Kissed by The Dragon: (The Dragon Lords - Book 2)

by K. T. Stryker

  “You’re saying you could kill us all, if you wished?”

  “We obey the laws our elders and the Venatores set before us. But, yes, if it came to war, there would be no Venatores Lamiae left.”

  “You work with the hunters?”

  He smiled at me, a predatory grin that made my pulse race and my mouth dry. “Those I find intriguing,” he replied, glancing down at the pulse fluttering in my throat. “You, my dear naïve little Caroline, are most intriguing.”

  I looked away and stared into the fire as it danced and blazed, warming my face. Slowly it dawned on me that the fire and the tea were for my benefit. A master vampire wouldn’t have need of a flame. The room, the fire, it was mine, not his; I wasn’t going to die. Not tonight, anyway. I sipped my tea and thought. If I wasn’t dead yet, I just had to live until sunrise.

  I hummed over my teacup and built up my shield around me, one thought as a time. I had no intention of dying; I had to make it back to the Venatores. I had no idea which way was up anymore, but I did know that I had questions, and they were going to give me answers.

  I glanced over at the master vampire but his seat was empty. I was chilled; his power to cloud my mind was so expert that he had left without me noticing. My bravado fled and I shivered despite the roaring fire in front of me. I was alive, but all I had was questions and the stark terror of my reality. I was trapped and if he was telling me the truth, it was possible no one cared that I’d been taken.

  Chapter 8

  I couldn’t begin to imagine going to sleep; even when I tried the door and the windows they were locked tight. I hadn’t expected any less, but it was still disheartening to feel so helpless and alone.

  I had been spoon fed hatred of vampires all my life. Now I had more questions about the Venatores Lamiae than I did about vampires. In fact, I had one question about vampires. How the hell did I get away from them and back home?

  I missed David. The sting of his callous behavior had dulled in the face of what I was sure was my inevitable death by draining. My mind reached out for him. I’d never been away from him in my whole life since my parents died. He would never be my boyfriend. But, he was still my best friend.

  Now, I was in the most terrifying of strange places, and David was a comforting weight in my mind. It was almost like he wasn’t as far away as I feared. I reached out, but while I felt him, he wasn’t close enough to respond, or maybe he didn’t want to. I tried to do the same with Clayton, but we’d never been as close, and I couldn’t feel him at all.

  Feeling David meant that my mind wasn’t invaded or under the effects of glamour. I ran to a window and threw back the curtains, expecting to see daylight, but there was complete black behind the glass. Frustrated, I examined it more closely, bringing the candelabra from the table closer to see better. The candles appeared in mirror image in the glass, aside my pale, frightened face and wide eyes. There was no view to the outside: only more stone, or dirt. Something kept the window from ever encountering the sunlight. I checked the remaining three windows and they were all the same. I slammed down the candle holder and screamed my frustration.

  Despair overtook me easily as I sat in the corner of the room; my back to the wall. I hugged my knees to my chest and rocked; my mind refusing to accept any coherent thought that could help me out of my opulent prison. I thought of Domonique and the hunters. My questions required that I live to receive answers.

  I breathed in and counted to eight as I exhaled, like I had learned to do to control my anxiety. As I worked on my breathing, I realized I hadn’t thought of anxiety or depression since I’d been taken. Apparently fight or flight responses trumped garden-variety issues. Either that or the master’s glamour was affecting my unconscious responses.

  With that thought in mind, I practiced my mental shield, putting up and removing the wall repeatedly until I could do it without focusing on each individual part. I wished that I had Dominique’s book with me so I could practice spells. I hadn’t read the whole thing. It was possible a spell that could immobilize vampires was sitting in my carry-on in my hotel room while I was wondering how many hours of life I had left.

  I reached out with my mind, sending tendrils of thought through the stone and spreading them like fingers down the corridors, trying to sense vampires. As I searched, my brain kept going back to David. My fledgling talent honed in on him instead of vampires, snapping together as one bolt of psychic energy. The energy poured into another room in the ancient building. He was closer than I could’ve imagined and I could feel his terrible pain even though he wasn’t conscious or responding to me.

  The scream that tore out of my throat was like the shriek of a wounded animal. I was pulled inside him, and wasn’t strong or in control enough to get out. I was caged, feeling every laceration and broken bone like they were my own.

  My wails continued after Rachel rushed into the room and I was aware of being moved as she carried me to the bed. Suddenly, the pain started to go away, until it disappeared completely. Shaking and covered in frigid sweat, I opened my eyes to see dark green eyes fringed in impossibly black lashes, staring back at me.

  “You’re in shock,” the master said softly, laying a heavy blanket over me and tucking it under me so I was pinned to the bed. “Can you speak?” I cleared my throat, raw and swollen from my screams.

  “I don’t know what happened,” I whimpered, my voice full of gravel from pain and emotion. He pressed his hand against my forehead and I glanced over at Rachel. It surprised me that her face was pinched with worry.

  “What were you doing before you were attacked?” I stiffened at the question. “Nothing you say will bring you harm.”

  “I was trying to control my fear and use Lady Borgia’s training,” I whispered, pausing as a harsh cough tore at my throat and lungs. “ I don’t have her notes anymore, so I could only practice what I have memorized.” My breathing was steadier now and I noticed that the tight covers had warmed me quickly and slowed my shaking. I tried to sit up and after a moment’s hesitation, the master sat back enough so that I could pull myself up against the pillows.

  “Then what happened, tiny hunter?” he coaxed. His voice was gentle, but his smirk made it more teasing, less compassionate.

  “I tried exploring. I was thinking about my friend and suddenly I could feel him and everything in me aimed straight toward him. I felt like I was trapped inside his broken body which was stabbed and chained. It was the worst pain I could’ve imagined and then some. I was helpless.” He glanced at Rachel, who shrugged and shook her head.

  “Rest. I will be back soon.” Nicholas stood up and strode toward the door. I felt the emptiness in the depression he’d left on the bed. The feeling of loss was crushing and I erected my psychic shield to protect me from the love-glamour that surrounded him like an aura.

  I’d begun to believe his glamour was unintentional and maybe automatic, but that made it no less compelling. My top priority in getting out of here alive had to be becoming strong enough to resist that pull.

  Chapter 9

  “Where did the master, Nicholas, go?” I asked Rachel. She shot me a sideways look and continued stoking the fire. “I’m afraid Rachel. Please help me. The pain was so real. How is that possible?” She made a sound of disgust and pointed at the chair in front of the slowly growing flames. I slunk over to the chair, watching for her to attack, but she went back to ignoring me until I was seated. Another blanket; lighter than the last; was flung over me and tucked in at my sides, covering me to my waist but leaving everything above it free to move.

  “Of course it felt real, you little idiot,” she sighed. “What on earth are those Venatores teaching you young ones these days?”

  I stammered and coughed. I had never heard anyone speak of the society of hunters except in reverence. Hearing her sound frustrated made her seem more human than monster. I didn’t know how to feel about my sworn enemies acting almost like regular people.

  “Nothing, yet. I’m just a stude
nt, I haven’t graduated to an apprenticeship yet.” She made another sound of exasperation and set a teacup down hard enough that hot tea splashed into the saucer.

  “What you were describing was astral projection, my dear. Most humans don’t have a talent like that, even psychics. Most vampires don’t either. If it was a lie to distract the master, you will suffer for it.” She sighed and fluffed pillows, glaring at them like their lack of bouncy fullness was a personal affront.

  “You don’t think I was lying!” I argued. My body was warm and comforted by the fire and the tea, but inside me, there was a core of cold iron that fought against the creature comforts.

  “You went into shock. I haven’t been on this side of the veil so long that I don’t remember what that means to a person.” I chewed my lip as I watched her tidy the piles around me, as if she was burning off nervous energy.

  “Why don’t you hate me?” I blurted.

  “You aren’t my enemy. I would no more hate you than a helpless piglet in a pen,” she scoffed.

  “Does the master see me as food?” I pressed. The idea that I was livestock made my stomach churn unpleasantly around the tea.

  “Blood is our food. Not people. Unlike most of you humans, the greater majority of us don’t kill to eat. Now. No more questions. Just, sit quietly and wait until the master returns.” Rachel returned to tidying without talking to me.

  “Please, sit with me?” I asked. My brain was screaming at me to stay away from her; fight her and protect myself. But her actions and those of the master made me question my own hatred.

  The Venatores had secrets; that much I understood. But the ease with which the master had spoken of them; of the laws they shared; seemed an unlikely lie. Besides, lying to me seemed like a waste of time. Rachel sat in the chair next to me. Her body was so still, it was impossible to mistake her for a human. There was a quality to the stillness that made my heart pound and my lungs seize and I fought to control my reaction.

  “Why are you suddenly so afraid?” she asked. Her voice was normal, without power or glamour in it.

  “You seem so, human, I forgot to be afraid of you, and that scared me more than I was before.” Rachel laughed, an unexpected coarse, raucous sound that startled me almost out of my chair.

  “Who told you to be afraid of me?” she asked, her voice condescending.

  “I don’t know, aren’t most humans afraid of the undead? Even the ones who don’t know vampires really exist?”

  She stared into my eyes long enough that my bravado failed me, and I was the first to look away. When I glanced back at her, she was looking away, as though listening to something in the distance. When she saw me watching, she smiled at me gently.

  “The master returns shortly,” she reported and I tried to ignore the bump in my pulse. “Would you like me to tell you how I came to be here like this while we wait on him?” I nodded and she continued. “I am young for a vampire, though I was older when I was turned,” she began, cupping her cheek in her hand. “That’s why I look older than the master,” she sighed. “I was hit by a drunk driver while walking home with my sister,” she said. I swallowed hard and my bottom lip tucked between my teeth as I listened.

  “What happened?” I asked when she didn’t continue. Her face was sad, almost teary. It struck me that she chose to exhibit her feelings even though she didn’t have to. She obviously liked her humanity.

  “My sister died instantly, but I didn’t know that at the time,” she replied. My chest tightened for her and I shifted to see her better while she spoke. “I was bleeding, holding her hand, when the most handsome man approached. He bent over my sister first; then touched my wounds and felt my heartbeat.”

  “The master?” I asked. She nodded.

  “He leaned in and whispered to me, saying that I didn’t have to die. That he could save me, if I wished. I thought he meant both of us and I agreed readily.”

  “And when you awoke?” I asked.

  “I was starving. If I had happened upon a human being, I would have torn them to shreds like a rabid bear.” I shuddered, thinking about my own family.

  “Did you?” my voice betrayed emotion where I meant to hide it.

  “No. I had Nicholas to teach me. I was the last he turned before it was his time to sleep.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “The masters sleep every five hundred years, for fifty. They take their strength from their coven and their hibernation slows the decay of their bodies.”

  “How many times has he done this?” I gasped, leaning toward her.

  “You witnessed his third awakening.” I fell back into my chair. For fifteen hundred years, he’d been a vampire; the living dead.

  “That doesn’t give me a reason not to fear you.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind you fearing us. You are weak and ignorant. But the master is not a monster and we are quite civilized, once you know our ways.”

  “But, your kind murder people for food.”

  “Oh, do we? And how would you know that?”

  “Rachel.” The voice was low and stern. Rachel blinked slowly, then stood.

  “Master.”

  “Tend to Colette. She is injured. And treat the boy. He needs to be ready to be sent back to his people.” My pulse skyrocketed.

  “Wait, the boy? David? Is he here? I need to see him.” I was out of my chair and at the door faster than even I thought possible. Nicholas apparently agreed, as he lunged after me and threw me back on the bed with a hiss.

  “Kill me, or let me go to him. I won’t stop trying to reach him.” I slid off the bed onto my feet and braced for a blow from his raised hand.

  “Damnit, girl.” He nodded to Rachel, who bowed and left the room without a sound. “He is in no shape for company right now. You will see him when Rachel has had time to see to his wounds.”

  “Oh, my God. How badly is he wounded?” Tears stung my eyelids.

  “Badly enough that I would advise against another round of astral projection into his body.” Nicholas turned to go without another word.

  “How long am I to be alone in here? What are you going to do to me?” I called out to his retreating back. His shoulders slumped in a very human gesture as he glanced back over his shoulder.

  “I have to deal with some coven business. I will return shortly. If you haven’t used the bath in the adjoining room, do so, and be ready to eat when I return.”

  He slipped out the door and I heard the sharp click of the key in the lock before I was once again alone in silence. As I expected ; when I halfheartedly tried the door ; it was shut tight. I heard running water from the other room and entered to find more of the lush bath towels Rachel had used on me when she had dressed me for the awakening.

  I dragged a chair to the door and shoved it under the latch, to hold the door shut. I knew it wouldn’t stop a vampire; but at least it would make enough noise that I wouldn’t be surprised. Wishing I’d thought of it sooner, I slipped into the en-suite and did the same with the door that lead from the bedroom to the corridor.

  David had been taken too. My heart broke for his pain, possibly even caused by an attempt to save me. I shut off the water wondering how an old stone building not only had running water, but heated water too. “Vampires bathe too, I guess,” I thought to myself as I added a handful of the fragrant soap flakes Rachel had used before. After one last check of both doors I finally undressed.

  The hot water soothed my aching muscles and started to finally warm the icy center of me. That’s where my contact with David had made me feel almost hypothermic from the sudden agony of his wounds; both physical and psychological. Part of me prayed that David had simply been caught away from the crowds of the resort and that I had no responsibility for the state he was in. But there was that selfish core of me that hoped he’d fought to get to me and been taken as a result.

  “And you say we’re monsters?” A sly voice scoffed from the corner of the room. I gasped and splashed as I tried to see Col
ette, glancing all around me for something I could use as a weapon. “Oh, I’m not going to hurt you, but only because the master forbids it. You stole my new toy, Caroline. I’m very cross with you.”

  Past the pounding of my heart, I realized her voice was in my head, not in the room with me. Strangely, knowing she wasn’t physically in the room while I was naked was more comforting than worrisome. She was nuts, and too powerful to keep out of my head. Better that though than have her hands on me again. Even so, I finished my bath quickly and when I heard the chair fall away from the bedroom door with a rather satisfying crash; I was already dried and dressing.

  “Really, Caroline. Must you?” Rachel’s exasperated voice floated in from the bedroom. Despite myself, I giggled, pulling the dress up over my shoulders

  “Sorry, Rachel. But with Colette in my head the way she was, I wasn’t taking any chances with being caught off guard.”