her go once they were on the sidewalk again. And it was taking everything in him not to shift to his dragon and fly her far, far away. In fact…maybe he would do just that.
“I’m fine, see?” She held up her fingertips, which were now completely healed. “The power of the barrier took me off guard. That’s all. I know what I’m dealing with now. I can handle this, promise.”
“Are the humans and vampires here?” He kept his voice pitched low so that only she could hear. There was no one else on this quiet street that he could see, but that didn’t mean they weren’t being watched.
“I don’t know. But this place has the crest, not to mention the barrier spell to keep nosy people out. We can wait for King or we can try to rescue any survivors now. I don’t want to wait.” She watched him, her jaw set tight.
Damn it. He gritted his teeth and glanced at his cell phone. King still hadn’t responded. So Rhys called.
No answer. Rhys shoved his phone back in his pocket. It wasn’t in his nature to walk away from a fight but he also had to worry about Dallas. “On a scale of one to ten, how powerful are you compared to other witches?” he asked bluntly. He didn’t know how the hierarchies of witches really worked, and while she put off subtle waves of power, he had no idea how to measure it.
She blinked in surprise. “Ah, I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it. I’ve never fought another witch. Not truly anyway. I’m secure in my powers, however.”
His dragon roared at him again, not satisfied with the answer. But he bit back his initial response. “At the first sign of danger we can’t handle, I’m shifting to my dragon form and flying us out of here. Do you understand? Because I will grip you in my claws and fly straight out, even if you don’t want me to.”
“I understand,” she said, then patted him on the chest as if he was overreacting. “Come on.” Turning away from him, she headed for the still-open gates.
He jumped in front of her, even though he couldn’t do anything about the dome—not easily anyway—as they approached the shimmering wall of magic. He inhaled deeply, ready to blast the thing with fire. It would take a while to burn through it, but he was up to the challenge.
Dallas held up a hand. “No. If it’s booby-trapped, I don’t know how it will react to dragon fire. And yes, I can tell that’s what you’re about to do. Just let me try something first. If my way doesn’t work, you can set it on fire.”
Without waiting for his response, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she started murmuring something quietly and reached out for the wall. When she did, she gripped the shimmering material and pulled it apart as if she was ripping apart a piece of fabric. The seams split open so easily, a wash of rainbow colors sparking as she created an opening big enough for them to step through.
He blinked at how quickly she’d ripped it open. That was…impressive.
He followed after her and, beyond the invisible wall, could see what had been hidden before. The grass wasn’t green on the other side, but a dead brown, and the pale blue house was instead a cracking, dull purple.
He could feel the dark magic rolling against his skin but since he was a magical creature himself, it sloughed off like water off a dragon’s back. His dragon shoved to the surface, uncomfortable at the oily feeling scraping, slithering across his skin.
Don’t like this, his dragon rumbled. Not natural. Growling, he scanned the yard.
Dallas paled slightly but she shook her head when he started to talk. “I’m fine. I can feel…I can feel their souls calling.” She took off at a dead run across the lawn.
Hell. Rhys jerked into action, panic punching through him, but he caught up to her in a few long strides. “Don’t run away from me,” he ordered.
But it was like she didn’t hear him as she hurried up the rotted steps to the front door. The knocker was barely hanging on to its hinges, flakes of puke yellow paint crumbling off the door.
He held out an arm, stepping in front of her. “I go in first.” He was a dragon, fireproof. And not completely magic-proof, but he could withstand a whole lot. He still wasn’t sure how powerful she was and he wasn’t letting her put herself in danger.
He kicked the door open and heard her sigh behind him.
“I could’ve just picked the lock,” she muttered as they stepped into what turned out to be a completely empty house. No furniture in the foyer or two attached rooms. Nothing—just wood floors that had seen better days.
“Can you smell that?” he murmured. Because he could.
Death. And a lot of it.
Next to him she wrinkled her nose and nodded. So this wasn’t just his supernatural senses picking up on it, it was strong enough for her to smell as well.
Not waiting for her to lead the way this time, he hurried past the set of winding stairs toward a long hallway and stopped in front of a doorway. He looked at her and she nodded.
He tried the knob and it swung open easily. As soon as the door opened, the stench of rotting flesh greeted him. The faint decay wafted upward, the coppery remnants of dried blood filling the air. And pain. Because that had a scent too. And the sharp bite of painful memories clung to the walls, as if the screams of victims had imprinted themselves there.
She covered her nose with her hand and made a gagging sound, but stepped forward with him, completely unafraid. Goddess, she really was a warrior. A soft, sweet one ready to dive right into battle.
He wanted to keep her back, didn’t want her to see what he feared was down this short set of stairs. Because there was no life left in the room beyond, he was certain of it. He couldn’t hear any heartbeats at all. No one dr
awing breath. Nothing. Just blood and death waited for them.
As they stepped onto the first stair, he flipped on the first light switch he saw. The stairwell flooded with light immediately, highlighting splatters of blood on the short set of stairs and the concrete floor below. He vaguely thought that this room had maybe been a garage or someone had wanted to convert one into a room, but it was all cold concrete. As they descended the steps, the stench grew almost unbearable.
His eyes immediately focused on the arrangement of bodies on the cold floor and he started to grab Dallas and haul her back upstairs but she moved lightning quick around him.
“This is really dark magic,” she murmured, horror in her expression.
He looked at the neatly placed circle of naked men and women. Vampires and humans. Blood pooled in the middle of the circle, staining the concrete. And their bodies… Symbols had been carved into their backs, arms, legs. Everywhere. Some people had died with their eyes open in horror—some had lost their eyes.
She stepped closer and pointed to the middle of the circle. “They’ve been drained of their blood. They did the spells here because that drain would catch the fallout. Whoever is behind this is doing ritual spells. They could be killing these humans and vampires to open a Hell gate or…to increase their life span,” she said, looking up at him with pain-drenched eyes. “But humans won’t give them what they want, not like supernaturals will. Human blood will only be a short-term thing, a patch, for what they want.”
He looked back at the corpses, his rage punching through him and his dragon. He’d seen enough. “We don’t need to be here anymore.” And the truth was he didn’t want to be here. He’d killed enough during battles. But those had been justified killings during war—skilled combatants, dragon warriors, not civilians and never innocents who couldn’t defend themselves. This was…this was savagery for the sake of it. It was evil. There was no other word.
Dallas didn’t argue as he guided her back toward the stairs.
He didn’t remove his hand from her elbow, needing to touch her, to keep himself grounded and remind himself that she was alive. That she hadn’t been touched by this darkness. Because he felt it clawing at the air, wanting her.