Dragon's Second Chance Romance - Riley Storm Page 0,40
him awake.
Hairs stood on end all across his body as the excess electrical charge worked its way through every nerve ending. Pain followed. Lots and lots of pain.
Pietro was no stranger to pain, however, and he clamped down on it hard, shunting it away. There were more important things going on, a part of him knew.
Like why was he lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood?
A quick look around showed him the broken down door. A further glance at where the door should be showed him the frantic face of someone he knew.
Trent was here and gesturing frantically at Pietro to look to his right. Frowning, Pietro did.
What he saw dulled the pain and replaced it with searing anger.
Claire and Lilly were in the main room of his house. They had been forced to their knees by the pair of gray-skinned vampires, their heads wrenched to the side until they were nearly touching, exposing the soft skin of their necks.
And the flowing veins below. The creatures were taking their time in preparing to feed, letting the fear build in their victims, making their hearts beat as fast as possible. They could feed deeper that way.
I don’t fucking think so, Pietro snarled as he extended an arm towards the far one.
Fire filled his fist, as bright as the sun.
At the same moment, Trent reached up, and the lights dimmed as he sucked the power from the house.
The vampires looked up at that, their vision immediately letting them see what was happening, though the sudden appearance of the ball of fire in Pietro’s hand was a dead giveaway.
“Down!” Pietro boomed.
The two women reacted instinctively to the command-laced order, dropping flat as they pulled themselves free of the startled vampires.
Lightning and fire streaked across the room, their race to hit the vampires ending in a tie as they drove both creatures back, sending them tumbling twice. The vampires recovered with uncanny speed, rising to their feet an arm’s span short of the big bay window at the front of Pietro’s house.
The two dragons were already in pursuit. They cleared the women like hurdlers in perfect unison, taking one step to re-assert their balance before lowering their shoulders and tackling the vampires in the midsection.
All four of them crashed through the window and tumbled out into the street beyond.
Keeping a grip on his quarry as they went, Pietro hauled it in tight, squeezing hard until he felt several ribs pop.
The vampire reared back and slammed its head into him. The blow aggravated his head wound from the door, and fresh blood poured down his face, blinding him in one eye. Pietro rocked backward, but even as the vampire came in closer to attack, it got a face full of fire.
An inhuman shriek rattled the windows and set off car alarms four houses away.
“Shit,” Trent muttered, and Pietro knew what that meant.
Humans would be awakening soon. If they saw the battle going on in the streets, it would raise many questions. Questions that dragons as a race were not yet ready to answer.
Such as who were they fighting, and why? Humanity did not need to know of the enemy beyond the Gates, the innumerable magical entities that inhabited the Otherworld. Some things were better left unsaid.
A person could know. But people were an unstable mob. They would destroy everything with their fear and ignorance. This needed to be managed properly. Which meant ending the fight as soon as possible.
Wiping blood away, Pietro looked around wildly for his quarry, which had broken free of his grasp.
Something sliced at his leg and he twisted at the impact, but the knife the vampire held—a long kitchen blade—failed to penetrate his dragon skin.
The creature hissed in anger and tossed the knife at him, but Pietro just batted it aside and then jumped on his foe. The vampire was strong, but it relied on its speed for survival. It wasn’t anywhere near as heavy or thickly built as Pietro was. They were very nearly the same height, but he had twice the mass.
They went down together, and Pietro’s weight advantage began to tell. He broke another of its ribs, and then snapped one of its arms, earning yet another shriek.
He called upon fire once more, intending to shove it straight down the vampire’s throat and incinerate the creature, but the arm he’d broken gave the vampire an unexpected out. Since it no longer cared what direction the arm bent in, it could escape the hold he