"I thought this area was protected."
"It was," he replied. "Guess your visions were correct. The Trillium spells aren't holding. Or it could have something to do with the weather."
"Let me fix it. I can put the spell back in place. I just need to get out into the open. I’ll exert less energy that way,“ I said, pulling away from him.
"No. Absolutely not. Your uncle will have my head. You need to get down to the basement level with the humans," he said, and then turned to the second Crow and said, "Ben, you take her to the basement. I'm going with the others to hold off the demons until sunrise."
"But wait—"
"There's no time to wait," Adam said, sternly. "Get her inside. Now."
I'd never seen the Crow become so adamant before, so I concluded that this was serious. I'd never actually seen demons breach Trillium protection spells either. Only heard about them and envisioned them. But this was real. I heard the screams in the background and gunshots erupting in the distance. Realizing that a hotel attendant was waiting at the entrance of what looked to be a door to an underground basement, I hurried inside with the rest of the guests.
Chapter 14
Carrick
I heard the warning sirens from miles away and knew what it meant. They were the same sirens we rang as realm guardians to warn citizens of any demon sightings in their area. That meant that someone was still looking out for the general population as a whole. But at the moment, I wasn't concerned about trying to find out who started the sirens. I'd never lost sight of my mission, but my duty had always been to ensure that people were safe from senseless demon attacks. Without hesitation, I took to the skies.
When I touched down, about a dozen supernaturals and humans were trying to ward off a horde of demons in the middle of a busy intersection. I shifted back into human form and pulled a pair of machetes from the sheath between my shoulder blades. I cut down three demons ganging up on a young teenage boy trying to shield himself with nothing but a sawed-off shotgun. I worked my way through, hacking demon flesh like it was as natural as slicing through butter.
"Sir, sir…" Someone tugged on my coat from behind. "We need help."
I spun around, demon blood dripping from my blades.
A tall, gangly man holding a military grade rifle pointed to a small hotel across the street. "We need help over here," he said. "The demons are trying to tear through to the hotel. About fifty guests are hiding inside. Mostly humans."
The supernaturals fighting the demons in the middle of the highway seemed to be handling the situation well, so I raced across the road with two other men to help prevent demon contact with innocent humans. It was obvious what the demons were after. Human souls. And they would do anything to get past the supernaturals trying to ward them off to get to the souls inside the hotel.
While the men and I were fighting a group of demons in the parking lot, a dozen more came up through the sewers and tore their way through the hotel. It didn't take them long to hone in on the warm human bodies hiding in the basement.
When I descended into the basement, what I saw there shocked me to my core. Humans were cowering against the wall, holding each other in almost every corner of the room with their eyes begging for mercy. Several humans were already dead with their guts spilled out onto the floor and their eyes still widened in morbid horror.
But the sight that floored me the most was seeing the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in the middle of the room holding a demon suspended in mid-air by some force only visible to her. There was a dead vampire on the floor between the woman and the demon in mid-air.
But she…she was breathtaking. Her eyes were darkened slits. I couldn't tell the color because they appeared to be altered in tone by whatever magic she possessed. Her lips were the color of ripe cherries. Her hair was black like a raven's fur. Long tendrils fell past her shoulders. Her skin was the color of toffee and looked smooth like butter.
The demon that she held suspended in mid-air began to convulse violently. Putrid smoke started to seep from its leathery skin which was black as tar. Something combusted inside the demon, and its black skin turned to a translucent red as it ruptured and split.
She was burning him…literally frying him to death. I had smelled this type of fire and smoke combination before. It smelled of hellfire in the room.
While the guests in the basement looked on, she killed the demon with nothing but her powers. Something hit me and I knew immediately she was the witch I was looking for. The Lowland lycans had pointed me in the right direction. Her description matched what I was given. Her powers were on point.
When the last of the demon withered away in a pile of ashes on the floor, she raced to the dead Crow. Rigor mortis had already set in. The vampire wasn't coming back.
She rose to her feet again, held her hands outward palm up and started reciting a spell. The words were a mix of French and Creole. I understood her clearly up until the point where she started using ancient variations of a language I didn't know. And I knew almost every language on every realm.
A wave of power folded over the room and the night became morbidly silent. No more gunshots. No more cries of agony from the demons or the men they had murdered. People began coming down into the basement. I slid my machetes back into the sheaths.
Another Crow vampire rushed to her side. "What happened?" he asked her.
"I…" She rubbed at her forehead. "I re-activated the protection spell. I don't know what happened. Or why it was lifted…"
"Damn the protection spell. We need to get out of here. You shouldn't have performed that on your own," the Crow said. "Are you okay? Tell me what happened to Ben."
"I…I…the demons were trying to get to me. Ben saved me," the witch said.
I looked around and realized that there were a few other piles of demon ashes on the floor. She had killed more than one with her bare hands. What kind of a witch could do that? And more importantly, if she was planning to unleash hellfire, why would she waste her energy here on Earth re-activating protection spells?
Her eyelids began to flutter closed, but not before she lifted her gaze at me. Her eyes widened like she had figured out what I was. But she couldn't speak. She was weakened by all the magic she'd used to kill the demons and reactivate the spells. But she did lift a single finger and pointed it straight at me.
"Dr…dra…," she muttered.
Before anyone else could finish, I broke a glass vile of blinding fumes, grabbed the witch, and hoisted her over my shoulder before her feet could give out from under her. She didn't resist. The witch had passed out cold from exertion of energy.
As for everyone else inside the basement, the fumes did its job in milliseconds. The humans and supernaturals in the room rubbed at their eyes and cursed at each other as they bumped heads and other body parts trying to walk about without sight.
They would regain their eyesight alright, but the Trillium witch and I would be long gone before they did.
Chapter 15
Leona
A light breeze whipped across my face, and I slowly opened my eyes. If it hadn't been for the dark shadow around me, I would've thought I was home, outside, napping in the courtyard. My head lay on plush cushions, but there was a throbbing at the back of my brain. My stomach grumbled like I hadn't eaten in ages.
A vision of being cornered by demons in a basement slammed me into full consciousness and I bolted upright. Where was I? What had they done to me? Where were the Crows? My eyes darted over my body—chest, arms, and legs. I glanced at my hands. I was still fully clothed, but my feet were bare. My boots and socks were gone.
My gaze swept over the unfamiliar surroundings.
Boards covered the walls of what looked like some hut or shed. Shelves of miniature wooden boxes lined the room. Rows and rows of trinkets and tiny chests were showcased around me. Weapons were hung on all four walls. Mostly knives, blades, machetes. A few handguns and sawed-off shotguns. A bow and arrow. Near the opening was an
iron pit, blazing with fire. The lid on the pot above the blaze rattled as steam escaped from beneath it. Worktables were piled with knives, carving utensils, and wood pieces. I was on a makeshift bed or cot.
No one else was inside the hut. Something felt different about the atmosphere around me. The air was crisper, cooler, and certainly not as humid as the New Orleans temperatures.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The move sent my head into a swirl. Reaching out, I touched the cloth near a bowl of water on the dresser beside me and tried to focus. My memory was too hazy. I couldn't even conjure up a vision. I recalled nothing but strong, gentle hands and, oddly, leathery flesh.
I heard my voice in my head, reciting a spell from memory. At that moment, I recalled doing the spell in the hotel to reactivate the protection barriers. That's probably why I was weak. The protection spells took at least two witches, preferably elders. They were rarely done alone unless the witch's expertise was in protection spells. Not only that, I had burned four demons alive in that basement. But when I saw how many humans the demons had murdered, I knew I had to do something.
There was something brewing in the pot sitting on a single burner. As I passed the makeshift stove, the aromas greeted me. I spotted a small steak knife on the edge of the counter, picked it up and tucked it into my shirt sleeve.
As I crept toward the entry which was covered by a thick blanket of straw, a shadow filled the threshold, blocking my exit.
I tilted my head up and met the gaze of the biggest man I'd ever seen. His head was only millimeters from touching the top of the door frame. He was the man from the basement. The one who carried the bloody machetes. The dragon. I stumbled back in surprise. My attention drifted to a chiseled face and bronzed skin, but what startled me most were his eyes. They reminded me of blue-tinted ice. Like a glacier. His gaze certainly pierced me like ice and I didn't know whether to run, hide, or blast him with magic.
I backed away slowly.
He ducked his head under the door frame and followed me into the hut. His mouth formed a grim line and his face remained stoic but striking. His facial hair had been recently shaved. Only a mere five o' clock shadow existed.
He—the dragon—just kept coming at me. His wide shoulders blocked my view and forced me to look at taut chest muscles and rippled abs. And darkened flat nipples. Hard pectorals. The man appeared as if he were made of stone. I had never seen anyone's skin look so...flawless. He examined me as well, with careful, calculating sweeps of his glacier blue eyes.
I swallowed, my breath tripping in my throat as I scuttled backward some more. When the back of my legs touched the makeshift bed, he stopped in front of me and set the pail of wood he carried down beside his feet. He brushed his hands together briskly, dusting them off and then swiped them across his leather pants. My eyes traveled to the patch of dark brown hair in contrast to the black belt buckle. The leather pants sat just below his waistline. My stomach did twirls as his manhood became the center of my attention. Heat climbed through my neck when my curiosity to view more of what pressed against his zipper rose. I had never seen a man like this. Not on the Trillium base. Not even when I was allowed to roam through the markets in our protected city.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My name is Carrick."
His voice was deep and low. His accent—foreign English, maybe.
"Carrick. I remember seeing you in the hotel basement. And then that was it. What am I doing here?"
He moved toward me. "I brought you here."
"Don't come any closer!" My voice shook, and my ass pressed against the mattress.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
"I didn't ask to come here. Where's Adam? Where's the Crow?"
He frowned, studying me with his piercing eyes. "I don't know Adam. I don't know any Crows."
I sidestepped him. The hut was small and allowed me no room for escape. "You've kidnapped me, haven't you?"
"In a sense," he said.
"Where am I?"
"Not at the hotel. Somewhere else," he replied.
"Somewhere else. Earth, right? I'm still on Earth, aren't I?" I swallowed afraid of what he might reveal.
He chuckled deeply.
When he didn't answer, I said, "I know you're a dragon. You could have taken me anywhere. What kind of a place is this?"
"Don't worry. You're still on Earth. Just in an undisclosed location."
"I need to get back to New Orleans. I don't have time for this kidnapping. I have things to do."
"Like what?"
He placed his hands on his hips and my eyes dropped to his bulge again. My face instantly heated. I had crushes before on some of the men in my city, but I'd never felt like some dimwitted girl who had just been blindly seduced.
He grinned and repeated, "Like what?"
"It's none of your business, dragon. If you know what's good for you, you'll let me go."
"Or what? You'll turn me to stone." He picked up the bundle of wood and hauled it in front of a fireplace.
"Don't test me. You saw what I did to the demon, didn't you?"
His breath hitched sharply and his back straightened. He turned around and said, "You can leave, but you won't get very far. Not unless you have wings."
Raindrops pelted the rooftops.
"And an umbrella," he added.
I frowned. "What do you want from me?"
Rain pounded the earth now, thrashing violently against the outside of the hut. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to still me frenzied pulse.
"I want many things, Leona," he said, approaching me. He was so close now that our body heat meshed together somewhere in the middle.
"How do you know my name?" I asked.
His body touched mine, but the one thing that affected me the most was his manhood pressed against my side. My insides warmed, mind hazed, and the scent of pines drew me into his spell even more. I blinked to clear my head. That didn't work. A deeply sated urge to stay under his trance burned inside me. I lifted my gaze. His eyes clouded over like mist over mountains of ice. What the hell was wrong with me? He was just a man. A dragon in every sense…but still a man. He shouldn't have had this power over a witch.
I couldn’t take me eyes off him or break the trance he seemed to control. No ordinary human could possess this much control over me. His strength and power radiated around us and called to my magical abilities as if he were drawing strength from it.
I yanked my arm from his grasp. "You can't just be a dragon. What are you?"
"If I tell you who...what I am, will you give me what I want?"
He was a sexy god and the firmness pushing against my flesh told me just what type of man he was. "I'm not having sex with you," I blurted.
A grin twitched at the corner of his lips. He reached up to touch my face. "I never said anything about sex…"
I licked my dry lips and let the hilt of the steak knife slide right into my palm. I gripped it tightly.
He entangled his fingers between my strands of hair. "Raven hair. As black as night."
No one had ever touched my hair like this. I'd never been the center of any one's attention. Not like this. Never been observed as he was doing to me now. "I don't know what you want, but you're certainly not just a dragon."
I lifted the hand with the knife I stole from the counter, but he caught my wrist and pressed my arm above my head into the wall. I gasped. His gaze dropped to my chest and he observed me, taking his sweet time looking.
"Do you want me dead, witch?" he taunted. He brought the blade between us and directed the sharp end right at his heart. "Go ahead."
I swallowed. "I don't want you dead, but I will kill you if I have too."
He grinned. "What if I told you that if you wanted to get away, then you'd have to kill me?"
He was toying with me.
"Why don't you let me go?" I asked. “I don’t have anything you want.”
"Yes, you do.” He took care not to touch me, but his
nostrils flared after each intake of breath. "Maybe a few things. But first things first."
"What?" I demanded, lowering the knife. "And before you get any more ideas…no, I won't cast any spells for you and no I can't predict your future."
This time he laughed. A full-bodied laugh.
"Is that funny?" I scowled.
"No, witch. I want something you have in your possession. There." He touched my ass right where my back pocket was.
"How did you know?" I asked.
"There's something…magical about its presence," he stated. "And it doesn't belong to you."
"Yes, it does," I stated. "It's ours. It's been in my family for centuries."
He titled his head to one side, giving me a skeptical look. "Are you sure?"
I pressed my lips together, unsure how to answer him. I wasn't certain when the compass was added to our vaults, just that it was ours now.
"Your family may have had the compass for a time, but it doesn't belong to your family. Do you know what the compass does?"
I swallowed and nodded.
"What does it do?" he asked.
"I'm not stupid. If you don't already know, why would I tell you?"
"It finds hidden portals. Now, why would a witch have use for a compass like that?"
My face heated. My lips parted, but I wasn't stupid enough to tell him what I was doing with the compass.
"Here's a little truth about myself. I was once a realm guardian. We used those compasses to find all the realm portals. It just so happens that one of our compasses went missing about twenty years ago. Right about the same time that a realm guardian fell from a mountain to his death. Fell? Maybe pushed…I don't know. He's dead now."
My lips fell open with a gasp.
"Don't look so surprised. Just because your family is in possession of such a compass doesn't mean it's yours," he said.
My chest grew heavy with the things that burdened me. "I didn't know. Look, there's a lot of things I don't know."
Renegade (Shadow Realms): An Urban Fantasy Dragon Shifter Romance Page 7