Page 62 of Tempt the Dragon
Chapter Seventeen
Theo and Reese had joined Aiken when he was outnumbered by the vamps outside the village. They’d been on their way to offer backup and it was a good thing too, because Aiken had been about to shift and scorch the entire area until he could get to Mel and take her out of there before the vamps could get to her.
So many things happened simultaneously that he had todeal with what came at him first. These vamps were different than the ones he was used to confronting in Burgess; something in the opaque gold of their eyes gave the impression that their mission was focused solely on killing, with no other options. They almost moved like the mummies that had come from the cemetery that night a few months back when they’d fought Temptra.
He used more of hispower instead, tossing their bodies away while Reese and his indestructibility power acted as a battering ram, taking the vamps as they charged him and knocking them straight into ash. Theo apparently heard the Drakon signal first because in the midst of tossing a vamp across the ground, Aiken saw the emperor stop, and toss his head back so that his beast roared loud and strong.
The otherswere overhead, flying through the rainy sky, swooping down over the village. Running in that direction, Aiken could see there were others in the village—he could actually see the huts now that hadn’t been visible before.
“The witches’ spell’s been broken!” he yelled as he ran, Theo right behind him.
With the others in the air, neither of them decided to shift, and a quick glance over hisshoulder showed Reese still handling the vamps they’d left behind. In seconds, his booted feet clomped over the muddy terrain as he headed straight for Mel. She was down, that was all he could see, and it was all that mattered. Until he couldn’t see her any longer.
The yellowish glow of lightning streaking through the sky and carving through the ground stopped both him and Theo in their tracks.
“You’re too late.” The familiar gloating tone came as she appeared through a red smoky haze.
He remembered that smoke.
“Temptra.” Saying her name only made the Dhampir smile.
“You’ve brought your little dragon team all the way here for nothing.” Her voice echoed like chimes as the black dress she wore hugged all her curves, covering the evil being that she was in a sexy packagemeant to deceive. “My vampires have done what we’ve come to do. Our ancestors will be raised.”
“No!” Ziva tumbled through the red smoke, stark naked and covered in scratches dripping with blood. “Mel poured the potion. I saw her. She did it!”
“Lies!” Temptra spat just as Enes came through the smoke too, the side of her face burned to a crisp.
He didn’t know what the hell was happeningat this moment and he didn’t care. All he wanted was to run through that smoke and get to Mel.
“She’s not lying, but Duncan stopped her. He grabbed her and he tried to stop her,” Enes added.
“Fools!” In a flash Temptra extended her arm and more electrical bolts shot from her fingers, striking Enes, whose body seized from the power before dropping to the ground in a pile of ashes.
Ziva yelled out, going to her knees before Theo could catch her from completely collapsing on the ground.
Tired of all the drama and the half-breed witch blocking his way, Aiken focused all his power on lifting Temptra off the ground, and just when she was bringing her arms up to aim those deadly bolts at him, he aimed for her arms, twisting them behind her back so that the bolts shot straightdown to the ground seconds before he released her body from his hold. She fell onto the bolts, her body reacting to the electricity but not vanishing into the dust the way Enes had. He jumped on her and let the beast rip free, thrusting his claws into every part of the Dhampir’s body until she was nothing.
Reese, with his powerful arms, grabbed him around his chest and pulled Aiken away fromthe pile of blood, bone and ash. “It’s done, man. It’s done.”
Wrenching out of Reese’s strong hold wasn’t easy, and was only made possible because Reese allowed it to be, but the moment Aiken was free he ran through the red smoke that was beginning to dissipate and saw her lying there on the ground, her eyes filled with tears as she stared up at him. Her body perfectly still.
“I shouldn’thave pushed her to be this,” he said, hours later when he heard the door to the hotel room open and close quietly. Without looking up he knew it was Theo.
He’d known Theo would be the one to come out to see if he was okay. Reese would’ve considered it, but Bleu would’ve stopped him because Reese wouldn’t have been able to keep a wisecrack or some other insensitive remark from interruptingthe compassionate act of checking on a fellow Drakon. The thought didn’t bother him, Reese was who he was, unapologetically, and they all accepted that about him.
“She made her own decision. Then and now.” Theo sounded just like the father figure, or perhaps older, more experienced, brother he was supposed to be to this clan.
“But I pushed her.” With both hands he rubbed at his templesand tried to tamp down on the guilt that was presently trying to strangle him.
“Lying to yourself is never helpful. I know, I did it for three hundred years.”
There was truth to Theo’s words. He’d denied his heritage to the throne, but in all fairness that was done because his father was possessed by a dark spirit. At any rate, he could relate to what Theo was saying. What he still couldn’tgrasp was the fact that Mel was lying in the hotel room bed, paralyzed from the neck down because of poison in Duncan’s nails that broke the skin of her neck.
“She was doing just fine without being a Drakon. Hunting, collecting her fees, she was making a good living and had a life she was happy with. Then I show up again and start poking holes in it. Why? Because being a Drakon is so fuckin’fantastic!” Because he’d raised his tone and it made him feel as if he were losing control, he pushed away from the wall where he’d been leaning and walked in the opposite direction of the room and Theo.
“You wanna know the really messed up part about this?” He continued talking as if he’d known all along Theo would follow him and this conversation. “It’s that I’m the last one to be braggingabout how good it is to be a Drakon. I walked away from it all, man. I never told you that, but I did.” He stopped and dragged his hands down his face. Turning around to look Theo in the eye, he let out a sigh. “I was one of the Drakon who went rogue under your father’s rule. I killed other Drakon who’d been following the orders to attack any and everyone they wanted.”
Shaking his head, hequietly admitted to mistakenly killing children.
