by Неизвестный
“No. No it wasn’t that…” She stroked his smooth dark skin, like she was calming him instead of herself. “That’s what so fucked up about the whole thing. They didn’t touch me. I was a royal, so I guess they were scared to actually hurt me. So instead they made me watch stuff.”
Now that she’d started talking the words poured out like a verbal waterfall, as if with enough explanation she could make him understand. “It wasn’t even that horrible, the stuff they showed me- just crew members’ punishments and stuff like that. And…well, I guess this was the worst…this one guy would come down and jerked it in front of my cage. It’s stupid, I know! But I was only a kid.” She bit her lip, loathe to admit the truth. “I was scared.”
She thought he’d laugh at her. The big drama of her life being nothing more than bullies frightening a little girl. Instead he nodded, never taking his eyes from hers.
The dam burst, and suddenly she was talking and couldn’t seem to stop. “Everyone said I was so brave for escaping! But they didn’t understand. Every day I hoped and hoped my father would come, or maybe one of his soldiers. But they didn’t. The day I escaped, I was shaking so hard I could barely walk. They…they’d told me that they’d do all these things to me if I tried to get away.”
She slowed, getting her breathing back under control. She felt her shoulders square and the line of her lips still quivered. “In the end, they relied on my fear to hold me. I guess that’s why they forgot to lock my cage one night.” She laughed. “I swear to the fucking gods, I was shaking like a leaf when I snuck off that boat. I thought it was a test, that maybe they were watching and would drag me back and…y’know…”
Kai cut in, stopping her ramble. “You were very brave. You acted despite your fear.” He held her against him, sniffing her neck, a move both familiar and comforting. Surprisingly, her guilt and embarrassment about the incident faded.
He stroked her neck and pressed a kiss on her shoulder with smiling lips. “So—no head?”
“No.” She smiled. “My father started that rumor. That way nobody tried to act all pitying toward me. That was one of the many reasons I loved him so much.”
He held her in silence for a long time.
“Alara?”
“Hmm?”
“I can’t promise I will save you from every threat, but I will stand by you as best I can.” She nodded against his chest and breathed his musky-ocean smell. Dual pixies of trust and hope leapt in her heart and mind, and she wondered whether to silence them or to let them dance.
* * * *
As Alara approached the meeting with the nation’s advisors, Kai hung at her side, a gun in his hand and a sword across his back. His bulk served as a silent threat, because Florian certainly knew she was up to something when she called the meeting.
The faces of her father’s and now Florian’s advisors met her expectantly. Peter Friedson, who she’d helped her father choose as Minister of Economic Affairs, looked up at her with kind expectation. Several others nodded encouragingly. A few scowled. Florian sat in his chair like it was a throne, wearing a smirk she wanted to smack till next Tuesday.
“Thank you all for coming.” She flipped open her laptop and projected the first document onto the large screen.
Florian’s eyes narrowed, but he merely pulled out his cell phone and appeared to text message while she presented her evidence of his betrayal. Gasps and moans met several of her screens, and the advisors loyal to her father scowled in disgust. Alara carried out the entire presentation exactly as planned, wondering all the while that Florian didn’t argue or refute her claims.
As she started to wrap up, her brother stood from his seat and yawned. “This has been really interesting, Alara, but I have to go.”
Alara followed him across the room, Kai at her back. When they reached the door, she found twenty dragon soldiers with cocked rifles pointed directly at her chest.
Kai whipped Alara backward and slammed the door as the squadron fired. Bullets tore through the thick metal, but he turned the lock before the group could advance. Gunfire demolished the lock and Alara looked to the wall-sized window. Snow rested against the glass, reaching up the dragon’s knees and up to the waists of some of the older mere.
The first shooter entered, and Kai dragged the soldier forward by the tip of his rifle and cold-cocked him with his own piece. The rest of the group rushed the door, and Kai took two more to their knees before they even cleared the entryway. As she watched more men pile over the others, she admired Kai’s efficiency. He fought like a machine, his fist slamming again and again like a battering ram.
Alara pulled a gun away from a soldier and fought hand-to-hand. She slammed one soldier’s head into a wall, then swung her leg out to fall another. Someone grabbed her hair and pulled her backward, but a huge pale fist shot out to meet with her attacker’s jaw. Turning, she watched Laird’s uppercut send another of Florian’s thugs flying. Erling led more of her troops through the door.
In what seemed like a split second, Laird and two other dragons she did not know had several of Florian’s dragons in head-locks. Kaylee and Erling had showed up and trained guns on the soldiers still collapsed on the floor. Hans and Olaf ducked their heads into the room, leaning around the piles of groaning bodies.
Hans said, “Florian took off. A couple eyewitnesses say they saw him leave on a snowmobile. Should we go after him?”
Every face in the room looked to Alara with expectation. Even the dragons waited for her response. Her eyes met Kai’s in silent understanding. He nodded once and leapt out the door. Alara shouted, “Laird, go help him!”
Once both dragons had left, she leaned her head to the side, listening to the satisfying crack when her joints popped. “I think the advisors and I have come to an agreement that Florian is unfit to rule as triton?” The older meres nodded vehemently, either in fear of or in agreement with Alara and her dragon consort.
“We’ll each draft written support for the change leadership immediately.” Friedson said. Then he walked out the door, pointedly stepping around the dragon soldiers who rose to their feet under Erling and Kaylee’s trained rifles.
Chapter 16
Battle heat tunneled Kai’s vision as his snowmobile streamed after Florian’s. A motor buzzed loudly behind him, signifying that Laird was not far behind. The deposed triton turned and fired a gun, forcing Kai to swivel around a bush.
The black and gray of Florian’s snowmobile looked like a bug against the white on white of the rolling landscape. Laird and Kai separated, trying to herd their prey away from the coast, inland to where he might become dehydrated. But the princess’s brother drove expertly, evading their efforts.
A shot pierced Kai’s thigh, crumpling him over against the handles of the machine. The pain burned like a coal in his skin, but he gritted his teeth against a sensation that might force a change. He gained on Florian, but the shots kept coming. Several more tore at his limbs, but Kai dared not swerve lest he loose his quarry.
Neck in neck with Florian, Kai launched forward, shifting to dragon form as he flew. He caught several bullets in his reptilian head before tackling his prey. Great jaws opened wide, clamped hard over the fallen triton’s head and twisted.
* * * *
Her booted feet paced the walkway outside the Glass House as Alara awaited the dragons’ return. She’d sent E and Hans after the dragons, but none had come back yet. The sounds of snowmobiles vibrated faint in the distance, but she couldn’t yet decipher the distance. The humming buzz grew, became focused in one direction, and Alara ran toward the noise.
Three snowmobiles crested a nearby hill. Kai’s was not among them.
When Laird approached, Alara swallowed hard, but steadied her voice, trying to appear nonchalant. “So, where’s Kai?”
Laird’s eye twitched. “He’s been injured.”
“And you just left him?” She heard the pitch of her voice rise.
“He took dragon form. We need a large vehicle to move
him as he’s drifting in and out of hibernation.”
Erling looked nervously to Laird, then Alara. “He didn’t seem able to shift back to human.”
Her heart sped up. Laird stepped forward, placing a firm grasp on her arm and looking into her eyes as if willing her to read between the lines. “He was seriously injured. It would do him good to be tended to by a loved one.”
Alara shouted to E and Hans to get the TIGER, and threw her leg over the seat of her snowmobile and started the engine. Laird darted off in front of her. The streaming snowmobile reminded her of riding her dragon through the water, and she hoped with all her heart that Kai would be okay.
She arrived to find Kai sprawled on his side in a melting puddle of his own blood. His shallow pants each sent dribbles of blood out his nose and jaw. Wide gashes and bullet holes decorated his scales, each oozing slightly.
She spun to Laird. “You left him like this?” Her ringing shout echoed over the hills.
The pale dragon opened his mouth, but Kai growled. “Get…her…away!”
Her knees fell to the snow. She petted his head, trying to stroke a part of him not covered in bits of broken flesh. “I’m here, babe. You’re going to be okay. You just need a healing burst.” She looked up at Laird questioningly. The shift to human healed all but the most severe injuries in mere, but she wasn’t sure dragons worked the same way.
Laird nodded, but added, “It’s frowned upon to resort to a shift to heal oneself.”
She was still petting and cooing to Kai when his words sank in. She rounded on Laird with deadly slowness. “Are you fucking serious? Why the hell wouldn’t you shift to heal yourselves?” When Laird held his hands palms up and rolled his eyes, she spun toward Kai, and if she could have found an uninjured spot, she would have smacked him.
“Kai…” She tried to calm her voice, to sound supportive rather than fierce, but she didn’t think it worked. “Shift to human. Now!”
“Can’t,” he wheezed.
“Like hell you can’t! Laird, go away!”
Kai coughed up blood and spit out a couple teeth. “Can’t shift. I am sorry, my love. Please go…”
Her face filled with heat, and tears filled her eyes. As usual, she sniffed them back. “No, you dumb dragon. You’re going to get up off your ass and shift.” She lit upon an idea. “I don’t want to have to take another lover.” Kai snarled, letting her know her efforts worked. “But I guess I’ll have to. Erling was pretty skilled. I’m sure he’d still be up for a tumble.” Kai growled lower and snapped his teeth. Her progress urged her on, even as she feared for her soldier’s life if Kai managed to recover.
“I can just imagine the children I’d have with Erling…so pretty! Terrible taste probably.”
The dragon shook, starting to morph slowly. His deep voice cried out in agony. The shift was slow, as it had to heal as well as change. Bullets pushed outward through his skin as he turned. Alara wanted to speak softly, to encourage him, but was frightened to reverse the process. “He’s not quite as big as you, of course, but he definitely knows how to use it.”
With howl of both pain and rage, Kai emerged, partially healed, fully human, and completely naked. Before Alara could speak, she was laid back on the seat of her snowmobile, with a very bloody and very naked Kai pressed atop her. He attacked her mouth with his, his tongue plunging in, his hands ripping at her clothes.
“Kai,” she broke away from his kiss long enough to speak. “You know I only want you, right?”
He only growled again, and then yanked her snowpants to her ankles. A shock of cold seared her exposed belly and thighs. Not bothering to remove her pants completely, Kai flipped her over so she lay on her stomach over the length of the seat. He straddled the back of the machine and pressed the head of his cock into her entrance, rasping “mine”.
His hands squeezed her hips almost painfully as he plunged. Freezing air bit at her damp entrance and she keened low in her throat at the hard invasion. Her legs hanging at the sides of the machine, she couldn’t maneuver to ease his entry, instead she could only accept the thick cock he slowly fed into her. He pulled back, almost all the way out and then sank in hard and fast, wrenching a shout from her throat. His lips lowered to her ear and he grabbed the handle bars to stabilize him for his next thrust. “Say it. Say that you’re mine.”
Blinded by the heat of his breaths, and the sharp rasp of cold, Alara whispered. “Yes, yes.” With a vicious pull on his hand-holds, he impaled her to the hilt.
Alara squirmed on the seat, rubbing against the vinyl of the cushion. He drubbed into her hard, fast, and merciless. The angle of the seat raised her hips high, and she struggled to find a way to push her body back to meet his. Removing one hand from the hand bars, he gripped one cheek of her behind.
“You’ll never—not ever again—take another inside your body. Say it.”
She twisted a hand between her legs to set off the orgasm on the very edge of exploding, but he gripped her arm and firmly placed it behind her back.
Another deep, hard stroke into her. “Say it, Alara.”
“Oh, gods…” His hold was so incredibly delicious and erotic, and his hips twisted into her so powerfully. “Yes…Oh, gods yes…”
“And we will live together as mates. You will be mine and I yours.”
A spark of concern shot through her, but it was instantly overwhelmed by a dam burst of lust. He paused to stroke down her thighs with the hand not wrenching her arm. His determined fingers branded her sensitive skin.
“Yes, Kai.” She was shaking now, so hot and ready. His hand reached between her legs, passing just the softest caress over her cold-nipped clitoris.
“Then come hard on my cock, mermaid. Milk it until I fill you to bursting.”
Hearing his low, normally-formal voice mutter obscenities sent her reeling over the edge. Her legs shook at the sides of the machine, but he plowed her through the buckling orgasm. She spasmed around his girth, feeling every jerk of him inside her, fulfilling his promise.
He collapsed on her shoulder, breathing warm and wet on her skin. Then he lifted her to standing, pulled up her pants, and placed her on the snowmobile seat in front of him.
The motor stimulated her already-sensitive tissues, and as if he understood, Kai reached forward to cup her center as they drove. He grasped her close—after all the guy’s clothes were destroyed, he must be freezing! His talented hand rubbed at her, making her wonder if she could drive and orgasm again at the same time. He leaned into her ear. “Hurry home, mermaid. There’s much we still have to do.”
* * * *
Gracie peered out her window toward the port of Bergen. She may have made it to mainland Europe, but something kept drawing her back to the water. Of course, ports were a great way to meet potential victims. But Gracie knew better than to think that’s the only reason she stayed.
She’d contacted the local Madame and gotten a permit to hunt, and had called her old contacts in Greece to let them know she was safe. Her friends Sally and Edith still didn’t remember their time in the Dendric labs, but Gracie figured that was for the best. There was no one to tell that she’d failed to seriously damage the company. Months of spying and manipulation, and what had she really accomplished? Mainly she just got her heart broken.
Tired of feeling sorry for herself, she headed out for a night of hunting on the docks. The wharfs stretched out before her. Fiberglass knocked against wood. Planks creaked below her feet. More than once, she saw a vampire lurking with a victim in the shadows between boats. Her heart sped up each time before tearing a little deeper.
Laughter erupted from a few vessels; rich Arabs partied on yachts. Retirees drank from plastic wine glasses on the decks of ancient motor sailers with signs that read It’s five o’clock somewhere! The occasional bicycle rode by.
She saw a familiar outline a dock over, a 160-foot trawler, almost identical to the Dendric One. She ducked her head between the boats, noticing that the ship she saw had a painted gre
en hull, not the bare aluminum she remembered. Still, the sight tore at her. A glutton for punishment, she drifted along the docks, walking through puddles of light.
A man crouched in front of the boat, securing a line. As she neared, he lifted several boxes from a pile at the dock into the deck. His broad shoulders appeared strong, even from a distance, but Gracie had a feeling he was working with more than human strength. As if he felt her stare, he turned. Gracie stopped dead in her tracks.
A catcall carried over the breeze from a nearby boat full of revelers. Neither she nor Karon bothered to look. Gracie willed her feet to turn her around, willed them to walk her back off the dock and take some other man to an alley. But she couldn’t move.
His gray-blonde hair had grown a little, the waves reached past his jaw. Thick stubble coated his features, but his hard gray eyes shone. The dock lights threw sharp shadows on his features. He hadn’t fed in a while.
She moved forward like a sleepwalker, needing to see him if only for a moment. When she neared, he put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. Perhaps he no longer wanted her.
“Hello, Captain Karon.”
“You always were a formal one, Gracie.” He leaned toward her and breathed, his eyes closed.
“Are you here on—”
His hand closed over her mouth. “Don’t say their name.”
“Why?” She twisted her head to look around. No one was in sight.
He bent to speak in her ear, but the tone was more conspiratorial than concerned. “I need to get some distance between me and the vessel’s last location.”
She turned to the boat, and saw that not only did it have a paint job, but the serial numbers had been changed, and it had been rechristened Gracie’s Revenge. The corners of her mouth turned up, and she assessed the ocean-loving vampire. “Don’t you know it’s bad luck to rename a boat?”
His chuckle warmed her as he drew her close. “I’m sure it’ll be bad luck for someone.”