Page 109 of Saving the Last Heir
The black drake lunged, his front teeth catching the soft flesh of my lower neck. Jerking back, I howled in pain as a small hunk of my hide tore away, blood spraying across the black drake’s face. It was a minor injury, and I was more pissed off than hurt. I tackled him, kicking at him with the claws of my back legs while tearing at his face with my forepaws.
Digging bloody furrows into his face, I did my best to try and sink my rear claws deep into the soft flesh of his stomach. Before I could do more than create a few shallow slices, he breathed out a jet of flame at my face.
Releasing him, I tucked my wings in and rolled back at the last second, slamming into a wall. Dust burst up as the drywall exploded around me, and the two-by-fours inside the wall snapped. Thebuzz-zapsound of a bullet whizzing by my skull crackled through the air.
One thing at a time.
I breathed out a gale of flame toward the man, engulfing him in an orange inferno. He never even had time to scream—my fire was too hot for him to have ever felt anything. Instead, he fell backward, the fire devouring him and the carpet beneath him.
The two drakes raged in anger and descended upon me with renewed fervor. The brown drake lurched at me from the right, and the black came at me from the left, both tearing and biting at me. In the tight confines, each thrash and kick destroyed another part of the mansion. Wallpaper tore, furniture splintered, and glass shattered.
Kicking out with my back legs, I caught the black drake in the chest, sending him flying backward onto the broken newel post of the banister, the hard oak stabbing him in the thigh. He squealed as he twisted and jerked at his leg to free himself.
I continued fighting off the brown drake, slicing at his throat with my left claw, missing by less than a foot. He hissed out another short burst of flame that almost singed my cheek, but instead caught a set of curtains on fire.
He’d backed me into a spot so tight I couldn’t actually fight in my dragon form—I was bigger than he was, and he could maneuver better than me. Taking a chance, I shifted back to my human body, tucked, and rolled between his legs, praying that I’d timed it right. If he’d stomped down on me at that point, he’d have turned me into a smear on the floor. Thankfully, my choice had shocked him as much as it had me.
The thudding sounds of his feet pursuing me echoed through my skull as I sprinted back to the screaming and clawing black drake. I shifted and slashed down with my back talons, opening his throat while he still screeched about his pinned leg. More blood stained the floor as he gave a last thrash of agony before going still. An instant later, my own scream of pain erupted from my maw as searing heat washed across my back.
By instinct alone, I flattened myself, tucking my wings in and becoming as small as my huge frame would allow. Glancing over my shoulder, I found the brown drake breathing a fan of flame out toward me. As big as this goddamn house was, it wasn’t made for beings our size. I had less than a second to make a decision before he turned his living blowtorch fully upon my body.
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 heroutof 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 Iapproached, 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.
