Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (43 page)

She walked back into her office and to her desk, and the door shut behind her.

Someone cleared his throat, and she startled, whirling around.

An unfamiliar man in rumpled khakis and a half-untucked pale-blue button-down stood staring at her. He was middle-aged, his hair thinning. He had a slightly crooked nose, red face, and was sweating profusely.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“The remains found at Kingman Hills belong to the Heolstors,” he said quickly, as if by rote.

“I’m sorry, but who are you?” She might’ve held out her hand, but she was holding her cookie.

“It doesn’t matter who I am.” He wrung his hands. “I’ve been sent to help you. If you want to get out of this alive, you will report that the remains belong to the Heolstors.”

Get out of this alive?
Her heart thumped hard. She moved to her desk phone, dropped her cookie, and hit the button for reception. “If they are Heolstor remains, then that’s what I will say.”

Teresa picked up right away. “Yes, Ms. Clark?”

“I need security. Immediately.” How had he gotten past their desk on the ground floor anyway?

“Tell
no one
,” the man repeated.

“Did the Heolstors send you?” She hated her job. That Ransom had seemed a little shifty.

The man heaved a shaky breath, as if struggling for no apparent reason. “No, a friend sent me.”

“I don’t like your friends.”

“No. This is a friend of
yours
.” He lifted the untucked part of his shirt and pulled a black gun from his front right pocket.
“Don’t tell anyone.”

Her body flashed cold with terror as she ducked behind the desk for protection, but she kept her gaze on him. “Stop! Please. What do you want? I’ll get it for you.”

Gun in hand, the man hesitated a moment as if suddenly adrift.

Emerson glanced at the phone, hoping security was on its way. She tried to stall. “I don’t know what friend you’re talking about. Tell me the message again.”

The man seemed to find his resolve and put the gun to the underside of his chin.

“No! Plea—” Her ears rang with the bang that followed, then all sound was replaced by a high-pitched tinnitus as he fell to the floor.

Emerson dimly registered people running into her office, a few entering for the first time ever. Movement swirled around her. Faces loomed, eyes wide.

“Call 9-1-1!”

She read the shapes of the words on her boss Mr. Fraser’s mouth in morbid wonder. With the ringing filling her head, she couldn’t hear, but somehow questions bombarded her.

“Who is he?”

“Do you know him?”

“Did he say anything?”

“What did he say?”

Her boss’s strong hand took her by the arm and pulled her out of her office. Her balance went funny as she stepped over the legs of the fallen body. The red-and-gray splatter on the wall behind him was surreal, the tangy smell of his blood strangely rich and alluring. She was going to throw up.

She found herself seated back at the break room table in front of the cookies, except now the smell was sweetly repulsive. Mr. Fraser stayed with her. He got her a glass of water she hadn’t asked for, and then gave her space by leaning against the counter as he typed furiously on his phone. She wanted her sweater—she was bone cold now—but it was in her office. And she was never going in there again.

A man had just shot himself in front of her. A freeze-frame, millisecond by millisecond, replayed in her mind. The half untucked shirt. A gun in the pocket underneath. His agitation.

A friend sent me
.

What friend?

If you want to get out of this alive…

A threat.

The remains belong to the Heolstors
.

Which meant the remains probably actually belonged to crazy Thane Ryce Ealdian. Further, she could conclude, definitively, that Bloodkin were not only eccentric and controlling, but they could be extremely violent, too. They were dangerous. She had to get out, and now.

When the police came and asked all the same questions her colleagues had thrown at her, she was ready.

“I have no idea who he is,” she said. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
Truth
. “He told me if I didn’t get off the Kingman Hills mediation project, I would die.” A little bit of a lie but a necessary one. She turned her attention to her boss. “By the way, I quit.”

The dead man had told her not to repeat what he was telling her about the Heolstors and the remains, and until she felt safe—probably never again—she was staying silent. She’d learned survival early in life. She’d also learned to seize opportunities, and this was one of them.

Ealdian and Heolstor could argue all they wanted. She wasn’t about to die for six-hundred-year-old remains like the man in her office.

“I totally understand why you wouldn’t feel safe here,” Mr. Fraser said. “Bodyguards have already been hired. They’ll be here shortly.”

More Bloodkin-hired bodyguards. No, thank you
.

One of the cops was persistent. “What is special about this Kingman Hills mediation?”

“You mean besides involving dragon shifters?” she said. “Nothing.”

***

Thane shuddered in the dark, so glad to be home after the recent, unsettling travel. His skin burned with the need to split and shed. His spine arched, shoulders hulking, and he fell to one knee. Braced on the floor, his hand blackened as if he’d been poisoned. His knuckles were forced upward by the claws extending from his fingertips. His hearing sharpened so not only could he hear Matthew’s heartbeat as he slept alone in his room above, but also the scratches of insects deep in the earth, and the ocean waves crashing against the Big Sur beach that the Ealdian stronghold overlooked.

And over it all was the Night Song, the strange music that called to dragons. Its melody was one of longing for the dark wind made by the rise and fall of wings. Of all desires, the ecstasy of flight tempted Thane. No gold rubbed between fingertips nor woman taking his weight could compare to the satisfaction the sky promised. Total and utter freedom.

His mind clouded with pain and want. These last months, he’d known the final shift was coming. He’d stopped fighting it. He and Matthew had prepared. The ship to Havyn stood ready in Monterey Harbor. A voyage on the water, and then at last, he would be what he was born to be once more, and go into the night, wind, and fire.

No. Carreen. Rinc
. He had something to do for them. For the Ealdian bloodline, the black dragons that went back into the hazy murk of time.

The growl that ripped up his throat wasn’t human.

Carreen. Rinc. Heir
.

Son
.

He filled his mind with the memory of the boy. Just born, Rinc had been so vulnerable and small, lightly covered in a white paste and howling with all his might. The feeling that had burst in Thane’s chest—pride, yes, as well as a vast sense of accomplishment, though he knew Carreen deserved the credit—was beyond those simple and selfish emotions. It was soul-changing devotion.

One spellbinding look into his son’s enraged eyes and Thane had no longer lived for himself. He was nothing. Rinc was the future, and Thane had wanted nothing more than to give him, on bended knee, the spoils of the Ealdian legacy. He’d also given him his dignity because Rinc had urinated on him right away. A new emotion, painful in its sudden hugeness, had filled Thane. Where had it come from? Why had it filled him with such terror? Such joy?

The fire within Thane cooled slightly, his throat tightening with anguish. He’d thought that well of tears had dried.

Rinc had left such a vacuum of hopelessness behind.

And Carreen, what a warrior she’d been after all. He would’ve liked to have seen her dragon. Then maybe he might’ve understood her better.

The dragon within didn’t like regret, so Thane kept his heart and thoughts with his lost family to conquer the beast, discovering that the memory of his son’s infant cry could drown out the music of the Night Song. He chose his son over magic again and again, and the hours passed as he fought the shift, the night receding.

Until a faint hiss of movement behind him told him someone was near. Then pain bloomed, something cold and sharp jabbing into his back.

Roaring, Thane stood, taller than he’d been in over a century, his would-be assassin clutching onto him like a tick. Thane’s body was still armored with changing magic, so the weapon hadn’t been able to go deep, but the intent was clear.

The dragon hurtled into ascendancy again.

Thane reached over his shoulder, grabbed the man by the neck, and slammed him down on the floor. The weapon—a Drachentöter—clanged to the ground. Designed for maximum damage, the dragon slayer weapon’s reverse-facing barbs were still unsprung from the shaft. Few Bloodkin survived the catastrophic damage caused by the thing. Once embedded, it was near impossible to remove, and shifting into dragon form just opened the wounds still further.

His prey still twitching, Thane raked a claw over its belly. He leaned in to rip out the entrails with his teeth.

“My lord Thane?”

Thane spun to face a new attacker, but he found Matthew.

“My lord Thane, remember who you are.”

Bewildered, Thane looked back at the assassin, sent by the Heolstors, no doubt. He was still alive but wounded fatally, gore spread wide as he hiccupped, trying to breathe. Thane reached out to him and with an efficient twist broke his neck to end his suffering.

“They sent someone to kill me.” Which was no excuse for allowing the dragon to rule.

“You didn’t hear him?” Matthew asked with careful reserve.

Matthew would think he’d been listening to the Night Song. “I was remembering Rinc.”

He had a duty to Carreen and Rinc, and the Heolstors thought to rob him of it. They’d thought to awaken the dragon and, thereby, leave Carreen and Rinc helpless all over again.

No. This would not do.

Waiting for the DNA results was an absurd Bloodkin Assembly delay. All the Bloodkin knew who’d been found at Kingman Hills. And there wasn’t much time left for Thane to do something about it, not with the dragon attempting to wrest control.

“We travel tomorrow,” Thane said. “Gerard will answer for this.”

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Matthew told him. “And I’ll clean this up.”

Thane looked down at the bloody body. The blood
intrigued
him, and the man was already dead anyway. “I’ll—”

“No, my lord. Better I do it.”

***

Emerson paced the bedroom of her hotel suite that had been arranged for her not five miles from her own apartment. She resented how nice it was. Its luxury appointments—creamy white leather, chrome, and glass—had been designed to hold light. The bed was low, and the linens had a soft sheen. She bet it was crazy comfortable. It also reeked of money. Dragon money.

They hadn’t left her alone for a moment.

No matter how nice the bed was, she didn’t think she’d ever sleep again. If she weren’t still so shocked over what had happened, she’d be screaming.

The place had been checked and cleared for danger, and a guard would remain on duty all night in the living area. Another would be out in the hallway leading to the suite.

She felt caged, not protected. She’d thought of calling Bryan, but she didn’t trust the Bloodkin where her family was concerned. Didn’t trust the Bloodkin at all.

Someone knocked on the bedroom door. She frowned at it and sat down on the leather bench situated at the end of the bed, breathing deeply. This sense of powerlessness was unbearable.

Voices murmured in the main room of the suite.

Fine. She’d see what they wanted. Standing, she squared herself and opened the door.

Mr. Fraser immediately stood up from the sitting room’s sofa. “Emerson.”

She asked the question foremost on her mind. “Did you find out who he was?”

“We did, yes.” He gestured to one of the sofas. “If you will?”

Her heartbeat had doubled in anticipation, but she managed to calmly cross the room and sit down. She was having a nightmare. That’s what this was.

Mr. Fraser wasted no time. “His name was Jeffrey Clay. He has no direct connection to any Bloodkin family.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

Mr. Fraser pressed his lips together, as if debating, then said, “He
is
survived by a young son who is currently making a miraculous recovery from end-stage cancer.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” That the man who’d just blown off his head had orphaned his child? Because she just might lose it. Officially.

“Well, I can’t say for sure, but I’d guess…blood.” Mr. Fraser’s eyes were sharp with meaning.

“Blood,” Emerson repeated. So it
was
a Bloodkin?

“Understandable really. What parent, if given the rare opportunity, wouldn’t trade his life for his child’s?”

And…she was lost again.

“But now the child will have a long, healthy life,” Mr. Fraser said.

Because of…?

Oh! Dragon blood
.

But that was a myth. A myth!

“You’re saying that dragon blood cured the man’s child? And the man made a
trade
to come to my office and kill himself in front of me…in exchange for that cure?”

“He delivered a message first. I’m guessing the sender didn’t want to be identified.”

Her so-called friend.

“None of the Bloodkin wants any involvement with this mediation,” Mr. Fraser explained.

She stood. “Who cares what the Bloodkin want? A man is dead.”

“But his child lives.”

Her boss was being deliberately obtuse. “The world is
full
of people who need cures, but the Bloodkin don’t do anything to help them. If dragon blood heals”—
fat chance
—“then dragons are heartless, and I want nothing to do with them.”

He looked up at her. “How many people do you think
you
could heal?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “This isn’t about me.”

“It is, obviously, very much about you. How many, Emerson? If you were to open a vein and become a walking fountain of health and youth? What would happen to you? Is there anywhere you could hide?”