Page 59 of Dance for the Dragon
Devon sat within the center of the circle, tied to the throne like some kind of broken doll. She wore the same flannel pajama pants and T-shirt she’d had on when he’d left her, now soaked as red as her pants with blood. Her blood. Her hair cover was gone, and soft curls had escaped and stuck to her cheeks and forehead. Vampire bites covered her bare arms and neck. One leg of her pajama pants was ripped open to expose her inner thigh, and another bite was visible there.
The Master sat at her feet, leaning casually between her spread legs. When he spotted Kohl, he dropped the arm he’d been feeding from and smiled. “Ah! Look who’s here. My ungrateful orphan.”
He wasn’t flouting Kohl’s claim. He was killing her.
“I am not yours,” Kohl growled. The dragon roared for release, and Kohl felt his skin crawl up his back. With a shiver of pure willpower, he controlled it. For the moment.
The Master launched himself forward, his hiss of displeasure raising the hair on the back of Kohl’s forearms, the toes of his boots butting up against Kohl’s, but Kohl held his ground.
Blood…Devon’s blood…dripped down his chin and stained his blond hair. The dragon screeched with fury unlike anything Kohl had felt before. Sensors of heat chased each other across his skin as the dragon fought for freedom. Fighting the beast out of worry he’d hurt those he cared about, his line of vision narrowed until he only saw the vampire before him.
“I took you and your slut of a mother in when you had nowhere else to go. I gave you a roof over your head and humans to feed on. I protected you both. How dare you disrespect me! How dare you disobey me!” He threw his arm out, indicating the woman watching them through eyes that were no more than slits as she fought to stay conscious.
Kohl felt a shiver of fear. Not his own, but Devon’s.
“You took this human as your own, after I ordered you not to!” He stuck a finger in Kohl’s face. “Oh, yes. I know. Jaz saw it all. You broke the laws of the coven. And don’t lie to me and tell me you didn’t. Did you forget we have eyes everywhere? Even if we didn’t, why else would you turn on your own kind? Why else would you refuse to kill her when she poses such a threat to those you claim to care about? And now—now!—you dare to dispute my claim on you?”
Kohl hissed a warning at the leader of their coven. He was making a scene because everyone was watching. His family—Kohl’s family—was watching.
But the moment he saw her, spread before this room of vampires like some kind of sadistic buffet, Kohl knew he’d made the wrong choice. This was not his home.
Devon was his home.
He leaned down into the Master’s face. “She is mine. You will release her to me. Right now. Or I will TAKE her.” The warning was clear. He was challenging the Master. It was not something Kohl had ever planned, but he would do whatever he had to do to get Devon back. Even unleash the dragon on his own coven.
A brief look of uncertainty flickered across the Master’s face. He knew damn well who would win this fight. But his black eyes never wavered, even as the crowd of vampires surrounding them roused from their feeding stupor and began to jostle each other with excitement over the chance to witness a fight for dominance, guaranteed to be long and bloody.
The Master bared his fangs in warning. “I don’t think you want to go there, boy.”
Kohl looked over the vampire’s shoulder and met Devon’s terrified eyes. The beast within calmed momentarily, and a fierce determination filled him as he tried to communicate to her it would all be all right.
A slight movement drew Kohl’s attention back to the ancient vampire before him, and he smiled. “Oh, but I do.” Lifting his wrist to his mouth, he bit through the skin until he tasted blood, tearing the vein open until it ran freely. He took a step back and tightened his fist, forcing the flow to drip onto the floor in a horizontal line between them. The tense silence filled the room as Kohl said loud and clear, “I challenge you as leader of this coven, Master.”
Hisses and growls and the smacking sound of twenty vampires slapping their hands against their thighs in excitement erupted around them, but Kohl never took his attention from his opponent. There was no need to watch his back. The others wouldn’t interfere. To do so would throw the fight and would be reason enough for the winner to remove hearts and put heads on pikes to make up for the shame they’d caused him. And no one would oppose it. It was a matter of honor.
The Master stared at him for a good five seconds. His left eye began to twitch.
Kohl knew well what he was feeling. He’d always been a docile member of the coven. So grateful to be taken in he never would have dreamed of so much as arguing with his Master, even though—despite Kohl’s younger age—they both knew who was more powerful between them.
But Kohl had never wanted power. He’d never wanted to lead. Never wanted anything but to help as much as he could and live a quiet, unobtrusive life where no one outside of this coven would ever discover what he truly was.
That time was now over, unless he was willing to stand idly by while Devon was bled out until she was barely alive. He had no idea what the Master planned to do with her then—kill her or make her into one of his mindless slaves. But neither was an option that was acceptable to Kohl. Taking her away from him was the only way. And to do that, he would have to kill him. And to kill the Master meant he would, by blood law, be the new coven leader.
Kohl’s heart fluttered in his chest and the room began to swim around him.
“Kohl.”
His name. A whisper of a voice he thought he’d never hear again.
Everything came back into focus, and his heart stilled, hardening within his chest.
So be it.
Maniacal laughter erupted from the male before him. Throwing his head back, he spread his arms wide and laughed until the coven shifted restlessly behind Kohl, murmuring amongst themselves that perhaps he’d really lost his mind this time. Abruptly, he stopped, and brought his wrist to his mouth much the same way Kohl had. Squeezing his fist, he drew his own line in the dirt. He didn’t say anything when he was finished, only stared at Kohl, daring him to cross it.
Kohl lowered his eyes to the overlapping lines of blood…
And stepped over them.
