Dan’s hands shot up to his windpipe, and he began to choke on the blood, gurgling like a broken spigot. His demonic red eyes faded back to deep brown, and his face grew pale and ashen.
Jordan pushed to her knees, still on the couch, and clutched her hair in her hands, trembling. “Oh, God… Oh, no… Oh, please! You’re killing him, Zane. You’re destroying Dan.” A plaintive sob escaped her throat—this was all happening much too quickly. She didn’t have time to process—she only knew that murder was wrong, and even the worst of souls could find redemption. Surely Dan was not without his saving graces. He prosecuted criminals for a living, for heaven’s sake! There had to be something…something redeemable…something Zane could do. “Please, dragyri,” she pleaded breathlessly. “Please, don’t kill him like this—not even for me. He has a brother, he has a mom, he has a life that makes a difference…even if he’s lost his way.”
The feral shout—the angry roar—that emanated from Zane’s throat would stay with Jordan forever. She would never forget that sound as he glared at her with unconcealed rage and abject disappointment stamped into his predatory features. “You would die for him? You would risk my life…and yours…so he could live?”
“Not for him,” she argued. “For what’s right! For justice. I don’t believe in execution without a trial. I believe each soul is innocent…until proven guilty.”
Zane’s laughter was purely sardonic. “Oh, my dragyra—I adore you so, but you have so very much to learn. The innocent are innocent. The guilty are guilty. One does not need a human trial when one can see into the soul. And one does not toy with a shadow-walker.”
Jordan gulped.
She knew they were in grave danger.
She knew that whatever was animating Dan Summers’ body, it was evil to its core. Still, she didn’t want him to die. She just couldn’t watch it happen. She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. “I am human, Zane. If you despise us all so much, then you also despise me.”
His eyes closed briefly, and he angled his head in annoyance. Then he dipped down into a squat, reached inside his boot, and retrieved an archaic stiletto, the handle carved into the shape of a dragon. With infinite precision and lightning quick speed, he rose to his full, intimidating height, grasped the attorney by the scalp, and sliced something away from the nape of his neck, the bloody flesh plopping on the ground. Then he drove his fist through Dan’s heaving back, and pulled something macabre out of him—it looked like a shadowy spine, a dark, inky impression of thirty-three vertebrae: cervical, thoracic, lumbar—sacral and coccygeal.
Dan’s body slumped to the ground, face first, seemingly absent of life, as Zane snapped the shadowy backbone in two, tossed both halves across the bunker, and knelt over the unconscious torso. His mouth opened wider than any mouth should, and a searing, oscillating, silver-blue flame bathed Dan’s skull and his back in fire. Then Zane tossed him over like a carcass of meat, and bathed his throat in the same.
The assistant district attorney sputtered.
He jackknifed off the floor and screamed.
And then he panted like a fish out of water, trying to catch his breath.
Zane met Jordan’s gaze with a steely stare of his own, and he nodded before scanning the floor for the spine. “We need to get out of here, and fast!” he barked. “You need to go back through the portal with one of my brothers.”
Before she could scramble off the couch or reply, there was a harrowing squeal in the bunker—a high-pitched wail, like a siren—and then all of a sudden, the separate halves of the shadowy spine began to slither across the tiles. They moved faster than Jordan’s eyes could track—the two separate ends came together…
They merged.
And then they rose like a ghost from a shallow grave, transforming into a hulking tower of darkness, hatred, and rage…
A living, breathing shadow.
Jordan inhaled sharply, fearing she might lose her dinner, and her heart sank in her chest—the shadow was stretching to the ceiling, filling out the bunker, and lumbering slowly forward.
Toward Zane.
And the entire predicament, this newfound threat, was all Jordan’s fault.
In the time it had taken Zane to heal Dan, the dragyri could have scorched the vertebrae, and Jordan and Zane could have escaped.
He hadn’t had a second to spare.
For all intents and purposes, Dan had been dead, and Zane had chosen to reanimate Jordan’s ex-lover instead of extinguishing the threat.
Now, he was facing a monster.
f
Zane knew they were out of time.
He would never get Jordan up the stairs, away from the perilous shadow, and into the portal, to safety. And he no longer had a window of opportunity to take her to one of his brothers while he stayed and fought the pagan.
The shadow-walker was too strong.
Too intent on annihilation.
Zane leaped across the bunker, placing his immortal body between Jordan and the shade, and he thanked the gods of the sacred stones that he had been born a Genesis Son. “Father!” he shouted, shaking the bunker. “My lord, I need your assistance!”
He felt Lord Saphyrius stir, but he didn’t have time to listen…
Or to wait.
The shadow-walker had taken on a loosely human form, and it dove across the bunker at Zane, crashing into the center of the dragyri’s torso. Zane’s ribs exploded inward, breaking in his chest, and he gasped in pain, fighting for breath, all the while trying to shove his assailant backward. The bastard felt like a five-ton truck—he just kept coming, and coming…and coming. The dance of arms, of claws, and fists was like an industrial fan spinning at inhuman velocity: strike, block, stab, retreat…on and on, they tangled.
Zane grasped the shade by the forearm and broke it; the shadow countered by crushing Zane’s hand. Zane slammed his forehead into the shadow’s bony brow; the reptilian frontal lobe gave way, and the creature retaliated by spewing acidic goo—trying to spray Zane in the eyes.
He missed by the width of a human hair.
The pagan grunted, drew back his unbroken arm, and quickly plunged it forward, tunneling through Zane’s exposed chest. He snatched Zane’s heart and began to tug, trying to wrench it free from the dragyri’s thorax. Zane latched on to the shadow’s spindly wrist and held it in a vise grip of his own. He drew on his limited breath—his broken ribs were impeding his lungs—and exhaled a long, continuous flame, trying to melt the pagan’s face off…force him to let go of his heart.
And that’s when he felt the power of the dragon lord swelling within his breast.
Reach for your amulet, my son! The thunderous command was imperious, but holy shit—was Lord Saphyrius crazy? The pagan still had Zane’s heart! If he let go, it would all be over.
Trust me, dragyri!
Marshaling all the preternatural speed of his kind, Zane released the pagan’s wrist and clutched at his amulet. The sapphire glowed in an instant. Zane’s ribs knitted together, and a force like a raging tornado exploded outward.
Rising like an ancient serpent from the sea, Zane let out a feral roar and lunged forward. His jaw went lax, his throat filled with fire, and his neck grew a dozen inches longer. He struck like a viper, inhaling the pagan’s head and closing his jaws around it. Then he whipped his head from side to side, sending pieces of the pagan flying—serrating the shadow’s body with his treacherous teeth.
Zane continued to pounce on the remnants.
He let go of the pagan’s crushed skull and seared it to ash. Then he wandered from body part to body part, slinking throughout the room, scorching anything that was left.
A dazzling blue beam of light shot forth from Zane’s amulet, cascaded upward into an arc, and curved backward, entering his body through his throat. It snaked through his veins, saturated his muscles, and meandered through the collagen in his bones. And just like that, his ribs were healed, his hand was repaired, and his forehead was whole.
His he
art beat with new vitality as he rose from the floor and spun around, searching the room for Jordan while reclaiming his aboriginal form. “Angel,” he called out, listening for her heartbeat.
She was hiding on the floor, crouched behind the couch, and peeking around the arm. Her eyes were as wide as saucers; her mouth was hanging open; and she looked like she had just seen a ghost.
“Are you okay?” he asked, covering the distance between them in seconds.
She jerked back, threw up her hands, and cowered before him.
“Do not be afraid,” he murmured. “I will never harm you, angel—you know this.”
She gulped, tried to speak, and grunted something incoherent.
Zane angled his head to the side and tried to offer a smile, however faint, to reassure her.
She shook her head back and forth to clear her bewilderment. “I thought…” The words came out as a croak, and she had to try again. “I thought you weren’t a shifter.”
Zane softened his voice. “I’m not, baby girl.” Then he held out his hand to help her up. “Come, dragyra, we need to get out of here.”
She stared at his palm like he was an executioner inviting her to take a trip to the gallows, and then she slowly marshaled her courage and clasped the proffered offering. “What about Dan?” she asked, glancing across the floor at the crumpled, unconscious body.
“He will live,” Zane said, “but you’re right…”
He released her hand, sauntered across the floor, and knelt in front of the body, cupping Dan’s head in his hands. “When you awaken, you will remember nothing! The last time you saw Jordan”—he dipped into her mind—“was in passing, at work. You haven’t spoken to her since. There was no letter.” He scanned the bunker, eyed the missive on a tiny metal end table, and drew it into his hand, using telekinesis. And then he scorched it into cinders. “There was no text”—he found Dan’s cell phone in Dan’s jacket pocket and crushed it in the palm of his hand—“and you are no longer in love with Jordan. You don’t know why you’re here; you don’t know what happened; and you no longer worship the Cult of Hades. Return to your life and make it worthwhile.” He started to stand up, but remembered one last thing. “Oh, and you will be asked a lot of questions: about the courthouse, about Judge Moran, about Jordan Anderson. You don’t know, you don’t remember, and frankly, you no longer care enough to investigate.”
There was no need to wake the human up to check for the strength of the compulsion, or to make sure the directives would hold. Zane’s entire essence was still imbued with the power of Lord Saphyrius—the human would be lucky if his entire mind wasn’t scrubbed, and empty, by the time he awakened.
He’d be lucky if he could still speak and walk.
But Zane was not going to share that with Jordan—he had done everything he could.
Just then, a pair of loud, heavy boots beat down the stairs and stomped to the edge of the doorway, and Axe Saphyrius peered through the decimated hatch. “Everything copasetic in here?” he grumbled.
Zane scrubbed his hand over his face and glanced around the room, taking in the massive destruction. “It’s over—that’s what matters.”
Axe glanced at him sideways and frowned.
“What?” Zane asked.
“You’re glowing…kind of blue.”
Zane shrugged. “I had to reach out to my maker.”
Axe whistled low, beneath his breath, and eyed the bunker a second time, paying special attention to the piles of slag and the inky stains of pagan blood. “Damn,” he muttered. “Well, all right, then…” He swept his gaze over Jordan. “She okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jordan said curtly. She sounded a tad bit miffed that Axe had asked Zane, instead of her.
Oh, well…
It had been a really long night—she would have to get over that infraction.
Axe nodded.
“What about the scene outside?” Zane asked. “How many pagans are we talking?”
Axe sniffed and grunted and rotated his shoulders, releasing a boat-load of tension. “Uh, that would be a zero at this juncture.” He smiled, and the light-hearted gesture looked curiously odd on his harsh, masculine features. “The Diamond Lair showed up,” he explained. “Jace has a broken leg; Levi is missing a hand; and last I checked, Nakai’s entrails were still on the front lawn, but the pagans are either gone or dead, and Ghost is blazing Nakai back together.”
“Ghost?” Zane asked, incredulous.
“Yeah,” Axe chuckled. “He ripped two pagans apart in the grass, crouched down to eat them, and almost took a chunk out of Nakai. I think he feels guilty—well, as much as Ghost can.”
Zane grimaced, and Jordan swayed on her feet. “Catch her!” Zane barked.
Axe moved with a quickness, slipping his palm along the small of Jordan’s back, and slowly tipping her upright. He waited for her to catch her breath. “You good?”
Zane stepped in before she could answer, taking his dragyra in his arms, lifting her off her feet, and holding her like a child—tenderly, against his chest. “Well, I hate to skip out on the clean-up, but Jordan needs to rest. I’m gonna take her back through the portal.”
Axe nodded again. “Not a problem, brother. I’ll walk you outside. Nice to see you both in one piece.”
Chapter Thirty
Jordan sank deep into the hot, bubbling water in Zane’s private hot tub, outside on his secluded deck, and tried to let the warmth and the jets take her away. The moon was shining especially bright, and the deep blue sky was littered with glistening stars. Yet and still, her mind was still spinning…reeling…as she grappled with all that had happened over the past twenty-four hours: her decision to go forward with the letter to Dan, and all that ensued afterward.
As always, Zane was close by, refusing to let her out of his sight, but even though he had slipped into a pair of swimming trunks at the same time she’d put on her suit, he had not joined her in the water.
At least not yet.
For now, he stood several yards away on the deck, leaning against the rail and watching the magnificent waterfall—he seemed to be lost in a myriad of thoughts of his own.
Jordan sighed, wondering what he was thinking. He had been so quiet ever since they returned through the portal, nearly three hours ago. He had made sure she had a shower, something to eat, and he had checked her for any injuries—despite the violent night, she was more or less fit as a fiddle—and then he’d given her some space, at least within a dozen yards or so.
Now, as she soaked in the tub, alone, wrestling with her emotions and her thoughts, she knew that she had to face the inevitable—she had to face her fears head-on. She wasn’t going to escape. Dan had been her last great hope, and that had been an ill-conceived, desperate grasp at freedom to begin with. It was time to regroup, and the way Jordan saw it, sometimes knowledge was power. The more facts she knew, the more she could process…the better chance she stood at surviving.
And along those lines, there was an inconvenient truth she could no longer afford to deny: She needed Zane. To stay safe. To stay alive. This world he had brought her into was filled with living nightmares and terrible creatures, things she couldn’t even imagine in her wildest dreams: pagans, demons, shadow-walkers, and feral dragyri, like the one named Ghost. Hell, she reasoned, even the actress in the famous classical film King Kong had eventually turned to the ape when faced with all the terrifying monsters on the other side of the wall. She had sucked it up and hedged her bets—she had wanted to survive.
Jordan frowned.
Turned to the ape…
Glancing at Zane, she took in his broad, muscular shoulders, his proud warrior’s bearing, and his striking good looks, the way the gentle breeze rustled all that chestnut-brown hair, fanning it in and out of his sapphire-gold eyes—those terrifying, glorious dragon eyes—and she knew he was anything but an ape. She drew a slow, deep breath, mustered her courage, and hit the button on the panel that controlled the jets.
Silence.
Except for the waterfall.
“Zane.” The word wasn’t spoken very loud, but he heard her just the same. He pushed off the railing and turned to face her, both of his eyebrows cocked. “Can we talk?” she asked, her stomach clenched into knots.
He nodded solemnly and strolled across the deck.
Good Lord, it was like inviting a potential hurricane onto the shore.
He stopped at the edge of the tub, glanced at the steaming water, and engaged her eyes. “May I?”
She gulped and then nodded, tucking her knees out of the way so he could climb in without touching her.
The water sloshed as he made his entry, and much to her relief, he took a seat in a corner chair, opposite the lounger, once again giving her some much-needed space. “What is it, dragyra?” he finally asked, once his large, towering frame had settled.
Jordan swept her hand through the water, back and forth, as a paltry distraction. “You’re angry with me, aren’t you?”
His placid stare was like the calm beneath a storm: dormant, beautiful, and eerily deceptive. “I’m not angry, dragyra,” he said evenly. “I’m relieved. I’m disappointed. And I’m concerned.”
Good gracious, she thought. Would he always be that blunt? She stilled her hands and cleared her throat. “Relieved that I’m okay, that you and your lair-mates are going to be all right, but disappointed because I betrayed you, because Jace, Levi, and Nakai got hurt…because you almost got killed. And concerned…because?”
He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, to regard her straightaway. “Because starting tomorrow, we only have four more days, and you are no closer to me now than you were in that parking garage…you are not trying…and I don’t know how.”
The candidness of his words struck her like an anvil, and in that particular, guileless moment, he looked like the loneliest male on the planet—the loneliest male beyond the portal—as lost as Jordan felt. She closed her eyes and steadied her breath. “I am sorry that I placed your brothers in danger,” she whispered, hoping he could hear her over the ambient rush of the falls. “I’m sorry that you had to fight that…that shadow thing…and I’m also sorry about Dan, the way that affected you. I had to try, Zane. I had to.” She opened her eyes and waited as he slowly nodded his head.