Page 5 of Nexus
Shouldering my way through the throng, I planted a boot on the middle of his back as he sluggishly tried to crawl away. I yanked the stake out and he gasped in pain.
“I forbid you from killing my servant!” Lord Gilden thundered as I raised my arm to administer the final blow.
“Sorry, but he’s a rogue and he needs to be put down,” I said with a shrug.
“How can she defy him?” someone murmured as my arm descended.
A big, strong hand caught my arm as the vampire cringed in dread. I looked into Drake’s now furious gold eyes and heaved a sigh. “I can take him into a private room to finish the job if it upsets you this much to see me turn him to ash,” I offered.
“I didn’t kill that human!” the leech moaned. He had a faint accent, so he hadn’t been born here.
“I know you didn’t, Ruen,” the lord said without letting go of my arm. “It’s impossible for him to have committed this crime,” he told me.
“I heard the woman scream and he was hunched over her when I found her body,” I said, yanking my arm free from his tight grip.
“Ruen couldn’t have murdered the human, because he’s not capable of killing anyone,” he insisted.
“Why not?” I asked as he helped his injured lackey to his feet. I knew Drake was a shifter, but I wasn’t sure what kind. I couldn’t feel any power coming from him, so he almost felt like a human. I’d never met anything quite like him before.
“Because I ordered him not to,” he said arrogantly.
“Few beings can refuse Lord Gilden’s commands,” his minion said, grimacing in pain. His face had healed from being sprayed with holy water, but his shoulder was still knitting back together. “How did you manage to resist his power?” he asked.
“What power?” I asked in mystification.
“This power,” Drake replied and dropped a spell he’d been using to conceal what he was.
I took an involuntary step back and automatically moved into a defensive stance. My first impression was of strength. Lord Gilden was the most powerful shifter I’d ever encountered. Most shapeshifters didn’t possess the ability to use magic. All they could do was transform into either a partial, or full animal. There was only one type of shifter who could use magic, but they were supposedly rare and usually lived in Europe.
“You’re a weredragon,” I said, suddenly wary. My monster radar told me this guy was dangerous and way out of my league. He could snuff me out as easily as blowing out a match if he wanted to.
“That I am,” he agreed, then sent out a wave of magic. “Forget this interruption to the party,” he ordered everyone. “Continue with what you were doing before my unexpected guest arrived.”
Everyone except Ruen and I were ensnared by his spell, since it wasn’t directed at us. Conversations started up again as the crowd turned away. The vampire had healed and was glaring at me in distaste. He didn’t have a drop of blood on him from massacring the human. Now that I was standing so close to him, the oddity I’d sensed before returned. I could tell that he was a vampire, but he didn’t show up on my radar as being dangerous. The dragon must have put a spell on him like the one that had cloaked his power from me.
“Let’s take this discussion somewhere private, shall we?” Lord Gilden suggested politely. He didn’t wait for me to answer and strode towards the door. Ruen followed in his wake and I had no choice but to trail after them. No one even seemed to notice us now as we made our way through the crowd. I was used to being stared at rather than being ignored as if I didn’t exist. Stuffing my can of holy water and the stake back into my kill-bag, I felt horribly out of my depth.
The spell the sexy dragon had cast had flowed throughout the building. The bouncers looked surprised to see me when I exited from the party. Drake motioned that I was with him and they relaxed again.
Ruen kept casting glances over his shoulder at me, probably making sure I wasn’t going to try to stake him in the back again. The stake had torn holes in his jacket and shirt. I was subjected to glimpses of his pale, bony shoulder with each step he took.
Drake led us down the stairs to the second floor and entered one of the rooms. Ruen scurried in after him and I paused in the doorway. Instead of a ballroom, it was just a small meeting room. A table and half a dozen chairs stood in the middle of the room. Over to the right was a sideboard with bottles of alcohol and glasses. I stepped inside and closed the door and all of the noise instantly cut off. “This room is soundproofed?” I asked.
“Most of the private rooms are,” Lord Gilden said as he took a seat at the head of the table. “Please, take a seat.” He indicated the chair at the far end of the table from him. His lackey sat to his right.
Lord Gilden hadn’t hidden his power yet. It filled the room, making the air feel charged. While he looked like he was in his early twenties, I had a feeling he was much older than he seemed. Dragons lived for a very long time, or so mom had told me. He could be ancient for all I knew. He had an American accent, but he had a foreign title, which was confusing. The only way I’d get the answers that were piling up was to take a seat as he'd requested.
Casting a glance at the door, I weighed up my options, then decided to take the risk. My night hadn’t gone as planned, but I still had a job to do. I would listen to whatever the shifter had to say, then stake his minion to death when he was done.
Chapter Five
“AS I SAID, I’M DRAKE Gilden,” the mysterious lord repeated as I sank down onto the chair across from him. “May I know your name?”
“I’m Saige Sterling.”
“What are you?” Ruen asked, squinting at me as if he could see beneath my human guise to the monster that lay beneath my skin.
“That’s private,” I replied coolly. “All you need to know is that I’ll hunt down any creature that steps over the line.”
