Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,64

from experience the damage teeth like that could cause.

But he’d told her wasn’t going to harm her. And color her the most bizarre mish-mash of asinine colors in the world, she actually believed him. Sort of. Kind of.

Maybe.

Why does he have fangs? she wondered.

To Anna, he didn’t feel like a vampire. She’d dealt with a number of their kind over the years. This guy was distinctly different. For one thing, he wasn’t so pale and hungry that his bloodlust was palpable. And for another, his eyes didn’t glow red like the eyes of vampires. They didn’t turn into traffic lights, one dimension of scarlet that chilled you to the bone. These eyes were multi-dimensional and vast, as if he held constellations within them.

“If you’re accusing me of helping her, then I admit it freely,” Sterling suddenly said, yanking Anna’s attention from the man she had been not-so-subtly studying to her would-be savior. “I helped her disappear when she needed to,” Sterling clarified. “And yes, a part of that requires that she forget certain things as needed. But you have to know, dragon, everything I’ve done to her, I’ve done for her own good.”

Dragon, Anna thought. That’s right. He called him a dragon before too. But he’s like no dragon I’ve ever met.

And then the crux of what Sterling had just said actually hit Annaleia.

Wait. My own good? What is he talking about? What the hell is going on?

Her body was still trembling, though not as much. Now she was honestly more confused than frightened. If Sterling was here, he’d probably been smart enough to call in reinforcements even if she hadn’t been able to finish her own call. Which meant some manner of warden clan was no doubt close behind. That made her feel ambivalent in a way she would never admit to a fellow warden, but it also took the pressure off her a lot.

Still, that didn’t mean she shouldn’t take every opportunity for escape that was afforded her. A transport spell was impossible still. She could feel his grounding magic draped heavily over the entire area. But she could still run.

Anna gritted her teeth, contemplated for half a second more, and bolted into a full-throttle run aimed directly at her attacker’s broad back. At the same time, she raised her left elbow and braced it with her right palm against her left knuckles, giving her a make-shift “point” to drive into his kidneys from behind. But an infinitesimally split moment before she would have made impact, the dragon’s head turned slightly as if to give her an irritated narrow-eyed glance.

And then he was side-stepping as she rushed past him. Her world came to a jarring halt when he wrapped his left arm firmly around her waist and yanked her off her feet to draw her back none-too-gently against his chest. It happened so fast, the wind was bludgeoned from her lungs. Stars entered her vision. Now we both have them, she thought deliriously. She moaned softly from the sudden discomfort but was offered no quarter. Instead, her arms were trapped against her and he squeezed, clearly wrathful.

His lips at her ear were a confusing dichotomy of enthralling and terrible. “You aren’t going anywhere, Leia. Not without me – not ever again. So just do us both a favor and stop fighting me.”

Through the haze of Anna’s strangely stirring anger and avidity, she heard Sterling say, “Go easy on her, Mace. Remember she has no idea that you’re you.”

A drum beat thrummed through Annaleia, slightly nauseating, like a subwoofer turned up way too loud.

Mace.

Mace.

Mace.

“Stow it, Sterling,” the human dragon growled, a warning breathed across her earlobe. She smelled leather. Aftershave. Motor oil… him.

The dragon’s grip tightened, and Annaleia squeaked from the pressure. At once her captor’s head turned back to her and his grip let up enough for her to breathe.

Mace.

The name turned itself over in Anna’s head. Over and over. But it made no sense.

The problem wasn’t that she was unfamiliar with the name or its owner. She knew the name all too well. And she’d just been thinking about its owner. The problem was that she shouldn’t be hearing it right now. Sterling shouldn’t have used the name. Not that name, not here in this alley, not all these years later, and not to address the man who was holding her.

She tried to look up and over her shoulder, but before she could, the dragon maneuvered her arms behind her back, forcing her to face forward again.