Dracones Boxset Books 1-5

by Sheri-Lynn Marean

  Elianna's teeth sank into Thaniel’s tender flesh. She moaned at the sweetness of his blood. Having never bitten anyone before, she finally understood. The taste of another was intoxicating. No wonder they were so strongly warned not to turn anyone. She could easily see how this could become addicting. As Thaniel struggled to get away, she held him tighter, glad that he was so thin and weak.

  One bite should have done it, but she hadn’t wanted to take any chances. At first, her plan had only been to bring Thaniel into the clan, but the Tomlee had made her angry and she needed to get his attention. So now her plan required that Thaniel be turned.

  Surely this would bring the Tomlee to her, wouldn’t it? Still, she should have lured Thaniel closer to the clan home before she bit him.

  A sound down the alley distracted her and she pulled her teeth from Thaniel. A furious snarl echoed off the walls of the warehouse. What the? She gasped at the large shape hurtling through the air straight at her. No, not now! This couldn’t be happening.

  Elianna was shoved to the ground and the gravelly pavement grazed her shoulder and side. Fuck! She turned to see a large male looming above her and managed to roll out of the way in the nick of time.

  As Thaniel’s protector came at her like the devil incarnate, Elianna leaped to her feet with catlike reflexes and ran. Damnit! She’d have to come back for Thaniel later, after he finished going through the change. It would be painful, and for a moment she felt for the guy, but she quickly pushed it away. He’d thank her later, she was sure.

  Chapter Four

  Bitten

  REAL’s FEET POUNDED the pavement, impatient to visit his little angel’s grave. Instead of his sorrow lessening with the passage of time, it only grew more poignant. He was almost there when a shiver of dread rushed through him, making him halt in his tracks. “No,” he mumbled, fury building in his veins. He’d thought the boy was safe in the new place. He should have known better.

  The all-consuming need that had him sitting at his daughter’s grave for hours—all day—everyday, pulled at him, but he turned away. Although a small part of him thought of leaving Thaniel to his fate, he just couldn’t do that.

  “Later, baby, Daddy will be by later,” he whispered to the wind as he began to run. Don’t you dare make the boy pay for my mistakes! He sent the angry thought up to the heavens, not surprised when he didn’t get a reply back. His father had stopped speaking to him hundreds of years ago when Real had foolishly fallen, wanting a taste of what humanity had to offer.

  Rage pounded through his veins as the feline Were-bitch ran away. He knew his eyes would be glowing with fury, but it couldn’t be helped. He itched to go after her and finish her off but Thaniel needed him.

  Females! He snarled. They couldn’t be trusted; neither the angelic kind, nor the human, or anything in between. They all stabbed you in the back the first chance they got.

  Guilt pushed the deadly rage back as he bent to crouch beside his little buddy. Thaniel was such a gentle soul. All the heavens knew he’d fought his growing attachment to the boy, and no matter how old he was, Thaniel would always be a boy to him.

  The night he’d come across the two sick fucks pawing at Thaniel when he was only fourteen, Real’s emotions had been buried so deep from his recent loss that he almost continued on his way. Then an image of his sweet, fair-haired daughter popped into his mind—what she’d have looked like as a teenager if she had been given the chance to live that long.

  Suddenly, he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. This was someone’s child and if it had been his daughter he could only hope someone would come to her rescue.

  It had taken everything he had to leave the two foul, pathetic shit-heads alive, and to this day, he didn’t know what enticed him to let Thaniel follow him home.

  Real didn’t want to care about anyone, so it was a struggle not to tell the kid to get lost. They fell into a routine, and since Thaniel didn’t ask anything of him, he thought he’d be able to maintain his distance while acting as protector. He even stupidly believed he’d succeeded, until he caught that female Were-cat’s scent the day before.

  Real knew he had to protect the boy from her and the first thing they needed to do was change their sleeping location. After that, he could go hunt the bitch down, make sure she left Thaniel alone. When he packed up his belongings, he was relieved Thaniel did as well, as he wouldn’t have asked the boy to go with him. The choice had to be Thaniel’s.

  As Thaniel convulsed in agony, Real gently scooped up his friend’s slight body and cradled him close. “I know it hurts,” he murmured, wishing he’d been in time to stop the attack.

  “What’s hap … happen … ing?” Thaniel asked, teeth chattering.

  Real could practically feel the pain pulsating through the boy’s veins and it made him want to wrap his hands around the Were-bitch’s throat. “She’ll get hers. Don’t worry,” he said, praying someone above heard him and did something. He hurried back to the building where their pallets were, knowing his little friend was going to go through utter hell before he emerged on the other side.

  ***

  THANIEL WHIMPERED, his vision turning blurry and his mind foggy as fire pumped agonizingly through him, tearing him to shreds. With all the beatings he’d taken, pain wasn't a stranger to him, but this was a different kind of agony. It filled every molecule of his being, and that didn’t even take into account the hurt in his heart. He’d trusted and been betrayed again. His subconscious had known it was too good to be true.

  Still, he didn’t understand what was happening. Someone—Real, maybe––carried him and it was a struggle to even breathe. Like poison, burning molten lava consumed him, eating at him from the inside out. Even his hair felt like it was aflame.

  “I’m dying,” he croaked, eliciting a feral growl from Real. Thaniel was beyond caring, even when lightning flashed in his friend’s eyes. Real’s fury wrapped like a protective skin around him as he carried Thaniel back to the abandoned building. By the time Real lay him down, darkness had pulled Thaniel under into its hungry clutches.

  When he finally surfaced sometime later in mindless agony, it was to find Real still beside him.

  “Drink,” Real said as he dribbled water into Thaniel’s parched mouth.

  Thaniel tried, but the water trickled down his chin before he passed out once.

  He writhed in a fevered delirium for two days.

  At one point when he was lucid, he opened his eyes to find Real sitting beside him. “Am I dying?” It felt like he was.

  Real shook his head. “No. Though you might wish you were by the time this is over,” Real muttered and turned away.

  He wasn’t wrong.

  Thaniel had thought he was in pain before, but it was nothing compared to what he went through over the next couple of days. “What’s happening to me?” he begged his friend, wanting to shed his very skin.

  “You are changing,” Real said with such pity in his eyes that Thaniel blinked, not understanding. When the fever finally broke, Thaniel lay too weak and exhausted to even move.

  Gradually, a new kind of awareness began to fill him. When he was able to move, he glanced around. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the stench surrounding them was obnoxiously overpowering, as if there were something dead in the building. There likely was, somewhere. And his vision…

  He focused on the wall a good distance away, surprised when he was able to see every line and crack in the cement, along with the spider web attached to it. No way! But it was true, he had super-vision.

  Thaniel slowly turned his head to find Real sitting a few feet away on his pallet, reading.

  When he first began to stay with Real, he’d been stunned to learn that the big guy loved to read both fiction and non-fiction books.

  “I will teach you,” Real had said five years ago when he realized that Thaniel was illiterate.

  At first, Thaniel had been embarrassed. He hadn’t even entered the school system until his mother died wh
en he was eight. Then, with no social skills and scared of his own shadow due to being brutally abused, school had turned into another nightmare.

  Thaniel had been afraid of disappointing his big surly friend, but Real had surprised him by being a very patient teacher. Then, as Thaniel slowly learned to read and write, he too fell in love with reading. They were both always thrilled whenever they came across a book in someone’s garbage or in a free bin of a used bookstore.

  Thaniel lay on his pallet and covertly studied his friend, suddenly seeing him in a whole new light. He’d always sensed that there was more to Real, and while he still didn’t know what it was, he knew he’d been right. He couldn’t help wondering if Real would have ever spilled the beans about this strange world if Thaniel hadn’t been bitten. Somehow, he knew the answer was no.

  Thaniel closed his eyes and drifted back into a restless sleep until a strange, new scent caught his attention. Suddenly he was awake, all senses on high alert. Someone was in the building and Real was nowhere in sight.

  Claws raked Thaniel’s insides. The beast inside of him was hungry. Suddenly, Thaniel lost control. He leaped off his pallet and the next thing he knew, he was over by the stairs, lying in wait. With his super-hearing, he tracked a young male through the building. Thaniel prepared to attack.

  The beast inside him screamed that this was his and Real’s territory. Suddenly his bones began to crack and snap. Thaniel gasped as pain consumed him and his body morphed into something else, something not human. Then the top of the man’s head came into view. Thaniel snarled. He gathered himself and was about to leap when Real appeared from nowhere and tackled Thaniel to the ground.

  “Get out,” Real yelled at the intruder as he pinned Thaniel down. With a yelp of fear, the man stared at them wide eyed for a second before he took off.

  After Thaniel changed back, Real sat down beside him. Thaniel couldn’t stop shaking at the thought of what he’d almost done. “I’m a monster,” he whispered, unable to look at his friend.

  “No, you’re not,” Real said with a sigh.

  Thaniel didn’t believe him. “I am. I wanted to rip that guy’s throat out, taste his blood in my mouth, feed—” He inspected his hand, which was normal once again. He’d had a paw—claws. His finger went to his teeth. They too had returned to normal.

  “You are a Were-leopard,” Real said.

  Still stunned over what had just happened, Thaniel shook his head. “I can’t be.” Terror that his friend was correct filled him.

  “You are,” Real repeated, staring solemnly into his eyes.

  Thaniel wanted to deny it, but what had just happened was undeniable. “Is that what you are too?” he finally asked.

  Real shook his head and proceeded to tell him about the supernatural world they inhibited. Was this really happening? Could Were-leopards and wolves be real? Maybe he was still sick—delusional.

  “It’s all true,” Real said, shaking his head. Thaniel had never seen him look so upset about anything. Unless he was angry, Real never seemed to show any sort of emotion. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Thaniel. I’d hoped you’d never see this part of my world.”

  “I’m going to kill someone,” Thaniel finally whispered as the truth hit him.

  Real sighed. “I know someone who might be able to help you learn to control your shift.”

  “Shift?” Thaniel repeated, too stunned to understand.

  Real nodded. “Yes, your change into your leopard.”

  “I don’t want to do that again,” Thaniel said, completely horrified at the thought.

  “You won’t have much choice, but my friend is the Alpha of the Spokane Were-wolves, and he might be able to help you learn some control,” Real said.

  Chapter Five

  Strange Visitors

  THANIEL DRIFTED, lost to the ether with no idea of how long he’d been locked up. Months, years … It didn’t matter. All his stupid, childish dreams had been shattered at the tender age of four, now he awaited the death of his miserable, useless existence.

  Drip. Drip. Drip. The water hit the concrete mere feet away and yet, the most annoying sound in the world—no longer even registered in his mind. When he was first tossed into this hell it had almost driven him crazy. Now, he was too far gone to care.

  If he’d ever dreamed of happiness or any sort of love in his life, he had no idea why, since the brutal reality was that what he wanted didn’t matter whatsoever. For him, love and happiness would never happen, and it was no longer even something he understood.

  He yearned only for the moment he’d cease to exist. The moment he’d fall into oblivion, his body turning to dust along with all the pain and anguish of his past. Surely that moment would come soon, wouldn’t it? Then again, nothing ever happened like he wanted it to.

  He was used to being hungry and not having much of anything to eat—the story of his life for the last sixteen, almost seventeen years, ever since … No, don’t go there. He pushed the memories away, letting his mind drift in and out of consciousness. How many days since he last saw anyone?

  Didn’t matter, they weren’t coming back. He knew that now. Although really, did he want them to? At least he was finally pain free. No more of their brutal torture, and now even the pinching hunger pains were gone. So no, he really didn’t want them to come back. For if they did, it would only be to hurt him some more. Something he could do without.

  It was near impossible to keep track of time down in the chilly, black prison he was chained up in, but subconsciously he knew it had to have been weeks since he’d last eaten. Though it felt like forever since Raymund walked out.

  “You don’t need any light.” The sadist had chuckled before pulling the cord. Plunging Thaniel into darkness, he walked out and closed the door.

  Curled up on the dingy mattress, Thaniel’s mind wandered. He waited for death to come and take him away, but soon the ghosts of his past drifted back in, just like they always did.

  “Thaniel,” his father called.

  “Daddy? Where are you?” Thaniel searched the dark, despairing of ever finding his dad, when a shape materialized in front of him. Excitement filled him but before he could speak, his daddy disappeared and other memories ferociously took over.

  “I hate you, it’s all your fault—” His mother’s screams were always followed by stinging slaps, shoves, kicks—leaving him broken in body and soul, alone in the scary darkness.

  “No—”

  Heart thudding, Thaniel jerked awake, senses tingling. Someone’s here. Thaniel scanned the pitch-black room. A room he shouldn’t have been able to see anything in, but with his new night-vision eyesight, courtesy of being a monster, he saw the faint blue outline of the meat hook hanging from the ceiling.

  Not letting his gaze or thoughts linger on that, he searched the small room. Even though he knew he was still alone, he couldn’t help it, something had pulled him out of the nothingness of his mind and set his skin to prickling—setting his senses on high alert.

  His gaze drifted from the faint blue outline of the lightbulb overhead to the dripping tap near the end of the mattress. While he could reach the tap, his chains prevented him from reaching the dangling cord that turns the light on—of course. But at least he had water, a bucket, and a drain.

  When he realized that the Were-wolves had abandoned him, it hadn’t mattered much. What had hurt was Real abandoning him, though it wasn’t a surprise. He’d expected it to happen sooner or later.

  A man with little to say, Thaniel knew Real just tolerated him and would one day leave or turn on him. After all, it was what everyone did. For once, he wished someone wouldn’t leave him. Wouldn’t hurt him. He longed for someone to love him. At that thought, Thaniel let out a faint snort. That was too much to ask. Who could possibly ever want him?

  For probably the millionth time, he wondered what it was about him that made everyone leave. Why was he so unlovable? What did he do wrong? All his life he’d wanted answers. He’d imagined the da
y he’d confront his dad, what he’d say. Then his dad would tell him it was all a big mistake, and he’d have someone who would love him once again. In reality though, he knew it was all a big fat fairy tale. It would never happen.

  Finally his hunger pains ceased. Still, he continued to drink from the tap. Eventually though, he stopped caring completely whether he even lived or died, and stopped drinking. What was the point? Instead, he just lay on the mattress, unmoving. He waited for the end to take him away, dreaming of freedom from this horrible, empty world.

  He’d dismissed the idea of trying to commit suicide when he learned that his new body healed much faster than normal. Besides, back then he’d still believed he might be set free, or that Real would help him escape. But now he knew the only escape would be to just let his body shut down. Surely then he’d die, wouldn’t he?

  Curled up on his side, Thaniel now strained to hear whatever it was that had drawn him from oblivion. But he was locked in a soundproof room, and even with his enhanced senses, he caught nothing but the beating of his own heart. Had the wolves come back to finish him off? That would be good—end his miserable existence.

  Still, his beast screamed that he wasn’t alone and the feeling grew stronger, making him tremble. What if the wolves had returned to torment him some more?

  When a flashlight shone into the room from the little window set in the door, he jumped. Then he scooted up and pressed himself into the corner, drawing his legs up to his chest. No, maybe he wasn’t ready for this after all.

  Then the door opened.

  Filled with fear, Thaniel caught the unfamiliar scent of three people. Two males and a female. Who are they? What do they want? His trembling grew worse.

  “Hey, we won’t hurt you,” a husky male voice said.

  Thaniel cringed, pressing the sharp bones of his back snug into the corner. He tightened his arms around his legs, as if he could protect himself. At least his long hair, as snarled and matted as it was, hid most of his naked body. Through the filthy mess hanging from his head, he peered timidly at a dark shape in the doorway. It was a large male who had spoken.