Another assassin. The dragon hadn’t heard a heartbeat, so this one had to be dead already.
Thane trained his pain-blinded gaze high to his right. Braced preternaturally in the corner of the ceiling, his assailant’s normally gray skin was rosy from feeding, his eyes gone demon bright. His heart did not, could not, move in his chest.
Vampire.
***
“Find Lena,” Thane commanded in a growl.
Emerson hesitated. His indigo eyes were lustrous with intensity, the ridges of his forehead becoming more pronounced as his skin tone deepened. But there was a spear piercing his shoulder—it had to hurt—and some kind of spidery-looking man on the ceiling. Another assassin?
The freak launched himself toward Thane, who ripped the spear from his body and swung it just in time to connect its shaft to the creature’s belly. The assassin flew back on impact, slamming into a grand piano, his nails scraping across the black lid and then coming to a sudden stop. With a leap, he crouched weirdly on the wall, as if gravity had no hold on him, ready to pounce again.
A dangerous purr rolled up Thane’s throat as his shoulders rolled forward. He glanced over his shoulder, and Emerson staggered back. “Find her for Rinc,” he said.
Right. They’d come to get answers from Lena. And if Thane was…occupied, getting them was left to Emerson.
She backed down the entry, no idea where to look, then listened to a darkness moving inside her, urging her toward blood. Strange and frightening sensations beat at her skin, erotic heat and primal glee, as she sought the heart of the violence. Some part of her was feral, too. She couldn’t deny it now.
The body of a man—a servant, Emerson guessed—was sprawled in the hallway, a sharp weapon still in his grasp while he swam in a pool of red.
“It wa…” the voice whispered again from deep within the house. “Godric.”
Emerson didn’t know who Godric was, but she had a feeling she and Thane would be visiting him next. Anyone whose name began with God was bound to have issues.
She edged around the puddle of blood and headed in the direction of the voice. Thane roared from the front of the house, and a huge crash shook the walls, dust misting down from a crystal teardrop light fixture into the air.
Yet another body—a young woman in a service uniform—blocked a short hallway into what Emerson guessed was the kitchen, so she went around the other way, through an enormous sunny dining room with a long table surrounded by at least twenty chairs. There she found a huge sunroom at the back of the house, with an open door leading to the outer lawns.
Pinned to a wall with one of those spiky spears through her chest was a beautiful woman with auburn hair, jewel-gold eyes, and a crown of knobby bone under the skin on her forehead. Her arms were slack, the inside of her lips coated red. She’d apparently tried to run but hadn’t gotten far.
Emerson rushed to her. “Lena Orvyn?”
Another roar and crash from the front of the house made the windows shiver in their panes.
Dragons were supposed to be able to heal on their own, so…should she pull the spear out? The weapon seemed to be deeply embedded in the nicely papered wall. It would take dragon strength to pull it free.
“Can you shift?” Emerson asked.
“I can…die,” Lena gasped, as if she hoped death would come soon. The effort it took to form the words, the very breath needed to give them voice, told Emerson that Lena was not going to survive this, no matter how well dragons could heal.
Emerson had so many questions, but Thane’s were more important. “Did you kill Carreen and Rinc?”
“No. Nev—” The last word was overcome by a thick, liquid wheeze.
“Was it Godric?” Was that what Lena had been trying to tell them since they’d set foot in the house?
“Yesss.” A drip of blood coursed from the side of Lena’s mouth down her chin. “Wanted Carreen. Always.”
This Godric had wanted Carreen, who was Thane’s wife. Okay. Simple enough.
“I…helped”—a shudder passed over Lena—“Carreen. Meet him.”
Thane had said that his was an arranged marriage. That Carreen had done her duty. But maybe she’d also gone after the man she’d truly wanted…
“Carreen wanted Godric, too?”
Emerson took Lena’s next shudder for a yes.
“But Godric was jealous, anyway?”
Lena managed a trembling nod.
This was so messed up. Thane had said that arranged marriages were about peace and prosperity, but it seemed to her like they sucked all-around. Big-time.
“I’ll tell Thane,” Emerson said. Maybe he could forgive Lena for keeping the information from him, since she was now dying because of it. “Thane will make sure Godric pays for what he did to your sister.”
Lena closed her eyes and tried to shake her head. Blood ran more freely from her mouth. “It’s…” She choked on a word and then tried again. “No…good.”
“What’s no good?”
Lena’s eyelids trembled, but only the gold showed. “Godric…”
Emerson held her breath.
Lena’s next syllables were unintelligible glubs, but her final dying words, enunciated with intense exertion, made Emerson sick with dread. “Godric…sss…father.”
Oh hell.
Suddenly, it made perfect sense why Lena had hidden this information from Thane for hundreds of years and then tried to interest him in another Bloodkin woman—keeping Emerson on the mediation—when the remains were found. Emerson was tempted to hide this information from him, too. Carreen had been unfaithful with this Godric bastard, which was bad enough, but that Rinc wasn’t Thane’s son? That was just brutal.
CHAPTER 10
Thane’s left arm hung limply at his side, blood from his shoulder washing hot and steamy down his body, soaking his clothes and pooling in his shoe. The Drachentöter had done most of its work, maybe all. His mind and vision were hazy, and a terrifying weakness was easing up his spine. The dragon thrashed within to take over the fight—and as a dragon, Thane could win it—but at the same time, he would lose everything. Lose himself in his final shift.
No, this was a man’s fight.
He hated vampires, the parasites. But they made excellent, if expensive, assassins since it was difficult to kill what was already dead. Thane grasped him by the neck as the vampire lashed out with his sharp claws. Deep, angry cuts opened along Thane’s good arm and shoulder, even his face, but his clammy flesh didn’t—couldn’t—feel much.
With the last of his strength, he pinned the vampire to the floor, knee to the assassin’s chest, sternum cracking under his weight. Squeezing hard, Thane crushed his throat, but that wasn’t good enough. His grasp slid to just under the jaw, and he forced the chin up until he felt the bones in his neck come apart. Muscle, tendons, and skin ripped as the vampire’s head finally came off.
Dead now. Forever.
Thane wavered momentarily above the corpse, but as blood flowed from his wounded shoulder, the room dimmed, pinpricks of light—not stars—gleaming momentarily before fading as he collapsed forward on top of the headless body.
***
“Thane!” Emerson squatted down, grasped him around his ribs, and heaved, rolling him off the body of that freak—who was now dissolving into noxious goo, but she was not going to think about that—and onto his back.
Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God.
Blood covered his left side, sourced by the wet burble at his shoulder where that spear had struck and ripped into him. She put her hands to the oozing wound and pressed to stop the bleeding, but the red just seeped through her fingers. Dragons were supposed to be able to heal, but all Thane’s wounds—and there were many—were open and livid, his skin tone gone pasty where it was visible.
Her nerves were frazzled with alarm, but her mind narrowed with intense focus. This was not the time to fall apart.
He was cut and bleeding from just about everywhere, but his shoulder—too close to his heart for
much hope—was the main problem.
She surveyed the room and fixed her attention on the curtains. Pull them down, rip them up, dress the wound. In one swift movement she left his body and got to work. The fabric was a thick, silvery-blue brocade, but for some reason she had no problem tearing it into fat, long strips.
“You’re going to live, Thane Ealdian,” she said as she used all her 130 pounds to pull him up to a sitting position so she could wrap the cloth tightly around his chest as a bandage. Blood soaked the material, but when she was finished, the outer layers were dry.
Laying him back down again, she put her ear to his face to see if he was breathing.
Come on…
Then she searched for a pulse in his neck and was rewarded by the faintest of taps against her fingertips.
Please, hang on.
“If you die, you can’t throw me a party. And no one has ever thrown me a party before, so you kinda have to live,” she said, hoping to get a reaction out of him. She didn’t give a damn about the party.
Next. Matthew. He’ll know what to do.
She grabbed for her bag and located her phone. She found his name and hit send—the brilliant man had thankfully had the presence of mind to program his number into her mobile—then she put it on speaker while she felt again for Thane’s pulse. Still there.
The mobile rang and rang, but no one picked up.
Come on…
She ended the call and tried again. No answer.
Cold dread rattled her. Lena Ovryn’s staff appeared to be dead, and an assassin had been waiting for Thane and her to arrive. Maybe Godric had sent someone to Thane’s house, too. Maybe Matthew was lying in a pool of his own blood, now lost to his fifty-three descendants.
Her vision blurred with tears, but she shook them away. She couldn’t think about Matthew now. Thane needed help.
Bryan. She selected his name, hit send and speaker again, and when he picked up, she was talking before he had a chance to say hello.
“Thane’s hurt badly, maybe fatally.” No, he would live. She’d make him live.
“What happened?”
“A Bloodkin is after us, some grand master bastard named Godric. He’s been killing everyone involved with that project I was working on.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“In immediate danger?”
“Probably. But Thane killed the last guy here.”
“Where are you?”
Emerson had to make herself think. Her thoughts were caterwauling out of control. “The mountains. Not quite Lake Tahoe, but in that general direction.”
“You have to get out of there.”
No kidding. “I have Thane’s car. I’ll—” her mind raced “—find a motel nearby. Take care of him there. Can you come?” If Bryan could get on the road right away, it’d take him a few hours to get to her. “I don’t know what to do for him, and he’s not healing on his own.”
A hospital was not an option. They’d just take more of his blood. And hers. Then all the Bloodkin’s.
“If he’s wounded that badly,” Bryan said, “the best you can do is get him somewhere safe. He’ll either heal or he won’t. I think you should bring him here.”
No. “That’s hours in the car.”
“But you’ll be in my territory. I know my territory. If some Bloodkin is after you, I can take care of you better if you’re here than if you’re in a random motel room somewhere. Thane will be safer, too, and if he dies, I have to be able to protect you.”
Bryan had no idea how badly injured Thane was. She was staring at the gruesome wounds, her nerves screaming on his behalf. “He won’t be able to make it that far.”
“That’s Thane Ealdian you have there. If anyone can make it, he can.”
“Bryan, you don’t understand. He’s out cold. Some freaking spiky spear thing ripped up his shoulder.”
“A Drachentöter?”
“A what?”
Bryan sighed. “A dragon slayer, a weapon designed to kill Bloodkin. Damn. Okay, yeah, I get you. Your shifter friend is in a very bad way.” He paused a moment. “Look, Ember, he’s an old dude. Lived a long, full life. Maybe it’s his time.”
“It’s not his time!” And he wasn’t old. Age didn’t apply to him.
“Then you have to get him—and yourself—to me. I’ll be ready for you. I’ll do what I can. Call me when you’re on your way.”
“Fine. I’m coming.” She hit end and looked at Thane’s prone body helplessly.
How the heck was she going to get him out to the car? He had to be over two hundred pounds. Drag him on a rug? She’d never felt more useless in her life.
But then she remembered The Goddess statue from his house, so serene and strong, full of power. The Goddess could get Thane out to the car, but of course, she was part dragon.
Emerson froze. And goddammit, so am I.
She crouched down and hunted for his keys in his pocket to make sure they were there. They were. “You hold on to these for us, okay?”
“Okay,” she answered for him and she grabbed her purse. All set.
She pulled him back up to sitting and put his good arm over her shoulder. Gritting her teeth, she sought deep down inside herself for strength she simply had to possess. All her life she had been, as she was now, as strong as she’d needed to be. Dragons were like that.
She took a deep breath and a hot, slick tingling sensation ran over her skin and inside her bones. She stood up, power thrumming through her veins. Thane rose with her, his head hanging forward, his body smoldering in her grasp. She was Bloodkin and wouldn’t ever deny it again.
She carried him to the car, maneuvered him into the passenger seat, and adjusted the back as far as it would go. She got in the driver side and set her phone on the dash beside her. She started the engine and put the car in gear.
Thane had driven fast, but she was about to see what an Audi R8 could really do.
***
“…counted five of them down there,” Ember was saying, her voice floating like a wayward balloon in Thane’s mind. “Why is your Alpha being such a jerk about us?”
“He’s a jerk, period,” a male voice said. “But the pack has to obey him.”
“Has to?” Ember asked. Thane latched on to her voice like a lifeline.
“His being Alpha includes a…compulsion thing that’s very hard to fight,” the male said. “But it’s possible to break free, which is why I’m going lone wolf as soon as your situation is resolved and you’re safe.”
Her safety was Thane’s problem, not this stranger’s, but the word wolf sparked something in Thane’s memory. What had dragons to do with wolves? Something important.
“I have to find a new place to live, anyway,” Ember said. “You can stay with me, and when Sadie gets better, she can join us. It’ll be like old times.”
No, this wolf could not stay with her.
Thane wrestled with the weight pinning him in darkness, but the effort made pain flower in his chest, his heartbeat bouncing wildly. He took a deep breath to quiet it, and an unpleasant odor, like wet fur, filled his nostrils. And the pallet upon which he lay was very hard and lumpy. Not his bed. Not his stronghold.
“Thane?” Ember’s voice was very close now. Fingertips softly brushed his face, and he hoped they belonged to her. “Only you could take a Drachentöter and live to tell the tale.”
The darkness in his mind rushed into a cyclone of memory.
Drachentöter. Vampire. Lena.
Lena had known about Carreen and Rinc all along. She might have even killed them. He’d gone to her for answers but had been met with another assassin. He’d fought in a house already filled with death, and he’d sent Ember in deeper…after a whispered voice.
“Godric,” Thane said, opening his eyes.
“There you are,” Ember said, smiling down at him. She was wearing a man-sized green T-shirt. Thane turned his head toward the source of the offensive smell and found a Wolfkin watchi
ng him. Right. Bryan, her foster brother.
“I can’t believe you’re alive,” the wolf said. “I would’ve put you out of your misery, but Ember is crueler than I am.”
Ember was Bloodkin. “Where am I?” Thane asked.
He tried to sit up, but his shoulder roared with pain and his heart pounded so hard that stars gleamed in his vision. Ember pushed him back down again, and he allowed it. He looked around the space as he lay there. He was in a small room, too claustrophobic for a dragon’s comfort, dingy and cluttered with books. It reminded him of a ship’s cabin from long ago. He’d been undressed at some point and now wore only sweatpants and a gauze bandage on his shoulder.
“We’re at Bryan’s place in Santa Barbara,” Ember said. “I didn’t dare go back to your house after everyone at Lena’s had been murdered. I figured Bryan’s place would be safe, although safe is a relative term. Half his pack is prowling the street below this building. His Alpha isn’t happy that one of his wolves is in league with dragons.”
“That’s because your brother’s association with us challenges his Alpha’s authority,” Thane said absently. He lifted the arm of his injured shoulder and flexed the hand. A deep ache barked at the movement, but it wouldn’t be long before he had its full use again.
“My sister is royalty,” the wolf told him.
Thane grunted in agreement. He could deal with the wolf’s smell if he felt that way about Ember. Thane met her gaze. “Have you contacted Matthew?”
Matthew would have some clothes ready for him.
“He hasn’t picked up his phone for the past two days,” Ember said.
“Two days?” Thane made to sit up again, and this time he managed to get himself upright. “Try him again. Now.”
Ember sighed, but she pulled her mobile from her back pocket. She put it on speaker and dialed. The call rolled to voicemail.
She shook her head at Thane. “I’m sorry. I’m hoping he was able to get out of your house before any trouble started, and just left his phone behind. He doesn’t know to look for us here.”
Left his phone—? Matthew was inseparable from his mobile. He would never leave it behind. The alternative scenario was that he was still at the house. Unable to answer. A vision of Matthew collapsed in his own blood floated before Thane’s eyes.
Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 40