by Tessa Dawn
The second dragyri released Salem’s throat, and Salem kneed him in the gonads.
Zane was coming at him again—Salem could feel the shift in the water—so he used his organ as a stingray: Isolating and transforming that singular part of his body back into beetle form, he infused the barbed penis with poison. Hell, fire, and brimstone, he couldn’t see, but he could still hump if he had to.
Apparently, Zane was unimpressed.
He drove his hand between Salem’s legs and ripped the organ from his pelvis.
And that’s when the second, feral dragyri tore into Salem’s abdomen and started removing his intestines.
Great Father of the pagan realm, Salem was going to die.
Right here. Right now. Right in the Dragon Sea…
He reached wildly and blindly for anything he could latch onto, and his skeletal fist caught purchase of the second dragyri’s amulet. He yanked with everything he had—tugged and pulled and wrenched with every ounce of supernatural power he possessed—but the amulet would not give way.
“Son of a bitch!” he tried to scream, but he only gulped more water. His lungs were burning like lava—they felt like they were on fire.
And then he heard the most awesome, terrifying sound he had ever perceived in his countless lifetimes: the sound of wings, the size of a ship, beating in the air above the ocean. A dragon screeched, and the vibration shook the waters like a gale-force wind, parting the sea all around them. And then he felt an enormous compression in the air as a high-pressure area was created in front of him. Great Lord Drakkar, the dragon was swooping down, presumably to clutch Salem in its talons.
The torture, the agony, the suffering he would endure if he was captured by a dragon lord was beyond what he could imagine. He would rather take his own life and end it now than become the captive of an ancient serpent.
But how?
How would he do it?
Before he could answer the question, the compression rose to a crescendo—he felt Zane and the second dragyri draw back, and his rib cage was impaled by an enormous cluster of talons. The pain was beyond comprehension.
Mindless, terrified, and grasping at straws, Salem held on for dear life to the second dragyri’s amulet—he would make the primordial god take a dragyri son with him, and he would try with all his might to kill the bastard while they soared through the air like wounded carrion. Most likely on their way to the temple.
Salem would not die without a victory!
And that’s when he heard the sonic boom!
And light assailed his vision.
Another opening in the atmosphere channeled through the sacred amulet.
A gargantuan, inky-black hand with razor-sharp chiseled claws reached through the tear in dimensions, snatched Salem by the throat, and tugged him violently forward, causing the dragon’s talons to rip like blades through his flesh.
He screamed like a banshee, assailed by the ungodly pain, and then he let go of the amulet, dropped his arms to the sides, and sighed in blessed relief.
He knew this dark, evil presence.
It had gifted him with his pagan life.
Lord Hades had punched through the portal, using Salem’s physical connection to the dragyri’s amulet—and while the king wasn’t able to enter Dragons Domain, he was able to pull Salem out.
“Thank you, most venerable father,” Salem breathed.
And then he passed out.
Chapter Thirty-four
Zane scrambled from the shoreline and sprinted to his dragyra, desperate to see that she was okay. “Jordan!” he shouted, forgetting he was naked as he dropped to his knees in front of her. “Baby,” he whispered anxiously, cupping her face in his hands. “Are you all right? Did the demon hurt you?”
She was trembling, her eyes were open wide with shock, but she didn’t appear to be hurt. In fact, her clothes were on—she had managed to get dressed—and Zane couldn’t smell any blood. “I’m…I’m okay,” she murmured. “He never even touched me.” She glanced down at her lap and shuddered. “At least I don’t think he touched me.”
Zane ran his hands all over her body to check her smaller frame for injuries, then he closed his eyes to listen to her heart and took a moment to check her pulse. When he was certain that she hadn’t been injured, he drew her into his arms and held her like his life depended on the contact: which, honestly, it kind of did. “I’m sorry, angel. I’m so, so sorry. This has never happened before. A pagan has never entered this realm.”
Jordan nodded, her skin as pale as the moonlight, and then she pointed a drooping finger toward the apex of the beach, and stuttered: “Y…y…you might want to put some clothes on.”
Zane glanced over his shoulder to check the scene for himself: Lord Dragos was standing like a raptor on the beach in his magnificent dragon form, and he was showering Ghost Dragos, who was curled up beneath him like a baby, in silver-blue flames.
So the dragon lord did care whether Ghost lived or died…
Hmm…that was interesting.
Zane glanced down at his own naked body and appraised his various wounds—he was pretty sure he had a hoofmark on his forehead; there were lacerations all over his torso, plus acid burns on his pecs and his abs; and his right hand was swollen with poison, but not enough to matter. He could heal all of his wounds himself, with the exception of any bruises on his brow. But yeah, he should probably get dressed.
He reached for his form-fitting boxers and jeans, and quickly slid them onto his torso. Then he stood to his full, proud height and helped Jordan up.
“What do we do?” she asked nervously, her voice still trembling.
Zane shook his head. “Nothing. Not when it comes to Lord Dragos. Just stand here and wait…and avert your eyes. If he wants us, he’ll let us know.”
She nodded faintly. “And what about the dragyri—the one on the beach. Who is he?”
“That’s Ghost,” Zane said softly. “Do you remember him from the bunker? He’s the one Axe told us about, the one who almost took a bite out of Nakai.”
Jordan grimaced as she thought it over, and then she slowly inclined her head. “Uh, yeah, I remember. I remember thinking, What an animal, but then that animal just saved our lives and took a beating doing it.” She averted her gaze, looking pained and ashamed, and then she stared at his still-naked chest—at all the scrapes and cuts and dark, maroon scars, the various burns from the demon’s acid. “Zane, you’re hurt.” She glanced at his hand—it was swollen like a bright red blowfish. She turned her attention to his forehead and winced. “Oh my gosh, dragyri, that looks awful. Shouldn’t you go get healed yourself?” She gestured toward Lord Dragos.
Zane chuckled, low and deep, a cynical snicker in his throat—um, that was never going to happen. Not even if he was on death’s door, which he wasn’t. “I’m fine, angel. I can heal most of the wounds myself. If there’s anything else I need, my lair-mates will take care of it.”
She wrinkled up her brow. “But then why does he need the dragon—why does Ghost need Lord Dragos to heal him?”
Zane stared a second time at the odd paternal scenario playing out on the sands, and he let the question fully sink in…until, finally, it occurred to him: “Ghost doesn’t need Lord Dragos to heal—Lord Dragos needs to heal Ghost. Ghostaniaz is his Genesis Son.”
Jordan shifted her weight and frowned. “Well then, why isn’t Lord Saphyrius here? Isn’t he worried about you?”
“Believe me,” Zane reassured her, “he’s watching. He’s just not as…possessive…over his lair as Lord Dragos.” He hoped the fearsome dragon was too busy to pay attention. “I will probably spend the majority of the day tomorrow in the temple, along with Ghost. The gods are going to want to sort this out.”
Jordan nodded. “Figure out how the demon got into The Pantheon—find out how he escaped?”
She shuddered, and Zane smiled.
He couldn’t help it.
His dragyra was truly an angel—a bright, beautiful, perceptive m
iracle—and she’d learned so much, so very quickly.
She didn’t miss a trick.
Lord Dragos snorted possessively in the distance, and Zane reached out to take Jordan’s hand. “Be still, dragyra. Say nothing more. Let the dragon attend to his son.”
As those ominous words lingered, Zane and Jordan linked their fingers and watched from a distance as the savage dragon nuzzled the male with his snout, dragged him to his feet with his talons, and then flipped him onto his back with one wing.
With a thunderous roar that shook the beach, the dragon released a ferocious ring of fire. Then the onyx serpent took three giant steps, bounding across the sand, and leapt into the air, where he spread his wings and circled high above them, heading back toward the Onyx Lair.
Chapter Thirty-five
Friday – 8:00 PM
Secure in the knowledge that Jordan was with Levi, Nakai, and Jace, safe in the Sapphire Lair, Zane glanced at the apartment door in front of him—13B—and nodded silently at Axe.
As expected, Zane had spent the entire day on Friday sequestered in the temple with Ghost and the dragon lords, debriefing the gods on the incident at the beach, brainstorming along with them about how the demon got into Dragons Domain, and listening as the all-powerful dragons discussed the mystics and science of Lord Hades Drakkar punching his fist through the portal in order to retrieve one of his own. They knew he’d used the power of Ghost’s amulet, but they were surprised that he’d possessed the magic to do so.
Meanwhile, Jordan had been forced to go to the Topaz Lair to meet with Misty Collins, Tiberius’ dragyra mate, without Zane present: With only three days left until Jordan’s rebirth at the temple, it had been time to procure her dress (an enchanted gown that would not burn—a fact Zane hadn’t shared with Jordan); the jewels that would adorn her hair; and to go through the basic preliminaries of the upcoming ceremony—all things that were usually done with another dragyra.
Zane had hated to leave her alone with Misty.
At the least, he would have liked to wait outside Misty’s bedroom door, to have made sure Jordan knew he was there—always there—but when the dragon lords called, the dragyri jumped.
There were simply no ands, ifs, or buts about it.
The Four Principle Laws…and all that.
And there was something else—something that demanded Zane’s attention—something that had come out during the debriefing with Ghost in the temple: When the feral dragyri had latched onto the demon’s throat in the Dragon Sea, he had swallowed several chunks of the pagan’s flesh, and in doing so, he had also absorbed a handful of Salem’s most recent memories—the fact that he had entered the domain as a beetle, concealed in Jordan’s purse; the fact that he was on a mission from Lord Hades to destroy a Genesis Son, in this case, by trying to murder Jordan; and the fact that he had placed a powerful compulsion into the mind of a vulnerable surgeon, ordering him to use and seduce Jordan’s best friend.
On the advice of Lord Topenzi, the dragons had dipped Ghostaniaz into the pearlescent waters of the Oracle Pool, and since they finally knew what they were looking for, they had been able to see a little more: the fact that Dr. Kyle Parker would be at Macy’s apartment on Friday night at seven o’clock to make her a candlelit dinner.
To begin the process of seduction.
Normally, the dragon lords would not have given two hoots about human affairs, not even those peripherally connected to a dragyra or a dragyri, but this was decidedly different—it was personal—every maniacal plan Lord Drakkar had hatched had been designed with a singular purpose: to destroy a Genesis Son.
To one day…somehow…get to a dragon lord’s original offspring.
And that could not go unanswered.
Lord Saphyrius had ordered Zane and Axe to show up at Macy’s apartment, remove the doctor’s right hand, then stamp it with the official seal from the Temple of Seven and place it in a box of chocolates. The box was to be wrapped in Christmas paper and delivered to a local bank on Fifteenth Street—King’s Castle Credit Union, where the manager, a lifelong member of the Cult of Hades, would read the card and make sure that it got to the horde: For Drak; the best-laid plans of mice and pagans often go astray!
Axe inclined his head at Zane, letting the dragyri know he was ready, and with one swift chop of his battleaxe, Zane hacked a fist-sized hole in the center of Macy’s front door, reached through the cavity to unlock the deadbolt, and the two ruthless Dragyr stormed inside.
f
Macy Wilson stood in front of her bathroom mirror, checking her hair and makeup for the fifth or sixth time—she had excused herself from the table, yet again, to try to catch her breath.
Oh. My. Gosh.
Doctor Parker had brought her a dozen long-stemmed red roses and an expensive bottle of wine. He had lit two candles on her small glass kitchen table and even pulled out her chair before he’d presented her with the gourmet lasagna and tossed Caesar salad that the surgeon had prepared from scratch.
And thank God, all the saints, as well as good fortune, he hadn’t noticed—or said anything—about the fact that she wasn’t wearing his pin: that beautiful, expensive, ruby-and-gold beetle.
The one that Macy had lost!
She gritted her teeth and snarled at herself in the mirror—it still didn’t make any sense. How could she have been so careless? How could she have lost something that was so very dear to her heart?
She wanted to kick herself a dozen times over.
Running her fingers through her hair one last time and smoothing her reapplied lipstick, she told herself to forget it—let it go—this night was too beautiful, too important to ruin. And then she drew back her shoulders, tried to calm her nerves, and headed back to the romantic table.
“Everything all right?” Kyle asked her, eyeing her like she was covered in whipped cream.
“Everything’s perfect,” Macy replied, gracefully taking her seat.
The aroma of the lasagna wafted up from the table as Kyle poured her a glass of red wine. “You haven’t taken any painkillers today, have you?” he asked. And wasn’t that just so sweet…
“Nope.” Macy smiled. Then she lifted her crystal glass and clinked it against his.
“To new beginnings,” he drawled in that deep, sexy voice, and Macy shivered from head to toe.
Just then, there was a huge clamor and an explosion of wood in the front hallway—it sounded like someone had just driven a sledgehammer through Macy’s front door. Doctor Kyle jumped up from his chair, dropping his wineglass in alarm, and Macy suppressed a squeal. Her heart began to race like she had just run a marathon, and she instinctively reached for a knife.
“You won’t be needing the utensil, darling.” A sonorous voice rang out in the dining room, the words coming from a tall, gorgeous blond with strange sapphire eyes. “Sit down.”
Macy dropped the knife and planted her rear in her seat, her mouth dropping open in horror and surprise. The blond was accompanied by a dark-haired male who looked as deadly as he did, savage. And for some odd reason—in that stark, terrifying moment—Macy’s thoughts turned squarely to Jordan. She thought about her recent surgery and her recovery room…images from that morning.
But it didn’t make any sense, and her mind filled with cotton.
Whatever thought, or memory, or impression she’d almost had slipped beyond her reach as the déjà vu passed.
The gorgeous blond stepped up to Dr. Parker and extended his right hand in greeting. “Dr. Kyle Parker?” he said, as casual as the day was long.
Kyle’s features were a mask of rage, terror, and indecision, and Macy could see in his eyes that he was deciding between fight and flight—whether or not to throw an offensive punch or to duck—but the perfunctory greeting had thrown him off-balance. “Yes?” he muttered warily.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Axe.”
The doctor stared at Axe’s hand like he had just grown it from a test tube, and then he reluctantly took it and began to shake.<
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The blond tightened his grip around Kyle’s palm, tugged the doctor’s arm forward, and in the blink of an eye—less than that, really—the dark-haired male twirled a blade through his fingers, caught the dragon-shaped handle, and sliced through Dr. Parker’s wrist, dissecting it at the radius.
He cut his hand clear off.
And then he stuffed it in his pocket. “We’ll stamp it when we get back to the lair.”
Macy gasped and began to hyperventilate.
She tried to scream, but the sound would not escape.
“Shh,” the blond guy whispered, spinning around to face her. He placed his forefinger over his lips. “Relax, sweetheart. Just relax. Look into my eyes.”
Macy met his heated gaze, and her own pupils must have expanded in shock because his jet-black pupils had grown as narrow as a cat’s. As she fell into his gaze, leaned forward, and gaped in wonder, he began to speak a bunch of distant-sounding words: “You’re not afraid; you will remember nothing; you have no interest whatsoever in Doctor Kyle Parker.” And all the while, through her peripheral vision, she saw the other male doing something that defied common sense—something that defied logic, reason, and science.
He cauterized Dr. Parker’s stump with a silver fire.
A flame that shot forth from his mouth!
And then the flame turned silver-blue, and he used it to clean up the mess: to remove the blood from the table and the carpet, to erase the splatter from Dr. Parker’s shirt. And then he reached into the clean breast-pocket of his duster, removed several large stacks of what looked like hundred-dollar bills, and dropped them on the table.
“Get your door fixed, honey,” the blond stranger said. Then he turned his attention on the surgeon. “And, you; invest that shit wisely. You won’t be operating on humans anymore.”
Dr. Kyle looked like he was going into shock.
He brought the stump up to his face and recoiled, but before he could faint or shout—or lapse into hysterics—the dark-haired male cupped his cheeks, seared his gaze into Kyle’s, and began to speak in a soft, hypnotic tone.
