Page 41 of Vampire Sins
“Luke,” I said, my voice taut as a plan formed.
He paused digging. The coins beneath his fingers glittered with his blood and his fingertips healed before my eyes. It pained me that he’s hurt himself trying to help us, but every bit helped right now and I appreciated his efforts. “If we just keep going we’ll get to him,” Luke insisted, but I heard the edge of panic in his voice. We’d managed to overcome each trial we’d faced so far, but maybe our luck had run out.
I shook my head and my hair stuck to my sweat-dampened forehead. “No. Every layer of hell has had a trick to it so far, and this one can’t be so simple as to dig Jet out of crushing greed.” I bit my lip. “What overcomes greed? You can’t just dig someone out of it, right? They need to change.”
Luke frowned and stared down at his hands. The torn layer of skin stitched over itself as he healed.
“Do you suggest we allow him to dig himself out?” Xavier asked.
I backed away from the flailing hand, fighting all of my instincts to help my lover. “That’s right.”
Nate and the other guys gave me dubious looks, but they eventually backed away as well, leaving Jet’s lonely hand flailing without anyone to hold it.
I hoped I was right, because if I wasn’t, Jet would die alone and buried by his sin.
Jet
I sensed when Sonya left. I’d never felt so alone in all my life. Why would she abandon me? Had she given up? Had something happened to her?
A little voice rang inside my head and told me that I deserved this fate. I wasn’t good enough. I was supposed to inherit my mother’s honorable lineage, my father’s throne, and neither of those had come to fruition. My father’s throne was tainted with my brother’s blood and my mother’s lineage was guarded by a jealous dragon god that now stirred under my feet, ready to devour me.
This was the moment in my dreams where I either succumbed to hopelessness, or I dug myself free and faced what came next. I wasn’t a quitter. There was no way I was just going to sit here and allow myself to get devoured by a scorned dragon god or suffocate to death under a sea of golden coins.
And so I shifted.
I knew it would hurt. I wasn’t supposed to shift when there wasn’t space to push out my bulky mass. My skin shred and hardened with scales. I pushed the coins away from me with a scream, using my own pain to power my shift.
My fingers turned into claws and wings pushed from my back. I didn’t need to shift all the way. Just enough to get myself to the surface.
The breach of my wings to the warm arm told me I was almost there. I speared my other hand up and found the surface, then I pulled myself free.
Cresting the sea of coins, I gulped in delicious air. Fangs kept my mouth ajar as my vision came into focus. I craned my neck up and faced the black scrawling fingers that raked across the sky. My stomach dropped because I’d hoped that I’d have been wrong about that part.
A voice is what brought my attention back to the landscape that gleamed with gold. My eyes went wide when I saw her and my stomach pitched.
Sonya.
First there was elation, then panic as I remembered what was about to follow me out of the pit of coins. “Sonya! Stay back!” The words ripped out me half-human as I completed my shift and transformed to my dragon form.
Sonya
Luke yanked me back just in time as coins exploded everywhere and a second dragon burst from the pit.
“The fuck!” I screeched as I fell hard on my knees with Luke’s body over me as a shield. Heat flared and I realized that we’d been hit by dragonfire.
I cursed and threw Luke off of me and he groaned. Dragonfire shouldn’t be able to hurt me, and I expected that protection would expand to members in my bond as well, but Luke’s left leg was fried to a crisp. His face went white as a sheet as he bit down a scream.
Nate ran up to us and tugged my arm. He eyes flicked as he searched the sky and a shadow passed over us. “Come on!” he hissed.
We crawled away just in time as another long streak of dragonfire burned the coins in the place we’d just been. Luke stumbled after us. His leg would heal, but he needed time.
I watched in both fascination and horror as a dragon with a rainbow of golds and blues shrieked and tore across the sky, snapping sharp teeth as he chased after Jet.
The dragon shifter streaked across the sky with brilliant emerald hues scattering across his scales. He couldn’t adjust his position to breathe fire in return on his attacker. Every time he stooped to bank a sharp turn, claws and fire forced him to evade.
That’s when I noticed something odd about the dragon that pursued him. “Look!” I shouted and pointed at the dragon’s blue eye that swirled with power. It reminded me of the Blood Stone and I had no doubt that if we could remove it, we could stop the dragon’s pursuit.
Xavier was the first to respond. He bared his fangs and tore into his wrist, then offered the bleeding wound to me. “Take what you need to get it done.”
