by Kim Faulks
Joslyn shifted on the blankets behind me. She clasped her bra and slid on her panties, before she layered on every piece of clothing she had.
I poked the embers, setting the last three hunks of wood around the dying coals. We needed better shelter—somewhere safer. Somewhere I could set up a perimeter and try to find a way out of here.
The glint of something drew my eye. Through the filth-smeared haze of the window, I caught the faint lick of a flame.
A chill caught hold. But it wasn’t from the frigid air, it was bone deep and gnawing, screaming at me.
“Joslyn.” A choked whisper slipped free as I took a step toward the window.
Flames danced, too many to count. Twenty…thirty…surrounding the front of the building. I turned my head to the back. Maybe we could still make it. Maybe we could…
“Joslyn.”
“Zadoc…what is it?” Her cold words were hardened by fear.
I strode past her and turned down the hallway to the rear of the building. The back door was boarded with two-by-fours nailed in every direction. I grasped the first plank and wrenched.
Nails tore free leaving gaping holes behind. I grasped one after another, yanking, tearing our way out of there until I stopped.
Orange flames danced in the darkness.
“Zadoc, you're scaring me.”
I reached for her. Her body jolted and shook under my hand. I pulled her close, giving her what little warmth and strength I had left. “I want you to stay inside, okay?”
She stiffened.
“That way I know you're safe.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Zadoc. Promise me.”
The Wretched growled in warning. I could already feel him pushing against my barriers, growling with rage and the primal need to protect. I dropped my head and kissed her. Taking her lips slow before I answered. “I’m going to try to get you out of here. I’m going to try to get you home.”
Her breath cooled as I pulled away. “And what about you?”
I dropped my hand from the small of her back.
Her words were choked with panic. “Zadoc. What about you?”
I yanked the last block of timber free and turned the handle. My legs shook, my heart shattered as I grabbed the door and wrenched it closed, leaving her behind.
She fought me, grabbing hold of the doorknob and twisting, just as I knew she would. The metal folded under my strength. One quick twist and the metal buckled—locking her inside.
“Zadoc, please don’t do this,” her voice slipped from the holes in the wood.
The faint scent of her tears followed. I dragged the redolence of her pain into my heart as I turned and faced Hell itself.
Wolves waited for me with torches held high. For every one that had crowded the front of the building there were twice as many here. But it was the blonde bitch I focused on.
The sadistic fucking vermin took a step and held out her hand. Her hood threw shadows across her face as she glanced at the door behind me. “I take it, young Joslyn won’t be joining us right now?”
A snarl slipped from my lips, echoing like midnight thunder.
“Did you have a nice night?” She turned her head and looked around. “It’s cozy, although not terribly romantic.”
There was something in her eyes, a sickening glint of knowing….just like the wolf in the cells. My stomach dropped like a stone. I flinched as pieces slipped into place. The wolf had known this was coming.
“Did you think Odessa was the only Seer, Dragon?”
I stilled at the name. The strange one…the wolf…
Her smile widened. “How do you think she obtained her gifts?”
Marcus.
“You…sent her?”
That smug glint of satisfaction dulled. I took a step closer, dividing my focus between her and the wolves. The bitch looked away, not before I caught her top lip curl in disgust.
She never sent the Seer, but she knew Odessa had come to us, and whatever reason brought the blonde-haired waif to our door, it pissed this bitch off.
She reached up and combed her hand through her hair, sliding the hood backwards. Stars collided inside my head, pieces of this distorted game slipped into place. Blonde hair, tight curls, green eyes…she didn’t just look like Odessa…she looked more like…
Abrial.
“Very good, Dragon. You’re clever, I’ll give you that.”
She took a step closer, but I was captured by the pieces sliding into place. I barely heard her when she whispered. “I dreamed of you four nights ago…did you know that? Dreamed you were here in this place in the dark…in this house.” She took a step closer, her voice was hypnotic, lulling me. “Why, Dragon? Why here…why her?”
Movement came from the corner of my eye. One wolf stepped at the same time as this bitch did, using her as a distraction to head for the rear door.
Joslyn.
A quake ripped through my center. Red eyes blazed in my mind. The rancid stench of cruelty stained the air. Fifty heartbeats raced, echoing until the roar was one constant sound…except for the wolf that was coming for the woman I loved.
The steady, rhythmic sound of his pulse consumed me.
He wasn’t scared. He was focused.
I dragged in that sweat stained scent and narrowed in on the sonofabitch, never once taking my eyes off the woman in front of me. “They don’t know, do they? The Seer, and the Alpha. They don’t know they’re related.”
“Don’t know. Don’t remember. Neither matters to me. They won’t figure it out, and if they do, they won’t understand what it all means.”
She took another step, and so did the bastard behind me. He was at the edge of the building. Two more steps and he’d touch the door. Wolves were strong, not as strong as a three thousand year old Dragon—but strong enough to break the lock. Strong enough to get inside…strong enough to take what he wanted. Stony words slipped from my lips. “And what is that?”
I let the bitch come closer, like a spider to the fly. Only this time the web was woven around me, closing me in, dividing me from the one person who mattered.
Pale lips curled with a smile that never reached her eyes. “Well, see if I knew that we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?”
There was a flicker of movement, her gaze found the wolf at my back and returned to me so fast I barely registered motion.
But the Wretched did.
The wolf lunged as the thunder of hooves filled my head. Red eyes ignited as my Dragon charged to the surface of my mind. Horns clashed with bone with a sickening crunch. The hold over my own flesh slipped.
Hot…so hot. Pain tore across my skin like a thousand cuts. My body stretched, swallowing the air. The button on my jeans popped with a ping, but it wasn’t just the fabric that gave way. Something warm trailed down my spine and the metallic scent of warm blood filled the air.
“Jesus.” The door handle rattled frantically behind me.
Something low down at the base of my spine drove through skin and denim. I swung my head, with the whomp as my tail carved air. The wolf stilled, and then turned. The tuft of hair on the tip of my tail sliced him from belly to brains.
Each strand honed with a razored edge flayed fabric and skin, all the way to bone, opening him like a can…and the contents spilled out.
A crunch shattered my skull. Pain roared, slashing and hacking with an unseen blade as the Wretched shook off a thousand years of confinement and surged to the surface.
My knees trembled, threatening to bring me down. Thick, monstrous horns impaled the shattered bone of my forehead. Behind me the wolf’s piercing scream rocked the night.
Wicked points thickened and curved. My skull hardened, jaw lengthened. Movement blurred under a haze of red as wolves flanked me on all sides.
But it was the dying wolf’s terror that captured me. He cupped his belly, but it was no use. Red soaked through and pink poked out, spilling between his fingers like an overfilled sink to hit the ground.
/> “No,” he cried and tried to grab thick, knotted strands and shove them back inside. “Wait! Stop. Someone help me. I’ve come undone…I’ve come undone.”
Inside the house, a blood-curdling shriek rose in octaves, drowning out everything else—for me.
Joslyn.
Razored tines sliced through my shoulders. Bladed bones fused and lengthened. I sliced the night with taloned wings, stretching up and out, ready to protect what was mine.
If this place was the endless dark, then so was I.
Red veins glowed with the fire of my soul, throwing a bloody hue across ebony scales. Midnight colored wool ran down my arms turning to overlaid scales along my fetlocks and legs, ending where the thick armored skin covered belly, to chest and all the way over my face and down my spine.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
I swung at the sound, nailing one of the wolves with a stare.
Footsteps thundered as the army scattered. Power thrummed as the change roared through my body. Shoulders thickened, legs followed suit all the way to where split hooves replaced my feet.
I picked up one foot and drove it into the ground. Stones cracked. The earth shuddered. Joslyn’s scream ended and a deadly silence filled the space. I dragged in the air. Had the wolves broke in through the front?
I heaved my frame around, staring down at the shifters who edged closer. I slashed my tail through the air in one head-high arc. The bastards scurried backwards—like the dogs they were.
“Wretched.”
Joslyn’s sweet voice filled me, and my chest expanded with the sound. She shoved her fingers through the holes in the door, desperate to be near me. I kept my eyes on the vermin and took a step backwards, followed by another.
I’d do anything just to feel her touch.
“Help me…please…” A croak came from somewhere below, followed with a moan.
“Wretched,” she called, and it was that voice I obeyed.
I stepped once more. A sickening crunch of bones ended the shifter’s wail as my ass smacked against the door. I swept my tail higher and skimmed her fingers with slick scales, keeping the hair out of reach.
Sparks slashed along my skin. I burned with her touch. I pushed harder, needing more. To know she was alive…and safe…
The wooden frame groaned under the weight. Metal shrieked, collapsing in. The door popped open with the force and she was there, stepping around the blood-splattered mess.
I shuddered with her touch as her fingers sank into the wool of my thigh. She took one look at the wolves and then lifted her head.
Her eyes glistened like a mirror. I saw myself in her eyes. Eyes that burned like a bonfire, and a nose made of slashes. She must be terrified, still her touch never slipped and her voice never wavered as she stared me down. “We do this together, okay, big guy? No more locking me away. No more protecting me. We fall down and we get back up, but we do it together, got it?”
I did get it…but it wasn’t Zadoc the man she spoke to now.
It was the Wretched.
And he’d always had a mind of his own.
I lowered my head. Thick hooves left bloody prints in my wake as I took a step and curled one wing around her. The choking stench of the wolves closed in. I didn’t have to turn my head to know those from the front of the house had joined the rest of their pack.
They fall together, Joslyn said…but her true words lingered. Don’t you know? I’m mortal. I was born to die.
A wolf neared. I dragged my gaze to the blonde bitch and pierced her with a three thousand year old stare. I’d seen her kind before, those with a penchant for cruelty and a lust for power.
They bled the same as any other, and they all screamed at the end.
The corners of my mouth curled as I lifted a hoof into the air and pawed the ground. I lowered my head, horns at the ready as a growl reverberated through the pack.
One wolf lunged, eyes white, teeth gnashing and scurried backwards as I swung toward him. Another came from my right, and then another head on, and in the space of a breath the pack surged forward.
My first thought—my only thought—was of Joslyn.
I brought my tail over my head and struck. The wolf flinched and scurried to the side, but there was no escaping my aim.
The wolf dropped to the ground, yelping as he buried his face against the icy stones. Joslyn sucked in a breath.
“Zadoc, behind you!”
A wolf lunged from the dark, aiming for the weapon on my tail. I steadied my weight and drove a hoof through the air like a pile driver, hitting the bastard head on. His body crumpled, bones crushed. He hit the corner of the house and slumped to the ground.
There he stayed.
But they weren’t done…not by a long shot.
The blonde bitch lifted a hand and motioned the others forward. I dragged my wing in close, holding Joslyn against my body.
Three lunged at the same time. I whipped my tail and speared the air with my horns, two went down with howls of agony…but one made it through.
“Don’t kill the slut. I want her alive!” The coward commander screamed as she unleashed another drove.
There were too many. Fangs carved through wool to sink into my shoulder. Another wolf scurried under my tail and dodged my horn. He lunged for Joslyn, clawing his way up the membranous skin to get to her as I kicked out with my front leg, missing him by an inch.
Joslyn wrenched her arm back as the top of my wing sagged under the weight. A tiny fist flew through the air hitting the wolf square on the nose. He stilled for a second, stunned, and then sneezed.
That was all the time I needed. Joslyn grasped the taloned horn on the tip of my wing and held on as I drove my rear hooves into the cracked ground, trampling the wolf and those behind him.
“Kill them…kill them all,” Joslyn growled into my ear.
They came from everywhere, lunging, biting, savaging what they could. Outnumbered, the wolves were winning…rage lashed my chest. The heat surged, spewing out of my mouth with a savage roar.
Orange tongues of fire lashed the dark. Screams followed, drowning out the roar inside my head. I charged through blackened remains and bodies alight with Dragon flame, searching for the one I wanted the most.
Where was she?
Where the fuck was she?
Red eyes blazed like the reflection of my own. The hulking black mass moved like a wolf, striding out of the darkness and into the flickering fires fueled by flesh and blood.
But these things weren’t wolves…they were hounds.
I sucked in a breath and swallowed the flames. Charred flakes of ash rained from the sky as the two beasts prowled toward me. The edge of a black cloak came into view.
My belly turned to water as the demon followed the hound. I stilled and swung my head toward Joslyn. She stared at me with those sweet brown eyes filled with dread.
Run…
A whimper slipped free.
Joslyn run!
The sickening sound of laughter caught the ash-filled breeze as our captor stepped from the dark. Two more hounds of Hell followed her and with them came the demons.
They flanked her, hovering above the ground as if judgement day had finally come.
And it had.
For me.
8
Joslyn
Beaded drops of blood fell from his thick wool to hit my hand. The tiny splat came again and again, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from those beasts to look at him.
My hand trembled. I tightened my grip around the thorny talon and felt a shudder race through his body.
His chest swelled with the rush of air as the Dragon swung his head and those massive horns carved the air above. Red eyes glowed like an inferno, but it was the fear I saw that stilled me—it was the wide-eyed panic that made me want to run.
Bodies lay all around me, some still burned, others still screamed. Empty houses stretched as far as I could see. Where would I run to?
“I have nowhere else to go,”
I whispered and turned into his body. Thick scales shivered with my touch as I flattened my palm against his flank. “If you fall, then so do I. Whatever happens, we face it together.”
I ran my fingers along his chest. A heavy throb echoed, vibrating through my bones. “We are yours…the baby and me…we belong to you.”
I needed him to know…I needed to voice the words my heart already knew.
“Come Joslyn,” the vile bitch dragged my gaze to those beasts at her side.
She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers as though I were a damn child. I swallowed the urge to cry. “Fuck you, piece of fucking shit.”
Her smile wavered. I’d hurt her damn feelings. Good.
“You can come to me with your mind intact”—she turned to the towering midnight beast beside her and nodded—“or you can come to me broken.”
Pain flared, burning like a pinch that never eased. I wrenched my hand from Zadoc’s chest, but it wasn’t my hand that seared.
Heat flared, driving deep into my mind, as unseen fingers twisted and turned. I searched my arms, my face…probing my neck and chest. Agony slammed into my mind like an unseen wave. I stumbled with the blow and smacked into bone.
Zadoc opened his wing. Talons blurred. Panic gathered momentum igniting sparks in my mind. I tried to move my fingers, but my body obeyed another—a mistress called pain. “Help me.”
Behind the iridescent blur, the blonde bitch found me and smiled. “Whole or fractured, Joslyn…it makes no difference to me.”
The beasts at her side closed in as my right knee gave way.
A roar shattered the night as I hit the stony ground. Cold kissed my face, my cheek, my lips—soothing, eating, swallowing the burn.
The howl of rage turned guttural and strange. Choked sounds above sent shivers along my spine. A whoosh of air buffeted my body, but it was that ebbing of agony that consumed my existence—that numbing ache that throbbed inside my head.
“Dragon.” Our captor’s voice pierced my thoughts. “Come.”
The Huntress. That’s what the wolf we locked in the cell had called her.
The Huntress…
Flames exploded in the sky. I shifted my head. The night was ablaze with terror. I floated, spread out on the cold stony ground. Cotton wool seemed to fill my head. Pain whispered…I’m right here…just waiting for you.
