Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (54 page)

Ember didn’t look up when she asked, “How do I do it?”

Thane knew what she meant, though the Assembly had a law prohibiting sharing dragon blood with other types of shifters. But Bryan was her brother, too; he was kin, family, and that’s exactly what Thane would argue when defending her before the Triad.

He knelt down beside her and took her forearm in his grasp. With the pad of his thumb, he sought for a good spot on her vein, and then he pierced her soft skin with his nail. She didn’t whimper or recoil, but the green in her eyes shined brighter than ever. Always the brave one.

“I have to keep hold”—he pressed steadily with the point of his nail—“or you’ll heal too quickly.”

“Okay,” she said. “Whatever he needs.”

Deep-red blood, rich with old magic, trickled across her wrist. She brought her arm near Bryan’s mouth, and though his eyes flickered back in their sockets and he choked with pain, she let her blood drip between his parted lips.

The growling around them got louder and angrier, but when Thane cast a lazy glance over his shoulder—
please, try me
—the pack quieted into frightened whimpers.

“He’ll live?” Ember asked as the drips became a narrow stream.

“Longer than usual,” Thane replied. Bryan might also experience some unpleasant side effects, but that couldn’t be helped. What Ember wanted, Thane would make happen. And she wanted Bryan to live.

She smiled shakily at Thane, relief in her eyes. And then her gaze shifted over his shoulder, and her expression sobered. “Who’s that?”

Thane turned, and his dragon nearly blacked his mind with sudden bloodlust.

“Godric,” Thane ground out. The stink and noise of the wolves had disguised his approach. For the first time, Thane could see what had drawn Carreen to him: the angled set of Godric’s dragon eyes made him appear more fae than beast. His irises were a pale blue color that gleamed in contrast to his moonlight-silver hair. Someone
might
think he was gentle, like a poet. Poor Carreen. She should’ve known better.

How had he known where they were? Had the Herreras told him? Possibly. Thane glanced at Ray’s corpse. Or maybe the dead Alpha had contacted the Triad complaining of dragons in their territory. Either way, it seemed this trap set for Bryan had been a trap for dragons, as well.

A clever trap
. So clever that Thane could feel the cage shutting around him. There was no way he could win…or win everything.

As a dragon, Godric could easily overpower any man, including a Bloodkin. And if Thane shifted to fight, he’d be too feral, too mindless, to shift back, and thereby he’d lose Ember. And then Godric could claim that Thane’s dragon had ascended, and Godric was forced to put him down, just as Thane had done with Gerard.
Very clever
.

“Want me to kick his ass?” Ember asked. “I’m pretty sure I can. Lemme try.”

Thane smiled at her. She would’ve made him so happy.

“I would,” he said, looking down at her, “but Matthew would have my head. He’s very old-fashioned.”

“Uh-huh,” she said dryly, as if she knew something was awry. “Sure he is.”

Godric had killed Carreen and Rinc, and now Thane was going to die, too. At least he was going to take Godric with him.

He winked at Ember and stood, his body blocking her from Godric’s view. “Hello, old friend,” he called out. “Isn’t this convenient?”

“You’re a hard man to kill, Thane,” Godric said. “The closest I’ve been able to come is to let time have its way with you, but then time burped up those bodies from the very bowels of the earth and here we are again.”

Emerson’s mind was hopping through the implications of Godric appearing here and now, and she’d come to one conclusion: he had one-upped Thane with a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t scenario. Thane couldn’t win against a dragon unless he shifted himself. Sneaky.

“Perhaps it’s fated that we meet,” Thane said. “You took a coward’s way by going after my wife and child, and now you must face me.”

She glanced down to find the skin on her wrist now unbroken, blood drying in a dark trickle down the curve of her arm. Bryan had gone silent, his pallor chalky, so either he was dead or healing, but she couldn’t afford the moment to check which one. She gave his hand a little squeeze as a prayer and felt his fingers twitch inside her grasp.
Thank God
. The rest of the Wolfkin had retreated slightly, glued to the spectacle before them.

Godric laughed. “I never cared about you,” he said. “I wanted Carreen and her land. She had been intended for
me
until her father got greedy and wanted to form a dragon dynasty with the Ealdian blacks. So I
took
what should’ve been mine.” He shrugged. “And I disposed of what wasn’t.”

He meant Rinc. Which made Emerson’s skin heat with rage. A baby. Innocent. Helpless. Thane’s.

“Carreen got upset about that,” he said with a dramatic sigh. “We quarreled. It didn’t end well.”

Okay, Emerson
really
didn’t like this Godric guy. Someone needed to take steps to see to his speedy removal from this earth. She’d always wanted to perform a public service but had never found the time. And she certainly wasn’t going to sit back and let the boys duke it out—to Thane’s ultimate disadvantage. Because, hello, she was a dragon, too. Or was Godric so pigheaded that he didn’t think she would fight?

She stood and brushed the dirt from her skirt.

“Ah,
Emerson
,” Godric said proudly. “I would know you anywhere.”

Her head ached and spun, as if she’d been hit in the face.

His words echoed in her ears—
would know you anywhere
—and she shivered, recognizing the sentiment behind them.

Please, no. Because that would just suck
.

Statements like that and the pride behind them were the stuff of orphan fantasies—having the eyes or the smile or the coloring of some long-lost relative—when in reality, the relative often turned out to be a total shit. Ember wouldn’t have spared it a moment’s thought, except his uttering the orphan line had also answered the final question left hanging with Lena’s death: what the hell did Emerson have to do with anything?

She could take a pretty good guess now. She might be an Emmerich Red, but somehow she had Godric’s blood in her, too.

“Ember,” Thane said, “get away.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she cut back. She was busy grappling with her total-crap heritage. She’d gone from nobody, to royalty, to spawn in the space of ten days. She just really wanted to be Ember. Ember Clark. Was that so much to ask?

“This is between me and him,” Thane said.

She kinda wished it was, but nothing was that easy.

“And what if I’m his heir?” she asked Thane. Because he’d sworn over and over again to avenge both Carreen and Rinc by taking the lives of both the murderer and his heir. Godric’s son might’ve died, but she bet she was next in line.

Thane turned her way, horror blanching his skin white. Yeah, he’d slept with the enemy. Like five times in one day. Actually, the sheets probably needed to go into the dryer now.

“Come stand by me,” Godric said, lifting an arm to her in welcome. “I swear on the Tredan bloodline that I didn’t know about you. That I would’ve come for you.”

The Bloodkin had a thing about blood. It was all-powerful, the ultimate connection. Now, more than ever, she was glad she wasn’t really one of them.

“Why should I believe you?” She couldn’t be too eager.

“Because you are a dragon,” he said fiercely. “Inside, you must have always known you were set apart, that you were born to fly, not scrabble in the dirt. I would’ve given you the world, but Lena, in her anger, kept you from me and gave you to Thane.”

She lifted her chin and slid her gaze over to Thane. “Mr. Ealdian intends to kill you.”

Godric smiled. “Mr. Ealdian died with his wife and child. It’s time he knew it.”

“And then what?”

“And then the future is ours.” He gestured impatiently with his hand. “Come!”

She thought of
The Goddess
in Thane’s home and let tranquility loosen her shoulders, giving her the heat of confidence when she should be quailing. But the truth was, Thane couldn’t do this. Not alone.

Just a little bit closer
. She walked over to Godric and said, “Take me home.”

***

Thane closed his eyes for a moment to recover his composure.

Lena had tried to be loyal, in her own way, after the fact. She’d given him Ember and had kept Ember’s existence a secret from Godric, which had been
her
revenge for the murder of her sister and nephew. He could forgive Lena now.

“I sent two dragon slayers after him,” Godric said to Ember.

“The vampire almost succeeded,” she coolly told him.

“Occasionally, it’s best to handle business yourself.”

Thane had to work hard to conceal his awe. Ember was as cunning as any dragon ever. Godric was betting on blood, but she made her family where she wanted. Blood had no claim on her—never had—and if Godric had taken one more minute to get to know her, he would’ve realized it, too.

Never trust a serene Ember
.

Thane inhaled and stepped slightly back to survey the area for a weapon, an advantage, anything. The pack of angry wolves was gathered behind him. They’d started growling again, which could be good or bad, considering Bryan was still collapsed in the dirt. Rebar from the surrounding building demolition was exposed a half a block away. Some humans were watching from the rooftop, and far off, the wail of a police siren signaled the interference of human law.

“Have you shifted yet?” Godric asked Ember.

“No,” she answered. “I don’t know how.”

He scowled. “Your dragon might have been stunted by your low upbringing. Watch and learn.”

Thane breathed a sigh of relief when Bryan pushed himself up, his human body in a feral crouch. A ripple of power rolled over the remaining humans of the Wolfkin pack, as they were overtaken by spasms of change. Their clothes fell off in scraps as their bodies morphed into their more primal forms. Lines of blue and red were scrawled all over their skin until bristling hair covered them. Their teeth shined white, lips bared. Their ears were erect.

Bryan, the Alpha wolf, inclined his head slightly, as if waiting for a signal.

It came from Godric, who burst into the flames of change. The shift was glorious as he writhed within an exquisite rose of fire, and then stretched into the sky like a shadow made of burnished silver. His wings, a latticework of scales, shimmered iridescently in the sun. A creature of legend, the dragon took to the sky, wings beating once, twice, and leaning into a circular glide. How Thane envied him that.

A sharp bark brought his attention back down to earth, first to Bryan, and then to Ember, whose eyes had gone full green under a protruding crown of bone. Her hands were fisted, fire licking her skin like a lover.

“Ember, stop!” Thane yelled.

She knew he couldn’t risk shifting, so she was. Was she actually planning to fight? Never mind that she was twenty-five and Godric was at least eight hundred.

“No, sweetheart,” he begged her. “You don’t have to do this.”

But her gaze was trained upward. The fire enveloping her body deepened to the color of passion. Her chest rose, as if inhaling, and an Emmerich dragon—red like blood, red like fury, red like dawn—was born. Her head was elegant, spines fanning away from her face. Her neck was long and graceful, wings reaching with strength. She was sex, power, and beauty in their most elemental forms, and with a single beat, she launched into the air.

She positioned herself between Thane and the lightning bolt that was Godric’s Tredan Silver, her long sinuous body rippling with each lift and stroke. The silver hissed at her, and she screamed back at him, a primeval sound that made a car crash on the street below the airborne dragons. Godric dived to get her to move, but she didn’t flinch. He feinted and almost got around her, but she rammed him with her bent head and sent him off course.

On the ground, Thane had stopped breathing, his heart frozen in terror.

It seemed as if the silver finally understood that she was
defending
his prey, because when next he dived, he did so with teeth bared to rip into her flesh. To teach her the hard way to respect her elders.

And suddenly, Thane was in the air, too, the transition from man to madness a mere blink of sizzling agony. His dragon was a black, the largest of their kind, and he rose like the cloak of death on the world. He heard screams below as human observers ran for cover, but they wouldn’t be able to escape their doom. He was free! The dragon would take what he wanted. And right now, he wanted to split silver dragon skin and show the puny beast just who was king of the sky.

The red and silver dragons were twined in an aerial struggle, teeth at each other’s necks. But when the Ealdian Black circled, wind lovingly caressing his long body, the two broke apart. The red dragon didn’t flee, but the silver one stretched, trying to get away.

There was no contest, never had been.

The black sliced through the air and latched on to the silver. A spurt of salty-sweet blood ran over his tongue, and then he brought the beast down on the exposed rebar, iron spearing through its chest and belly. The concrete and steel wouldn’t kill the silver dragon, but it would pin him to the ground.

One down
. The black turned to go after the red dragon, launching back into the sky. But once high on sunlight, its warm rays sparkling over his scales, the rush for blood eased.

The Emmerich Red matched his speed, stroke for stroke, and he understood that she was his mate and would satisfy his lusts
differently
. The rage left his heart and the simmering pleasure of flight seeped again through his body, his mind clearing like the blue of day around him.

Together, the Ealdian Black and Emmerich Red looked down as the pack of wolves swarmed over the bulk of the silver dragon and finished him off.

And when a car arrived, and a slightly balding man with a short sword under his coat got out, the black dragon remembered himself.
Thane
.