Ice Dragon's Caress (High House Draconis Book 3)

by Riley Storm

  Almost immediately, he knew he’d chosen wrong. The bald guard sat in the back, staring blankly ahead, while three people who could only be vampires filled the other three seats.

  Throwing himself off the truck, he pivoted to go after the red SUV, but it was already accelerating away.

  Valla roared and gave chase, but he was tackled before he was halfway, one of the vampires from the truck having leapt free as the vehicle crashed and rolled onto its side, blocking the road for the third car.

  “How very kind of you to show up, save us the trouble,” the vampire chuckled as Valla kicked at it and missed. “You smell like her,” it added with a grin.

  Valla’s right hand, still human, flashed forward and snatched the vampire up by its long, black hair. He got to his feet, wrenching the creature’s neck back through sheer strength.

  It wasn’t easy, as his foe was no young vampire but rage at its last comment gave him power. “She is mine,” he snarled, and whipped the clawed hand across, tearing out three-quarters of the vampire’s throat in one swipe.

  Dropping the creature, he flung himself up the slope after the departing red SUV, hoping against hope he could make it in time.

  There was a fluttering of wings and something big flashed at him. Valla threw himself to the ground just before a pair of claws equipped with three long, glossy-black talons sliced through the air where his face had been.

  As he fell, he rolled and fired off a hail of tiny ice darts from his palm, the two-inch long pellets sharper than a needle point and moving almost as fast as a bullet.

  Whatever was in the air was darker than night and barely visible to his eyes, little more than an outline. It was tangible, however, and his ice-storm shattered against it, prompting a high-pitched squeal on a frequency so high he could barely hear it, yet his head throbbed because of it.

  Valla sprang to his feet and continued his mad dash, but another blur came at him from the left. He flung up an arm, and ice sprouted from it at the last second. The vampire dodged to the side, abandoning his attempted tackle, but he was moving too fast, and the spikes creased his face and shoulder, slicing deep into the vulnerable flesh.

  Two more black outlines topped the ridge, one of them blocking the SUV from his sight as it dove overtop of it and down the angle of the hill right at Valla.

  Something slammed into his knee and then the black shape—it had to be a vampire shifter, he couldn’t fathom what else it would be—hit him straight on, blowing Valla up into the air and back down the hill, talons slicing at his midsection.

  Ice armor rose to cover him as he called upon his innate powers to protect him, but the talons opened up his belly nonetheless, though none of the cuts was deep. Then the attacker was gone, and Valla was soaring through the air as he plummeted downward, each fraction of a second sending him farther and farther from Liz.

  From his child.

  Then he hit the ground and his armor shattered upon impact, scattering across the ravine floor before fading into nothingness.

  A giant flapping of wings not unlike that of a dragon sounded off to his left and the ground shuddered as the giant creature landed.

  Valla got to his feet and prepared to fight on. He wasn’t going to give up.

  Three more shapes came bounding down the hill, and a trio of vampires all landed in a crouch in front of him. Overhead, the flapping of wings warned him of more creatures in the air.

  Just how many are there?

  He didn’t like the answer. The vampires were much stronger than he had anticipated, their numbers greater. Even now, he could spy more figures appearing at the very top of the hill where the red SUV had disappeared beyond the top.

  Valla couldn’t win this fight. If he wanted to get Liz, he was going to need help.

  He was going to need his brothers.

  Reaching out, he took the water in the air around his opponents and abruptly froze it. The water in their skin, little that remained, he froze as well. Thrusting his other hand outward, ice flowed forth in a torrent, swirling up and around him in ever-increasing circles, obscuring him from view of his opponents.

  More ice congealed in front of him as Valla poured energy into it, taking on the shape of a human. He needed something for his enemies to see.

  Then he ducked low, turned and ran as he sent the ice-construct charging forward at the vampires, hoping that the swirling wall of miniature icicles and their own problems with the frozen water in their bodies would distract them just long enough.

  Focusing on his change, he felt his body grow larger, and larger. It was so slow.

  Over his shoulder, he heard a mighty roar, followed by a crack! That would be his ice-construct falling apart under the blow of one of the vampires.

  His wings sprouted and spread wide, already flapping as Valla sought his escape. Cursing himself for running, he flung himself into the air.

  I’ll be back for you, Liz. This, I promise. No matter what it takes, I will come back for you. They will pay.

  Then he disappeared into the sky, his giant wings easily outdistancing him from the smaller airborne vampires.

  34

  “What did you do to Peter and Chase?” she snapped as the gag came off.

  “You require sustenance,” one of her captors said, and promptly shoved half a food bar of some sort in her mouth.

  Liz gagged and choked on it. She thought about spitting it out, but she was hungry, and who knew how long it would be before she was allowed to eat again? In spite of her anger at what was going on, she sullenly ate the bar as best she could without any hands.

  “Now, what did you do to them?” she asked again, casting worried looks at her two bodyguards.

  They had both gotten out of the car to try and negotiate, but the next thing Liz had known, there were black-clad figures at their sides, staring them in the eyes. She’d watched in amazement as her two alert, cognizant guards had slumped over and acted like automatons, obeying the instructions of the two men.

  Men who were icy cold to the touch. She knew because they’d come around to her side and hauled her out of the car next, one of them casually ripping the seatbelt free first. Liz had tried to fight back, but they simply held her still, and try as she might, she couldn’t even make them waver.

  The power in such a grip, their arms not even shaking as she flung herself around, was beyond intimidating. It was also, Liz was fairly certain, inhuman. She didn’t understand how, or why, but it seemed that, despite her efforts to stay away from Valla’s world, she’d ended up amid it anyway.

  “They serve us now,” the vampire said, tugging her along toward a ramp that led down into the bowels of the building. “Their lives are better.”

  “Right. I don’t think they would agree with that. Why don’t you just let us go?” she pleaded. “We’ll leave, never come back. I promise we won’t tell the cops either. Just let us go.”

  The captor ignored her pleas, much as she expected him to.

  “Who are you people?” she asked, though in the back of her head, Liz was fairly certain she knew.

  I just really hope I’m wrong.

  “You know who we are,” a smooth voice said from the darkness at the bottom of the ramp.

  Liz froze as the voice washed over her, a thing born of power. It spoke to her. She could feel the words in her body and it terrified her, left her knees shaking and her bowels on the verge of voiding themselves. Looking around wildly, Liz tried to escape, but two hands closed around each of her biceps hard enough to bruise, holding her in place.

  “No,” she pleaded as the two creatures—they certainly were not men—on either side of her started dragging her down the ramp, into the darkness below. “Please. No. Just let me go, will you? I didn’t do anything, I’m nobody. Nothing. Just a person. Just let me go, I promise, I won’t tell anyone about anything.”

  “I find that highly unlikely,” the voice said again, still speaking from the middle of the opening, seeming to come from thin air. “Given tha
t you have the stench of Draconis all over you.”

  She hissed, mixed parts surprised and even more horrified than before. They knew who she was and who she’d been with. Her soft shoes scraped against the hard dirt floor, doing little more than stirring up bits of dust and hurting her feet as she tried once more to worm her way free, but it was no use. They were too strong.

  “Come, my little friend,” the voice purred. “Come join me, we have much to discuss about your friends.”

  Only sheer stubborn determination prevented Liz from wetting her pants at the promise contained in those words.

  “I’m not telling you shit, asshole,” she snapped, latching onto her rage, feeding it, letting it burn brightly, a shield against the darkness as she was hauled into the underground cavern.

  “Oh, I think the opposite,” the voice whispered suddenly from near her ear. “You will tell us everything we want to know, and with minimal difficulty.”

  She barked a laugh, knowing the sudden inability of her legs to work gave away her true feelings, but she wasn’t about to cave. Not for this jerk. If they were going to kill her, they were going to kill her, but she wasn’t going to go down mewling like a pathetic sack of shit. They were going to get the full experience, or else her name wasn’t Eliza Julie Wray!

  “What the fuck do you think I actually know, you moron?” she said, making an internal bet with herself about where the voice would come from next.

  Just as she felt the timing was about right, she snapped her head to the right, staring out into the darkness. There was no sound, no voice, no feet shuffling on the floor, but the delay in response meant she’d gotten it right.

  So predictable. Too predictable. Valla will use that against you and open you up like a can of sardines once he gets here, she thought to herself.

  There was never any doubt that Valla would track her down. If there was one thing the dragon shifter was good at, it was finding her.

  “I’m honestly just surprised that you didn’t have the guts to make me one of your…whatever they’re called,” she said. “Like Peter and Chase. Didn’t have the strength to do it to a woman?” she chuckled. “Is that it, too much of a pussy to do it to me?”

  “Not at all,” the voice said from so close behind her, she yelped and tried to dive forward.

  The hands of her two silent guards once more held her firm, and as she settled back into place, the low chuckles of her unseen captor spiked her anger higher, stoking the fires burning inside her.

  “I think it is,” she said. “Why else would you not—don’t you fucking touch me!” she snarled as the ghost of a hand slipped across her stomach.

  Liz struggled more violently than ever before as a protective instinct she’d never known kicked in. Her body twisted to the left and she kicked that creature—it had to be a vampire—in the groin.

  Or tried to. The thing that used to be a man casually lifted a leg far faster than she’d thought possible and blocked her kick.

  A hand slid up the back of her head and grabbed at her hair, the short red curls tugging painfully on her scalp, forcing Liz’s head back. Held still, she started to shake as something sharp slid over her throat. A threat? Or a promise? It didn’t matter; she subsided.

  “That’s better,” the voice said. “Much better. Perhaps in time, you can learn to serve. As you will see, if you do as required you will be rewarded.”

  “How are you rewarding me?” she growled. “You won’t even reveal yourself to me.”

  There was a rustling of fabric behind her, and then suddenly a light sprang into existence as a match sparked and caught. A moment later, orange light flickered to life as the fire was held to a candle.

  “Forgive me for that,” the owner of the voice said, his back still to her. “The sunlight leaves me…vulnerable, even in the waning moments. It comes from being as old as I am.”

  He turned to face her and Liz gasped in surprise.

  “Old?” she asked as he approached. “You don’t look old.”

  “I am a vampire, my dear. The effects of aging do not apply to us.” He stopped in front of her, looking up into her eyes.

  “You’re just a child though,” she whispered, looking down at the brown-haired youth in front of her. He was perhaps four and a half feet tall and could be no more than eleven.

  The moment she met his eyes, however, Liz realized she was wrong. No eleven-year old had such distant eyes. They were old. Very old. This child had seen more of the world than any living human being. Liz didn’t know how she knew, but she knew.

  “How old are you?” she asked in a very subdued voice, for the first time not bothering to be snarky and irritating. She was so far out of her depth it was weighing her down.

  “I don’t know precisely,” the child answered, his voice somehow aged and yet incredibly youthful all at the same time. “But I am approximately eight centuries old.”

  Eight. Centuries.

  “Oh, my God,” she moaned, and a fear more insidious and colder than anything she’d felt before swept its way into her, taking hold, shaking her to her core. “Why am I here?”

  “You are here, my dear, because you are immune to our powers,” the vampire-child said, giving her a smile so wide it made her nauseous.

  “How? I’m just human?”

  “Ah,” the child said, holding up one dainty little hand. “But that’s not all you are.”

  How was it that so much strength could be contained in such a voice? It defied the laws of nature. Unlike Valla, whose dragon voice was musical, beautiful and flowed with the world around him, this was perverted and just wrong in a way she couldn’t quite define. But it most certainly did not belong in her world, Liz knew that.

  “I am all human,” she said. “Sorry to break it to you. Nothing special about me.”

  “Not you,” the child whispered. “But what you carry within you.”

  Liz stiffened at the reminder that she was pregnant. “What do you mean?”

  “That,” the child said with pure hatred as he pointed at her stomach. “That thing inside you, protects you. It makes you beyond even my abilities. Perhaps my master…but he is not here. Thus, you remain as you are.” He grinned, and a malevolence that didn’t belong on such a youthful face spread across it, leaving Liz sick to her stomach.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked softly.

  “You will still play a part in our plan,” he announced. “You can be made good use of. With what you carry…” he grinned. “You will give witness to the rise of another of our new blood. It has been some time since our species have been unified, and the others, they grow impatient.”

  The two vampires on either side of her finally shuffled. “It will be nice to have yet another like us, master,” they said in unison.

  “You’re going to turn me into a vampire?” she asked, mortified.

  “No, that would be impossible,” the youth said. “But your child…the unborn child of a dragon? Well, let us just say that modern science has allowed us to do much with its DNA, as hard as it is to procure. We shall add to our numbers, and the tenth union of our species will be born. Soon. Very soon.”

  Liz wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, but she knew one thing. “You lay a hand on my child and I’ll rip that prepubescent smile from your face,” she snarled.

  The child rolled his eyes. “Unlikely. You are far too weak.” He flicked a hand at her guards. “Put her in the cell. I have much to discuss, and much planning that must be done before we are ready.”

  Liz fell silent as she was dragged down the hallway. Behind, the child continued to talk, and the shuffling of feet told her others were assembling.

  “The castle must be built faster. It is only a matter of time now before the dragons discover us. If we are to assert our new place among them…” His voice grew softer and she missed more words. “they will never know…up to us…save…rule!”

  The words didn’t make sense. Not to her at least. But maybe Val
la, or Aaric even, would understand what they were planning.

  Now all they had to do was get here in time.

  If I ever needed you to show up, Valla, this is it. This is the time.

  Our child’s life is at stake.

  Please. Please don’t be late.

  35

  They had to wait until the dark of night to make their attack.

  “Thank you again.” Valla’s words carried easily through the air, reaching the other two dragons.

  Aaric snorted softly. “We are your brothers, Valla. There may be decades worth of age between us, and centuries of mental maturity, but that doesn’t mean we won’t come to your aid when you need us.”

  “That’s the nicest insult-compliment I think I’ve ever received,” he said, trying to keep the mood light-hearted. He failed. “I still can’t believe I was so stupid, so blinded.”

  Neither of his brothers replied right away, the only sound the continuous rhythmic beating of their wings as they soared through the night sky toward the vampire compound.

  Aaric, the eldest of the trio, was on the left flank with his red-tinged gold dragon. Valla had offered to let him lead, to take the honor spot in the center, but he had declined, stating that this was Valla’s mission, and he was simply here to help.

  On the right, Victor’s blue-white wings pumped steadily, the giant turquoise-scaled beast not speaking much. The violet and navy-blue streaks helped to hide his bright form, but they didn’t do a great job. Valla could easily see the set of the water dragon’s jaw, and the way his eyelids were narrowed beyond what was necessary to protect the cat-like orbs from the winds of flight. Victor was ready to fight back.

  “You’re not the only one who has been duped by the vampires,” Aaric said at last. “All of us, I believe, can say they have outplayed us at nearly every turn, making us look like fools. They know what we are, how we operate, and they have taken centuries to figure out ways to make us think one thing, while they do another.”