by Laken Cane
I curled my lip, easily and casually contemptuous of the executioner. “He’s human, no matter how much power and protection he’s stolen, bought, or borrowed.”
“You don’t understand, Trinity.”
“What? He’s human. And you can shift into anything. Cling to his shirt as a button and when he’s alone, shift to the sharpest blade you can and take his heart.”
I could feel his sudden pain.
I stopped walking, grabbed his arms, and stared up into his face, shadowed and mysterious beneath the moon. “Rhys, what’s wrong?”
He didn’t want to say the words, but finally, he did. And then, I understood why he was so reluctant to talk about something that not only made him ashamed, but broke his heart.
“The dragon requires all my power, Trinity. I am now a dragon shifter. Nothing more.” He pulled himself free and walked on, leaving me to stare after him, stunned.
I caught up with him, trying to stomp down the pity I was drowning in. Rhys would not want my pity.
“You’re a dragon,” I said, my voice hard enough to hide my horrified disbelief. “That’s everything, Rhys. Your dragon is such a big deal that the government wants to kill you.”
He didn’t look at me. “If I survive the executioners, I’ll figure it out.”
“You can shift and be free. You just have to leave.”
“I’d be on the run forever. Do you not understand what that would mean?”
I did. I did understand. “We’ll get through this,” I said, finally. But there was no belief in my voice.
And while I could, before I lost him, I wanted—needed—to lose myself in the dragon. Because one way or the other, I would lose him. Mikhail Safin would force him out of hiding eventually. He’d either run, or he would die.
My heart broke for him. My heart broke for all of us.
“Becoming an unfeeling monster doesn’t seem like such a bad thing,” I murmured.
“I know exactly what you mean.” I didn’t know how he could still smile, but he did, and it was genuine.
“I love you,” I murmured.
We were deep in the woods of Bay Town, and when I closed my eyes and buried my face in the fabric of the night, I smelled nothing but clean, fresh air, small animals, vampire guards, and Leo.
“Leo is watching our backs,” I said.
He nodded. “I know.” He reached out to touch my face. “He’ll resist you, Trinity. He’s afraid of losing himself. His power. He also wants to be loved and wanted for himself, despite his face. And he doesn’t believe anyone can love him like that.”
“Not even me?” I whispered.
“Not even us,” he replied.
“We’ll prove it to him.”
But he shook his head. “Leo is good to his bones, but he will not let you use him.”
I took a step back, frowning. “I don’t want to use him.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Of course you do. You felt his power in that bite, didn’t you? You felt what his blood could do for you, how powerful it could make you?” He paused, but went on when I said nothing. “His fear that you will want that power is not ungrounded, is it?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured, honestly.
“He does.”
Biting Leo had given me the best high of my life. It had done something amazing to me. I wanted more of it. I wanted to see if it could make me strong enough to protect my supernats without worrying about groups like the executioners. I wanted that.
Did I want him for himself? Did I think about him when I was in the throes of sexual ecstasy? Did I love him so much I ached, the way I did with Angus, Clayton, and Rhys? Was I obsessed with him the way I was with Shane, and did I know I couldn’t live without him the way I knew with Amias?
“Fuck,” I whispered.
It was not the same with Leo as it was with the others.
Then I understood something else. I might not have felt an instant connection with Leo the way I had with them. He might not have been one of my fated loves. We might not have been meant for each other.
But when I thought of him, when I allowed myself to really think of him, closed my eyes and pictured his huge, hard body and his beautiful eyes, heard his laugh, felt his goodness, thought about his protectiveness, his humor, his pain, all I felt was love.
When I imagined what it would be like to touch him, all I felt was desire.
And when I imagined life without him, I was devastated.
Leo had sneaked up on my heart and planted himself firmly inside it. Not his power. Him.
I just had to make him believe that.
I opened my eyes and looked at Rhys. “I do love him,” I said, simply. “How could I not?”
He grinned. “There you are, then.”
Now I just needed to bond with the half-giant. I needed to make him believe I cared about him. I needed to make him mine.
When Rhys slid his full lips across mine, when I touched his smooth, dark skin, when I immersed myself in one of the men I loved with the realization it might be the last time, I kept Leo with me.
And even if he didn’t know it, he was being loved by someone that night.
Chapter Twenty-Five
HEAT
“Thirty minutes,” I murmured. “The sun is near. Make me come before dawn comes, Dragon.”
I was hungry. Hungry for everything.
In seconds, I felt the air—scorching hot air—caressing my bare body.
I opened my mouth and his tongue slipped between my lips, burning my lungs when I inhaled, dripping down my throat when I swallowed.
He was heat.
Before Rhys, I’d had no idea how good it could feel to burn.
Heat came off him in waves and I began to shiver as that heat caressed me, penetrated me, consumed me.
He did everything a normal man would do, but it was like being touched by a god.
And then, there was only the sex.
It was like a drug, his sex, and I happily overdosed.
We lay bare and vulnerable on the hard ground, and I barely noticed the stones and sticks and other unfriendly objects that bruised my flesh and crunched beneath me.
But Rhys noticed, and he put me on top of him so I could use the sweetness of his body as my bed.
I tried to imagine what it would be like to be made love to by Rhys and Leo at the same time. To taste the perfect magic of Leo’s blood while Rhys’s dragon swallowed me whole…
It was unimaginable, really.
But it sure did get me hot.
Maybe Leo was in the darkness not with his back turned, but watching us, longing for us, being a freak for us.
Rhys grabbed the backs of my legs, right beneath my ass, and held me still as he rubbed himself at my opening, groaning, whispering.
His breath sizzled across my skin like electricity, causing the fine hairs to stiffen, and as his dragon began to stir, the danger of it, and of discovery, took my excitement to a whole other level.
And then, I felt Shane.
I dragged my lips from Rhys’s, and my body jerked as I sniffed the air, searching for my hunter.
I didn’t have to wonder if he watched.
He watched.
“Is it Shane, love?” Rhys murmured.
“Yes.”
“Do you want him here?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Always.”
“Then we will bring him.” He reached up and buried his fingers in my hair, forcing my lips once more to his.
“How?” I whispered, into his mouth.
His voice was strained and raw. “I’ll show you.” He shoved himself into me at the exact second he raked a nail—a claw, rather—down the side of my neck.
Even as I cried out in surprise and shocked pleasure he began to move, and I met him thrust for thrust, my flowing blood beckoning to Shane.
He was so hungry.
And then he was there, behind me, and I sat up on Rhys as Shane pulled me back against his chest, tilted my head, and ran his to
ngue over my neck.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck you.”
He snaked his arms around my waist and slid his fingers over my breasts, squeezing a little too hard.
He held me as he drank, his warm tongue exploring my wound, as Rhys’s fingers bit into my thighs, and I used my strong legs to lift and fall, lift and fall.
There was perfection in that union.
I stopped worrying about Rhys letting his dragon out to play. It was dangerous. It was risky—too risky.
We all knew that—Rhys most of all.
So Rhys could worry about it.
As we slammed against each other and Shane accepted the offering of my blood, I orgasmed. I orgasmed hard.
I orgasmed the way only a dragon could make a person orgasm. My whole world exploded.
And the dragon could not be contained.
Even as he began to change, to heat and smoke, he plunged inside me, began to grow, and the overpowering, vast pleasure grew with him.
I tightened my muscles around him and held him there. Maybe I was afraid if I released him he’d fly to the sky and the executioners would see him and that would be the end of everything.
But not even I, with my strength, could contain a dragon for long.
He spasmed inside me, releasing liquid fire that made me climax again, sending a path of ecstasy from between my legs to my belly to my brain.
I knew what it was like to be fucked by Rhys. I knew the extreme, almost unbearable pleasure pain, the extraordinary sea of emotions he could create inside me.
But that night, it was something even bigger.
I didn’t know what.
I only knew that I had to taste him. Not Rhys—I’d already fed from him.
I had to drink from the dragon.
Still impaled by Rhys’s growing cock, I ripped myself from Shane’s mouth and pierced Rhys’s neck with my razor sharp fangs. Then I formed a seal around the tiny wounds and began to suck.
The dragon screamed and his voice cut into me the way my fangs did him, and somehow, he began to feed from me.
I couldn’t see, but I could feel.
And I felt the dragon. He rose up around me, inside me, under me, and flashes of red beat at my closed eyelids and I was consumed by a fire of primitive, unbearable pleasure.
I was ripped from him, flung from him, and the suddenness of it was so disorienting that I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what was happening.
Shane caught me and held me against him and I stared up at the vast darkness that was Rhys’s dragon, a darkness that ate the moon, whirled like smoke, smoke that was so dark it stood out against the night sky.
I wanted to go with him into the sky. I wanted to cling to him, to ride him, to be part of him. Then, something on the ground a few yards in front of me moved, and I understood what Rhys had wanted to show me.
There was no dragon in the sky—there was only the spirit of the dragon.
I saw it, because…
Oh, for many reasons. Because he was mine. Because I was his. Because his blood was inside me and mine was inside him. Because he wanted me to.
I wasn’t the only one to feel him. But I would be the only one to see him.
Then dawn was racing toward me.
The sun would kill me. Not even the spirit of a fierce dragon could protect me from that.
Worse, the sun would kill Shane.
So with my body still shuddering from the effects of dragon sex, and my mind stunned, overwhelmed, and completely disoriented, I still knew I had to get the fuck inside.
I grabbed Shane’s hand, and I ran.
Behind me, the dragon screamed.
Huge wings beat the air, propelling us forward and him skyward. The night lit up with red and I moaned, sure the sun had come and we were burning, but it was only the dragon.
No. Not the dragon. The spirit of the dragon. I felt for those few minutes what Rhys felt every second of every day.
The chaos, the need, the primal longing…
How did he not lose his mind?
But then…something was wrong.
Now that the dragon wasn’t the only thought in my head, I was able to feel other things—like the fact that something was fucking wrong.
I nearly broke down the kitchen door when I reached the way station.
Only Clayton was in the kitchen, standing in the middle of the room, his face pale, his hand pressed to his groin. The dragon had that effect on the supernaturals. All of them.
His throat was completely healed.
“Something is wrong,” I told Clayton as I stumbled for the stairs, Shane right behind me. “I can’t feel Amias.”
“Sleep,” was all he could manage, his voice thick and slow.
As if I had a choice.
Terror gripped me, but it didn’t keep me from sliding into unconsciousness.
It was almost a relief.
For a while, there was nothing.
At least not for me.
But up top, the world carried on.
And sometimes, the day was no less dark than the night.
Chapter Twenty-Six
HORROR
Instantly awake, I shot open my eyes, sat up, and found Clayton standing beside my bed, watching me.
“Trinity,” he said.
Panic, immediate and sharp, tightened my body.
I slid from the bed and began to dress, not taking my stare from his. “Tell me.”
Shane stood as well, alert, quiet, and a little less…awful. The night had been good for him.
But it hadn’t been good for everyone.
Clayton’s voice was low and reluctant and his eyes were dark.
I was trembling even before he spoke the words.
“Nearly an hour ago Leo discovered a brutalized supernatural girl in the trunk of his car. He is…” He looked away from my horrified gaze, gathered himself, and continued on. “He didn’t do it, Trinity.”
“Of course he didn’t do it.” I pulled on my boots, my hands shaking. “This is Darkness,” I murmured. “This is Safin cutting off little pieces of the ones we care about, just as he promised.” I stood, and looked at him. “This is Safin forcing our hands. Where is Rhys?”
He stared blankly over my head. “He left Bay Town to show himself far away from here. He hasn’t yet returned.” Finally, he met my eyes, and for an instant, he was the Clayton of old—Miriam’s Clayton—full of dark, scurrying things, crunchy, black torment, and most of all, a consuming hopelessness. “Darkness can win, Trinity.”
He loved Rhys. Their connection was unbreakable. And Clayton was completely terrified, and completely sure.
In the end, Darkness would take Rhys.
He would take him, because we would hand him over.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds. “I have to feed. I need Amias. Where the hell is the master?”
Something is wrong.
“I’m here,” Clayton said, then pulled me to him. “Feed.” He held his hand out to Shane. “Come here.”
And though Shane hesitated, he could not refuse Clayton’s offer. Not with Clayton raw and agonized and afraid. Shane was an asshole at times. He wasn’t a monster.
Not anymore.
I pulled back to look at Clayton. “The girl,” I whispered.
“Eat first,” he told me, and there was something in his eyes that told me I should do as he said.
I struck, and that was the first time since I’d turned that my feeding was methodical, clinical, and joyless. It was simply a necessity I couldn’t ignore, not if I wanted to burst from that room and tear up the night, which I would absolutely need to do.
Shane fed from Clayton’s other side, and we took only enough to get us through the next few hours. There was no time for anything else.
When I finished, Clayton put his fingers to his seeping wounds and there was no life in his eyes when he looked at me. “The girl is Angus’s Derry,” he said.
I pressed my fist against my teeth, unable to retract m
y fangs, unable, for a second, to function as the reality of his words sank in.
“Angus took her to the Deluge,” he told me, before I had to ask. “Jade Noel is with them.”
The healer was difficult and reclusive, but she would not turn away a child. Not ever.
Rhys was missing, Angus was shattered, and Amias was in trouble. The Bay Town supernatural children were in danger.
And I had a very bad feeling that the horror was just beginning.
I was abruptly and completely overwhelmed. I swayed on my feet, my fingers to my temples. “Shit,” I whispered. “Too much.”
I did the only thing that made sense.
I reached into the blackness inside me and I yanked my inner rifter to the surface. It was the only way I could make things right. There were things I had to do, and I couldn’t do them with worry, softness, or love.
I had to do them with rage.
When I straightened and opened my eyes, both Shane and Clayton recoiled.
“You’re a fucking nightmare,” Shane murmured.
I smiled and reached for Silverlight. “I’m about to become Mikhail Safin’s fucking nightmare. See if you can find the elder in Willow-Wisp. He’ll know where the master is. Do whatever he tells you to do. Clayton, make sure the children and the weak have been moved to the tunnels. Call upon the wolf pack to guard them.”
He turned and jogged from the room without another word.
I dropped my phone into my pocket and turned to Shane. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then I walked to him, took his face between my palms, and pressed my lips to his.
He didn’t shove me away.
He didn’t return my kiss or touch me or close his eyes, but he didn’t shove me away.
Baby steps.
I rushed from the basement and left the house, my mind on Mikhail Safin. I slowed once so I could call Frank Crawford.
I explained that Derry had been attacked and left for us to find, and that I couldn’t feel Amias.
That I was on my way to confront Darkness.
“Shit, Trinity,” he murmured, trying to absorb my words. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Where is he, Captain?”
“They hurt a child, Sinclair. I will be going after Mikhail Safin.”