by Riley Storm
“I see,” Olivia said in a voice that indicated the exact opposite. “Is this another strange dragon power of yours?”
“Not one I’m aware of,” he admitted. “But we always have been different from the other shifters out there. Slightly more magical and pulled to the earth and its own forces. This could be part of that, I really don’t know, I’m sorry. I don’t have anyone to ask. But I’m now confident I wasn’t delusional.”
“Why?” she wanted to know.
“Because your vampire friend so obviously wanted to get his hands on it as well. Why? What use could he have for this property? Unless there was a reason, something I missed. Something is there.”
“You think that area is important to the vampires?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t see how it couldn’t be,” he said with a shrug. “Going by how badly he wanted it. Do you really believe he was doing that just to fuck with me? Because I don’t. Especially if he doesn’t know I’m the one who bought it.”
“I never told him,” Olivia said hotly.
“That’s not what I meant. I just mean, he might not be aware the dragons are back.” He frowned. “That I’m back.”
“They’re going to be sorry when they find out,” she said fiercely.
Aaric smiled. He appreciated the confidence she had in him, in his ability to handle this problem.
“One question for you though. Semi-related.”
“Go for it. If I can answer it, I will,” he assured her.
“Why did you buy the property in the first place? What do you need it for?” Olivia wanted to know, taking her eyes off the road to look over at him as she spoke.
“That part’s easy,” he chuckled. “It’s going to be the home of the Drakon Family Outreach Center.”
“Uh.” Olivia frowned at him.
“What?” He took his eyes off the road to meet her gaze, confused by the lack of a response.
“That sounds great, but like, what does that mean?” she asked.
“Dragons exist to protect this planet,” he said quietly, staring straight ahead once more, watching the road but also lost in thought. “That is our purpose. To safeguard it and its contents, namely, humanity. We hold ourselves above other shifters in that regard.”
“Okay…I still don’t get it.”
He smiled. “To protect the planet, Liv, we need to understand the planet. To know it. This will be how I—and my people, as they awaken—get to know the people of this century. Of this millennium,” he added, realizing they’d crossed into the second millennium while he was sleeping. “So we know who it is we’re protecting.”
“That sounds very noble of you.”
“I hope that’s how it turns out as well,” he replied, smiling at the vision in his head. “Nobody will know what we truly are, but it won’t matter. We will help them all.”
“Do you think the vampires want to build their own outreach center instead?” Olivia asked, dumping cold water all over his imagination.
He shot her a mock glare. “More like a blood donor clinic,” he muttered.
“So, vampires actually do suck your blood out? That’s a real thing?”
He smiled tightly. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
Olivia shuddered next to him, her hand seeking out his, holding it tight. “Ew.”
They drove on in silence until he pulled into the entrance of the factory. There, they got out, Aaric lamenting having to let go of her hand. He liked having her close. It felt…good.
“So, where to?” she asked, gesturing at the half-collapsed building where the fire had been.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “Let’s start at one side and work our way over?”
“Lead on,” Olivia said, waving her arm. “Let’s get this over with.”
Aaric suppressed a shiver. He doubted it would be that easy.
At least Olivia is here where I know she’s safe. Where I can protect her. I’d be worried sick if she were back at the Keep, out of sight.
Together, they headed to the factory floor to begin their investigation. His senses were on high alert, but so far nothing was reaching out to him, no internal alarms going off.
Chapter 30
“That doesn’t belong.”
She lifted an arm and pointed at a wall.
“It’s a wall,” Aaric said. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Yeah. It’s a wall where there shouldn’t be one. We’ve walked around in a circle,” she said. “A square, I guess. The other three sides are all walls as well. Plus, look, it’s too clean. The rest of this place is dirty.”
“It’s dirty too,” Aaric said, but he shuffled closer, nonetheless.
“Not the right type of dirty,” she said. “I wouldn’t have noticed it if I weren’t looking for suspicious things but come on.”
“I guess,” he said doubtfully, but he went up to it anyway, reaching out to knock very lightly on the cinderblock.
They both straightened. The sound his knuckles made wasn’t anything that would come off cinderblock, but that wasn’t all.
It was hollow.
“I think we found it,” Aaric hissed at her, and she backed away from the wall, leaving space for him to do whatever he needed if things went wrong.
Demonstrating a casual strength she would never understand, Aaric straightened his fingers and simply pushed them through the wall. Mortar and paper fell away, revealing the entire wall was just a plaster cast made to look like the real thing.
A few more rips, and Aaric had created a man-sized hole. Olivia tensed, but nothing came flying out at them. No alarms sounded, nothing dangerous went off. In fact, nothing at all happened except the dust stirred up by Aaric’s actions settled to the floor.
“I’m going in,” he announced.
Olivia dashed forward to try and stop him but it was too late; he disappeared through the wall.
“Shit,” she muttered unhappily, before plunging in after him.
It might be dangerous to follow, but there was no way in hell she was going to stay behind in the creepy abandoned factory. Not on her own. Aaric was a dragon shifter, and being with him was the safest place to be, she figured.
A circular stairway loomed before them. Faint yellow light lit the walls, providing just enough illumination to see with. Aaric and Olivia exchanged glances. She nodded, and, with the dragon shifter in the lead, they descended.
The metal rungs were firm and secured. Nothing was loose, no squeaky noises. Whoever had installed this had built it to last.
The pair went down, and down, until she started to get dizzy from all the turning to the right.
“How far down do you think we are?” she asked in the quietest voice she could muster.
“Far,” Aaric said. “Very far.”
“What is this place?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just don’t know. But I intend to find out.”
They plunged ahead again but in a very short order, the stairs stopped and leveled out. A tunnel lay before them, hollowed from the very earth around them by tools man had not used in centuries. Wherever they were going, it was old. Very old.
“I don’t like this one bit,” she muttered. “Something feels wrong here. Very wrong.”
“I agree.” But Aaric kept moving forward.
She followed but the sense of wrongness continued to grow stronger until her skin seemed to crawl.
“Aaric,” she complained another twenty steps later. “This place isn’t right.”
But Aaric didn’t answer. She reached out to touch his shoulder but saw his arm go up first, barely visible in the faint light. Olivia realized abruptly that there were no more lights on the wall. It was Aaric that was generating the light for her to see by.
Dragons have all the coolest powers.
Her thoughts were cut off as Aaric whirled to face her. “Run.”
The single word chilled her to the bone and she started backpedaling before thinking to ask.
“Why?” she
wanted to know. Aaric was coming with her.
“Thralls,” he growled. “Lots of them.”
“More?” she moaned. “I thought you dealt with them?”
He shook his head, his skin continuing to grow brighter. Behind him, she could hear noises in the tunnel now, following them.
“It’s not that unusual,” Aaric said, his pupils lining with the brightest golden light yet. “Lower-level vamps will have a dozen or two. Their strongest will have hundreds.”
Hundreds? she thought miserably. How were they supposed to deal with that?
“We’re not going to outrun them,” Aaric said. “They’re too fast now. You need to go. I’ll deal with them.”
“What?” she yelped, forgetting to whisper for the moment. “No, Aaric. You can’t.”
“I can,” he hissed. “And I will. It’s the only way. Get to the vehicle,” he said, pushing the keys into her hand. “drive back to the Keep. Francis will look after you. I’ll meet up with you later.”
“But the Thralls,” she protested.
“I can handle them,” he assured her. “But not if I have to watch out for you too. So, go. Now! Let me do what I do best.”
She gasped as his skin became translucent, revealing small versions of his scales below the surface.
“Go!” he shouted at her, his voice deepening, taking on a non-human timbre.
Olivia took one last look at him and fled back up the tunnel. She reached the stairs and started climbing. Her first instinct was to run as fast as she could up the twisting staircase, but if she got too dizzy, she would fall.
Not to mention how far up she had to climb. It was important to conserve her strength. Up and up she went, the walls twisting around her. They began to blur together, but Olivia didn’t stop, didn’t slow down.
She had to reach the surface, to escape.
Far below, she heard a roar. That could only be Aaric. But was that a battle cry? Or one of pain? What was going on down there? She hated not knowing.
At some point, she finally reached the top of the staircase, dragging herself up the last few steps. Her breath came in short gasps, sweat falling from her brow and pooling up in other uncomfortable places. But she’d made it.
She was on the surface.
So why don’t I feel any safer?
A shiver ran down her spine, chilling the sweat there instantly. Looking around wildly, she tried to see who was watching her.
“Hello?” she called, tentatively taking a step out into the hallway beyond the ripped-up wall that concealed the stairwell. “Is anyone there?”
She was greeted with nothing but silence.
Chapter 31
Aaric backed up toward the stairwell a step at a time. In the darkness beyond, his eyes began to pick up movement. The Thralls were coming. He readied himself for their attack. This was the part he hated the most.
These creatures, they were human still. If he could kill the vampire, they would be set free. None of them knew what they were doing was wrong, they just felt compelled to act as their master wished.
Which meant he couldn’t kill them.
The same, unfortunately, did not apply to the Thralls. They would have no issues cutting him down and dismembering him, killing him completely.
He was going to have to be very precise in his attacks. Disabling, debilitating strikes. Not fatal. It would take more out of him, more effort and focus. If these were something else, he would simply burn the tunnel until the rock began to melt. It would be that easy.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. On top of that, Aaric had no idea if the vampire was concealed among the Thralls, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
As if all that wasn’t enough, there was his concern about just what the vampire had found down in these tunnels. Was it still there? What was the purpose? He needed to try and find out, if at all possible.
If he did that, however, he exposed Olivia to further danger. That was something he simply could not abide.
His choice was clear, now that all options had been considered. Hold off the Thralls until he estimated Olivia was clear to the car. Join her and return to the Keep and safety. In the morning, he could return to the property alone and explore without having to worry about Olivia.
You’re doing a lot of worrying about her, aren’t you? About someone who is just a distraction?
Aaric shook the thought free as the first of the Thralls came rushing at him. He ducked under a wild swing, an elbow flicking out to crack ribs and send the thrall crashing to the floor behind him.
There was no time to think about it from there. They came in a mob, nearly two dozen of them at once. If that’s all there is, it means it’s just a low-level vampire, thank goodness.
Aaric had been fearful he was up against someone stronger. An elder vampire would likely have spelled his doom, especially down here in the confined tunnel where he couldn’t use his powers to their full extent.
Something slammed into his back and Aaric grunted in surprise. Rolling with the blow, he came up in a half-spin to his feet, facing the other direction. His attacker held a length of pipe.
That’s going to leave a bruise.
Angrily, Aaric lashed out with his right hand. A brilliant white spark shot across the distance and impacted on the weapon. The intense fire responded to Aaric’s control and spread across the pipe. The metal began to glow orange and the Thrall abruptly dropped it, his palm turning red and blistering.
Still there was no sound. That was the eerie part of it all. The fight was being conducted in near total silence, aside from wuffs of air as people flung punches and kicks at him, and the sound of bodies as they hit the ground, the walls, the ceiling, and often as not, each other.
Aaric was a whirlwind darting through, under and over, striking faster than the Thralls could respond. He was surgical in his attacks. Broken bones, snapped knees, cautious blows to the head. None of the Thralls died, though many would need recovery from their injuries before they would be useful again.
In short order, he was the only one standing, the Thralls laying around him mostly unconscious, a few struggling to get up, to come after him, but unable as their bodies refused to respond.
Taking a deep breath, Aaric looked down the tunnel, wishing he could go in after them, but knowing his priorities were with Olivia. By now, she’d be at the car, waiting for him. He could all but imagine the sound of the horn going off furiously.
He retreated to the circular staircase, standing in the middle of it, looking up.
“Sorry, boys,” he muttered. “It’s about to get warm in here.”
Thrusting his palms downward and out to the side, condensed fire appeared in each of his hands, and a moment later, shot outward. His boots exploded as more flame licked out from his feet.
And some people think I’m just good for lighting a fire, he thought as he rose on a plume of orange flame.
Fire was the result of combustion. Enough combustion produced energy. Direct that energy away from him and in enough strength, and it would counter the force of that annoying thing called gravity.
Aaric soared up through the center of the staircase, reaching the ceiling and simply plowing right through. If he got lucky, a stray ray of UV in the morning would plunge straight down and burn the vamp. Otherwise, the building was going to be demolished, so what did he care about another hole?
He emerged over the roof, angled his body to the car and then extinguished the fire, dropping to one knee to absorb the impact as concrete and other debris crunched underneath his weight.
“Olivia,” he called, striding toward the car, looking around the abandoned factory just in case they weren’t out of it yet. “Start it up.”
There was no response. Frowning, he looked at the car.
It was empty.
“Olivia!” he barked, whirling. Where was she? Had she waited in the factory instead?
The sun was nearly down, and in a short while, it would be the vampires’ turn to
come out and play. Aaric wasn’t ready to face such a powerful foe. Not yet. He needed to get back to the Keep and do some research, arm himself with a few tools that could help tilt the field in his direction. But first, he needed to find his woman.
“Olivia!” he called again, fighting back stress and fear.
There was a rustle of sound behind him. Aaric spun, dropping to one knee, balls of blue-white fire appearing in his hands in the blink of an eye. He sagged as the source of the sound revealed itself.
Olivia darted out from a doorway and ran across the open ground to him. He swept her up into a hug, continuing to back toward the car, not wanting to waste any time.
“Where were you?” he wanted to know. “I was worried sick.”
“I’m okay,” she said, throwing her head against his chest, staying close. “I’m fine, I promise.”
He nodded and got to the car door. “Get in, let’s go.”
“Right. Um. You drive.”
Aaric didn’t argue, he just opened the door and waited for her to hop across the seat to the passenger side before climbing in. The door closed and he fired up the engine. It was all taking too long. The vamp was going to attack at any second, he could feel it. They needed to go.
The big SUV rumbled out onto the street and picked up speed. Now he was wishing fervently that he’d brought one of his sports cars. The extra speed would have been appreciated and—
“What are you doing?” he growled as Olivia leaned across the seat and began to fiddle with his pants.
“I just need it,” she said, undoing his zipper, her other hand stroking his cock through the pants. “Now. In my mouth.”
Aaric frowned. He knew humans often responded to life or death situations with heightened arousal, but this was on another level.
“I’m not sure now is the right time,” he said, shifting uncomfortably as she pulled his dick out and started sucking on it.
“Come on,” she said, mouth full. “It’s fine. We’re safe.”
“This is too weird. No. Maybe later,” he said, as much to try and get her to stop as anything. “I need to focus on driving.”
