Kiss of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 1) - Paranormal Fairytale Romance (2 page)

“Please excuse me,” Lucian said to the bar owner. Then he turned his back on his brother and strode away from him, toward the entrance.

“Right. Of course! Great to see you! Please stop by…” The drone of his voice was swallowed by the music.

Lucian’s path to the door lay through a myriad of bodies clutching drink-filled glasses in sweaty hands. Even with half of them shifters, he towered over them. His glare had the intended effect—an unconscious shuffling out of the way of the predator in their midst—but it wasn’t fast enough. His brother caught him at the end of the bar.

“You made it,” Leonidas said from behind him.

Lucian debated ignoring him but turned to face the bar instead. He signaled the bartender, a pretty, petite blonde woman who was thoroughly human but had the scent of at least two shifters on her already. “Double scotch, neat,” he ordered.

Leonidas leaned into the bar next to him, propping his elbow on the blue glass and grinning. “I hope you don’t mind, brother, but I started without you.”

“Obviously.” The bartender had set a glass tumbler filled with amber fluid before him. Lucian downed the scotch in one swallow. Alcohol had minimal effect on him, even in his human form, but he hoped the alcohol burn would mask the smell of the club, his brother, and the scent of the willing females that hung on everything. They were so easily drunk on shifter pheromones, the most potent of which was dragon. It was clear Leonidas had already done more than taste his first human of the night. And she surely wouldn’t be his last.

His brother grinned. “Go on, Lucian. Pick one. They’re ripe for the taking tonight.”

Lucian signaled for another drink.

Leonidas sighed, turned to face the bar, and ordered a drink of his own. “You really must break this streak you have going. It’s not like the crown can pass to the spawn of
these
loins.” He gestured to his cock, already well-used for the evening. Thankfully, he’d remembered to zip. “Just take someone for the night. Get back in the game. You’re worse than our brother with this.”

“Where is Leksander?” Lucian asked. The three brothers had been born minutes apart, but they couldn’t be more different. Leonidas’s endless sexual appetite was, in fact, normal for a dragon. Lucian felt the same raging need, but his past drained any encounters with humans of the pleasure they should have. And Leksander… well, he had his own obsessions.

Leonidas downed half his scotch before answering. “Leksander is where he usually is.”

“Not again.” Lucian finally turned to read his brother’s face.

His normal smirk was replaced by a grimace. “Oh yes,
again.
I really don’t think he’s going to give up.”

Lucian shook his head and finished his drink. He would entertain thoughts of breaking Leksander of his bad habits, but Lucian was smart enough to know the foolishness of that. Besides, it would only end in bloodshed. Probably his own.

“Come on, Luc,” his brother said, voice light again as he gestured to the undulating bodies on the dance floor. “Any of these beauties would fall in love with you in a single night.”

“Fuck off.” His brother should know better. The last thing he wanted was to revisit the images and the screams, all the things that would be resurrected if he found himself in the arms of a woman again.

“Suit yourself.” Leonidas rumbled a deep growl, drained his drink, and strode off into the crowd, no doubt seeking another release as soon as he was ready. Which for dragons was no time at all, not in this pheromone-infused environment. Several of Lucian’s top lieutenants were doing the same—the House of Smoke was well represented in the club tonight. There was no need for Lucian to follow suit—he had talked to the owner, paid his respects, made an appearance. Nothing more was required of him, and the scents were starting to crawl under his skin.

He turned to leave, but caught sight of Cinaed, his best friend and steady right hand, hurrying toward him from the DJ station near the back. His reddish-toned hair betrayed his Gaelic origins, back when the House of Smoke resided on the European continent, but the washed-out blue light of the club had turned his face ghoulish.

“What’s your trouble, Cin?” Lucian asked when he arrived.

The flush on Cinaed’s face was either sex or anger. It was hard to tell in the odd light and drowning scents. “The House of Drakkon is here, my liege.”

What?
Lucian’s senses sharpened, as they always did for battle. It was an ancient reflex, but one that served him even now in the modern city of Seattle. There were far more predators than the city was aware of. Not least the House of Drakkon, an unsavory nest of black dragons that had been plaguing the city and battling with the House of Smoke for years.

Lucian shifted his eyes to scan the club. The Drakkon scents must have been lost in the flood of other smells. His dragon vision would better pierce the blue darkness and tricky lighting than his human eyes. The runes on his skin—a gift from the fae part of his DNA—twitched as they sensed his need for heightened magical awareness. That was one advantage which made his House strong, even if the treaty hadn’t also set them above all other dragon Houses—his fae magic allowed him to perceive any beast, no matter what skin they wore. Shifters. Vampires. Fae and angel glamour alike were no obstacle to him.

But easiest of all to find were his fellow dragons.

Tytus and a few of his thugs lurked by the back door, no doubt lying in wait for some hapless woman. A human female. Their most favorite kind of prey.

Lucian shoved away from the bar and strode toward the cluster of vipers. Cinaed signaled others from the House of Smoke. Several drifted closer, on guard. Leonidas was too wound up in a female wolf to notice.

Tytus stood tall as they approached, the might of his dragon showing under the black silk shirt he had chosen to wear for this hunting ground. Their House was in the Sawtooth Forest of Idaho, but they favored raids on the city.
Lucian’s city.
The entirety of the realms fell under the protection of the House of Smoke—there was no single city that warranted more protection than another—but infringement on the one closest to Lucian’s lair was insulting. A simple insult from a dragon whose mind wasn’t troubled by complex thoughts.

“I thought we had an agreement,” Lucian said just loudly enough to carry over the thumping of the music. “An agreement that involved not seeing your ugly face inside Seattle city limits.” He didn’t need to raise his voice to make his intent clear—he would eagerly back those words up with talons and more. His mind was already calculating how to move the fight away from the sea of delicate human bodies.

Tytus and his lieutenants leaned forward, the unspoken threat bringing them in. “Our agreement lasted as long as the troubles were brewing between humans and shifters. I don’t have to be fae to know the limits of an agreement. The troubles are over.” He gestured to the bustle of humanity and shifters releasing their sexual urges on one another. “Your new club is a shining example of that.” Tytus’s dark eyes flashed a deeper black, a glimpse of his dragon hiding behind his irises. “And I’ve been without bedmate for far too long.”

Bedmates.
Tytus was
dragon;
he could easily lure humans to his bed. But he was known for having a taste for force—the
hunt
was his fetish, and one that made Lucian desire the feel of Tytus’s blood on his talons.

 “You may visit the bar. Have a drink. Take your pleasure in any corner you wish.” He leaned closer to Tytus, stretching his neck so the black dragon could see the runes there and the fae power they carried. Lucian felt them writhing, craving a release.

Tytus didn’t pull back… but he blinked.

Lucian dropped his voice low. “But if you take a female by force, my House will hunt you down like the
wyvern
you are.” Wyvern—the wild beasts that were the eventual fate of any dragon who failed to find a mate and successfully spawn. They were serpents with wings and no mind… no human mind, at least. Nothing to pass for reason or humanity.

Not that the House of Drakkon had much humanity to begin with.

Tytus sneered. “I don’t have to take them by force. They come to me of their own free will.” The man’s definition of
free will
was assuredly different from Lucian’s.

Cinaed rumbled a heated growl. “Yes, just like kittens falling into a sewer.”

Lucian let out a low breath. “Give me a reason, Tytus. I beg of you.” He was a prince of the House of Smoke and cursed with fae blood. It was no match at all. But then Lucian deliberately turned his back on the thug in dragon skin and strode toward the front door, leaving his threat to settle the matter. He’d had enough of the throbbing music, the pervasive pheromones, and the absolute knowledge that he would not be partaking of female flesh tonight—or any night—while even scum like Tytus would find some pleasure here. If Lucian stayed, he would only snuff out the incipient peace the club represented. And he couldn’t allow his frustrations to needlessly stoke a war between the Houses, not now.

Cinaed caught up to him. “My liege?” He was clearly wondering Lucian’s intent, but Cinaed was also forgetting his human manners. He’d been at the keep for too long—just like Lucian.

He smirked. “I’m no one’s lord here, Cin. I’m merely Lucian Smoke, elusive billionaire.”

His friend gave him a wrinkled look, like he wasn’t quite sure if Lucian were right in the head. “Playing at human now, are we?”

“Angel investor,” he deadpanned as he reached the door.

Cinaed momentarily worked to keep a straight face, then lost the battle to a snort. But he was still close on Lucian’s heels.

Lucian held up a finger to stop his lieutenant from following him. “I’m going out on patrol.”

Cinaed’s humor evaporated like a fae disappearing into mist. “Do you wish me to accompany you?”

“No. Stay and watch over Tytus. Alert my brother, once he’s finished, to the House of Drakkon’s presence.” He scanned the bar once again, but only the three black dragons were in attendance. “I have a feeling Tytus is showing his face as a ruse; the rest of his House may be scouting elsewhere in the city for trouble. I’m going to see what I can find. Call me if the black dragons need me to back up my threat.”

Cinaed gave him a sharp nod and turned to wade back into the club.

As soon as Lucian was out the door and around the corner from the bar, he cloaked and leaped into the air. He shifted as he went, unfurling his wings to grab the light breeze and loft himself up through the concrete chimney of the buildings of downtown. The cool night air washed away the scent of the club, and the churning agitation inside him stepped down a notch. His talons tucked tight, and his wings spread broad. He stretched his neck, easing the last of the tension. What he really needed was a good hard fly, over the distant mountains back to the keep where he belonged.

But his duty was here.

He and his brothers, princes of the House of Smoke, existed for literally one purpose—to keep the mortal and immortal worlds apart, as they should be. For ten thousand years, a treaty between fae and dragonkind had protected the soft, delicate humans which dragons relied upon to perpetuate their species. For every dragon was born male—with very few exceptions, including his mother, the queen. Female dragons were so rare that no one was surprised when she mated with his father, the king. It was only right that she should mate with the most powerful dragon on the planet, descended from the original fae-and-dragon pairing that resulted in the treaty. And no one was shocked that out of such strong magic was born triplet princes, something so rare that it hadn’t happened in all of recorded memory. Normally, a dragon mated with a human female and produced a single, male dragonling. More often than not, the mother would be consumed in the process. Either with the sealing ceremony or the birth of the dragonling itself.

It was a horror that brought unwelcome memories.

Lucian swooped over the high-rises of downtown Seattle and circled out over the water, leaving those thoughts behind. In their place, he stretched his senses out to the city and all the living species it held, searching for rogue members of the House of Drakkon, but instead finding only the normal inhabitants. Humans and shifters, mostly wolves. Witches in their covens—he could smell and taste the blue spark of their magic. Witches and wolves may quarrel, but they were really cousins. He was only five hundred years old, but even he could remember the time when they were more like brothers and sisters than enemies. And not so different in their powers, as they were now. The witches used their spells to conjure longer lives, but they were still essentially mortal. Dragons had a foot in both worlds, mortal and immortal, and their lifetimes could stretch a thousand years or more, under the right circumstances.

A vapor of scent crossed his mind, bringing the taste of smoke and sulfur—the whiff of something immortal.

Lucian instinctively banked toward the scent, tracking it like the hunter he was. He dipped toward the concrete maze of the city, but his enhanced eyesight found the source before his fae senses. Nearly a mile away, down in an alleyway, a woman was fighting with a man twice her size. Lucian tucked his wings tighter, picking up speed. His senses flared, and if he were merely human, he wouldn’t have seen the flash of green eyes or the swish of reddish-brown hair or the press of rose-colored lips. His mind filled with her scents—soap-scrubbed skin and floral shampoo and the musty linen shirt clinging to her chest. His magic tasted all of her.

And she was kicking the shit out of her attacker.

Lucian checked his rocketing speed, confused. He scanned them both again—the smell of demon was on the man for certain. Was the woman a slayer? But he couldn’t taste angel on her, just a delicious human scent that wrenched his heart almost as much as the right hook she landed on the demon’s face. He reeled back into a dumpster, sending it askew.

Then she pulled a gun.

Holy mother of magic.
Lucian dove again, tucking his wings tight for maximum speed. The man was demon, but she couldn’t know that, not if she were truly human. Her bullet wouldn’t kill him… but it might well and truly piss him off.