Page 56 of Claim the Dragon
Her gaze settled on Ravyn and Steele held her tighter to him.
“I don’t...I don’t have it,” Ravyn said quietly at first and then she looked back at Steele.“I don’t have it anymore because you—”
Before she could finish her words three black SUVs came roaring down the street.One drove straight through the security gate that had provided zero security.Two more came from different directions, rolling over the lawn coming to a stop just short of the house.
Temptra cursed and then laughed.
“The cavalry is here,” she said and shook her head.“I’ll get what I want, you know I will, Drakon.The question is, will he still be alive by the time you come to your senses.”
Trickles of blood rolled slowly down the neck of the man Temptra was holding and Ravyn screamed, “No!”
The red haze that had surrounded Temptra thickened and a heavy stench of sulfur filled the air.Reese, Magnum, Aiken and Ziva came running moving through the remnants of the smoke as Temptra used it as a cover to vanish, taking the human she’d been holding with her.
“Cree!”Ravyn yelled and fought her way out of Steele’s grasp.She ran to the spot where Temptra had been standing, falling into Magnum’s arms as he’d just stepped in that same area.
“Where’s Cree?How did she get him?Where’s she taking him?”
Steele listened to more questions rolling from Ravyn’s lips, every syllable filled with such pain and anguish it sliced through his skin like a heated blade.Whoever this Cree person was, he meant a lot to her.That shouldn’t have bothered him, it shouldn’t have made him feel like crap for bringing her into his world and secretly wanting her for himself.But fuck, nothing was going the way it was supposed to anymore.
“What the hell happened?”Ziva asked when she came to stand near Steele.“And who’s that guy?”
“Take him!”Steele, fueled by rage and the unfamiliar sting of jealousy, directed them to secure the guy Ravyn had called Vertis.“Robles’s body is in the house.By the chunk taken out of his neck, I’m pretty sure Temptra decided she no longer had any use for the middle-man.”
He was moving now, going to where Magnum held Ravyn.She was punching at his chest, kicking and screaming for him to let her go, but Magnum remained unmovable.Steele picked her up and walked past the other vehicles to the one he’d driven here.He used his magick to disengage the locks and opened the back door, easing her onto the seat.Closing the door, he activated the locks and walked around to the driver’s side to climb in.
She was still screaming, but nobody outside of the vehicle would hear her.Steele started the engine and drove.After about twenty minutes her screams turned into tears and his heart pounded with each sob.His fingers stayed tight on the steering wheel as he made his way through traffic, using the time to gather his thoughts and his strength.He had no idea how Ravyn had fought through the mind cleansing, nor did he know specifically who the guy named Cree was to her.All he knew at this moment was that there was no way he could let her out of his sight again.If he did, Temptra would kill her.
The Reaper would get to scratch another name off his list and Temptra’s search for that dagger would continue to lead to death.He wasn’t going to let any of that happen, not on his watch.
