by Tessa Dawn
Both of them looked ashamed.
Axe snorted and shook his head.
Well, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Warren’s sin of entry, how he had exposed himself to the pagans.
So the man was a pedophile…
Disgusting, but whatever.
The Dragyr did not get involved in human affairs, at least not beyond any direct or interlocking business with The Pantheon.
They did their masters’ bidding.
It wasn’t an optional clause.
And that, as they say, was that.
As the short blonde female scurried around Axe and headed for the manager’s door, Axe tapped her on the shoulder. “Sweetheart,” he said in a husky voice, laced with lethal intention. “You never saw me, okay?”
Her light-green eyes grew cloudy, and she slowly nodded her head. “Yeah,” she whispered, “okay.”
“Oh, and one other thing.”
She shifted back and forth, nervously, as she waited.
“This old piece of shit—the one you were about to get it on with, on the desk. That’s finished. Find someone your own age.”
She drew back in surprise, but she nodded. Then she hurried out of the room.
Warren’s face flushed red. “Who the hell are you? And what makes you think you can just walk into my office without an appointment?” He reached for the intercom on his phone and grunted into the speaker: “Jackson? Jackson! Get in here.”
Jackson must have been the African-American security guard, and if so, he wasn’t coming. Axe’s compulsion would hold—probably for the rest of the day. But just to be safe—and to make sure Warren didn’t reach out to anyone else—he flicked his pinky in the direction of the intercom, sent a slender electrical flame through the air, and blew out the internal wiring. “Sit down,” he barked.
Now, there was no point in going into Pantheon business with this pitiful Cult of Hades’ sycophant. Truth be told, the low-level human had probably never even met Lord Drakkar, and he likely never would. He was just a pawn on a chessboard—a naïve, corruptible mind that the pagans could use until they were finished with him—until they had sucked all the anima out of him or left him on the sidewalk for dead. The leeching could take a day, a year, or a lifetime, depending on how much sin they consumed from Mr. Simmons—and at what rate they consumed it.
“You got a tattoo on the back of your neck?” Axe asked.
The human’s eyes narrowed. He looked instantly guilty, and he reached up to scratch his nape. Yep, he was sporting a medieval sword with a witch’s pentacle etched into the pommel, on the back of his neck. Sure as shit, he was. And that meant that somewhere in the underworld a demon was watching, listening, and tuning into Warren Simmons several times a day. They would read his distress, catch the disruption in his sin, and eventually come to investigate. Hopefully, the hand wouldn’t stink too badly before they found the box of chocolates.
Axe figured he’d better speed things up.
He dropped the “gift” on Warren’s desk, planted his forefinger in the center of the bow, and seared his gaze into Warren’s. “You leave this right here until someone…important…comes to get it. You don’t open it; you don’t talk about it; you don’t mention it until then. We copasetic on that?”
The man looked decidedly pissed off, like he wanted to rip Axe’s head off—good luck with that one—but somewhere deep inside, where predators recognized prey and quarry hid from hunters, his common sense kicked in. “Yeah,” he mumbled in a surly tone, “we’re copasetic.”
“Good,” Axe said.
He was about to pull a disappearing act, simply vanish from the bank, when he thought better of it: He should make one last pass through the lobby, make sure nothing had gone wrong—make sure no humans had been tipped off—before he made his way back through the portal. His muscles bunched and contracted in the lithe, smooth gait of a hunter—it was the animal nature of a dragyri—as he sauntered out of the office, headed back down the hall, into the lobby, and quickly checked all human eyes for signs of awareness.
Convinced that everything was A-Okay, he passed by the last female teller—and his amulet heated up.
What the hell…
The timeless, heavy sapphire stone hanging around his neck—the one that linked his soul to The Pantheon and his life to Lord Saphyrius—suddenly singed his flesh, leaving a trail of smoke in the lobby.
His inner dragon drew to immediate attention.
He angled his body toward the nice-looking teller and regarded her much more closely.
Her beautiful, dark, amber eyes, which matched the color of her hair almost perfectly, began to glow inside her irises, and then, just for an instant, her pupils turned deep dark blue.
Sapphire.
Just like Axe’s stone.
The precious gem seared a scar into his flesh, and in that moment, he knew…
Oh yeah, he knew…
And, holy hell, the realization was stunning.
He was staring at his fated dragyra.
His beast began to snarl as he took a step in her direction—just what the hell was she doing in King’s Castle Credit Union?
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK TWO
AXEVIATHON ~ SON OF DRAGONS
Books by Tessa Dawn
(THE BLOOD CURSE SERIES)
Blood Genesis (prequel)
Blood Destiny
Blood Awakening
Blood Possession
Blood Shadows
Blood Redemption
Blood Father
Blood Vengeance
Blood Ecstasy
Blood Betrayal ~ Coming Soon
(OTHER TITLES)
Dragons Realm
Daywalker ~ The Beginning
(PANTHEON OF DRAGONS)
Zanaikeyros ~ Son of Dragons
Axeviathon ~ Son of Dragons (Coming Soon)
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About the Author
Tessa Dawn grew up in Colorado, where she developed a deep affinity for the Rocky Mountains. After graduating with a degree in psychology, she worked for several years in criminal justice and mental health before returning to get her master’s degree in nonprofit management.
Tessa began writing as a child and composed her first full-length novel at the age of eleven. By the time she graduated high school, she had a banker’s box full of short stories and novels. Since then, she has published works as diverse as poetry, greeting cards, workbooks for kids with autism, and academic curricula. Her Dark Fantasy/Gothic Romance novels represent her long-desired return to her creative-writing roots and her passionate flair for storytelling.
Tessa currently splits her time between the Colorado suburbs and mountains with her husband, two children, and “one very crazy cat.” She hopes to one day move to the country where she can own horses and what she considers “the most beautiful creature ever created” — a German Shepherd.
Writing is her bliss.
Published by Ghost Pines Publishing, LLC http://www.ghostpinespublishing.com
Volume I in the Pantheon of Dragons Series by Tessa Dawn
First Edition eBook Published October 31, 2016 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Copyright © Tessa Dawn, 2016 All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1-937223-22-9
Printed in the United States of America
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Author may be contacted at: http://www.tessadawn.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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