Monsters, Book Two: Hour of the Dragon

by Heather Killough-Walden

  It took more effort than he liked for his magic to wrap tight around his captive. She was strong. Whatever she’d become since she’d left him was powerful enough to instinctively fight the darkness of his spell. But when he won the brief magic struggle anyway and fell silent, Ares left his arm where it was braced against the wall and formulated his words carefully.

  “Believe it or not, I won’t hold that attempt against you. In fact, I’m going to release your wrists. But when I do, I want you to put your hands at your sides, palms pressed to the wall behind you.”

  Leia’s gaze narrowed. He had just easily thwarted her and now he was giving her orders. Fury was naturally her own knee-jerk reaction, that and outright defiance. But he’d expected that. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d given the order just to piss her off.

  His dragon was taking hold. He was losing ground with it. It had what it wanted in its grasp and was yanking at the leash.

  “Like hell,” Leia whispered.

  If he hadn’t been angling his body perfectly across hers, he knew she would have struck out at him again, no doubt where it would hurt a man the most.

  But the look in her eyes was doing something to him, lighting something up. And he’d always been drawn to fire. He smiled. In the dark recesses of his dark, dark mind, the barely-leashed dragon unfurled its wings, catching the scent of a raised challenge. With inherent dragon speed, Antares released her wrists with his right hand only to then wrap that same hand around her neck and squeeze. Not hard, but enough.

  He had speed on her in spades, a revelation she finally admitted now with her own very wide eyes. Her newly freed hands instinctively wrapped around his wrist. But pry and pull as they might, his grip around her throat didn’t let up, and his body was utterly immovable against hers.

  He kept his hold tight enough to threaten and once more leaned in, the perfect display of dark, towering calm. Beside her ear he whispered, “Hands against the wall, Annaleia.”

  She went very still at the sound of her name.

  New distress blossomed in her expression. Saying her name had the effect he’d desired, adding another layer to her discombobulation. She would now wonder how he knew it.

  Come on, Raindrop. Of course I know your name.

  But she still hesitated. He imagined she was torn between playing it smart and obeying him so she would survive, and fighting him instead because he was an asshole. And that pretty much summed Leia up right there. Smart and stubborn.

  To be fair, it was undoubtedly hard for her to think. Hell, it was hard for him to think.

  “Do it,” he growled helpfully, baring his teeth. This time he laced his command with compulsory magic. He was running out of patience.

  There was a building heat behind his sparkling black eyes. It wouldn’t be long before they started to glow like the cosmos and his fangs pushed their way out once and for all. He needed to hurry.

  Luckily, Annaleia succumbed to the magic and let go of his arm very slowly. Ares smirked; he knew she was going slow just to flout him. At least that hadn’t changed.

  “Against the wall. Now.” More impatient magic he was surprised he had to use.

  Anna pressed her palms to the wall on either side of her quaking body.

  Once she’d done what he wanted, he let up on his grip. She immediately demanded, “I know you’re not human. What are you?”

  Ares narrowed his gaze.

  “And how the hell do you know my name?” she added.

  He couldn’t deny being impressed. And disappointed. He was the one in the position to ask questions, yet she was forging ahead anyway. Her tenacity was something he’d always admired. But right now, it was getting in his way.

  Ares ignored her questions. Instead, he took his free hand off the wall to begin unzipping her jacket. That scar had intrigued him, especially when he caught the edge of a second scar when she shifted under his weight. The markings felt like an omen to him. He needed to see them. He needed to understand more about what had happened since she’d vanished.

  Leia closed her eyes when the jacket unzipped, revealing a V-neck tee-shirt underneath, and an expanse of beautifully tanned skin – crisscrossed with numerous scars. There were half a dozen he could see. Each was approximately an inch in length and thin, but bright against the gold tone of her tan. Ares stared at those scars – until the streetlight at the end of the alley reflected off the tear slipping down her cheek.

  His breath caught and he looked up into her eyes instead.

  She was crying. Noiselessly and bravely. But he’d made her cry.

  Fifty years ago, if anyone dared to make Annaleia Faith cry, Antares Mace would beat the hell out of them and send them packing. No one wanted to hurt his bright-eyed girl enough to bring her to tears, not with him around.

  Yet here he was, doing exactly that.

  Shit, I have to end this. He prepared to release her, but when she sensed the change in him, her eyes flew open again. Just like that, her rebellious streak was back and behind the wheel. Her irises shot through with willful lightning. “Well?” she hissed through slightly crooked, white clenched teeth. “What the hell are you waiting for, asshole? Or have you decided to make me do this part too?”

  A fresh, hot release of adrenaline poured its way into Ares’ bloodstream like magma stallions charging from the gate. His reaction was not favorable.

  He smiled a nasty smile, returning the hand he’d removed from her throat. He felt her stiffen under his touch. “That isn’t a half bad idea,” he said. His grip on her throat tightened in warning. “Do the honors, princess. Lift your shirt for me, and don’t bother going slow this time. I’m in no mood for a strip tease.”

  Her eyes threw amethyst shards at him, but the corners of her mouth turned up as if she knew something he didn’t. In a fit of pique so very like the girl he knew, she grabbed the top of her shirt with both hands, gripped it tight, and ripped it open with everything she had.

  Ares stared at her for a moment, his eyes glued to hers.

  In truth, he would have loved a strip tease from Annaleia Faith. He’d dreamed of it literally countless times. He’d had sex with faceless women and jacked off alone to those wicked dreams so often, he was more practiced at pleasure than incubi. The entire Nightmare race had nothing on him and the things he’d taught himself to do to a woman’s body while he’d imagined Annaleia unclothed before him.

  But she was confusing the hell out of him right now. He had no idea what to make of her actions, of the glint in her eyes, or of that twisted little smile. He leaned back just enough, no longer caring if his own surprise showed, and finally let his eyes move away from hers to trail down her body.

  The first thing he noticed was that this time she was unfortunately wearing a bra.

  The second thing he noticed caused that unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach to expand, engulfing him.

  Holy hell, he thought, bewildered. That is a lot of scars.

  Chapter Eighteen – Same City. Same Alley.

  The second it happened, Ares realized that this was what Annaleia had been waiting for, probably even hoping for. Her sudden inexplicable smile and strange, violent act had stalled him. It would have done so no matter who he’d been or what he’d wanted from her.

  And then he saw the scars and they stalled him – and he realized that was what she’d wanted too. She’d known they would trip him up. And they did.

  But not for the reasons she assumed.

  In the blur of red-line adrenaline that washed over him, Antares rolled the thoughts through his mind one after another.

  There were dozens of scars. Leia probably thought they repulsed him, scattered the way they were across her otherwise faultless form. Maybe she assumed her attacker had been bent on some seedy deed in a cold alley and that witnessing the scars would make him change his mind, lose his appetite, and rethink that plan. She’d hoped the scars would cool his blood, at the very least, and push him away.

  In actuality, nothing of
the sort had occurred to him. Not even close. His blood ran hotter than ever through his smoking veins. But either way, the resulting effect was the same; he’d become instantly distracted, and that absolutely caused him a vital momentary lapse of focus. Leia of course took advantage of it.

  Ares’ hold on her throat had gone slack, and in that brief moment her head pulled back and shot forward again, her forehead aimed for his nose. She made the mark this time, and the sound of a dull explosion erupted in his head, followed shortly by a blinding pain that warped around its edges to throb its way through his brain and down his neck.

  His head snapped up, he took a single step back, and Leia shoved away from the wall to follow him. At the same time, she shot forward for a second strike. He’d been right about her training. She was practiced, moving far too fast to be anything but an expert in self defense as she pummeled the heels of both palms into his sternum one after another in quick, hard, and honestly quite painful succession.

  If he’d been human, the triple attack would have absolutely taken the fight out of him and doubled him over. She would have broken his unbreakable nose, probably fractured a rib or two, and knocked the wind from his lungs entirely. That would have been that, and he would have been done.

  But as she’d surmised, he wasn’t human. His nose was fine. His ribs were unbroken. And the only woman he had ever foolishly fallen in love with wasn’t getting away that easily.

  Annaleia side-stepped him after her second attack, and with the momentum it afforded, she began sprinting down the alley. She was fleet, a halo of rapidly disappearing strawberry-gold hair beneath the glow of spitting snow and street lights. But a growl rose ominous and long from the depths of the beast within Antares, a sound that rumbled through the alley like a demonic sub-woofer, and Annaleia faltered, her steps slowing just enough.

  Antares moved – a flash of innate short-distance dragon magic that bent space and time around him – and reappeared at the end of the alley, directly in Leia’s path. She cried out in surprise, her boots skidding slightly on the dampening ground. All three of his hearts beat hard, but his magic heart pounded, pumping the fuel through his system for whatever he may need to prevent his prey from escaping.

  “We’re not finished,” Ares growled, no longer caring if his eyes glowed or his teeth showed. He stalked slowly, menacingly, and Leia backpedaled, one hand shoved into her jacket pocket, probably to get her phone. “How did you get those scars?” he demanded, his cosmic eyes glued to hers. “Who did that to you?” His voice was becoming progressively less human.

  His body felt tight, as if it were trying very hard to hold something in that no longer wanted to be kept inside.

  “What the hell are you….” Annaleia muttered, her own voice shaking. She took another step back and he followed her. She looked like her mind was moving a million miles a minute, her eyes skating between his hulking form and the end of the alley behind him and the walls on either side of them. They were too high to scale, for a human anyway. But he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t what they seemed.

  “I’m asking the questions, Annaleia Faith. Answer me! Who hurt you?”

  Leia slowed in retreating, and her focus steadied on his eyes. Something in her snapped, and once again, she demanded, “How the fuck do you know my name?”

  “I know a lot about you,” he told her. “At one time? I thought I knew everything.”

  Leia’s brow furrowed, and for a brief moment the fear in her expression shared its space with uncertainty. She was clearly confused. But so was he. How could she not know who he was, even now?

  “How did you get the scars, Faith?” He chanced another step toward her, but her fear was solid, and she widened the space between them in a hurry.

  “None of your fucking business,” she told him between clenched teeth. “Why is everyone so obsessed with these goddamned scars?” she asked to no one in particular as she again looked around frantically.

  And that was when he noticed the phone in her right hand. She had been going for it, just as he’d thought. He hadn’t noticed she’d pulled it out and begun using it because its protective case was matte black and she’d cleverly had the screen dimmed and pointed away from him. But for a split second in her scrambling, it tilted toward him in her palm. The low light winked at him and disappeared again.

  Either her volume was turned completely off and she was in the process of calling someone, or she had already done so. If so, they knew enough to keep quiet on their end. He could probably assume they were already tracing her location and on their way.

  He smiled, and when he did he felt his fangs pronounced and very, very visible. “That’s my girl. Clever as always. But it won’t do you any good, sweetheart. We’ll be long gone before anyone gets here.” And then he laughed. “And the cops wouldn’t know what to do with me anyway.”

  “Cops for humans wouldn’t,” she told him in her same seething tone, “but I never bother calling them. You’re some kind of monster,” she breathed. “And monsters get to contend with wardens.” Her voice was shaking a little less now as she concentrated on formulating words – and buying time. “Do you have any idea what kind of wardens patrol the state of Texas?”

  Ares was almost amused at her words and how on the money they all were. Some kind of monster indeed. In every sense of the word. And wardens? That was funny as hell too. Did he get extra points for being both?

  But actually… she had a point. There were wardens in Texas, and they were indeed noteworthy. And if they happened on this scene, they might not realize fast enough that he was one of the good guys. He wasn’t acting like one, after all.

  The last thing he wanted to do right now was tangle with a group of them, especially with his own clan a few blocks away. Strike that, the last thing he wanted to do right now was tangle with Cain. But Texas wardens came in at a close second. And Cain would be directly and immediately involved anyway if another clan of wardens attacked Ares.

  What he did want to do was go somewhere safe and private with Annaleia.

  And get some answers.

  So as she backed up a little further, rather than follow her deeper into the alley, Antares straightened and took a deep breath. Then another. Gradually, the dragon in him receded, and he felt his fangs slide back into his gums.

  “Why won’t you remember me, Leia? Why don’t you recognize me?”

  Leia stopped again, and the furrowed brow was back. She blinked.

  “She can’t recognize you, dragon.”

  Antares spun, fangs instantly extended and eyes glowing like supernovas. But he recognized the feel of the interloper before the man even stepped into the light. It was an absence of feeling, of magic and energy, a void so strong it could only be a shield protecting something powerful. It was the same shield he’d come up against back at the restaurant where Annaleia had dined with another man.

  That same man came forward, still dressed impeccably in his three-piece suit and leather-soled shoes, still as tall and dashing as ever, and still absolutely uninvited.

  “You –” Ares seethed, but the man cut him off.

  “The name is Sterling,” the man introduced himself with the air of someone entirely at ease despite the danger of the situation.

  Antares’ red-hot mind placed the name at once. Now everything made sense. Annaleia’s disappearance, his inability to locate her, even the fact that she didn’t recognize him now. “Jarrod Sterling,” Ares hissed, the interloper’s identity only spurring his already simmering fury into a full-blown blaze. “The elusive bastard they call the ‘Nightmare Warlock.’”

  Jarrod Sterling the Nightmare Warlock smiled and came further into the light. He imitated a bow. “In the flesh.”

  Chapter Nineteen – Alley. Texas. You know the drill.

  Anna could not have described the mix of relief and baffling disappointment she felt at Sterling’s appearance. It definitely made her feel safer, there was that. She knew that if he was there, she would at least not have
to call Magnus because Sterling was sure to keep her relatively safe. He was very powerful.

  Her sentinel would not have been able to answer her call to help unless she were mortally wounded or falling to her death or something of that nature anyway. After a warden’s initial meeting with their sentinel, the rules were much more strict. A sentinel’s assistance from then on required imminent demise. Life or death. With Sterling present, she probably wouldn’t be facing death any time soon.

  But the sentinel thing was the only thing Annaleia knew for certain just then. She had so many questions and was so confused, she could barely make sense of her thoughts or emotions any longer.

  Anna’s assailant turned nearly all of his focus on Sterling, and she took the chance to pull the edges of her jacket closed over her torn shirt. Sterling’s appearance would have afforded her new openings for escape except that her attacker had yet to un-block the exit of the alley. It also didn’t help that she found herself almost completely enthralled by what was transpiring between the two men.

  “You did this to her,” her attacker accused. Now that he had turned so that he was in profile and facing the streetlight, Anna was afforded a good, thorough look at him.

  Crap... he’s actually beautiful.

  It was an absurd thought. But in all fairness, it was true. She would have had to possess wits as sharp as wooden spoons to fail to notice. There was a magnetic allure to the whole of him that made his beauty wild and surreal. Her gaze trailed over his features; he was towering, broad-shouldered, and narrow-waisted. Shining blue-black hair touched the collar of his black leather jacket, his profile revealed a strong chin and cheekbones, and when he turned just a little in the low light, his eyes swirled with some kind of cosmic darkness that shimmered with stars…. And he had fangs.

  She swallowed hard when she saw those again. Even if they were admittedly attractive on him in a stark, twisted way, they were still teeth and they were sharp teeth, and she was a warden. She knew damn well from experience the damage teeth like that could cause.