shift happens 03 - no were to run (27 page)

I hadn’t even noticed them and couldn’t make out if they were men or women. They were so far beyond repair the most humane thing to do would be to kill them and put them out of their misery. My father was a sick fuck. I’d kill him first and then deal with the tragedy at his feet.

“Stronger, no thanks to you,” I said.

“Touché,” he replied with a hollow laugh.

I stared at him hard as I tried like hell to decipher what the catch was. The simplicity of the scene was all wrong. It was too easy.

I’d just wing it. There was no other option.

“You have two choices here,” I told him with a smile on my lips and hatred lacing my words. “You can die quickly or you can die slowly. Technically you deserve no choice whatsoever considering the sins you committed, but I’m quite sure they have a special place in hell for people like you. Not to mention, I’m polite. Pick now or I’ll pick for you.”

“Oh Dima, Dima, Dima, you amuse me so. Do you
really
think you can kill me?”

“Yes. Yes, I
really
think I can.”

“Well, before we get to that gruesome part of our daddy-daughter visit, I’d like to let you know my terms.”

Again he kicked the filthy pathetic people at his feet. I heard a faint feminine cry and it chilled me to the bone.

“
Your
terms?” Nicolai laughed with no humor in his voice. “You will make no terms.”

“I beg to disagree,” my father said in such a mild tone the hair on my neck stood up. “And you are?”

“Dima’s mate.”

My father clapped his hands, but this time with far more gusto. “Welcome to the family. We’re a delightful bunch. PS,” he whispered, leaning forward as if he was letting us in on a secret. “I know exactly who you are
Nicolai
. You’ll be pleased to know your sister only screamed a little bit when we skinned her. Such a mess.”

Nicolai’s roar of pain bounced off the walls and he dove for my father with a rage that was as magnificent as it was horrifying. Every Dragon in the room went for the soulless King. Through the melee, my father’s eyes never strayed from mine. He winked at me as all movement seemed to morph into slow motion.

And then the shoe I was searching for dropped.

With a careless wave of his hands a circular wall of translucent fire dropped down around him, shielding him and the four dying Dragons on the ground from the onslaught. All it took was a second for more than forty of our Dragons to burn to ash as they came into contact with the fire wall.

The scream that left my throat was animalistic as I searched frantically for Nicolai amidst the carnage. The relief that powered through me as I saw him yanking Dragons back from the wall brought me to my knees. My father had once destroyed my world there was no way in hell I would let him do it a second time.

My vision narrowed with fury as I heard my father’s laugh above the cries of agony for so many lost in the blink of an eye. The bastard possessed magic. It was impossible since he wasn’t of the Royal Dragon line, but I suspected he’d tortured it out of my grandfather.

However, my father didn’t yet know the true meaning of torture. I just needed to get through the wall and I would teach him. The only way to fight magic was with magic. I had no real clue what the hell I was going to do, I just knew I was going to do it.

“Stop,” Lenny roared harshly as he entered the room in an enormous cloud of smoke. “Everyone stand back. Now.”

“Is that you Lenny?” my father asked. “I had a feeling you would be here! I’ve missed you so much. It’s wonderful of you to come back. The dungeon hasn’t been the same without you. So many people scream when I play with them. It was so refreshing to have someone who could take it in such stoic silence.”

I swallowed back the bile in my throat as I glared at the abomination who’d sired me. There was nothing about him that I could even call Dragon. He was pure evil.

“Let him make his terms,” Lenny yelled to the crowd. He wore a strange expression and appeared to have aged dramatically.

I was so flabbergasted by Lenny’s order to cave in to my father’s demands that I didn’t notice Maria, Seth and Elaina surround me. Maria touched my shoulder and helped me to my feet. I sagged forward into her arms with relief. At this point I had no clear idea who’d perished, but was wildly grateful that my closest had been spared.

“He is fucking insane,” Maria hissed as sparks of fire danced on her skin. “There is no way in hell we’re related to that piece of shit.”

“Who? Lenny or the King?” I asked.

“Well, right now, both of them,” she snarled.

Maria was correct. This was bullshit and wasn’t going to happen.

“There will be no terms,” I shouted over the din.

“There will be terms,” Lenny contradicted me savagely. “He has the hoard.”

I was dumbfounded that while almost half of our army lay dead on the floor, Lenny was concerned with money or jewels or whatever the hell my father had. Disgust didn’t begin to cover how I felt. Lenny’s selfish materialism was staggering. I clearly didn’t know the man at all—and now I didn’t want to.

Nicolai caught my eye. He was shocked and confused as I was.

“Ahhh yes, the
hoard
. I just knew they would come in handy some day,” my father sneered and grabbed two of the half dead Dragons by the hair in one hand the second two in his other. “And today is the lucky day.”

He held them high as if they weighed nothing—they did weigh next to nothing. They were completely skin and bones. My heart jumped to my throat as I imagined the unspeakable horror the Dragons must have suffered. I’d seen many awful things in my life, but these poor people were up there with the worst. They’d clearly been treated like animals.

My father’s eye’s lit up with maniacal excitement as he held their faces close to the deadly wall of fire. “Dima, darling I’m surprised you haven’t said hello to your mother and your brothers yet. I thought your manners were far better than that.”

“Wh…what?” I asked in a small voice that seemed to be coming from very far away. What was he saying? They were dead. His games were so vicious.

The half-dead Dragon woman look up and me and cried out raggedly, “Go. You must leave. He will kill you. Go.”

Her voice sounded so familiar. I’d heard those words before. I tilted my head as my body began to shake violently. She was dead. She wasn’t talking to me. That wasn’t possible. A keening wail filled my ears and I wanted it to stop, but it wouldn’t stop.

I glanced around sharply to see who was making the awful noise and I realized it was me. I tried to stop but the sound kept coming. Why couldn’t I stop?

Maria dropped to the ground beside me and vomited. Lenny walked toward me, but his face was distorted. He looked so odd. I thought I heard Elaina scream for Nicolai, but surely I was mistaken. The room was floating. We should probably leave. It was getting dark and it would be time for dinner soon. My mother was a wonderful cook. I wondered if she would be upset if I brought my friends home with me. She never got mad.

I pressed at my eyelids and tried to stop my eyes from moving so fast. It was so hard to see when they kept rolling back in my head. Oh thank goodness, Nicolai was here. I wanted him to meet my brothers. They would like him.

The feel of a large hand connecting to my cheek violently jerked me out of the hell I’d descended into. Nicolai stood over me. His eyes were wild with concern and I knew he had pulled me back from the abyss. The burning sting was nothing compared to the pain of reentering reality and having to absorb the horror of what was before my eyes.

My father hadn’t killed them. They were alive—barely—and he’d kept them to use against me one day. I now understood my grandfather’s obsession with the hoard. My mother and brothers were my father’s hoard. Not because he loved them, but because he hated
me
.

I would listen to his terms. And I would probably agree to them.

“So here’s how it’s going to go,” he purred as dropped my precious broken family to the ground and clasped his blood stained hands in front of him. “You will restore my finances and my reputation. I don’t care how you accomplish this, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I was very impressed with how quickly you ruined me.”

My voice was hoarse from wailing so I nodded my assent.

“You will alert the press that I was sabotaged by a group that goes by The Resistance. You will see to it that all of your names hit the press—every single last one of you. I will then give you a twenty-four hour head start and I will methodically hunt each and every one of you down and kill you.”

“He’s fucking crazy,” Nicolai muttered under his breath.

I couldn’t have agreed more, but I had one last plan up my sleeve.

“My mother and my brothers. You will give them to me or I won’t agree to any of your
terms
,” I ground out through my raw throat.

“These old things?” he asked as he kicked my mother. “You can have them. I don’t want them anymore.”

I was so consumed with hatred I couldn’t see straight, but I stayed outwardly calm. The bastard was about to win. Unless I could pull some massive magic out of my ass, I was helpless to do a damned thing about it. I knew he had no intention of releasing my mother and brothers. That did not work for me. Staring at him, I tried to remember if I ever loved the man.

He continued to make more demands, but I could no longer hear him. It was fuzzy, but I think he might have held me once or twice as a child. What had happened for him to become such a monster—or was he just born a monster?

All I needed to do was pull up some magic. I watched his mouth continue to move and I turned my focus into myself.

Concentrating on his face, I drew on all the raw hatred I felt for him. It wasn’t difficult, there was nothing in him to love. The magic refused me, no matter how hard I tried. My world had just gotten good after hundreds of years of sorrow and fear. He’d ruined my life by killing the ones I’d loved most—or so I’d thought. Was I seriously going to let him get away with it again?

There would never be a moment of peace for any of the people I cared about. We would all be running for our lives for eternity. He would get his money and reputation back and he would rebuild even stronger than he was before. Unacceptable.

It was one thing for me to have lived hand to mouth for centuries, it was another thing altogether for that to happen to Nicolai, Lenny and Maria. I loved them all—me, who didn’t even rediscover what love meant until I had my child. I loved Nicolai and Seth and Elaina and Maria. I loved Lenny and Junior and Essie and Hank. I worshiped the ground Dwayne and Granny walked on and Daniel…I loved him more than life itself. And my mother and brothers, Sean, Timothy and Matthew—the four people I thought were gone forever—I’d loved them desperately for almost five hundred years.

My heart sped up and something beautiful and unfamiliar coursed through my blood.

Oh. My. God.

That was it. Magic wasn’t based in hatred. It was rooted in love.

Why did the hardest questions always have the simplest answers?

“I accept your terms,” I said cutting my father off mid sentence.

“I wasn’t finished yet,” he pouted. “There’s more.”

My Dragons were on edge and unsure what I was doing, but no one contradicted me.

“How long do I have to accomplish this?” I asked.

A heartless smile split my father’s face and he feigned deep thought. “A week. I’ll give you a week. If it’s not to my satisfaction, I’ll behead your sweet mother and brothers and send you the footage. How does that sound?”

“It sounds fine,” I said looking for an opening to get at him. The fire wall was an issue…but maybe not.

“
I hope to God you know what you’re doing,”
Nicolai hissed inside my mind.

My eyes shot to Nicolai’s and my mouth opened into a small O.

“
Can you hear me?
” he asked, wary yet hopeful.

“
I can. Are you mind speaking with me?
”

“
Apparently. Do you have a plan here, Princess?
”

“
I do
.”

“
Wanna share?
”

“
No, but you could help me out if you would cause a distraction on the right side of the room
,” I said getting more excited with each passing second.

“
Big one or little one?
” he asked.

“
Big. Very big
.”

“
Are you going to cross the fire wall
?” he demanded tersely as he eyes narrowed dangerously at me.

“
In a roundabout way. Just please trust me and create a motherfucker of a diversion
.”

“
You’ve been hanging out with Maria too much
,” he said as he turned his head to hide his grin from my father who was still adding to his list of demands.

“
This is true. I love you, Asscanoe
.”

“
Back at you, Princess. On three?
”

I gave him a small nod. “
On three
.”