River dragon, p.10
River Dragon, page 10
“Perseus, what a disappointment you turned out to be,” Grandmother said, standing over me.
“Should we remove the stake, Ma’am?” a familiar voice said, and I frowned as I tried to place the young male.
Daniel Gentry. The brother of Susan, the female my grandmother wanted me to take as my mate. I knew I’d pushed the line between what my Coven would tolerate and what they would see as betrayal. But I was working it out. And Grandmother should have trusted me to do what was right. No, I would never hurt Sybil. But I was starting to doubt if the Coven’s interpretation of events all those centuries ago were true.
Rage filled me, only matched by the level of my despair. They had Trouble. They were taking my mate. They couldn’t fucking have her. Draining her was not the answer. I had to tell them. I had to, but I couldn’t get the words out. The hit to my chest was taking all my air, zapping all my energy.
I gripped it with my hands, determined to pull it out, but that motherfucker Gentry saw me and used his foot to push it in further, pinning me to the floor.
Oh, I am going to kill you slowly, I promised with my eyes.
“Put the bitch in the car and leave him to lie in his own filth. He will bleed out on his own,” Grandmother told that piece of shit Gentry.
Her voice was cold and unfeeling as ever. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? Next, she turned her hawklike face to mine.
“Yours will be a slow and painful death, Perseus, but that is what you deserve for your betrayal. I’ve left the future of the Calloway Coven in the hands of a man for the last time. I will end this curse by bleeding that filthy animal dry. We will be powerful once again and you will be dead. Another worthless male too weak to survive, just like your father and grandfather.”
Grandmother sneered and looked down her long nose at me one more time, then she was gone.
They were all gone.
And they had my mate with them.
Noooooo!
I’m coming for you, Trouble. Don’t you fucking give up. You fight. You fight for me.
CHAPTER TWELVE SYBIL
Tendrils of fear crept up my spine as I felt whatever drug they’d injected me with fill my veins. It had some sort of paralytic effect, and I searched deep down for my Dragon, calling on my creature to help me fight it off.
Fuck. Where was she?
I wanted to scream, to roar, to roast these fuckers to ash, but my Dragon was sleeping, and I couldn’t move. Then it hit me. These people knew Percy. I replayed the things they’d said in my head, and I wanted to weep. This was his Coven, and they’d hurt him, possibly killed him—fuck, no, don’t go there.
But why? Why hurt one of their own? Why kidnap me?
It could have been some sort of jealousy thing. Percy had told me he was kind of promised to someone else. Some supernaturals had iron clad betrothal agreements, but Percy made it a point to tell me he’d never signed a contract.
But some would feel his attention on me to be a slight to them. So maybe this was an angry relative or something? Maybe I could talk my way out of whatever this was.
“P-please, look I don’t know why you took me,” I started only to shriek as a strong backhand hit me right in the face.
“Shut up, filthy whore!” the male growled.
He was the same guy who’d fucking grabbed me. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes of the tears that sprung up there. But I couldn’t move any other part of my body and my head was now painfully turned to the side. His cold, grubby hands gripped my chin as he righted my head. He lifted his fist this time, but before he could connect it with my face, someone stopped him.
I blinked again, grateful for the interruption. I didn’t really want to get hit again. A pinched face stared down at me, and I wondered if maybe getting punched wasn’t better than being forced to look into those cold, hard eyes.
“That is enough, Daniel. So, you’re awake,” the older woman said, frowning at me.
“Well, I guess I should be grateful my weak grandson found you at all,” she said.
“Grandson?”
“Perseus Calloway. Such a disappointment, but that is your fault, isn’t it? That is what your kind does. Seductive serpent. Heartless harlot. Tearing up families. Did you think I would sit and watch you destroy the rest of our line?”
“Please,” I tried. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I would never hurt Percy. I l-love him,” I whispered.
But that was clearly the wrong thing to say. The old bitch slapped me hard, and I felt warmth spill from my nose. Three pairs of eyes turned to me, theirs red with lust. Percy’s grandmother snarled, shoving a cloth over my face.
“No! Remember yourselves,” she growled at the others.
My adrenaline spiked, and fear filled me. I understood what was happening. My nosebleed was rousing their hunger. These Dhampirs were cursed with bloodlust, and if I didn’t stop bleeding, they were going to suck me dry.
“Fight it! Do you hear me? You will fight it. We must be at the altar when the moon rises, then we will feast on this whore’s blood and end the curse! Now, give me another vial,” she said, reaching out for another syringe filled with god knew what.
I wanted to pull away so badly, but I still couldn’t move. I watched in horror as she stuck the needle in my neck. One precious second was all I had until darkness took me, and in that time, I had only one thought.
Percy!
It was pitch black outside when I woke. I blinked my eyes slowly, searching for any hint of light. When I tried to move, I found my fingers and toes wiggled. That was good. Whatever drug they’d given me was wearing off. I tried to reach my Dragon, but the beast was still out cold.
I was strapped down to something cold and hard by my wrists and ankles. Lifting my neck, I bit back my panic, momentarily gratified to see I’d at least been covered with something. Someone had dressed me in a pale nightgown of sorts, and I wanted to cry, realizing I looked like what I was. A sacrifice.
A whoosh of air sounded through the room I was stuck in and suddenly flames licked the walls. It was a neat trick. Dramatic lighting worthy of an Indiana Jones movie. I blinked as robed figures filled the space, about two dozen all together.
“What are you doing? Let me go!” I shouted.
Freaked out beyond compare, I struggled against my bindings, but the people, the Dhampirs, ignored me completely. Their red-tinted eyes were glued to their leader. It was the old woman from the car. Her robes were ornately decorated with gold thread, and she held a huge dagger in her hand. This was Percy’s grandmother. The one who had her grandson impaled by a wooden stake who wanted to kill me, too.
“You can’t do this! Percy is my mate. He loves me! He doesn’t want you to do this!”
“He never loved you! Percy is dead because he chose lust over loyalty. He was supposed to bring you back here to do what I am doing, foolish monster. He was hunting you to lull you into a false sense of security. He had every intention of bringing you back here to drain you dry, Dragon—”
“He didn’t know I was a Dragon,” I mumbled caught somewhere between anger, fear, and despair.
Percy was my dream come true. But something bothered me about what she was saying. There was an inkling of truth to her words. She truly believed every word. And I had to wonder, had Percy stalked me? Had he hunted me because he knew what I was? Had he been planning to bring me back here, to drain me?
“Of course he did. You aren’t that stupid, are you? A chubby thing like you could not have hoped to catch the eye of a male like him. But you bewitched him, just like your ancestor did to ours! Tricky beasts tainted with unnatural magic,” she said, spitting at me.
Devastation caused me to sob. My dreams quickly turned into nightmares. I was about to die, and all because I was stupid enough to believe Percy could have loved me.
“Tonight we end the curse placed upon us by this monster’s ancestor! We will feast on the Dragon’s blood, gorging ourselves until our veins are full and our bloodlust sated!”
A great cheer went up, and I started shaking. Percy’s grandmother turned to face me, a maniacal look in her eyes as she lifted the dagger high and positioned it over my heart. I took a deep breath, not wanting to die, I pulled on my magic to search for anything I could use to help, but I found fire and air, and no water. None but my tears.
Maybe they would be enough.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN MARTINA
A few hours earlier…
“She isn’t answering her cell,” I said, pacing across the kitchen.
“Wasn’t she with her new man?” Erryn asked, rolling her purple eyes and shaking her head.
“Yeah, but Cat Maccon texted, saying she’d been trying to get in touch with Sybil all afternoon. Johnny wasn’t feeling well today, and he wanted to talk to her to feel better. I know she wouldn’t blow those kids off,” I said.
“Well, are you texting her or calling?” Davian asked.
“Both. She isn’t answering either!”
“Hey everyone,” Nova called out a greeting as she waltzed into the kitchen with a couple of grocery bags. Asher followed close behind her.
“What’s going on?” the big Lion male asked.
“Sybil is missing,” I replied.
Anger and worry had my magic in a tizzy. My voice was deep with my Wolf and flames danced across my fingertips.
“Um, okay,” Nova replied cautiously watching my fire.
“I’m fine,” I growled. “Look, I want to run a trace on her phone. Can you do that, Asher?”
“I can, but it’s not exactly ethical,” he replied.
“Have you tried our Clan bonds?” Nova asked.
“Of course I have, but it’s like, it’s like she’s not even there,” I whispered, hating the real fear that gripped my heart.
“One second,” Asher replied and grabbed his cell phone.
I knew he had contacts at the DPCA who could easily get me the info I was looking for, and I was right. My new favorite brother-in-law had it in a matter of minutes. After some discussion and a call to my mate, we were all sitting in one of Mitchell’s big work trucks when Davian broke the silence.
“Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, she’s at a motel. With a guy. And I, for one do not need the visual to fuck up my brain,” our older brother said with a sigh.
“If I thought she was just fooling around with her guy, I would leave them alone, Davi. But something is wrong,” I said, feeling it in my gut.
If I was the Alpha of the Witch Shifter Clan, that made Davi the moral compass, Erryn the blade, and Nova the brains, with Mitchell and Asher acting as Enforcers But Sybil, well, our Sweet Syb was the heart.
It was my job to make sure every member of our Clan was safe and secure. As Alpha, I had a duty, and it was Sybil who’d believed in my abilities more than anyone else. She was the reason I was there. And I would protect her till my dying breath, like I would any member of my Clan.
I hoped I was wrong. I hoped Davi was right, and we would pull up outside the rinky-dink motel to find Sybil with her panties down. But as Mitchell slowed the truck behind an ambulance, my chest heaved.
“Sybil!” I screamed, jumping out of the truck, everyone close on my heels.
But it wasn’t Sybil I saw. It was Percy. He was struggling against two huge paramedics, both Bear Shifters, but that wasn’t what worried me. It was the fact he had a really big fucking stick coming out of his chest.
“Fucking stop! I have to go,” he growled, sitting up.
“Dude, you are gonna die if you pull that out here,” one of the Bear Shifters said.
“No, I fucking won’t. Just give me a bag of blood,” he growled.
“You motherfucker! Where’s Sybil?” I roared, jumping on the foot of the gurney.
The Bear Shifters startled, but Asher was there, showing his badge and telling them to back up. Percy met my gaze, anger, fear, and pain lacing his eyes.
“They took her, and I am going to get her back.”
“Who? And Why?”
“My Coven. They think bleeding her will end the curse, but it won’t! Get me out of here, Martina. I’ll get her back. I’ll end this tonight.”
“Not without us, you’re not,” I argued. “And I am going to need more of an explanation from you.”
“Fine. I’ll explain on the way. I need blood, though.”
“Blood? Why?”
“Because I’m a Dhampir and I need it to heal. I need to be at full strength. There will be two dozen of them, and they will be in a blood frenzy,” he explained.
“Fine. You want this out?” I asked, pointing to the stick. He nodded.
“Nova! Grab a blood bag for Percy. He’s going to lead us to Sybil. And if he doesn’t, we’re going to rip him to shreds,” I promised, right before I pulled.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN PERCY
I’d never known anything like the fury raging in my veins as I pushed open the door to the ceremonial chamber on my Coven’s lands. I knew what I would find, but even knowing didn’t prepare me for the flood of emotions threatening to rip me apart at the scene before me.
Men and women I had called family, my Coven, stood in robes, their eyes tinted red with bloodlust as they gazed at my mate with hunger. My grandmother stood before them, her gilded dagger lifted high, right over Sybil’s precious heart.
A roar unlike anything I ever heard ripped from my lips and faster than lightning I blurred across the room, my fist knocking the blade from my grandmother’s hand and pushing the old woman across the altar.
The rest of the Witch Shifter Clan filtered through the door and that was when the real fighting began. Using only brute strength, I grabbed the iron manacles on Sybil’s wrists and ankles, breaking them apart with only my rage to fuel me.
“Are you okay? Trouble? Are you hurt?”
She moaned, her hands pushing against my chest as I cupped her face and tried to hold her. She wouldn’t look at me. Why wouldn’t she look at me? Great, heaving sobs wracked her chest, and I released her. My heart wrenched painfully as it became abundantly clear she did not want my hands, my touch, me anywhere near her at that moment.
I forced myself to step back, just in time to catch that prick, Gentry. He’d snuck up behind me with a knife in hand, attempting to finish what he’d tried earlier. But this time, I was ready.
“Stay back,” I shouted, pointing at Sybil.
She might be pissed at me, but I was still going to protect her. She was my mate, and keeping her safe was my goddamn prerogative. Dhampirs were trained for battle, and Gentry knew the same moves as I did. In a whirl of motion, he attacked, and I blocked. With every blade he pulled from hidden pockets in his attire, I deflected, disarming him one at a time.
The fight raged on behind us, but I could not afford to pay it any mind. Daniel Gentry was a formidable opponent. But I had something he did not. I had the rage of a man whose mate had been threatened burning inside of me. His eyes widened as I relieved him of his last weapon.
“You betrayed us for some monster,” he spat at me, falling back when I punched him in the diaphragm.
“You can’t kill me for being loyal to the Coven!” he shouted.
“That isn’t why I’m killing you,” I grunted, wrapping my hand around his throat, and lifting him off the ground.
Gentry gasped, clawing at my hand as I squeezed the life slowly out of him.
“Then w-why?” he rasped.
“You. Touched. My. Mate.” I growled each word, squeezing harder with every syllable uttered.
One hard shake was all it took to snap his worthless neck. I opened my hand and dropped him to the ground, turning around when I heard an unholy hiss fill the room.
“Stop!! Everyone, stop! Or she dies anyway!” My grandmother yelled, holding her blade to Sybil’s throat.
I looked around, counted the bodies, those dead and the ones in cuffs courtesy of Asher and Nova. Fuck. This was a mess. I never considered ending the Coven. It wasn’t how I imagined things would go. But after tonight, I was completely fucking fine with it.
What I could not stand was Trouble being afraid of me, or hating me, or whatever that was before. I needed to talk to her. To ask her about it. But first, it looked like I needed to kill the cold bitch who was my paternal grandmother.
“Stop. Look, you don’t need her anymore. I drank from her. I have the blood of the Dragon inside my veins. Just take me,” I said, trying to reason with the old woman.
“You were supposed to save us! Your father died. Your grandfather. Then I had to kill you because you let your lust rule you just like them—”
“What are you talking about?”
“The curse you fool. It was never the way it was written. I was there! You think Marian wanted Axelrod? Ha! Never. She never wanted him. He stole her, raped her, took her against her will. There was only one who held her heart—a monster!”
“She loved the Dragon?” I repeated, bewildered.
“I never understood why Axelrod fought for her so. She was unworthy! Loving a Dragon instead of a man. A monster? And then she cursed us, not him.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“Marian’s parting curse. We need to gorge ourselves on the beast to willingly fill our veins with Dragon blood, don’t you see, Percy?”
“You’re delusional. You all are. Did you think this would work? That you could kill an innocent and somehow redeem yourselves. She is worth more than this whole fucking Coven, do you understand? But if it is her blood you want, you can have that which runs in my veins and no other! I swear, grandmother or not, if you touch her again, I will end you,” I roared, angry beyond belief.
“You’re going to want to releassssssse meeeeee. Now,” Sybil said, hissing her words and cutting off myself and my grandmother.
