A Dragon for December (Wiccan-Were-Bear Book 11) (9 page)

Dai touched Io’s throat and shook his head.
Then he reached for Meiling, and her eyes fluttered open as his
fingers grazed her blood-soaked flesh. Her throat had been ravaged
as if by claws, blood soaking the floor under her.

“What happened here?” Tosh demanded.

Meiling’s eyes were glazed with pain. She
wheezed as her mouth opened, but managed to whisper, “Yuon took
Deci.”

Tosh growled angrily. “Search the spa,” he
bellowed to Zixin and Wei.

They split up and moved in opposite
directions, opening doors and searching rooms as they went. Dai
lifted his cell from his pocket and called 911. Tosh leaned over
Meiling and let his beast bleed into him, knowing his fangs were
elongated, his eyes had turned bright green, and the hint of scales
glistened on his skin.

“What did you do?”

Meiling’s eyes widened, and tears rolled down
the sides of her face. “I owed a debt to Yuon. He…made me.”

“Where did he take my mate?”

Her eyes rolled back in her head, and Tosh
slapped her cheeks to rouse her. “Where? Meiling answer me!”

She slowly lifted her hand, and Tosh saw her
blood-covered cell phone. Her thumb pressed the center button, and
the screen cleared to show a map with an orange dot on it. Taking
the phone from her, he looked at the screen more closely and
recognized it as a phone location app.

“Is this Yuon?” Tosh asked.

She nodded. “I’m sorry, sire. Tell Deci…” Her
eyes rolled back in her head, and Tosh pressed his fingers to her
throat and found no pulse.

He stood and faced the hallway where Zixin
carried Deci’s angel friend in his arms. She was wrapped in a
blanket and unmoving.

“Is she alive?” Tosh asked.

“Unconscious. She smells like Tai. It’s a
weird scent, like flowers, but underneath that is something that
smells awful, like rotten eggs. There were these machines over the
two tables in there, and there was black residue inside them. I
think whatever that chemical was, it made Alli, and most likely
Deci, unconscious,” he said.

Tosh held up the phone. “We know where Yuon
is.”

Zixin smiled darkly. “Good.”

Wei and Dai called from the back of the spa.
Tosh and Zixin moved swiftly to the employee lounge and found Zhen,
Ehra, and Jun unconscious, bound hands and feet.

“What the ever loving fuck happened here?”
Zixin asked. “They killed the two females in the hallway, and
everyone else is unconscious.”

Tosh had to force down his dragon. The urge
to shift and destroy the spa was riding him hard. Shaking his head
to clear his murderous thoughts, he said, “Zixin and Wei come with
me. Dai, I know you want to stay with your sister. Call the other
guards from the nest and have them come and help. When the others
awaken, make sure they’re taken care of and get whatever
information you can from them on what transpired.”

Dai nodded, taking Alli from Zixin’s arms and
settling her on a small leather couch in the room. Tosh rushed from
the spa with his guards and hurried into the SUV. He gave Yuon’s
location to Wei, who entered it into the GPS and tore out of the
parking lot with squealing tires.

Tosh silently vowed to kill anyone involved
in Deci’s abduction.

“You know this is because Yuon wants to be
king,” Zixin said.

Tosh rubbed at his temples, watching the
blinking dot on the screen. “I know. He must have believed that
keeping us from joining tonight would allow him to take over the
nest.”

“If you follow the old laws, it does,” Wei
pointed out. “But you’re also the rightful heir of the nest, and
not mating with her or making her queen because she was abducted by
a usurper wouldn’t really change anything about your place as the
future king. No one in the nest would stand in your way of being
king and making Deci your queen. Yuon is a lunatic, grasping at
straws.”

“I have known Meiling all my life. I would
never have guessed she was the sort of female who would betray her
future queen,” Tosh said.

“Because it’s unheard of. She said that a
debt had to be paid to Yuon. Whatever it was, it was serious enough
that she risked death to betray the queen. She must have known that
she would be killed if the plan didn’t work,” Zixin said.

“I think Yuon took care of that risk for
her,” Tosh said. He mentally scrubbed the image of the female’s
torn throat out of his mind. She may have felt as if she had no
choice but to betray Deci to satisfy some debt to his uncle, but
she should have made the right choice and come to Tosh instead.
Tosh would have ensured that Meiling was safe from harm. He would
have done anything to protect Deci.

“We’ll find her,” Wei said.

Tosh let out a growl of agreement. He glanced
at the GPS screen. They had to leave Ohio in order to reach his
uncle. He wasn’t one hundred percent certain that Deci was with his
uncle, but his gut told him that she was.

He reached out for his connection to his mate
and felt nothing. He yanked off his jacket, ripping off his shirt
sleeve to bare his tattoo. Touching it, he closed his eyes and
sought their connection again, letting his dragon loose further to
enhance his abilities. Dragons and their truemates were connected
on a level that was different from regular shifters. Even though
Deci was a polar bear, their connection was stronger because of his
dragon nature and the fact that he was a powerful male.

He felt a tiny spark of their connection, a
last little thread that he clung to. Growling, he vowed to find her
and set their world right once more.

* * *

The mist soaked Deci’s skin a third time. Her
body felt like it was on fire. The males were crowding close to
her, their eyes bright with their beasts. Their fangs and claws
elongated. She didn’t understand why the drug kept her from feeling
her beast, but the males still had access to theirs. She moved away
from them as far as the chain would allow, but they always
advanced. Keeping her hand on her tattoo and the barest of
connection that she felt to her mate, she shoved away the arousal
and growled, snapping her teeth at the males.

“Stay back,” she warned with a whisper. Her
voice was all but gone.

The light-haired male had been the voice of
reason for the two, but now that he’d been dosed a second time, he
had joined in with the dark-haired male, trying to get to her. She
had hit them with the chains, shouting at them to stay away from
her, but they didn’t stay back for long. She knew her body was
giving off strong arousal vibes, and she was having a hard time
thinking about anything but having sex. She wanted her mate, but
her body was willing to settle for anyone.

“Give up, she-bear,” the scientist taunted
from the speaker. “The longer you fight, the more fucking you’ll
need to feel normal again. The breeding drug forces a female into
her heat cycle. The only thing that will make the pain go away is
male climaxes.” He chuckled, and it made Deci’s skin crawl.
“Imagine how much money I’ll make on this drug. Males all over the
world will pay for a drug powerful enough to turn even the most
frigid female into a sex-addled nympho.”

A wave of arousal stabbed through Deci, and
she curled onto her side, gripping her knees and screaming until
her voice gave out. She wanted the pain to go away.

“Make it stop,” she cried out, tears
streaming down her cheeks as her womb tightened.

A warm hand touched her calf, and for a brief
moment the pain ebbed. Deci breathed out a sigh of relief, opening
her eyes and seeing the light-haired male loom over her.

“Give in and set us all free,” he begged, his
fangs glistening as his eyes darkened with arousal.

It would have been so easy to roll over. Part
of her knew that the pain would cease with sex. She kicked both
feet as hard as she could, planting them right into his stomach and
knocking him away. Rolling to her knees, she rose to her feet, her
skin prickling painfully and her heart pounding in her chest.

She shoved at the dark-haired male, pushing
him away. “I won’t betray my mate! Tosh!” She screamed his name, a
mixture of a plea and a prayer.

The mist flooded over her again, and she
dropped to her knees. Her mind muddled as her vision tunneled.

“Please, Tosh,” she begged, letting the tears
fall onto the concrete as the mist soaked into her skin and spiked
her arousal higher.

If only Tosh could get to her in time.

* * *

Tosh felt something tear inside him, and
realized the connection to Deci had severed completely. There had
been a faint connection that he had held fast to, and then,
suddenly, there was nothing. His beast roared in worry.

“Stop!’ Tosh ordered.

Wei jerked the SUV over to the side of the
road and Tosh rushed out.

“I’ll meet you there!”

He took one last look at the GPS screen,
memorizing the route, and then shifted into his dragon form. Taking
to the sky, he hovered for a brief moment over the street, got his
bearings, and headed in the direction of where his uncle’s cell
phone was transmitting. His wings beat furiously as he flew,
anxiety and anger twining inside him. He didn’t want to believe
that Deci had been killed, but he didn’t understand why their
connection had been severed. Holding onto hope, he moved forward as
quickly as possible, cutting through the air and watching the
scenery blur underneath him. He’d spent a lot of time in his youth
honing his flying skills. Dragons were one of the few types of
shifters who could shift as children. Now, as he maneuvered through
the air easily, he was grateful for the skills he’d learned from
flying for such a long time.

His gaze narrowed as he reached the area
where the cell phone had pinpointed its location. Below him what
looked like a warehouse district stretched on both sides of several
city blocks. The parking lots behind the warehouses were mostly
full, as if the warehouses were in use. He scented the air, but
could only smell harsh industrial scents.

His gaze returned to the warehouse with a
parking lot that was entirely empty. It looked to be in good
condition, as if it were in use, but the empty lot suggested that
it wasn’t being used. His dragon urged him to investigate, and he
heeded the call. Swooping down with a flap of his mighty wings, he
landed in the parking lot, his claws scraping on the concrete.

Very faintly he heard a click and looked up
to see a male dressed all in black in a window on the second floor
of the warehouse, aiming a gun in his direction. Snarling, with
smoke billowing from his nostrils, Tosh lunged into the air, his
clawed fists breaking through the glass as bullets whizzed by him.
He grabbed the male by his shirt and drew him from the building.
The male smelled human, and he screamed, beating the butt of the
gun again Tosh’s nose. Ignoring the insignificant blows, Tosh
pressed his nose to the man. A chemical smell was mixed with a
floral scent, and it tickled Tosh’s nose. Moving his nose across
one sleeve, he caught a very faint scent of sugar and snow. Shaking
his head and drawing in a breath of fresh air, he scented the shirt
sleeve again, and once more he smelled Deci.

Dropping to the ground, he released the male
and knocked the gun from his hand. As he shifted into his human
form, he grabbed the male who was too stunned to run away and
shoved him against the wall with as much force as he could
muster.

“Where is my mate?”

The male’s eyes rolled back in his head as
the scent of urine filled the air. Slapping him hard across the
cheek, Tosh snorted in disgust.

“Tell me where she is or I’ll skin you
alive!”

Rousing from his near-faint, the male
struggled to get away. Tosh let his beast out enough so that his
teeth elongated and his eyes changed color. Roaring in his face and
snapping his fangs an inch from the man’s nose, Tosh demanded once
more, “Tell me where December is or suffer!”

With a whimper, the male hung his head.
“She’s in the basement of the warehouse.”

Tosh noticed he had a keycard hanging around
his neck. “Take me to her.”

“They’ll kill me.”

“
I’ll
kill you, and I won’t be
quick.”

Swallowing audibly, the male nodded. Tosh
released his hold long enough for the male to turn, and then he
grabbed his collar and walked with him to the front door. Aware he
was naked, but not caring at all, Tosh watched as the male used the
keycard to unlock the security door on the first floor.

“There aren’t any alarms,” Tosh said as he
walked through the door and into a sterile looking hallway. It was
entirely white, from the ceiling to the tile floor, and scented
heavily of cleaning products.

“Only down below.”

Tosh grunted. Whoever took Deci was either
very confident of never being found or had excellent security in
the basement, negating the need for more than one security person
above ground.

They stopped at an elevator door at the end
of the hallway. The male swiped his badge over the panel, and it
made a piercing beep as it glowed red. His voice was shaky as he
spoke. “They know someone is here. They’ve already locked me out.”
He looked over his shoulder at Tosh. “You’re too late.”

Tosh grabbed the male by the back of the neck
and threw him back down the hallway. There was no such thing as too
late.

Letting his beast free, Tosh shifted into his
dragon form and filled up the hallway. Pressing his wings close to
his back, he sank his claws into the elevator doors and tugged, his
muscles bunching as he ripped off the doors. Taking a deep breath,
he focused his power and blew a stream of concentrated fire at the
floor of the elevator. Fire alarms blared loudly, and sprinklers
went off in the hallway, but nothing could stop the intense heat of
his fire. The floor melted, and Tosh shifted into his human form
and leaped through the gaping hole. As he fell, he drew upon a
little-known power, one that was linked to his family line. He
could partially shift. Wings burst from his back, and his skin
prickled with shiny scales as thick claws formed on his fingers and
toes. Easing the descent with his wings, Tosh landed on the floor
of the elevator shaft and gripped the door. Pulling with all his
might, he slowly separated the heavy doors.