Running to Dimitri [A Dragon's Growl 6] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove)

by Marcy Jacks

  He couldn’t even do that.

  Then he blinked, something flickering into his awareness.

  No, wait, he did know one of those names. The dragon talking to Marxus, Lucian, had just mentioned the name Sorin.

  What the hell? Hadn’t they said they killed Sorin? Did they mean one of the slaves in the house? Was there another Sorin that Zane didn’t know about? It wasn’t the most common name out there.

  Marxus suddenly pushed himself off of Zane’s body without warning. The lack of weight on Zane’s chest made him feel as if he could finally breathe again. He sucked back a heavy breath, weirdly disoriented now that he didn’t have all that weight on him after over three hours of being pinned down.

  “All right, we’re done here. Time for you to go and see your brother, I guess.”

  Marxus offered his hand. Zane blinked at it, not understanding it, and then he slapped it away and pushed himself to his feet. “Where is he?”

  As much as he puffed himself up and growled at the two men, it wasn’t as effective as it normally was, considering both guys were taller than he was.

  Zane was six feet tall, and he came across other guys who were taller than he was on occasion, but it wasn’t a fun feeling when those guys happened to be his enemy.

  “Relax your damned self. Your brother is fine,” Marxus said. “We’ll take you to him.”

  “Better take me to him,” Zane grumbled, though, honestly, he didn’t know what he was going to do if either of these men decided to say to hell with it and just refuse to take him to Josh.

  They could. They’d already proven to Zane that he wasn’t able to fight back when it was only one of them he needed to get past in order to rescue his brother.

  How in the hell was he supposed to get Josh out of here when there was a mansion full of these dragons?

  Whatever. He would think about that later, and when he saw his brother again, he would focus on helping the man to heal and getting him the fuck out. He wouldn’t place blame, or say I told you so for bringing Zane here when Zane had said the dragons couldn’t be trusted.

  The only important thing now was finding the weak points in the house, exploiting them, and getting Josh the fuck out of here.

  The dragons didn’t appear to want to take any chances with Zane. They walked on either side of him, as though getting ready to reach out and grab him if he tried to make his escape. They probably could. Zane used to think a little too highly of himself. He used to think he would have no problem taking out a dragon in a hand-to-hand fight.

  He was trained for battle, after all, and he’d never wanted to be made to feel small and victimized ever again.

  He’d been proven wrong when he had his ass knocked the fuck out during the first raid on the house, the raid where Josh had saved his life, and now he was proven wrong again when given the second chance against this dragon here.

  Zane had no idea what sort of training they had, but they could clearly outpace him with little to no effort.

  And it was infuriating.

  They didn’t bring Zane down to the basement or anything, where Zane had thought he would find a series of cages where the dragons kept their prisoners and rape slaves. Hell, at least the pleasure slaves from the vampires were given clean clothes to wear, good food to eat, and accommodations.

  No rich vampire wanted to fuck a starved, shivering whelp, after all.

  Unless they were even more sick in the head.

  The dragons didn’t even bring them to another wing of the mansion where there were other bedrooms.

  Zane knew the house well enough, and he knew he was being brought to the dining room.

  His first petrified thought was that his brother was being eaten alive. Or that Zane would find Josh naked and bruised, forced to stand around for the amusement of his abuser.

  No, when they entered the dining room, there were other people around the long mahogany table, but it wasn’t the stiff and quiet environment Zane was used to from the few times he’d come in here when Varrick, his guests, and family had been eating.

  The dark tapestries and paintings on the walls appeared brighter, possibly because the windows were open in the middle of the day, allowing sunlight to pour in, and while there were a few suspicious faces around the table, there were others who smiled brightly in one particular direction, giving the dining room an air about it that Zane had never before felt in his life.

  It was as if an actual family was sitting at this table.

  And there was his brother, smiling, sitting next to the dragon with the flame tattoo on his cheek, the one Zane wanted to kill more than all the rest.

  “You mother—”

  A hand on his shoulder stopped him before he could get far. Marxus stared at him with a raised brow, as though daring him to continue with that sentence or take another step toward his brother, and his brother’s rapist.

  “Wait, wait!” Josh said, standing from his seat, holding his hand out. Then he looked to the dragon that had taken him. “He’s not going to hurt him, is he?”

  “So long as your brother doesn’t try hurting us? Then no.”

  Josh’s shoulders slumped. His halfhearted glare at the dragon didn’t give any indication that he was cowering in fear over what had happened to him.

  “He won’t do anything. He won’t,” Josh said, looking around the room as though trying to get them to see reason.

  As if that was possible.

  “Zane, don’t fight them right now. I think we’re getting what we want here.”

  Zane scoffed. “We are? After what he did to you?”

  Zane couldn’t bring himself to look at the dragon with the flame tattoo. He was still plotting how he would kill the man.

  Josh nodded, as if there was no problem at all. “Right, everything’s okay. Come sit down, and we can talk.”

  Marxus pushed him forward, as though shoving a prisoner to his bail hearing.

  Zane rolled his eyes, doing as he was told. He was seated in a chair across from his brother. It annoyed him when Marxus sat next to him, but he put up with it for Josh’s sake.

  In fact, as Zane studied his brother much closer up, he didn’t appear as if he was faking this good mood he looked to be in. He looked like he was in a genuine good mood. His hair was damp, and his clothes were fresh. He’d been given a shower and new clothes to wear, which was strange in and of itself. There was an empty plate sitting in front of him. The crumbs suggested he’d just been fed, and he’d had something to drink judging from the glass beside him.

  And that damned dragon wouldn’t stop smiling down at Josh, as if Josh was something precious to him.

  Zane supposed that it wasn’t a far stretch for a rapist to think he was somehow the good person, the protector in this situation.

  But it was the way Josh looked back up at him that got to Zane the most.

  There was a cautious affection there. Josh actually looked more like a shy teenager, basking in the glow of a first love.

  Josh was twenty-nine goddamn years old. Way too old to be looking like that at anyone, let alone the dragon that had just raped him.

  Unless there really was something else going on here.

  “So what’s going on?” Zane asked. If he didn’t get any answers, he was going to explode.

  Josh grinned at him as if they’d just won the lottery. “Well, I’m still figuring that part out a little with Dimitri, but I think we’re going to be okay here.”

  “They admitted to killing Sorin and a good number of the slaves the vampires left behind.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Marxus started.

  Before he could finish, Lucian looked at something over Zane’s shoulder, and he smiled, as if he were seeing something pleasant as he got to his feet and walked around to the other side of the table.

  “Hey.”

  Zane frowned, turned to look, and there was Sorin, the son of the most feared vampire in the state. Smiling, healthy, his hair groomed and his clothes clean as he sto
od just out of the way of direct sunlight in the doorway.

  Lucian went to him, hugged him, pressing a soft kiss against his mouth. They both stayed in the doorway while a couple of the dragons got up and closed the curtains.

  It didn’t block out a hundred percent of the sun, but the amount it did shut out was enough for the vampire to step into the dining room and join the rest of the group.

  Zane couldn’t believe it, and as Sorin got closer to the table, he stood for the man.

  It was habit. He had to stand for Varrick’s son. Josh did the same.

  “Hey, guys.” Sorin waved sheepishly. “You don’t have to do that anymore.”

  “Yeah, you don’t,” Dimitri said, still smiling as he tugged on Josh’s hand and they sat down.

  Zane did the same, his brain working, but he couldn’t seem to come up with the right thoughts.

  He’d thought Sorin was dead. The dragons had every reason to kill him. He was the son of their most hated enemy.

  And yet here he was. Hardly looking like a prisoner. If anything, he looked more like he was part of the group, one of them, and he was happy with his place at the table.

  Zane’s brain was melting in his skull. He didn’t know what to think about anything, and it was getting really fucking weird.

  “All right,” Seth said. “Are we going to get this started?”

  Chapter Six

  Josh listened carefully as Sethraghck, or Seth, outlined everything they were planning on doing with their new prisoner. The man who once worked for Varrick, who was now chained up in the basement, while Taylor, the one who had been kidnapped in the first place, apparently vouched for him.

  “He’s saying he thinks they’re mated,” Lucian said, Sorin sitting next to him, and it was clear they were holding hands beneath the table. “That has to mean something, right?”

  Seth scratched at his chin. Josh had to admit he looked a lot calmer now that they were sitting around a table and there wasn’t a bloody battle happening all around them. “I don’t know if I like the idea of this. This guy could’ve just tricked him. Made Taylor think he’s trustworthy and then bring him home so he can poke around. Stockholm and all that, right?”

  Zane snorted, loudly.

  Josh looked at his brother, wishing he hadn’t done that, but it was Marxus who elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Ow.” Zane glared at the man. Marxus glared back.

  Josh wasn’t too hopeful they would ever end up getting along. He supposed the best he could hope for was to prove to Seth that he and his brother were here for genuine reasons so Zane wouldn’t need to be followed around anymore.

  Dimitri’s hands were beneath the table. When Josh felt one of them, he reached out, thinking the man wanted to hold his hand the same way Lucian was holding Sorin’s.

  He was so wrong.

  Dimitri’s palm touched Josh’s thigh, the entire mass of it stroking up and down, with all the slow heat and intensity of a lover’s touch.

  Which was what they were, but it was the fact that Dimitri was doing it while Zane was literally sitting across from him that scandalized him so much.

  He wasn’t a prude, he didn’t think, but Jesus!

  The rush of heat to his face as Dimitri’s hand continued to move was intense. It wasn’t as if the man was palming his dick or anything. It was just a touch! Why couldn’t he get a damned grip here?

  Josh glared at the man, which didn’t work because Dimitri had all of his attention turned away from him as he addressed Seth. “Have we had a chance to ask him any questions yet?”

  “Just where he came from and what he was doing with Taylor. He’s lucky he didn’t get his ass kicked, but Taylor kept getting in the way.”

  That piece of information was almost enough to take Josh’s mind off the fact that he was being molested in public.

  The dragons sure were protective of their own. Even though the fox omega wasn’t really one of their own. He was a former slave. Josh wasn’t sure what kind of slave he’d been, but there had been a time when Josh had assumed that the dragons were just as bad, or worse, than the vampires.

  After all, if they were worse than the vampires, then it made it easier for Josh and his brother to work for them, knowing they were holding something much more dangerous at bay from the vampires and their fragile connection to the human world.

  How wrong he’d been proven when Seth had set him free and allowed him to take his brother with him.

  “Anyway, that’s sort of what we need the both of you here for,” Seth said, glancing at Josh and then briefly at Zane, though he seemed to be writing Zane off for the most part. Probably because of the way Zane was still acting so aggressively.

  Josh would deal with that later.

  He pushed Dimitri’s hand away beneath the table. “You need us?”

  The hand came back. Dimitri didn’t smile, not really. There was nothing in his eyes or his mouth that gave the impression of a smile, but somehow it was the only thing Josh could see.

  Seth nodded. “You and your brother worked for Varrick, and so did he. If you know anything about him, who he is, how long he’s been working for Varrick, whatever you can think of that would give us a clue about who he is and what his motives are, it would be helpful.

  Josh was all right with that. If it would help Seth to keep this house and the people inside it safe, along with Dimitri, even though he was being a complete teasing prick right now.

  “Right. He said his name was James. He didn’t give me a last name though. He’s a shifter of some kind to be sure, silent as fuck, and I get the impression there’s a little dragon in him.”

  Josh had no idea how Seth would be able to sense something like that. Of course, he wasn’t a dragon or a shifter of any kind, so maybe there was something complicated in it.

  “I didn’t know anyone named James,” Josh said, shaking his head, sorry he couldn’t help.

  “I might,” Zane said, a slight frown on his brow.

  “You do?” That shocked Josh. Even Dimitri stopped moving his hand.

  But of course, that didn’t last. The heat pushed through Josh’s body with such a powerful force that his dick was starting to react again.

  He should have been fresh out of orgasms to have. It should have been completely impossible for him to have any kind of reaction to this, but it was as if he hadn’t been laid in weeks. Somehow, his body still wanted more, and the fact that Dimitri wouldn’t stop touching him was just making everything a thousand times worse.

  The hand gripped, stroked, moved a little higher, closer to his clothed cock, and this time, Josh didn’t have the energy to push the hand away. The only thing he could do was struggle to keep himself from moaning out loud, humiliating himself in front of the people he was supposed to be trying to impress.

  “Well, I didn’t know if he was a shifter or not,” Zane said, too busy thinking over all the people they’d come into contact with while working for Varrick to notice the struggle Josh was having. “But there was one guy. I saw him only a couple of times, always with his mask on. I overheard the name James said a few times around him, but I never saw his face.”

  “Did you know anything about him? His loyalties? Beliefs? Family?”

  “No.” Zane shook his head. “Just that he was pretty good at breaking in and out of certain places without being seen. The rumor I heard was that he’d killed a couple of vampire families to get them out of Varrick’s way. I’d seen him fight a few times. A couple of rookies would come in, think they were tough and try picking a fight with him. It never went in their favor.”

  Why the hell did Josh never know this stuff? This sounded like the sort of thing that was commonly spread around the other guards hired to protect Varrick and his family.

  Of course, Josh had kept his head down a little more than Zane had. Josh hadn’t been all that interested in making friends amongst the other guards or servants. The only reason why he knew and liked Sorin was because, well, it was kind of hard not t
o like Sorin.

  “You think that if you were to get a look at this guy and talk to him that it might be enough to give you a vibe on whether or not he’s the same guy?” Seth asked.

  Zane shrugged, crossing his arms, as if he thought it was a good idea to be an idiot right about now. “Maybe. How do I know you’re not going to rip the man’s fingernails out if I give you information you don’t like? You’re saying there’s a good chance I worked with this guy. No matter what you all think, or the people you killed when you took over this house, the people working for the vampires weren’t the bad guys.”

  “True,” Seth said with a nod of his head, but before he said another word, Josh could tell there was more coming. “You were just the people who were accepting money from the blood suckers who traded sex slaves, killed omegas, and basically took a giant shit all over your own legal system. That’s why we came in. That’s why we did something about it, and you’re goddamn lucky Dimitri turned out to be your brother’s mate because, otherwise, I’d go over there and make you eat the damn rug beneath your feet.”

  It was in the strength of the dragon shifter’s voice. He wasn’t kidding. That worried Josh, but the next grip he felt on his thigh was less sexual and seemed to be more about calming him down.

  As if Dimitri could sense the sudden spike in Josh’s heartbeat.

  “Seth, you’re definitely right. He’s being a dick, but I think we’re good here. Josh knows he can trust us, and he’ll bring his brother around eventually. Everything will be fine so long as we keep our heads together and figure out what this guy was doing with Taylor when he had him.”

  “Hmm.” Seth nodded, but he never took that fiery gaze away from Zane.

  As if he were trying to stare right through him.

  Josh couldn’t handle that. He was glad things had turned out to be not quite the way they had been presented to him, that it had all been a test of sorts, and Sorin was alive and the other servants who had been rescued were still here and relatively happy, but he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone threatening his brother.