by A. C. Arthur
When he came to forty-foot-tall wood doors, he opened the doors with his mind, sending them flying until they crashed against the walls with an echoing bang. There was just about seven feet of polished wood floor before the planked pathway that wound its way up an additional twenty-foot stretch to the stairs leading to Torrance’s throne. Theo walked the path, keeping his gaze focused on the man sitting in the throne chair. When he came to the stairs, he climbed them and then walked the remaining steps until he was standing in front of his father.
Emperor Torrance Masters had been a seven-foot-tall, broad-shouldered beast of a man. His coal-black beard had reached to the center of his chest, while the hair on top of his head was always kept to a short crop. His Drakon eyes had been a navy blue that almost blended seamlessly with his black dragon body. On the man with caramel-toned skin, that had seemed abnormally dark.
This was the way Torrance used to look.
Today his massive body had grown gaunt, his cheeks hollowed, beard grizzled and gray eyes cloudy and still. The fury Theo was already nursing bubbled and boiled in his gut.
“Theo?” Even his father’s voice was different.
And if Theo hadn’t been staring directly at him, watching his lips move, he would have never guessed this was his father speaking.
“Where is she?” Theo replied. “Bring her here now.”
“Now, is that any way to talk to your father? Especially after being gone for so long.”
Theo didn’t need to see the demonic to know Hoan was there. He’d felt the chill of his presence the moment he’d approached the mountain, but didn’t give a damn. He was, however, shocked to see the Odò guard he’d met the night Shola arrived in Burgess. She walked closer slowly, proudly and with a smugness that had his beast roaring. He didn’t even try to silence the sound as it ripped from his chest. When she stopped just a few feet from him and turned to open her mouth and spit a purposely small ball of fire in his direction, his fists clenched.
“Disrespectful wretch!” Magnum yelled and stepped directly in her face.
“Come. Come. Children. We have more pressing matters at hand,” Hoan said with a chuckle.
The demonic had not taken form, simply eased along the floor, his voice echoing throughout the cavernous space.
“Torrance, bring your son to you and embrace him,” Hoan instructed.
There was a familial bond here, a union that had been made hundreds of years ago and nourished through love, respect and loyalty. Theo felt the immediate tug against his beast, and the dragon that had sired it. He balled his fists and planted his feet in the space, refusing to give in to any of the past emotions.
“Theo.”
The wispy voice spoke again. This was the shell that the man he’d once loved now lived in. Hoan had sucked every bit of that man out and now controlled this body. Theo wanted to rip the demonic’s head off, but he wouldn’t, not before he saw Shola.
“Bring Shola to me. I won’t ask nicely again,” he said. “This could be over as soon as I see her.”
“Is that emotion I sense?” Hoan laughed. “Definitely Torrance’s son. You know your father was in love with your mother before I convinced Aliceanna to assist me in my quest.”
Another part of his twisted past that Theo wanted to forget. He’d spent many years hating his mother for falling prey to Hoan’s words, and as a result, condemning their family and the legacy that had been built.
“She’s gonna die,” Monife said. “And I’ll be the one to kill her.”
There wasn’t a second’s hesitation, he opened his mouth and in a flash all his rage, hurt and despair was aimed in an arc of fire that struck her straight on, dead center in her heart, sending her dragon into a sphere of flames that burst with such force it shook the walls.
“Bring Shola to me now!” he yelled when the former Odò guard’s body rained from the air in black ashes.
Shola stepped from behind Torrance’s chair, Hoan’s spindly metallic hand around her neck. The demonic was at least five feet taller than Shola. She looked like a doll in his grip. But she was no doll. She was Theo’s heart.
He knew for certain now, the moment their gazes met, that he would not breathe if she died. He would end with her.
“Alice...loved...you,” Torrance croaked.
Theo’s head jerked in his father’s direction. “What did you say?”
Torrance blinked, and for an instant, Theo saw his father’s old eyes. The tiny sparks of white against the navy blue that always reminded him of an evening sky.
“She loved us both,” Torrance continued. “Never stopped. Not even when he took...her.”
Theo shook his head, every emotion he’d felt all those years ago still raw and painful. “She left us for him. I won’t do that.” He turned back to Shola. “I won’t leave you the way she left us. I’m here for you. Always.” It was his pledge to her, to them, to their future. “Always.”
When Shola didn’t speak, Theo wondered if it was because she didn’t believe him. He’d had every intention of explaining the whole story to her when he returned to the Office, but she hadn’t been there. And now his priority was to get that demonic’s hands off her.
“Do not...blame her. Do not...hate me,” Torrance continued. “Love.”
It was torture. Hearing his father speak this way, as if these words were coming with his last breath was affecting a part of Theo he thought he’d closed off long ago.
“Oh, you’re making me sick,” Hoan said and sent coils of sludge to curl around Torrance’s ankles and move up his legs.
Torrance’s eyes bulged, his hands shaking where they rested on the arms of the chair. Theo moved fast, leaping up to the platform where the chair sat and pulling at the demonic coils. Although they seemed like glistening liquid, they were powerful and resisted all his strength. The beast strained against his skin for release.
“Let him die,” Hoan hissed. “Or let your dragon loose and fight him ’til the end. Either way, his time is up. There’s nothing left in him for me or you!”
Theo continued to pull at the coils as they moved farther up Torrance’s legs using every bit of the strength that had come to him through the Emperor’s blood.
“Let...go,” Torrance whispered, his voice going faint. “Let go... Theo.”
“Come!” Hoan yelled.
The thumping was loud, and the walls shook. Theo knew what was coming, but he didn’t stop trying to free his father from the demonic’s grip. Behind him, the sound of wings in the air and the screech of fire being aimed echoed. Theo didn’t turn, he focused only on Torrance.
“Help me,” he begged his father in the same way he’d pleaded with him hundreds of years ago to resist the possession.
Surely their combined power could stop Hoan.
Torrance shocked Theo by lifting a hand. Theo was about to roar with excitement, but his father’s hand came clapping down on his shoulder. “Let...me...go,” Torrance said. “It is your time, son.” His voice had suddenly become very clear and just a little deeper, almost resembling his former self. Torrance locked gazes with Theo. “It is your time.”
Theo watched with horror as the final light in Torrance’s eyes blew out. His chest tightened until he thought it would explode, and the only way to relieve that pressure was to shift. In seconds, the black dragon’s wings spread wide, fire already spewing from its mouth. It turned immediately in search of Hoan but came to an abrupt stop.
* * *
A lion sleeps in the heart...
The sound of the old proverb faded in Shola’s mind as she watched Theo cry out in anguish over his father.
She’d been standing there like an invalid, not speaking, and most importantly, not acting. But she needed to find her balance, to calm every part of her soul to reach for the power. It had taken its sweet time, but she felt the first tingles in her feet. It slid up he
r legs, similar to the way Hoan’s slimy sludge had done.
She still didn’t have the blessed river stones; that fact was like a barrier in her mind, but she knew she needed to push past it. She could change the plan, Theo told her that. She could decide.
Shola closed her eyes and focused on the tingling steadily moving up her calves to her thighs. Hoan’s hand shook so that he applied more pressure to her neck. He didn’t really want her dead. Alive, he thought he could usurp her power the same way he’d done Torrance and Monife. That was also what he planned to do with Theo, why he’d killed Torrance in front of him. He wanted Theo to shift into his dragon and ascend to the throne as Emperor of the Far Realm. It would start Hoan’s plan to go for the convergence over again, but he was certain that with her and Theo’s power, he could gain enough control sooner. The demonic was so cocky he had explained all of this to Shola while they waited for Theo to arrive.
She was the bait, and Theo had come just as Hoan knew he would.
Just as a part of her knew he would.
Wind. Fire. Feel the burn.
The words popped into her mind as the tingling spread to her hips and up her torso. She kept her eyes closed, holding those words in her memory because they didn’t seem as distant as the last time she’d tried to recall what needed to be said. She’d been trained to count on the blessed rocks to help her banish Hoan, but she didn’t have them at this moment, when it counted most. Something deep inside told her there was another way.
Wind. Fire. Feel the love.
That was different. Dammit she was forgetting the words. Her fingers started to tingle just as noise and flashes of heat pricked her consciousness. There was fighting around her, screeching and thumping.
Wind. Fire. Feel the love, flowing like a river.
Her body trembled as the words played again in her mind. Her fingers began to move, the tingle seeping into each digit, like water filling a glass.
Wind. Fire. Feel the love, flowing like a river.
Without ever opening her eyes Shola lifted her arms into the air, she circled them over her head and felt the immediate warmth of the stirring wind. It whisked over her body, floating through the thin material of the clothes she wore and swarming throughout the mountain.
“Wind. Fire. Feel the love, flowing like a river.” She spoke the words this time and moved her fingers.
Her eyes opened just as piercing beams of light flew from each finger. The power was stronger than she’d ever felt before and filled her until her body trembled with its force. That’s when she let her arms fall, aiming her fingers directly at Hoan.
“Wind. Fire. Feel the love, flowing like a river.” She said the words louder, and the light burned the tips of her fingers it was so strong and so bright.
The beams pierced tiny holes in the demonic’s body. Holes that as long as she kept her fingers trained on him grew larger until the body melted and smoke filled its place. Water shot from her fingers then, cascading down like a waterfall over Shola and...all the magnificent dragons she now saw standing inside the mountain.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Office
Theo relaxed against the lip of the soaker tub in his bathroom at the Office. At least nine hours had passed between the time they’d traveled once again through the veil and made it back to the Human Realm. It was almost three in the morning, and everyone had gone straight to their rooms as soon as they arrived. It’d been a tough day at the office, so to speak.
He’d lost his father tonight. The father he hadn’t seen in two hundred years. Odd that the time away hadn’t lessened the grief of watching him die. While the question of his pain was still fresh, the pride that swelled inside him when he’d watched Shola banish Hoan still shined bright. Just like she had.
Her body had been engulfed in light as her feet had lifted from the ground and raw power streamed from her fingers. It was as if that power had been created for the specific purpose of defeating this demonic. Of course that’s what she’d told him about how she came to be, but he’d been convinced she was more than that. When it was over, she’d landed gracefully on her feet, dropping her hands to her sides. The look on her face was calm, even while eight dragons stared at her in awe.
She hadn’t said a word to him, but instead had walked right up to the golden yellow dragon and said, “You’re even prettier in this form, Ziva.”
Theo had no idea how she’d known which dragon was Ziva, but she’d picked correctly, and Ziva had immediately shifted back to human form. She pulled Shola in for a hug that should have appeared, at the very least, odd, since Ziva was naked and the wisp of material that was supposed to be an outfit on Shola was soaked and sticking to her skin. The other dragons, all males, thought the sight was quite enjoyable and showed their appreciation with mighty huffs from their noses.
“In your dreams,” Ziva quipped and looped her arm through Shola’s.
Together they’d walked out of the throne room and Theo didn’t see them again until each member of his team had found clothing and two of the Nobles had come up to Theo as they stood just outside the emperor’s personal rooms.
“We are happy to see you, Theo...or ah, Emperor,” the Drakon named Byou said.
At one time in his life, the emperor’s throne had been all Theo thought he had. It had taken some very hard choices, daring steps and tragedy to show him another life—one where he could orchestrate his happiness. But then she came along and showed him that love and loyalty could still exist, and it could once again be strong and impenetrable.
That was his priority now, what he needed to dedicate all his efforts and attention to before anything else. Leaving Byou, the highest ranking Noble Drakon, in charge of the realm, and swearing that he would be in touch, Theo led his group of renegade dragons out of the Far Realm.
Now he sank deeper into the tub with his arms stretched along the lip and closed his eyes. So much had happened, yet he still knew so very little. Not about vampires and dragons and what would happen next in that regard—war was imminent. The thought wasn’t a happy one, but a realistic one. He would definitely have to get with Bleu to figure out how they planned to monitor things on the Human Realm moving forward.
“I hope I’m not interrupting.”
Theo didn’t move, and he didn’t open his eyes. “When we first met, I wondered why I never heard you sneaking up behind me. Usually I can hear someone approaching. But not with you,” he said.
“I have more bracelets. I can wear them at all times so the jingle-jangle will announce my arrival.” Her tone was light and he was glad. They’d been through a lot of heaviness lately.
“I don’t hear you approach, because I feel you.” He opened his eyes.
Turning his head slightly, he watched her standing in the doorway wearing a long red dress. Her feet were bare and her hair loose, lips were tilted in a small smile, but her dimples were still prominent.
“I feel each breath you take as if it were my own. I feel full and at ease.”
“Balanced.” She interrupted him. “I know because I feel the same way. I always had to work harder to maintain my balance. Oya said it would come, that I would grow into the feeling with ease.” Shola shrugged. “I did not believe her.”
He sat up in the tub and hot water sloshed around. “I should have told you everything,” he said, repeating the words that had been rolling around in his mind since she’d looked at him with so much hurt in her eyes at the Tower.
“I can say the same.” She gave a nervous chuckle and shook her head. “We are such a mess.”
“I don’t know, I think we kind of made a great team today.”
She stopped smiling.
“So great we both ran to our rooms to take a soak in the tub. Yours is obviously taking a little longer than mine.” With a slight nod of her head she motioned to the water now dripping on the floor and then to the w
ater inside the tub.
He followed her gaze, but he really didn’t need to. His dick had gone hard the moment he felt her enter his bedroom.
“Maybe I was waiting for company,” he said.
She tilted her head. “But I’ve already taken a bath.”
“Not with me.”
She touched a finger to her chin and twisted her lips while looking around. “Hmmm, I think you might be right about that.”
“Join me,” he said and held his breath for every second that she hesitated.
While there’d been so many things on his mind since returning from the Far Realm, the most pressing had been if Shola were going to be in his life. There was no question he wanted her to, but he would never think of forcing her. She’d spent her entire life believing she had to do something. He wanted everything she did from this point on to be what she wanted to do.
She stepped into the bathroom, touching the material of her dress at her thighs and pulling until it began to ease up her legs.
“Do you take baths with everyone on your team?”
He shook his head and kept his eyes locked on the movement of that dress.
“Only the ones who are goddesses,” he replied before clearing his throat.
Now he sat up even straighter as the dress passed her hips and eased up her torso. He was about to jump out of the tub at the sight of her long legs and shaved mound.
“Oh, well I guess that makes sense.”
Pulling the dress up past her torso and over her head, she finally dropped it to the floor and his dick jumped as he stared at her hard dark nipples before lifting his gaze to her face.
“You’re taking an awful long time to get over here,” he told her. “Is torture the form of punishment you decided to inflict?”
She gave him a full smile and continued walking until she stood right next to the tub.
“You are the smartest dragon I know, Theo Masters.”
Theo could have said a lot more. He could have apologized to her and sworn his undying love and affection at that very moment. But he didn’t. Instead, he reached out and grabbed her, pulling her into the tub and growling as her body met his in the hot water. Totally ignoring that most of that water had sloshed right over the edge and splashed on the floor.
