“Gotta get my steps in,” she said cheerfully with a wave, pulling the door closed hard behind her. “Thanks!” she shouted through the glass, and then bolted up the stairs.
Andi threw herself out on the first floor, back at atrium level. No one, but no one, jogged in Dankso clogs. She walked purposefully over to a place where she’d be seen by cameras and security guards alike—not that it mattered if you had Forgetting Fire on your side, though, and reached for her phone.
She ought to call Damian. One of those men could’ve had something to do with Zach’s injury, and yet, the thought of calling him for him to be rude to her again made her want to crush her phone like a soda can and throw it against the wall.
Did she have to call him? Did she always have to be a good person and do the right thing? Why did being a decent human being feel like a punishment so much of the time? She groaned and then yanked her phone out of her pocket and dialed his number before she could convince herself otherwise.
Three rings…five…clearly, he’d gone from wanting his coat to wanting nothing to do with her, and then he picked up, with a gruff, “Andi?”
“Damian…that guy who hurt Zach…I—”
“Get off the fucking phone, sweetheart, and play with me,” purred a woman’s voice all too near the receiver.
“Cut that out,” Damian snapped.
“Come make me.”
There was a sound like a push and then a squeal of disapproval. “What is it, Andi? We’re busy.”
Andi stood stock still, staring at the phone. “Never mind,” she said and swiped her phone off.
Chapter 7
Damian could hear the gunshots as he ran up the sidewalk to the apartment complex. The tour bus was idling outside with Jamison waiting behind the wheel. Jamison waved at him as he ran past. Damian didn’t know what was happening inside. The wolves had gone radio silent, but he knew Mills would’ve told him if anything bad had happened to them. She kept tabs on everyone, via satellite or magically.
He took the stairs two by two until he reached the third flight and raced to where the woman’s apartment was. The smell of gunpowder was in the air. Where were the other people in the complex? Why wasn’t everyone peering out between their blinds? Were they so used to violence here that they were hunkered down behind couches?
How long did they have before the police got here, and shit got infinitely more complicated?
The door to the apartment was broken open, and Damian sidled through, his dragon at the ready. The frank scent of blood hit him in a wave—but whose?—and his dragon lunged up inside him, ready to take control.
“D!” a familiar voice hissed. It was Zach, waving him back frantically, standing near a couch that had a corpse on it. Zach’s white T-shirt was easy to see in the dark. “Slow your roll…this whole place is booby-trapped.”
“Where’s Austin?” Damian growled, standing in place.
“Clearing the next room,” Austin said, his voice echoing through a door.
“Then whose blood—” Damian began. It was hard to stay still when his dragon surged beneath his skin, aching for escape.
“A Hunter.” Zach flashed a green laser pointer over at the remnants of the dead man’s head on the couch. “This,” he said, lifting up the end of a filament, flashing the light through it to make it twinkle, “led back to that,” he said, gesturing at a trigger haired shotgun over the TV console. The Hunter had hit the trip wire walking past, and it’d been placed at exactly the right angle to take off the top of their skull. The man had gone flailing backward, where he landed on the couch like all he needed was a six-pack and for someone to turn the big game on.
“There were three more guns in the next room,” Austin said, returning through the doorway. “Two spent, and one that hadn’t been triggered yet.” He tossed a green laser pointer over to Damian, who caught it. “This is why you gear up, boys. There’s a hole in the drywall next door the Hunters went through. I scent at least three of them.”
“Anything on him?” Damian asked, jerking his chin at the corpse.
“No. He’s already been tossed.” Zach sniffed the air. “I know he had some bird talismans on him, but they’re not here anymore.”
Damian grunted. Either the Hunters stripped their own comrade of his talismans…or someone knowledgeable had.
“So, do we chase after them?” Austin asked Damian.
“Fuck, yes! She needs our help,” Zach said and took a step toward the bedroom door. Austin moved to block it and looked at Damian, as another shotgun sound ricocheted through the building, closely followed by a distant anguished scream.
“Does she, though?” Austin asked, brow rising.
“I thought you wanted to kill her,” Zach said, moving around him.
“I do,” Austin said, blocking his path again. “But I think your girlfriend hates Hunters as much as I do. So, let’s let her finish killing all of them first. She’s got flair.”
Zach growled and pushed forward. Damian clapped his shoulder with a hand to pull him back. “I don’t care how much we need the information. I’m not losing either of you.” He looked around with his draconic senses. “I doubt this was her end game if she went to the trouble of setting all of this up.”
Behind you! his dragon warned.
Damian whirled, as a woman’s voice said, “Smart man.”
Zach ran forward the second he saw her, and the woman leaped back with a snarl that stopped a surprised Zach in his tracks.
The blonde from the photos was pressed against the railing over the complex’s internal courtyard, one hand curled around the railing at her back, the other one holding a short metal bar. She was as small as Damian had pictured, a waif of a girl, all straight lines where Andi had curves, and her clothing was ripped and torn. All of her visible skin was covered in tattoos, but her perfectly made up doll-like face was in direct contrast with the punkness of the rest of her.
“Kit, I take it?” Damian asked her.
“I prefer Stella,” she corrected him.
The wind changed and blew in her scent like a physical object. He could see it affect Zach, and Damian watched her look between them, knowledge blossoming behind her eyes.
“You’re the one I talked to. You smell like him, even if you don’t look like him anymore. Which means you’re the one I was paid to stab,” she said, her eyes focusing on Damian, as she, too, inhaled. Then she looked disapprovingly back at Zach. “I can’t believe I thought The Damian Blackwood was a piece of Wind Racer trash. Goes to show you can’t believe everything you read.”
Damian took a menacing step forward. “Who paid you?”
“And why should I answer your questions, big boy?” She swung a leg up over the railing, a smile teasing across her red, red lips.
“Because you enjoy life,” Damian said, his tone thick with warning.
“Do I, though?” She tilted her head and batted her mascara-covered lashes at him. She waved the metal bar she held. “I’ve got this whole place wired. See you outside in ten or in hell…whichever comes first.” She swung her other leg over the railing and dropped into the central courtyard below.
The three of them rushed forward and looked down in time to see her land and scamper toward the exit.
“She’s got to be joking,” Austin said.
“And if she’s not?” Damian asked.
“Start running!” Zach shouted and led the way.
Damian trailed half-a-step after the two werewolves, trying to keep himself between them and any blast. He was harder to kill than they were, and at the rate his dragon was seething below his skin, he could be covered in scales in an instant and shield them with his wings. They ran out the same exit the woman had taken, only to find her there waiting for them, laughing.
“Oh my gosh! You should see the looks on your faces!” she said.
“What kind of fucking game are you playing?” Austin advanced on her.
“I thought you liked my flair?” Stella mocked him as she
danced farther back.
“I can like your style and still want to murder you, Starry Sky.” Austin reached for the knife strapped to his thigh.
“You’ll have to go through me.” Zach lunged in front of him, but she stepped out from behind him.
“Your urge to protect me is entirely misplaced,” she tsked as the sound of something breaking came from the apartment complex. Like someone was twisting away a dead branch, followed by a moment of silence and then the building behind all of them imploded, falling in on itself like a house of cards. Glass broke and cement crashed and a choking white powder billowed out like someone had punched a giant bag of icing sugar. Damian could taste the sudden grit in his throat.
“What the absolute fuck!” Damian swooped Stella up faster than she could dodge and held her up off the ground. Her eyes grew large as she tried to free herself and failed. “Were there people in there? Did you kill them?”
“Just Hunters!” she shouted at him. “Let go of me.”
“How the fuck do you know!” He barely resisted the urge to shake her.
“Because everyone else was dead or gone already!” she shouted back at him.
Damian looked past her at the row of run-down houses surrounding the bombed apartment complex, where surprised people were stumbling out and pointing at the rubble, phones out and ready.
“Boys? Boys, are you okay?” Mills’s voice crackled into Damian’s ear. “D, tell me everyone’s all right. Something’s clouding the images; the satellites can’t see you. What the fuck happened?”
“We’re fine, Mills,” Zach said, glaring at Damian. “Keep Stella safe. I’m going to go guesstimate how big a perimeter we need to hit with the Fire. Mills, disrupt the local communications for a few blocks, please.” He turned around and took off running.
“Tell Max to come in with lanterns blazing, Mills,” Damian added. He put the woman he held down slowly like she too were a bomb that might explode. “Psychopath,” he muttered.
“Very,” Stella spat as Austin circled her, waiting for his chance.
“Behave or else,” he warned Austin, and his phone rang. He knew who it had to be as he pulled it out. Andi. And now was not the time. He flipped the call on, thinking about everything they were going to have to do to contain this mess. It was worse than the hospital. “Andi?”
“Damian…that guy who hurt Zach…I—” Andi began talking quickly.
Go to her, his dragon urged him, thrilled to hear her voice again, hanging on every word. Now!
Damian grit his teeth and wrestled it back as Stella leaned in, only she was now holding knives. “Get off the fucking phone, sweetheart, and play with me.”
“Cut that out,” Damian snapped at both of them.
“Come make me,” Stella taunted.
Austin took a step forward, and Stella bounded back into Damian. He pushed her back upright as she squealed in disapproval. Damian’s hands were full here. They needed to cover this shit up, then interrogate this frankly psychotic woman. “What is it, Andi? We’re busy.”
“Never mind,” she said and hung up on him.
“Goddammit,” he growled. He shoved the phone back into his pocket as Jamison ran up, carrying the armature for his ridiculously large weapon. Damian flagged him back. “We’re okay—”
“No, you’re not!” Jamison shouted, hurriedly strapping himself into the weapon’s harness. “A massive rift’s about to open!”
“Fucking liar,” Stella said, using Damian to keep out of Austin’s range.
Damian’s attention focused on Jamison laser-tight as he ignored her. “Can you keep it closed?”
“Not when something's already coming through.” He hit the charging button on the gun he’d strapped himself into, and it began to whine. “Move out of the way, please,” he asked Stella as she got into his face.
“No. This is some kind of a joke.” Stella looked from man to man, hoping to find a sign. “Rifts are shit your parents tell you about, so you don’t sneak out…like the bogeyman. They aren’t real. There aren’t other worlds out there. There’s only this one, and this one sucks.”
Damian leaned down to meet her eyes with his own. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Many of the other worlds suck too,” he said, then turned back to Jamison. “How high up?”
“Forty feet. It’ll open just under the moon there,” he said, pointing up, as Zach returned, cupping his earpiece.
“Mills, media blackout for at least half a mile in all directions, and keep it up until we’re through.”
“Will do,” Mills agreed.
Zach made a shoving motion at Stella. “You need to go.”
“Like hell, I will,” Stella said, standing her ground.
Zach unholstered his weapon and joined Jamison’s line, casting a glance back at her. “I lied to you once, yes, but I’m not lying now. I want you to be safe, Starry Sky. Run away.”
“Take the win, girl,” Austin told her. “I’ll see your blood some other time.” He’d re-sheathed his knife and had his own gun out, standing tense, training it up at a square of sky.
“No,” Damian countermanded both of them. “You owe us. Go do some fucking crowd control. Get your neighbors the fuck back.”
Stella looked between all of them and didn’t budge an inch.
There was a silver flash in the sky forty feet up, exactly where Jamison said it’d be. It was like the darkness below the moon was a piece of fabric, and something from the other side was beginning to cut through with a knife.
“You getting this, Mills?” Jamison asked his earpiece.
“I’ve been harvesting data since you were in short pants,” she responded into all of their ears. “I’ll let you know what you’re facing when I can.”
Damian grunted for all of them. That was the thing with rifts—you never knew what was on the other side. It could be something as trivial as a poof of magic that made people think a location was haunted for the next hundred years, or it could release a monster that man’s mind wasn’t strong enough to comprehend. Something that lusted for flesh, blood, or bones, something so greasy and magically-alien that human eyes could only comprehend it as deep shadow and a sick sensation in their gut.
The silver tear opened wider and started to spin as whichever Realm pressed against the Earth’s non-magical barriers began to join. Colors flared like so many fireworks as magic and non-magic met, and things that Ought Not Be on Earth began to breach. The silver thinned like the head of a drum and then a tentacle the circumference of a child’s sandbox slowly pierced it and slid through, unspooling in a rush like a chameleon’s tongue.
Just one thick, fat tentacle, the length of seven or eight train cars, covered in slime and suckers.
“Saint fuck,” Zach said as it batted through the rubble of the apartment complex, questing for purchase. If Stella hadn’t imploded the complex, this would’ve done just the same.
“If that’s only an arm, what the hell is on the other side?” Austin asked.
“Move your neighbors…now!” Damian growled at Stella, and she finally raced off to do as she’d been told. Then he stepped back and announced, “Changing,” giving his dragon room.
“No! Wait…this is perfect!” Jamison said the only one who sounded enthused. He hit the button at his hip, and the gun attached to his shoulder gave off a blue glow. “I’m trying out different metals…I want to make it—”
“Science later, guns now,” Damian said, not taking his eyes off it.
“Don’t laser the moon,” Austin snarked.
Jamison braced himself, held the weapon up, and a ray of blue shot out, just over the top of the tentacle, then he sliced down.
Smoke billowed out where the laser touched the tentacle’s skin. The creature made an unholy sound, and the tentacle began to thrash, throwing chunks of concrete and trees around, until the laser stopped and Jamison shouted, “Charging!”
“My turn,” Damian warned them all and ran forward.
Free! his drago
n howled as he let it take him. He was not just his human self anymore; he was just a small part of a sixty-foot-long, particularly violent creature. His skin was replaced by hardened scales, his fingers by claws and talons, and two wings as huge as schooner sails erupted from his back. He spread his wings and launched into the sky, roaring his discontent.
Watch out for the laser! Damian warned as the beast swept up.
Human magic, his dragon sniffed derisively, but it banked and beat its wings to hover overhead.
From above, the tentacle looked even more like a tongue. His dragon lunged for it, claws out, and caught into the meat in the middle, pulling it up off the ground with strong, sure beats of its wings.
“Yo, D, keep it there!” Jamison shouted from below, as the laser began cutting the base again. The thing that Damian held thrashed. It was pure muscle, and it was pissed. His dragon opened his mouth, and white-hot fire shot out, blistering the tentacle’s skin. He could hear the watching humans shouting about him in between breaths of fire, and his dragon gloried in their awe.
When was the last time he’d ever gotten to burn anything? Damian wondered. On Earth, he hardly ever got to fly….
Feels good, his dragon purred, relishing the wrestling, the violence, the fire, the fear. The scent of burning meat and the excited and horrified screams of those watching below. He wanted to turn to see if Stella had listened to him, but he couldn’t be distracted now. He could only hope she had.
His dragon beat his wings harder, hoisting more of the tentacle aloft.
Don’t pull anymore through the gate! Damian warned.
More to fight, more to kill, his dragon muttered. Jamison’s blue light stopped, and his dragon kept tugging. He was going to rip it apart where the laser cut was – he inhaled deeply and released another gout of flame. The stench of burning flesh was even stronger now, mixed with the ozone scent of Jamison’s laser, and Damian could see the combination of their fires working through the tentacle’s flesh. The piece he held began to sag as gravity started to take it down. His dragon dropped it just in time as Jamison finished his cut, letting it fall into the apartment complex’s rubble where it squirmed around like a pulled lizard’s tail.
Dragon Destined: Billionaire Dragon Shifter Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds) Page 8
