Chapter 26 Shyanne #2
Jackson let out a bloodcurdling scream of rage that told me he’d seen my car flip.
He knew I was in trouble, but he probably didn’t realize exactly how much.
A ragged black claw reached in through the shattered windshield, four fingers each tipped with a wicked-looking curved talon.
It scratched around like a cat looking for a treat.
Scrambling backward, I nearly bumped into a second claw, this one a deep dark purple. It caught on my pants, catching a belt loop and tearing it free as if it was made of crepe paper.
I screamed. Not the most badass reaction, but what else did you do when two giant dragons were trying to pry you out of a car and devour you like you were the last Pringle in a can?
The car had transformed from a weapon to a tomb, and I needed to get the fuck out of there.
Scurrying to the rear of the car, I snatched up my chrome wrench where it had fallen against the roof, deciding I needed some sort of weapon.
Climbing out through the busted-out back windshield, I managed to extricate myself.
But the moment I was free, the two dragons glanced up, breath hissing from their scaled nostrils as they locked their eyes on me.
“Umm, hey,” I muttered, my voice barely audible above the sounds of battle. “Uh… can we, like, be cool?”
The dragon on the right roared at me in response, my hair billowing back in the wave of hot breath that washed over me. The air smelled of sulfur and charcoal.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I shouted and ran, sprinting toward the original hole I’d created when I drove into the room.
A whoosh of air and the sensation of my hair being swatted told me I’d been within inches of a claw shredding my head from my shoulders, but I didn’t dare look back. Pumping my legs and arms, I ran as if my life depended on it, which it of course did.
Before I could get to the door, a drake jumped in my path, cutting me off, and I skidded to a stop before him. Christian appeared a second later, biting down on the back of the drake’s neck and twisting around him like a snake.
Behind me, a sound that could only be described as breaking bones and tearing flesh assaulted my eardrums, followed by another of Jackson’s war cries.
Again, I didn’t look back, only assuming Jackson had handled the drakes following me.
Rushing back out into the foyer, I made it all the way to the stairs before stopping to check if I was being followed.
Surprisingly, it appeared as though the tide was actually turning.
From what I could see, Christian and Jackson—with a bit of an assist from me—had managed to kill or incapacitate most of the drakes.
Only six remained of the two dozen or more I’d seen, and between Jackson and Christian, they seemed to be handling them pretty well.
I leaned over, placing my free hand on my thigh and letting the wrench hang from my other as I took a few deep, steadying breaths.
Something savage yanked at the back of my shirt.
“You little fucking cunt,” a deep voice hissed in my ear, spittle flecking my cheeks.
“Jackson!” I screamed, the word leaping from my mouth an instant before Anitoli slapped me. The wrench went clattering across the ground as stars flashed across my vision.
Another roar rattled the house, and when I looked up, Jackson was in the foyer, shifting into his human form. Christian fought behind him, handling the last two drakes.
Joseph pulled me tight to his body, his body heat against my back nauseating me.
He’d turned me into a human shield. Even with my lips and cheek stinging from the slap, I fought back, kicking at him, throwing elbows, and reaching behind my head to try and scratch his eyeballs out.
All I got for my trouble was a fist in my side, an inch or two under my ribs.
I retched and gagged, trying to suck in a breath, and if he hadn’t been holding me up with an arm around my neck, I would have collapsed to the ground.
“Get on your fucking feet, you little bitch,” Joseph hissed in my ear, wrenching on me and forcing me to stay standing.
“Jackson,” I rasped.
“Let her go, you son of a bitch!”
Anitoli shook me hard, almost completely cutting off my air supply as he did.
“You shut your damn mouth, you winged piece of shit,” Joseph said.
Christian, still in his wyrm form, rose up like some great demonic rattlesnake, and let out a sound like a cross between a hiss and a roar. Joseph took a step back and turned me like a shield toward Christian.
“Do it, motherfucker! Spit that ice shit and you kill us both. I don’t know who this chick is, but I’m willing to bet you don’t want her dead, right?”
“You and me, then,” Jackson said, stepping forward. “Man to man. Let’s go, you bastard. Unless you’re afraid.”
Joseph ignored the challenge and dragged me along with him, moving down the steps and toward the opposite side of the house rather than up where he’d be trapped.
“Where’s the egg?” Joseph asked. “The room where I had it stashed is empty. What did you do with it? I’ll make a deal.
Give me the egg back, I give you this tight little piece of ass, and we go back to how it was before.
you keep doing jobs for me, I watch over the little shit, and we go from there. How about that?”
“Enough!” Jackson said, and even in my terror and pain, I could see how powerful he was—broad shoulders, veined and bulging biceps, muscular thighs that were almost tearing through his jeans. As he stalked forward, he looked like a Greek god of war.
“Jackson, don’t,” I cried, putting a hand out.
“Hush, Shyanne,” he said, his eyes still locked on Joseph rather than me.
“Listen to me,” I said, allowing Joseph to pull me farther along. “Look in my eyes. Please.”
All I could think of was what Joseph had said.
The egg was gone. Missing. The fact that Jackson hadn’t reacted to that news told me that he’d taken her.
The egg had to be in this house somewhere.
A house that was rapidly burning. The smoke stung my nostrils, and flames danced in nearly every corner of the home.
We’d done all this to get her back and save Christian’s sister.
He had to think about her. I was no fucking damsel in distress.
I could handle myself until he and Christian found me. At least that’s what I told myself.
“You need to take care of your sister,” I said.
“Yeah,” Joseph agreed, his hot fetid breath on my neck making my skin crawl. “Listen to the lady. Go handle your brat sister. Unless you want to see what I can do. Fucking lock your ass away like all the rest.”
Locked away? I could only imagine what that meant. Did he have some sort of torture chamber in the house? Some awful abattoir where he could revel in misery and pain? I wouldn’t put it past him. It sounded like something a man like this would enjoy.
“I’m not letting this son of a bitch take you,” Jackson said, taking another step toward us.
Christian shifted and joined him. Both men, like some wall of strength and power, glared at Joseph, but if he was worried, I couldn’t see it. He knew he had the best bargaining chip he could have.
I nearly tumbled backward as Joseph pulled me toward a wall of bookshelves. Where the hell was he going?
“Egg,” Joseph barked. “Egg for the girl. Yes or no.”
“No,” I shouted, answering before Jackson could, then holding back a grunt of pain when Joseph jammed his knuckles into my side.
Jackson shook his head. “Shyanne, that’s not going to—”
“Do you want your sister to live?” I asked as Joseph bumped against the bookshelves.
“I do,” he said, eyes pained and worried. “But—”
“Trust me. It’s going to be okay.” I wasn’t sure how strong a dragon egg was, but the way the house was burning, there was no way he’d have time to fight Joseph, save me, and get the egg out.
He stared at me for a long moment, then flicked his eyes up to Joseph and finally back to me. Emotions warred in his eyes—anger, helplessness, panic, and rage. It was obvious he was trying to decide between what his heart told him he should do and what his head told him he had to do.
Joseph flung a hand back to the bookshelf, shoving a dozen tomes to the floor before he grabbed a leatherbound title that only tilted out rather than coming free. As he did, a loud metallic clunk sounded behind the bookshelf.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. A hidden passage? Was this guy a James Bond villain?
The ridiculous thought proved to be true as the shelf swung inward, revealing a concrete staircase leading down into a shadowy darkness. He tugged me backward, and I had to claw at the handrail to keep from falling down the stairs.
Jackson and Christian’s eyes went wide, and they rushed forward, but before they could reach us, Joseph slammed the passage door shut and threw a heavy steel bar across it, sealing us in.
The muffled sounds of Christian and Jackson pounding on it told me the door was solid steel and at least a foot thick.
Even they wouldn’t be able to break through, not unless they shifted to their dragon forms, and there was no time for that.
They had to get Jackson’s sister’s egg out and to safety.
All I could do was pray that they’d find me after that.
“Let’s get out of here,” Joseph said, dragging me down the stairs.
His left arm was still around my throat, but not as tight as before, though he did have a wad of my shirt clasped in that fist to make sure I couldn’t pull away.
“You’re a real piece of shit,” I said, unable to control my anger.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Heard that one before. Do I look like I give a shit what anyone thinks of me, darling?”
I couldn’t argue with that. The guy was a total sociopath. He’d probably kill his own mother if the price was right.
I looked around at where he was taking me, anger and irritation morphing into confusion.
I’d anticipated a basement of some sort, or perhaps a safe room.
Instead, the lower levels we traversed looked like something out of a Victorian-era vampire novel.
Stone floors and walls, clammy air, and solid wooden doors.
The passages wound along, leading onward, much farther than I’d anticipated.
We must have been at least a hundred yards from the foundation of the mansion we’d been in, with separate corridors branching off in a few places.
“What the fuck is this?” I demanded. “A crypt?”
“Drakes go back a long time. Lots of things we’ve found over the years aren’t the type of shit you can keep in a bank vault, if you get my meaning.”
I actually didn’t get his meaning. What was he saying? Gold bars or something?
“Here we go,” he said as we moved through another opening.
Joseph shoved me against the rough stone wall and pulled a set of keys from his pocket, then jammed them into the lock of an ancient door.
“You know Jackson is going to come for me, don’t you?” I said, glaring at the other man as he worked to unlock the door. “And when he does, he’s going to kill you.”
Joseph smirked, not bothering to look at me. “He can try. We’ll see about that. He might be an alpha, but so am I.” He turned his attention from the door and pressed against my body with his, looking at me with obvious desire. He licked his lips and said, “And I know how to handle myself.”
He pressed closer, and I could feel the rigid erection in his pants shoving against me. The sensation made me want to puke.
“He might think he’s got me in a fight, but I know how to take down a fucker like him,” Joseph said. “Now, be a good girl and have a seat.”
He shoved the door open and pushed me inside. I tripped over my own feet and landed hard on my ass. Before I could even react, he’d shut the door once again, the heavy sound of the lock turning echoing through the room I found myself in.
Rubbing my ass and grimacing in pain, I rolled over, and froze.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
I was in a massive room, about half the size of the ballroom.
It reminded me of some treasure room in a pirate movie.
Along the walls hung dozens of items made of gold, silver, and other precious metals.
There were jewel-encrusted boxes on the ground, as well as marble plinths scattered throughout the room, and on each sat a different object.
Some looked expensive, like a dagger with a golden blade.
Others looked like they had no business in such a place of obvious honor.
One looked like an ancient bird’s nest, the wad of twisted branches and twigs creating a weird round knot.
When I stood and approached that one, a sinister wave of revulsion filled me.
Even the thought of touching that thing made the flesh on my body want to tear free and run.
I checked the next plinth and paused. There, something much more beautiful sat. No, sat wasn’t the right word. Hovered was more appropriate.
A gorgeous blue orb floated an inch off the red velvet that covered the top of the plinth. The object gave off a faint glow. Something tickled the back of my mind, almost like déjà vu. Something about this ball was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
Frowning, I tore my eyes from the orb and glanced around. How was I going to get out of here? Could Jackson truly find me? When the mansion finished burning, the passageway would be buried. By then Joseph might have moved me—or worse.
I consoled myself with the knowledge that Jackson’s sister would be safe.
That was the most important thing. Jackson would come for me, I knew that deep in my soul.
Even though we’d only known each other for a short time, he cared about me.
Besides, he was the type of person who would never leave anyone behind who meant something to him.
He’d come, and if Joseph tried anything before then, I’d make sure he remembered who he’d messed with.
I turned my attention back to the orb, trying to figure out why it seemed familiar. Something I’d read? Some bit of lore? I’d studied and researched a thousand things since meeting Jackson. The orb drew me in, like hypnotism. The thing was strange, and it radiated power.
“What are you?” I whispered.