Tyr? Tempest called out tentatively. Tyr had talked in her mind before, when he was a dragon, but she didn’t know if he could hear her when he was in human form. Tyr?
Nothing.
She turned to go back to the Batcave, and was almost doubled over by the pain in her stomach. Dead dragons. Dead dragons all around her.
Tyr! She took another step, and the pain just got worse. She had to go the other way. She clutched her stomach, panting, trying to run scenarios in her mind. Going back. No. Following the intruder. Maybe. Get a weapon. Yes. She saw herself opening the carved door. Something in here…
She opened the door. Scattered bits of gold gleamed dully in the dim light from the corridor. Tempest stepped inside and saw a dagger lying on the floor. She started towards it, and tripped over something round and hard, going down on her hands and knees. The object rolled toward her.
A statue. A golden gargoyle crouched down with his wings around him, about the size of a baseball. She picked it up and felt the pain in her stomach ease.
Her vision flickered before her eyes. Dragons dead. Dragons alive. Dragons dead. Dragons alive.
She had to hurry.
Chapter 7
Rebel crawled through the ventilation shafts, keeping the blueprints she’d memorized in the forefront of her mind. She heard her former mentor’s voice in her head. This is why we do our prep, boys and girls. For when everything goes sideways.
She took a left at the next corner, knowing that in about fifty feet she’d encounter a maintenance ladder, and she’d have to make a choice.
Go down, and hope she could slip out one of the many ground floor exits, or better yet, one of the basement maintenance access points.
Downside: they’d be expecting that, and probably had the building surrounded.
Or she could go up. There were two advantages to that: she might be able to contact Thorne once she was outside, and let him know she needed an early exit. Or, if she had time, she could access her cable and winch, and lower herself to the ground in a place they weren’t expecting.
Downside: there were a lot fewer escape routes from the roof, and she didn’t know if she could count on Thorne to be there. What if he couldn’t hear her call? What if he wasn’t watching the roof? What if he’d stopped off to snack on a cow or something, and wasn’t coming back until the appointed time?
She was approaching the decision point now. Rebel paused and listened. Through the ceiling beneath her shaft, she could hear guards running through the halls, calling to each other. They had too many security forces—way more than the original intel had indicated.
The snatches of conversation she could overhear told her they were setting a perimeter around the building, and they were tracking her through the ventilation system as well. That made her decision.
She went up, towards the roof.
Beneath her, she felt the ladder vibrating. Someone was coming up after her. She branched off into another ventilation shaft that led to a different ladder, hoping to throw them off the track. Even a few seconds of surprise could make the difference between escape and capture.
Reaching the second ladder, she climbed as fast as she could, hoping to get to the roof before them, knowing that she couldn’t. They’d be going up by elevator, by stairs… she just hoped they weren’t surrounding all the maintenance hatches.
She called over and over to Thorne in her mind, but got nothing back. If he wasn’t there for her, her only option was the harness and cable. Even if he heard her as soon as she got outside, she couldn’t just stand there on the roof getting shot at while she waited for him to swoop in and rescue her.
She should never have counted on someone else to provide her escape.
She heard a hoarse barking sound below her, and she almost froze. No. Fucking. Way.
That sounded like a hellhound.
She’d only seen one once before, on the estate of a very, very rich man who’d turned out to be a sorcerer. It was the first time she’d learned that she could elude magical fields as well as electronic ones.
But she almost hadn’t eluded the hellhound. They were monstrous mutant shifters, trained to be attack dogs in both their human and shifter forms.
If she hadn’t stolen her magical Colt .45 during the same job, she would never have gotten away.
She had the Colt with her now, but this sounded like more than one hellhound.
A lot more.
Thorne! she called again.
Nothing.
She got to the top of the ladder, hoping she’d pass through the edge of the dampening field, but she didn’t feel anything. How far up did it extend? She reached up to the exit hatch over her head and turned the handle slowly, hearing the bolts that held it closed quietly disengaging.
She felt the ladder start to vibrate, and far below she could see a pair of glowing red eyes, looking up. The hellhound howled.
Holy fuck. She had to get out of here, no matter what was up above.
She heaved open the hatch and burst out of the shaft into the cool night. It should have been dark, but the top of the building was lit up like Christmas. Red and green flashing emergency lights everywhere, and at the far end where the helipad was, the arc lights were brighter than a baseball stadium during a night game.
A bullet pinged off the cover of the maintenance shaft. Rebel slithered out and lay flat, letting the cover fall and wedging her pry lever in the crack to hold it shut against the hellhound coming up behind her. Another bullet hit the roof inches from her head and she rolled behind an HVAC unit, coming to her knees and drawing her Colt.
She heard the snarl of a hellhound to her left. She whirled and shot. God, how many of these things did they have? The blue fireball from her gun hit the hellhound, knocking it off its four wolf-like paws and opening a smoking wound in its rear flank.
It rolled over and over, giving a high-pitched yelp. Hellhounds were almost impossible to kill without magic. And hard to kill even with it.
She’d slowed it down, though—one leg was dragging, and dark blood dripped onto the roof.
But there were more.
Thorne! she called out silently, praying he could hear her even though she hadn’t felt herself exit the dampening field. Get your scaly ass down here! I’m coming out hot!
Guards and hellhounds were spreading across the roof, surrounding her. The only thing keeping them from rushing her was the Colt, and she had a limited amount of ammo for that. She pulled an ordinary gun from her ankle holster. She couldn’t waste the magical ammo on the security guards.
But even so, she couldn’t hold them off for more than a few minutes. They were closing in, and she couldn’t shoot in enough directions to keep them contained.
And then suddenly there was a rush of wind, and a shadow as if a storm cloud was bearing down on them. A gout of fire raked the rooftop from an invisible source, sending the men and hellhounds scattering before it.
“Thorne!” Rebel screamed.
She had to get out in the open, out to the helipad where he could get to her. But there were too many hellhounds.
The hellhounds knew that too. They spread out between her and the helipad, keeping under cover. Every time she tried to move out, someone shot at her. They were keeping her pinned between the HVAC units, where Thorne couldn’t reach her.
Rebel yelled again for Thorne, but there was no reply in her mind. Was he coming around for another pass? Was he hovering, ready to swoop down and grab her?
If she ran out into the middle of the helipad, would he be there for her?
She couldn’t risk it. If he wasn’t there, they’d shoot her down where she stood.
Rebel shot at a hellhound and ducked behind a large vent opening. Her winch and cable were only twenty feet away now. She peered out from behind her cover, and then ducked back. Another hellhound on her left. She shot, grazing its shoulder. The magic bullet singed its hide—she could smell the burning flesh. It howled.
She took two steps and dove
for her winch, hitting the rewind button so the hook came flying up from the office below. She took a couple more quick shots to buy herself a few seconds, and then hooked the cable into her harness.
Two more shots, and she scrambled over the edge.
Just as she was pushing away from the building, there was an enormous ‘thud’ that shook the entire roof. Thorne landed in the middle of the helipad and roared.
Rebel saw muzzle flashes and blue light erupt all over the roof as the guards shot at Thorne, bullets and magical missiles pinging off his dragon hide. He roared again, this time with pain and fury.
They were hurting him. Rebel had the irrational urge to run to him, to try to help somehow. Luckily, it was too late for her to stop her fall and do something that stupid and suicidal.
She dropped into the darkness, the cable unspooling as it slid through her gloved hands. The wall of the building flashed past and she arced back towards it, ready to catch herself on bent legs and push off again.
There was a flash of movement above her, and a hellhound leaped off the roof edge, lunging through the air at her.
Oh, hell. Rebel hit the switch on the cable and stopped her descent with a teeth-rattling jolt. The wall rushed toward her, and she kicked off at an angle to get out of the hellhound’s path.
He missed her, but he caught her wire, his magically sharp claws severing right through it. Rebel plunged toward the ground, closing her eyes.
She’d always known her luck would run out one day.
The fall seemed to take forever.
Suddenly she was jerked to a spine-cracking stop in mid-air, as a thick rope the width of a tree trunk snaked around her torso, knocking the breath out of her lungs. There was another jerk, and she was moving again—but in the other direction. Up.
She looked again, and realized the “rope” was covered in tiny scales and punctuated with wicked barbs, one of which was inches from her face. She was flying through the night, wrapped in the dragon’s tail.
Chapter 8
Tempest ran down the stone corridor, glancing over her shoulder to make sure there were no more intruders behind her. Ahead of her she could hear the muted roar of several motors, and the thud of machinery.
This was where the power generator and water pump were. Tyr had showed them to her on one of their tours, explaining that the water supply came from a deep well that tapped into an underground stream far below them, and was pumped throughout the lair.
There were several plain wooden doors in a cluster at the end of the corridor. The one on her right was ajar. The pump room.
Tiptoeing up to it, Tempest peeked inside. The room was filled with machinery and smelled like oil and diesel fuel. There were pistons pumping up and down, and huge pipes bigger around than she was. They all led to a large raised circular platform about two feet high with a wide hatch in the middle of it, like the top of a metal tower protruding through the floor.
That’s where the intruder was standing. Tempest bit back a gasp, recognizing him. The long, hooded robe. The misshapen face, now looking rotted and diseased, like something out of a horror movie.
Corwyn, the dark wizard, wearing Silas’s dead body.
His bony hands were extended towards the hatch, and she could just barely hear him chanting over the sound of the machinery.
The platform was the top of a tower, she remembered. A water storage cistern that extended down underneath them, holding thousands of gallons of water until it was ready to be pumped where it was needed.
Slowly, the hatch twisted open and rose up. As Corwyn moved his hands to guide it magically through the air, she saw he was clutching a glass jar containing red liquid, dark and viscous like old blood.
Her head spun, visions dancing before her eyes. Dragons lying dead with no wounds on them.
Poison. He was going to poison the water supply.
She had to fix it.
And she’d only seen one way to do that.
Tempest shoved the door open, hauled off and flung the golden gargoyle at the sorcerer, aiming at his head.
She missed. It hit him in the shoulder—and then it detonated in sparks of green and yellow light. A man-sized whirlwind seized Corwyn and spun him around faster than her eye could follow. Corwyn’s arms flailed, and a splash of poison spilled on the platform. Tempest held her breath, but none went into the cistern.
The gargoyle tornado broke Corwyn’s concentration. The hatch dropped back into place with a clang that reverberated through the whole room.
Corwyn shouted something, and the whirlwind disappeared with stunning suddenness. He turned on Tempest, his diseased, skeletal face contorted in a snarl. He raised his hands and flung them towards her in a sharp, furious motion.
Tempest ducked. A force like an invisible boulder rushed past her and slammed into the wall. Shards of stone exploded out, hitting her with bruising force, some of them ripping through her clothes and opening bleeding cuts in her skin.
Tempest barely felt the pain. Terror sliced through her, and she scrambled into the hallway and ran, screaming for Tyr.
Tyr sat at the poker table, trying to concentrate on his cards. Tempest had been gone a long time. Had she gone up to bed? She usually said goodnight to him, but she’d been getting quieter lately. More distant.
She seemed unhappy, and that ate away at him. He was her mate, even if she hadn’t admitted it yet.
What hurt her hurt him. Didn’t she understand that?
At that moment, pain sliced through him like shards of glass. Shoulder, thigh, pinpricks along his calf.
And right afterwards, someone called his name.
He looked at Zane. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
But Tyr was already out of his chair, cards scattering across the floor.
Tempest. Something was wrong with Tempest.
As soon as he hit the atrium he went dragon. He could hear Tempest for real now, calling out for him as he bounded through the hallways. He didn’t even think about how he knew where to go—he just did.
He could find her anywhere.
He could hear Blaze and Zane behind him, but he left them on their own to catch up. He had to help his mate. Down the corridor towards Thorne’s lair. Take the branch that led to the cliffside exit.
He made the turn, claws skittering on the stone. Tempest dashed into view, rounding the corner at the other end of the corridor. Not from the exit, but from the other way—the mechanical rooms.
What the fuck had Tempest been doing down there?
As she ran toward him, a robed sorcerer appeared at the end of the corridor. Fiery missiles shot out of his hands, right towards Tempest.
Tyr was too far away. They were going to hit her…
At the last second, a magical shield burst into existence between Tempest and the sorcerer, filling the corridor from floor to ceiling. The missiles impacted on it, bursting into flame and dissipating along the shield.
Tyr, still in dragon form, swept Tempest up with his forelegs and held her close. He turned to see Blaze standing in the hallway, power streaming from her hands into the shield.
The sorcerer turned and bolted toward the exit. Blaze dropped the shield and she and Zane followed him. Tyr held Tempest against him, trying to quiet the terror that raced through him at the realization he’d almost lost her.
Are you okay?
He felt her nod.
Still holding her, he ran awkwardly on his hind legs to the end of the corridor, looking around the corner just in time to see the sorcerer reach the exit and launch himself out into the air. At the last second, a huge creature that looked like a giant flying ostrich swooped up underneath him.
As the sorcerer flew away, he turned and made a gesture at the cave exit. A force shield went up just as Zane went to launch himself out. Zane hit the shield and bounced back, landing heavily on the stone floor.
“Fuck!” Zane yelled.
Laughing maniacally, their intruder flew away.
/> Chapter 9
Thorne beat his wings, his heart pounding at twice its normal speed.
He was furious. That’s what this frantic stomach-clenching feeling was. Fury. Not fear. He was Draken; he wasn’t afraid of anything.
Why had she jumped off the damn roof? He almost hadn’t caught her in time. He’d also nearly stabbed her with the barbs on his tail, but he’d had no choice. It was the only part of him that was close enough to catch her.
He’d thought she’d run to him. He’d been clearing a path for her, screening her with his fire. He could have taken out any hellhounds with one swipe of his claws, and his hide would have protected her from bullets as they took off.
Why hadn’t she trusted him to protect her?
He couldn’t stop replaying the image of her falling, falling—and then her smashing to the pavement below, her soft, delicate human body damaged beyond repair.
Humans shouldn’t be allowed to dangle off buildings. They shouldn’t even be allowed to leave their lairs. They were so… breakable.
He caught an updraft and soared, giving him breathing space to curl his tail forward and transfer Rebel to his front feet, where he could carry her. He deposited her carefully in the palm of one foot, wrapping the other around her so that she was safely caged by his talons, unable to fall.
He could feel her ragged breathing, the adrenalin beating through her veins with her blood. She was shaking, and… Was that exhilaration?
What the fuck? He’d almost had a heart attack, and she was happy!
Real fury shot through him, overwhelming him with its intensity.
What the hell did you think you were doing? he demanded. Why did you jump off the roof? You could have been killed! You were almost killed!
“At least I got the serum—you’re welcome. And anyway, I didn’t know the damn hellhound was going to slice my wire.”
That was reasonable. He didn’t care. It shouldn’t have happened.
I was right there! You knew I was coming to get you. Why didn’t you just fucking stay where you were until I got there?
Dragon's Rebel (Wild Dragons Book 2) Page 4