Dragon's Ward

by Newton, LeTeisha

  This was what they had talked about. This is what they meant when they had said that they wouldn’t have been able to stop the shift and she had to take it into herself. She felt the heat come again, felt like something inside of her was rising, struggling to break out of her and meet their shift. Fear choked her and she fought it. She felt like if she gave in she would rip apart in so many pieces she wouldn’t be able to be put back together. She cried out, terrified.

  “Don’t fight,” Stefan said and his voice was not his own.

  “Please, try,” Nero said, and his voice sounded as ancient as parchment paper.

  “Give in,” Cadoc growled behind her, and it sounded like he could rip through her. She struggled harder, not liking the ripping inside of her soul. She was so cold, going so cold.

  “Please,” they said in unison and that stopped her. She couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t stand their pain. Something clicked. She felt the heat spread in her again. She was on fire. She felt Stefan, Cadoc, and Nero freeze, as if time had stopped. She couldn’t explain it. For just this instance in time only she existed. She and their beasts.

  A ghostly figure of Stefan’s dragon hovered around his body, Nero’s tortoise did as well, ancient and large, and, when she looked behind her, or her spirit looked behind her, she could see the shadow of the Kylin. Her spirit lifted, turning into a vacuum and sucked in their beasts. She screamed as their beasts rolled within her, ripping and shredding as they fought to get out of her spirit. She screamed for what seemed like hours as she fought back, struggled to hold them, subdue them. Suddenly time started again. She was flung back into the real world as the men moved with her, in her, around her. Stefan clutched her so tightly to him, she could barely breath.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he whispered over and over again. He touch softened, became soothing. Cadoc wrapped his arms around her, and Nero caressed her scalp.

  They moved in her now, faster, but somehow softer. They were watching her, their beasts shining in their eyes. They moved, each cock touching something deep inside of her, until her clit exploded with passion, her pussy clenched with passion, and her throat widened with a scream. She was flung into the spirit world again and this time she felt feathers, glorious white, iridescent feathers. She looked down at herself and she could see the body of the Phoenix. She couldn’t see everything, but she knew that she had become the Phoenix, that she had succeeded. She cried, feeling whole for once, feeling as if she was where she should have always been. She opened her wings and the beasts of her men slipped back into place.

  When she came to Nero dropped to his knees, sliding from her mouth, sated and happy. She moved to touch his face, to bask in their happiness, but a man standing behind him, with a mask of pure anger and a gun pointed at his back, stopped her.

  Chapter Ten

  “You whore! You filthy, nasty, whore! I’ll kill him. I swear I’ll kill him,” Roach screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. The tall, thin blond looked sickly and lackluster. His hair was plastered to his face in clumps. It was chin-length and looked like he hadn’t gotten it cut in months. His brown eyes looked wild, sunken in. His lips were pulled into a snarl that was better seen on an animal than a human, with dank yellow teeth behind it. He looked as scary as any nightmare she’d ever had of him.

  “Roach,” she screamed, trying to get away. Stefan pulled her into his chest, slipping from her. Cadoc pulled away, and she flinched when his thick cock pulled out. He stood quickly though, in front and to the side of her. Nero stood slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, and then turned to look at Roach.

  “You should not be here,” he said to Roach, and Brook was worried at the sound. He sounded cold, far away. He didn’t sound like the warm, loving man she had grown to know.

  “She’s a filthy whore. She should have never let you touch her. She let you in her mouth, that bastard in her ass, and that piece of shit in her pussy. She was mine! My bride! My virgin! You ruined her!”

  He is delusional, Brook thought to herself.

  Nero tensed before her, but he didn’t move. Brook didn’t know what they were thinking but she wanted them to react, do something. Roach would kill her but he couldn’t kill them. No gunshot would do more than hurt them.

  “Take him away,” she hissed to Stefan.

  “You were supposed to love me. You told me that day that you would always love me, even if you couldn’t have me in this life. How could you do this to me?”

  Roach’s eyes were sad, confused as she watched him. Something in the words that he used resonated with her though. She knew those words. She thought back. Back to her days in theater, when she’d been on stage and performed. Suddenly she knew who Roach was, how far he’d slipped from who he once was, and how she was never to blame for any of this.

  “Donald?” she asked then, hoping it wasn’t him.

  “You remembered. Then why did you do this to me?” Roach asked, crying, but his gun never wavered, and it was pointing at her. She thought she knew why the men hadn’t done anything. They couldn’t die easily, but they didn’t know if she’d become the Phoenix yet. They could kill him, but his bullet may rip through them and kill her.

  “Donald, it was a play. We were acting. We were only fifteen years old.”

  “But you said you loved me,” he cried.

  “I never loved you, Donald. You took something that was fun and unreal from our high school years and turned it into something ugly. You’re sick in the head, but I can’t help you. I don’t love you.”

  “So you would choose them instead? You want these things in your bed? I saw their animals. I saw the bird they turned you into.”

  She felt the change in the men, the knowledge that she had become their Phoenix. She saw their relief, felt their happiness, their wonder, all through the link of their beasts, even without them showing any outward reaction. It was all there. She could feel the nest, her nest now, trumpeting that they were complete, that their king had found his mate and she would come to them soon. That they would welcome her with open arms. She could feel it all, and know that she wasn’t afraid anymore. Know that she didn’t have to stand behind them to get away, to be protected from Roach. She stepped away from Stefan, and he let her, though he kept pace behind her.

  “I’m gone. You cannot terrorize me anymore. I won’t die with you. I won’t die for you. If you don’t walk away now, I won’t let you walk away. I won’t be afraid of you. I never will be again.” She was steps away from her, her men surrounding her when she finished.

  “I’m going to take you with me!” Roach cried.

  They grabbed him just as his gun went off. He screamed between them but Brook didn’t care, she didn’t want to care. She just wanted her nightmare to vanished, to be ripped into a million pieces. She wanted to be safe from harm, safe to resume a normal life. Safe to have love and happiness for once again. She had found her mates and she would not allow Roach or anyone to take them away. In her darkest hour she found love and she would not lose it, she would not be alone again.

  She tore and pulled, ripped, and shredded until her hands were heavy, until there was blood around her, on her. She couldn’t understand if it was hers or Roach’s. She just knew that she was falling, sinking into darkness, feeling cold to her core. A part of her was screaming, screaming to fight against it, to hold on, she would lose the love she just found. But a larger part of her was tired and was happy that it was over, that she had found peace and love, if only for one night. She at least had died the way that she wanted to. The thought faded and she was no more.

  Chapter Eleven

  She was surrounded by heat. She had never been that warm in her life. Her body was aching but she was alive. She shifted and moaned, hurting somewhere in the vicinity of her chest. But she was covered by so many bodies that she couldn’t be sure if she was feeling things right.

  Wait, bodies? she thought to herself. She shifted again, her fear enough to push away the pain.

 
; “Feng is awake,” she heard directly above her and, at once, the bodies moved. They just slid of her until she was able to sit up. She was sitting in a room that looked to be in the center of a cave. The massive bed, and it was massive, under her was covered under red silk. The sudden cool air over her body forced her to look at herself and she was in a dress that looked better on some model than her. The slits were all the way up the sides and the straps spaghetti thin. The black material was as soft and shimmering as silk, but felt thicker, so it may have been satin. She touched her chest, but there was only the echo of remembered pain. She felt no wound, not even the puckering of a scar. She was healed.

  “What?” she started, but couldn’t finish. She looked up to see at least twenty people bowing before her. They were all as magnificent as her mates. There were a disproportionate number of men to women. She supposed that the women were in groups like she was. She saw none of their faces, just the brown, gold, black, or red of their hair. Of what she could tell, there was a mixture of cultures in the one room, dragons from all walks of life. She stood and they bowed lower.

  “Feng,” they said in unison and she recognized the Mandarin word for Phoenix.

  “Where are—” She stopped suddenly when Stefan walked in, followed by Nero and Cadoc.

  They looked different. They all wore suits, expensive, well-cut black suits that lay on their bodies like water. Stefan’s shirt was golden, Nero’s emerald, and Cadoc’s a deep honey. They looked like GQ models as they walked toward her. The sea of people parted in front of them with each step they took. Her mouth went dry watching them. She stood waiting for them, everything in her looking forward to the moment they took her in their arms. Stefan reached her first, his massive frame blocking out everything else. He reached for her and she went into his arms, took a deep breath, and relaxed into his embrace.

  “It is good to see you, Brook. You’ve been healing,” he said to her. She felt another pair of arms wrap around her from behind.

  “We worried about you, but we knew you would survive,” Cadoc said against her arm before he kissed her skin. She trembled and leaned toward him.

  “It was hard to see you unconscious for so long. The Phoenix within you was so new it took more time to heal than it should have.” Nero kissed her other arm and rested his hand on her shoulder. She turned to him, a silly smile beaming on her face.

  She never thought she’d be this ridiculously happy ever in her life. She was alive. She was safe, and she had her men surrounding her. Only one thing could make it better.

  “I love you guys, do you know that?” she whispered and they stilled against her.

  “I love you, more than you know,” Stefan whispered before he kissed her forehead.

  “I have been waiting to tell you how much I love you,” Cadoc said and then laughed.

  “My love, watching you out of it these last few weeks has been hard on us all,” Nero said then, kissing her shoulder again.

  “A few weeks?” she croaked.

  “The wound took a very long time to heal. He shot you at nearly point-blank range, right in the chest. We couldn’t stop you from rushing him,” Stefan said then.

  “You got in the way. We have been so used to working as a triad that we didn’t include you in our metal plan,” Cadoc said then, sighing.

  “Mental plan?” she asked.

  “We can talk like this to each other. We didn’t think to include you. We should have.” Nero’s voice was strong and true inside of her head. Even knowing that it was him though, she jumped in her skin when she heard it.

  “You were planning to do something to Roach weren’t you?” she asked then.

  “Stefan was going to grab you and turn so he could shield you,” Cadoc said then. “Nero was going to go for his gun arm and then I was going to finish him. You were never supposed to be hurt, never see what happened to Roach. We just had to keep him talking until we got him into position. And then your anger took over.”

  “I am sorry for that, love,” Stefan said then. “You were newly turned. As such you couldn’t have controlled your rage. You tapped into powers you weren’t ready to control yet and the Phoenix just worked for you.”

  “What did I do?” she whispered then, not sure she wanted to know the answer. She had glimpses of blood, Roach’s face twisted in agony, and the feeling of ripping him a part. She didn’t know if she had been dreaming or not.

  “You got to him before we could and he took a shot. He shot you in the chest but your anger was so strong you couldn’t control it,” Nero said.

  “Just tell me what happened,” she urged. Stefan sighed above her.

  “You tore him apart before we could stop you. We cleaned up and brought you back here. You needed time and the heat of your nest in order to heal. They have all been here taking care of you. When we knew your wound was nearly whole, we readied you to meet your people,” Stefan explained.

  That explained the dress and the warm sea of bodies she had woken up under. Her people had been healing her, giving her their heat in order to force her skin to knit together quicker. That was where the ache in her chest had come from. It was gone now but it was all from her healing ability and her people surrounding her. They had all been keeping her safe. After not being safe for so long she didn’t know how to handle being safe now. She stepped back, forgot the bed was there, and sat down abruptly.

  “You did what you had to do, Brook. You freed yourself from that monster,” Nero said, kneeling at her side. He was always kind, always pacifying. He would try to lessen her pain if he could, she could see it in his eyes.

  “Anyone would have done that if they had been given the chance. You were protecting yourself from a threat,” Cadoc said then, coming to kneel at her other side. Her warrior. He would have seen what she did with great honor. He would have done the same to remove a threat, and he couldn’t see anything wrong with what she did.

  “I would have done it for you if I could have,” Stefan said then, squatting in front of her. He was a king. He would have saved any of his people from heartache, from the ugliness of reality. He wished that he could have done it for her. She could see it in his face, read it in their connection.

  A sudden sense of happiness and freedom welled up in her. She was free. Finally free and that freedom had come with the greatest of things. Love. Pure, unconditional love. She had once been the dragon’s ward and now she was his mate. She couldn’t be any happier. She laughed and leaned forward, knowing their arms would come around her.

  “I love you all. I couldn’t be any happier then I am right this second. Now, introduce me to my people. Don’t you think they’ve been bowing long enough?”

  The End

  About the Author

  LeTeisha is the author of a plethora of Fantasy, both Urban and High, Romance, Erotica, and Paranomal novels. She can’t seem to stop daydreaming and from those daydreams evolve alpha males who make hearts throb, feisty heroines that make you want to stand up and give them applause, and sex that scorches the sheets. Now if she could just convince everyone that peanut butter and chocolate should be a world staple then she will have accomplished world peace!