Dragon Void (Immortal Dragons Book 2) (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Marcus

M
arcus simply couldn’t hear another word. Her tale of her encounters with his fellow Elites had been a bright spot, and so arousing he wished again that he had been there to witness—or to join in.

The deeper connection to Evie was what destroyed the illusion. The deep grief over the loss of those babies, and understanding for the first time what she had meant that first day so long ago. She wasn’t able to carry his child—or any child—that wasn’t sired by her true mate.

That man wasn’t him, and had never been. Now that she had Ked, she could heal from those earlier losses that Marcus’s actions had resulted in.

His saving grace was that he had ultimately succeeded in his plan to find a way to get word to her brothers that she was alive.

* * *

Shanghai, China

Six Years Ago

Finding the dragon hadn’t been easy, but Marcus had eventually tracked the elusive Blue to a smoky night club in Shanghai. He should have signaled to Naaz and Sterlyn to meet him so the three of them could pool their power to capture her. Yet this time, he hesitated. The other two Elites were not nearby, so this would be the perfect opportunity to test his plan to get word to someone about Evie’s whereabouts. Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was let his master destroy another Blue.

The Blue dragon’s aura was like a lure to him, and he spiraled closer to her like a moth to a flame. She was a beautiful woman with straight, black hair that reminded him of Evie’s. She was as petite and bird-like as his lover, too, except with sweet Asian features and glimmering blue eyes.

He sensed her awareness of him, and yet she didn’t even send him a glance when he sat down at the bar next to her. To her, he was merely an unmarked Blessed human. He had learned over the years that to a dragon, that was the most enticing bait, even more so than a sexually aroused human. It helped that the reminders of Evie had put him in that state. He pushed it a step farther, imagining Evie in the same slinky dress and him peeling it off her before he dropped to his knees for a taste.

The bartender took his order and while he waited, he felt the cool tickle of a breeze blow across his face. The female dragon had taken the bait, her breath a curious test to learn more about him. He inhaled, and increased the detail of his fantasy, making sure the woman believed the images in his mind resembled her more than the woman he wished she was.

As he reached for the tumbler of whiskey on the bar, her hand slipped across the slick wooden surface and halted over his.

“Bring your drink and come with me,” she said in perfect English.

Marcus affected surprise, turning his head to look at her with raised eyebrows. He let a slow smile curl his lips and gave her an appreciative once-over that seemed to please her.

“It would be my pleasure,” he said.

Satisfied, she slid off the bar stool, still clutching his hand. With his free hand, he grabbed his drink and let her lead him through the crowded room, past the dance floor, and through a curtained doorway in the back. Beyond that lay a hallway with a pair of human bouncers guarding another door. They nodded silently to the woman and opened the door for her, revealing a dimly lit staircase beyond.

On the second floor, she led him through another door which she closed and locked behind them. The room was decorated luxuriously in pale lavenders and blues, with an entire wall of windows that overlooked the dance floor and bar on the lower floor. Comfortable chairs and sofas were arranged around the room, and there was a bar along one wall.

“We’re alone,” she said.

“I see that.” Marcus tossed back his drink and finally let his gaze meet hers. She stood with her back pressed against the door, her breasts rising and falling rapidly and her eyes twinkling with inner light no normal human would be able to see. He set his empty glass down and strode back to her. She was ripe and ready for him, no doubt eager to learn what it was like to make love with a Blessed human.

She wouldn’t get the opportunity, however. He wasn’t here for sex, after all.

He threaded his fingers through her sleek hair, gripping the side of her head and tilting her face up to press his lips against hers. She let out a soft moan as he claimed her mouth, thrusting his tongue deep. Christ, she even felt like Evie in his arms, and his erection was enough to lend credence to the ruse. He pulled her tighter against him, just to emphasize how much he wanted her, and enjoyed the way her slender arms wrapped around him, her fingernails digging into his back.

Gripping her backside, he lifted her and carried her to one of the sofas and laid her down. Just as he’d imagined earlier, he hooked the straps of her gown with his fingers and tugged them down her shoulders, peeling the slinky fabric off her perfect, translucent skin. Her bare breasts were small and round, with perfect pink nipples. Marcus bent and took one tip into his mouth, sucking expertly. He’d spent a few nights with Sterlyn’s Zamirah and learned that dragon females were every bit as pliant as other women, if he took his time.

Her fingers combed through his hair, yet another reminder of how Evie behaved when they made love. He decided he would enjoy making this female fall apart under his touch. It was the least he could do, considering he would wind up terrifying her afterward.

He tugged her dress all the way off, pleased to discover she was entirely nude beneath. He slid to the floor, kneeling before her, and urged her legs apart, pushing one up to drape over the arm of the sofa. Without further preamble he bent his head and kissed deeply between her thighs.

His tongue teased along the length of her slit and he reveled in the tangy flavor of the slick, velvety folds. The more he licked, the more her sweet fluids coated his lips. Her swollen clit burned with heat beneath his tongue and his cock raged with need to fill that slick channel.

Ignoring his need, he worked her deftly until her voice rose harshly and her hips bucked against his face. The sounds of her cries were the most brutal reminder that she wasn’t Evie. She wasn’t singing her love for him in the wake of her orgasm. The cry still resonated inhumanly in the room, and the power of her climax surged into him like a flood of cool water.

He chose that moment to act, sliding his hands up her torso to cup each side of her head and letting the dark power inside him surge forth from his palms and sink into her.

The dragon’s blue eyes went wide and she cried out, “No! Please!”

It was too late for her. He had her mind in the vise-like grip of that darkness, isolating her power and rendering it null, then preventing her from telepathically communicating with any other dragons who might be nearby.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a low voice. “I admit, I was sent to capture you—my master does love Blue dragons in particular, for some reason. My partners aren’t far. I could easily take you with me now, but I need a favor instead. If you promise to do this for me, I will let you go. If you do not, then I
will
call my fellow Elites and we’ll lock you away with the others we capture.” He had no intention of carrying out the threats, of course. This was his best chance to get Evie out of her prison, and if it meant holding his power over this woman to ensure the message was delivered, then he would use it.

“Y-you shouldn’t exist,” she croaked. “There hasn’t been an Elite with your power in centuries. Only one dragon on earth has that power. The Void. Legends say he killed the Elite who mirrored his power.”

Marcus had heard the story countless times. Sayid loved to tell it, always with a particularly hungry, vengeful look in his eyes. The Elite in question had been the very first of them, a female who had been Sayid’s lover and the mother of his child.

The blue dragon’s admission gave him an idea, however. If this dragon was so powerful, he had to have some pull among the higher races.

“I need you to get a message to this so-called
Void
. Tell him to find Iszak and Lukas North. Their sister is alive.”

He continued, giving her the precise location of the facility where Evie had been held captive for nearly five decades.

“Do you understand?” he asked, shaking her when her eyes widened at his instructions.

“Yes, but it’s nearly impossible for a dragon ranked as low as I am to reach the Council. They aren’t even accessible until the Ascension.”

“When will that be?” Marcus asked, frustrated.

The woman closed her eyes and pursed her lips, her naked body still tense beneath him. Finally, she said, “Six years, give or take. I will do this for you if I can, but it will take time. Please, forgive me.”

Marcus released her and sat back with a sigh. It would have to be enough. They’d been trapped for so long already, a few more years wouldn’t kill them, at least he hoped. And the delay may help avoid suspicion.

“All right. I’ll come back here on this same date in six years. I expect to hear that you delivered the message.”

She nodded and reached to the floor for her dress, tugging it swiftly over her head. When Marcus stood, she eyed his bulging crotch and gave him a small smile. “You can let me take care of you, too, if you would like. As a thank you for not capturing me?”

Marcus merely shook his head. “Six years,” he said again and walked out the door.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Marcus

Dragon Monastery, Sunda Islands

Present Day

E
vie’s moans of climax reverberated in Marcus’s mind loud enough to make him aware of the renewed connection between himself and his savior. His fingers clenched, skin tingling at the phantom sensation of her tight channel and hot, wet fluids coating Ked’s fingers as they penetrated her.

It was as though Marcus was with her himself, doing these things to her, and he groaned out loud at the unmistakable ache that plagued his groin. He only ever got that hard around Evie, but there was a new aspect to his craving. Something inside him reached out, not for the connection with Evie, but for the man who Marcus was somehow inexorably linked to. Marcus wanted to thank him, and to tell him to take care of Evie, the way Marcus was unable to. He wanted something else, too, but the craving was new and alien to him. So alien he couldn’t quite process it, so he focused on the need to express his gratitude.

“I can hear you,”
Ked’s already familiar, deep voice resonated in his mind
. “Like I told you before, you are part of me now, so we can communicate at will. You can’t block me out if I don’t wish you to.”

“Then you have to know I’m through with this world. Please, let me die. My strength is gone, and she has you now. I’m at peace now that she’s safe.”

“You’ll regain your strength, if you are willing to live and let me help you,”
Ked said
.

Marcus didn’t want to hear more. With the force of the last vestiges of dark power he had possessed for fifty years, he cloaked his mind to block out the voice again. He could still sense Ked’s presence lingering in the shadows of his thoughts, but the black dragon thankfully stayed silent.

With Evie’s warmth lingering on his skin and her scent in his nostrils, Marcus closed his eyes and let himself revisit that night. The only night they’d had together in the fifty years of her captivity and his slavery to a brutal master.

* * *

He’d returned to the Shanghai night club six years to the day after his first visit, as promised. The blue dragon he’d convinced to carry his message was nowhere to be found.

Sitting at the bar, he ordered the same drink he’d ordered before and scowled around, seeking out the blue of her aura among the myriad flickering energies of the humans that filled the large room. He even scanned the opaque glass of the windows along the second floor, wondering if she lay hidden in one of the VIP suites above. His senses picked up other dragons, but none of their auras were familiar to him.

Fucking hell. Had she screwed him over after all?

Just when he was about to give up, an attractive, dark-haired man seated himself on the barstool to Marcus’s left.

“All the dragons in here are aware of your presence, Elite,” the man said in a low voice. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Marcus stiffened and set his gaze on the man’s face. “I hope they know better than to act. You don’t want the human patrons to find out what this meat market really is to you guys. Your choices would be exposure of your kind, or insanity for the humans in here.” His brows drew together as he studied the man’s somewhat familiar features. He wasn’t the person Marcus had hoped to meet, but he had to be related to the woman he’d given his message to. He had the same sleek, black hair, refined features, and vivid blue eyes, though his cheekbones were heavier, his jaw wider, and his eyes rounder.

“We’re not foolish enough to try to take you,” he said, his tone calm, but his tension betrayed by the rigid set of his shoulders. “Besides, I admit I’m curious why you entrusted my mother with such a valuable message. She gave up her last reserves of energy to ensure the message was delivered. Power that would have been my inheritance. In the end, I was the one who had to endure the scrutiny of the darkest black dragon in existence in order to fulfill my mother’s dying wish. You spared her, so she felt obligated to follow through, even after her death.”

“You’re her son. Of course.” Marcus had forgotten how significant the timing was. The woman would not have been able to wait for the Ascension. Each subsequent generation of dragons gave up their lives every five hundred years, leaving the last of their power as a legacy to their offspring. “How long has it been since she died?”

“A little over a year. We Ascended shortly after her death, and I came home to find her message.” The man let out a sigh and took a slow swallow of his drink. He cast his glimmering blue eyes to Marcus. “You’re one of
them
, but you’re not loyal. That makes me very curious. Care to explain why you entrusted my mother with your message?”

“I just need to know that it was delivered.”

The man’s jaw clenched and he stared down at his drink. “It was. I hope like hell the sacrifice we made to do so was worth it. The Void seemed particularly interested in the details when I delivered it. He told me…” The man’s eyes went foggy and he shivered. “He thanked me and said he would reward me once he retrieved the woman mentioned in the message.”

“Did he say when he would do it?” Marcus asked, agitated now that he knew his plan had worked.

“No, but shit was definitely happening when I left him. He and two other dragons—his brothers, I think—flew off faster than I could track. You do know who this guy was, don’t you? The fucking
Void
. If he wanted to, he could carve your mind out and leave you with nothing but an empty core, with your worst nightmare the only thing left behind for you to live with for eternity.”

Marcus gathered his power and raised his hand, prepared to show the man exactly how well he understood, but stopped himself. He lived with that void inside him already. He was weary of using it on others. Weary of carrying the burden himself and being forced to do precisely that to the myriad of victims his master had sent him and his brothers out to capture over the years. No. If Evie could be sent away to safety, he would stop, regardless of the torture he had to endure in the aftermath of her escape. And, God willing, he could actually die.

Marcus would love to meet this
Void
before he died, though. To curse him for his contribution to the last fifty years of purgatory he’d endured. To every dragon he’d met in the intervening years, his own power was considered a cosmic balance of a sort. No one questioned exactly
why
Marcus and his brothers had virtually the same powers as the dragons, even though they manifested theirs a little differently—through their palms as well as through the power of their lungs. But he knew the truth. For some reason, the trio of males the lower-ranked dragons revered as near-god-like were the reason for Marcus and his brothers’ very existence.

Marcus shut his eyes and laughed softly. He finished his drink and ordered another.

“I’m in the mood for a void of a different sort tonight, my friend,” he said to the man beside him. “I have a few hours before my brothers find me. I’m not at liberty to share my reasons for doing what I did, but if you get me drunk enough, details may slip. In the meantime, I’d love to hear more about your mother. She was a lovely woman.”

The man’s brow furrowed and a perplexed half-smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “You’re nothing like I expected for an Elite. In stature, certainly, but demeanor… you look hopeless.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Marcus said.

The man’s gaze drifted over his face slowly, cautiously, and Marcus caught a glint of something more curious and bold in those blue eyes. With a jolt, he remembered this was a dragon he was becoming far too relaxed beside. The fire of attraction in the man’s eyes made him realize he’d taken a bigger risk than he intended. He was still a Blessed, and this blue dragon before him wanted a taste as strongly as his mother had. The idea of giving in to someone else’s craving for his sex energized him, but not in the direction his companion might have hoped.

“I apologize,” he said, flinging cash onto the bar and standing. “I’d love to stay, but I just realized I have somewhere to be.”

* * *

Half a day later, he returned to the “dungeon,” as he liked to call it. He ignored Sterlyn and Naaz’s objections when he immediately headed down the hallway that held Evie’s cell at the end. Their master was due back within days, but Marcus wasn’t about to waste time now that he knew they were coming for her. He wanted just one night before she left him.

He paused outside her cell and closed his eyes, making an effort to gather his wits. He’d been too long apart from her, and his need overwhelmed his senses to the point that he couldn’t remember the key code that would let him into her room. When the keypad beeped and flashed angry red lights, he stared blindly at the message on the digital readout. “Biometric Scan Rejected,” was all it said. He mashed his thumb onto the tiny surface of the scanner and received the same message.

Marcus was on the verge of smashing his fist into the screen embedded flush into the wall in front of him, the little lights and messages taunting him. He needed to get to her.

“Hang on, brother,” Sterlyn said, gripping his shoulder tightly. “You’re not authorized to enter her room. But I am.”

Sterlyn leaned around him and tapped in his own code, then rested his thumb on the glowing surface.

The door clicked open.

Marcus relaxed slightly. “Thank you,” he said, giving Sterlyn a weary smile. He wished he could share what he’d done, but he supposed they probably already had an idea. If he could have helped them, he would have, but that would require a level of communication they weren’t at liberty to attempt, unless they liked being tortured.

Sterlyn had taken a risk by even helping him get into Evie’s cell just now. He wasn’t about to waste that. After she was rescued, he would spent the rest of his time here contriving ways to help the two of them get their loved ones out.

“She’s waiting for you in there,” Sterlyn said. “What the hell are you waiting for?”

“Not a damn thing,
” Marcus thought, and strode in.

Evie stood mere feet from the door, her beautiful dark eyes wide, but cautious.

Marcus remembered the last time he’d seen her and the heartbreak in her eyes when he’d pushed her away.

“I’m not here to abandon you tonight, baby. I need my angel again. I need to hear you sing.”

He struggled to keep the finality of it out of his voice. This would be their last night together, if his plan had worked.

Her twitching eyebrows made him curse silently. She was irritated about something, but he didn’t know what.

He lowered his head and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t even know how to be with you now. You…”

“Marcus,” she said, interrupting him. “Look at me.”

He met her eyes. They were as deep, dark, and beautiful as he remembered, and filled with so many decades of longing.

“I knew you didn’t abandon me, so stop looking at me like you did.” She stepped closer and reached a shaky hand up, as though she were terrified to touch him.

God, he wanted her to. If her touch were the last thing he ever felt, he could die happy. She brushed her fingertips over his face and he closed his eyes. His entire being shifted in response to that contact, his body relaxing, his breath easing out of him in a slow surge.

She undid him with that touch. The first stage was simple relief, and understanding that she still wanted him. The second stage began when her touch turned hard and needy, her trailing fingertips turning to claws, hungrily pulling at the collar of his shirt, yanking him down until their mouths met.

Marcus embraced her, his entire body thrumming from the simple contact, his cock alive from her hot kiss. She let out a resonant moan as their lips slid together and her tongue ventured deeper. She tasted the same as he remembered. Like heaven had opened up and rained down all the power of grace and love on his tongue.

His mind clouded with lust and he was only half aware of his actions as he undressed her. He reveled in the hot, silky smoothness of her skin, and she moaned so softly when he pulled her shirt off over her head. He bent to capture a nipple in his mouth as he wrapped his hands around her tiny waist, pushing her back toward the poor excuse for a bed she’d been given all these years.

Her pants came off in a blur of frantic need. He had to have her naked. In the next second, he’d undressed himself and their limbs were entwined on the bed, hot skin sliding together, every increment of contact rousing his desire further.

“Jesus, Evie, I missed you.”

“Don’t fucking talk, all right? We don’t have time.”

She pushed him down against her flat pillows and straddled his hips. Her face was alight with primal hunger, her eyes flashing with desire. She dug her fingernails into his chest and he believed she wanted to draw blood. To punish him for his absence from her.

But she didn’t. All she did was lift her hips and press the hot, wet opening of her cunt against his throbbing tip. She lingered there, her eyes on his, as she teased him around in those delicious folds of heat.

Finally, Evie closed her eyes and relaxed down, sinking so slowly onto him he could believe time had slowed down in those stretched out moments.

When she engulfed him, she opened her eyes and his heart almost stopped at the overwhelming sense of love and devotion that lay in those chestnut depths.

She was his entire life, and making sure she had a life was his personal mission. He’d fucked it up for long enough, and now that he’d finally fixed it, he let himself rejoice in her once again.

“Let me see your wings, baby,” he said. “You hid them from me the first time. I want to make love to an angel…” He trailed off, about to add, “…before I die,” but not wanting to alarm her in the moment.

Evie gave him a sultry smile. “I will. Just be patient.”

Being patient involved letting her fuck him so slowly he thought he’d lose his mind. She’d always loved savoring the things that gave her the most pleasure. On every date they had, she’d eat the meal with such devoted attention to every bite it drove him mad. Even a simple orange could take her half an hour to finish, the way she took her time, peeling it and segmenting it, pausing to enjoy the scent of the rind before taking the first bite of a wedge. She’d let the juice pool in her mouth and hum a little song for just that first taste. He loved interrupting her snacks because her enjoyment aroused him so much.