Possessed by a Dark Warrior (11 page)

The elf male.

When her scan of the dragon realm was complete, she spread her wings and soared lower, letting the wind buffet her as she swept back down towards the valley. She twisted her body, lazily spiralling downwards, the black lands nothing more than a whirling blur that rushed past her eyes, punctuated by a brief flash of light.

She flapped her wings to slow her descent and skirted the valley, denying the urge to fly higher again and look towards the source of that light.

The elf kingdom.

She had realised two days ago that she could see it when she flew high, able to pick out the golden light that filtered down on it and part of the lands that surrounded it. It had been so green, filled with colour and warmth. Life.

It had tainted her view of the rest of Hell, painting it in a dull light that left it wanting.

Even the dragon realm, her beloved home, now appeared black, cold and grim to her.

She turned her gaze towards it as she neared the end of the valley, looking back in the direction she had travelled to reach her brother, and then pulled her eyes away as she banked left. She followed the mountain ridge, heading towards the Devil’s domain, and started her work, charting all the escape routes she could take if necessary.

Her tension faded as she flew, her mind occupied with small tasks, thoughts pulled away from the castle that often felt too cramped and her brother’s plans. She focused on flying, feeling the warm air on her face and wings, flowing over her scales and curling around her tail.

As she circled back around, passing the castle, she gazed down at it.

A bolt of fear ran through her, scattering her calm.

That fear had steadily been growing since her brother had taken her in, keeping her awake at night and setting her on edge around him. He hadn’t mentioned the sword since she had said it was gone, but she knew he hadn’t forgotten about it. It was his ultimate treasure, and that was the reason she had hidden it deep in the bowels of the castle, in a place far from the ones he frequented in his daily routine.

Taryn breathed deep, her nostrils flaring as she took a massive gulp of air down into her lungs. She opened her jaws and exhaled, and the taste of ashes coated her tongue. Her ancestors would have breathed fire but all she could do was breathe ashes, her power diminished by the roof of Hell that stole sunlight from her scales and magic from her bones.

Her kind had been losing powers that were rightfully theirs since they had been cruelly banished from their home, cast into Hell and cursed.

It was just another cell, larger and grander than ones she had occupied during the last three centuries, but a cell nonetheless.

It held her, trapped her away from the light, stole her power from her and made her weak, leaving her at the mercy of others.

Fire blazed through her blood, impotent flames that licked at her skin and wanted to burst from her, desperate to mix with the fetid air of Hell and burn her grim cage to ashes.

Taryn flew harder, needing to feel the air in her lungs and rushing over her scales. She needed to fly. Her wing bones ached but she refused to slow. She couldn’t. She had to keep flying. She had to be free.

Had to fly.

It was a compulsion, one she feared would drive her mad if she denied it.

Pain burst along her entire left side and she barrelled right, an agonised roar escaping her as she dropped through the air. Sharp claws pierced her scales, savagely raking over her ribs and back, close to tearing into her delicate white wing membranes. She turned wild eyes on her foe, her heart pounding hard and blood thundering as she instinctively lashed out with her barbed tail. It struck hard.

On the shoulder of the violet and white dragon who was driving her down towards the mountains.

Tenak.

Taryn cried out again as she crashed into the ground at the base of the mountain, jagged rocks punching hard into her right side and boulders and gravel spraying ahead of her as she slid across the uneven terrain.

He rose above her when they came to a halt, his front paws on her hip and shoulder, pressing her down into the black ground. He bared huge sharp teeth at her, his violet-to-white eyes wild and filled with fury that she could now sense in him. Anger at her.

She hurled her head back and shrieked as he raked claws over her left flank, scoring long gashes in her scales. The pained sound echoed off the mountains, mocking her with its feebleness.

Tenak snapped at her wings and neck with his jaws and she tried to scramble away from him, kicking at him with her back legs. She caught him in the belly with her talons and he snarled at her, his elliptical pupils narrowing into thin deadly slits.

The pounding of her heart grew frenzied as fear seized her, her eyes locking on his fangs as he launched at her again, aiming for the base of her left wing.

He was going to kill her.

Taryn kicked hard with both back paws, slamming them into his belly and knocking him back just as his jaws closed. His fangs clacked together bare inches from her wing bone and he growled at her. She kicked again, frantic with a need to escape him.

Only one thing could have caused him to turn on her.

He had found the sword.

He must have used her scent on the cloth, tracking it through the castle.

As he reared back, looming above her, bloodlust shining in his narrowed eyes, she did the only thing she could to save herself.

Taryn shifted back into her mortal form. Her weaker form.

Fear was clouding her judgement and she had to see through it to the truth, trusting that he didn’t want to kill her. He just wanted to punish her for taking what belonged to him.

His greatest treasure. His prized possession.

She had to trust that his dragon instincts and his instincts as her twin brother were still strong enough to prevent him from attacking her when she was weak and he could easily kill her.

He remained staring down at her, cold merciless eyes pinned on her as she huddled on her side, naked and trembling. Blood coated her, seeping from the gashes he had inflicted, the wounds burning even as the red liquid cooled her skin around them, catching the steady breeze that blew across the valley.

Taryn prayed to the ancient gods and closed her eyes, bracing herself for his killing blow.

May the gods have mercy on Hell. She had failed everyone. Tenak would kill them all now he had the sword.

The expected blow didn’t come and she managed to convince her lungs to work and her eyes to open.

They did so slowly, fear still flowing through her, poisonous whispered words that said he would strike her down the moment she set eyes on him.

Tenak stood before her in his mortal form, dark purple leathers encasing his legs. His handsome face was dark as midnight, grim and forbidding, filled with the anger she could feel flowing from him and over her. His cold eyes held hers, sending a deeper tremor through her, one that wracked her right down to her soul.

She had looked into the eyes of hundreds of males, all of them wretched and dark in some way, foul and twisted, but she had never looked into their eyes and witnessed what she could see in Tenak’s.

He wanted to kill her.

She had never feared those males, her masters, as she feared her own brother.

“You had the sword,” Tenak growled and advanced on her. She shifted onto her bottom and scooted away from him, until her back hit a boulder and she had nowhere to run to escape his fury. He bared sharp teeth at her and his eyes flashed like fire. “You kept it from me. You
lied
to me.”

Taryn shook her head, shifting her violet-to-white hair across her bare shoulders. “No. No, Brother.”

He snarled. “Liar. You deceived me. You stole the sword and you kept it from me. It is mine, Sister.
Mine
.”

“I know,” she said and he stilled, some of the tension leaving his muscular body as he eased back a step and eyed her, silently commanding her to continue. “I was bringing it back to you.”

He didn’t look as if he believed her. She had to convince him that she had been returning the sword to him or her quest to free Hell of her brother’s demented plans was going to end here, with her back against a rock, caged between it and him.

Caged
.

She wrapped her arms around herself and fought that word, that feeling it awoke in her, sinking the sensation deep into her bones until she felt trapped in her own skin.

The trembling worsened as she began to lose the fight and she started to rock, stared at his knees and desperately tried to hold the pieces of herself together so she didn’t fall apart. Not now. She needed to convince her brother to believe her. She couldn’t slip into the madness. She fought it, but no matter how fiercely she pushed back against it, it was gaining ground, pulling her down into the darkness.

“I am to believe you meant to return the sword?” Tenak hunkered down in front of her, his deep voice little more than a thick growl as he glared at her.

His lips twisted in a vicious smile that faltered when he reached out to touch her and she flinched away. A frown flickered on his brow, a brief flare of anger in his eyes that she felt was directed at someone else and not her.

At the males who had shattered her in a way, even when she had believed herself unbroken.

“I escaped,” she whispered, not strong enough to put more force behind her words. They shook from her lips, trembled as fiercely as her body. “I spent months tracking the sword… and I stole it back… I was bringing it to you.”

His face darkened again and he curled his outstretched hand into a fist and drew it back to him. He unfurled it and pressed it against his bent knee, mirroring his other hand. The position caused his bare chest and arms to tense. A display of power. A tactic many male dragons employed where females were concerned. He was making sure that she knew he was stronger than she was, both in this form and his dragon one, silently keeping her in line and under his rule by eliminating any thought about attacking him.

“If you were bringing it to me,” he murmured in a low voice that was so calm it set her on edge, screamed at her that he was close to lashing out at her again, “why did you not give it to me that day I found you here in the valley?”

Taryn swallowed hard and managed to force her eyes up to meet his. “Because you were angry with me… as you are now. I was afraid. I feared you would kill me. I fear you will—”

“I would never kill you,” he interjected, and brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. The next second his hand wrapped around her throat and he snarled, “But if you are lying to me… I will butcher you.”

Taryn’s heart skipped several beats before slamming hard against her ribs, and she quickly shook her head. Her eyebrows furrowed as the fear that had already been flowing through her shot up to a level where it was hard to breathe, and almost impossible to find her voice to speak and convince him otherwise.

His hand tightened around her throat, sending her careening beyond the reach of fear as fury rose up to overwhelm her.

Cold steel. Heavy. Tight. Choking her.

She hissed at him, grasped his wrist and yanked it away from her throat, twisting it hard at the same time and tearing a pained yelped from him.

“I was bringing the sword to you,” she snarled, the darkness in her voice shocking her, but not enough that she could escape the grip of it.

She tightened her grip on Tenak’s arm, digging her emerging talons into his flesh and spilling his blood. His eyes darkened but they no longer frightened her. If he wanted to fight her, she would fight him back, and he would learn that she was no longer the meek little female he had always protected.

She was a fierce dragoness.

“I brought it to you because I need you to help me make them pay.” She bared her fangs and spat on the floor between them, aiming it at those who had caged her, who had somehow broken her despite her attempts to stop them. “I want to make them all pay.”

Tenak’s grimace became a dark smile that pleased her too much, promising her retribution.

Vengeance.

“You are the only one who can help me!” she hissed and held his gaze, knowing that his only reflected the madness, the hunger for bloodshed and violence, that filled hers. “You are strong… more powerful than I… and with the sword… you will be
invincible
.”

Tenak grinned and rose onto his feet, easily shaking her grip. He held his hand out to her, his eyes filled with a bloody promise, one she wanted to accept even when she knew she shouldn’t.

“This valley is
our
kingdom now… but soon all of Hell will cower at
our
feet.”

Taryn placed her trembling hand into his and allowed him to pull her onto those feet he spoke of, and the image his words evoked terrified her.

Because she had made it possible.

As she stared up into her brother’s eyes, she could only feel one thing.

She had made a terrible mistake.

And all of Hell was going to pay for it.

Bleu sipped the dark bitter liquid, the cream mug warming his left hand, and stared at the bustling mortals. Their idle chatter blended into one stream of sound that filled the silence in his mind as he relaxed in a corner of the large warmly-lit room, surveying them and picking out the differences between each individual. He took another sip, enjoying the buzz that chased through his entire body each time the liquid hit his tongue. He had become accustomed to the brew the mortals called coffee, slowly introducing himself to it, aware that it held the same risks as alcohol. Too much, too quickly and he would be hit with the full effects in a heartbeat, and the thought of bouncing around like a maniac, jacked up on caffeine, was not appealing.

It also tended to make it hard to hold his mortal guise. His black apparel of t-shirt, jeans and a long coat was only part of his disguise, and the easiest one to control since they were clothes he owned and had teleported to him before entering the establishment. The one he was in danger of losing control over was the more important part of his disguise, an elven trick that allowed him to blend into his environment by changing two key areas of his appearance—his eyes and his ears.