Chapter 25 Jackson #2
Again, I shifted to my human form and rolled to the side, the heat of the dragon’s flame so oppressively close and hot that it nearly blistered the skin of my cheek. My back felt raw but not truly hurt from the glancing blow of fire a moment before.
Something caught my eye on the stairs, and I made a beeline for it, grabbing the item, then tucking and rolling away from another blast of fire. Rising to my knees, I turned the machine gun on the brown drake.
The drake paused, his fire dying, as he stared at me in dumbfounded surprise as I leveled the barrel at his face.
“Go to hell,” I muttered as I pulled the trigger.
The gun only had two bullets left in its clip, but that was more than enough.
One took the drake in the throat, and the second smashed through his cheek and into his skull.
He slumped sideways, crushing a chaise lounge as he collapsed.
For a few brief seconds, I heaved in breath as I dropped the gun.
There was no time to rest, though. My sister was somewhere in this house, and Joseph might try to kill her at any moment.
I had to hope that he would try to get her out of the house without destroying her first. If he still had her captive, he could control me.
The moment he killed her, he would lose all leverage. He’d be a dead man walking.
Rising to my feet, I turned and continued up the stairs toward the next floor. I doubted he’d have her in the basement—not enough ways to get out, too few exits.
“Anitoli!” I screamed again, heedless of the danger, fueled by my rage and hatred. “Face me, you piece of shit.”
Stepping up onto the next landing, I turned right, heading down the hallway.
The first door I came to exploded open before I could even try the knob.
A huge, hulking man barreled out, dropping his shoulder, spearing me in the stomach, and driving me back.
In that instant, I recognized him. I’d seen him at that old decrepit farmhouse.
The guy who’d dragged my sister’s egg out and pretended to shoot it.
“Hello, Luca,” I said, then slammed my elbow down into the center of his back, driven by bloodlust, urged on by the roaring of my dragon who cried out for violence and vengeance.
One of his ribs snapped beneath my elbow, he loosened his grip around my midsection.
Taking my opening, I dug my hands into the hair at the back of his head, clenching it tight in my fists, and yanked his face down at the same time I drove my knee upward.
Blood spurted out across the leg of my jeans as his nose snapped.
I had to give him credit, though, because he didn’t allow that flash of pain to stop him, he threw two quick punches at my stomach, one catching me right below the solar plexus, and I gagged, unable to draw breath, and my grip loosening.
He yanked his head away, and a clump of his hair stayed between my fingers. He snarled into my reddening face.
“Prick,” he hissed, droplets of blood spraying from his lips and pouring from his ruined nose. “Mister Anitoli’s gonna give me a bonus for killing your ass.”
My diaphragm spasmed from the strike he’d given me, and I struggled to breathe.
He spat at me, a wad of bloody phlegm spattering against my chest. The hallway was too small for him to shift, and that was the only thing that saved me.
He pulled a knife from his belt and grinned at me, eyes savage above his crooked nose.
“Gonna have me an alpha head to put on my wall.”
He lunged, hand outstretched, glinting blade angled straight toward my throat.
My inner dragon screamed at me, urging me to move even though I couldn’t breathe.
I jerked to the side, the knife grazing my shoulder rather than burying its hilt deep in my jugular.
The blade slammed into the wall behind me, twisting awkwardly and flying from his hand.
Pivoting, I swept my elbow toward his jaw, throwing every ounce of strength I had into the blow, catching him at the very tip of his chin.
His entire jaw shattered under the blow, snapping and turning his mouth into a twisted, awful-looking thing.
Screaming, he fell to his knees, clutching his face. Finally managing to suck in a breath, I grabbed the back of his head and smashed his face into the wall. Once, twice, three times, until he no longer screamed, cried, moved, or breathed. I let go of his body, and it thudded to the floor.
I turned and again moved down the hallway, hurt, bloody, and fucking furious. I kicked open each door I came to, checking for my sister’s egg. Every room was as nicely decorated as the one before. It was surreal, all this blood and death in such an elegant setting.
The acrid stench of smoke stung my nostrils as the fire spread throughout the house.
Finding nothing on the second floor, I moved up to the third and final floor, breaking down every door I could find.
Taking the left corridor, I found two drakes blocking the hallway with their massive dragon forms.
Shifting, I barged headlong into battle, giving over most of my control to the savage dragon within me.
The drakes had screwed themselves by being in their dragon forms. They had no room to maneuver.
The first one attempted to tear my throat out as I approached, but was knocked off target by his friend’s shoulder, so his teeth barely grazed me.
I swung my head around, clamped my jaws on his neck and shook my head violently, tearing a massive hunk of flesh from his throat.
A great gout of blood burst out, spraying across the other drake’s eyes, blinding him for a moment.
Dropping the dying drake, I jumped on the blinded one, clawing at his face with my talons.
He screeched and kicked at me, but I shoved him onto his back.
Opening his mouth, he took a deep breath to blow fire into my face, but I slammed my hands on his jaws, then shoved them closed with a loud clack.
Unable to use fire as a weapon, he thrashed about, trying to throw me off.
Instead, I opened my own mouth and rained boiling hot death down upon him.
He twitched and dragged his claws across my body, but his strength had already waned as the fire roasted his eyes in his sockets and melted the flesh from his skull.
My flames were so hot they melted the glass in the window beside us. The curtains caught on fire, starting another inferno on the top floor. Tossing the dead drake aside, I skirted the fire, then shifted back to my human form, continuing on my quest to find and save my baby sister.
I came to a room that looked promising. The door had been modified to use a heavy padlock.
This had to be where he had her. I kicked the lock a few times, but it proved to be stronger than my enhanced strength.
I moved my attempts to the hinges, kicking again and again, screaming in anger with each kick, until the thick wood cracked, snapped, and then crashed inward.
The bullet struck the door jamb less than three inches from my skull, and I ducked as two more shots fired from within the room. Silver bullets again. Another human henchman, it seemed.
“Come out, motherfucker,” the man inside screamed as he fired again. “Time to see what I’ve got for you.”
Clenching my hands into fists, I spotted a decorative chair sitting against the wall of the hallway. I stood, flinching as two more bullets came flying out and burying themselves in the opposite wall.
I grabbed the chair and tossed it into the room, doing my best to aim to where I’d heard the man’s voice.
I dived inside, tucking and rolling. The chair caught the guy’s attention, and he swung his gun toward that movement.
He realized his mistake an instant later, but it was too late.
I was on him, kicking the barrel of the gun away, and bringing my fist down on his forearm, shattering the bone and drawing a scream of agony from him.
He clutched at his bent and broken arm, and I kicked out as hard as I could, catching him in the chest. Beneath my heel, the dry crack of broken ribs reverberated up my ankle.
The impact drove him backward out the window behind him.
He screamed for a second, then all sound ceased as he struck the concrete below.
Panting for breath, I turned. There, on a blanket, surrounded by heat lamps, lay my sister’s orange and red egg. I nearly collapsed to my knees with relief. Finally, after all this, she was here.
Stumbling forward, I stretched out my hand.
Heat radiated from her. Tears sprang to my eyes, blurring my vision.
All I could think about was that scream my mother had released the night we’d discovered the egg was gone.
The terror, heartbreak, and sadness that sound had encompassed.
Now, I did fall to my knees, unable to think, driven by nothing but emotion.
Wrapping my arms around the egg, I pressed my cheek to it, sighing with relief as the heat oozed into my flesh.
When the egg rattled beneath me a moment later, I jerked back in shock.
“What?”
As I stared at it with wide-eyed surprise and wonder, the egg rattled again.
“Oh, God,” I muttered.
She was hatching. Now. She was fucking hatching.
From the hallway, I heard the shouts and screams of men searching for me.
Her egg couldn’t be jostled or disturbed much while hatching, or she might be injured or possibly die.
That meant I couldn’t simply fly her out the window and take her home.
I had to protect her until it was done. Holy shit. Not good.
Across the room, a second door I hadn’t noticed rattled in its frame, someone trying to get in.
“Damn.” I looked around. This room was too small for a fight in my dragon form. I needed space to move. I could move her a bit early on in the hatching process, and if I was going to do it, now was the time.