Dragon's Second Chance Romance - Riley Storm Page 0,64

let them exist. Thousands more had descended upon Five Peaks in the wake of the announcement with hopes of seeing a dragon themselves.

It was also where the Agency had come to try and kill the dragon who dared to speak up about them. Claire only had secondhand knowledge of the battle. She’d never asked Pietro about it, but the destruction showed the true power of the dragons when unleashed.

Much of the building was perched atop a jutting rock a hundred feet or more in diameter, brought up from the earth by a dragon. The rest of it had fallen at the base of the new rise, crumbling into pieces, where it still lay.

Fences had been erected around the building, but Claire found her way through the obstacles with ease. She was clearly not the first person to do so and, judging by the way a path had been worked through the debris, quite a few people had come to the site.

“I’m here,” she said as she strode among the rubble. “Where are you?”

“Hello, Claire.”

She lifted her head skyward, finding the preacher in the ruins of the building above her, holding a candle in one hand.

“Ascend, my child, and receive your salvation.”

“I can’t fly,” she muttered just loud enough for him to hear her.

“Unnecessary. Aro here will help.”

Shadows moved at her side, and Claire stifled a scream as a vampire casually picked her up and in one bound leapt up into the exposed side of the crumbling building.

It set her down, and she jerked away from it, moving deeper into the building. More shadows moved, and with barely a whisper, another vampire moved past her. Claire yelped. She hadn’t even known it was there.

The two creatures moved to stand next to one another, their movements creepily similar to one another. They had to be bonded. Pietro had called that one correctly. She just hoped that everything else he’d thought it meant would apply.

“Okay,” she said as the preacher started walking back from the ledge toward her, the candle blowing wildly with the slight breeze making its way through the ruined building. “I’m here. Show me my parents and let them go. I did as you wanted. Now prove to me you’re a holy man, one whose word can be trusted, and not a heretic or blasphemer.”

Claire had chosen her words in advance, selecting them specifically to try and force him to act the way she wanted.

“My child. I am a man of God. My word is my bond. Once you have submitted, as per our agreement, they go free.”

“No,” she said stubbornly, crossing her arms, careful not to put too much pressure on her left side. “You let them go now, or I don’t submit.”

“My child…”

“No,” she said harshly. “I proved that I am willing to come here. You have yet to do anything to show your word is worth anything. Only I’ve done that. Will you let a supposed Satan-spawn lover be more trustworthy than you?”

The preacher paused to study her for a long moment. Claire returned the stare with a level, even gaze, doing her best not to let any of her trepidation or nerves show through.

“You speak with the devil’s manipulation, but I cannot refute your point,” he said at last. “You may choose one of your parents to leave now.”

“My mother,” she said without hesitation.

The preacher looked at the vampires and nodded his head low. “If you would be so kind as to fetch the woman, my lords?”

My lords? Claire tried her best to hide her shock.

All along, she’d been operating under the implication that the creatures worked for the preacher. Now, however, he was acting like they were his superiors.

The creatures looked at the church preacher and then, without a word of acknowledgment, disappeared deeper into the building.

Claire turned to keep her back to a wall while she waited for them to return, resolutely ignoring the preacher as he stared at her.

“You will see the truth eventually,” he said quietly.

“I could say the same for you,” she replied, still staring straight forward, not making eye contact.

She couldn’t face the feverish burn of insanity that lurked in his eyes, amplified by the soft candlelight that was all she had to see by. It was too much for her. Besides, the longer she let him look into her eyes, the more chance he had of seeing that she wasn’t afraid.

“Claire?”

Her head whipped around as her mother shuffled into the room, the two vampires walking behind her like sheep