Fury of Desire (-4

by Coreene Callahan

Go ape-shit crazy to take another shot at Azrad.

  The corner of Wick’s mouth curved instead. “I made my point.”

  “Did you ever,” Azrad grumbled from the other side of the room. “Fuck me, I think my front teeth are loose.”

  “You deserved it.” Shoving out of his hold, Wick rolled to his feet.

  Not trusting his friend for a second, Venom scrambled to join him next to the table. No sense making the same mistake twice. The free-for-all was his fault. He should’ve been ready. Should’ve known Wick would go after Azrad at the first possible opportunity.

  “I know.” On one knee next to the coffee bar, Azrad swiped at the blood dripping from his chin. He missed a drop and it went splat on the wooden floor. With a curse, he grabbed the edge of his T-shirt and wiped the mess off his face. “You always make statements like that, Nightfury?”

  Wick shrugged. “Usually.”

  “Effective.”

  “Get the message?”

  “Yeah. No fucking with females under your protection.” With a grimace, Azrad pushed to his feet. Rotating his shoulder, he stretched out sore muscles, then paused to frown at his bruised knuckles. As he flexed his hand, the male threw Wick an intense look. “How is she?”

  “Hurt.”

  “I had no wish to harm her.”

  Skirting a downed chair, Wick moved into the center of the room. “Why did you then?”

  Amazed by the exchange, Venom’s attention volleyed. As he looked from Wick to Azrad, then back again, he shook his head. His friend never talked to anyone, so… why was he now? What was the impetus? His eyes narrowed. There had to be one. Wick might be quiet, but he possessed more than his fair share of brains. The male was wicked smart. Add in hyper-observant and… yeah.

  Wick knew something he didn’t.

  Dealing with a load of WTF, Venom glanced toward his XO.

  Pale eyes sharp, Rikar pinged him through mind-speak. “You see what he does?”

  “Not yet,” he said, following his XO’s lead, keeping the conversation on the down low.

  “Take a closer look at Azrad,” Rikar murmured. “Look like anyone we know?”

  Venom reversed course. He glanced at Azrad, scanning the male’s face, looking past the nicks and cuts, trying to make the connection. It was hard. All the heavy metal—the eyebrow and nose stud—distracted him. The tattoo, black web supporting a freaky-looking red spider on the side of his neck, didn’t help either. He stared at Azrad a little harder, stripped away all the bells and whistles—the spiked mohawk, the tat, the hard-core attitude—to reach the truth. The male’s coloring and features moved to the forefront, and—

  Venom sucked in a quick breath. “Holy shit.”

  “Bingo.”

  Rendered speechless, Venom opened his mouth, then closed it again.

  “I regret the necessity, warrior,” Azrad said, his soft tone full of sincerity.

  “The name’s Wick.”

  Azrad nodded. “I wouldn’t have taken her out of the hospital room, but with a squadron of rogues inbound, my options were—”

  “Limited?” Bastian raised a brow.

  The comment turned Azrad’s attention. His gaze landed on B. Something akin to awe washed over his expression. He swallowed so hard Venom saw his throat bob. “I… I’m… you’re…”

  “Bastian, commander of the Nightfury pack.” Green eyes locked on Azrad, B hauled his captive to his feet. He gave the male a solid shove. The blond growled, but took the hint and crossed the room. Rikar followed his commander’s lead, unlocking the full nelson on the warrior with a black patch over one eye. Silence descended. The room reshuffled, all players headed to their respective corners to surround and shield their leaders. “But the greater question… the only one I’m more interested in… is: who the fuck are you?”

  “I have something to show you.” Reaching inside his jacket pocket, Azrad pulled out a slim leather-bound book. Worn by age, cracked along the spine, the journal bobbed in his fingertips. “I received this just over a year ago. It belonged to—”

  “I know who it belonged to.” Aggression rolling off him in waves, B put his boots in gear and crossed the shop. His target? Take a guess. The new boy with the old book. Azrad had just painted a bull’s-eye on his forehead. Not advisable or even close to smart. An angry Bastian amounted to the equivalent of a shark-infested marina with blood in the water. “Where did you get it?”

  “It was given to me by a Numbai. It belonged to my sire.”

  “Bullshit,” Bastian said, his tone dipping into melodic. Venom smoothed his expression, smothering a grimace, and got ready to move. The proverbial shit was about to hit the imaginary fan. He knew it from B’s intonation. Whenever his commander used it, death almost always followed. “My father didn’t sire anymore sons before his death. I have no siblings.”

  “Not true.” Dark-blue eyes full of emotion, he stared at Bastian. “You have me.”

  Magic rippled, electrifying the air as Bastian snarled.

  The warning was low and lethal, the kind of growl that sent smart males running. Venom tightened the loop instead, moving to stand at his commander’s shoulder, showing support as Rikar and Wick took up post positions behind them. Trapped between a wall of male muscle and the raised countertop behind him, Azrad leveled his chin and stood his ground. Stupid? Brave? Venom couldn’t decide. It was far too soon to tell. One thing for sure, though? Despite the uncanny resemblance between Bastian and Azrad, the male needed to tread lightly. Whatever the newcomer said in the next thirty seconds would seal his fate.

  “Do you know how long I have waited to meet you?” Azrad asked, desperation in his voice. “From the moment I learned the truth. From the second I read the journals, I… Jesus. Months of rotting in that godforsaken place… of knowing the truth with little chance of escape. Of living with the hope of meeting a brother I never knew existed.” A muscle twitched along his jaw. He flexed his fist, fighting for control. “Bastian… I would no sooner lie to you now than cut off my own balls. You are my brother. We are blood kin. I swear it on my life.”

  Unwilling to believe, Bastian glared at him.

  With a growl, Azrad shrugged out of his coat. As the army jacket hit the floor, he grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. Bare chested in the dim light, muscle flexed as he bared his teeth and threw the crumpled cotton at Venom’s chest. Reflex made him catch it, the scent of blood and male rising from its folds. “Blood doesn’t lie. Check the fucking DNA.”

  As far as bluffs went, it was a good one. Better than good considering the veracity in the statement. Dragon DNA didn’t lie.

  Which meant one of two things.

  Either Azrad told the truth. Or he’d played his last card and now stalled for time, the kind that would get him and his boys the hell out of hostile territory. It made sense from a tactical standpoint. DNA needed to be run in a lab, alleles and familial markers matched across four dragon chromosomal strands wrapped in unbreakable magic. Not an easy process. Isolating specific genetic threads took time, no doubt something Azrad knew.

  Venom pursed his lips. Smart. Beyond dangerous too. The SOB had graduated at the top of his class. “Pretty good cover story, Azrad.”

  “No cover. Just the truth.”

  His brow furrowed, Bastian glanced his way. As Venom met his gaze, his commander held out his hand. Relinquishing the prize, he tossed B the bloody shirt. Fingers shifting through the folds, Bastian brushed his thumb over one of the stains. “It can’t be.”

  “I don’t think he’s lying,” Wick murmured, breaking formation. Footfalls joining the quiet buzz of overhead lights, he brushed shoulders with Venom, then swung wide to pace a circle around the male who claimed the impossible. Golden eyes alight, Wick breathed deep, filtering scent through keen senses, and ran a critical eye over Azrad. “He carries a variation of your scent… the same magical signature in his veins. I smelled it the second I made him bleed.”

  Silence met that pronouncement.


  Venom huffed. Well, that explained the switch-up. Wick had backed off, delivering a cordial beat down to make his point instead of an agonizing death. And yet, even given his friend’s certainty, Venom remained skeptical. It was a good story, one that nudged at the truth and smacked of sincerity. But then, wasn’t that what made a lie believable? Give just enough verifiable detail. Provide a smattering of veracity, an equal amount of honesty and…

  Poof.

  Everyone believed. Everyone got fooled. Everyone ended up dead.

  No mistakes could be made. Not with the Razorbacks angling to take out the entire Nightfury pack: his family, the males he loved and valued above all others.

  Ivar would stop at nothing to win. And planting a spy inside the Nightfury camp—one who claimed to be Bastian’s long-lost brother? Hell, that qualified as a major coup. Would be a real victory for the son of a bitch, so… yeah. Brother or not, Venom wanted to know everything. Down to the last digit and decimal point. Only after Azrad was vetted would he decide which way to jump. Into belief and acceptance. Or death and destruction as he split the male in half to protect his pack.

  16

  Tension spread like nuclear fallout, clouding the air inside the coffee shop with suspicion. Wick didn’t mind. Uncomfortable and tense worked for him. Caution kept a male alive. And with the proverbial plutonium planted and the timer set, vigilance seemed like a good idea right now.

  Then again, when didn’t it?

  The thud of his boots soft in the quiet, Wick paced another circle around Azrad. The males he commanded shifted with unease. He didn’t blame them. No one messed with him—or his brothers-in-arms—unless forced, and these two? The pair looked smarter than most, recognized that a ticking time bomb was about to go off. Wick could practically hear the countdown. The snick of the clock as the second hand ground down to blastoff.

  Which meant he needed to do something.

  Lickety-split. As in, right fucking now. Otherwise the situation would detonate, leaving his pack with a crater full of speculation and no real answers, so… no question. Diffusing the situation sounded like a plan. A good one, except for one thing.

  Meditation wasn’t his strength. His expertise lay in other areas—namely, killing things—but that didn’t change the facts. Nor the urgency. With Bastian set to go off, he figured he had a minute tops before his commander lost his patience and went nuclear. The resulting fallout wouldn’t be pretty. Neither would the cleanup. And scraping what was left of Azrad and his boys off the floor? Not on his list of things to do tonight. He had other plans. A strategy that included discovering if he was right about Azrad.

  Like, after all, recognized like. An undisputable fact.

  Now suspicion gave rise to certainty, grabbing Wick by the balls. Azrad carried all the markers. The truth of it—of who and what he was—went more than skin deep. It was embedded in the male’s bones. Was present in the way he moved, smelled, and thought. Wick could practically hear the mental wheels turning inside Azrad’s head, so…

  Not a chance. He wouldn’t be leaving B to his own devices until he knew for sure, one way or the other.

  Hooking a chair leg on the flyby, Wick kicked it into the center of the room. Metal screeched against wood. The nails-on-chalkboard racket shattered the silence, doing what he intended… making the other warriors in the room flinch. The ripple of muscle widened the gap, unlocking the stalemate as everyone glanced his way. Venom frowned at him. Wick met his gaze and tipped his chin, the move all about one thing. Trust. He needed Venom to back him up if things got critical, and Bastian went sideways. As his buddy nodded back, Wick grabbed another chair and shoved it in Azrad’s direction.

  The male stopped the sliding invitation with his foot.

  Not bothering to explain what he wanted, Wick showed him instead. Flipping his own chair backward, he straddled the seat and stacked his forearms on the backrest. He forced tense muscles to relax, playing it cool to put Azrad at ease. The body language sent a clear message–it was all about the chat. No one needed to die here.

  Wick stifled a snort. Jesus. His move beat the shit out of irony. Him… receptive to conversation. What a fucking joke. But hey, dialing down the boom-boom factor required a certain amount of finesse. And if giving diplomacy a shot got the job done—relaxed Azrad enough to acquire the information Wick wanted? Well then, taking patience and tactfulness to the next level seemed like the best way to go.

  “Got a few questions.” His gaze riveted on the male standing a few feet away, Wick pointed to the second chair. “You in a talking frame of mind?”

  The nice guy approach triggered a chain reaction. Surprise spread like the plague, killing silence in the room. Murmurs full of “WTF” fogged the air. Wick ignored the incredulous looks his comrades threw his way. He didn’t care what the other Nightfuries thought. Didn’t have time for the usual BS either. Not if what he suspected about Azrad turned out to be true.

  “Depends.” Mistrust in his eyes, Azrad grabbed the chair. Rotating it into a 180-degree turn, he mirrored Wick’s move, adopting the same position.

  “On what?” Wick asked, raising a brow.

  Azrad frowned. Light winked off his eyebrow stud. “What you want to know.”

  Everything. But he’d get to that. “Show me the inside of your forearm.”

  Blondie and Eye Patch shifted, covering their leader’s six.

  The warning was subtle. The show of muscle was not. Wick’s mouth curved. The pair were devoted to Azrad. Good. Solidarity equaled strength. An excellent sign. It said a lot about the male seated across from him. A leader who instilled loyalty and love instead of fear was admirable. Maybe even ally worthy.

  His expression closed, Azrad shook his head.

  Wick held the line. “I need to see it.”

  “Fuck,” the male growled under his breath. A moment later, he complied. Unlacing his fingers, he turned his wrist out. A muscle jumped along his jaw as he glared at Wick. “Satisfied?”

  Not even close. Satisfied didn’t have anything to do with it.

  Wick nodded anyway, his gaze on the scar that marred the inside of Azrad’s forearm. Fucking hell. Never mind suspicion, instinct made a better bedmate. His had been right. Then again, having graduated from the same hellhole, calling Azrad out hadn’t been all that difficult. Even so, the sight of the brand drove revulsion to the surface, making Wick remember and his stomach churn. He swallowed the burn, unable to look away from the proof of the Archguard’s cruelty.

  So obscene. So barbaric. So completely unnecessary.

  And yet, the depravity of the mark remained.

  Shrugging out of his jacket, Wick dropped it behind him. As the leather hit the floor, he rolled up his sleeve. An inch below his elbow joint, the Dragonese symbols—seven digits strong—marred the skin on the inside of his own forearm.

  Azrad sucked in a quick breath.

  “Wick,” Venom murmured, stepping in behind him. “There’s no need—”

  “It’s time, Ven. I’m tired of hiding it.”

  He’d done a good job, though, hadn’t he? None of his brothers-in-arms knew the truth. None had seen the mark either. In dragon form, he hid it, using his magic to camouflage his shame. In human form, he couldn’t conceal the scar. Which meant he never took off his shirt or wore short sleeves. But now, after all these years, he wanted to come clean. To have the others understand why he kept to himself and didn’t talk much.

  He’d been trained from an early age to be that way. No talking. No physical contact. No warmth of any kind. Deprivation like that changed a male. Made him quiet. Kept him apart. Bred mistrust and suspicion.

  The ultimate way to build a killing machine.

  Flexing his hand, Wick watched his muscles work, undulating beneath the brand, distorting the numbers his captor had burned into his skin… remembering what had made it.

  Molten dragon venom, the only substance that could mark his kind.

  If used before a male went into his change�
�before the magic in his blood activated—the stamp of ownership scarred and never faded. The burden became something to carry, a blatant reminder seared into skin. One to look at and live with every day. One that dragged the past, no matter how distant, into the present.

  He should know.

  Every time Wick looked at it, his stomach rolled, taking him to the night he’d received his number. As memory spun him around, things he yearned to forget bubbled to the surface. In a blinding flash, he was back in the filth and squalor, reliving the brutality—the flames burning high in the fire pit, the red glow of steel as the bastard lifted the brand from the bubbling vat of dragon venom, the acrid smell of smoke in the air, the hard hands holding him down, the bite of steel against his throat.

  Wick clenched his teeth. He should be over it by now. Sixty years was a long time to hold onto the pain, but… God. Recall was a bitch with a mind of its own. No matter how many times he tried to blot out the details, the experience stayed with him, haunting him. The helplessness in the face of savagery. The bitter taste of defeat. His rage as they forced him to submit.

  Not that it had taken much to subdue him.

  His captor had done it right. Waiting until his body chemistry dipped, landing him on the edge of his change. He’d been too weak to fight… so ill, beyond vulnerable, in need of help from a senior male to get him through his first shift. Most males anticipated the occurrence. Dreamed of the night it would happen and rejoiced when it came. Then again, those males had sires who loved them. He’d had a sadistic bastard who wanted him dead at the first sign of true strength. The second Wick’s magic spiked, his captor had realized his peril, recognized the warrior inside the male, and understood Wick would hunt him to the ends of the earth—tear him limb from limb—the instant he woke in dragon form.

  So yeah. He understood Azrad. And as he looked at the male seated across from him, Wick saw everything he felt reflected back at him.

  “They didn’t send you…” Clearing his throat, Azrad trailed off. His brow furrowed, he shifted in his seat. A moment later, he broke eye contact and traced the edges of his own scar. “You were never at Tanzenmed. I would have seen you there.”