by Ines Johnson
Once inside his lab, Corun crashed into his desk, spewing papers over the floor. Empty bottles crashed and splintered over the edge of the desk. He reached for what he sought. Twisting the top off the elixir, he downed the rest of the potion in one gulp.
The dragon inside of him roared at the bitter taste. Its flames burned Corun’s organs from the inside out as the liquid raged down his throat to settle into his gut. It did not stop the yearning or his desire to return to her.
Mine, the dragon whimpered as it gurgled the potion.
By the Goddess, let her have freed herself and be gone from this place by now. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold onto his sanity.
Corun grabbed the raw materials left over from his experiment. He shoveled the acrid herbs into his mouth. His dragon spat them back out, smoke fuming from his nostrils.
“There are leftovers down in the kitchen,” said Beryl. “No need to eat grass.”
Corun flashed blood-red eyes at his brother. Beryl was larger than Corun, larger than all of them. Beryl’s beast never backed down from a fight. He was always the first to rush in, the first to challenge, the first to throw a punch. But one look at the fire in Corun’s eyes and Beryl had the good sense to take a step back.
“What’s got you eating your tail?” asked Beryl.
Corun brushed his hands over his face. Scales scratched at his skin. Her scent was on his hands from when he’d had to touch her to bind her. From when he’d caught her foot in his hands after that ineffectual kick.
The Valkyrie was right. She was feisty. But that wouldn’t make any difference. She’d still die soon after he claimed her.
“Hey,” said Ilia shoving his way into the room. “I just saw Morri leave. Did she bring us the new Sonic the Hedgehog game? We can whip out the Sega and play before Cardi gets back. You know how she hates—”
Ilia stopped abruptly. He stood in the doorway of Corun’s lab. His snout in the air. His nostrils flared as though he smelled a prime cut of meat cooking. His eyes had turned to black slits, the color of the darkest jade.
Beryl’s nose was in the air too. His eyes were glowing as bright as emeralds.
There were plenty of windows in this room. The night was cool, and a soft breeze passed through the open spaces. Her smell was faint, but it was there.
So, she’d gotten free.
Looking around the room, Corun knew that the statement was a lie. She was even more trapped than before. Because now, she not only had one dragon battering a man-shaped cage to get out and get to her. She had three.
“The Valkyrie did bring contraband.” Corun began making his way toward the door. Slowly, in hopes that his brothers wouldn’t suspect anything. “I left it downstairs. I’ll go get it. You stay here.”
Beryl’s hand shot out and grabbed at Corun’s shoulder before he could pass. “Why do I smell female on you, brother?”
Corun stared his brother dead in the eye as he lied. “I dropped some of the clothing off in Cardi’s room.”
“Doesn’t smell like Cardi,” said Ilia, his voice a low growl.
“The Valkyrie said it’s hard to find the garments Cardi likes, so they belonged to other human women first.”
His brothers held still. Their nostrils slowly lowered. They were beginning to breathe normally. Until a scream rose up from the grounds to reach the open windows of the room. With their predatory hearing, the dragons would’ve heard a woman’s scream from miles away.
The three of them turned from the open door. They all eyed the open windows.
Ilia was closest and the smallest. With a running leap, he threw himself out the window.
For the first time in his life, Beryl was second. His broad shoulders didn’t quite make it through the frame, and he took some of the brick with him as he busted his way out.
Corun was third, but he was also the fastest. Three men hit the ground surrounding the woman who faced off with Rhoyl in dragon form. She still had some ropes around her torso. Her only protection was the knife.
Chapter Six
Chryssie was no longer sure if she was actually dead or alive.
Was it customary for the dead to have feelings? What about bleeding? Wasn’t that only for the living? Because the blade she’d used to cut herself free of the bindings had sliced into her skin. Blood seeped out of her palm. And it hurt.
Then there was the way her heart pounded like it would come out of her chest at any moment. Sweat collected on her brow as though fluid still ran through her body.
Chryssie tasted the salt of the sweat and the iron of the blood. Her senses were on high alert. So high, she felt like she was being stalked from above.
When she’d been bound in the dark and first felt her sexy captor’s presence, it had been a hot press of warmth. Like fresh bedsheets come out of the dryer. This new feeling was more like roasting s’mores on a short stick. If whatever was following her got any closer, she’d get her fingertips burned.
Was this the beast he’d warned her about? Had he not given her a choice at all? Was she about to be the devil’s late-night snack? That thought hurt worse than the stalking heat licking at her heels.
For a moment, with her hot-as-hell captor, Chryssie had felt safe. Even though he’d bound her in rope, she had felt an overwhelming sense of security in the binds. Until all his crazy talk about feeding her to a beast.
Chryssie wiped her blood on her pant leg. Then she wiped the handle of the blade on the other leg. Readjusting her grip, she walked toward the thin shard of light coming from a crack in the cave.
Her attention stayed forward. Mainly because she was afraid to look back and confirm she was being stalked by a hungry beast. She only took one glance at the millions of dollars’ worth of rubies laid out in neat piles on the floor. Wealth was no good to her here. It wasn’t like she could bribe the devil with his own money. Her only shot was getting out of here … wherever here was.
She knew she deserved to go to Hell for what she’d planned to do to the doctor. But she hadn’t actually done the deed. So, did she really deserve to be here in Hell? Maybe it was the intention that cast the deciding vote for a person’s final destination. In any case, she had no intention of being eaten by the devil.
Wobbling in her boots, she made her way toward the light. She took a few deep breaths to calm her nerves. It was still a novel experience to be able to fill her lungs, to not feel fatigued with each step. She felt full of energy.
Hell, she took it back. Death wasn’t so bad. So far, it was way better than life. At least health-wise.
After the death of her sister and her mother, Chryssie had bounced around from foster home to foster home. When each foster family learned of her illness and the inconvenience of caring for her, they inevitably sent her back to the group home. A few had promised they would not. She never believed them. Everyone sent her back.
And now she was once again fending for herself. Only this time, in death.
She pulled her leather jacket around her. Not because she was cold. No, the warmth of this place and the sweet air were the best things about it. She’d just never felt this alone before.
The heat on her back had evaporated, as though it were a campfire that had been extinguished. Chryssie dared to turn around. All she saw was the red of the rubies she’d left in her wake. Had it been her imagination? Or maybe the beast was playing with her?
Turning back to the opening in the cave, she saw a bright, white light up ahead. Was that the sun? Why would there be a sun in Hell? She would have assumed it would all be fire and brimstone in the earth’s core. But that wasn’t the sun. It was the moon shining bright on a dark blue night.
It looked like the moon of the living world. Dotted around it were stars. She could even pick out a few of the constellations.
But the trees didn’t look familiar. They were a riot of color she’d never seen in her life. Reds that were electric bright. Greens that were so pale as to be almost translucent. The arbors had barks that we
re more sandy colored than dirty brown. The flowers under her feet moved their bulbs in the breezeless night, as though they were avoiding her footfalls.
Where in the hell was she?
Chryssie turned and looked up. She’d come out of the base of the mountain. On top of it sat a castle. It was tall and gothic, like something out of a Jane Austen novel. Not the happy Hampshire ones. One of her early horror ones.
Sitting on one of the spires was something that Jane had never written about. Austen may have called Mr. Darcy a great beast. On the topmost part of the castle, there sat an actual beast.
It had a long lizard’s neck. Its body was thick and scaly, like an overgrown crocodile. She could see its sharp claws gleaming in the moonlight. And then there were the eyes.
They were blue. A bright blue, like a saltwater pond on a clear day. And they were trained on her.
Chryssie’s instinct was to run. But she remembered her captor’s words. He’d tied her up to keep her still, to keep her safe.
She held still. Like a cockroach on the wall, she held her breath until her lungs protested. In the short time she’d been here, her body had grown used to taking in lungfuls of air. It wasn’t about to stop now.
She gasped in a mouthful of sweet air. It turned bitter when the dragon’s eyes slit to narrow, blue fissures. The mighty beast leaped from the rooftop and dove straight for her. Its talon-like claws were aimed at her.
Heart pounding in her chest, blood racing through her veins, lungs pumping in and out fast bursts of air, Chryssie held up the knife. She couldn’t outrun the beast. She didn’t care if it got annoyed by a pinprick of her blade. She would annoy it to death before it ate her.
And then she lost her nerve.
Ducking down with her hands covering her head, Chryssie let out a scream of sheer terror.
The air changed around her as it got closer, closer. It became hotter. The windswept up her hair.
But no talons ripped her apart. No fire turned her into a barbecue. A loud crash brought her head up.
When she opened her eyes, the dragon tussled with a man. The man was smaller than the dragon, but it was holding its own. For a second, Chryssie thought it was her hot captor. But the hair was wrong. Her captor’s hair had been longer with a few waves in it. And his eyes had glowed red, not dark like a jade stone.
She wasn’t out of danger. Another man was making his way to her. This one was nearly as big as the dragon in his human form. He looked to her like The Incredible Hulk, but without the ripped clothing. He wore a Gold’s Gym muscle shirt and snug-fitting boxing shorts.
His eyes glowed green as he hulked toward her. His hands had no fingers. Instead, there were ten sharp claws. And they each aimed at her.
Chryssie slashed the knife at his outstretched palm. The Hulk’s head cocked to the side, a smug grin on his face. The blade hadn’t even pricked his skin.
The Hulk wrapped his meaty hand around the pointy edge as though it were a butter knife. With barely a yank, it was out of her grasp, and he was tossing it to the side. His other hand reached for her.
But the Hulk missed. Instead of grabbing her, he landed on the ground. The bulbous flowers all moved to make way.
And then he was there. Her sexy captor. He gave a mighty kick to the hulking man on the ground, sending the Hulk’s big body sailing into one of the trees.
With one opponent down, he went onto the next. The jade-eyed man had put the dragon back on his haunches. The mighty beast was flapping a wing that looked damaged. A sorrowful cry came from the monster’s throat.
When Jade Man turned to her, Chryssie’s sexy captor blocked her from his view. The two froze, staring off against each other like an old western. Only no tumbleweeds were rolling along.
The sound of flesh meeting claws meeting—were those scales?—was sickening. Before her eyes, the jade-eyed man was transforming into a dragon. His neck elongated until he had a snout. His small body grew large as scales shimmered into the night. His fingertips turned to claws, which he slashed out at her captor.
Her captor didn’t back down one step. He rushed to meet the dragon, going straight for its neck. More growling and roaring and tearing of flesh and Chryssie couldn’t take it anymore.
One thing she hadn’t expected to see in death was more death. She’d had enough. She had to run, she had to get out of here.
She turned but met with another man. Unlike the others, he didn’t reach for her. He lifted his gaze and stared at her with dispassionate interest. His eyes were like a tiger’s, churning brown and gold with a hint of red. The color reminded Chryssie of the amber liquid used to hold specimens in jars. He held her still with those eyes.
After a moment of silence, the amber-eyed man lifted his hand and pointed. With the spell broken, Chryssie turned her gaze to the direction he indicated.
“Through the Veil,” he said. “Back to your world. Or they will rip you in half.”
She didn’t see anything in the direction he was pointing. Was this another trick? But just as she’d believed the words of her sexy captor, she knew this quiet man with the bright eyes was not lying to her.
“Not my brothers,” said the amber-eyed man. “The hatchlings will end your life.”
Chryssie didn’t know what a hatchling was, but she believed the man. She took a step in the direction he indicated. But then she paused. She couldn’t help herself.
She turned back to the red-eyed man who was fighting off a dragon for her. Her sexy captor had subdued the dragon and was now lifting his gaze to her.
He took a step toward her. Then another. In two strides, he was running toward her.
Her brain told her to run. But her fight versus flight senses weren’t working. A sexy man—who, yes, had bound her as a sacrifice for a beast—had just finished dispensing of two beasts and was now running to her rescue.
Wasn’t this every girl’s fantasy? Why should she run from this? Hell, she should run to it.
But when she looked into the face of her captor, his eyes were glowing unnaturally red. He opened his mouth wide, showing the incisors of a beast; a dragon. If she had wanted to run at that moment, she couldn’t have. He had her.
She was in his arms, but it was not the embrace she’d dreamed about. He wrenched her neck to the side and bit down. Hard.
It hadn’t hurt the first time she’d died. This time, the pain was unbearable. Not because of the bite mark. Chryssie felt an overwhelming sense of betrayal from her sexy captor. He was just like the rest of them. But he was worse.
He’d given her hope. Hope that she could escape the sentence that her new life had written on her before she could form her own words. The last thing she remembered before everything went black was being cradled in his arms and hearing him apologize over and over again.
Chapter Seven
Her blood was still on his tongue. Corun had tried to keep the taste just to his tongue, but his beast had reached up and strangled his throat until he swallowed.
Mine, it growled as it clenched its sharp teeth to bare anything from stealing the droplets back.
Down the drops of her life went until it reached Corun’s gut where the beast lived. His dragon fairly purred like a docile cat at the metallic sweetness of its mate.
Mine, the feral beast sighed in complete surrender as it rolled over on its back and showed its belly.
She was like rubies but with the hardness of diamonds and laced with gold. Sweet and dense and decadent all at the same time.
Mine, Corun agreed as he looked down at her sleeping soundly in his bed.
“You’re telling me a Valkyrie just left her on our doorstep?” said Beryl.
His brother licked at the gash Corun had given him on his bicep. Now that the fight was over, they were back to normal. Well, as normal as any of them was ever likely to get.
Ilia hunched next to Beryl. Ilia’s hand was balled into a fist, which he rested under his chin as he stared at Corun’s mate. The younger dragon ignored the blood trick
ling down his throat from the gash Corun had given him when Ilia had tried to reach for what was his. Ilia liked the scars he got from fighting his brothers. He wore each of them like a badge, another proclamation that even though he was a runt, he’d survived.
“It has to be a trick,” said Ilia.
“But the Valkyrie brought us Cardi,” said Elek. “That was no trick.”
Elek tore a piece of his tunic and pressed the cloth to Ilia’s wounds. Ilia frowned at the youngest of them, but he didn’t shove Elek away. Unlike the rest of them, Elek abhorred blood and violence.
Cardi’s arrival had happened after the Valkyrie had closed off the portals. Not just to the dragons, but to all shifters in the Veil. It had been a time of hopelessness, of short fuses. There had been dozens of male shifters filled with aggression and no relief in sight.
And then, a little human all bundled up and bound in knots had been dropped on the dragons’ doorstep. The method of binding was an ancient practice developed by humans who would send their sacrifices in exchange for gems and precious stones. The dragons grew to admire the handiwork and often kept their sacrifices bound throughout the claiming.
The brothers stared at the woman in the bed. Even Rhoyl hovered outside the window, flapping his nearly healed wing. Now that Corun had marked her, she belonged to all of them. They wouldn’t fight for. They would protect her with their lives until their dying day. Or more aptly, her dying day.
Welcome to the family. This cruel, dysfunctional, murderous family.
On the stand beside the bed, each of his brother’s had left her a gem. Dragons were not known for giving any part of their treasure lightly. That there was a chain holding an emerald, topaz, jade, and amber gem was a testament that Corun’s brothers welcomed her as one of their own.
“Did the Valkyrie at least bring a new video game?” said Beryl, his lower lip pouting like a newly hatched whelp.
His sacrificed stirred. A soft moan came from her parted lips. Corun’s pants felt tight at the sound.