He eyed Henrik, who eyed him back as a quiet understanding passed between them.
Henrik nodded. “Then you know what to do.”
Another brief discussion, and Henrik parted with the promise of keeping Dylan and the others at bay. With a grim nod, Robbie took Sophia's hand and squeezed.
“We'll get your father.”
Whether his feelings for the vampire head who'd abandoned his daughter remained pleasant was yet to be seen, but he hoped he would have enough time to find out.
For the woman he loved, he would pretty much be damn pleasant with all the villains in the world.
Robbie allowed himself one last look at the fierce woman standing beside him, who stole his heart like the witch she was and gave it light again the moment she'd revived him with her blood and compassion.
And yeah, her kisses.
He squeezed her hand once more, hoping they’d both still be intact by the end of all this.
And he hoped for Sophia's sake that the vampire leader – her father – was still alive.
*****
Sophia had a plan, and it was a damn insane one.
They arrived inside the vampire headquarters via a quiet journey through one of the mansion's most secret passages, with Sophia's concealment spell keeping them invisible. They reached the inside of the place in no time, only to find the same chaos taking place – only in this scenario, it was violent shifters attacking the vampires and taking them down one by one. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him – that of making each clan think the other had attacked, and retaliating in the future just as Dylan had announced.
Fucking asshole who did this needed to be ripped to pieces.
There was blood everywhere – only it was a different sort of blood, tainted and cold, and making Robbie's hair stand on end as the vampires killed their attackers more calculatedly and quietly than the shifters.
But, surprisingly, with the same accuracy.
Sophia did her best to ignore the fight, her stride purposeful as she passed hall after hall littered with battles and headed straight for John's supposed study room. The place was heavily guarded, just like the shifter headquarters’ safe room, but Sophia easily slipped through with a few chosen spells. She entered without hesitation, her face a cold mask of determination. Robbie expected to find John heavily sedated, or heavily guarded, because the vampire was the most powerful vampire there was at the moment.
Instead, what they found was the vampire leader dead in the middle of room, hanging by his head from the chandelier with his chest torn open and every limb torn apart.
Sophia vomited in place, rendering her concealment gone and keeping only Robbie's.
Killian smiled at her entrance, John's heart in his hand.
From the side, sitting down on the couch, Mya mirrored the vampire's smile.
And Sophia simply turned…blank.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The grief was overwhelming in its intensity – so dark, so stark, it threatened to drown out whatever common sense she had until all that were left were rage and the need to destroy. Her hatred for the vampire in front of her amplified – a ball of emotion growing bigger and bigger inside her.
Killian smiled, aware and waiting.
From his concealed spot, she felt Robbie, also waiting.
The thought of the dragon shifter was like an anchor. She found herself pulling, until her state of panic slowly vanished, followed by a mask of calm.
In that moment of calm, Sophia did a couple of things.
First, she pulled at the magic inside her and wrapped it around Robbie, intent on keeping him in place and safe from whatever Killian was planning to do.
I have a plan too, you idiot.
Only it wasn't necessarily a good plan.
Next, she kept a little bit for herself, an invisible protection just in case.
Lastly, she observed the woman sitting on the couch – an unfamiliar face, but with lots of power, judging from the magic emitting out of her vibrating skin. Sophia deduced she could take on the witch – that is, if said witch wasn’t trying to hide any more reserves.
She didn’t seem the type, judging from the arrogant smirk.
But if she did hide some…then Sophia was probably going to die trying to fight her.
The thought washed over her for a quick second. Then she let it go and turned her gaze back to Killian.
“So what exactly is your plan?” Sophia asked quietly.
Killian’s smile didn’t cease at her words, instead growing wider as he leaned closer – not a step near, and yet she felt his presence suffocate her thoroughly. That he could have that kind of power made her nervous, though she tried to fight it.
“I was planning for you to be dead, for a start,” Killian replied mildly. “But then this is better, isn't it? You get to see your father die, I will take his place...and then you get to die with that knowledge.”
The clichéd words made Sophia want to...laugh, for some reason. Not such a good idea, really, but his words felt so cruel and childish – and all because the vampire wanted to be head. She tried not to snarl, and instead smiled at him in return.
The key was to keep him talking.
And to be as cool as possible.
“But you attacked the headquarters,” Sophia said matter-of-factly. “Meaning they're going to retaliate, eventually. Not such a perfect plan, is it?”
The vampire's upper lip curled. “They won't be able to. I will exterminate them for the pests they are.”
That was his elaborate scheme? And here Sophia thought he was planning to pin it all on John and play the savior.
Her fearful impression of the dangerous, conniving Killian lowered down a notch, and he just became Killian again in her eyes.
Still dangerous, though.
“And then what's the plan after that?” she asked, keeping her tone light. “How are you planning to defeat them?”
She might have imagined it, but she thought she saw a flash at the corner of her eye. Her heart skipped, and she willed it to regulate.
The office looked the same, not a thing taken or touched. It felt the same, too.
“I have the means,” Killian responded.
The means – meaning whatever the heck it was he’d plunged into her system. What was it that Dylan said?
Vampire blood and magic.
His blood, the witch’s magic.
Sophia felt it thrum in her body, buried deep inside and putting up a fight with her own brand of magic. In the process, her killer instincts clawed to get out, demanding blood. In panic, she tamped it down and tried to play dumb.
“Which means?”
“She's stalling you, Killian.”
The interruption came from the witch, and it turned Sophia’s attention to her. Very pretty woman, with a voice that reminded Sophia of snakes in a nectar pit – sweet and deadly. The woman stood up, her curvaceous body moving in a seductive rhythm. Then she turned to Killian. “Can I play with her now, like you promised?”
Killian nodded. “Like I said, Sophia, you were supposed to be dead or violent. Not this civil, little thing in front of me. How you survived is beyond me, and I did promise the lovely lady here that she could experiment with you.”
The witch smiled. “And Killian always keeps his promises.”
And before Sophia could do anything, all hell broke loose.
Pain slammed into her body like a boulder crushing a tin can, and it rendered her speechless as she felt her bones pop one by one. She felt a scream rip out, but couldn’t connect it to herself as her ears had gone deaf from any kind of sound. She felt the magic leave her, saw Robbie appear right before her eyes, the concealment spell gone. He leapt straight at Killian, green eyes blazing with fury. As if in slow motion, Sophia saw Killian step to the side before flicking his own strength at Robbie. The dragon shifter – her dragon shifter – was thrown against the wall, and the wall cracked.
Hell, no.
Refusing to give
in, Sophia threw out her own power one more time, feeling a huge wave flowing out of her in a blinding rush.
Then pain crushed her again, and her vision went black.
It felt like a lifetime, but Sophia returned back to consciousness in less than a minute. The vision of Robbie’s face hovering over hers sent relief crashing inside her, and she smiled up at him. Then she grimaced at the pain smiling took.
“I really should stop passing out,” she muttered. “It's getting embarrassing.”
Robbie, who was busy examining her head for any sort of damage, told her to shut up and just lie down and let him hold her. He tried to cradle her head, and she ended up snorting. The action gave her a pounding headache. Robbie growled and ordered her to relax.
Of course, she took that as a signal to sit up straight, ignoring his protests and moving her head to take a look around.
Killian was dead, very dead on the floor, with his own heart torn out. The witch was nowhere in sight, and—
Oh, my God.
Lucinda was standing right beside Killian’s body, his heart in her delicate hand.
Lucinda, who was third in line.
Lucinda, who was part of her stupid plan – and who she didn’t expect to even show up at all.
Instantly, Sophia shot straight up into standing position, grabbing Robbie’s arm for support as she did so. To her relief, there were no crushed bones, only aching muscles – everything the witch had thrown at her was mental, and she was absolutely fine.
The relief was instantaneous.
And boy, that witch was so going to be dead. Soon.
But there was no time to dwell over it yet, because a vampire was still in front of them. Sophia had been the one to initiate contact with Lucinda, a missive telling the vampire exactly what was going on and what kind of help she needed. That was before they’d left shifter headquarters – an hour or two ago, with no response at all.
It had been a blind leap of trust, and she half expected Lucinda to side with Killian – or at least to side with no one and wait out the outcome from the sidelines.
Cautiously, Sophia took the first shot by politely acknowledging the other’s presence with a nod. “Thank you.”
Lucinda shrugged her shoulders, the movement fluid and elegant. She was covered in blood except for her face – icy in its perfection and absent of any red stain.
“It was your doing, Sophia,” was the vampire’s placid reply. “I just ripped out his heart while he was down.”
Sophia absorbed her words and felt the shock of them a second later, turning to Robbie for confirmation. Not taking his watchful eyes from the vampire, his palm slid along her back as he nodded shortly. “Your magic knocked him down, Soph.”
“Oh.”
Not so weak after all. She filed that away for future assessment and turned back to the female vampire.
“So you heard everything?”
Lucinda nodded. “Every single word.”
The flash of…something hadn’t been her imagination, then. It was Lucinda on the move, absolutely lethal in her stealth. “Hmm.”
“It means I’m now the clan leader.”
“Good.”
“Although…you can be leader, since you’re his daughter. You know how it goes.”
She did know how it went, and the thought wasn’t exactly pleasant.
“I’m half,” she corrected.
“You still know how it goes, Sophia.”
“Fight to the death,” Sophia murmured. Behind her, she felt Robbie tense at the declaration.
Lucinda remained silent and still, waiting for her response.
Whatever her answer was, it was going to be another risk; she knew that. As diplomatically as she could, Sophia treaded the murky waters. “If I recede, will you keep the truce with the shifters intact?”
Silence.
Then Lucinda tilted her head and smiled beautifully. “Only if you two leave the house undetected in exactly five minutes.”
Good. Heck, not just good. Great.
The female vampire could have all of it.
Sophia didn’t let herself think twice as she allowed Robbie to drag her off.
*****
There were so many things to do – and so many feelings to ride out – as the days went on.
The death count alone was astonishing – not just on the shifter and vampire side, but the rogues that came in hundreds and didn’t survive the night. Both warring clans hunted them all down until those left ran away and never returned, and both clans cleaned up the aftermath in a silent truce as the truth finally came out.
An alert went out for the missing witch – the one they said was Mya – who had betrayed both sides for money and power. The same alert went out for any other accomplice Killian might have had, because nobody knew what spell was at work that made the creatures violent. Mya was the key, and perhaps her accomplices, and they needed to be found to be stopped from making it happen again.
Because it was going to happen again, no doubt about that. Mya just needed another ally to start the madness.
Henrik announced that he was back for good. It was a decision that mostly everyone was relieved about as he took the rightful throne to dragon leadership, with Robbie finally stepping down. Apparently, Henrik still planned to live in Africa, and that was fine with everybody as long as he showed up on the council meeting and had a portal ready for emergencies wherever he chose to reside.
A separate burial was given for Jack, former jaguar clan leader and Dylan’s right hand – then, a call for his rightful replacement in both roles. Sophia didn’t know him well, but she grieved for him all the same as she knew he was the one who’d found her when she’d turned – and his decision to take her alive instead of kill her saved her life.
Kind, honorable creatures like him deserved to be grieved.
Lucinda’s clan had their own honoring ritual for John’s remains, held at the mansion. Honored dead vampires were often burned, their ashes spread on untouched soil just before the sun rose up. Sophia was not invited, and she spent that day locked up in her temporary room in the shifter headquarters. Robbie had stayed with her, keeping her warm in his arms as she mourned in silence and tried to heal in peace.
It was going to be a long healing process, and she wasn’t quite ready for it to end. But Sophia realized a lot of things.
She realized Robbie had been with her the whole time, unending in his support and unfailing in his watch.
She realized he’d been strong for her, but hadn’t fought her battles for her – somehow, ultimately, he knew she had to fight them herself.
She realized she loved him all the more for it all. For everything.
And she was an absolute idiot if she didn’t tell him – or worse, if she stayed with her original plan and let him go.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
Ever.
So Sophia said it one night, when the chaos was somewhat behind them and the stars were shining brightly in the sky. They were on the headquarters' roof deck with wine and a picnic blanket (and lots of food, of course), and it was the most romantic moment that they were ever going to get in this busy, crazy city.
Robbie had a home in Scotland, and he could finally return there, free from the burden of having to be near a portal. But no, that wasn’t the place to say her feelings.
She had to say it here, in New York. Where they met and almost died – and kept each other alive.
“So. I love you, you know.”
Robbie, who was behind her and had his arms around her as they watched the night sky, tensed. Then he growled. Then he grew hard, poking at her back and making her almost laugh. She tried to stifle it, and he continued growling.
“Not funny,” he said.
“I wasn’t joking,” she shot back. Then she laughed.
Silence followed. Then he spoke, his voice intimate and low.
“I was supposed to say it first, you know.”
Sophia smiled. “Then say it, idiot
.”
“I damn well love you and if you leave, I’m going to damn well follow you, no matter where you go.”
It was such a macho, rude, and stupid statement.
With a grin, Sophia turned around and kissed the dragon shifter – her mate – and promised him she would do the same.
*****
THE END
Dragon – Finn – Book 2
PROLOGUE
They acted like the oldest of friends, was Francesca’s first thought when she saw them.
Two women, sitting in a shadowed corner of the club—one lean and average in height, the other short and voluptuous in all the right places. Their heads were close together, and from Francesca’s sharp ears across the room, she could hear the hushed tones even if she couldn’t hear exactly what they were talking about. Still, it looked pretty intimate based on the body language full of welcome and the expressions hinting at a smile or two. The lean woman patted the other’s shoulder, almost as if in comfort.
It was the kind of observation meant for the bored, which was exactly how Francesca felt, sitting alone in her own corner and nursing a plate of salad that had gone stale. She’d been waiting for her friend, Aaron, for who knew how long—and she wasn’t even sure if the guy was ever going to show up.
A bitter taste settled on her tongue, and she swallowed it ruthlessly. Exactly two years ago, Aaron had been the person who’d starred in her every daydream—until that night she went to the concert looking for him and got brutally attacked by a shifter she knew. Aaron had then been dashed off her crush list, and now at seventeen, they became the friends they weren’t before because she’d been too tongue-tied to utter a single word to him.
Aaron was a golden boy of epic proportions, but he was the type who knew exactly the effect he had on women—and boy, did they get affected. He could be a jerk, she knew, but he was the kind of jerk who was compassionate and loyal when need be.
God knew loyalty was the last thing her old friends showed the moment they saw her scars.
Consciously, Francesca shifted in her seat and tried to block out her dark thoughts. To distract herself, she went on observing again. She observed the teenage lovers on the dance floor, grinding against each other and basically needing a room if they kept at it. She observed the lone man dressed impeccably and hanging out near the long bar, somewhere in his mid-forties and nursing a glass of whiskey glumly. Ha. Probably a jilted date or fired from his job. The female bartender was trying to catch his eye and not really succeeding, because the man was too busy frowning.
Dragon: The Clan Legacy Series Page 13
