Monsters, Book Two: Hour of the Dragon

by Heather Killough-Walden

  She had declined. All of it. The offers were unexpected and they had thrown her; he was good at doing that to her, but in the end, she still just felt that it was all about the sex. Trading sex to anyone for anything was the oldest profession in the book, and it quite simply made her feel cheap. Granted, housewives across the globe did it on a regular basis, and deep down Annaleia felt they all knew it. But that didn’t make it okay… did it? Not for the women anyway, right? Damn it, there was so much more to Anna than just her magical power! She wanted Sterling to notice that! She wanted everyone to!

  It was like people focusing on her scars and nothing else. It was only skin deep.

  Annaleia halted her progress down the street and ran a hand through her long hair. When she did, she caught the scent of rain. It was something she should have been accustomed to by now, after all these years. Ever since her transformation, she literally smelled like rain.

  For her it was a poignant twist of fate. “Raindrop” was what he’d called her.

  Not Sterling.

  Ares.

  Antares Mace, her high school best friend and first secret love had nicknamed her “Raindrop” because of the shampoo she had always used, White Rain. The cheap and admittedly harsh cleanser had not smelled anything like rain, instead giving off the chronic, decidedly clean scent of extra-clarifying soap. But given the bohemian nature of the times, she’d found she liked the nickname, and it stuck.

  Her scent was different now. She no longer wafted discount shampoo. Instead, she carried the scent of freshly fallen rain: wet earth and clean air.

  She continued walking.

  When Sterling caught the scent after her initial transformation, he’d told her she was lucky. Apparently the males of her kind often smelled like death or decay after their transitions and had to use spells to cover it. He’d then told her that she was the only female “Withered” he’d ever met, and in fact the only one he’d ever heard of, so it was possible all females smelled like rain. And then he’d laughed and said, “It would figure. In an ironically unfair fashion, women manage to be the fairer sex even in death.”

  “I see it as women finally winning in something,” she’d countered, “Mister I-pee-standing-up.”

  Anna was grateful she didn’t smell like a corpse, but she was willing to bet Sterling was even more grateful, especially since he’d then slept with her.

  And that was what this was all about once again. That was why Sterling was here in Austin, Texas just before Christmas. He wanted to take her to bed. If he did, he would absorb her power. It was temporary; he could only use the borrowed ability once. But it was always all he needed.

  When Annaleia died in 1967, she came back from the dead as what’s known as a Withered, but unlike any other Withered to date, she’d brought something back with her, the ability to raise the dead. It was an invaluable and terrifying power. Every time she brought someone back, a new wound opened up somewhere on her body, then instantly healed into another scar. As a result, she was covered in them, inside and out.

  But that honestly wasn’t the terrifying part. It was having to decide who would come back and who wouldn’t. It was a responsibility that sometimes felt more like a curse.

  Tonight when he’d propositioned her, Anna hadn’t given Jarrod an answer. The only thing she’d managed was to suggest to him that he might not like the number of scars she had now. She hated to admit it, but there was a part of her that actually cared. Maybe he wouldn’t find her attractive any longer.

  But as if he’d known her thoughts and fears, he’d given her a smile that made his eyes grow warm. “Why not let me be the judge of that, little heart?”

  Incubi can see your soul, she reminded herself now. Maybe Sterling didn’t care about the scars at all and instead saw the lives she’d saved in earning them? Maybe he was even amused at the fact that she did care.

  In any case, she hadn’t been willing to go through with it. Not yet, anyway. So he’d told her he would remain in Austin until she decided, and they had parted ways for the night.

  The scent of damp caught Anna’s attention again, and this time when she stopped, she looked up at the dark above. There were no stars, and the air was heavy. Quiet was beginning to crawl out onto Sixth street, fingers of sneaky silence that absorbed life and stilled its echoes. It was definitely going to snow.

  Again, she thought of Antares – and that snow storm fifty years ago.

  She continued walking again. But with each step she took, her smile slipped a little more.

  The strange thing was… this time when she conjured up the memory of that night with Ares, she could remember everything like it was last night except… his face. She remembered the way he touched her, as if he’d been practicing for a thousand years. As if he knew her body like he’d created it himself. She remembered the way he smelled, like leather – damn she loved that smell – and aftershave and him. She could feel the incredible heat of him, the incredible size of him, the incredible strength of him. And she could see the curve of his broad as hell shoulder, his trim and tight waist, that V that slipped under his the belt of his pants when he pulled his shirt over his head.

  Fuck.

  Her head was filled with him – and yet, she just couldn’t quite picture his beautiful face. Not the way she normally could. It was less distinct this time, as if she were trying to focus on him in a dream. She not only saw the fuzziness in her head, she felt it. Like a wall she couldn’t breach.

  Had that ever happened before? She didn’t think so. Maybe she was more tired than she was letting on when she’d been talking with Carmen.

  Or maybe it’s finally been too long.

  She was lost in a sudden disturbing sensation of loss when she was suddenly enveloped. A scream rose in her throat, only to be smothered abruptly by the strength of the hand over her mouth. In the wake of her aborted cry, Annaleia bucked in her captor’s sudden, fast grip. His arms had trapped her own to her sides, making them useless. Her mind and body went into overdrive as the enemy moved with impossible speed and stealth, taking her into the nearest alley.

  His timing was perfect. She’d been distracted, this part of the street was suddenly deserted – when had that happened? – and he seemed to anticipate every defensive move she could think of, rendering it useless before she could execute it.

  With her mouth covered, she couldn’t even attempt a transport spell, which was one of the first things every warden clan taught its new recruits. Her knees came up to drop her into a dead weight, but it was as if she weighed absolutely nothing in his grasp. She retaliated by slamming her boots into the pavement and using the leverage to simultaneously slam the back of her head into the front of his. But he’d prepared for it, moving his head to the side and lifting her off her feet again, destroying her leverage.

  As he far too easily wrangled her into the farthest recesses of the alley, well-sequestered within the deepest shadows afforded by that pre-storm winter night, Anna realized several things at once. Her captor was not human. He was larger-than-life, too strong, too graceful, and he had that scent to him that hinted of not only leather and motor oil, but darkness and magic. Mortals possessed no such scent.

  The second thing she realized was that she was truly alone with him. Both her friends were sick, and her trapped arms could not even reach the cell phone she’d slipped back into her pocket.

  And last but not least, this was real. It was really happening to her. She was a bona fide victim in a potentially terrifying situation.

  Painful things always happened to her around Christmas time.

  Chapter Seventeen – Austin Texas, Random street alley

  Antares held her against the wall, his body flush with hers. He could feel every shaking breath she took radiate through his entire form, and it was messing with his head. But his grip remained tight; this one wasn’t getting away from him. Not again.

  His right hand was wrapped like a vice around her slim wrists, pinning them behind her back. It a
llowed him to simultaneously wrap that same arm around her waist, offering him more control over her struggles. His other hand, he kept over her mouth.

  He’d known she would thrash her head beneath his grip. Not wanting her to scrape her scalp on the bricks, he’d chosen this portion of the wall to hold her against. There was cement behind her here; sixty or seventy years ago, it had been poured, smoothed out and painted as a sign on the side of what was probably a factory. Remnants of the paint still promised a happy life to those who imbibed a certain soda that had at one time contained cocaine.

  Ares took the brunt of her labors in stride and waited them out. She may have been something more than human, but she was not a dragon. He knew she would tire eventually, so as she glared her amethyst shard daggers at him, he merely maintained his hold and watched her. He watched her with everything he had, noting every passing emotion on her beautiful face. His dragon eyes could see her so clearly in the darkness. He wondered if she could see him as well.

  He watched and waited, noting the moment her toiling willfulness began to ebb, not that he would confuse it with surrender. He knew she was probably just thinking that much harder and sparing her energy for something less futile. She also stopped trying to scream and focused on breathing. And at that first lull in her struggles, Ares leaned in.

  Annaleia made a small, desperate sound behind his hand when he lowered his lips to her throat and slowly inhaled. He could just imagine the things she was imagining he might do to her.

  And he wanted to. Hell, he wanted to.

  Everything about her was intoxicating to him, from the way her gemstone eyes sparked in the dim light to the way her body felt against his, strong and ripped but ultimately yielding and so very familiar. If his dragon hadn’t been strengthening him against her in that moment, he’d have lost his nerve.

  She would have made him weak, just like she had all those years ago. And what would have been his final undoing was the way she smelled right now. Anna had always smelled amazing, clean and new, different from everything around her. Promise and fresh starts. But as he inhaled and drew her into his lungs now, her scent was… it was like rain.

  It wasn’t a perfumed reproduction of the phenomenon. There was no chemical in this, there had been no layering. This was actual fresh-fallen precipitation upon the earth. It was literally his favorite scent. But it was also the nail in the coffin, because it was absolutely not human. No mortal had managed to bottle the smell of rain, not like this. And it wasn’t the scent she’d possessed fifty years ago.

  What are you, Leia? Ares was so wrapped up in overwhelming, overriding emotions, he wasn’t even sure of himself any longer. He was uncertain what to do or say first. He was filled with too many questions, and his damn chest actually hurt.

  What happened to you?

  His mind tossed the question around like echoes in an enclosed space. It was muffled and disjointed amidst the whirlwind storm buffeting his insides. This was all real. Annaleia was real. She was here. After fifty long years, this was happening. She was tangible and alive and breathing, and impossibly she looked no older than twenty.

  She bucked against him with a particularly hard shrug, and he gritted his teeth; she’d caught him off-guard and she’d managed to raise her knee enough to get close. He repositioned himself against her and continued to wait her out.

  She was strong enough that he could tell she’d been trained in a number of defensive arts. He had also recognized some of the words she was trying desperately to say beneath his fingers as transportation magic. And she smelled like a thunder storm.

  None of this made any goddamn sense. She was trembling beneath him, obviously terrified enough to chance pissing him off. And that didn’t make any sense either. Why was she so afraid? He’d given her plenty of time to get a good look at him. But if she recognized him, she didn’t show it. All she was showing him was alarm and hostility.

  The trouble was, like any typical alpha male in the throes of sudden and fierce emotional shock, her panic only made Ares hold her tighter. Part of this reaction was animal instinct; predators pursued what ran from them. But if he was being honest, the rest was a hard knee-jerk reaction to his own surprise. He wasn’t at all familiar with the feelings he was experiencing. He hadn’t felt them in half a century.

  He was hurt. He was in love. He was in lust. He was relieved. And – congratulations Annaleia – he was pissed off.

  He couldn’t believe she didn’t recognize him. He was supposed to have been her best friend! Her protector and confidante! He was the lucky son of a bitch she’d given her virginity to! How could she not know him the way he immediately knew her?

  And more importantly, if she was here now, alive and well, then what reason could she possibly have had for leaving him all those years ago? No less the way she left him? After sharing something he’d thought was precious, she’d disappeared so suddenly, without warning, and so… absolutely. He’d been devastated.

  And why, for fuck’s sake, was she shaking so damn hard? How could she be so terrified of him? Or was it that she was angry? Hell, if anyone had a right to be angry, it was him! Still, never in a million years would he have hurt her, and she should know that, damn it! She should know that in her heart, in her bleeding soul. Wasn’t that why she’d made love to him all those nights ago during a winter snowstorm on Christmas Eve?

  Annaleia Faith seemed to enjoy bringing him pain at Christmas time.

  How can you not trust me? Why don’t you know me, Leia?

  Because, asshole. His answering inner voice was sardonic where it rang out from the shadowy recesses of his currently flipped-out mind. She thought you were human all those years ago, remember? She expects you to have one or more of your booted feet in the grave by now.

  Okay… that was true.

  You also chose a look a few years older; you appear as a fully grown man now, not a teenage boy.

  That was true too. After she’d disappeared, he’d adopted a slightly older visage to ride with his warden clan. He now looked around thirty to thirty-five. He’d had the same face ever since.

  And she’s obviously mad with fear, probably blind with it too. Because you just jumped her in the middle of the dark night and hauled her up against an alley wall and she has no idea what you plan to do to her.

  With that thought, Ares inwardly startled, taken back by what would have been obvious to him if not for his fury. He lessened his grip on his captive, guilt and regret now joining the emotional factions warring inside him. “Not a word,” he warned in his most serious tone, and then he even took his hand off her mouth. His breath caught at the sound of her own shaky inhalations.

  He remembered those. But back then they’d been shaky for another reason.

  If Annaleia noticed this sudden softer shift in him, she didn’t show it. Her body continued to radiate trepidation like a moral ethics philosopher on a runaway trolley car.

  Ares swore under his breath and pulled slightly back, angling his upper body to get a better look at her when he noticed the smooth white line that ran against the grain through the taut flesh over Annaleia’s collar bone. A funny, unpleasant feeling un-swirled slowly in his gut. The line was clearly a scar, just peeking from beneath the edge of her clothing.

  “If I release you, you’ll fight me won’t you?” he asked softly, the breath of a question brushing against her cheek.

  She peered steadfastly ahead, either focusing for all she was worth on trying not to hyperventilate, or quietly scheming her escape while he attempted to read her. Given what he remembered about her – which was everything – he was betting high stakes on the latter.

  When she didn’t answer, his jaw set and his fangs began to lengthen behind his lips. He exerted control, shoved his teeth back where they belonged, and told the dragon in him to simmer down. It didn’t listen for shit, but at least his teeth obeyed.

  “I have no intention of harming you,” he told her simply, though only a complete idiot would believe this co
ming from a man who had her pressed against the wall of an alley in the middle of the night. Still, he meant it. Sort of. He wouldn’t have minded maybe… biting her a little. Or kissing her hard. For a long time.

  Ares felt his entire body flex painfully. All three of his dragon hearts thrummed in their echoing chambers. His chest ached. Now kissing her was all he could think about.

  He swore again, this time with a dash more vehemence, and Annaleia at last looked up. He froze when her violet eyes met his searchingly. For what she was searching, he didn’t know. But in that very moment, he realized the woman in his arms was actually stronger than he was. He may have held her against the wall, but she could hold onto him without even touching him.

  Without warning, Annaleia began to mutter the very fast words of a recall spell.

  Antares let the shock roll over him, then instinct kicked in and take over. He hissed a single ancient draconic word of his own and slammed his free hand into the wall by her head. The tremendous impact caused rubble to explode free from the bricks and sent them flying. It was only his own control over the debris that kept any of it from striking Annaleia or himself.

  His act had the desired effect. Leia gasped and ducked her head, putting an end to her recall chant. The transport spell was broken before it could take hold.

  The word Antares had spoken ignited primordial power. It was a negation spell, one that temporarily nixed another’s magic, as long as the target wasn’t more powerful than Ares. Few were, so he’d never had to worry about it in that sense. However, he still almost never used it. It was meant to be cast on magical items in order to render them inert for travel. But a number of warlocks and other dark mages had tweaked it long ago to make it safe for the living, even though it was expressly forbidden at the time.

  Ares was one of those mages, and now that’s exactly what he did. It was sure to cause a blip on someone’s radar, but there was just too big a part of him that didn’t give a fuck. This was too important, and it was all-consuming.