"No. That was me, helping myself. Now this is me, helping you." With a swift jerk of his arm, he tossed his dagger. The tip embedded in the neck of the dragon racing toward her from behind. "See the difference?"
She spun, surveyed the fallen, dying warrior. When she faced Layel again, there was no longer any question about what emotion she experienced. Irritation. "Well, we don't need your help and will not grant you any type of boon for offering it."
"Your gratitude is humbling. Fortunately, cutting out the hearts of my enemies is boon enough for me."
The pink tip of her tongue emerged and traced over those lush lips, smearing war paint. All the while she eyed his lips. Had his words...excited her? Shock rooted him in place, staying his sword. Such depravity should have disgusted her. And her excitement should have disgusted him.
Should have.
He hissed at her, suddenly as desperate to get away from her as he was to dispatch the dragon army. "Get in my way again, Amazon, and I will take you down." Perhaps he would not need to, he thought, before he could turn from her. Already another dragon closed in behind her.
Layel's vehemence seemed to shake her out of her inactivity. She returned his hiss with one of her own. "Try, and you'll die like the dragons." As she spoke, she stabbed behind her, sinking the apex of her sword into the very dragon that had been sneaking up on her. She gave a twist of her wrist, digging her weapon deeper, causing even more pain for the injured man.
Her gaze never left Layel.
The warrior fell to the ground, a final gasp echoing from him.
Layel didn't waste another moment. He moved around and behind the woman and her lethal beauty, knowing he was nothing more than a blur to her. She didn't have time to turn when he kicked out his leg. Contact. Her ankles knocked together. She grunted and toppled to her knees. But she was back on her feet in the next instant, spinning around and glaring at him.
Except there was no anger in that glare. Only vulnerability. Raw vulnerability. It was the kind of look a woman gave a man she was considering taking to her bed - but knew she should resist. A look he had resisted from others, without hesitation, for what seemed an eternity. She's dangerous.
Layel backed away from her, a spark of panic igniting.
"You knocked me down," she said, breathless.
For years he'd assumed his heart was withered, dead. And yet, hearing the excitement in her voice, the foolish organ sped to life, nearly beating through his ribs. Keep moving away, damn you. "Yes," he said, his legs suddenly heavy. "I did."
"But...you knocked me down."
And he would do more if she approached him again. He'd have to. Something about her...
He should not have to remind himself that desire was not something he wanted in his life. He would avenge Susan's death, and then he would join her. Nothing and no one else mattered.
"Play nice with my vampires, little girl, and I might save a few dragons for you. If not, I'll come for you. And when I find you, I will take your head and hang it beside my throne with all the others I have collected in my long life. Doubt me not." With that, he flashed her a dark grin and pushed his way into the thick of battle, through the raging fires, Brand once more in his sights.
CHAPTER 2
THAT BASTARD! Delilah thought. That bloodsucking fiend. That black-hearted warrior. That...man! He had no conscience, no sense of fairness. And she...liked it. A sigh slipped from her, and she nearly melted to the ground in a boneless heap of feminine delight.
The warrior had dropped her to her knees. No one had ever dropped her before. No one. She was too strong, too fast, too menacing and too eager to exact revenge. And if she could not, her sisters were more than willing to see the task done, which every species in Atlantis knew.
But the vampire had acted against her without reservation or remorse. What was worse - better? - was that he could have done so much more. One moment he'd been in front of her, the next he'd been behind her. He could have sliced her throat as he'd done to so many of the dragons, and there would have been nothing she could've done about it.