by Cynthia Eden
Her hand was still on top of his, and her touch seemed to be soothing Harrison. He wanted to spin around and rip off her brother’s head. He wanted to destroy and savage but…
Her fingers stroked over his.
“I think we need to get out of here,” Elise added. “He’s got magic, and I don’t, and I don’t know what he’s going to do with his magic, but I know it won’t be anything good.”
Fair enough.
Harrison scooped her into his arms. He turned toward the door. Or what had been the door, before he’d ripped it from the hinges.
Her brother stood there with his arms folded over his chest and with four of those wraith guys behind him. Did they always come in groups of four? Was that a wraith thing?
Harrison frowned. “Seriously, more of you assholes?”
“Dark magic controls them,” Elise explained quickly. “Until Ardon is taken down—”
“I will have a pretty much unlimited supply of wraiths,” Ardon concluded with a little shrug. “Eager soldiers ready to follow my every command.”
Well, shit. No wonder Elise wanted out of the cell.
“You’re not leaving this place.” Ardon pointed at him. The guy was all pompous and smug with his creepy smile. “My wraiths will keep you here. The longer you are here, the more magic will seep beneath your skin and unlock your beast, and when he finally emerges…” The creepy smile stretched. “You’d better pray you aren’t touching my sister. You’ll burn her flesh away and all you’ll know will be her screams.”
Harrison’s chest squeezed. “I can see it now. You’re right, Elise. He’s a total dick.”
Ardon’s face tightened with fury. “While you’re a monster hunter with a beast inside. That beast will rip you apart when it breaks free, and then you’ll kill her. The man won’t be able to live with what the beast has done because, obviously, you have a soft spot for Elise. Not surprising, considering the way she’s manipulated you. She had you addicted to her before you even knew what was happening.”
“Uh…you know…” Elise coughed. “I do need to explain a few things to you, Harrison.”
Harrison’s head turned. He stared into her eyes. Her gorgeous eyes. Her ever-widening eyes.
“Have I told you…” Elise’s voice grew huskier. “When you get mad, your eyes turn to flames?”
His back began to…ache. To itch. He rolled his shoulders. “Hold on to me.”
Get our mate out. Take our mate.
The dark whisper needed to shut the hell up. He was trying to figure things out and—
Pain tore through him. Absolutely flayed him. Harrison dropped to his knees as the agony pierced him. It felt as if someone had taken a whip to his back and—
The memory was there. It broke through and exploded in his mind. A time long ago. A time he’d fought to banish.
His father…slamming first his belt and then a whip into Harrison’s back. They were in a barn. Everything was quiet…except for the slapping of the belt—then the whip—against his flesh. He could smell the hay. Could smell his blood. Could smell…ash?
“If I beat them hard enough, maybe they won’t ever grow. Maybe they’ll never come out…maybe I can break them. Maybe I can break him.” His father’s voice. A memory, unlocking?
Then…darkness. The pain had overwhelmed him. He’d passed out and…
Woken up with no memory. Woken up with wisps of a nightmare. When he’d looked in the mirror, his back had been unmarred. He’d stared at his father, shocked and scared to death, until his dad had whispered…
“Ah, son, did you have a bad dream?”
“This is so not the time to zone out on me.” Elise tapped his cheek.
His gaze sharpened on her beautiful face.
She smiled at him. “Hey, there. You went away, and I’m glad you’re back.”
He was back, with her, and his shoulders were still splitting open. He could feel a phantom whip slamming into the skin over and over, ripping him open.
“I’m really sorry you’re trapped here with me. If you will just put me down, I’ll try to kick some wraith ass and while I do that, you can run.”
She thought he was going to run and leave her? That was just fucking wrong. Harrison growled.
“No one leaves!” Her brother bellowed, “You won’t make it out of here, Elise. I can’t risk other fey finding out—”
“That you’re a giant liar with a soul black as night? Huh. I think some of them are going to wise up to that sooner or later.”
Her brother glared at Harrison. “Why aren’t you killing her? Burn the bitch.”
Something snapped inside of Harrison. “Don’t call her that.”
“She lied to you—”
“She doesn’t lie. She just gets creative with the truth.”
“She used you—”
“She saved my ass. And the life of a kid.”
Ardon opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened— “She tricked you and used you!”
Harrison laughed. “There was no trick. I wanted her. I willingly joined with her, and from here on out, it’s gonna be us against the world. You stand with us…” His gaze flickered to the unmoving wraiths with their blank expressions and black eyes. “You get to live.” His stare returned to Ardon. “You stand against us, and you die.”
Ardon’s lips twisted as fury sharpened his face. “Let’s get this party moving, shall we?” He lifted his hands and blue light shot from his fingertips. The blue light leapt straight at Harrison. It looked like the same light that had surrounded Beaux when he’d transformed into a spider.
Was the blue light fey magic? Had to be. And it was launching straight at Harrison.
“No!” Elise hurtled out of his arms. She planted her body in front of Harrison. She took the hit from the blue light. A blast that had been aimed right at Harrison.
Her whole body jolted, as if she’d just been struck by lightning.
Her brother’s face went slack with shock. The blue streaks of light vanished. “Elise?”
She staggered to her knees.
A savage, unearthly roar shook the cell.
Her brother froze. His wraiths stared in dawning horror. Elise fell forward, but Harrison grabbed her. He snatched her up into his arms.
“Stop it! Put her down!” Her brother sent more blue light at Harrison. Harrison turned his body, shielding Elise from the blast, and that blue magic pierced his shoulders.
He expected pain. Instead, there was just pressure and then…
He felt his skin split open as if he’d been cut with a razor-sharp scalpel. The skin parted, and there were screams and he didn’t understand why the wraiths were screaming because he was looking down at Elise and he couldn’t be bothered with seeing anything else.
“Oh…” Her lips tried to curl. The normal red color of her lips had bled away to the palest of pinks. All of the color had faded from her skin. Too pale. Far too pale. Her eyes even seemed weaker. “They are…beautiful.”
“Elise…”
“How about…” Such a weak whisper. “Use them…fly us out of…h-here…” Her eyelids sagged closed.
The screams had stopped.
Harrison became aware that he wasn’t standing on the floor. He was floating—flying—near the top of the cell. His head turned and he could see giant, scaled, black wings batting at the air. Wings that came out of his back.
He dipped and almost crashed into the floor.
“Why aren’t you killing her?” That was her brother again. Pissing off Harrison.
He glared at her brother. “Because I’m going to kill you.”
Fear burst across the dark fey’s face. “Kill him!” he shouted.
The wraiths surged forward. They gripped silver knives in their hands.
“Silver worked on your father. It will work on you!”
Shit.
More wraiths were rushing in behind Ardon. A whole army of silver-armed wraiths. Harrison was way, way outnumbered.
“F-fly…” Elise whispered.
/>
He couldn’t fly toward the wraiths, but there wasn’t another way out. There were only the stone walls.
So…
Screw it.
He flew right at one wall. He turned his body and let one powerful wing crash into it first. The stones exploded outward as if they’d been hit by dynamite.
“No! Stop! Come back!”
He didn’t stop. Getting Elise to safety was his number one priority. He found that if he flexed his back, the wings moved on command. It took some effort, he could feel one big-ass strain, but he could also soar high into the sky. So he flexed, he flew, and he held tightly to his fey mate. His black wings beat against the air. Wings…wings of a dragon.
Because that was what Harrison truly was.
Not a hunter.
Not a man.
He was a beast.
***
He had to send them back.
Ardon raced toward the giant hole in the wall of his thickest prison cell. The dragon was flying away. Well, it wasn’t a full dragon. It was a man with dragon wings. Maybe the bastard couldn’t change all the way. After all, his mother had been human. Ardon hadn’t factored that into the equation. Maybe the reason the dragon hadn’t taken over was because Harrison Key was incomplete. Otherwise, surely the beast would have killed Elise.
It had to kill her. She’d betrayed it. She’d tricked it. She’d…
Mated a dragon?
The suspicion slid through him. If they were well and truly mated, a dragon would never attack his mate, no matter what. According to legend, a dragon’s mate was the only one safe from his rage and his savage nature. But…
But a true mating required love. On both sides.
Elise couldn’t love. His father had always told him that Elise had an ice-cold heart. That she would never love anyone. That she could never be trusted. But…
She put her body in front of Harrison. She protected him from my magic.
Ardon’s breath came faster and faster. Elise might love the dragon. But how did the beast feel about her?
There was only one way to find out.
“If she gets to the other fey, she’ll tell them what you did,” one of the wraiths warned.
“She won’t get to the others.”
“What about the spider? He knows, he—”
“I’ll take care of him. He’s nothing. Forget him.” Ardon lifted his hands, calling up his power. His gaze remained on the dragon and on the woman clutched in the dragon’s hands. Elise was limp. Unconscious. She’d taken a powerful hit of magic. A deadly hit.
Elise. For a moment, he remembered her as she’d been. The girl with the long blonde hair who’d trailed behind him, asking to play. Asking if he wanted to work magic with her.
She’d never seemed like a threat.
But his father had told him otherwise. His father had said Elise hid her darkness deep inside. She was the threat. If Ardon didn’t eliminate her, then Elise would one day destroy him.
His magic had hit her in that cell. Now, he lifted his hands again, and he sent the blue streams jerking from his fingers and into the air. The dragon dodged, as if he thought the streaks were intended to knock him out of the sky.
Silly shifter. That wasn’t the intent at all.
The magic was designed to rip a hole in the sky. Thunder rumbled.
The sky tore open. Wind whipped right before the dragon and Elise were sucked out of the fey land. Boom. No mirror needed, not when he was riding high on a combination of his power and his dear sister’s.
“Thanks for visiting, sis,” Ardon murmured. “Hope you enjoyed your last view of home.”
He turned away.
The wraiths waited with their expressionless faces. He controlled them because of the dark magic his father had gifted to him long ago. The wraiths were dangerous, deadly predators. They also enjoyed giving pain far too much.
One wraith cleared his throat. “Why did you let her go? You brought Elise back to stop the decay in the land…”
“No, I brought her here because I thought killing her would be a breeze. The dragon was supposed to burn her alive.” Why did he have to explain himself? “But the idiot just wants to fuck her. I couldn’t let her stay here. She’d stir up opposition to me. So I had to send her back to the mortal realm where I had spies waiting who could get the job done.”
Spies…Harrison’s friends. This would be Harrison’s test. Would Harrison choose Elise over the people closest to him? Only if he really loved her.
And I say he doesn’t.
“But if they don’t kill her…” The wraith smiled, flashing teeth that were far too sharp. “Then it will be our pleasure to take the skin from her body.”
“You’re just pissed because she ended Soloman. That was his fault. He was always a cocky bastard.” Ardon straightened his shoulders. “You’re not touching my sister. If my spies don’t kill her, then I’ll do the job.” He nodded. “I’m going to the mortal realm. I’ll make sure only one twin returns. Count on it.”
He opened up a gateway and marched inside…
And he didn’t notice the spider that was sitting on the back of his shoulder.
Chapter Sixteen
“Elise, baby, open your eyes.”
She didn’t. She groaned. It felt as if she’d been hit hard by a bus or a semi or…something really, really big. After she’d first come to the mortal realm, she actually had been hit by a bus. So she had a pretty good point of comparison. She’d jumped out of the garbage bin and—wham. That was the moment she’d discovered that while most of her magic had been gone, she’d—luckily—maintained her healing powers.
“Okay, you’re groaning. That’s good.”
It was?
Callused fingertips stroked her cheek. “I don’t know how it happened, but we’re back in the honeymoon suite.”
Uh, oh, that wasn’t good. And if she wasn’t aching, she’d be more worried.
“You’re scaring the hell out of me. Please, look at me.”
It was his voice that got to her. The fear. The pain. Especially the ragged “please” from him. She forced her heavy eyelids to lift. “Don’t…be scared.”
His expression was so tense and worried.
Elise tried to smile. “I’m here…I’ll…keep you s-safe.”
A relieved laugh broke from him. “You’re talking. You’re staring at me. You’re going to be okay.”
Well, she couldn’t promise that part. “I…n-need…”
“What? Tell me. Because, baby, I’m freaking out. You took one massive hit from the blue light crap that shot out of your brother’s fingers.”
“I…remember.” She also remembered wings. His, not hers.
“What can I do?”
She tried to peer over his shoulders. “Did you have wings?” She was feeling stronger. The pain fading. Her brother might not have realized it, but he’d saved her life by sending her to the mortal realm. If she’d stayed in the fey land after taking such a powerful hit, his magic would have spread through her body like poison.
But in the mortal realm, it slid from her with every breath she took.
Or…had Ardon realized it?
“I had wings, but they’re gone now.”
“Join the club.”
His fingers brushed back her hair. “Why did you take that hit for me?”
“Because I’m helplessly in love with you.” After the confession popped out, Elise slapped a hand over her mouth.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
His eyes widened. “Say that again.”
She kept her hand in place. An unfortunate side effect of waking up after taking one uber powerful hit of fairy fire? She didn’t have the mental strength to think of careful deceits. She was spitting out truths.
Harrison seemed to realize what was happening. “You can’t twist your truth, can you?”
She could…in about five more minutes. Maybe ten.
“Did you say you loved me?”
She shook her head no.
She’d actually said that she was helplessly in love with him.
He leaned forward and lightly pressed his lips to hers. “Now who is afraid?”
She was. Utterly terrified, in fact.
He started to pull back.
Her hands flew out and locked around his shoulders. “If you want to help me, kiss me again.”
“Elise…”
“Fey are very sensual creatures. Sex makes us stronger.” Especially if the sex was twined with love, the way hers was with him. She’d tried to tell him before that they wouldn’t be fucking. They’d be making love.
A half-smile curved his lips. “Sex makes you stronger, huh? That sounds like a very good deal.”
“It is, provided you have the right partner.” With the right person, everything was better, and she could see that now. She could see so much. Fey weren’t supposed to have mates—that was a shifter thing. There was no belief in one, true soulmate in the fey realm. But feys did believe in love. Oh, yes, they believed in it. If you were lucky enough to fall in love, to feel the true magic that could come from giving your heart completely to another, then you did anything necessary to protect that love.
Love was deeper than mating. Mating—to the fey—was all physical.
Love was so much more.
I love him. I fell for him hard and fast. Using Harrison wasn’t part of her equation any longer.
“You think I’m the right one?”
“I think you are my only one.” Her fingers toyed with his hair. Such thick, soft hair. “I planned to use you.”
“Uh, baby, if this is your attempt at sexy talk…”
“As if.” A fast smile came and went on her face. “When I talk sexy, you’ll know it.” She swallowed. “This is my attempt to be completely honest with you because I think you deserve that from me.”
He waited. She could feel the tension coursing through his body. The waves of heat and power.
“I intended to use you. Because what beast could be stronger than a dragon?”
“I’m not—”
“I think we’re past the denial point, don’t you? I’m pretty sure I remember wings and they weren’t mine.”
His nostrils flared. She could see the sputter of flames in his gaze. “I was going to say I’m not really sure what the hell is happening with me. I thought I was a hunter.”