by E A Price
He wouldn’t let anyone take him like this.
She’d probably never see him again. She’d never find out the truth about her father. Never see her mother again, never be able to hug her and tell her she was grateful for everything she had done over the years.
Martha almost giggled through her grief. All the dreams she had and not a single one of them involved any of this?
*
Drago already knew she was gone when he landed. The emptiness and coldness of the house without her bubbly presence almost made him shiver.
He strode through the house, battering his way through furniture and doorways alike, confirming what he already knew.
Vaguely he was aware of his fellow gargoyles joining him, but they may as well have been on Mars.
He smelled her blood before he scented it, one or two fresh drops in her bedroom, splattered over the sheets where only hours before they had made love.
He snarled as he scented male scents – two humans, still quite fresh. One laced with desire and alcohol. They were dead men for touching her, but for touching her with their own perverted desire in mind? He would tear them to pieces.
“The front door has been forced,” murmured Gracchus grimly.
“Your female was taken,” declared Ryia – who had insisted on coming.
Drago had been too impatient to argue, but he could so easily have throttled her at that moment. However, that would take time away from finding Martha.
“The scents are still fresh,” said Luc, not unkindly. “They will not have gone far.”
“I noticed there were few roads around here if we split up…” started Gracchus.
They stilled as they heard a vehicle approaching.
Hope bloomed. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps she had not been taken and was returning. Drago made for the half-destroyed door. He was about to reach it when it exploded into flames.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The gargoyles shielded themselves with their wings. Being partly born of dragons did have its advantages. They weren’t entirely fireproof, but they could stand it to a certain degree.
“They have a dragon?” howled Ryia.
“More likely a flamethrower,” snapped Grey.
Fire licked at the front of the house, the heat blazing through them. Drago hurled his wings back, readying to face the fire head on. Nothing would stop him from getting to Martha. Did they think a little fire would hurt him? For years he had been beaten and broken over and over. Physical pain was nothing to him.
He roared and felt a hand tug at his arm. “Do not be foolish,” snarled Luc.
Drago was ready to hurl the other male away from him.
“Out of the way!” bellowed Grey.
An armchair soared through one of the windows, creating a hole that Grey leaped through. A moment later there was a loud growl followed by a squeal, and most of the fire was doused.
Drago was the first outside to find Grey wrestling with a human girl. She was a mere slip of a thing, dressed in an oversized black hooded sweatshirt, black pants, and boots that were clearly too large for her. Her head was shaved, and if it weren't for her large, pretty eyes and high voice, Drago might have thought her to be a boy.
“Get off me, you bloody great oaf!” screamed the girl.
“Stop squirming!” ordered Grey – to no avail.
“The flamethrower?” questioned Gracchus, looking around them.
“It was her,” panted Grey, struggling to contain a female who looked to weigh a hundred pounds wet through. “She is a firestarter.”
“Pyrokinetic!” she shouted indignantly.
Drago strode forward. He plucked the girl out of Grey’s arms and held her up by the hood of her sweatshirt. Her movements ceased, and she glared at him, unable to hide her fear. He could give two dragons tails what she was. There was only one thing in the world Drago cared about.
“Where is Martha?”
Her mouth twisted stubbornly. “Like you don’t know.”
He pulled her closer, his wings spreading around him, making himself look huge. “Where is she?” he hissed.
“Just what I want to know,” said a hard voice.
So intent on the girl, they had missed the man. He stepped out from behind the car and pointed a gun at Drago. His face looked gaunt, whiskers laced an unshaven chin and his eyes were sunken with tiredness, but he was at least six-foot-three and fairly broad for a human.
Drago twitched his tail. Was this one of the males? He could barely tell over the stench of fire.
“Who in all the hells are you?” he demanded.
The man narrowed his eyes. “You don’t tell me what happened to my daughter, and I will shoot you all.”
In surprise, Drago dropped the girl. She landed with a thud and a curse that would have made sailors blush.
“You are Martha’s father?”
The man half-nodded and behind them, the fire-stricken house started to collapse.
*
“Not a sound, sweetie, or a slap to the face will be the least of your worries.”
Martha tried to look anywhere but at him as one of the men dragged the gag down her cheek and pressed a water bottle to her lips. Perhaps the water was drugged, but she didn’t have much choice but to drink.
“Good girl,” he crooned, and her eyes flickered up to find a dark, leering smile being directed at her.
He wasn’t the one who hit her. That one was fidgeting and walking around with a nervous expression.
“I’m telling you,” he hissed, “I saw them in the sky. They were coming for her.” He looked at her accusingly, and Martha tried to look as innocent as possible.
The other one took the bottle away from her mouth. He pursed his lips slightly as he looked at her face, and ran a finger over the rapidly forming bruise.
She was propped up in the trunk; they were on the side of the road. She could not tell where. In the darkness all she could see were trees.
“They looked like giant bats!” ranted the other.
Martha looked down quickly, wondering if one of those giant bats could have been Drago, coming back to her.
“We need to get out of here right now!”
Martha felt pressure on her chin as the leering one forced her to look up at him. Honestly, she felt safer with the one who hit her. Ranting and violent seemed a lot more appealing than the desire she could see in the other’s eyes.
“You’re not even listening to me; we need to leave. Let’s just take her to the boss and get the hell out of this shithole.”
“There’s plenty of time. You’re in no rush are you sweetie?”
Martha leaned forward and vomited over the side of the car, enjoying the fact that it splattered on his shoes a little.
He grunted in displeasure while the other started hooting in laughter. Hey, it wasn’t her fault. Ninety percent of that vomit was due to getting punched, the other ten because she had a bad feeling about what Leery McLeerson wanted to do to her.
“See? She’s sick, let’s get rid of her.”
He looked her up and down. A little vomit didn’t seem likely to deter him. “After,” he grunted.
She didn’t need to be psychic to know what that meant.
*
“Just shoot them,” spluttered the girl.
Grey grumbled, and Luc hushed him. He stepped forward and held out his hands. “We should remain calm.”
“Calm?!” howled Grey. “She almost turned this house into our funeral pyre!”
“Almost, princess, Keep your panties on,” muttered the girl.
Under Grey’s furious glower she scrambled away to stand by Martha’s father.
The other gargoyles were shifting and trembling, their wings beating, tails thumping against the ground. They were all eager to pounce at the male currently threatening them.
“Stand down!” snarled Luc as Ryia bared her teeth.
“Shoot them,” urged the girl.
“We can take them,” sneered G
rey.
“Where is my daughter?”
Drago felt fear and sadness lacing every inch of him – but it wasn’t his. It was Martha’s. She was out there, and they were wasting their time arguing. His chest tightened until he could barely breathe. Martha was in trouble. His Martha.
“We do not have time for this!” roared Drago, silencing them all. “Martha is in danger, and I would kill every single one of you before I allowed any harm to come to her!”
The gargoyles gaped at him, not doubting him for a moment.
“That your daughter’s boyfriend?” muttered the girl incredulously.
Slowly, uncertainly, Martha’s father lowered the gun, his hard face creasing in anguish. “I was waiting, trying to find a way to approach her. I thought they would be watching her, but I didn’t think they’d hurt her. I thought they were only after me. But I felt her pain and…” A tear trickled down his cheek, and his companion scowled.
“We still don’t know that they didn’t have something to do with Martha being taken,” complained the girl.
Grey huffed. “There seems to be something wrong with your mouth; it keeps flapping.”
“Why, you…”
“Either shoot me or get out of my way,” rumbled Drago. He wasn’t joking, and it wasn’t hyperbole. He was going to save Martha. If any of them stood in his way, he would cut them down.
Until he started dreaming of Martha, his life had been nothing but pain and anger. In such a short time, she had shown him glimpses of happiness, made him think that maybe life really was worth living again. Nobody would take Martha. Not while there was still life in his body.
“She could be anywhere by now,” muttered her father.
“I can find her,” rumbled Drago.
If he could find her in his dreams, he could find her anywhere.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Briggs stomped through the trees. Foreman was always a dumb fuck, always thinking with his dick. He’d known this would happen the moment he caught sight of the woman. He knew Foreman would find a way to have her – knew he wouldn’t be able to resist a woman like her.
Even tied up, smacked and scared she was beautiful. Or maybe because of it. Foreman liked them when they were helpless, or he liked making them feel helpless.
Usually, Briggs didn’t care. Might have even been able to relax a little and enjoy her himself, but there was something funny going on.
This was supposed to be a straightforward job. Watch the woman, and if their target approached they were to try and apprehend him before he got to her, and if he did get to her, then they were to take both of them.
But the old man with the cane – whoever the hell he was – had spooked their boss, and wanted the woman picking up immediately.
The woman had been acting strangely, hiding away in her house. He’d assumed it was because she was in contact with the guy they were after. But there was something weird about her, and he definitely saw something flying out of her garden, and he definitely saw something returning as they were leaving
Flying monkeys maybe? Aliens? Whatever the hell it was, he wanted to get away before they came after him.
Foreman was pissed, wanted to take his time with the woman in the house, but Briggs had to hurry him along. Foreman could make do with the backseat of the car. Still, he better do what he wanted quickly because, by the time he was finished taking a piss, they were leaving.
He found a tree and unbuttoned his trousers, freeing himself and letting out a sigh of relief as the stream started.
A twig snapped behind him. Already jumpy, Briggs spun, sending his piss across his shoes.
“Aw, fuck!”
He shook himself off and zipped up, dancing on the spot as if this somehow helped his urine-soaked shoes.
So engrossed in his task, he didn’t even see or hear the gargoyle until it was too late.
*
Martha kicked at him, and she must have scored a bullseye because he swore and staggered away from the car. Sometimes having giraffe legs was a good thing.
She made a desultory attempt to stand up and make a run for it but that only resulted in her falling flat on her face. Being tied up wasn’t conducive to sudden bursts of exercise.
He had taken the tie off her feet, but put the gag back on and left the tie on her hands.
As the seconds ticked by, any hope she had of another car coming their way slowly dribbled away.
Rough hands grabbed her, turning her over on the hard ground. His eyes were filled with violent desire as he grasped at her clothes and she struggled pitifully.
Martha closed her eyes, wishing she could be anywhere else in the world. But her horror at the situation was interrupted by a resounding thud.
The hands stopped, and she snapped her eyes open to find him looking up questioningly, into the darkness.
“Briggs?” he hissed.
Slowly, he rose, leaving her on the cold, damp ground. Her arms were twisted behind her, but with a lot of effort, she rolled to her knees, watching him, waiting hopefully.
Unhurriedly, he pulled a gun out and peered around the edge of the car. Whatever he saw shocked him, because he snapped to attention, looking around wildly.
He moved, and Martha shuffled to look as well. She saw him bending over the body of the other man – Briggs she supposed. His face was twisted in death.
The other man uselessly felt for a pulse while trying to stare in every direction around him.
Something had killed him; something had tossed him here. Martha’s heart beat furiously. She knew exactly who that something had to be.
He came, she thought elatedly. For me, he came for me!
Her eyes scanned the trees, looking for any sign of him. Looking for those red eyes, desperately wanting them to be there. She saw nothing. The trees were deathly silent, save for her breathing there was a total absence of noise. It was unnatural.
The man waved his gun at her. “Get in the car,” he muttered.
Martha shook her head.
His eye twitched, but he remained calm. “Get. In. The. Car.”
She stared at him, unmoving. They remained locked for a few moments before he lunged at her.
She closed her eyes, expecting to feel his vile hands, but it never happened. She opened her eyes to find him pinned against the car, gasping and gurgling as Drago wrapped an enormous hand around his neck.
“Drum-uh!” she mumbled through her gag.
His eyes turned to her, and she could see his relief, it was mired in about seventeen layers of outright deadly rage, but it was there.
“Thank Merlin,” he muttered, and Martha tried to smile at him.
The bang of the gun made Martha scream – muffled as it was behind the gag. Drago let out a roar as more bangs followed before he took hold of the man’s hand. He crushed both hand and gun in his powerful claws, eliciting a wail of agony from the man, and despite being shot, the strength of Drago’s grip never wavered.
“Pathetic,” he sneered at the human who was turning purple by that point. Tears were streaming down the male’s cheeks.
“Drum-uh!” screeched Martha. He had been shot – he had to be in pain.
Drago looked at her again, and his expression softened marginally. He tossed the man aside and came to Martha, pulling the bond and gag away.
“You are unhurt?” he demanded, his hands running over her body.
“No!”
His expression darkened. “That male injured you?!”
“No, I’m not okay because you’ve been shot!”
“Flesh wounds,” he said dismissively and tried to pull her into his arms.
Instead, she bent her head, trying to inspect his wounds, much to his consternation.
“Oh god, they look really bad!”
He shrugged, apparently unconcerned. He seemed more concerned that she wouldn’t hug him.
“Fucking monster,” rasped a voice behind them.
Drago snarled and spun, keeping Martha behind
him.
The man was struggling to stand on his feet, wobbling and clutching at his now useless hand.
“You’ll fucking pay for this!” His undamaged hand reached down to his ankle for another gun.
Before he could even get it out of the holster, a ball of fire flew at him, throwing him against the car and knocking him out entirely.
Drago snarled and spread his wings further, shielding Martha.
“Thanks for waiting for us!” complained a disagreeable voice.
Martha peered around Drago to find more gargoyles approaching them, along with an irritated young, bald woman and…
“Dad?”
“Martha!” he cried joyfully.
Their reunion, however, was cut short as what was surely the most stubborn gargoyle on the planet collapsed.
Chapter Thirty
“You’re sure he’ll be okay?” asked Martha for the tenth time.
Drago was still out cold, breathing deeply but still out.
Annis, the small gargoyle gave her a reassuring smile. “I find it hard to believe there is much Drago could not survive.”
Chris – who apparently was mated to Annis - in spite of her protestations that she was fine, would not leave her with Drago – even if he was out cold. He didn’t say it in front of Martha, but clearly he was of the persuasion that Drago was a dangerous entity.
Martha completely disagreed – even when he growled he was still a good guy to her.
She mopped Drago’s brow again, and Maggie clucked her tongue. “If you keep doing that he won’t have any moisture left in his body.”
The surprise to find that Chris, Kylie, Brenda, and Joely were all mated to gargoyles and that Maggie and her fiancé knew about the gargoyles and were living with them, hadn’t really sunk in.
She had been told, had vaguely met the other gargoyles when they brought her back to Andrew’s mansion, but it was knowledge she was storing away for later. At that moment, the only thing that mattered was Drago.
Annis, the clan healer, had muttered a few incantations, pulled the bullets out and spread some goop that looked like mud and smelled like peppermint over his wounds. The small gargoyle insisted he would be fine, but Martha could not set aside her worry.