Gathering Darkness: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Anna Zaires

  He grinned. “Hey, I’m Dragon mark two. D-two, like terminator two but a dragon.”

  She sighed, picking up the reference to a cult film instantly. “D-two all right. For douche and dick.”

  “Hey! That could hurt my feelings!” he threw back in indignation, but the easy smile and his wandering hand on her backside told her he wasn’t seriously upset. His smile dropped serious again.

  “So…where does that asshole Sellers fit into all this? Ris, our Seer with the agency, said something about a control spell on this collar?”

  Chase’s mood clouded, anger filling every cell of her body as he touched the collar around her neck. Instinctively she locked all her thoughts about the collar and how sex with her mate had broken the spell down deep where he couldn’t reach it.

  “I was woken before it was time, in a strange room with this around my neck.” Somehow she managed to force the words out past gritted teeth. “Sellers had found where we slept, broken in and stolen the princess and me. The others…I don’t know where they are. Dead presumably. None of us would stray from our mission to protect the baby.”

  Duke’s jaw clenched, his lips compressed into a tight line. “That fucking asshole. Put a collar on you while you slept? But why? What benefit does kidnapping you have?” He seemed to think about that, then shrugged. “Aside from having a dragon at his beck and call, of course.”

  “Royal blood.” Pushing him back, she sat up in bed and ran a hand through her hair. It shook but she ignored it. “He needed royal blood to power the Dragos spell, and the heart-blood of a dragon-mate to seal it in place. That’s why he was after the human girl, Honor. She’s your brother’s mate. And humans…way easier to kill than a dragon.”

  She looked back over her shoulder. “That’s what the thing with Rat—Sellers’ pet pixie—was. He fed us both a love spell so Rat would become a dragon-mate. My mate.”

  ***

  Duke couldn’t help the warning growl that trickled from his lips. The damn pixie was not her mate. He was.

  She blinked at the sound, surprise on her features, an instantly he wanted to claw it back. She’d been through so much—all the memories she’d shown him tinted with suffering and sacrifice for the greater good—she didn’t deserve him being an asshole on top of it.

  And he wanted to be. A total asshole that was. He wanted to tear up the sky to get back to the city and find both the pixie and that bastard Sellers. Then he’d show them both what a mistake messing with a dragon’s mate could be.

  And messing with his was the last one they’d every make.

  Her soft chuckle took the wind out of the sale of his anger. As first he wasn’t sure what the light sound was—he’d never heard it from her before—but when he looked down, her eyes were alight with amusement and something warmer.

  “So ferocious, mate of mine,” she whispered, gentle fingers stroking a path along his jaw, scarping the heavy stubble there with a soft rasp.

  Shivering at the touch, he turned his head to kiss her fingers. He loved her touching him. The rustle of scales hidden under his skin gave him away. Then her words registered, the part of his mind trained by the PPA latching onto the fine details.

  “Sorry to talk shop, sweetness.” He slid his arm under her neck to pillow her head. Just to make her more comfortable. Nothing at all to do with the fact he liked touching her. A lot. “But does that mean we have a pixie kicking around who Sellers can use to complete this Dragos thing?”

  The expression in her eyes shifted for a moment but before he could analyze it, it was gone leaving him wondering if he’d seen it at all. Perhaps a trick of the light.

  “No, he gave us the love potion but even if we had…been intimate, I don’t think it would have worked anyway.” Reaching up, she planted a soft kiss on his lips. “Because I already had a mate.”

  “Too damn right you do,” he growled, his body going from half hard to full mast in a heartbeat. Until he’d met her, caught her scent, he’d never known it was possible to want one woman so much. No, want was the wrong word. He didn’t just want her, he craved her. Not only did she feel right against him, as perfect as though she’d been crafted by some deity just for him, but everything about her completed him. Gave him the sense of belonging he’d looked for his entire life.

  With a struggle, he pulled his mind back to the task in hand. “So, Sellers needs a dragon-mate to complete the spell. We know of two—you and Honor.” He grinned, confidence surging through him. Things were so much easier when all the pieces to the puzzle were available. “Honor’s human and you’re locked by that spell thing he has on you.”

  He pursed his lips for a moment, studying the collar around her throat. Perhaps it was a trick of the early-morning light, but the thing looked somehow duller than before. “So all we need to do is keep both of you out of his clutches until he’s dealt with.”

  She shook her head, concern in her lovely eyes. “No…don’t forget, you’re a dragon mate as well. He could use you.”

  “Believe me, sweetness, I’d like to see him try.” Amusement filled him and he dropped a kiss on her delicate, little nose before rolling from the bed. “Now, let me see if I can rustle up some coffee, then you can tell me all about this Dragos spell.”

  He paused just long enough to pull on some pants before striding out into the main area and heading for the kitchen. Happiness and contentment surged through his veins with each beat of his heart. Overnight he’d gone from some paranormal kid no one, not even his own parents, had wanted, to having a people and a history, not to mention a mate, to call his own.

  Nothing could stop him now. Especially not a pain in the ass warlock like Sellers.

  A footstep behind him made him smile as he rooted around in the cupboard for coffee. “You didn’t need to get up, sweetness. I’d have brought the coffee through. Breakfast in bed, eh? What more could a woman want?”

  She didn’t reply, which brought a frown to his face. He turned to look over his shoulder and that’s when the spell hit him, full force. His body locked up, and the thread between him and his dragon frozen so he couldn’t pull power from the creature to break free. Even the mental connection between them was blocked solid.

  Chase moved into his line of sight. She was fully dressed, her clothes similar to the ones her mother had worn in the memory she’d showed him, and her face was twisted in guilt and determination.

  “I’m sorry, love.” She reached in to touch his jaw lightly, but he couldn’t respond, apart from with his eyes. Eyes he begged her not to do whatever she was planning to with. “But I can’t let you go after Sellers. He and I have unfinished business, and I have a mission to complete.”

  She stroked her thumb over his lips and stepped back. The door to the cabin opened and closed, and within a few heartbeats, the sound of her wings faded from hearing.

  ***

  How could he have been such a fucking idiot?

  The instant the immobility spell his mate had hit him with wore off, Duke took to the sky with a roar. He didn’t even bother to use the cabin’s land line to check in with the office and report the fact that Chase, his mate, had gone AWOL.

  Instead, he tore the door open and launched himself into the sky. Rage galvanized his body, each massive wing-beat more powerful than the last. He tore through the air like a bullet, racing the sun. His sweetness was clever. She’d timed her escape perfectly and now he was almost out of time. He had to get to the city before the sun rose fully or he was shit out of luck and unable to fly, reliant on human forms of transport to locate his wayward mate.

  As he flew, he battered at the mental block she’d placed between them. Since he’d met her, he’d been able to sense her. Not now. She obviously had her magic back, the spell she’d hit him with in the kitchen was evidence of that, and she was far, far stronger than any of them had suspected.

  Nevaris Stormcaller. The most accomplished amongst us.

  Shit. She’d told him herself. Her mother had been one of their
greatest warriors, so it would stand to reason that her daughter would outstrip her. After all, who else would a Queen task to protect her child other than one of her greatest warriors?

  She’d even told him about her mission, but had he listened? Shit.

  Instead, he’d been too intent on his own operation. On the outcome that he and the PPA needed. He’d assumed she’d be happy to stay put, like Baron’s mate Honor, and play the little woman so that he could be all alpha male and protect her.

  But Baron’s mate was new to the paranormal world, and more than that, she was a human in the midst of the monsters. Chase wasn’t. His mate had fought on the battlefield, commanded men and dragons long before any of the rest of them had been born.

  He’d expected a warrior to walk away from a sworn duty thousands of the years in the making. How fucking stupid could he get?

  The sun brightened the sky and he swore, the increased light meaning he was flying blind. In desperation, he reached out mentally, searching for help even as he relayed his situation. That help came from an unexpected quarter. All over the city, gargoyles turned their faces upward, and opened their minds, giving him the eyes in the sky he needed to navigate blind.

  Roaring his thanks, he wheeled around his apartment building. About to land, he caught a hint of a familiar scent, and plummeted to the sidewalk instead. Alerted by the increasing shadow, early-morning workers looked up, screaming as he dropped and scattering lest he crush them to death. At the last moment, he snapped his wings wide and pulled up. His back claws had barely grazed the ground before he shifted.

  “Pixie,” he snarled, advancing on the one figure that hadn’t run.

  Rat. He’d have known that scent anywhere, and so did his dragon. The creature raged within him, stomping its feet and demanding to be let at the pixie. Grabbing the guy by the sleeveless vest he wore, Duke threw him at the nearest wall hard enough to crack the brickwork. The pixie slid down the wall to the ground.

  Duke advanced on him, a low dangerous snarl bubbling from his lips.

  “I’m going to rip you to fucking shreds.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Gods, it felt good to be back. Really back. Her night with Duke had done two things. It had given her the one thing she’d never thought to be lucky enough to have, a mate of her own, and it had broken Sellers’ control spell.

  She still wore the collar around her throat as she strode through the corridors toward Sellers’ lair. Whether or not he could sense that the spell was broken she didn’t know, but if he couldn’t, she wasn’t going to lose the element of surprise by taking it off just yet.

  A frown creased her brow as darkness gave way to the hotel-style corridors far earlier than she was expecting. Her footsteps were silent in the plush carpeting but she wasn’t naive enough to think he didn’t know she was coming. Sellers might be an arrogant bastard, but he’d been clever and determined enough to track down an ancient spell and make it work. Just like he’d tracked down the sleeping place of the last of the royal line of Shadow dragons, and managed to be-spell both her and Baby before they’d awoken.

  Chase rolled her neck until her shoulder clicked. Emotions held in check as befitted a warrior-mage of her standing, she carried on walking. Sellers’ fortunes were about to be reversed in as bloody and brutal a way as she could devise. And after centuries of war, she could be very inventive indeed.

  Reaching the main doors to the lair, everything was quiet. Too quiet. All her instincts on high alert, she slowed down and checked around her with all her senses. The decorated plaster and plush furnishings of the illusion-wrought lobby looked real now. Before, she’d been able distinguish the illusion from reality, but now she couldn’t. Which meant that somehow Sellers had gotten a hell of a lot more powerful.

  Checking the link to her dragon, she found the beast quiet and waiting. The change lurked beneath her skin, ready to burst through at a moment’s notice, or feed her strength in this form, should she need it.

  Grim determination filled her. She was ready. Thousands of years of sleep separated her from her last battle, but she was ready for this one. Once she’d crushed warlocks beneath her boot heels, and today, she’d do it again.

  Striding forward, she pushed the doors to the main rooms open so hard they slammed into the walls either side loud enough to make half the occupants of the room look up sharply. The rest continued to look toward the raised dais at the center of the room.

  Chase stopped dead. The room had changed. It had been a slick, penthouse-style room with marble and chrome as far as the eye could see. Now it looked more like the great halls of the castles she’d known before her enchanted sleep. Like them, it was rectangular, with a large throne at the far end and a high ceiling lost in shadow she knew hadn’t been possible in the original cavern.

  Pillars lined the walls, the darkened recesses filled with Red Caps and taller figures. Trolls and Orcs. She paid them no mind, both burnt just as well as Red Caps did, and moved her attention to the center of the room. Fire pits surrounded the dais like sentinels, but it was what was on the raised platform that made her heart stall in her chest.

  Sellers stood before an altar like the one he’d tried to sacrifice the human girl on. Like before, he was dressed in all his ceremonial robes. Head to toe black silk decorated with runes. Half had been badly drawn, their shapes no doubt changed over the years by lazy scribe after lazy scribe, each slight change degrading the rune until it was so far from its original form it was useless. The rest though, blazed with power, casting light onto the altar and its occupant.

  His back was to her, arms spread wide as he chanted, so she couldn’t see whether the altar was empty or not. As with most of his spells, the majority of what he spouted was utter nonsense. Mystical sounding mumbo-jumbo. Every now and then though, there was a real incantation buried in the nonsense. A madman with half a clue and an inkling of how to get some real power.

  He ended his incantation, and turned his head, his arms still raised. “Ahh, Chase. So good of you to join us. Especially now...how do the kids say it? Oh, yes. Now the party’s getting started.”

  He laughed, the maniacal sound bouncing off the high walls and dropped his arms. Chase’s breath caught in her throat. There, stretched out on the altar, lay Baby. Blood covered her tiny chest, the scales slick and red as the knife that lay discarded next to her. Sellers turned, dropping a goblet to the floor. It hit with a clatter, rolling end over end to come to a rest facing Chase. A trail of blood marked the floor where it had travelled.

  “But...why?”

  Baby’s blood was what powered Sellers’ Dragos enchantment. To drink so deeply would risk damaging the source of his power.

  Sellers’ laugh chilled her to the soul. “Why, dearie? Because I needed a dragon-mate’s lifeblood to cement my power. To ensure no one can take it away.”

  “B-baby...had a mate?” The world shifted for Chase. Baby wasn’t even old enough to change and choose her own name yet. How could she have had a mate? And who? The only two shadows that she knew of were both mated. “There are no un-mated dragons in this time.”

  “Ahh...now you see, that’s where I found a loophole in the spell.” Sellers grinned smugly. “It’s a common misconception and I’ll grant you, it fooled me at first, but the text can be read both ways. As a Dragon-mate’s heart blood or a mated dragon’s life blood.”

  Chase blinked as she put the pieces together. He’d linked himself to Baby.... Lifting her head, she extended her senses and reached past Sellers for her charge. She staggered back. Nothing. She couldn’t even sense the tiniest spark of life from the tiny form on the altar behind Sellers. Baby was dead. She’d failed.

  The scream burst from Chase’s body without warning as grief and rage struck. Power built up in the hall like an electrical charge ready to go off as she stared at the human warlock. Darkness spilled from her pores to surround her. Once, she’d crushed men like this like bugs and scattered them in her wake.

  “Pray to whateve
r gods you hold dear.” Her lips curled back in a snarl, her voice deeper than her human form should allow. “Because I’m going to rip your heart out and feed it to you, still beating.”

  He tipped his head back and laughed again. Spreading his arms, he beckoned her on. “Come on then, little dragon. See if you can best me, the most powerful warlock to ever have lived!”

  As she watched, the dragos enchantment surrounded him, scales slithering over his skin in transparent dragonscale armor. She knew the lore. No dragon could penetrate it, either with claw or tooth.

  “Kill her!” Sellers screamed to his minions at the same moment she launched herself into the air, her shadow form exploding outward in a heartbeat and battle began in earnest.

  With a roar, she flipped and spun in the air, lashing out with her claws and tail as Sellers’ pet monsters attacked her. Screams filled the air, her claws dismembering those unfortunate enough to be in their path while the razor-sharp scales along her tail decapitated the taller amongst their number.

  Racing between the pillars, she used them for cover as Sellers fired spells at her. But he wasn’t quick enough. She was already gone by the time they splashed harmlessly against the walls behind where she had been.

  Chanting under her breath, she pulled power from the witching, throwing spells back at the warlock in the middle of the room. Lightning strikes, thunderbolts...she even whipped the air in the room up into a tornado to throw at him. They bounced off his armor, and into the morass of Red Caps and assorted other critters under Sellers’ control.

  Screams of terror and pain filled the air as a counter point to her roars. She was forced to dodge to the side as the tornado spell ricocheted off the walls like a spring caught in a box. It picked up Red Caps as it barreled around, slamming their bodies into walls and the floor until it resembled a cloud of red dust and body parts.

  She twined her serpentine body out of the way and turned to let loose another bout of flame at Sellers. He dodged easily and threw back a barrage of lightning. Shit, he was getting stronger and faster thanks to the Dragos spell.