As Cintra squinted, trying in vain to spot the carvings on the stone leg, Trix slipped a hand into the waistband of her jeans and pulled the dagger that Amara had given her. Silent, smooth, quick. Just as she’d always been. In one swift motion she drew the blade across the woman’s throat, knowing that the entire world might come crashing down on her within a millisecond.
A blur of movement to her right, and Dakra was on her, one hand bracing her arm at her side and squeezing with an unfathomable force. Trix felt a crunch in her forearm as she dropped the knife, her eyes fixed on the woman who writhed on the floor beneath her in a growing pool of dark liquid.
The man was pushing Trix’s head sideways now, wrenching her neck in an agonizing, unnatural way. He kicked the knife into the surrounding darkness, and now Trix was helpless. Dakra’s canines were elongating already, threatening to tear into her skin.
“No, stop!”
It was Amara who had yelled. Amara, who ran towards them now. She was lunging at Dakra, jamming the Dragon bone blade into his side even as the shadows about the room began to creep forward, encircling them, observing in silence as Amara leapt backwards.
Drawing the knife from his side with his free hand, Dakra turned to face his assailant and tossed the blade onto the stone table with an echoing clang.
“Bitch,” he growled low, his eyes going black, menacing. “I should have known from your scent, you’re a traitor to your kind. You know the penalty for treachery.”
“You are not my kind,” Amara retorted, her lips curled into a feral snarl. “You and I have nothing in common, you vile monster.”
Dakra let out a chilling laugh. “Oh, no? I beg to differ. We have a common need of blood,” the man said, shoving Trix towards Amara, the Seeker’s head still bent at a horrible angle. “So here’s a gift for you. Drink.”
Amara put her hands out to grab Trix, taking care not to touch her injured arm. When Trix managed to pull her head upright, the two allies locked eyes for a moment, a look of horror crossing between them.
“No. I won’t consume blood,” Amara said. “Never.”
“No?” the man said. “You would rather die?”
Amara nodded, her face losing any faint trace of colour that it still had. “A thousand times over.”
“Then I’ll help you.” Dakra grabbed the knife from the table and with blinding speed he somehow leapt behind Amara, pulling her dark hair back to expose a pale neck. The tip of the knife was already applying just enough pressure to draw a trickle of red by the time Trix had registered what had happened.
“No!” she yelled out before she could stop herself. “Don’t hurt her!”
The man cocked his head and studied the Hunter, apparently amused at the camaraderie that had established itself between the two women. “A mutual admiration society, is it?” he asked, chuckling. “A Seeker and a Forsaken whore, friends? Who could have seen this coming?”
“She’s not a Forsaken, you sack of albino donkey bollocks,” Trix spewed, wishing that her ruined right arm would heal itself and that she had her Katana handy.
By now they were surrounded, at least fifteen sets of reflective eyes focused on them. Trix sniffed the air, trying to determine how many of the creatures might pose a real threat. She caught the stench of decay mixed with the most potent, offensive perfume. The odour of cruelty and hatred. Lapsed and Forsaken. If there were any allies present, their scent was masked by the foulness that the others exuded.
“Give me the Relic,” Dakra said, extending his free hand towards Trix. “Now. Or she dies.”
Amara stared deep into Trix’s eyes, a look of sheer determination on her face as she shook her head. No. Don’t give it to him. She was ready to die for this cause. She would give her life to help the Dragons.
“You can’t have the Relic,” Trix snarled. “I won’t give it to you. No one can have it but my mate.”
“Very well then,” Dakra said. Dramatically he drew the knife back, yanking Amara’s head backwards as he did so. But he didn’t strike. He was taunting Trix, tormenting her, summoning her humanity to the surface. No way would the Seeker let someone on her side be murdered in such a ghastly way; not if she could help it.
And he knew it.
Trix froze, fighting off the instinct to run at him, knowing that to do so would be to sign Amara’s death warrant and her own. “Look—” she began, her voice pleading. “I…”
“I believe what my Hunter friend is saying is that I wouldn’t hurt the woman if I were you.” The deep voice echoed throughout the chamber as a tall, broad figure moved out of the shadow into the pale light.
A Dragon shifter had arrived.
Allies
Trix turned Minach’s way to see that he was standing, fearless, behind the line of creatures who formed a barrier between their leader and him. It was a brave, probably stupid move on the Dragon shifter’s part.
But where the hell was Lyre?
“You’re the Seeker’s lover.” Dakra shouted across the room, Amara’s hair still firmly in his powerful grasp. “The Kindred who’s responsible for bringing her here. Well, good, I’m glad you’ve come. When I’ve finished with this traitor, you can watch me kill your mate.”
Minach casually looked around at the chamber, ignoring the figures who stood within an arms’ length of him. “That sounds fine,” he said. “I say, this place is rather large, isn’t it? Nice high ceilings and all. It would make a splendid billiards room.”
“What the fuck are you on about?” the Forsaken asked him, clearly agitated by the shifter’s seeming indifference to the situation at hand.
“Oh, nothing. Just, it’s so big, you know. You could fit a whole Dragon in here. Maybe even two of them.”
Dakra let out a hollow laugh, his face creasing up in a series of ugly, dehydrated-looking wrinkles. His skin was beginning to look parched, like it was in need of nourishment. His need of blood was dehydrating him slowly into a raisin; perhaps he wasn’t so well fed as Trix had thought. “Yes, I suppose you could fit a Dragon in here,” he said. “But this labyrinth is under our control now. You will find yourself too weak to shift here.”
“Oh? What, because your Forsaken voodoo magic is ever so powerful?” asked Minach, his voice taunting. “Because you and your dead friend have done ever such a good job of keeping things running smoothly?” His voice rose up, loud and booming. Trix’s insides heated, reminded of the strength of the Dragons who lived inside the identical siblings. “You think you have control over me?” Minach roared. “I’m a fucking Kindred.”
“The underground is under the jurisdiction of the Forsaken!” Dakra protested, but his voice was weakening in comparison to Minach’s. Hesitant and frightened. “My coven…will take you down swiftly, as soon as I command it. You won’t be any match for our kind.”
“No, I suppose you’re right,” said Minach, picking something invisible out from between his teeth. His voice had settled again, and Trix got the distinct feeling that he was thoroughly enjoying fucking with Dakra. “One shifter might be no match for you and your army of brain-dead minions. But I wonder, what about two shifters in possession of a Relic of Power?”
Trix inhaled and held the breath deep inside her chest, hoping against hope that he meant what she thought he did. Maybe Lyre really was nearby. She so desperately wanted to see him, wanted evidence that he was alive and whole. Wanted more than just his disembodied voice inside her mind.
“I think,” said Minach, “that it’s time to see what a pair of Dragons can achieve.”
As though in response to his words, an identical titan of a man stepped up behind Minach to lay a large hand on his twin’s shoulder. And Trix’s eyes moved to her lover’s for the first time in what felt like days. If it weren’t for the small battalion of enemies surrounding them, if it weren’t for Dakra’s cruel hand grasping Amara’s hair, she would have sprinted over and thrown herself into her mate’s arms.
Lyre, separated from her by the line of Forsaken and Lap
sed, stared back at her, his expression filled with an affection that radiated right into Trix’s chest and found her heart. All at once she felt her strength returning to her body, though the piercing pain in her arm remained.
“My beautiful Seeker. You’ve been hurt,” his voice rang inside her mind.
“It’s nothing,” she replied, attempting a smile in spite of the chaos around them.
“Brave girl. I can feel your pain, you know that. Listen, do you remember the vial that Elsie gave you at the inn?”
She offered the shallowest of nods. Of course. She’d forgotten completely about the vial. Elsie had said it would cure anything that ailed them. Despite the warnings of the strange old man on the street, Lyre was inclined to believe the innkeeper, and so Trix would have to try and believe her, too. After all, she was Scottish, damn it.
So with her free hand the Seeker reached, wincing, for the front pocket of her jeans. Extracting it, she managed with a shallow cry to pull the small cork from its tapered end and took a long drag before sealing it again. Almost immediately, a cracking sound met her ears, and the pain in her arm vanished. Her bones had mended themselves, knitting together as though they’d never been shattered. It was the same sound that she heard when Lyre shifted, altering from man to beast and back again. The sound of power. Of strength.
She straightened up tall, and looked towards her mate. “Much better,” she told him silently.
“You do look better. You look perfect, in fact. And I can’t wait to hold you,” he responded. “But first, are you ready to claim the Relic?”
She nodded.
“Take it quickly, while the Forsaken is occupied with his captive. It will help Minach and me in what we need to do next.”
Without a moment’s hesitation Trix spun and lunged at the table leg, pressing her hands into the symbol of Air. As though giving way to her commanding touch, it fell gently into her palms, settling there.
“I have it,” she mouthed when she’d stood back up and pivoted to face Lyre, her fingers wrapped around the quarter circle of stone. She lifted the Relic high, and all of a sudden the black veil of shadow surrounding the stone table stripped away. A sphere of light surrounded her, expanding throughout the entire chamber.
Now Trix could see the creatures who lined the walls. Mangy, lopsided Lapsed stared at her from every side, frozen in wait. Interspersed between their forms were tall figures draped in dark cloaks, their eyes bright with hunger. It was impossible to tell if they were the Forsaken or Amara’s Enlightened allies, and for the moment Trix didn’t care to find out.
She remained still, her eyes the only part of her that dared move. She was a Hunter with no weapons, useless if they should threaten to descend upon her.
“Give me the Relic,” Dakra snarled, spotting the object in her hands. He pressed the knife into Amara’s throat to remind Trix of the consequences if she defied him. “Now.”
Trix twisted her neck to stare at Amara’s assailant, her instincts a tangled mess inside her. She was healed and whole now, but defenceless. She had no way to take on such a man.
Not unless she got her blades back.
“Beatrix!”
The cry came at her from the other end of the room, bellowed by a deep, masculine voice.
Lyre’s voice.
She turned to find his eyes with her own, looking to her lover for guidance. He’d given her a gift; the sound that she’d craved so often. He was smiling that reassuring grin, telling her that she knew what to do. That everything would be all right.
That he was with her.
“I love you, beautiful Beatrix,” he shouted, his voice booming through the space like cannon fire.
The words echoed back at Trix from every corner of the room, coming in waves to her ears, and she shut her eyes tight to take in the vibrations, her body absorbing them like shock waves.
“I love you too,” she called back, savouring the ringing syllables bouncing off the walls of the cavernous chamber. “I love you so much, Lyre.”
“I’ll see you on the other side,” he told her, this time internally. “Trust yourself, as I trust you.”
By the time Trix opened her eyes again, two identical, icy-scaled Dragons loomed over the other end of the chamber. Mirror images of one another, menacing, enormous and powerful. In unison they snarled at the line of enemies, opening their mouths to reveal jagged fangs. First one and then the other let out a series of deafening roars that shook the very foundations of the labyrinth.
Dakra, clearly shocked by the Dragons’ appearance, pulled Amara backwards, the blade still at her throat. He pressed his back to the wall, trying to figure out how to stop two such beasts from tearing him limb from limb if they managed to make their way through his wall of servants.
“Kill them!” he barked, and finally his minions advanced towards the threat, peeling away from the walls to lope towards their prey. Shifting into their animal forms, twenty or so Lapsed formed the front line against the Dragons, driving forward in uneven strides. Mangy cats and emaciated bears, wolves with matted fur raced towards the Dragons, hoping that their numbers would suffice to bring them down.
But the Lapsed may as well have been rag dolls, for all they could do against two such Kindred working together. The Dragons’ strength was only enhanced by the Relic that Trix held in her hand, its extraordinary power resonating through their bodies. They fed off its magic, just as the Forsaken fed on blood.
The shifters made quick work of the Lapsed, thrashing them against the chamber’s stone walls with slashes of their enormous scaled feet. Some of the creatures slid down, limp and motionless, to the floor. A few managed to get up again, running mindlessly at their prey only to be struck by a bolt of ice from Lyre’s throat, or one of Minach’s massive talons.
The few Forsaken assailants, however, were another matter. Moving at immense speed, they darted about the Dragons, forcing Lyre and Minach’s necks to twist around, so they could snap massive jaws at their foes. Some of the half-breeds shifted into their powerful déors, and Trix watched in horror as a massive, sleek wolf, a bear and a tiger all aimed for the Dragons’ necks and chests, razor-sharp teeth aiming for vital arteries.
The Seeker ran towards the fray, wishing she could help in some way. But without a weapon she knew she’d be useless. For a moment she watched the onslaught, hoping that the Relic and the Dragons’ combined power would be sufficient to help them fight off their foes.
The good news was that Minach and Lyre were finally together, and able to help one another. If a Forsaken leapt onto Lyre’s back, his brother was there to tear it off and thrash it against the wall or the ceiling, incapacitating it temporarily. If one went for Minach’s wing, Lyre made quick work of it. The brothers were an amazing sight, working in tandem as they hadn’t done in many years. Trix couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful.
I’m with you. She sent the words out to Lyre, hoping they might help. Hoping that he could feel her offering her strength to him as she watched him fight for his life. Fight to get to her.
Fight for their life together.
A few of the enemy managed to evade the Dragons’ jaws, assaulting the scales on their delicate underbellies. Before long blood was streaming from a deep wound in Minach’s chest where a lion had torn at him with a rough slash of his gigantic forepaw. Trix cursed her life in that moment for leaving her without her beloved blades. Helplessness was what she hated most in the world. The problem before her needed a solution, and she had none to offer. Bare hands were no weapon against such enemies.
But even as the Forsaken seemed on the verge of gaining the advantage over the twin Dragons, something strange occurred. From somewhere far across the chamber a fresh wave of attackers darted towards the ongoing battle. More Forsaken, it seemed, had arrived; some tall and thin in human form and others sleek in their animal forms, moving fast towards their prey. Trix cried out to the Dragons, horrified that the reinforcements would provide the strength to ensure that the enemy
would win.
But as Trix watched, she realized that this new wave of half-breeds was aiming not for the Dragons, but for the Forsaken who were assaulting them. Tearing them away from Lyre and Minach’s scales and necks, throwing the Forsaken to the ground only to leap at them and rip at their flesh from above. Some stayed in human form, wielding weapons in their hands, slashing and stabbing at their targets.
They were protecting the Dragons.
The Enlightened, Trix thought. Shifter-vampire hybrids, aligning themselves with Lyre and Minach. Amara must have brought them with her to this place; it was the only possible explanation. She’d seen all of this coming. She’d known how much her kind would be needed.
“Seeker,” a voice called out softly from behind Trix. She spun around to see a small, pale woman standing before her, extending her sheathed Katana sword in both hands. “This is yours, I believe.”
“You’re…you’re one of the…” Trix replied, breathless. She thrust the Relic into the front of her jeans before snatching the blade from the woman’s hands. “Thank you,” she said, unsheathing the sword and dropping the leather to the ground. As she held the blade high, the strength in her arms greater than it had ever been, she knew what to do.
She turned to face Dakra, who was still imprisoning Amara in his grasp. A look of horror and confusion was etched on his features. Clearly, this wasn’t how he’d envisioned his day going.
But even so, as he looked towards Trix he managed an arrogant raising of his chin, a curling snarl of his lip. “Do you think you can actually take me on?” he asked her. “You? A human, against a Forsaken?”
“I’m not a mere human anymore,” Trix said, stepping slowly towards him. “I’m the mate of a Dragon shifter, and he is one of the Kindred. I have a Relic of power, and you’ve been wounded with a Dragon bone blade. Its poison will eventually make its way through your bloodstream and end your life. I can see your fear, and I can hear your cold, cruel heart pounding in your chest, trying to keep you alive, though you don’t deserve to breathe the same air as the woman you’re holding captive. Maybe I would have difficulty, were I on my own in this fight. But I have her…” Still holding the Katana high, Trix nodded towards Amara. “and them.” she added, gesturing to the half-circle of Enlightened allies that had now formed behind her alongside the small woman who’d given her the sword. “With them I can take you, and I will. Then, this place will return to the hands of its rightful owners. It’s time that you learned not to steal from Dragons.”
Dragon Seeker, Part Three Page 11