Drantos

by Laurann Dohner

  Drantos

  VLG – Book One

  Vampires, Lycans, Gargoyles

  By Laurann Dohner

  Drantos by Laurann Dohner

  For most, a plane crash means the end of life. For Dusti Dawson, it’s just the beginning…

  Dusti and her sister Batina survived the crash, thanks to a couple of brothers who are equal parts menacing and muscled. She’d be grateful…if they hadn’t turned out to be delusional kidnappers, who believe Dusti’s grandfather is some monstrous half-breed creature bent on murder. Turns out Vampires, Lycans, and Gargoyles do exist—and they’ve been crossbreeding to form two hybrid races. Drantos, the man Dusti can’t stop lusting after, is one of the most dangerous of all.

  VampLycans Drantos and Kraven were sent to eliminate a threat to their clan. But when that threat turns out to be mostly human women, clueless of their lineage, plans change—especially after Drantos gets a taste of Dusti’s blood. Now, he’ll die to protect her. Even if that means walking away from everything he knows to keep her at his side.

  Is her strong desire for Drantos reason enough to endure danger coming from all sides? Or should Dusti cut and run the first chance she gets?

  Author Note: VLG stands for Vampires, Lycans, Gargoyles…and breeds in between. Living in Alaska’s harsh, pristine territories, these creatures live and love fiercely. These are their stories.

  Dedication

  Always and forever - I have to thank Mr. Laurann. He's my hero in all ways. He took those vows of 'in sickness and in health' and stuck to them, big time. He's always had my back and my front. I love you, baby. I couldn't do what I do, without you.

  Kele Moon - Not only is she the best friend a person could ever have but I love her like the sister I always wished for. We're family in my heart. She rocks as a critique partner too. Now she's holding my hand and steering me through a new adventure in the wonderful world of writing.

  Kelli Collins - I was nervous and scared going out on my own. You were there for me. Thank you for being a kickass editor and giving it to me straight. You made this book so much better. Always a fan!

  Most of all, I'd like to thank you, the people reading this. I was a housewife with a love for writing and I had a dream. You made it come true. You have stuck with me through every obstacle life threw at me. I might write slower but I'm still here! Thank you. I hope you enjoy this new series. Happy reading.

  Drantos

  Copyright © December 2015

  Editor: Kelli Collins

  Cover Art: Dar Albert

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-944526-00-9

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this *crane copyrighted work is illegal, except for the case of brief quotations in reviews and articles.

  Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter One

  “Brace for impact!”

  The pilot’s voice sounded high-pitched for a man, his fear obvious.

  “Tighten your belts, remove all sharp objects from your pockets, and bend forward.”

  Dusti clutched her sister’s hand tightly while her heart beat erratically from adrenaline and terror. She turned her head to stare into Bat’s terrified blue eyes. Her older sister, usually so calm, appeared as panicked as Dusti felt. Bat’s aloof attorney façade had fled, replaced by sheer fright.

  The small plane engines droned loudly as the cabin shook violently. The overhead compartments rattled, a dull background noise that made the grim situation more realistic. Dusti peered through the window to her left. It revealed dense foliage far below, a testament that they’d flown far from civilization.

  The pilot came back on the speaker to make another announcement, as if telling the twenty-some passengers the plane was going down hadn’t been bad enough.

  They’d reached Alaska, but it seemed they’d die there too.

  “Mayday, mayday!” The pilot yelled now. “This is Brennon Twelve. Mayday.” The plane took a sudden nose dive after a loud pop tore through the cabin. “Fuck!”

  People in the seats around Dusti cried out and one woman in the row behind her frantically began to pray aloud.

  It was just a guess, but Dusti figured the pilot wasn’t aware he’d left the microphone on as the conversation between him and his copilot was broadcast throughout the cabin via speakers.

  “Pull up, Mike! Fuck, she’s fighting me. Help!”

  “I am!” the other pilot responded. “I don’t see a place to land, do you? Christ! The yoke feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. We’re going to break apart before we ever hit the ground.”

  The nose of the plane leveled off somewhat but the plane was definitely losing altitude. Dusti glanced out the window again to notice the trees had become more defined now, instead of similar to a distant carpet of green bushes. Her gaze swept the ground to confirm there wasn’t a clearing within sight for the pilots to try to use as a runway.

  “I’m so sorry,” Bat whispered. “This is all my fault. I love you.”

  Hot tears filled Dusti’s eyes when she turned her head to lock eyes with her sister’s fearful gaze. “I love you too—and don’t you dare blame yourself.”

  “Fire in engine two,” one of the pilots yelled. “Shit! The extinguishing system is offline. It’s not responding. We’re only twenty miles out but we’re not going to make it to the airfield.”

  “Level off,” the second pilot harshly demanded.

  “Got it.” The pilot cursed. “Do you see anything? Do you?”

  “It’s just trees. We’re going down too fast. Why in the hell aren’t they answering? I know it’s a tiny airport but Jesus! Where are they? Maybe we lost communications and they aren’t receiving our mayday.” The copilot sounded both angry and frightened.

  “Damn those cheap bastards for not giving us a backup system,” the pilot hissed. “Shit! We’re definitely going down. Seventeen hundred feet and falling.” He paused. “Sixteen hundred.” He paused again for several long seconds. “Fifteen hundred. Oh damn!”

  “It’s been good knowing you, Mike.”

  “You too, Tim. Drop the landing gear but I don’t know why we should bother. We’re going to be shredded to hell and back.” There was a pause. “Oh shit. Cut the mic!”

  Movement from the aisle startled Dusti when two tall, massive-bodied men wearing leather jackets and faded blue jeans suddenly stumbled next to their seats. They used the chair backs to keep themselves upright on the slanted floor of the plane by gripping the edges.

  She immediately recognized them from the Anchorage airport. She and Bat had to change planes there to catch the smaller connecting flight. The two burly men had stepped out of one of the bars they’d passed while walking from one concourse to another. To Dusti, it had seemed as if the guys were following them. She’d even pointed them out to her sister, fearful that the men might be planning to mug them.

/>   Bat had laughed, assuring her airport security was too tight for that to happen. Dusti had kept glancing back though, nervous. She remembered thinking how big and threatening they’d looked at the time.

  Now they were right in the aisle, so close she could almost reach out and touch them.

  The one in the lead turned his head to peer directly at her. Dusti stared up into a rugged, masculine face displaying strong cheekbones. His thick, wavy black hair fell to his shoulders, brushing the front of his leather jacket. Generous lips were curved into a frown, but it was his seriously dark blue eyes—framed by long black eyelashes—that held her attention the most.

  He moved quickly to slide between the small space where she and her sister’s legs were and the backs of the seats in front of them. He stepped over Bat to plant his body between Dusti’s feet.

  She watched in stunned shock as the other guy, almost a twin in sheer body mass to the first one, wedged his frame literally between Bat’s spread legs and the seats. Dusti’s confused gaze returned to the man whose crotch now hovered in front of her face. She felt his jeans pressed against her bare legs from the knee down, where her skirt didn’t cover them.

  Her first fear resurfaced, that they were about to be mugged, but that didn’t make sense. They were all going to die when the plane crashed.

  “What—”

  The one in front of her cut off her words when he turned his head to look at the other man, this one with short, spiked black hair. “Good luck, Kraven. Love you.”

  “Love you too, bro,” the other man replied.

  “I’m Drantos,” the long-haired guy informed Dusti when he looked down to hold her stunned stare. “We’re hopefully going to save your asses by protecting you with our bodies. We might survive this if we don’t blow up or get ripped apart on impact like the pilot thinks.” The cabin shook violently and he swayed on his feet. “I’m hoping he’s wrong about that.”

  Dusti was mute and definitely confused. A gasp from Bat drew her attention.

  As she turned her head, she was too horrified to do anything but watch as the spiked-haired man leaned forward, slid to his knees and shoved Bat’s legs farther apart to fit his hips between the cradle of her thighs.

  He grabbed her sister, jerked her against his chest, and then wrapped his arm around her back in a tight hug. She heard a click as the stranger unfastened her sister’s seat belt, and then he clamped a hand around Bat’s thigh. He yanked it up until her knee was bent enough to nearly touch her shoulder, then used that arm to hug around Bat’s back, too.

  He had totally covered her body with his, smashing her against the seat.

  Bat’s cry of alarm jostled Dusti from her stupor. She recovered enough to find her voice. “Let her go!” They weren’t muggers. They seemed to be rapists.

  Like they didn’t have enough to be afraid of before?!

  Dusti lunged to attack the bastard assaulting her sister. She tried to claw at his arm but two big hands grabbed her wrists. Her full attention returned to the huge bastard who quickly slid to his knees between her legs, his hips pressing against her inner thighs. The move pushed the bottom of her skirt high up on her lap.

  He moved fast for such a beefy guy. Dusti screamed but it didn’t stop his attack. He held her wrists together with one of his hands, shackling them, while he used the other to shove her feet up on the seat. It kept her legs spread wide apart to make room for his hips. His body nearly crushed her to the seat when he collapsed against her.

  Her mind instantly filled with horrified thoughts. Am I really going to be raped before I die? Is this asshole serious? I’ve heard men joke about wanting to go out nailing a woman but this can’t be happening. These assholes are really going for it.

  Screams suddenly filled the cabin that hadn’t come from Dusti, the noise so piercing it made her remember the plane was about to crash into the rugged Alaskan wilderness.

  The man assaulting her shoved her hands at his crotch to pin them there when he pressed more of his weight down, trapping them between the seat and his jeans. He let go of her wrists and it gave him the freedom to grip both of her legs near the knees and force them up against her chest until she sympathized with a pretzel. His jeans were rough against her inner thighs and his belt buckle painfully dug into her panties.

  His two strong arms locked against the sides of her thighs as he reached around her body too. He adjusted her under him in a way that made her comprehend her seat belt had been unfastened as well. He wouldn’t have been able to yank her to the edge of the seat otherwise.

  He gripped one of her ass cheeks and tucked his head down on top of hers, to force her chin lower, until her forehead smashed against the cool leather of his jacket. She struggled but he effectively held her in a tight ball, his bulky body keeping hers trapped between him and the seat.

  All hell broke loose in the next instant.

  Dusti screamed when she felt both of them being violently flung forward. The plane must have hit the trees. Shrieks rose in the confined cabin and air blasted through it, whipping around as though they’d been tossed into a wind tunnel.

  The sick feeling of being thrown rolled through her as the plane bounced before it brutally slammed into something again. The belly of the plane hit hard enough to toss their entwined bodies back against the seat.

  His heavy weight crushed down on her until breathing became impossible. She swore she heard an animal growl next to her ear when the screams in the plane cut off after the horror of the initial impact. Maybe everyone has died, her dismayed mind considered.

  The strong arms around her tightened even more as the plane violently bumped over the earth. An image flashed through her mind of them skidding across the ground, mimicking a sled from hell.

  An explosion ripped through the cabin, deafening her with its intensity, a second before they were thrown sideways.

  The man holding her didn’t let go, and his body must have hit something solid and unforgiving. The force of the impact reverberated through his body right into hers. He grunted loudly, as if he’d had the air forced from his lungs.

  She didn’t know which direction was up or down anymore, just continued to experience swift movement and blinding terror until everything came to a lurching stop. Her back hit something soft before the man’s heavy weight squashed her once more.

  Dusti couldn’t move. She was too stunned to do anything but wish for air while it sank in that she’d survived.

  The stranger’s hand on her ass eased its bruising hold when he lifted off her a little. She heard him gasp in a breath and his upper chest pressed tight to hers when his lungs expanded. The second the pressure eased as he expelled the air, she gasped in her own lungful.

  She slowly became aware of sensations. Her ass hurt from the man’s near-sadistic grip on it and her chest ached a little, probably from him crushing her a few times. She also realized one of her knees painfully throbbed.

  Dusti took another deep breath and smelled the leather of the jacket under her nose. The texture of hair on her tongue made it apparent that either some of her long blonde hair or some of his shoulder-length black mane had ended up inside her mouth. She promptly spit it out, not caring who it belonged to, but just wanting it gone. His head lifted off hers.

  Panic shot through her instantly as things came into focus and she glanced to the right. They were actually still in her seat—but the one next to hers no longer contained her sister or the spike-haired stranger.

  Her mind refused to accept that Bat’s disappearance meant she hadn’t survived.

  Her gaze lifted more to stare beyond that empty seat. She gaped as she saw the other side of the plane.

  The cabin wall across the aisle had been torn completely open to reveal trees and blue sky, in place of windows and overhead bins with stored luggage. The jagged, torn metal of the fuselage was splayed obscenely to reveal the scenic view. Something had demolished that side of the plane.

  The guy who still held Dusti slowly eased more o
f his weight off her when he leaned back a bit to look around too. Distress made her focus on him instead of the certainty that her sister had been thrown from the plane.

  Blood marred the man’s face from a cut on one of his pronounced cheekbones, an injury a good inch long. He wasn’t classically handsome, too rugged and masculine to ever be considered a pretty boy with those dominant features. He needed a shave too, since stubble showed on his lower jawline, his chin, and shadowed his cheeks. His dark gaze swept across more of the plane than she could see while scrunched down inside the seat, where he still kept her pinned.

  “KRAVEN?” He roared the word, his voice harsh.

  “Fuck,” an equally cavernous male voice responded, sounding close. “We’re alive. Did yours make it?”

  The stranger lowered his chin to peer into Dusti’s dazed stare. He studied her from face to chest, and finally locked gazes with her again. “She’s alive.”

  “I hate flying.” Kraven sounded irritated. “I mentioned that, right?”

  The man continued to watch Dusti and he actually smiled. “Several times, but we’re not flying anymore, are we? I don’t mind flying but I hated the crashing part. I bet you wish you were still in the air right now. Quit bitching and let’s see how bad the situation is. We survived. That’s all that counts in the end.”

  “Get off me. You’re crushing me!”

  Relief swept through Dusti at hearing her older sister’s aggravated voice and it tore her from her traumatized state. “Bat? Are you okay?”