Page 112 of Saving the Last Heir
Squealing to a stop right beside the beast, I quickly opened the door and grabbed the end of its tail. The warm flesh reminded me of the way a snakeskin felt against your hands, smooth and strangely soft, but tough as well. I heaved the tip of the tail into the car with me, and slammed the door on it as hard as I could. The frame of the door, one of the few spots I’dnotstrengthened, bent around the tail but didn’t latch.
I slammed the door again, pulling with all my might. It bent more, but the drake’s head lifted, snapping up as though roused from a dream. The third time I slammed the door, the frame finally bent enough to latch, pinning the tail in the door. The drake yowled like a wolf caught in a trap, but I ignored it, and hit the gas. Too surprised by what I was doing, the thing didn’t even have a chance to try to claw at the ground or tear itself free. I had to hope he was secure. Although, with the door latched and a solid eight inches of his tail inside the cab with me, I was pretty sure he was pinned well.
Quickly revving up speed, I feathered the brakes and gas while turning the wheel hard to the right. White smoke billowed from the tires, and the engine screamed at the increased weight, but still turned. In seconds, I’d created a spinning weapon, and the drake was the mace at the end of a chain.
His head smacked into his brethren’s legs. At first, it only made them stumble, but as I went faster and the force of the spin increased, they were taken fully off their feet. The sound of the great beasts hitting the floor was like a steady rolling thunder.
With a wetpop,the drake’s tail tore away, sending him tumbling through an adjacent wall. I had no idea if the guy had lived or not, and I didn’t give a shit. Kidnappers and murderers deserved whatever they got.
Without the counterweight of the drake, though, my car spun out of control, sliding on the slick tiles and crashing into an opposite wall, nearly tearing through to create another hole. My chest hit the steering wheel, and I gasped in pain as I looked at the chaos around me. The room lookednothinglike it had when I’d first burst in. Any semblance of the bougie ballroom was gone. Blood was spattered on every surface, dead drakes were slumped in corners—some already dead so long they’d turned back into their human forms. Yet more streamed in. At least another half dozen had arrived, crawling through the doorways and the hole in the walls. How many people did Joseph have working for him?
The rear end of my car shuddered and rose up. Screaming, I turned to find two drakes digging their claws in under the back bumper. I hit the gas, but the vehicle was rear-wheel drive, so all the tires did was spin as the engine screamed.
In the next instant, the drakes flipped the car, the back end lifting up in almost slow motion, rising to the top, tipping, then falling over. Like an idiot, I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt, and I slumped down onto the roof as the car came crashing down, every ounce of breath bursting from my lungs.
“Ow,shit,” I gasped, holding my side as I tried to scramble to my knees.
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 neededsomesort 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 itof coursedid.
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 fuckingcunt,” 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.
