by Riley Storm
“Of course, Aaric. I’ll wait right here. I’ll do whatever you want.”
The door opened, sliding upward as he prepared to exit. “Just remember one thing,” he said as the night beyond beckoned him.
“What’s that?” she asked, leaning over eagerly, biting her lip.
“That I love you.”
He whipped his head around at a sound behind him, unable to wait for a reply but it was blank. Just empty land.
“I know you’re here!” he growled. “Nacht. Lifestealer. Vampire.”
A hiss rang out in the darkness. Nothing more.
Aaric called on fire. It lit his skin, showing the scales below as he burned from the inside. His eyes would be glowing bright golden-yellow now, filled with a light that promised pain.
Pain to the one who had tricked him. Pain to the one who had stolen the mind of someone he cared for very deeply. Pain to the one who had used the people of Plymouth Falls against him. Pain to—
A blur swept out of the darkness to his left. Aaric didn’t see it coming. He only felt the impact, saw himself lifted from the ground and hurled fifty feet into a pile of concrete rubble. Much of the debris crunched under him as he landed, destabilizing the pile until more crashed down on top of him.
Up until then, Aaric had been angry. Now he was furious. Fire burned white around him, and in a second, the concrete began to melt. He got to his feet as everything around him turned to slag, the intense heat melting it as he came near.
“You will pay for that!” he bellowed, extending a hand toward the vampire he now faced, a single finger extended. “You will pay with your life!”
Fire shot from that finger across the distance, a thin beam of it as bright as the sun. The factory around him lit up like daylight as the light bounced off every surface, giving him his first clear glimpse of his foe.
The man was perhaps an inch or two under six feet tall. Nondescript brown hair cut short. Smooth features. Nothing bold about them, nothing discerning or easily identifying. The man was almost a blur.
Except for his eyes. His eyes, Aaric noticed, were dead. They contained no life.
The vampire waited as the fire leapt across the distance, and then at the last moment simply stepped aside with a speed and grace that bumped Aaric’s heart up a little.
The man was fast. Not just quick. Fast. No wonder he hadn’t seen the initial attack coming. Aaric doubted he could keep up, if he was being truthful.
“Rash,” the vampire said, his voice carrying a distinctive Eastern-European lilt to it. Aaric wasn’t an expert, he couldn’t place it, but he immediately knew what it most likely meant.
Not all the vampires died with the Roman Empire. We thought we got them all, a decade of hunting the world, killing every last one we could find. Even some who probably weren’t vampires, at least according to what the elders say. But they insist we got them all.
Obviously, they were wrong. The Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantine and its capital of Constantinople, in modern-day Istanbul, Turkey. They must have hidden some of the vile creatures. Perhaps even just one.
“You could have stayed hidden,” Aaric said, fearful now. This vampire was easily fifteen hundred years old. That was older than the eldest that had been killed by his ancestors, by a good thousand years or more. Who knew how powerful he had become?
“Where’s the fun in that?” the vampire asked. “Seriously, that’s boring. Why keep out of the spotlight when it’s time to step back into it?”
His boasting almost distracted Aaric.
Almost.
Ready for anything though, he had already prepared for a sneak attack.
What hit him from behind, however, hit just as hard as the vampire. Aaric was flung across the ground, skipping like a flat rock over water. Skin peeled and bone ached as he finally came to a halt. Twisting around, he glanced back from where he had come, trying to figure out what had attacked him. A second vampire?
But what he was looking at was no vampire. The squat man with darker skin, not quite Latino, with more of a rust-like hue, stared at him with black, beady eyes.
And his skin rippled constantly, in revolting fashion.
“What the hell is that?” he hissed, feeling his hackles rise just staring at the man.
The vampire just chortled. “That, my non-friend, is what I so gloriously sought below these lands. Sought, and found, I might add. May I introduce you to Joe?”
“Joe?” Aaric asked, turning to keep both of his attackers in sight, forming the third point of a triangle. He was very cautious of the fact Olivia was still in the car. She’d remained quiet until now but he knew she was in grave danger.
Once again, you over-estimated your abilities and under-estimated your opponent. Idiot. How are you going to keep her safe from both these things?
“I don’t know his real name,” the vampire said dismissively. “What’s important is what he is.”
“What is he?” Aaric asked, glad for the respite as he tried to come up with a plan on how to deal with the two.
“Joe is what the Native Americans refer to as a Naagloshii,” the vampire said. “A skin-walker. A shapeshifter.”
“A shifter?” Aaric asked incredulously. “No shifter can hit as hard as he. Nor does their skin do that.”
Joe just stared at him, his skin looking like the ocean surface as it flowed. Just staring at it made Aaric queasy.
“A shapeshifter,” the vampire said patiently. “Joe here is as old as I am, and more powerful than any regular shifter on this planet.”
“Wonderful,” Aaric muttered, calling fire to himself once more. “Just wonderful.”
“Now we will kill you, the last dragon, and rid ourselves of the only thing that could impede our plan,” the vampire chuckled.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Aaric growled.
Then he attacked.
36
Olivia watched as Aaric went flying through the air. She closed her eyes to slits as he grew really bright and emerged out of the concrete. Then she winced, her vision blurring with tears as something shot out of his hand and across the open space.
“Boring,” she mumbled to herself, face leaning into the window, skin pressing up against it. “Why won’t he fuck me already?”
Then Aaric got hit by something else and, this time, he bounced across the ground. Olivia saw another man appear.
“Oh, is he arranging a gang bang?” she asked the empty car. “That would be so fun.”
Stuff was happening outside the car again she noted, returning her attention to that as three shapes clashed. One of them went tumbling away. There was a bright light. Then a huge shadow. A roar. A bellow of pain. Fire erupted in a circle, burning away the darkness before shadow engulfed it and extinguished it.
“Maybe they’re battling it out to see who will fuck me,” she muttered, idly playing with herself, eager for someone to win.
She saw Aaric get hit again. He was losing, she noticed.
Why is he fighting if he can’t win? We shouldn’t have come here at all.
But they had. Something in her brain latched on to that, a remote corner of it coming to life. Olivia frowned, sitting up a little straighter, feeling the cool metal of the restraints against her skin. She was okay with being tied up like this if it gave Aaric what he wanted.
I love you, Olivia.
The words pierced through her brain as she remembered him saying that. That was why he was here, fighting for her, wasn’t it? He loved her. He was fighting for her.
For the right to fuck her, right?
I love you, Olivia.
That little corner of her brain kept replaying that memory. She felt almost as if it wanted to speak. As if it had words to say. But every time it did, something else in her head drowned it out.
But that memory, Aaric’s words. She had heard that. It was real, and her brain could play it back over and over again.
I love you, Olivia.
“I get it,” she said
to the empty car. “He loves me. Good. That means’ he’s going to fuck me, and I want it so bad,” she was moaning to herself.
Olivia frowned. She was forgetting something. Something important.
I love you, Olivia.
“I know!” she shouted, sitting upright, pulling her face away from the window, ignoring the battle outside.
The battle Aaric was fighting. Fighting for her. Because he loved her.
“I get it, okay? He loves me!” she screamed, slapping her head.
I love you, Olivia.
“What do you want from me?” Her throat hurt from the volume of her shouts. “Just tell me what you want?”
I love you, Olivia.
“What do you want me to say?” she moaned, slumping down into the seat, the memory flashing in her mind over and over again. Non-stop.
What could she say? What does one say in response to that? He loved her. That was wonderful. She liked knowing that. Liked hearing that he loved her.
Maybe Aaric would like hearing it as well.
Something inside her brain reacted, trying to smother that thought as soon as it appeared, but Olivia, in her desperate state, latched onto it, wondering if maybe that would stop the voice from playing in her head.
I love you, Olivia.
“I love you, Aaric.”
The resistance in her mind slipped. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for her to realize it was there. That something was in her mind.
“I love you,” she whispered, each word a struggle to get out, a fight. Her brain went to war against itself, but a mistake had been made.
“I love you, Aaric,” she repeated, the words stronger this time. Louder.
The resistance lessened. She sat up straighter. Her mind began to sort out what was going on. She remembered the dark of the factory now. She remembered the presence. Those eyes.
Olivia shuddered and the resistance strengthened.
“I love you, Aaric.” She repeated it. And again. And again.
I love you, Olivia.
“I love you too,” she said, eyes clenched shut as she flung the emotions at whatever was in her mind.
Something snapped, and then abruptly the pressure was gone. She was free. Olivia looked around wildly, ignoring the memory of the eyes and what they had whispered to her. The way she’d fallen into its gaze, letting herself get sucked in.
She remembered trying to kill Aaric. Her sex-crazed desires. How embarrassing.
Outside, something crashed hard into the ground. She pressed her face up against the window. It was Aaric. He was lying on the ground not twenty feet away. Olivia gasped at how beat-up he looked. The fire in one hand sputtered and went out.
She felt her heart stop, but only for a second as she realized it was a ruse. A ball of flame shot from his other hand, impacting a short, compact man wearing little more than a smock to cover his junk.
He was losing. Aaric was losing. Olivia wasn’t sure how she could be of any help, wasn’t sure of what she could do to change the course of the battle. She was just human, and whoever Aaric was fighting, they were besting his dragon strength and powers.
We’re going to die here.
The thought sank into her mind with a black finality. They were going to die.
Not before I tell him how I feel.
She scrambled frantically for the door as a shape approached Aaric from behind. It was going to snap his neck. Olivia wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew. The chains around her wrists made it awkward, but she found the door handle and tugged on it, trying to push it open.
It insisted on going up and she fought with it for precious moments before letting go, watching the door begin to rise.
The man grabbed Aaric by the head and hauled him to his feet with ease as Olivia tumbled out of the car.
“Aaric!” she screamed. “Aaric, I’m free.”
Attention turned toward her. The nearly-naked man with pitch-black hair advanced on her.
“I’m sorry I got you into this, Aaric,” she said, rising to her feet, determined to face her death with courage. “I’m sorry.”
She took a deep breath in. “Before we go though, there’s something I want you to know. Something about me. The real me, not whatever dead-eyes here did to me.”
The short man was nearly on her. His skin rippled, a repulsive thing to see.
Olivia took a breath in as his hand went for her throat.
“I love you, Aaric,” she said, staring at a man she’d despised just a week ago, one she was ready to die with, as long as he knew how she truly felt.
“I love you too.”
37
“I love you too.”
Power surged through his veins like jet fuel added to a bonfire.
She loved him.
Aaric’s skin, having dulled to a burnished gold, sprang to life once more.
“She loves me,” he growled, reaching up behind him to grab the vampire’s wrists. Energy surged through him and twin suns manifested in his hands.
The vampire shrieked at the light. Aaric held tight. His eyes began to glow once more. He pulled the vampire’s hands off his head, then casually threw the creature of death clear across the open space and into the building that had collapsed from fire.
Then he turned to the Naagloshii.
“Ah, I see you don’t understand the concept of leverage,” Aaric said, his voice deepening. “You shouldn’t have let her go.”
He reached out and casually backhanded the creature away.
“Thank you, Olivia,” he said. “For the words I thought I wasn’t going to live to hear.”
His voice was deeper still, almost melodic in its rumbling bass. The ground slipped away from him as he grew. His scales were brilliant gold even in the dark of night. They seemed to emit light. The wings bursting from his back did the same.
Aaric turned his attention to the vampire first, the creature just now extricating itself from the rubble he’d tossed it into.
“You messed with her mind. You made her try to kill me. For that, I sentence you to death.”
The magnificent gold dragon thrust its jaws forward. Gold light rippled up the spikes on its back, and then fire more brilliant than the surface of the sun belched forth from its mouth.
The vampire snarled and thrust its hands up in front of it. Pure darkness, blacker than the blackest night billowed forth, trying to counter the fire as it had several times already that night.
It didn’t work. Aaric was operating on another level now. He’d known that dragons grew stronger when mated, that they fed off the bond between them and their mate, amplifying their powers, but he’d never dreamed it would be like this.
The fire he spewed forth pushed the shadow back, and then it began to melt through the vampire itself. There was a brief moment before the fire caught the vampire.
“You’ll never stop us,” he hissed. “We will claim our rightful place in this world once more. Our master has assured us.”
Then hands vanished, charred to ashes and slipping away. The rest of the vampire caught the brunt of the blast next and simply disappeared. One moment, he was there—the next, he was but ash on the wind.
Aaric’s jaws snapped closed as the last words of his vanquished foe hit home. We have returned. We.
There was no time to process the words, however, because something hit him from the side. Something big.
He reared up on his hind legs, then spun and swatted at the creature with his tail. The golden beak snapped closed around his scales, however, and bit down, absorbing the impact.
Aaric bellowed as blood and scales fell away. He turned now, confronting the beast, realizing belatedly what the Naagloshii had become.
A gryphon faced off across him now. Though smaller than his dragon, it was still the size of a school bus. The head and wings of an eagle mounted on the body of a lion, it was a powerful foe.
The eagle head shrieked and the gryphon leapt into the air.
No, not there, you id
iot. We can’t let ourselves be seen!
But Aaric had no choice. He had to go after the smaller beast. The Naagloshii was pure evil and could not be allowed to escape. There was no telling what a creature of its power could do to humanity if left unchecked. It was from a different time.
Magnificent wings of burnished gold spread wide and with a mighty flex of powerful legs, the gold dragon rose into the air. Aaric had not flown in a long time, and now he regretted being unable to take the time to appreciate the beauty of the planet as it shrank below.
Instead, his focus was ahead, on the swift Naagloshii. Muscles beat and his wings powered him ahead, bulling through the air. The gryphon was fast, but he was faster. Stronger. The creature’s only advantage over him would be its mobility. It could dive and turn faster.
And this high up, Aaric would have to close to eliminate it. Using his breath to bring down the gryphon would be easier, but it would be seen for miles around. He couldn’t risk those kinds of questions being asked. It was likely someone had already seen the fight at the abandoned factory, or at least the light show reflecting in the sky.
No, this would have to be done up close and as silently as possible.
He gained more on the Naagloshii, rising higher as well, waiting for just the right moment. The massive creature shrieked at him again.
Sorry dude, I don’t speak freaky-deaky dead thing.
Fire crackled in his core but Aaric fought it down, using that energy to power his wings. Mighty sweeps brought him ever closer as they circled the factory.
What was it up to, he wondered?
And then it didn’t matter. Aaric was in range. He was lined up. Tucking his wings in tight, he plummeted from the sky, all four legs outstretched in front of him, wickedly sharp talons aimed for the gryphon’s neck.
I’ve got you, n—huh?
Suddenly, the gryphon was gone.
Aaric got a faint glimpse of something that could be a bat, and then he was rushing by.
Behind him, he heard an eagle shout, and suddenly he was the one being pursued as the gryphon plunged after him. The shapeshifting bastard had known all along what Aaric was planning and he’d used his own abilities to best him.