“Theo? What’s wrong?”
“Are you harmed? What has happened?”A fresh wave of sensation ripped through his guts and he doubled over.
“I’m fine. I’m with Petra.” Logan’s confusion added to his own. “My god, what is that? What’s happening to you?”
“Not to me. I thought—” Theo severed the link, tried to rise from the floor beside the bed. It made no sense. Only the bond he shared with Logan allowed such things to pass from one twin to the other.
He flopped to the floor and the carpet ground into his cheek. He breathed through the worst of the pain and stretched his arm beneath the bed toward a crumpled piece of paper. When his fingers made contact with the castoff, the river of agony coursing through him tripled. A familiar male face swam into view.
Booker, eyes filmed over with a red so dark it approached black. The male’s hand appeared next to his face, coated in blood and viscera.
If it wasn’t Logan he’d connected to, then who?
He maneuvered onto his side and smoothed the paper out on the floor. It was a partial sketch of the building across the alley on one side and a close up of a young female holding an infant on the other.
A terrible growl started in his abdomen and crawled its way to his throat. It erupted in a roar, a scream of sound he projected on the telepathic pathway shared by all of his kind. They’d ignored his pain, his loneliness for centuries, but they would know now what one of their own cost him.
Callie.
The connection with her began to fade, and he sprang to his feet, fueled by terror and helpless rage. The bricks of the buildings could be any of hundreds in the city. He grasped for her with his mind and held on as tight as he could to the frayed, barely formed threads between them.
“Callie. Don’t give up. I’m coming. Breathe, damn you.” The T-shirt he wore didn’t survive being stripped off over his head. His boots hit the wall with dual thunks. He jerked his door open and splinters embedded in his chest from the door frame busting, one hand popping the button on his jeans at the same time.
The fucking cannibal stood on the other side. Tiny rust colored spots dotted the collar and cuffs of his pinstripe three-piece suit. Callie’s scent clung to the monster in the hallway.
Theo snatched him by the shirt front and hauled him into the apartment, slamming the door behind him. The slab bounced out of the broken frame and hit the monster in the back.
“Where is she, Herodes?”
The dragon hissed and used his arms to break Theo’s hold with a single downward strike on his extended arms, connecting at the elbow joint so hard Theo’s hands went numb. “Do you always greet visitors this way? It’s not only rude, but terribly barbaric. My father used to say no grotesque could ever be properly housetrained and I begin to—”
Theo punched him in the mouth, snapping Herodes’s head back. He turned to face Theo, blood coating his lower lip.
A single, triangular tooth was stuck in Theo’s second knuckle. He plucked it out and threw it at Herodes, who caught the projectile.
“Funny thing, that. My teeth are one of the few natural substances on the planet hard enough to penetrate your mangy hide.” The dragon removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed at his lip. When he cleared the fluid away, the rent in his skin was gone. “They’re also one of the only things that can cut me. Don’t tell anyone. Little dragon secret.”
“Where is Callie?” The room swam in front of him and he fought to remain standing.
“Very nice piece of furniture you’ve got here, Theo.” Herodes moved past him into the living room and sat down on the couch. “You see, the thing is, I need something from you.”
If he didn’t change to his Hunting Form soon, he’d never manage it. Desperation to find her kept him standing when the physical manifestations of her pain through their link would have taken him to his knees. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now for leaving her alone to die instead of helping her.”
“I am bound by the agreement to your aerie. I cannot harm a member of the aerie or any humans besides those deemed to be in need of culling from the herd. If I had interceded, I would have been executed.”
More of the aerie fucking up his life. He would not lose Callie. He could not lose her. “Just tell me where she is, now lizard.”
“I will. But first, I need you to promise to help me find my mate.” The reptile grinned, a cold fire springing to life in his eyes.
He didn’t care what the dragon wanted, or what consequence the action might bring. His only objective was to save Callie. “Done.”
Theo scaled the wall of the building—chunks of masonry raining, spattering the sidewalk below—driven by the need to reach Callie before it was too late. Using his hunting form during the day when humans could spot him would guarantee he’d never be admitted back to the aerie. He no longer cared.
He had to reach her before it was too late.
When he crested the wall, he galloped for the far side of the roof and launched himself to the next building. Navigating this way was faster than trying to use the streets below. The wounds in his back reopened and the cement Booker had mashed into them the night before flaked off and fell away. His heart thudded in his chest, not like the flight of a hummingbird, but with the methodical beat of a being focused on a singular objective.
The stench of Callie’s pain, fear, and blood rode the updraft from an alley only a few buildings away. He huffed the scents from his nose and roared out his agony, gave voice to the transgression with his ferocity.
When he reached the building forming the left side of the alley she lay crumpled in, he slithered over the side head first and leapt to the ground beside her. Horrible ruin greeted him. Half-congealed, sticky blood coated most of her body. A pile of organs sat on the ground next to her.
Theo screamed out his anguish again in a sizzling jet of flame. No heartbeat to detect in her chest. Without their bond, he’d have believed her dead.
If ever he’d needed his wings, it was now. In this form, he could not carry her while running. He’d be naked if he shifted, as though transporting a woman covered in blood wouldn’t draw enough attention.
“Theo?” The pounding of running footsteps approached. He spun and roared, the huge length of his body extending from nearly one side of the alley to the other.
“It’s me, Theo. Your brother.” Logan held his hands out to his sides, palms up. Petra came to a stop behind him, her face pale in the afternoon sunlight. “Let us help.”
Every instinct told him to keep them away from her, from his mate. He fought it down, shot a warning last of flame in their direction and returned to Callie.
Petra ignored his rampaging and slid to her knees at his female’s side, stuffing organs back into her abdominal cavity.
Theo growled and bumped her hands with his head, knocking her sideways.
“I have to do this, Theo. You understand? It will help her heal.”
“Theo, I have to take her to the water.” Logan strode up behind Petra in his hunting form, his wings folded to his back.
“You cannot. They will expel you as well.” Theo sank to the damp ground and hung his head in shame. “I’ve already cost you so much. And now, I’ve killed another innocent.”
“You did not kill her. She is still alive.”
Petra completed her gruesome task. She removed her shirt and wound it around Callie’s shredded flesh. “There isn’t anything I can do for the neck or head wounds. You must get her to the ocean, fast. At this point, I don’t know what else could heal her.” Tears pooled in her crystalline blue eyes and tracked over her cheeks.
Logan gathered Callie in his massive paws and lifted off the ground with two pumps of his wings. “Theo, this is not your fault. Following your heart is not a crime.”
Unable to do anything but watch as his brother carried the female he loved, he screamed and thrashed his tail into the wall. Bits of brick chipped off and flew through the air. Impotent and stranded on t
he ground with nothing but his fury to keep him from stumbling into a chasm of pure despair, he latched onto the boiling cauldron of his anger and embraced it. The nubs of his wings blazed to life, molten heat and a terrible stretching blazed in his back.
He careened into the wall and fell to the ground, panting for breath around the torture pulsing through his frame. Images and thoughts bombarded him. The channels of his telepathic link overloaded with the members of the aerie. The voices called and blended together into a dissonance of crushing sound until they blended together into one command.
“Get up, Theo. Get up now and protect her.”
The muscles in his legs quaked. He thrust his way upright, only to fall to his stomach and smack his face on the ground. The calls intensified, and he struggled until he gained his footing and stood. Something wet and slippery coated his back.
“Fly, Theo. Fly now.”
Fly? He shook his head, tried to clear the confusion from his head and the burn in his muscles.
Petra shouted, and he swiveled his head. She had one hand clamped over her mouth, her gaze turned toward the sky.
Logan plummeted toward them, out of control, a dark grey mass attached to his back. With Callie clutched to his chest, he had no way to defend himself from the attack.
The aerie screamed at him, and he flexed the muscles that controlled his wings, shock reverberated when he realized what they’d done.
His mate and his twin continued on their out of control descent toward the ground. He gathered every resource he had left in his body and clambered up the wall of the building. Once on the roof, he raced for the far side, shoved off with his hind legs, and unfurled the new wings. The wet, bloody membranes snapped out to catch the wind, but his back muscles had atrophied and weakened from lack of use. He doubled his efforts and ignored the pop of muscle fibers snapping with a deep, singing burn. Holes ripped through the new, weak skin and he faltered. Magic funneled into him from the aerie and he doubled his efforts, unwilling to lose his brother or his mate to senseless hatred and fear.
Later he’d wonder why they lent him their aid. Now, he trained his eyes and efforts on intercepting death.
Angling above and to the left of his brother, he folded his wings in tight and arrowed for the attacker ripping at Logan’s back and wings. A fellow grotesque perched on Logan, tearing at and pummeled him. Theo collided with the assailant in a terrible crash. He gripped the villain with his claws—gouged at the male’s back and legs with his talons until the attacker released Logan.
Logan’s wings had suffered immense damage, and his haunches wept streams of blood. Theo caught a cross current and flared his wings to send him into a sharp turn, but the grotesque that had attacked Logan crashed into his rib cage and sent him into an uncontrolled barrel roll.
He tucked his wings in tight to his back, sank his talons into his attacker, and forced the other grotesque to bear the brunt of their weight if they were to stay aloft. They smashed into a building and slid down its side to the bottom, landing in a dank puddle with bricks and sheets of concrete raining down.
He stood on shaky legs, one wing crumpled and useless from the collision.
The body next to his shocked him. “Why?”
“I protect the aerie.” Booker got to his knees, then his feet. “She would have polluted our ranks with half-breed mongrels.”
“You are part human.” The hatred on Booker’s face shocked him. Of all the aerie, Booker was the last person he’d have thought capable of such prejudice.
“And I am weaker for it. I must protect the bloodlines from further denigration.” The other grotesque circled to his left and Theo readied himself for attack. “I exist nowhere, on the fringes of two worlds, belonging to none. Even my hunting form is a pathetic shadow.”
Booker surged for him. Theo stayed low to the ground and took him at the legs, flattening him onto his back. Talons slashed at Theo’s face and eyes, but the ruff of his mane protected his throat. He used the long barb in his tail to pin Booker’s right arm to the ground, climbed up his torso, and sank his claws into his thighs and biceps.
The voices of the aerie crowded his mind again, demanding he carry out the punishment due Booker for his crimes. A part of him wanted nothing more than to execute. The torture done to Callie, the attack on Logan, those things demanded retribution.
But revenge came with a cost.
“No. I will not execute him. He attacked my mate, the female I love. But he did it because misguided strictures of our society have twisted his mind and heart. I have lived long enough under your thumbs. Do your own dirty work.”
Theo reared back and slashed Booker’s throat with one fast swipe. The wound would keep Booker down until the aerie came to collect him, but he would heal in time.
Cutting off the rest of the grotesques from his mental link sent a spear of pain through his head, but there was only one he needed to speak with.
“Logan, brother, where are you?” He forced his injured wing out and leapt into the air, flapping the new appendages past the pain each movement caused. When he gained the open sky, he searched the rooftops below until he spotted his twin and Callie. He didn’t even know when their bond had threaded them together, but she’d seeped into one of the fissures in his cold stone heart like water into a deep underground aquifer, creating a hidden secret pool.
If she died, he knew that water would kill him. It would freeze into ice and shatter him.
Chapter Eleven
Forced to leave his brother behind, Theo flew for the ocean. In this instance, he could thank the aerie for forcing him to survive on its fringes. He’d settled in Brooklyn, and the proximity of the city to the Atlantic might save Callie.
A dark shape appeared off to his right, then another. He redirected his course to the left, only to realize two more grotesques flew there as well. Increasing his speed was impossible, so he climbed higher, as more of the aerie appeared in front of him.
Callie’s slight weight in his paws grew clammier with the altitude; her head lolled to the side and revealed the terrible wounds at her throat. If she breathed, he did not know. He blew a warning blast of fire when one of the flanking grotesques flew too close.
The rides of Coney Island dotted the landscape below before giving way to the endless stretch of the ocean. Theo struggled against the winds whipping him, lashing and shoving him inland. When he gauged that the depth of the water below was deep enough, he coasted in a slow circle, angled his body so his back took the brunt of impact, and fell.
He sank to the bottom with swift finality, the huge mass of his body dragging him to the sandy bottom in a column of bubbles. Now he had to count on the ocean to heal her.
A dome comprised of Poseidon’s magic extended overhead, transmitting blue-tinted light into the chamber. A small school of fish swam past, their bright yellow sides like sunlight trapped below water.
Callie groaned and moved nothing but her eyes. Every inch of her body ached. Her limbs and torso were battered and sore. Even the silk sheets she rested on chafed at her skin. Flashes of her last conscious moments in New York peppered her thoughts, and her hands flew to her throat and belly, checking the flesh there.
Nothing marred her skin. Not a scar or bump. Nothing. The dress Theo had bought her was long gone, as were all her bracelets save the one that held her special stone. Perhaps they’d been ruined by blood. Even though she knew it unlikely, she clasped her palm over her bicep to see if the jewelry Theo gifted her remained, but that too had been removed.
She sniffled and curled into a ball. Curious whales glided by, their enormous eyes regarded her with cool assessment. She imagined they thought her a pathetic, weak creature—lying in bed instead of getting on with life. A life she’d clung to through a terrifying, brutal attack.
She used her arm to lever herself into a sitting position and maneuvered until her feet rested on the cool tile floor. She had to find her bauble. The silver and gold bracelet was her one connection to him. A beref
t and impossible longing trickled in her heart for Theo. He’d rejected her, thrown her away, but still, she wanted the damn trinket. Pathetic.
But even more pathetic was the soul deep, forlorn sadness overtaking her at the loss of the male himself.
She fingered the hem of her top. At least her clothing was her own. The lightweight gauzy skirt and top flowed over her, soft as a breath of air.
A low, rectangular wood and coral table rested against the far wall. The marble top held an array of items, ranging from cosmetics to a silver tray loaded with food.
Her stomach rumbled, and she carried the tray back to the bed, being careful to avoid seeing her reflection in the heavy silver framed mirror hung on the wall above the table. The gods only knew what she looked like. She didn’t even know how long she’d been here.
Days, weeks, months? Never in her long existence had she been attacked in such a manner. The wounds had to have been grievous, especially for her to be convalescing in a room like this. The room she’d been sleeping in was usually for guests, not in the main area for the nymphs in the harem.
No more adventures outside Big P’s kingdom for her. Theo was right; it was too dangerous.
Did he even know Booker had attacked her? For a few moments she’d thought he’d been near, the fleeting feeling of a connection formed, but she couldn’t be sure. A piece of mango lodged in her throat and she swallowed hard to clear it. Booker had shredded her stomach, and then her throat. God, when that happened, she’d wished Herodes had eaten her after all. The incredible river pain from the assault would stay with her forever.
But even then, she’d felt like Theo knew, like he’d been there. The fruit plopped from her fingers back to the tray in an unappealing mass. She ripped a small piece of bread from the crusty loaf in front of her and shoved it past her lips.
She had to face facts. Theo had thrown her out, told her to leave. The bread in her mouth tasted like cardboard, and she deposited the tray aside on the mattress. Eating held no point or appeal. The urge to draw until she couldn’t see filled her, but the room was empty of anything she could use.
Rock Hard And Wet (BBW Paranormal Romance) (Nymphs Of New York) Page 8