Taken by a Dragon

by Felicity Heaton

  Angels existed.

  CHAPTER 21

  He flinched as a piercing shrieking noise filled the pleasant stunned silence, grating on his nerves and fraying the weak threads holding his temper in check. On opening his eyes, he realised it was the female he had come to detain who had dared to raise the alarm. She stood further away from him now, the blonde female held behind her and her other hand still on the red button on the black wall. The hard sharp edge to her golden eyes challenged him to make a move against her.

  Movement in the adjoining room gained his attention for barely a second, long enough to see they were removing the semi-nude shifter male from it and the mortal males who had accompanied him were fleeing in fear.

  Pathetic creatures.

  He calmly returned his gaze to the reason he had been sent to this wretched realm.

  Two more females rushed into the room and flanked her, their silver swords drawn and aimed at him. As if such paltry weapons could pierce his flesh.

  “What do you want?” the one called Sable spat at him, her icy glare declaring her intent to fight him.

  Brave. Courageous. He gave her that. But also foolish. She knew she was no match for him, and yet she sought to intimidate him. Many had attempted to cover their fears with such a poor façade when faced with him and all had eventually cracked and crumbled, falling to their knees to cower before him.

  He furled his white wings against his back. Their longest feathers grazed his bare shins and feet and he decided that he should have gone with wearing his armour rather than a simple white and gold tunic. It would have made a stronger impression on the puny mortal females huddled before him and might have sped things along. It certainly would have stopped the bastard offspring of an angel from being so mouthy.

  “I came as soon as I learned of your existence. I am come for you.” He pointed to the silver cuff around her wrist and she looked down at it, the colour slowly draining from her face, adding a satisfyingly fearful pallor to it.

  Now he was getting somewhere. Perhaps she would be more compliant now.

  “What’s he talking about?” the blonde female whispered with a curious edge to her frown as she looked at Sable.

  “It’s not important. I’ll tell you later.” Sable turned from her comrade to face him again. “Listen, Buddy, I’m not going anywhere and definitely not with you. I don’t even know who you are.”

  Perhaps she wouldn’t be more compliant after all.

  They had warned him that she was a difficult thing, but he hadn’t listened to them. Mostly because they had said she had a difficulty rating the same as his and he tired of their taunts about his temper. He had stated that he would easily take her into custody and he meant to do that. Swiftly. He had no desire to linger in this realm, around such lowly beings.

  “You got a name? Other than Tall, Dark and Pompous?”

  Pompous?

  He glared at her and unleashed a fraction of his power. She straightened her spine in response, resisting the pressing weight of his power as it buffeted her. Her three comrades didn’t fare so well. They all staggered back a few steps towards the door and beads of sweat broke out on the brow of the weakest.

  “Give me your sword, Anais.” Sable held her hand out to the blonde female, who did as she instructed, drawing her weapon and placing it into her palm. Her fingers closed around it and she held it out in front of her, pointing it at him. “I’m giving you to the count of three. Tell me your name or bugger off. Fail to do one of those things and I’ll kick your arse. Choice is yours.”

  Amusing, but boring. He had heard better threats, from more dangerous foes. She was part angel, but no match for him in a fight. Still, he had strict orders to bring her back with him, unharmed, and that meant he had to lower himself to select the first ridiculous choice she had given him.

  In a manner of speaking anyway.

  “I have no name. No angels do. All I can give to you is that I am of the Echelon.”

  He held his right arm out to her, revealing the cross marked on the inside of his wrist.

  A cross she also bore on her skin in the exact same spot.

  The irritation that had been building in her eyes gave way to a flicker of curiosity and something akin to hope, but she didn’t move from her spot near the other females. He needed her away from them. While their weapons couldn’t kill him, they might land blows while he was attempting to detain Sable and he would lose his temper.

  He didn’t think the council would forgive him if he killed three mortals.

  They hadn’t mentioned any restrictions when it came to mortals, but the council rarely took a favourable view on killing them.

  “I met an angel with a name. Aurora. Heard of her?” Sable said and he barely held back his irritated sigh.

  “The one you speak of is no longer an angel… and you will come with me.”

  She pinned him with a glare when he considered just crossing the distance between them and grabbing her, putting an end to this farce. It seemed she was better attuned to the feelings of others than the council had suspected. She could read him. A rare gift.

  The huntress who had sweated when he had unleashed a fraction of his power edged backwards towards the door. He shifted his focus to her and used another gift of his to change her mind about sneaking away and going for reinforcements. She stilled and stared blankly at him. A weak mind was always a glorious thing. So easy to influence. He wished the other two were weak too, but he had tested their minds and found them strong. As strong as Sable was.

  Influencing them would hurt them.

  “What’s it like having no name?” Sable waved the sword at him, the curiosity back in her eyes. “How does that work? How do other angels get your attention?”

  Her constant questions perplexed him. He couldn’t remember ever appearing before anyone who had been so irritatingly unaffected and able to string words into sentences in his presence rather than just staring in a dumbfounded manner at him.

  “They address me as Fourth Commander of the Echelon if they desire my attention.” He wasn’t sure why she needed to know or why she had such a problem with angels having no name.

  He had a rank, and that was all he required.

  “That seems like a pretty crappy way of getting someone’s attention… and you’re only the fourth commander?” She frowned and shook her head, a teasing edge to her tone and expression that he found annoying. None of the people he had graced with his presence had ever dared to tease him before either. She smiled and he knew she had read him again, had felt his irritation and dislike of her conversation, and she was going to use that knowledge against him. “That must grate a little. Who’s the first? Oh, wait! He doesn’t have a name so I guess he’s just First Commander of the Echelon.”

  He frowned at her now, his pride a little chafed by her taunting and his patience wearing thin.

  “How many are there?” She swung the sword up to rest on her shoulder.

  So casual.

  Would she be so casual if he exerted a little power and popped one of her comrades’ heads with nothing more than a thought?

  “How many what?” He played along with her, lost in the pleasing thought of terrifying her by killing her little friends in front of her.

  “Commanders.”

  “Six.” He could see where this was heading and he folded his arms across his chest, warning her not to go there.

  She did. With a huge grin. “Six, and you’re only number four. Ouch. How long did it take you to reach number four?”

  “Silence,” he barked and even the alarms stopped shrieking. “I am not here to speak of my rank. You will come with me. Echelon are rare now and all must serve Heaven.”

  Sable shook her head. “If you haven’t got the memo, maybe I should tell you… I’m a queen of demons.”

  That surprised him, moderately, but didn’t sway him. “You will come with me. The demons are of little consequence. They may find another queen.”

  Her express
ion turned horrified and she had the sword pointing at him again before he could blink, the darkness in her eyes warning him that he wasn’t the only one close to losing his temper now. “That’s my husband you’re talking about so callously. My people! I’m not going to Heaven. I’m going back to Hell.”

  His temper snapped and the room darkened, the light sucking out of it as he stepped towards her, glaring down at her as he spread his wings. They spanned the room and drew fearful glances from the three mortal females. Sable stood firm in front of him, her blade never wavering, not even when his power began to slip beyond his grasp. He held his hand out in front of him, filled with a dark need to call his blade to him and teach her a lesson in humility and respect.

  The steely determination in her steady gaze challenged him to try.

  A sensation shot down his spine and fire arced through his blood, a warning from those on high that he was close to overstepping the line.

  He drew a deep calming breath, reined in his temper enough to regain control of his powers, and tried again. “I am not known for my patience. I would not test it. You will come with me. By force, if necessary.”

  The blonde female called Anais and a second female jumped in front of Sable, blocking his path to her.

  His gaze caught on the second female, a slender brunette with fierce green eyes. Strange warmth flooded him at the sight of her but it was swiftly followed by fury so dark and deep that it threatened to shatter his carefully controlled calm and send him into a killing rage.

  She bore wounds on her fair skin.

  She had been beaten.

  “What did this to you?” The words seemed to leave his lips of their own volition, coming from an unfamiliar part of him, one that felt alien and shook him with the strength of its will and the depth of its feelings.

  She shook her head and backed away from him, her green eyes gradually widening and filling with fear.

  Her lips wouldn’t answer him, so he sought it from her eyes.

  He stared deep into them and saw it all for himself. He witnessed her suffering at the hands of a dragon.

  His blade was in his hand before he knew what he was doing. Blue flames flickered along the length of it, darkest near the hilt. Almost black. A need filled him, a terrible hunger that he couldn’t hold back or deny.

  “A dragon resides in this place. I will slay him for you.” He swept the blade down at his side and focused his senses to find the dragon who had been in the other room when he had arrived.

  Sable shoved the two huntresses behind her. “Don’t you bloody dare! That dragon had nothing to do with what happened to Emelia.”

  Emelia?

  His gaze drifted back to the slender female. She had bowed her head, her dark hair falling down to obscure her face and steal the pleasure of seeing it from him, and had wrapped her arms around herself, holding herself so tightly he felt she feared she might fall apart.

  “Where does the dragon who did this to you reside?” He spoke to her but it was Sable who answered.

  “In Hell.”

  His mood darkened again on hearing that, but he recalled that all dragons had been banished from the mortal realm millennia ago by a powerful witch. He flexed his fingers around the hilt of his blade, his mind working to find a solution to his problem so he could hunt and slay the dragon, but none presented itself.

  Irritated by a seemingly irremovable object in his path, he muttered, “I cannot enter Hell.”

  And regretted it when Sable’s eyes lit up.

  “What a shame,” she said with a victorious smile.

  She believed she would be safe from him there, but he wasn’t going to give her a chance to escape him.

  He lunged for her.

  A huge demon male appeared in his path, his eyes blazing red and dusky horns curling from above his pointed ears, twisting around themselves to flare forwards like daggers on either side of his temples. The male bared sharp fangs and grew even larger, coming to tower over him as his leathery dark wings brushed the walls and ceiling as he hunched over in the room.

  He readied his sword.

  The demon didn’t give him a chance to use it.

  The enormous male spoke in the demon tongue, each word piercing his ears like white-hot needles and slithering through him like oily darkness, warning him away from the female.

  She had not lied.

  She was a queen of demons.

  But she was Echelon too.

  “This is not over,” he spat the words at the demon and teleported just as the male swung at him.

  He reappeared on the balcony of his home in the vast white of Heaven and looked down on them, seeing through the layers of the building to the room where he had been just a second before.

  It wasn’t Sable or the demon who was the focus of his gaze though.

  It was Emelia.

  He watched her as she shrank away from the group, still holding herself, entranced by her beauty and angered by her suffering.

  He would find a way to slay her dragon for her.

  He would bring the wrath of Heaven down upon all of Hell.

  CHAPTER 22

  Awareness slowly grew within Loke as the effects of the gas began to wear off. Two men were dragging him through the corridors, but his surroundings were no longer white. They flashed red in time with the piercing wail that drove through his mind like a sharp spear, repeatedly stabbing him until he growled groggily and prayed to the gods it would shut up.

  The man holding him under his right arm looked down at him and then up at his comrade. “Better hurry before he comes around.”

  Where were they taking him?

  He hazily remembered being in a different room with the two scientists.

  A clearer memory rose and rage blasted through him, born of a need to protect his mate.

  He had sensed her close to him when he had been in that room, and had instinctively known that she was beyond the mirror that had reflected his stark gaunt image back at him. He had sensed another presence too. Shortly after they had shoved him down onto the strange table and strapped him in place, he had felt a powerful being in the other room with Anais.

  A heartbeat after that, the lights had begun flashing and the irritating noise had started.

  He had been unshackled and pulled from the room.

  But Anais had remained back there, in that other room where the presence had appeared.

  She was in danger.

  He needed to get to her.

  He tried to fight the hold of the two mortal males, but the weakness infesting him and the debilitating effects of the gas they had given him made it impossible to break free. Shame swept through him, chafing at the pride he had as a warrior and a dragon. He had been reduced to a creature weaker than a human.

  The men dumped him back in his cell and he lay on the white floor, breathing hard and shaking all over as he fought a dizzy spell that threatened to have what little contents were in his stomach rising up his throat. He closed his eyes and clung to the floor as it rocked and whirled.

  It wasn’t the gas that was affecting him now.

  It was being in this realm.

  He had to escape, but the one chance he had been given had been stolen away from him by whatever creature had appeared in the room with Anais and the other huntress.

  Hope drained from him, fear and the reality of his situation combining to siphon it from him and leave him cold and exhausted, on the brink of surrendering and allowing death to claim him.

  “What’s happening?” Harbin’s voice rang loudly through the wall as the male banged on it.

  It roused Loke from his stupor and gave him something else to focus on as he pulled himself back together.

  He couldn’t give up.

  No matter how much he desired it.

  A warrior never surrendered, not even to death. He would fight it until he could fight no more.

  He managed to push himself up into a kneeling position on the white floor and pressed his right hand t
o the wall that separated him and Harbin.

  “I do not know.” Just as he said that, the screeching noise fell silent. He looked up at the ceiling and thanked the gods for their mercy. “I sensed a strong presence near me and then the infernal lights began flashing and that noise began.”

  “It’s called an alarm. They raise it when something bad happens.”

  Loke pulled himself closer to the wall and rested against it. “Then something bad has happened.”

  He stared at the corridor, filled with an impotent need to reach Anais and ensure that she was safe. Had whatever invaded the complex come for her? The fear returned, running through his veins and making his blood burn even as it chilled. This time, it wasn’t fear for his own life. It was fear for hers. He had seen her death so many times now.

  But never in a place like this.

  He clung to that, using it as a balm to soothe his heart and give him hope.

  She was strong, and so was the one called Sable. Together they could manage to escape whatever had entered the room with them.

  Minutes ticked by slowly, each second like an hour as he struggled to remain awake, his eyes constantly locked on the corridor beyond the glass. He willed Anais to appear in it and show him that she was safe. He needed to see her.

  The alarms began again, the red flashing lights hurting his eyes. He wanted to close them and to cover his ears, but he forced himself to keep his gaze on the corridor. Anais had to come to him. He needed her.

  A shriek rose above the wail of the alarm, followed by a heavy thud. There was a series of harsh grunts and then the metallic ring of weapons clashing. Someone was fighting.

  Loke pulled himself closer to the glass, needing to see what was happening in the corridor. Was someone attacking the complex?

  He growled at the thought, the need to break free of his cell and protect Anais sweeping through him, stronger than ever.

  “Can you see anything?” Harbin called through the wall.

  “Nothing.” And it was frustrating him, wearing at his patience and his temper.

  He pressed his hand to the glass and tried to focus beyond it and use his senses to detect what species were wreaking havoc in the corridor just out of sight. His head turned again, spinning violently, and he had to close his eyes against the sudden whirling that made the world around him nothing but streaks of white and red.