Rex (Dakota Kekoa Book 2)

by Rita Stradling

  He flinched, shaking his head slightly, then looked down at his own sword. “What are you doing?” he whispered. His eyes widened, looking back up into my face with an expression of bewilderment. He took a long breath through his nose. The moonlight only lit half his face, but the exasperation was plain to see on his features. “You choose now of all times to do this?”

  “Three people knew that I am the only dracon who could fix the Regina, and I know neither Wyvern nor I told your brother,” I rasped out. When I coughed, black blood splattered onto Harrison’s face.

  His eyelids widened, then narrowed as he quickly looked me over. “Dakota, you are bleeding internally.” He annunciated every word. His hand reached toward the hand at his collar, but stopped when I pressed the sword deeper into his neck, not quite breaking the skin.

  He groaned in annoyance, glaring at me. “You’re dying but I can heal you, Dakota,” his voice was low but strong.

  I shook my head, trying to clear my vision. “You think I’m stupid? I know how vampires heal people,” I rasped out.

  “Do you know how easily I could disarm you?” Harrison said, leaning in closer to me. His blue eyes seemed to blaze as the outside of my vision blackened.

  “Then do it,” I said. “See what happens.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “No, I won’t because I would risk further injuring you. I don’t want to kill you now, and I definitely did not set you up to die,” he said.

  “You told your brother. He set me up to die,” I whispered.

  “I told no one. I will swear it with blood,” he said.

  “I don’t know enough about swearing with blood, there could be…” I coughed out more blood, then said, “Loopholes.”

  “Then let me go find someone who can heal you!” he shouted into my face.

  “No. You’re staying right here until Wyvern wakes up. I’m not letting you leave while they’re vulnerable. We’re going to wait this out together,” I whispered.

  “No, we’re not. I’m not sitting here and watching you die. I’m not going to tell one of my closest friends when he wakes that I could have saved you but you wouldn’t let me!”

  I glared at Harrison’s enraged face. It was possible that he was lying that I was dying; I’d never had an internal injury before. I might last long enough for Wyvern to wake and fly me to Sylvia. The blackness crept further into the edges of my vision, and I moved my leg to wake myself with pain, yet the blackness in my eyes remained.

  I knew my limits, I was about to pass out any second now, and then we’d all be at Harrison’s mercy.

  “Let me read your memories,” I rasped out.

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “It’s part of my power; I can watch your memories, feel your emotions. If you’re telling the truth, I’ll know,” I whispered.

  “If I’m telling the truth, you’ll let me heal you?”

  One of my eyes closed of its own volition. Mentally, I tried to take stock of my injuries, but I couldn’t feel anything from my chest down. A tear slipped down my cheek. “Yes.”

  “Then do it,” he said.

  “Give me your hand,” I said, blinking up at him, though all I could see was his bright blue eyes. I uncurled my fingers, letting go of his collar and holding my free hand out to him. When his hand clasped mine, I drove my power into him, knowing there wasn’t much time before I lost consciousness.

  His dark soul buffeted against my senses. It was thick and velvety like his sister’s soul had been, but beyond that, there was no comparison between the two.

  Diving into him was like swimming through an ocean of silk slipping over my exhausted mind. I broke through the first layer, then let the deeper emotions slip over me. Terror, grief, devotion, loyalty, coursed over me, but I pushed on, knowing I didn’t have much time left. With an enormous effort, I broke through into the next layer, Harrison’s memory emotions.

  Usually, I would just fix on a certain emotion and browse through the emotions that way, but I did not have the time for that.

  “Think about when we were on the roof that second time,” I whispered aloud.

  “All right,” he said. The memory lit up to my power and I threw myself into it.

  Anger, betrayal and anguish boiled in me as my gaze moved over where the moonlight lit Dakota’s face.

  She leaned in toward me, her brown eyes catching the light as she looked intently into my eyes. “You might not believe me, but I promise I won’t try to get in between your friendship with Wyvern. That was not my intention the other night. That night I just—I...”

  My eyelids narrowed, and a strange mix of interest and suspicion flowed through me.

  She shook her head, “It doesn’t matter. But we can both just forget that it happened.”

  Over the other emotions, a sudden burst of hurt hit me as if she had punched me in the stomach. The anger returned twofold. I shoved the napkin wrapped bracelet into my pocket. “Easy enough to forget what I ate for dinner a couple nights ago.” After the words came out, I immediately regretted it. Closely on the heels of the regret, though, was a fresh bout of anger.

  I turned away from her, and then led the way through the ship and back to Wyvern without another word. Conflicting emotions raged through me, reluctance and determination. When Dakota returned to Wyvern, threading her arm through his, a look of relief on her face, a sudden strong pulse of anger and jealousy hit me. I forced it down and turned away from them. Though the anger did not ebb as Vern said his goodbyes and I turned back to shake his hand, nor when I watched Vern and Dakota leave with one of his hands at the small of her back.

  The next day moved forward in quick succession, most of which I sat in my cabin room, staring at the bracelet she gave me. My hand finally closed around the bracelet and I walked to a closed door on the ship.

  Fear and suspicion filled me as I stuffed wads of cloth into my ears. But, over the fear and suspicion was a burning, unquenchable curiosity that had been building since I talked with Dakota on the roof.

  I held the bracelet nestled in a cloth in my hand, while opening the door with the other hand. I immediately saw Lorelei, curled into a ball on the floor, holding herself in a protective position.

  She turned a look of shock on me. Horror widened her eyelids and pulled her mouth open. “No! Run!” she mouthed, though I could not hear her. She covered her mouth with her hands, eyes wide and pleading.

  Pity surged through me in that moment, pity and shame.

  Then Lorelei’s hands fell from her mouth and her expression went blank. She looked directly into my face and started singing, though I could not hear her.

  Ignoring the strike of fear to my chest, I rushed to her side. Quickly, I wrapped the bracelet around her wrist, though it was a little tight, and clasped the clasp.

  Lorelei collapsed back and I reached forward, catching her. The moment I set her back down on the ground, Lorelei burst into tears.

  I took an audible inhale in through my nose and held it. Then I repeated the process. When I finished inhaling a third time, I reached up and pulled out the cloth from my ears.

  Lorelei continued to cry, though her gaze was fixed on the bracelet around her wrist. “Did you capture Dakota?”

  “No, she’s free.”

  Lorelei looked up at me, a look of almost-hope on her tearstained face. “She’s okay?”

  “Well enough,” I said, tamping down on a small burst of residual anger.

  “Then how did you get this?” Lorelei held up her wrist.

  “She gave it to me, told me to put it on you. It’s a good thing she did. Were you trying to attack me, too?” Though I asked the question with anger in my voice, I felt no anger. What clung to my chest was much closer to dread.

  Lorelei’s eyes squeezed shut. “I can’t control it anymore… I keep doing it and… I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

  The dread continued to permeate through my body as I examined her face.

  “Is my grandfather
alive?” she whispered, as tears coursed down her cheeks.

  The suspicion dissipated as if it was smoke released out of the car window. I didn’t answer her question and stood. “Your sister has the Rex of New Anglo arranging your release.”

  Lorelei looked away, crossing her arms.

  I paused to examine her. “You don’t want to be released?”

  “No, I definitely want to be released.” She gave me a closed-lipped smile.

  “Then why aren’t you happy?” A slow tide of suspicion rose in me again.

  “It’s family stuff, it’s not important,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “After what happened between your family and mine, everything is important. Why are you upset that your sister is trying to get you out?”

  “I’m not. I’m… I feel bad that she had to go beg the Rex to do it, that’s all,” Lorelei said.

  Curiosity made me open my lips, but I closed them again. After a second, I asked, “Can I see your ears?”

  Lorelei nodded. She pulled her hair up and turned her head slowly from side to side. Red, angry scabs ran in a straight line down both earlobes. “When those servers attacked me, they tore through my ears.”

  “Did you intentionally use your power to attack the Regina?”

  “No,” her voice was fierce. “I would never intentionally use my power. Ever.”

  After leaving her, I walked to the roof of the ship, a myriad of emotions surged through me as the sun marched on toward the ocean.

  “Harrison,” one of my nephews called from the elevators. When I slowly turned to him, he called, “Father asks that you come inside to weigh in on his final decision about accepting the Rex’s settlement.”

  Sitting around the couch, all my brothers talked in low voices.

  Joseph turned to me. “Two of us are not in favor of the settlement. As Imogen’s favorite sibling, I believe that your opinion is essential to this decision.”

  I took a deep breath. “The settlement is the prudent choice.”

  When we took a revote, the decision was unanimous in favor of settling.

  I volunteered with two of my other brothers to deliver the prisoners and obtain the necessary documents from Wyvern. The rest of the evening was spent talking to the two brothers I would go to shore with, about the best way to transport the prisoners.

  At the end of the boat ride, I’d seen Vern waiting on the pier. This time when I saw him, a stew of emotions turned in me, that same anger, resentment and with a tang of guilt mixed in as well.

  We took Vern just out of the harbor a short way out. We’d filled out some paperwork, told a few jokes, then headed back for shore.

  When we arrived back at shore, Vern had stepped off the boat and gone completely still.

  I could see the night scene as if it was day as I ran off the boat. “Is that Dakota’s guard?” I asked, pointing to a mound of feathers halfway across the parking lot. In the distance, I heard cheering.

  Wyvern had expanded at that moment, contorting and growing. His body grew out in an undulating opalescent mass.

  I looked at Wyvern, then back to toward the cheering. Then I started running.

  Opening my eyes to look at Harrison, I exhaled slowly and began drawing back my power. When I had pulled my power completely out of him, I dropped the sword from his neck.

  Immediately, Harrison’s hands came up, one going around the side of my neck, the other grabbed my shoulder. “I’m going to heal you.” He looked at my neck, then up at my eyes.

  Tears coursed down my face. I whispered, “I don’t want to… I could turn…” I coughed more blood onto my lap.

  “You’re too powerful. You’ll burn the infection off,” he said, his head coming down to my neck.

  There was a quick pinch, then the remainder of my body went numb. I was sliding down into an abyss. My whole body went limp, and Harrison pulled me into him.

  All warmth slipped away and an icy chill crept up from my fingertips and toes. All too soon, my body felt as if it was completely made of ice. Closing my eyes, I drifted away.

  Hot blood splashed into my mouth.

  “Swallow,” Harrison’s voice instructed.

  Distantly, I had known the blood was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow. As it kept flowing into my mouth I gulped it down, too weak to bring it back up, though my immediate thought was that I wanted to.

  My eyes opened. I was draped over legs, face pressing into a muscled chest. When I tried to move away an arm tightened around me.

  “You need more, Dakota,” Harrison said, mouth near my ear. He again pressed his cut wrist in my mouth. I tried to pull my head away, but he leaned into my ear again and whispered, “Please Dakota, keep going.”

  I took another couple of drinks, but then insistently pulled my head away.

  “I’m done,” I whispered, breaths coming heavy.

  “Okay. Your legs have healed, so has everything else I can see. I’m sorry to tell you now, but you’re now infected and as my dracon blood is so strong, it might knock you out for a couple days,” he said. A soft kiss pressed into my neck, directly next to where Harrison had just fed from me.

  I whispered, “Why did you…” But that was the last thing I remembered before I finally succumbed to unconsciousness.

  Chapter Twenty

  The quiet rhythmic snick of a clock ticking away the seconds played across my consciousness. My eyes slowly opened to look up at a night-darkened unfamiliar paneled ceiling.

  Someone breathed quietly from somewhere nearby.

  “Wyvern?” I whispered.

  “It’s not Wyvern, it’s Harrison,” said a voice from nearby me.

  The room was too dark to see much detail, but I was in a large unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar bedroom. Did Harrison take me to a hotel? Where was Wyvern?

  I slowly rolled so that I could face the direction Harrison’s voice had come from. Even though I knew that Harrison had not betrayed me or planned the attack, I was pretty far from trusting him.

  He was looking at me. I could not make out many details about him in the dark, though from experiencing his memories, I knew he could see me as if it was daylight.

  “Am I a vampire?” I rasped out.

  I could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “No.”

  “Am I still covered in blood?” All I felt was soft material over my legs but I didn’t trust my senses.

  “No, some women came earlier to wash and dress you.”

  I turned my head, barely able to make his figure out in the dark. “Where’s Wyvern?”

  “He stepped out a minute ago to talk to my brother. Do you want me to go get him?” Harrison asked, sitting up straight.

  “Whose bed am I in?” The bed was humungous.

  Harrison sat in a large chair beside me, a closed book in his hands. I could just make out his profile as he turned away from me to the door.

  “You’re in Wyvern’s bed,” he said.

  “What does your brother have to say?” I whispered.

  “He’s desperately trying to convince Vern that he’s innocent in the attack against you,” Harrison said.

  “Is he innocent?” I asked.

  “I think he is. It’s not that I don’t think that he’s capable of doing it, it’s that I do not see the advantage for him.”

  “I can fix Imogen—”

  “He doesn’t know that. And even if he did, he wouldn’t have attacked in a way that so clearly implicated him. I also find it very suspicious that a third party made it look as if your family attacked mine only a few days before.”

  “You think they want to create a feud between our families?”

  “No, if they wanted to create a feud between our families, why not tell them the truth? That your sister was the one who attacked Imogen? They went after you specifically, while it looked as if my family distracted Wyvern.”

  “You think they targeted me to start a war between your country and New Anglo?” That’s what Sophie had
suspected about that first attack. “Sophie,” I said, remembering.

  “Alive. She, her sister, your sister and two of your other guards survived the attack,” Harrison said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Annie and Brian,” he said.

  “Teddy?” I whispered.

  “Will be remembered as a hero,” he said.

  Tears coursed down my face and onto my pillow. “Poor Teddy. Poor Annie.” We were silent for several minutes as the clock continued its slow ticking.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Harrison asked in a quiet voice.

  “Yes.”

  “When you went through my memories, could you know my thoughts?”

  I swallowed. “No, I can’t read thoughts,” I said.

  “What do you know from watching my memories?” he asked.

  “I saw what you saw and felt the emotions that you felt as you went through your day. I started at the very end of when we were together until you started running to help me,” I said.

  “You felt what I felt?” he said, voice inflectionless.

  “I’m sorry for invading your privacy that way, Harrison. Now that I know you’re innocent, I feel like a jerk for insisting on invading your mind. At the time I just had to know…”

  “I have a girlfriend,” he said.

  I startled at the abrupt change in subject. “A girlfriend?” I asked, clearing my throat.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Then why—”

  “I was jealous of Vern, because he gets to be with the girl he cares about, when I don’t. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did with you that night… the first night. I was missing her, and you somewhat remind me of her.”

  “I see.” I whispered. Just what every girl wanted to hear. “What’s her name?” I asked.

  “Victoria,” he said.

  “Are you in a contract with Victoria?” I asked, furrowing my brow as I remembered the original reason that Imogen wanted the meeting with my family.

  “No, she’s not considered politically suitable.”

  “That sucks. Maybe your brother will let you,” I said.