by Laken Cane
Rage rose up like a tidal wave and washed away my fear. It also washed away my control. I felt the vampire-rifter coldness in that flood, and I embraced it. And in the end, if that was all that remained of me, I’d take it happily.
There was no fear, and there was no doubt. Only dominance and death.
“You won’t take what’s mine,” I told Safin. “You want to bring a fight to me, Darkness?” I took a step toward him, then another, and he watched me come with a quickly sharpening stare and a tension in his body that hadn’t been there before. “I’m ready for you.”
He was unprepared, and he knew it.
Things had accelerated a little too quickly.
And that was his own damn fault.
Weapons appeared in Edgar and Aspen’s hands. Not strange, magical weapons—just regular old guns. The two executioners crept sideways, widening the distance between them.
They wouldn’t know it, but vampires—dozens of vampires—were a few yards behind them.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
Cold joy filled my heart, excitement sang through my veins, and a hunger like I’d never known overtook my brain. I was bursting with energy, and though I didn’t take another step, my body vibrated with the need to run, to slash, to bite.
Oh, how I wanted to fight.
I didn’t have to look to know Amias was suddenly at my back. I felt him there, just as I felt the explosion of life inside me.
“Mikhail,” Aspen muttered, her voice tight and ready and eager.
But Mikhail didn’t reply, and he didn’t take his stare from mine.
I sniffed the air, scenting his danger, but it didn’t calm me. It excited me further.
“What are you?” he murmured, finally. “Not just a vampire in there.”
“No,” I agreed.
My body hurt. I needed to release some energy or I would surely explode. I had no idea what was happening, and I had no idea how I was controlling it. I didn’t want to. I wanted to run through Safin’s group and rip them to bloody chunks of meat, and I wanted to devour them.
I moaned, and it did something to my men. It called to them, brought out their monsters, and forced to the surface their own bloodlust.
Angus shifted in seconds, his perfect silver horn flashing as he tossed his head. Blacklight screamed to life in Clayton’s grip, and blood ran down Shane’s chin as his sharp fangs violently dropped and sliced his lip. Amias growled, unchanged—but the master was always ready.
Amias Sato was always his monster.
I couldn’t find Rhys. He’d run from my call. From the risk of being seen.
If he shifted, did the executioners have something sneaky up their sleeves, some way to kill a dragon? I couldn’t image they did. They needed the man to appear—not the beast.
But I could not underestimate Mikhail Safin.
I had a feeling that if anyone could strike down a dragon, at least one in the early throes of shifting, Darkness could.
Leo had dropped to one knee and raised his fist, but he didn’t hit the ground. He didn’t want to kill them.
And Leo’s power didn’t just kick ass. It annihilated.
The sound of abruptly discordant sirens grew louder as squad cars sped toward us. Crawford was coming.
Had I called him? I couldn’t remember.
“Mikhail,” Aspen yelled, flashing her gun from one supernatural to the other. “Kill them?”
And then, she got tired of waiting.
With no answer from her boss, she pulled the trigger. She was aiming at Clayton and she’d have hit him—if not for Blacklight.
Clayton’s sword not only deflected the shot, but caused it to ricochet, and ricochet hard. Blacklight, otherwise known as Miriam Crow the necromancer, shot Aspen with her own bullet.
Her cheekbone shattered and she screamed, but despite being shot in the face, she didn’t drop her weapon. Even as Edgar reached for her, she lifted the gun and once again took aim at Clayton.
“How the hell,” she screamed, shock in her voice. “How the hell?” Then she turned on Safin. “Why didn’t you protect me?” She cupped her cheek with one hand and held her gun with the other. “You fuck,” she howled. “You fuck.”
Mikhail didn’t pull a gun—he reached under his loose coat and emerged with a coiled whip.
“Stand down,” he said to his crew, and then he unfurled that whip and sent it streaking toward Clayton. It released sparks of golden fire as it flew through the night, and no one there doubted its power. The air was suddenly crackling with electricity, and I knew if Safin’s whip reached Clayton, he was going to be in trouble.
Why everyone was picking on Clayton I couldn’t have said—until I glanced at him.
Blacklight had surrounded him in a foggy black haze of smoke, and when he moved, the smoke moved with him. Demon smoke, demon fire. It swirled around him, leaving trails that reminded me somewhat of the vampire fog trails a bloodhunter would see.
The trails I used to see, before I’d died.
In that black, wispy smoke were…faces. Faces with gaping mouths releasing silent screams, screams I thought I would be able to hear if only I could listen.
Angus roared and charged Clayton to shove him out of the way of Safin’s whip, but when the werebull hit that smoke, it was like hitting a brick wall at full force.
There was no time to see if he was okay. The golden whip hit the smoke, and with a sound like the world cracking, the whip broke through.
It curled around Clayton’s neck and was colored immediately with scarlet as it cut through his flesh. Still, Clayton had lived in hell for a very, very long time, and he didn’t lose his cool—he whirled his sword and brought it down on the whip.
But Clayton would be decapitated by that evil golden whip long before the sword managed to sever it.
On my back, Silverlight woke up.
The first thing I saw after I ripped her from her sheath was Safin’s eyes, bright and full of interest, and I knew he would try to take her. In the end, he would try.
I brought my blade up under the whip, joining Clayton and Blacklight in a desperate attempt to sever the wicked cord that held him. I felt it, through my sword. I felt power and coldness and strength and a sort of springiness, and it was like trying to cut through the tentacle of a monstrous, electrified octopus.
The whip was strong and full of magic.
But Silverlight, an ancient, mystical weapon forged in hell, was stronger than a dozen whips.
When his weapon began to split beneath her blade, Safin released Clayton and yanked the whip home. Immediately, Clayton reeled backward, one of his hands to his throat.
He radiated weakening puffs of black smoke as he stumbled toward the way station to recover, Blacklight still firmly in his grip. Jin would care for him.
Bracketed by Amias and Shane, Leo at my back, I whirled to face the executioners. If one of them had so much as twitched, we’d have torn them apart. We wanted to—I could feel Amias and Shane’s desire to fight, to kill, to eat just as I felt my own—but Safin was not a stupid man.
He shoved his whip, once more coiled and quiet, under his coat.
“Mikhail,” Aspen said, her mouth barely moving. “I told you it was a bad idea to come alone.”
“If I had brought more people,” he said, smoothly, “the vampires surrounding us would likely have eaten you by now.”
She gasped and jerked around, her gun in one hand and a stake in the other, but there were no vampires to see. She whirled back to face me and the supernaturals around me, her face leaking blood, her eyes crazy. “Let’s fight!”
“No.” He didn’t look at her. “Now is not the time.”
“It will never be the time,” I snarled, disappointed that I would not kill them all, yet relieved that I would not kill them all. I was torn between darkness and light.
I couldn’t have said which one was stronger.
Doors slammed and whirling police car lights danced in the night.
Frank Crawford came cautiously toward us. Apparently, he’d decided he could be both mayor and cop.
“Safin,” he said. He edged forward, four uniformed cops—guns drawn—at his side. He also held a gun, but kept it pointed at the ground. “I want you and your crew to get into your vehicles and drive the fuck away. Now.”
For a breathless moment I was positive Safin would rebel against the order, but in the end, he inclined his head and relented.
But he had one last thing to say. “You all seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that you have choices in this matter. You do not. And the blood of the Bay Town supernaturals will be on your hands.” He included us all in his dark glance.
“Safin,” Crawford said, lifting his gun. “Take off.”
“We’re going,” Safin said. “But you know we’ll be back.”
We watched him silently as he strode away. Edgar was practically dragging Aspen as she began to feel the effects of her injury.
“How in the hell,” Crawford said, watching them go, “did one of them get hurt?”
“Miriam,” I murmured. “And the demons.”
He looked at me, clueless. “What?”
“Blacklight,” I elaborated. “Clayton’s sword caused her bullet to ricochet. I figure that whatever protections she has in place kept her from dying tonight.” I slid Silverlight back into the sheath. “And I figure she knows it.”
“I’ll talk with Himself,” Angus said. “I don’t see a way out of this.”
He stood with his arms crossed, unconcerned with his nakedness and the cold temperature of the still night air. He sported a huge, spreading bruise across his right shoulder and chest, and watching him, I forgot about everything else and wanted only to go to him. To touch him.
His body would be as hot as a furnace, despite the chill, and I wanted him to wrap me up in that heat. I dropped my gaze from his bunching arm muscles to his tight, muscular abs, and lower still, to his heavy, hanging sex.
His cock twitched and began immediately to stiffen. “Shit, Trin,” he muttered, and stomped away to find some clothes.
And then he’d visit the King of Everything to see if maybe we could get a little fucking help from the most powerful man we knew.
PART TWO
THE DARKNESS
Chapter Twenty-Three
SMOKESCREEN
“I called your shifts,” I said. “I didn’t know I could do that.”
“It was a strange feeling,” Clayton said.
We sat in the kitchen, Rhys, Clayton, Shane, Leo, and I, waiting for Angus to return. I hoped that somehow the King of Everything would know how to handle the executioners, but I was pretty sure that if he could have, he already would have. He wouldn’t need us to ask.
“Yeah,” Rhys agreed. “It was like you were inside me and had my beast by the throat. You were dragging him out and all I could do was run. And even then, I nearly lost control.”
“But you’re a dragon,” Leo said. “Not even her call could force you to shift. But the others couldn’t fight her.”
They nodded. Maybe someday that ability would come in handy.
“You should leave town,” I told Rhys.
Rhys shocked me by nodding. “I have a plan. It may not work—probably won’t—but I’m going to take off and cause some ruckus far from here.” He shrugged. “Maybe that will convince him the dragon doesn’t live in Bay Town.”
“Burn a path across the country,” Leo said. “Make him think you’re passing through and not settled anywhere. You don’t want to bring trouble to another town.”
That was Leo. No matter what was going on, he was concerned for other people.
“Agreed,” Rhys said.
Neither of them seemed very convinced Rhys’s plan would work. Safin was a smart guy and he had his mind made up. He would know that the dragon would try to throw up a few smokescreens.
But it was a plan, and it was better than the nothing we currently had.
Clayton sat at the table, his throat wound still open and glistening, but it looked better than it had when I’d first walked into the room.
“Can I do anything for you?” I asked him.
“I’ll heal,” he murmured, his voice raw and low. It hurt him to talk, so I didn’t question him further.
I nodded, then blew out a hard breath and pushed away from the table. “Shane,” I said.
He looked at me, surprise in his eyes before he blanked them. “Yeah?”
“You’re hungry.” I held out my hand. “Let me feed you.”
I could feel his hunger. He was starving himself, and it showed in his dull eyes, his dry, pale skin, and his sharp cheekbones.
He ignored my hand. “When I want to eat, I’ll eat.” Then he stood and disappeared through the back doorway.
“Fuck,” I muttered, irritated, disappointed, and just a little hurt. I shouldn’t have been—it was his right to refuse me—but I was. “He’s stubborn.”
“Give him time,” Rhys said. “He’ll come around.”
“He’s starving,” I said, a little too sharply. “There is no time.”
“All it will take is a drop of your blood on his lips,” Rhys said. “He won’t resist you then.”
I thought about it. I’d force-fed him after I’d captured him. I could attempt it again, but any trickery on my part was going to drive him farther away.
I’d wait for as long as I could.
But he had to feed.
“When are you leaving?” I asked Rhys, changing the subject.
“I’ll get a couple hours of sleep and head out in the morning. I’ll be back before you awaken.”
I nodded, but all I wanted was to beg him not to leave. I wanted to lock him in the safe room with me. “I have a bad feeling, Rhys.”
“You’ve been through some really intense and quick changes, love. What can I do to help you?”
I looked at him, and almost before the last word fell from his lips I was tingling with need, desire, and hunger.
I rubbed at the gooseflesh on my arms. “It doesn’t matter what else is going on, the mere hint of food and sex makes me…” I groped for the words, and finally, I found them. “Makes me insane with need. And nothing else matters.”
I tried to fight the craving, but the more I resisted, the stronger it became.
“I need to find Amias,” I murmured.
Rhys lifted an eyebrow and then took my hands. “No, you don’t. I’m right here. I have blood. I have a cock. Both of those are yours.” His eyes twinkled when he smiled, and just that quickly, there was nothing on my mind but Rhys Graver and his freely offered blood and cock.
“Yummy,” I said.
He laughed. “Back atcha.”
I had to give my inner vampire a break and let my rifter out to play. It was the only way I could duck all the bad shit flying around trying to knock my brains out.
Rhys was mouthwatering with his freaky dragon sex and his magical, scorching-hot blood.
And he was mine.
All I had to do was take him.
“Yes,” I said.
Something dark flashed through his eyes. I wondered if he saw that same darkness in me. And suddenly, I wasn’t the one with the largest need and lust and craving in that room.
I wasn’t the one with the darkness.
Rhys was.
I hesitated, shocked by the abrupt zing of fear that streaked through me.
“Can we really do this here?” I tried to hide my shaking hands against my legs, but he knew. He felt my fear.
He was pleased by it.
“My dragon will not be restrained tonight.”
“But…you can’t shift in the house.” The basement was big, but it wasn’t that big.
He shuddered at the thought of shifting, then groaned and abruptly unfastened his pants. His cock sprang free, and I could not resist wrapping my fingers around his almost extreme heat. “I’ll show you something,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“I
don’t know,” I answered, honestly.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
I had a feeling it might matter just a little. Especially to me. But what was I going to do? I was already swept away by my own desire and the excitement of knowing that every time I was with him, the dragon was going to show me something new.
Something incomparable.
I could only hope that he had figured out how to control his shift, because if he couldn’t, there weren’t enough Captain Crawfords in the world to make Mikhail Safin leave us the hell alone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
LOSS
“Can you not kill him?” I asked, as we slipped away from the house. “Sneak in and make it look like an accident?”
He looked at me.
I shrugged. “I’ve heard the stories.”
He said nothing for a few minutes. “Funnily enough, Trinity, I wanted to keep the bad stuff away from you. I didn’t want you to know my…”
“Darkness?”
“I suppose so, love.”
“And now?”
“Now, you can handle it.” He flashed me a smile, quick and white. “Now, you are the darkness. I think you always were,” he continued, more to himself than to me, “but in a different way.”
“I’m one of you.”
“You are,” he agreed.
Still, he seemed strangely hesitant to discuss his life.
“You killed people?” I asked, finally. “Humans? For money?”
I hoped I didn’t sound like I was judging. Who among us hadn’t killed a douchebag or two?
“Yes,” he said. “When it was necessary.”
“Necessary?”
“I kill people like Safin,” he said. “But none were quite as powerful.”
I snagged his hand. “Kill him, Rhys. If you can do it and make it not touch the supernaturals or lead back to you, then kill him.”
He squeezed my fingers, his voice as dark as the night through which we walked. “I’m good, love. But I don’t know if I’m that good.”
“Why not?”
“He has…” He shook his head, gathering his thoughts. “He has some sort of knowledge. I won’t catch him by surprise, I don’t think.”
