Fury of Desire (-4

by Coreene Callahan

  Which was… what? Extinction of the human race. Wipe them out and free the planet from the yoke of their stupidity… from their selfishness too. For that alone the humans deserved to die. They were fucking up the planet, killing the ozone layer with greenhouse gases, polluting the oceans and water tables, taking more than their fair share while forcing other species into extinction.

  All without giving a shit.

  It couldn’t go on. Mother Earth was dying, the slow, painful death difficult to watch, so… no help for it. Only one thing left to do. Treat the underlying cause like an infestation of cockroaches and exterminate the human race. Poof… gone… done. Problem solved once and for all.

  So far, though, success eluded him.

  Now he was months behind, unable to keep his promise to Rodin—leader of the Archguard. Head of one of five dynastic families that rule Dragonkind, the male wanted the humans gone almost as much as Ivar did. A political animal, Rodin was a powerful ally, providing funding for Ivar’s pet projects and all the soldiers he needed to fill the Razorback ranks. Perfect in so many ways. He got what he required while Rodin cooled his heels in Prague, three thousand miles away. Geographical distance plus money equaled ultimate control. Ivar’s favorite kind of equation.

  Now all he needed was his experiments to bear fruit.

  Easier said than done. Each failure hammered the truth home, and as the memories surfaced, Ivar came full circle, his thoughts landing back on his best friend. Sorrow tightened his throat. Mind-blowing loss. Pain come to life. Son of a bitch, it still hurt. Such a waste of time. No amount of mourning would bring his friend back. Lothair was dead. Gone. Murdered by the enemy. Never to return. Grief cracked him wide open, beating on him until he bled inside: for revenge, for the opportunity to even the score and return the favor. Fucking Nightfuries. The murdering bastards. Bastian had taken the only male Ivar had ever loved.

  Clenching his teeth, Ivar snarled, feeding his fury. A life for a life. Somehow—someway—he would make the Nightfury commander pay. Take something precious from the male and even the score. On his honor, he vowed to see it done.

  The elevator doors slid open with a gentle hiss.

  A soft ping followed, echoing in the silence, coaxing him over the threshold into what would eventually become the Razorbacks’ common room. He stepped through, barely noticing the devastation. The smell, though, struck him like an open palm. Musty and damp, the rot of decaying wood mixed with the scent of newly poured concrete. Rubbing the tip of his nose, he headed for the opposite side of the room. Thick dust beneath his boot treads, he left a trail of footprints in his wake and strode toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. Cracked in places, the glass took up the entire back side of the old fire station. Moonlight shone through the panes, casting shadows on the floor and across the exposed, pitted brick walls.

  Ivar’s mouth curved. The property was a complete travesty. Even so, the old building pleased him. Despite all appearances, the place was solid, and the structure sound, so… no. He didn’t give a rat’s ass that it sat on the brink of decay. Neglected, after all, didn’t mean useless. Besides, the humans’ abandonment of the fire station, and the thirteen acres that accompanied it, worked in his favor. No one cared what he did. No one noticed either. Not the city or its inspectors or his neighbors. Everyone kept to themselves, happy someone had bought the eyesore, leaving him to fix it up and to his own devices.

  Excellent. Just what he needed… time, and lots of it.

  For what? To finish construction on the underground lair. His worker bees—the humans he imprisoned for the task—were hard at work, in a frenzy to please him and complete the system of hallways, bedroom suites, and living quarters 150 feet below the surface. His laboratory, and the sophisticated equipment it housed, was already set. Thank fuck. At least the place he considered his sanctuary was up and running. A few more months would see the rest of the high-tech facility finished. Only then would he turn his attention to the building aboveground.

  Skirting rotten floorboards that gave way to the large hole in the middle of the room, Ivar stopped in front of the double French doors. His dragon radar pinged as he scanned terrain beyond the firehouse. He sighed. Shit. No Hamersveld yet. The male was now a full hour late. Not cool on the punctuality front. Even worse for the fact that he couldn’t raise the warrior through mind-speak, the cosmic equivalent of a cell phone for their kind. Every time he tried dialing in to send out the call, static came back at him, washing in, fading out, pissing him off while simultaneously making him worry.

  Ivar frowned, suspicion circling. One that involved the Norwegian bugging out and saying the hell with it. He examined the possibility from all angles, not wanting to believe it, hoping it wasn’t true. He needed Hamersveld in the fold, not swimming the Atlantic and headed for home, but…

  Anything was possible. Especially after going another round with the Nightfuries last night.

  The bastards had come on strong, backing up their resident water-rat, protecting Tania Solares, KO’ing his plans to put the high-energy female in a cage. He’d had one picked out, the perfect home for her in cellblock A. With her off-the-charts energy, she would’ve made a spectacular addition to the five females he’d already imprisoned. An incredible bedmate too. Now he had less than nothing. Just an empty cell where Solares belonged and an absentee sea dragon with etiquette issues.

  The annoying prick. He could’ve called. Pinged him through mind-speak to tell him he’d changed his mind… that he’d opted out of the Razorback agenda and back into his antisocial tendencies.

  “Asshole water-rat.” His growl echoed through the quiet, then banged around inside his head. Damn it all, another setback. One more failure to add to the pile. Disappointment circled deep, bringing anger with it. God, what a mind fuck. He’d had such high hopes for Hamersveld and the special brand of strength the warrior would bring to his pack. “Fucking hell.”

  Everything lay in tatters now. His strategy. His agenda. The hope of a new XO to see to the needs of his pack. Shaking his head, Ivar curled his hands into fists, feeling his internal temperature spike. Ivar put the kibosh on his temper. Anger wouldn’t change a thing. Neither would wallowing in the loss. Only action would right the situation and salvage the dream he held in his heart. He was a fighter, goddamn it. A warrior born and bred, with killer skills and a razor-sharp intellect. If he couldn’t figure a way out of the mess, no one could and—

  A familiar tingle ghosted down his spine.

  Ivar’s attention snapped back toward the windows. Tilting his head, he called his magic. Heat rose in a powerful wave, setting his senses alight. He held onto the inferno-like rush, allowing it to gather strength, then let it roll. His sonar pinged. Static swirled between his temples. Mining the connection, he stared through the window glass into the backyard. With nothing more than a thought, he flung the double French doors open and stepped onto the narrow balcony. Cold air closed around him, bringing the fresh scent of midnight with it. He breathed deep, filling his lungs with the chill as he glanced to his right.

  A hiss, warped by thick, damp air, slithered on the breeze.

  Sensation thumped the inside of his skull. Pain sizzled between his temples. His brows snapped together. Oh shit. Something was off, wrong in a way he couldn’t place but knew held weight. A wagon full of it judging by the load of intense, terrible, and scary headed his way.

  The wind picked up, howling in displeasure, ripping at the hem of his T-shirt. And still he waited, exposed beneath the night sky, wanting to know what caused the disruption as thunder rumbled and the moon disappeared behind thick cloud cover. As the horizon went dark, lightning forked, striking above the cityscape. Street lights faded in the flash and…

  Movement flickered in his periphery.

  Ivar drew a lungful of frosty air as a dark-gray blur streaked into view. Jesus fucking Christ. Hamersveld… moving like an inbound missile, coming in hot, dragging an electrical storm in his wake. More lightning cracked. Another ro
und of thunder boomed. The male wobbling in midair, the angle of his wings all wrong. Christ, he was flying in way too fast. Was completely out of control. No way could the warrior land that way. Unless, of course, he wanted to snap his own neck.

  Surprise took a nasty turn into concern. Disbelief whispered next, cranking holy shit into critical territory.

  Oh, so not good. The Norwegian was in serious trouble.

  Ivar could smell the singed scales and dragon blood. Both wafted on the updraft Hamersveld left in his wake. Which meant one thing. He’d been injured by the Nightfury, taken down a notch while fighting with Bastian’s water-rat beneath the surface of the water. In the stupid lake. Over the very HE female Ivar wanted caged and part of his breeding program.

  Well, hell. Looked like he owed Hamersveld an apology for his unkind thoughts.

  Another time, perhaps, ’cause…

  Ivar cringed as Hamersveld wobbled, veering toward the beat-to-shit construction equipment that littered his backyard. A second later, the male fell out of the sky, landing without his usual grace. But worse? He skidded then rolled into a death spin, ripping a deep trench into the ground. Dirt mounded on either side of him. The jagged edge of his bladed tail caught a row of rusty oil tanks. The collision flipped him sideways. Steel banged into steel, the clang catastrophic in the silence. Calamity ringing in his ears, Ivar blinked, watching in disbelief as Hamersveld continued to skid, launching a loader skyward.

  The thing crash-landed, scattering timber like toothpicks.

  With a muttered curse, Ivar leapt over the railing and off the balcony. The chill of midnight rushed over him. Cold wind blasted his cheeks, blowing his hair back as he dropped three stories. He landed hard, knees rebounding toward his chest. Both hammered his breastbone, pushing the air from his lungs. Ivar ignored the burn and, not wasting a second, hauled ass across the backyard.

  Frozen blades of grass crunching beneath his boots, he sprinted between two graders. Avoiding the sharp edges of twisted metal, he kept his gaze glued on Hamersveld. Chest heaving, shark-gray scales clicked with each movement. Laying in a tangled heap—wings bent at odd angles, horned head half buried beneath a mound of topsoil, huge talons twitching—blood seeped from a myriad of shallow cuts crisscrossing his torso. Not an issue under normal circumstances. Dragonkind healed quickly, the magic in their DNA closing wounds so fast they usually took care of themselves within hours. The problem here? It had been twenty-four hours since their showdown with the Nightfury pack and…

  Jesus. The situation was anything but normal.

  What was his first clue? Hamersveld’s tattoo. Running along both sides of his jagged sawtooth spine, the tribal ink was glowing. Not its usual dark blue either… but bright frickin’ red.

  The sight made Ivar’s stomach turn.

  He approached anyway, keeping his pace slow and even, not wanting to startle the male. A downed dragon was a dangerous one. But one in pain? Even more so, and… yeah. No question. Hamersveld was in terrible pain. With the strange glow, he looked like he was on fire, flame eating him from the inside out. Something that wasn’t normal for a water dragon. Well, at least as far as Ivar knew. He and the warrior might have teamed up, but that didn’t mean he understood the propensities of a rare breed like Hamersveld.

  The tattoo pulsed, beating in the frosty swirl, taking on a life of its own.

  Ivar kept his feet moving, slipping between a couple of upended oil tanks. Keeping his tone soft, he murmured, “Hamersveld.”

  “Ivar?” he rasped through mind-speak, Norwegian accent thicker than usual. The low, pain-filled growl streamed through Ivar’s head. A second later, the warrior groaned and cracked one eyelid open. A black iris rimmed by light blue landed on him. Shimmering in the gloom, Hamersveld’s gaze joined the light show along his back and shoulder, piercing the darkness. Ivar bit down on another curse. Holy God, the male was in rough shape, so weak he couldn’t lift his head. “Need help.”

  “I’m here.” He laid a hand on the male’s scaled shoulder. Keeping his touch light, he examined a deep gash running along the side of the male’s neck. “What the hell happened?”

  “Fen… injured. Nightfury assholes.” He coughed, then groaned through clenched fangs. “Sorry… had to leave fight. Needed to… feed him.”

  Not following, Ivar frowned. “Who? Fen?”

  Hamersveld nodded. A spasm rolled through him, making tense muscles quiver along his flank. Worry glimmered in the warrior’s gaze, and Ivar struggled to understand. Fen was a wren, a unique subset of Dragonkind. Light, fast, and vicious in a fight, the miniature dragons had been hunted to near extinction. Considered a sport, tracking and killing wrens had been big business. The practice had been outlawed by the Archguard over a century ago—and with so few wrens remaining, most of his kind couldn’t be bothered to hunt them anymore.

  Humans, after all, made better prey.

  “Where is the wren now?” Ivar asked.

  “Safe… inside.”

  Safe inside? What the fuck did that mean? Ivar didn’t know. Didn’t have time to find out either. Not with Hamersveld looking like a frickin’ train wreck. Later—when the warrior was healed and on his feet again—would be soon enough to solve the mystery.

  The male’s head lulled in the dirt.

  “What do you need?” Ivar jostled him a little, uncertain of the best tack to take. As a water dragon, Hamersveld had different needs than he did. “How can I help?”

  “A female… must feed to keep Fen nourished. Need saltwater too.”

  “Will a salt bath work?”

  “Perfect.”

  “I’ve got both inside the lair… all high-energy females. So shift, zi kamir,” he said, using Dragonese, calling him “my brother” to engender trust and get Hamersveld moving. “Let’s get you on your feet and into the lair.”

  With supreme effort, Hamersveld planted his webbed paw on the ground and pressed up. Muscles rippled. Shark-gray scales undulated beneath the faint glow of street lights. With a magical zap, he transformed, moving from dragon to human form. Blond hair matted with blood, he reached for Ivar. He didn’t hesitate, and slipping his arm around the male, hauled him off his knees to his feet. Hamersveld cursed as his bare feet touched down. Ivar offered no apology. He gritted his teeth around an f-bomb instead. Jesus, the SOB was heavy. Almost seven feet tall, the male’s bulk rivaled a WWE wrestler’s.

  Great to have as backup during battle. Terrible to support while navigating the war zone that now constituted his backyard.

  Half dragging, half carrying Hamersveld, he manhandled him toward the entrance of 28 Walton Street. Halfway across the yard, sensation prickled up Ivar’s spine. He clenched his teeth, recognizing the tingle for what it was… or should he say who?

  With a sigh, Ivar tightened his hold on the warrior in his arms and opened the connection. “What is it, Denzeil?”

  “Got some info.”

  “About Tania Solares?” Ivar stumbled sideways. Hamersveld grunted. Ivar tightened his hold and lifted the male over the uneven patch of ground.

  “Not exactly, but—”

  “Then I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I’m tracking her cell phone. A text message just came in and—”

  “Jesus Christ. What did I just say? I don’t give a rat’s ass, D,” he said, tone pissy, his gaze fixed on the fire station’s back door. “Just deal with it. I’ve got my fucking hands full.”

  “Ten-four, boss. I’ll send a fighting unit to investigate.”

  “Do that,” he muttered, slamming the door closed on D’s connection.

  He didn’t have time to screw around. Not now that he had Hamersveld right where he wanted the male. Gratitude, after all, was a powerful weapon. He planned to leverage the shit out of it. Crank it so hard, he earned the warrior’s trust. If he did it right, loyalty and commitment to the Razorbacks would follow, and he’d get what he needed: a powerful sea dragon in his corner. All he required to turn the tables on Bastian and move
forward with his plans.

  6

  The holy shit factor dialed to fuck you, Wick staggered across the Gridiron toward the back exit. Humans squawked, giving him a wide berth and incredulous looks. He didn’t blame them. In control, he scared the hell out of most people. His size. The way he looked. The load of lethal he carried around like a bad attitude. All served to make others wary, and that was under optimal circumstances.

  But right now… while on overload from the feeding and out of control?

  Jesus, he was the Dragonkind equivalent of a wrecking ball, swinging on a thin cable of sanity, muscle and joints coming unhinged, coordination nonexistent as he plotted a trajectory toward the other side of the bar.

  Wick wanted it to be different. Wished like hell female energy didn’t send him into a tailspin—every… single… frickin’… time. But hoping for something didn’t garner results. And wishing never made things so. A shame, really. He could’ve used a little hope right now. Especially since his vision was messed up, blinking off and on like a schizophrenic lightbulb.

  Shit, he was in trouble.

  He knew the door was over there… somewhere. A blurry collection comprised of posts and lintels, but—

  Nausea churned, throwing stomach acid up his throat.

  His brain went sideways, spinning into a death skid inside his skull. He lost his balance and stumbled, veering into oncoming traffic. The group of females squealed. Wobbling on three-inch heels, the trio hopped out of his way, threw him dirty looks, struggling to steady the drinks in their hands. Liquid sloshed over the rims of glass tumblers. The horrific stench of alcohol hit him like a body shot. Wick gagged and…

  Fucking hell.

  He needed out. Right now. Out of the heat of the club. Away from the stench. Into the alley and boatloads of fresh air. Otherwise, he’d end up flat on the floor, lying in pub scum while a bunch of humans turned him into a zoo exhibit.

  Gritting his teeth, Wick forced one foot in front of the other. His shitkickers thudded against the hard floor. His heart kept time, determined to drill a hole in the center of his chest. The energy he’d swallowed didn’t help, humming in his veins, attacking his body until he felt like a spaghetti noodle instead of sinew and bone. The psychedelic laser show upped the ante, eating through the darkness. Pulse-pulse-flash. Pulse-pulse-flash. Colorful bursts of light set the pattern, making his head ache and his body hurt.