Chapter Eleven - Ketill
Pushing Thomas behind me, I slip the hidden dagger from my boot and hurl it at the tattooed shifter.
He dodges at the last second, but the shifter behind him isn’t so lucky. Blood bursts from where my blade ends up lodged in the second shifter’s stomach before he even has a chance to blink.
“Ketill, you bastard!” the tattooed shifter barks as his friend falls to his knees. Face twisted in agony and choking up spit, blood, and screams.
The uninjured shifter beside the downed man doesn’t flinch. But his uneasy, yellow eyes dart to the red mess pooling on the cobbled stone.
“Was I supposed to stand around and listen to you monologue?” With my vampiric speed, I dart towards them.
The tattooed shifter dodges as I charge at him.
But his friend is too busy turning pale at the sight of his friend’s blood and only sees my fist when it connects with his face.
Bone shatters as spurts of blood shoot from the shifter’s nose, and he’s sprawled on the ground, unconscious, all without making a single noise.
“—because that sounds fucking stupid,” I growl, turning just in time to spit out a curse and duck as the tattooed shifter’s leg swings at my head.
He overshoots and falls past me, falling to the ground with a thud.
“That was also pretty stupid, too—oomph!” The air is knocked out of my lungs when the shifter I stabbed tackles me. “And here I thought I killed you!”
I swing my fist into the shifter’s face. He grunts, but manages to stay on top of me. His meaty hands clamp around my throat, his angry, beet-red face inches from mine. Spittle hissing out between a mouth full of straight white teeth.
“You killed my friends!,” the shifter snarls.
“And I hope I kill more,” I choke out, grinning wide even as I struggle to breathe.
The shifter roars. He pushes further from me so he can put his whole weight into choking me out.
Giving me easy access to the dagger still sticking from his stomach.
I grab hold of the slick handle and wrench it free, only to stab it back in again and again and again. The shifter above me is screaming as his insides become outsides.
When his hold slackens, I throw him off and jump up—facing the tattooed shifter. His clawed fingers squeezed around Thomas’s bobbing neck.
“This all could’ve been avoided, Ketill,” the leader gasps out through a cut-open mouth and broken nose.
Rage cracks down my middle, exploding out of me as I snarl between my fangs, “If you hurt him, I WILL FUCKING END YOU!”
His hold tightens on my soulmate. “All I wanted was the damn egg. But you wouldn’t fucking quit!”
I glance at Thomas.
His chin is high even as he shakes, arms wrapped around the satchel carrying the dragon egg that started all this mess, but brought us together.
And in the split second I take in my intelligent, funny and horribly brave soulmate, and my heart begins to crack when I realise Thomas is trying to protect the thing.
But I won’t allow Thomas’s life to end for a fucking egg.
“Take it,” I growl. “Let him go and take it.”
Thomas’s arms wrap tighter, and I shake my head once at him. Imploring my mate not to risk his wonderful life for this.
Twenty-eight minutes, or hours, or years, centuries, aeons, and it’d never be enough time.
His chin only juts up higher, and the cracks in my heart deepen.
“Oh, I will. But you fucked me over, Ketill, and I lost people because of it. So I’m going to take the fucking egg. Then, before I rip your throat out, I’m going to make you watch me kill your little toy.”
I surge forward, jerking to a stop when his arm tightens, and Thomas shakes harder. “My brothers will hunt you down! My fucking father. The whole Haraldsson vampire family! Do. Not. Hurt. Him!”
Real fear flashes in the shifter’s eyes before it’s hidden.
Only Thomas’s brother Kai has an idea where we are. But this fucker doesn’t need to know that. “They all know where I am, and they’ll come for you. So take the dragon egg and give me back the boy.”
Our eyes lock. Both our faces full of hate and rage. I will save Thomas at any cost, and the shifter must see that desperate, near-feral need in me. It doesn’t matter if he wants revenge; he wants to live more.
The muscles in the shifter’s arm begin to loosen.
Then he lets out a pained grunt as Thomas’s foot comes down hard on the shifter’s boot. The back of his head knocks into the shifter’s chin, and my amazing soulmate whirls out of the shifter’s hold and away from his claws.
“Back off!” Thomas shouts. “Or…o-or…”
“You’ll what? Smash the egg?” The shifter snarls, spitting a glob of blood.
Thomas won’t.
I can see it plain as day, as does the shifter. So when Thomas falters and hugs the egg tighter, the tattooed shifter rushes for him. My soulmate. My everything.
“No!” I scream, charging towards Thomas as the shifter’s claws rear up. The dangerously sharp, hooked tips pointed at Thomas’s soft neck glint in the sunshine.
I move as if I’m trapped in honey. The pieces of my heart stab into my ribs as he uses his body to protect the stupid fucking egg. The shifter is slashing down with claws that can tear and ruin my mate.
I scream Thomas’s name—reaching for him, fear buzzing through me like a colony of wasps.
And then, from the corner of my eye, a spark before…fire.
Burning hot and bright as the sun, spilling out like waves crashing against cliffs.
The shifter cries out, falling back and scrambling away. I grab hold of Thomas and haul us back, covering his face with my hand from the burning glow and shielding him with my body from the intense heat.
“W-what the hell just happened…” Thomas gasps when the fire dies, and a woman stands at the alleyway’s entrance. Her angular face twisted in anger, opalescent scales glittering on her cheeks.
My client.
I smirk at the tattooed shifter who’s sprawled to the ground, his shirt singed and his hands burned. “Congratulations. You’ve just pissed off a dragon mother.”