EnchainedDragon Page 3

  “No, not knowing how devious you are. Now I know you meant for me to intercede and why.”

  “Have you told this human yet that he was to have been your consort until you interceded, ummmm?”

  “I have not, nor will I force him to be.”

  Estacrewban’s smirk reminded Jason of a recent portrayal of Loki, the trickster, he’d seen in some movie. He knew something Guy didn’t and was going to enjoy telling him. “As if you could? Ummm, cousin? How complete will your life be when he refuses you and you have not the power to convince him? Are you perhaps so grateful now that you arrived just in time to save him from me?”

  “What’s he talking about?” Jason asked.

  Estacrewban answered. “You are the only thing that would draw my sanctimonious cousin from Vargr. While he strives to overcome his shame to restore the family honor, he has become overbearingly self-righteous. The price of learning his foretell was well worth it to lure him here to save his intended.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you saying you came after me to set him up in some way?” Jason asked.

  “Did you fuck him?” Estacrewban asked of Guy with the same smirk.

  “Why the hell is everyone so interested in your sex life?” Jason demanded before Guy answered.

  “When he broke my spell on you, physically, sexually, he gave you immunity to him as well as me. I have changed destiny. Fate no longer binds the two of you.”

  Plodding down to sit on a pallet of cartons, Jason grumbled, “If this isn’t the craziest shit I’ve ever heard.”

  Looking straight at Jason, Estacrewban’s fucking eyes glowed. “I will take you without enchantment and drink your blood when I’m finished with you.” His gaze shifted to Guy. “First I will kill you.”

  Estacrewban raised his hand and things, the like of which Jason never wanted to see, stalked down the aisle Doing what any human well-trained to fight would do when faced with monsters with mouths full of needle-sharp teeth and drooling slime, Jason drew his sidearm, pushed Guy from where he moved to in front of him, and started firing. Estacrewban spun halfway around, both hands to his chest and fell to his knees. The shrieks that followed nearly burst Jason’s eardrums, not that the sounds were louder than artillery fire or distracted him. In rapid succession monsters’ bent on killing at him, arms extended, mouths chomping, realized it wasn’t so easy. Heads exploded in gory messes, one, two, three, before they could turn and retreat. The fourth as well as Estacrewban were on the run. Jason would have gone after them had Guy not caught him, holding him back.

  “They’re getting away. Let the fuck go of me. You’re breaking my arm.”

  Guy loosened his hold, but didn’t release him, staring at him like something nasty found under a microscope. “How did you know to shoot them in the head?”

  Jason shrugged. He hadn’t analyzed. He’d just reacted. “Probably because the first asshole didn’t stay down with a chest shot. Why did you let them go?”

  “I don’t trust them not to be attempting to draw you into an ambush, although your swift action did take them by surprise.”

  “Yeah?” Jason ejected the nearly empty clip in his gun, inserting a full one. “You too, to judge by the way you’re staring at me.”

  “Yes, by the way you did not hesitate in facing an enemy you had never seen before.”

  Jason looked at the bodies of the hideous creatures he’d put down and reaction set in. Shaking, he backed up and sat down again. “What are those things?”

  “Goblins.”

  “What the hell else are you going to pull on me?”

  “I did not do this. I attempted to save you from attack, but you refused to leave. As long as you are here and the others fail to locate where they hide, drive them back, or kill them, and close the blood gate from which they entered, there will be more attacks. I’ve no way of knowing what others Estacrewban will use. You must realize as long as he pursues you, other humans will be at risk.”

  “First explain what the hell a blood gate is.”

  “An opening in the wall between our dimensions that only a wizard can create. Estacrewban would have paid handsomely for one.”

  “For just me. I don’t think so. I’m not the one he’s really after, am I?”

  “It was not you, but me, using you. It is as he said. Hatred has been between us since my birth.”

  “How can you be a cousin to that thing?”

  “He is the result of the rape of my mother’s sister. His father kept her alive long enough to give birth to him before he killed her.”

  “It sounds to me like as long as I’m with you, he’ll come after us. You go away, so does he.”

  “He meant to first enchain you and kill you slowly to hurt me. Now he will consider you an unfinished objective.”

  Another voice joined the conversation. “He—”

  With the gun still in his hand, Jason lunged up, spun, registered what he saw, and fired. Only Guy’s fast reaction kept the newcomer from getting a bullet in the head. Guy hit Jason’s arm and sent the bullet to the ceiling. The horned, winged being shot across the floor.

  Wrapped in Guy’s arms, Guy between them, Jason decided in an instant that discretion was the greater part of valor. He’d really pissed off whatever it was.

  “He didn’t know you, Prince Leviathan,” Guy cried. “We had just been attacked and…”

  His voice trailed off when the second being, a beautiful blond man, interrupted. “You aren’t glamoured, Levi, and you’re enough to frighten any human.”

  “He could have injured you!” the thing growled.

  “He didn’t. Let it go.”

  “Prince Elvie,” Guy said, bowing his head.

  “Cole,” he corrected and stepped forward, his hand out to Jason. “I was a changeling, raised as human. I like my human name better.”

  Jason didn’t accept his hand. He couldn’t and explained, “He’s holding me in a vise.” Guy shoved Jason back hard and fast enough to make his head snap. “Ow!”

  “You must remember,” Prince Leviathan said, “humans are fragile.”

  Jason bristled. “Yeah, and everyone I’m met from Vargr is an egotistical asshole.”

  Levi growled, Guy groaned, and Cole laughed, saying, “Except me, I hope.”

  “There is hope for you,” Jason admitted. He liked the little guy despite the mop of curls and cherry red lips. “What are you?”

  “I’m a fairy.”

  “You’re a fairy, he’s an elf, and you’re…”

  Leviathan answered. “I am half-demon.”

  “Half what else?”

  “My mother is a fairy.”

  Jason grunted. “Right off hand, I’d say you don’t take after your mother.”

  Cole snickered and told Jason, “His mother is quite beautiful. May I introduce you? Prince Leviathan of Vargr.”

  In no way would Jason call Leviathan beautiful, but he was magnificent once you got past the wings, horns, what looked like scales covering most of his upper body, and a kind of glow to him. Looking into his eyes wasn’t comfortable either since he had long and narrow pupils more like a reptile’s than a human’s. The man in him had to appreciate the half-demon’s body, though, and the way the skin-tight black leather pants molded to his strong legs and a well-endowed cock and ball area as well. A prickling at the back of his neck distracted him from further appraisal. Turning his head, he found the cause of the sensation. Guy was staring holes through him.

  “He is not like the others,” Guy told him, his voice tight. “One shot would not have—”

  “Even in the head?”

  “He would have deflected it and—”

  “Ripped your head off,” Leviathan finished for him and spoke to Guy. “Enough of this. Your personal vendetta against Estacrewban will be set aside until matters are more settled at home.”

  “I am not the one who forced this confrontation, Prince Leviathan. Estacrewban opened a blood
gate and came here. I but followed.”

  Jason interrupted. “That other one with horns, he thought I might be a changeling?”

  “Patrick is a minor demon,” Guy answered.

  “You are not a changeling, though it is possible you have a dormant heritage of something I sense but too faintly to identify,” Levi stated. “Too faint, with too many generations for it to be significant.”

  “So,” Jason asked, his brows pulled down in a scowl, “it’s okay for Estacrewban to do whatever he wants to do to me?”

  “No!” three voices proclaimed at once.

  “You will be taken to Vargr for protection,” the haughty prince told him.

  “No, I won’t.”

  “We have not the resources to expend on protecting one stubborn human. You will do as you are told.”

  “No, I won’t.” He raised a hand to stop Leviathan’s retort. “Taking me back doesn’t get Estacrewban back or those hideous things with him. I’m the bait to draw him out because he figures Guy will be with me, and he wants us both.”

  “This is so?” he asked of Guy.

  Guy answered by waving his hand at the bodies. “I doubt I would have been able to fight them off if Jason had not surprised them with his weapon.”

  “Estacrewban has had a wizard create a connection to him?”

  “As he found Jason to begin and us here I can only assume he has. How he located him to begin is a question. I believe only a wizard of great power would be able to do so, a very strong one. Once divining who he was, he needed only for an agent to acquire something personal to do a scurry.”

  “A discarded paper coffee cup would be all it would have taken. Damnation, this complicates things. I will call for a cleanup. How much time before someone else arrives?”

  “How did you know where we are?” Jason asked instead of answering.

  “From Sheels when he requested backup for surveillance. How much longer before others will arrive here?”

  “In about four hours.”

  “Time enough to clean up the mess you’ve made.”

  “Like you wouldn’t have made a mess?” Jason shot back in challenge.

  With a raised eyebrow, or what Jason thought was an eyebrow, the half demon said, “Yes, we would have. We will remove all the bodies, clean the area, and you will leave here in your usual manner as if nothing has happened.”

  “Then what? Where is Sheels to give me a bad time?”

  “Outside, dead as are the other members of his team.”

  “Dead?” he asked with a grimace.

  “You disliked Sheels,” Guy told him.

  “That doesn’t mean I wanted him dead. Do I want to know how?”

  “Decapitated and the humans’ heads were taken.”

  “Some consider human brains a delicacy, especially children’s,” Guy supplied.

  Rubbing the itch and tingling on his forearm briskly and swallowing hard, Jason told him, “Too much information.”

  “I apologize if it is distressing to you, but it is valuable information. Did I injure your arm?”

  “No.” He dropped his hand, even if the itching was reaching an intolerable level. He hadn’t had an attack since a particularly bad, prolonged situation in Afghanistan. He for damned sure wasn’t going to admit to a case of a nerve induced rash to any of them only to be called a fragile human again. The army had done a pretty good job of that when they kicked him out.

  * * * *

  “I do not believe this is a good idea.”

  Jason kept on packing. “I didn’t ask you. If you don’t want to go along, don’t.”

  “You cannot be left alone. You should wait here until the replacement team arrives.”

  “So they can be killed too?”

  “They will be better prepared and more experienced. Prince Leviathan is far more powerful than those who had been with Sheels.”

  Jason closed the backpack and tied the flap down. “You could find him, couldn’t you? You’re connected in some way. That was how you appeared in that motel room the way you did?”

  “I was able many years ago to obtain a sample of his tissue and have a wizard conjure a spell.”

  “Then why don’t you go after him?”

  “To confront him at his location would be to his advantage.”

  “Did he do the same thing with you?”

  “Not to my knowledge, but it appears he has with you.”

  With a grunt, Jason swung the pack up, hooking one strap on one shoulder. “Go back to Vargr.”

  “Do you have a death wish?”

  “No, but I’m going to choose the place and the weapons to face that creep. You aren’t prepared for where I’m going.”

  “I can be, and as I will not let you out of my sight, you will wait while I do so.” He mimicked the shrug Jason used so often. “I know you would not want my death or discomfort on your conscience.”

  Jason walked to the bathroom door, set the pack on the floor and told him. “This is one area where you will let me out of your sight. I’m going to take a shower.”

  Stepping through the doorway, he slammed the door shut, leaned back against it, and scratched viciously at his arm from his wrist to his shoulder. If it weren’t for the damned rash, he’d consider inviting Guy to share the water with him. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. As horny as he got just looking at Guy, human or elf, that whole consort thing Estacrewban had mentioned was yet to be explained, and he had no idea of what would happen once he let Guy do him the human way.

  Any other time he wouldn’t have thought fucking was anything more than fucking, no matter how many times he’d read about mating rituals, blood matches, and any other paranormal theories and the habit of non-human gay men, stuff he’d only considered entertaining until he’d seen his first in the flesh elf. After that fairies, goblins, and don’t forget half-demons, casting spells that enchained and made you a slave seemed to be just part of the package.

  “I’m losing my mind believing any of it,” he murmured, stripping off his shirt to scratch again at his arm with flakes of skin falling like dandruff. “Just what I need, a fucking nerve attack.”

  He hadn’t been truthful with Guy about getting out of the army. That rash had been diagnosed as a direct result of a nervous condition. They’d been fair to him, that he’d admit, but once he was diagnosed, he was restricted from action. They’d sent him state side to a desk job. Jason finished out his enlistment and was gone. He couldn’t stand the damn desk job or the whispered about why he’d been taken off deployment.

  Looking more closely at his arm, he groaned softly. This was by far the worse attack he’d ever had. The skin was peeling off over the welts, and the flesh beneath was discolored. The damned stuff was spreading too, crawling up his arm to his shoulder, circling around to his back and up around his neck.

  “Jason, you are well?” Guy called through the door.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I was concerned as you failed to take clean clothing with you.”

  “Fuck.”

  * * * *

  Four hours later, Jason was where he wanted to be, in an environment he’d have some control over. Trailing behind Jason while he worked, Guy told him, “I find myself at a loss over your choice of vocabulary. You are an educated man yet you chose to use profanity and slang instead of proper speech.”

  “If you don’t like the way I talk, go the hell away.”

  “I cannot. The threat to you—”

  “Yeah, yeah, blah, blah.”

  “Your foul temper seems to grow with each minute, and you continually scratch at your arm. Have you been bitten?

  “It’s fucking nerves, okay? Stress. Now you know why the army didn’t want me anymore and I have a menial—wasn’t that what you called it?—job. I couldn’t fucking handle the stress and break out in a rash. Whoopee me.”

  “Perhaps you should rest,” Guy suggested in a humoring manner to aggravat
e Jason even more.

  Rather than retorting back, he settled for giving Guy a “go to hell” look. Jason’s mood was a direct result of the spreading rash. Not so much spreading as the itch intensifying, and rest would not help. From his wrist to his shoulder and encircling his neck, his skin was driving him crazy. Not a great condition to be in when setting up booby traps and smearing on the suave the army physician prescribed to deaden the sensitivity to his nerve endings wasn’t helping.

  Jason finished the last trip wire attached to a grenade leading into the clearing where he’d erected his tent. Arching his back, he took a moment to appreciate their surroundings. Always a lover of the outdoors, he could live in the forest if he didn’t have to make a living.

  Satisfied that he had the entrances to the meadow booby trapped, Jason asked, Guy, “Do you know anything at all about firing a gun?”

  “No. We do not use such weapons in Vargr.”

  “You ready for a lesson?”

  “In this instant, I believe that would be wise.” He waved his hand at the open area surrounding them. “You have chosen this area to give them no protection from your weapons?”

  “Right, and set the tent up in an invitation to come get me.”

  “They will not come so quickly. They know now of your weapons.”

  “Not of those traps I set up and not of these.” He opened one of the two crates he’s stopped at his storage unit to retrieve. Once back stateside, obtaining his own munitions hadn’t been hard, thought he’d worried a bit about his state of mind while doing it. Thinking he was probably suffering some PTSD, not able to leave the war behind, he’d gotten a collection of weapons and ammunition. If law enforcement had ever found it, they probably would have arrested him. He showed Guy an M4, a shortened version of the M16 he preferred, thinking it would be easier for him to handle.

  “Watch,” he ordered, slamming in the clip, cocking, and setting the safety. He tapped the safety. “Reverse this when you ready to shoot. In this close range, all you have to do is point at what you want to hit and pull the trigger. When it clicks on empty, reload.”