He wiped away the lone tear that rolled down her cheek.
“I don’t know—” Her words broke off as she sucked in a breath with a hiccupped sob at the end. “I wish I was someone . . . who could help with what you need. What you probably need, but—”
“Mae,” he chastised quietly. “You are everything you need to be. We will beard this monster Sotiris in his den, you and I. And then, we will find my brothers if they still live—whether already freed or waiting to be found. Will you undertake this venture with me? Fight by my side?”
Her jaw firmed and she nodded, her determined gaze meeting his. “Yes. I can start tonight. I already know a lot about Sotiris, but I’ll find more. He has to be up to more than just gathering a house full of weird stuff.”
“Assuredly. The man couldn’t go a fortnight without causing grief when we fought him.”
Maeve stared. “Wait. He bragged to me about some big project he was working on, and how it would destroy his enemy once and for all.”
“He bragged about planning to kill Nicodemus?”
“Well, no. He never said the name, but isn’t it possible that he meant your Nico? After all, he bragged to me many times about some deal or other that he’d won, that he’d knocked down his competitors. But he never referred to any of them as his enemy.”
Dragan stared back. “If you’re right,” he said thoughtfully, “then Nico’s alive.”
“Exactly.” She nodded eagerly.
Dragan’s expression turned pensive. “But if that’s true, how will you find him? Even I know that this world is huge.”
“The internet,” she said with charming eagerness. “Everything ends up there eventually.”
“The internet. You use your computer for this, correct?”
“Absolutely. And that is totally my playing field. Here, I’ll show you.” She slid her hand away from his in her enthusiasm, as she jumped up to run over to her bed and the flat canvas bag that held her computer.
Dragan swiveled on his chair to watch as she dropped the empty case and hurried back, a broad smile lighting her face. He liked her this way—confident, with her mind spinning ideas so fast he could see them sparkling behind her eyes.
He’d treasured the girl who’d sat next to his statue day after day, who’d brought light to the darkness of his imprisonment, and soothed his battered soul. But the woman . . . this woman was so much more than that. She was kind and compassionate, but she was also courageous enough to take on his problems, and his very existence, without running away in fear, and intuitive enough to see Sotiris for the corruption he was, despite the bastard’s sophisticated exterior. She was brilliant, but stubbornly practical, approaching every obstacle as a problem to be solved and never surrendering until it she’d triumphed.
But she was also lovely and sensual, with eyes that revealed every emotion, and a smile that lit up his world like sunshine on a new morning. Yes, she was innocent, especially compared to his battle-hardened and battered self. He would give her the time she needed and not rush her.
But he wanted her, and for more than a few night’s amusement. He wasn’t sure he deserved her, was almost certain he didn’t. But he wanted her anyway. And he would have her, because he’d been waiting for her all his life.
Chapter Four
The Finger Lakes, NY
SOTIRIS STRODE OUT of the lakefront house, but spun back around before he reached the car. He’d forgotten to set the damn alarm, and the house was completely empty now that the stupid girl had permitted herself to be seduced by that damn winged monster. She’d seemed so biddable for all the years she’d worked for him, but maybe it had been a front all along. Maybe someone had sent her to him to steal what she could. Information, most likely. He’d have known if she’d taken anything else, if any of his artifacts had been missing before. But now she had his hexagon, numerous blades . . . and even his damned warrior.
It had to have been a fluke thing, he reasoned. He couldn’t believe she’d managed to break his curse on purpose. He’d set nearly impossible demands on each of the warrior’s curses, including Dragan’s, then had sealed them with his own substantial power.
It was no coincidence that the others had all been freed recently, one after the other. He’d cast a single spell with Nicodemus’s four warriors as a single target, rather than four separate spells. The first, Damian, had been freed in a completely random bit of luck, but his freedom had nonetheless weakened the overall spell. Sotiris had been infuriated when Kato and Gabriel’s curses had fallen soon after, but he’d taken smug pleasure in the knowledge that their final member would never join them.
Because Dragan had been his “guest” for more than a century, securely locked away and hidden where no one would ever find him. It shouldn’t have been possible for the girl to free him. She wasn’t even supposed to have entered the room, much less have interacted with the damn statue in a way that met the terms of his curse. How the hell had she managed it? The curse had demanded grace from Dragan’s beast, safety in the nightmare of his existence. Granted, Dragan Fiachna had been handsome in his human form, but on that long-ago battlefield, Sotiris had waited until the warrior had been poised for flight, his leathery wings spread and taloned like a demon’s, knees crooked to cast himself into the air, like a giant gargoyle from nightmares.
Where was the grace in a demon’s form, or the safety in wings that were leathery rough and meant for gutting his foes? Hell, if he’d known the girl was a virgin, he’d never have hired her, considering it an abundance of caution.
But even so, had she been trustworthy, she’d have called him the moment she realized what was happening, long before Dragan’s freedom had given him an opportunity to seduce her with his beautiful face and sad story.
Stepping up to his front door once more, he walked over to the panel, and was about to arm the system when he paused with his finger on the keypad. “Bitch thinks she can play me?” he whispered with a private sneer. “We’ll see about that.”
Instead of arming the system, he changed the pass code, and then set the alarm. She’d left plenty of personal property up in her room. It didn’t appear valuable to him, but he wasn’t going to give her a chance to sneak back into his house and reclaim it, either. If she showed up, he’d have her arrested, let her damn family try to fight it. She’d have to sit in jail waiting for them. And wouldn’t that be a rude surprise?
With the house locked and newly alarmed, he slid onto the soft leather seat of his Maybach and drove away. Frustrated as usual by the long gravel drive, he made a few calls during his slow progress to the road. First up was his secretary, letting her know he’d be late. He didn’t offer a reason; he didn’t have to.
The second call went to the investigator he’d dialed earlier. “Well?” he demanded, when the anonymous male voice answered.
“It’s too soon, but I can tell you this. She’s smart. If she’s using a phone, it’s not registered to her. Probably a burner. No credit card activity yet, but it’s early for that. I checked the parents’ phones, grandparents’, too, just to be sure. She hasn’t called them. Like I said, she’s smart. She knows you’ll be checking.”
“What about her laptop? Her car’s navigation system? Aren’t those traceable?”
“The vehicle’s GPS locator has been disabled. She can still use it, but we can’t find her. And the computer’s a no-go. It’s likely—”
“I paid you to bug the damn thing right after I hired her. Are you saying it’s not—?”
“What I’m saying,” the man interrupted insolently, “is her security is like fucking Fort Knox. And you’re the one who told me to stop trying to break through it.”
“Because she spent all her time on those ridiculous games. What was the point?”
“Exactly. So the computer’s useless to us. On the other hand, unless she has a pi
le of cash, she’ll show up eventually, either by hitting an ATM or using a credit card. And when she does, I’ll have her.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“She will.”
“She’d better. By the way, I want you to put a second man on her. The same one as before. Let him do the footwork. And keep me informed. I want to know the minute you have a lead on her, no matter how small.”
“Will do.” And the damn fool hung up.
No respect for his betters, that one. Unfortunately, he was very talented at his job. Sotiris tightened his lips in distaste, but didn’t waste any more time on it. He’d finally reached the paved road and made the turn with a fishtail of gravel and dust. Before long, he was breaking speed limits in his rush to get back to his Manhattan penthouse. The timing on Dragan’s escape couldn’t have been worse. The fucking warrior had been about to make himself useful as something other than a dust-gatherer, to play a critical part in Sotiris’s latest project. It was almost as if fate had done this intentionally, foiling his plans simply to vex him. But he wasn’t so easily turned from his goal.
After his most recent battle with Nicodemus Katsaros and his allies, revenge had no longer been the only reason to perpetuate Dragan’s imprisonment. It wasn’t even the most important one.
He’d been furious when he’d captured the woman Hana Himura, only to lose her in the subsequent battle. He’d spent years plotting her capture, from the moment he’d first encountered her at her grandfather’s estate in Japan and discovered what she was. An amplifier, possibly the only one currently alive, she had the power to double the strength of any magic user she encountered. And for a sorcerer like Sotiris, she’d been a prize beyond imagining. But in one of those strange twists of circumstance that the fates so enjoyed dumping on the world, Hana Himura had ended up in the U.S., under the protection of Katsaros and the damn vampires.
Sotiris had succeeded in kidnapping her, but in the subsequent battle, he’d lost her. His rage had been powerful enough to destroy continents, greater than any he’d experienced in his long life. She was supposed to have been his. He’d plotted and planned . . . but once he’d burned off his fury, once his mind had returned to its usual state of high-functioning reason, he’d begun to think. What if he could replicate Himura’s talent? Not in a person—he couldn’t control that—but in a device. He’d been a master of such things long ago. And he would be again.
So he’d set himself the task of replicating the power possessed by Hana Himura. For days at a time, he’d barely left his Manhattan workroom, poring over texts, experimenting with various combinations of spells and materials. He’d come close to giving up more than once, but driven by his hatred for Katsaros, he’d persisted.
And when he’d finally succeeded, the solution had made him cackle like a madman. Not only had Katsaros’s interference propelled Sotiris to this discovery, but the final game piece that he needed to make it work was none other than the bastard’s fourth and final trapped warrior.
Because Dragan Fiachna’s magic was nothing ordinary. His power didn’t depend on the pitiful amount of magic to be found in this world. It flowed into him like a fountain from the goddess herself, unaffected by time or distance. The poor bastard wasn’t a sorcerer. He was goddess-blessed.
Chapter Five
The Wooded Isle, somewhere in the mists of time
DRAGAN HEARD THE sound of a messenger running past his cottage, the boy’s feet slapping in the mud left by the previous night’s rain. Striding back inside, he began to dress, donning his leather armor with the ease of long practice. He didn’t require help from a servant or squire, because he’d never had it. He’d learned that lesson before he could handle a grown man’s sword. By the time the horn sounded its clarion call, he was sliding his weapons home on his belt. Short knives to either side, great sword in a sheath along his thigh, though it never remained there for long. Once he entered battle, the blade wouldn’t leave his hand until every enemy was dead.
It was his destiny as the king’s second son. He was the protector, chosen by the goddess to defend her land. He would never have a family of his own, no wife, no children. Only duty.
His blessing they called it. But what was a blessing to them, was the worst sort of curse to him. The villagers praised his prowess in battle, then turned their backs when he rode home, so covered in their enemies’ blood that he would taste it for days, would scent it with every breath. Mothers and fathers would gather children into their homes and close the doors, as if they feared his so-called blessing could spread like a plague. Or maybe they believed he would strike them as dead as the warriors he’d left behind on one blood-drenched battlefield after another.
But the worst of it, the thing that struck the final blow to his soul, were the women who would sneak into his cottage in the deep of the night, eager to lay with the goddess’s own chosen one, to welcome him between their legs as he plunged his cock into their eager bodies. Not to breed great warriors from his seed. Oh no, every woman who came to him stank of the hedge-witch’s potion filling the bags hung round their necks, meant to ensure that no child would be born of their illicit encounters.
As if he were too ignorant to know what it was and what it would do. Or maybe they simply had no care for his sensibilities. Because no one wanted to birth a monster, which was what they called him in whispers when they thought he couldn’t hear.
And yet, he still fucked every woman who tapped on his cottage door, still muffled their screams as he pounded into their softness, as he left the marks of his teeth on their necks, bruises on their skin. Because these secret assignations, these couplings in the darkness, were the only time he touched another human being, other than the men he sent to their deaths. The warmth of the women’s embrace, the hot wetness between their thighs . . . it was the only caress of a soft hand he could remember in his entire life.
Turning at the sound of footsteps, he opened the cottage door even before the knock came, ignoring the town elder who had to stumble back or be run over, as he relayed the horn’s inevitable message to Dragan. Invaders were on their shores, too many for the town’s defenders to handle, and they were in danger of being overrun by the greater force. Dragan could have repeated the message by rote, he’d heard it so many times. Most times, it wasn’t even true, but simply the reaction of a panicked guard force. But he responded just the same. It was his duty. His only purpose. The reason he’d been born.
Mounting the fierce warhorse he’d trained himself, he set the animal to a gallop and stormed through the village, flinging mud in his wake. He heard and ignored the outraged cries behind him. If the fools didn’t know better than to stand in the mud, it was no duty of his to warn them. Maybe they’d know better next time.
Where a fully-loaded wagon would have taken half a day to reach the coast, Dragan, atop his war-trained stallion and moving at an urgent pace, covered the same distance in a fraction of the time. Over the final league, he met fighters retreating at a fast pace, backing away from the road at his approach, lowering their eyes in shame for their cowardice. They were abandoning the field, leaving him to defend their families and shops, to fight the battle that should have been theirs.
He barely noticed them, the scene one that had played out time and again. These people weren’t his friends. They shared a village, but not a life. He wasn’t invited to supper or asked to sponsor a child to his father the king. They didn’t even seek him out for battle training, though his skill was by far the best on the entire isle. No, he only lived in this village because it was closest to the isle’s vulnerable shore.
Topping the final low hill, he stared at the battleground. Men from both sides lay wounded, many of them belonging to his father. Those who could limped after their retreating fellows, a straggling line that Dragan passed without note. Those unable to rise were being summarily executed by the invaders as they moved across the roc
ky sand of the battleground and prepared to advance inland. When the first enemy saw him standing on the hilltop, a black-armored warrior on a great black stallion, a shout went up, traveling back through the invaders to their leader who stood a full head’s height over every other man on the field.
The leader’s laughter rose above the rock-strewn ground, the sound echoed by his fighters as it rolled up the grassy hill to where Dragan waited. He paid it little note. Great warriors like this one looked at him and saw only a lone warrior. Brave enough to defend his land, skilled or wealthy enough to own a battle stallion, but in the end, a solitary man who would bleed as red as every other.
Dragan shrugged and let his magic flow. Wings sprang from his back with a clap of displaced air . . . and a shredding agony that he barely noticed anymore. Arching high over his head, blood dripping from every talon as they tore through his skin, they were the wings of a dragon, designed to stalk and kill.
The invading leader’s step faltered, his eyes going wide when they met the twin flames of Dragan’s own, their orange light flickering in the shadows as the sun dropped behind the hill. But the man was brave. He hesitated for no more than a moment before opening his mouth in a roar of defiance, his blades crashing together as his men cheered.
Dragan dismounted to walk down the hill. He wouldn’t need the horse for a single foe. And if the others found their courage after the warrior died—and he would die—Dragan could always summon the stallion to his side to expedite their deaths, so that they might accompany their leader into the afterlife.
The invader’s long legs ate up the muddy ground until, by the time Dragan reached the bottom of the hill, the two of them stood a sword’s length apart. He was taller than Dragan, though not by much, his blue eyes glittering with triumph, despite the magic swirling like winter ice when Dragan mantled his wings like a great bird of prey. The warrior lifted his broadsword, his mouth open to roar a challenge, but Dragan was already moving. His blade sliced through the enemy fighter with a thrumming beat, as if pulsing in time with his heart. An instant later, the huge warrior coughed, choking on the blood pouring from his mouth as his body toppled to the muddy ground, cleaved in two so neatly that it took a moment for his torso to roll away from his legs.
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