Christmas: Dragon Style (The Sanguenna Chronicles Book 1)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Instantly, the scent of blood flooded the atmosphere, making her emerald eyes flash like his beast’s. The pupils turned from circles into thin slits. The black leeching away to be replaced with a white that seared him with heat. Like an automaton, he lifted his hand for her. She grabbed it, pressed her nose into the cup of his palm, sniffed, and then, struck.

  He hissed as her teeth slid deep and shook off the discomfort.

  When they were mated, she’d feed from no other than he. He would need to get accustomed to the peculiar pain.

  She didn’t drink from him, though he knew temptation was riding her. She practically shoved his fingers away from her face, clasping their hands together so the wounds touched and blood merged.

  As they did, he murmured, “I vow, you will come to no ill in our travels to the next realm. You are safe in my protection. Upon my life, I vow this to thee.”

  At his words, the slitted pupils disappeared, replaced with her regular black circles.

  She fluttered her lashes a little and separated their hands.

  “Is there a time difference between realms?”

  He frowned in surprise at the question. “Yes. Time runs slower there.”

  His four hundred years of solitude were more like six hundred in this realm.

  “How much slower?”

  “For every twelve months that pass there, eighteen pass here. Roughly.”

  “And how long does it take to get there?”

  “It is as simple as crossing through a portal.”

  “And where’s this portal?” she demanded with a scowl.

  “They usually run on ley lines. There are several in the States. The portal that opens up nearest to my home, however, is in Scotland.”

  “It is?” She peered at him. “I’ve never been to Scotland.”

  He smiled. “We can use that portal if you wish.”

  “It’s impractical,” she said on a sigh. “I need to be here. It’s the Holiday season, and Christmas is coming up.” Her smile was sheepish. “It’s my favorite time of the year.”

  Astonished by the admission, as paranormals rarely followed human tradition, he decided to smile back rather than mock her for her foolishness.

  Everyone had their quirks, after all. Didn’t his Queen have more than most?

  “We shouldn’t have an issue with returning. If you’re not my mate, that is.”

  She studied him a second. “And if I am?”

  Which she had to be. “Then,” he conceded, “it might be a little more difficult.”

  “Why?”

  He sighed. “There’s a ceremony to fulfil.”

  “And that takes a long time?”

  “It takes however long it takes. It depends on the alignment of the moon.” It was a lie, but he couldn’t tell her the full truth. Not yet.

  “So, I might miss Christmas?”

  “We can always celebrate it there,” he offered, tensing when her shoulders slumped.

  “How long do you expect to be away, if we are mates?”

  This business-like conversation was starting to annoy him.

  “Most paranormals want to find their mates,” he retorted.

  “A mate means being restricted, controlled. It means I have to answer to someone when I’ve answered to no one, save the Vampire council, for hundreds of years.” Her smile was tight, and he missed the relaxed curve of her lips from moments before. “If I were a male, then, perhaps I would view the potential with joy.”

  “I’m not going to restrict your life,” he retorted, hurt by her declaration.

  “You will.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You will mislike if I return here, to my coven. You will mislike if I attend to my businesses instead of thine own. You will bring difficulty to my life, when before there was none.”

  Her departure into the archaic didn’t pass him by. She was as agitated as he.

  “I can live in this realm too,” he replied testily, not liking her assumption that all the taking would be on his part. “I can even—”

  “This is of no import.” She sliced a decisive hand through the air, her ease with ruling evident at that moment. “Just don’t expect me to do a happy dance.”

  He frowned. “What’s a happy dance?”

  She gawked at him. “When was the last time you lived on this realm for any length of time?”

  He pulled at his collar, which suddenly felt very tight. “I return for a few decades every now and then.”

  “When?” she demanded, sitting straighter in her chair.

  “I was around with the Vikings; we got on quite well, actually. The Black Death had me returning home the next time.” He shrugged. “I’ve witnessed a fair amount.”

  “Since the new Millennium,” she demanded. “How long have you spent on this realm?”

  “A few months.”

  “And yet, you expect me to believe you’ll be happy to live here for extended periods of time?”

  He huffed out a breath and begged for patience. “What would you have me do, Mia? Apologize that we are mated?”

  She blinked and, in a small voice, whispered, “No.”

  “Then what?” he persisted, his tone softening. “Compromise...that is what we must do in the future. Do you think I will be content if my mate is anything but?” At her hesitation, his hands fisted with annoyance. “I am not like the night and daywalkers you know. Nor am I like any human male in your acquaintance.” His beast didn’t like the idea of her knowing any male, but the man knew how ridiculous that was. “Not only am I your mate, I am a dragon shifter.”

  “Yes, and aren’t dragons renowned for being the most arrogant of the lot?” she demanded.

  “Would we be mated if your fire and my fire couldn’t burn happily alongside one another?”

  She looked away. “How do we find out the truth?”

  “Come with me to the portal. I will shift. Your heat, already kindling, will burst into life. If you are my mate, that is.” Which she was. She had to be.

  She let out a sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Words to please any man’s ear, but at least he was getting his way. Getting to his feet, he held out a hand. “The vow stands. You are safe in my care.”

  “I never doubted otherwise.”

  Chapter Three

  The portal was on Fire Island. Two hours plus from Tribeca, she’d had to travel by car. It didn’t matter that Remy had provided a limo, she hated driving.

  If she couldn’t walk to it or reach it via train or subway, she usually refused to leave her home.

  In this instance, she had no choice but to comply if she wanted this day to be over with. A harried missive to Brady, and some quick instructions to Elenor were all she’d managed to impart.

  In her absence, Brady and Elenor could and would cope well. She’d instructed Brady to call on one of her most esteemed nightwalkers, Sebastian, for sustenance while she was away, and knew that if Brady needed to use force for anything, Sebastian would aid in that too.

  Still, she hated not knowing when she’d be returning to her coven. She was a control freak. Perhaps that was part and parcel of what made her a successful Sanguenna. She liked everything organized. Everything in its proper place.

  It made life far easier when it came down to it.

  She had too many businesses, too many lives under her watch not to have everything pigeonholed.

  So what, it made life boring?

  So what, it meant there was no room for error?

  She’d done it for so long now, it was second nature.

  As they approached the roundabout where the portal was housed in the Robert Moses State Park, she winced as the limo parked on it. Actually parked up on the damn roundabout.

  Horns blared, agitated drivers shook their fists at the atrocious place they’d chosen to stop, even though it was pitch black and quiet out, but Remy and the driver paid it no mind.

  “What the hell are we doing?” she burst out, when Remy climbed out on
to the grass.

  In the middle of the roundabout, there was a water tower. She knew of it. Had heard about ley lines before and knew there was one that crossed through this particular place. It was why the decoration at the bottom of the tower was there. A merging of female and male energies symbolizing balance that came in the form of a vesical Pisces. A six-pointed star that was the basis for the flower of life: overlapping circles that, when combined, created the petals of a flower.

  The grass verge spoke of a need of watering, but then, it had been a long, hot summer. The blades were crisp under her feet as she climbed out beside Remy and felt the salty spray hit her in the face thanks to a deep bellow of wind from the ocean behind the tower.

  It was brick, built with a pointy spire the color of oxidized copper, and it sat on a pedestal with three broad steps leading toward the main edifice, which was partly revealed in the limo’s headlights.

  Behind, the ocean was a vast expanse of darkness that would be blinding in the bright light but was Stygian at night.

  Her vision was perfect. She saw the world as though the sun was bright, and maybe, that gift was why she saw the waves of energy around the middle of the tower’s length.

  In the daylight, it wouldn’t be easy to spot. But at night, with the moon illuminating the world, she saw the energy and knew that was why the portal was based here.

  Remy’s pace was slow as he led her to the tower. They crossed through the demarcation lines, where the flower of life had been forever commemorated and headed up the three steps that ran around the tower.

  She peered up at the building, wondering what happened next, and then, before she could do little more than screech, a sucking sensation tugged at her skin. It increased in strength and pace. Not stopping until she felt more than a prickle of pain but one of extreme discomfort.

  Before she could open her mouth to complain, she turned around and saw she was no longer on Fire Island but the other realm. Had it really been so easy to pass over?

  Her kind and all paranormals knew of the realm’s existence.

  They were all raised with the fairy stories and the tales meant to inspire horror about this place. But visiting wasn’t easy. It was close to impossible unless you knew someone on the other side, which few did.

  Dragons, Goblins, Elves. They lived in this realm.

  If you knew one of them, even then, there was no guarantee you’d ever get an invite.

  She’d never been all that bothered about coming, but now she was here, she could see what all the fuss was about.

  The portal had dropped them at the top of a mountainous cliff. The drop was sheer, and hundreds of feet of air was all that stood between her and the ground. But the views were spectacular.

  This mountain range was incredible. It spanned as far as the eye could see in all four directions. Peaks higher than Everest added to the craggy landscape.

  Far ahead in the distance, she could see signs of an ocean. It was a little greener than the blue of her realm’s, but otherwise it was the same, and from this distance, she couldn’t see anything other than its color any way.

  Townships were evident on the mountain range. Hardy souls who had made their lives, and those of their people, on the rock. Only small, she could see at least five of the villages, all with less than six or seven dozen roofs. Even they were different. Unlike her realm’s, they were as pointy as the spindly water tower’s roof, and gusts of smoke puffed through the chimney at the peak.

  What astonished her more than anything, however, were the colors. They were a thousand times more vivacious than those of her world. The rock beneath her feet wasn’t just gray. It glittered with silver flecks, which blinded in the moonlight. The moss and algae, tufts of grass and bunches of wild flowers weren’t meek and mild in color. It was like having seen the world in black and white, and it suddenly appearing in all out HD. They stunned; that was how bright they were. And this was in the dark of night, Mia had to remind herself.

  Each petal or blade or frond glimmered in a way that mesmerized.

  She gulped at the sight of them, felt tears well in her eyes at a nature few would ever see.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she gasped out, spinning around on her heel, as she took in the panoramic view of this strange, new world around her.

  As she did, spinning away from the outrageous vista before her, she saw Remy and gasped again.

  He’d been handsome on Earth. More handsome than had been good for her. But now? He was like a walking God.

  His height blended into the awesome grandeur of the mountain range behind him. His black hair was so densely onyx it was like light didn’t reflect from it. And his skin? It was burnished gold.

  Tingles shot from her core and down her limbs at the sight of him. When his eyes, those diamond-like gems, flickered with that strange membrane, she noticed the whites turned a strange silver.

  She blinked, surprised at the change then laughed at her shock. He was shifting.

  That was the deal, Mia, she chided herself. He’ll shift, and you can see if you’re going to do the bang bang with this dude.

  As she watched him shift, the process was agonizingly slow and crazily fast. Whether the slower passage of time affected its momentum, or he was doing something so she could see every part of the process, Mia didn’t know. All she did know was it was fascinating.

  Sucking in a shaky breath, she watched as his skin changed from burnished gold and hardened. The pores developed into scales, which glimmered like diamonds in the bright light about them. His back arched, turned deformed, before sprouting out two huge wings, which were three or four times her length. Legs and arms transformed into a dragon’s, while his jaw grew and strained as the beast’s maw appeared. Thousands of teeth, sharp and pointy, were suddenly visible as he roared, belting a gush of flame skyward.

  Before she knew it, where man had stood, dragon now was.

  If she’d doubted before, there was nothing left to ponder.

  The fire inside her must be like what he had in his belly, ready to roar out onto anyone unsuspecting.

  The tingles that shot from her core to her extremities upon seeing him in this realm detonated like dirty bombs. Each place a piece of shrapnel landed, it exploded again, burning her with a heat so intense she shook with the strain of containing it.

  A panting breath escaped her as she tried and failed to deal with the inferno blazing away inside her. Panic welled as she felt it overtake her. Inside out. It took control of her limbs then went deeper, her organs, her nervous system. Her entire being was overwhelmed in the conflagration.

  As she burned and roasted alive, the beast just stood there. Watching her. Then, she saw a tear form in the creature’s eye. It was the size of her fist and so crystalline and pure it glittered like a diamond in the sun.

  As it fell to the ground, twenty feet beneath it, it didn’t splash and part into further drops. It shattered like a crystal.

  And as she gawked at that, the fire overtook her sight and other senses. Until she saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, and her body shut down in self-defense.

  As was tradition, Remy shifted back the moment his leman fainted. He wanted to go to her; in fact, his beast demanded it, but there was the ritual to see to.

  It had been instilled in him for too long to ignore.

  So, though it pained him, he walked over to the place where his tear had shattered into a thousand pieces and carefully gathered each shard.

  A dragon shed two tears in its lifetime. The first, the day it discovered its leman. The second, the day his ’ling came into this world.

  The tear drop was Mother’s blessing. As it crashed into the ground, shattering into a million pieces, those shards would become a part of the leman’s ceremonial outfit, a must have if she were to be accepted at court.

  It was why it was vital he gather them now and not wait to tend to Mia for fear the wind would disperse the diamonds.

  Sweeping them and little rocks and bits of rub
ble into his palm, he placed them in the inner pocket of his suit jacket.

  Once safely stored, he rushed over to Mia’s side.

  She was still as death on the ground and seeing her thus hit his nerves hard.

  He fell to his knees at her side then carefully placed a hand under her neck and the other under her knees. Lifting her onto his lap, he hugged her to his chest and straightened into a standing position.

  Her weight was nothing to him, as he moved over to the cavern that ran behind the clearing.

  It wasn’t cold, but his skin was tough and Vampires, even powerful Sanguennas, could be delicate with temperature. One way to kill them was to shove them in the sunlight like the tales of old recounted, but another way to rid the world of them was to freeze them. They shut down into a deep freeze. Neither dead, nor alive, just immobile. Forever still until they were released and thawed.

  As he sat back down, his back to the cavern wall, he let his gaze trace over her features. Now that she wasn’t glaring at him, they were gentle in repose.

  Lady Mother, she was beautiful.

  In the vibrant light of his realm, she glowed within its power. Her eyelashes fluttered against her high cheekbones, and the tips were brushed with a darker ebony, only visible in the light of his world. As they fluttered, they let off a tiny glow like fireflies against her cheek.

  The lines of her lips were a lighter pink against the dusky rose, and he saw each one and longed to kiss the mouth that belonged to him now. Just as his mouth belonged to his leman.

  He had her in his arms. At long last.

  He huffed out a laugh of disbelief, holding her closer to his chest. He’d approached the mate hunt with disinterest at first, knowing he had many Sanguennas to cut from the list before he found her. With each name he determined wasn’t his, his excitement had stirred.

  Meeting Mia, the final Sanguenna on his list, had been harder than any other meeting. When he should have been at his most charming and debonair, instead, he’d been a boor. He’d shown her his worst side, and all because his beast had been urging him to act.