Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (45 page)

Emerson turned back toward the big doors just as Ransom laid his hand on a hidden panel, and then a series of metallic
snicks
could be heard from the seal between the two doors.

“Stay behind me,” Thane ordered her. “And do everything I say.”

She gulped. It was obviously smarter to run away—there was probably a serial killer in there—but a perverse curiosity tugged at her.

He drew open the two huge doors, and a strong smell hit Emerson—bitter and smoky, but with an underlying woodsy scent that she couldn’t place. The combination sent a strange, bright, crackling sensation through her body, like the terrified euphoria of a free fall.

Thane shot Ransom a stern look before proceeding down the large, flat steps. “Gerard, I’ve come to kill you.”

Always to the point, wasn’t he?

“What took you so long?” a low croak of a voice answered. “And you brought me a snack.”

“That is Emerson Clark, of the Emmerich Reds, and you will not harm her.”

Emerson didn’t know what a Red was, and she didn’t need to. She turned to flee, fresh terror overcoming her curiosity, but Thane reached out and grabbed her wrist. Heat and longing spread from the point of contact. “You’re not a coward.”

She didn’t see why not. Cowards often survived encounters with dangerous people, though she acknowledged that they survived because they let someone else take the brunt of whatever nastiness was in store. And Thane seemed game for nastiness.

He pulled her down with him, and she followed. His vise grip on her arm made sure of it.

The descent wasn’t too steep, but the temperature rose markedly with every step. She’d always preferred the cold; heat made her restless and reckless, like late-night summer-break insanity, living fast and flirty. Perspiration dripped down her back and stuck her blouse to her skin. She could feel her face misting, too. And Thane’s hold on her arm was positively burning.
She
was burning.

When they finally reached the bottom, a massive room opened up before them. She couldn’t see anyone in the murk, but nevertheless, she somehow knew that Gerard Heolstor was in the dark corner across the space and far off to her right. Something about the darkness…seethed.

Thane swore. “Why didn’t you arrange transport for him before this?”

Ransom answered from behind her. “He was all set to take a ship to Havyn, but after he heard about the discovery of the remains, he refused to leave. He said you’d be coming. I think he tried to hold on for you.”

Thane shook his head. “No, boy. I’m no motivation for him to fight the Night Song. It’s very clear he’s been holding on for his sons. To help his sons
survive
me.”

Something in his voice—something sad and lonesome—made her think that maybe he’d just changed his mind about killing Gerard.

“Heolstor did not kill Carreen and Rinc,” Gerard said in that low, inhuman growl, “just as I know you didn’t kill them either, no matter what the rumors say. But If I had wanted to hurt you, I’d have attacked you directly and burned your stronghold to the ground.”

Thane dragged Emerson forward. “Did you hear that?”

A near admission in the middle of some more of their trademark crazy? Yeah
. She took a deep breath. Time to do her job. “Are you saying that the remains are not from the Heolstor line?”

“Everyone knows who they are,” Gerard said.

“Then why the claim?” she asked.

“To buy time. To force Thane to stop and
think
for once. He has always been too quick to fire, the beast on too loose a rein. The fact that Carreen was holding my sigil means nothing.”

“
Nothing?
It is the only clue I have. Who did it, then?” Thane demanded.

A figure strode out from the shadows, taller and broader than any man she’d ever seen in person. Under an oddly protruding brow, his eyes were a bright, shining blue, lizard-like in their set and vertical pupils. His bare shoulders were rolled forward, something weird going on with his spine. With a crack like breaking stone, he grew even larger and more hunched, webbing along his upper arms. All power.

Because dragon. Duh
.

Gerard pointed a black-clawed finger in her direction. “Ask her.”

***

Thane glanced at Emerson, who was vehemently shaking her head, the word
no
formed on her lips but not uttered.

“What do you mean?” he demanded, looking back at Gerard.

A lick of fire danced in Gerard’s eyes. Inside, he had to be experiencing the conflagration of change within his bones, muscles, and blood. He collapsed to all fours, keening with the pain of it. Soon, his mind would blacken with the Night Song.

Thane raised his voice. “What has she to do with it?”

“My sons.” The dragon spoke, but it was Gerard who’d chosen the words. A plea.

Gerard was indeed too far gone. Later, Thane would shake the answers from Emerson himself. She had to know something.

Thane didn’t take his eyes off Gerard—the fire would overcome him at any moment—so he inclined his chin slightly toward Ransom. “Get Locke. He should be here.”

Both sons should be with their father when he died. And after, they would have to consign his body to fire again and again until nothing was left. It was the Bloodkin way.

Thane heard Ransom’s footsteps as he dashed back up the stairs, but Emerson seemed frozen in place, her arms clutched around herself.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She met his gaze, and he found her irises had a green shimmer behind the brown, her dragon peeking out to see one of its own kind. “He’s—”

“Going to die, yes,” Thane said. But not because of Carreen and Rinc. Because his final shift was upon him, and no Bloodkin, even family, could allow a final shift anywhere near humankind. The final shift was mindless, the man utterly subsumed by the beast.

Ransom and Locke came down the stairs, their treads slow and heavy. The older boy took off his suit jacket and laid it on the stairs, and Locke’s breath hitched when he saw his father.

“It shouldn’t have been this way,” Ransom said, rolling up his sleeves.

No, it should not. Gerard should be a shadow high in the sky, eating atmosphere over Havyn. Instead, he’d had to stay behind to make sure his sons didn’t take the blame for a crime they’d been framed for.

“Whoever killed Carreen and Rinc and planted our sigil in her hand robbed him worse than if they’d stolen his hoard,” Locke said.

Ransom put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “They’ll pay.”

“They’ll pay in blood,” Locke added.

Ransom starting forward. “Let’s do this, then.”

Thane held up a hand. “You’re not strong enough. Either of you.” He stripped off his shirt so it wouldn’t catch fire. “My dragon is high. I’ll do it.”

“No, that’s
our
father,” Locke said.

“I was a father once, too, for a little while,” Thane said. “Give him the peace that he didn’t harm you, that his legacy is intact.”

Thane could see the desperation in Ransom’s eyes, and glancing at Locke, the abject misery in his. They had no other choice. Time, usually a friend to Bloodkin, was no friend today.

Such was the life cycle of a Bloodkin. They were a people with lives as long as the human could remain in control. Yet, with each passing year, the dragon within grew stronger until it overcame the man entirely. Man to beast, beast to fire, and then nothing but ash.

He turned to Emerson. Tears dripped down her face as she clutched herself, scared and solitary. As an orphan, it was unlikely she’d ever witnessed the end change. She was learning all the worst about being Bloodkin first and none of the beauty. And there was great beauty.

Thane approached the semi-formed dragon shuddering on the floor. Gerard was feral in his throes, fire licking all over his skin to char and shed it for the silvery scales that glinted beneath. Already, the knobs of his spine were growing. The hulk of his body quivered, pops and cracks provoking angry growls. His claws scraped the stone floor. Would soon scrape through flesh if he wasn’t put down immediately.

When Thane drew near, Gerard snapped at him with vicious, elongated teeth. His wings fluttered, as if fanning fire.

Thane dodged and lunged at the same time, his arms going around Gerard’s head. It was too large to grasp with hands on either side, so he had to muscle down and dig his fingers into Gerard’s jaw as flame singed his skin. Already, Gerard’s hair had been filling in with armored plates, and they cut into Thane’s arms, blood slicking his grip.

The dragon thrashed to dislodge him.

“Father!” Ransom called.

The dragon went still for a moment at the sound of his son’s voice. And Thane bore down with all his strength and broke Gerard’s neck.

Emerson was sitting back in the Heolstor’s drawing room, this time with her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees.

Dragon shifters meant…dragon shifters
.

And blood and pain and death. But right now dragon shifters were enough to think about.

It meant that one day, that gruesome shift might—would probably?—happen to her. She was going to turn into a really big, fiery monster. Which just seemed insane. There was no way she was one of them. Bloodkin. There had to be a mistake. A test she could take to prove it. She could try to cure someone with her blood.
Oh, God
. She was going to have a nervous breakdown.

“I’m taking her with me.” Thane sounded threatening.

He, Ransom, and Locke were still standing in that super-sized foyer. Because people who turned into dragons would, naturally, need super-
dragon
-sized foyers.

Thane had been bleeding badly when he’d nudged her back up the stairs, but most of his wounds had crusted over by the time they’d reached the top. Handy having healing powers like that. A world of non-dragon people
would
want powers like that. Fathers might just trade their lives to get some for their children. Even shoot themselves in the head.

She was going to be sick.

“Someone implicated my father,” Locke yelled, “and, because of that, they robbed him of going to Havyn to die proudly as a dragon. I had to watch you break his neck. We’ve just as much right to revenge as you.”

Thane scoffed. “Hardly.”

If she weren’t so shaken up, she’d suggest that Locke not argue with the man who’d just wrestled a dragon and won. Granted, Thane had gone a little dragon himself—skin weirdly black, eyes shining, shoulder and arm muscles bulging impressively. Locke was no match. The Heolstor brothers together weren’t a match for Thane Ealdian.

“Besides, you have to burn your father,” Thane said. “Honor him with fire,
then
revenge.”

Emerson shivered. The smell of burning flesh was still in her nose, in her clothes, in her hair. She wanted a shower. She might soon beg for one.

“Or would you leave him to rot?” Thane added.

There was a grunting scuffle for a moment, through which she squeezed her eyes shut.
Please, no more death. No more blood. No more dragons, either
.

When silence fell, she looked at them out of the corner of her eye, dreading what she might discover. Thane held Locke in the air with one hand clutched around his neck. Thane hadn’t put his shirt back on, so the last of his crusty wounds were visible on his bulging muscles. Her imagination supplied a vision of dragon spines ripping through the skin on his back. Thane might be eccentric, but he had
reason
to be.

“I want Emerson,” Ransom said to Thane. “She doesn’t need to be caught up in this Blood feud. Taken advantage of. I’ll marry her today, if need be.”

She pressed her lips together in refusal. Not that he wasn’t a catch or anything—handsome, rich, scaly on the inside—but she was good solo, thanks. Besides, his brother’s face was turning an uncanny purple. Ransom should probably do something about that.

“Emerson was finished with you the moment Gerard admitted that the remains discovered at Kingman Hills are those of my family,” Thane said.

Actually, Emerson thought, she was done with the entire mediation when Gerard had admitted that, so there was no reason for her hang around. She just had to find that damned driver the Bloodkin had hired to bring her from the airport and get the hell out of Dodge. Now was as good a time as any.

She stood, legs a little wobbly, bag on her arm, and walked across the room with as much composure as she could manage. Her weight on the balls of her feet muted the sound of her heels on the marble floor in the foyer. She was already grasping the front door’s handle—another snaky dragon—when Thane stopped her.

“Where are you going?” His voice had that low roll deep within it. She knew now that the burr belonged to the dragon part of him.

She gulped but didn’t turn around. “I need some fresh air. The smoke was—”

“You stay where you are,” Thane said.

“I’m not letting you take her,” Ransom said from behind her.

“
Letting
me?” Thane growled. “Gerard said she had my answers, and I’m having them whether you like it or not.”

Taking advantage of the distraction, Emerson opened the door and slipped outside. They could argue all they wanted, but she was her own boss now and she’d do what she liked. Right now, she wanted to run away. Unfortunately, the Bloodkin’s car and driver were nowhere to be seen.

She speed-walked around the house toward the separate bank of garages she’d spotted when she’d arrived. Her car was probably there. Keys, too. And her driver, if she were lucky.

Under no circumstances was she ever going back in that house. Come to think of it, she couldn’t go home, either. The Bloodkin owned her building.

She fumbled in her bag for her phone. She’d call Bryan. He’d help her. And he’d probably laugh at her for not believing in dragons in the first place. She sure deserved a good ribbing…after a stiff drink, a good cry, and a lot of therapy. Because dragons…. She’d seen one break another’s neck. The mere memory of the sound of cracking bone made her cringe.

The garage was labeled
Carriage House
—Bloodkin sure liked fancy names and titles—and there seemed to be a small office inside. She knocked on the door, and then tried the handle. Happy day, there was her driver with his feet up on a table watching television, a soda in hand.