Forever Rowan
The Night Creatures
Violet Summers
Published 2011
ISBN 978-1-59578-791-0
Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2011, Violet Summers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Liquid Silver Books
http://lsbooks.com
Email:
[email protected] Editor
Terri Schaefer
Cover Artist
April Martinez
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Blurb
After a failed rescue attempt, Aidan Ghallager has been captured, unable to shift into his Dragon form. Rowan Stone, daughter of megalomaniac William Stone, has become his unlikely nurse. As they work together to find a way to escape her father’s nefarious plans and insidious torture, they try to fight the attraction between them--and fail. For Aidan and Rowan are mated--meant to be together--but only if they can stay alive long enough to escape.
Dedication
We would like to dedicate this book to Christina Poteat, who wanted this story as much as we did and who inspired us to finish up the loose threads. Thank you!
Chapter One
Willing his eyes to open just wasn’t working. Aidan Ghallager felt like he’d been thrown off a ten-storey building. From his shoulders to the balls of his feet he was one big ache, a never-ending thud that slid across cramping muscles.
The worst was the sharp-ass pain at the back of his neck. Knife-sharp agony splintered down his spine. Moving his head was out of the question. Hell, even blinking sent shards of jagged agony drilling through his brain.
He flexed his fingers and felt the manacle latched to his wrist. He was fuckin’ chained to a bed. The badly made mattress dipped in the middle, unable to support his weight. Automatically Aidan reached for his anger, knowing the Dragon could free him.
His head pounded instead, wrecking his concentration. Now he didn’t have to reach for the anger. He was well and truly pissed, which should have made the transformation effortless, but as the rage began to swell in his body, the pain in his neck became excruciating. His head was going to fuckin’ explode. He opened his mouth to scream, but all that emerged was a low moan of agony.
He couldn’t change. His skin wasn’t hardening, the whiff of sulfur that filled the air during his transformation was glaringly absent. The more he called upon his power, the more blinding the pain grew, until he lay exhausted and drenched with sweat.
Great Dragon, what the fuck was going on?
Aidan took a slow, cleansing breath, forcing himself to calm. Dragons were taught young how to control their emotions through meditation. Controlling the beast within was an important part of their culture, and necessary to everyone around them. A pissed-off dragon was a fearsome thing. It had been years since he’d imposed this kind of control on himself, but the lessons came back easily.
Starting with his toes, he focused on each muscle group, relaxing his body from the feet up. His heart rate began to return to normal. The pain at the back of his head receded.
Think! He knew he needed to assess his situation, but damn, it was hard to focus. Where the fuck was he? And how the Hell had he ended up chained to bed?
It all came rushing back. The fight to free Jenna’s sister had been doomed from the start. Stone had somehow known the details of their plan, and had an ambush waiting. They’d walked right into a trap. Outmanned and outgunned by Stone’s mystery weapons and rabid hybrid fighters.
Aidan could still hear Jenna’s frantic scream that Nic was hit, that he was dying, could still see the look on Bas’ face when he’d forced the Vamp to go help Nic...
Arrogant ass that he was, Aidan had thought he could get the woman out on his own. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to find her. He’d raced through the twisting corridors of this house of horrors searching for a scent, a sound, something to lead him to Rowan Stone. Instead he’d found yet another squad of Stone’s storm troopers. He remembered a death’s-head grin, a sudden, sharp pain in his thigh, then nothing. The bastards must have tranked him. But how was that even possible? He hadn’t had the chance to transform, but even in his human form his skin should have been impenetrable to something as minor as a tranquilizer dart.
He moved his toes; they seemed to be working fine. Slowly he worked his way up his body, moving as much as the chains would allow, mindful to keep his head as still as possible. He felt like he’d gotten the shit kicked out of him in a bar brawl, but other than the blinding pain in his head and neck, he couldn’t sense any lasting damage.
Taking a deep breath, he forced his eyelids to rise. A dull yellow light hovered somewhere to the right of him. He found after a moment he could keep his eyes open without too much discomfort, but his vision was too blurry to make out any details of his prison.
Blinking wasn’t helping. Frustrated, he closed his eyes again and inhaled deeply, letting the scents wash through him. Blood, death and the stink of humanity assaulted his senses.
Aidan could not stand the scent of human male. The copper tang of blood mingled with the rich metallic scent of testosterone set his teeth on edge and riled his Dragon. Human females were only a bit less offensive, just barely tolerable when they weren’t drenched in some artificial scent concoction.
In truth, he despised humans as a race, and the only human he’d been able to tolerate for any length of time was Jenna Stone. There was something different in her scent. Maybe it was due to her mating with Nic and the fact his powerful Vampire blood ran through her veins. Or perhaps it was simply because the woman had a core of strength matched only by her deep well of compassion.
Yeah, and look where that sudden tolerance got you, mate.
Aidan yanked on the chain holding down his left arm. Big fuckin’ mistake. It didn’t budge, and the movement caused arrow-in-the-eye kind of pain. He swore viciously, slammed his lids closed and breathed through the agony. When the pain subsided from a scream to a dull roar, he let out a hissing breath and opened his eyes. His vision was still blurry, but he could make out the outline of the chain attached to the wall.
Bloody hell! Rage surged through him, followed by an equally strong surge of pain in his head. He couldn’t fuckin’ change. The razor-sharp agony at the base of his skull that exploded with every spike of adrenalin leashed him as effectively as a dog wearing a shock collar. It sapped his strength and muddied his thoughts. He couldn’t even slip far enough into a healing trance to call on his ancestors to help him. He was well and truly fucked.
A door opened; the scent of a female, a human female, filled the small room.
“Let me go, bitch,” he ground out between clenched teeth, snarling in her direction. With his sight still fucked up he could only make out her shape, silent and sturdy. Her lack of response just enraged him more.
“I’m going to kill all of you,” he promised grimly. Hearing her draw closer, Aidan lunged at her and immediately paid the price for his actions as an ice pick of pain lanced the base of his skull to slice through his brain. He fell back on the damned lumpy mattress with a snarl of pain and rage.
His actions didn’t appear to cause his visitor any concern. They certainly didn’t cause her to run, but then why would they when s
he was free and he was chained like a dog? Well, he was feeling like a rabid dog about now, and he didn’t bother to even try to control the need to hiss and snap at her blurry profile. And did she run in the face of a rage that had sent Vampire and Were into a full retreat? Not at all. Instead she grabbed a chair and pulled it over to where he lay. He blinked, desperately trying to focus on her as she leaned over him with something in her hand. A cool, moist cloth touched his forehead. He stiffened and jerked, trying to retreat from her touch.
“Relax, Dragon. I’m only here to give you some food and water.” Her voice was low and husky, oddly attractive. It was also calm, almost detached. Of course it was. Sociopathic killers like Stone and his followers had to be detached in order to keep down their daily dose of genocide.
“You’re fuckin’ crazy if you think I want anything from you--unless you’re gonna let me out of these chains.”
Oblivious to his attempts to twist away from her, she began to run the soft cloth over his face.
“You have a nice accent. Are you from the London area? I spent time there when I was...”
“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” This time he managed to jerk his face away from her diabolically comforting touch. “You’re not seriously trying to make small talk with me, are you? I don’t want to talk to you. I want to kill you.”
She laughed. “If you were to actually manage it, you’d make my dearest wish come true.” He frowned at the sincerity in her husky voice. The cloth ran gently along his jaw. “I’m not afraid of dying, Dragon, so if you want me to cower in fear you’re going to have to come up with a better threat.”
She got up and moved around behind him. Before he realized what she was up to, she’d tipped his head back and was peeling back one eyelid and then the other. The drops she efficiently dribbled into his burning eyes cooled and soothed them, and he automatically squeezed them closed to savor the relief.
“Keep them closed for a minute,” she instructed, so of course he had to open them immediately. The room swam sickeningly around him and he cursed and snapped them shut again while she chuckled. “The drops will help you see better. The tranquilizer they gave you slows down your basic physiology, and one of the side effects is that it interferes with the natural reactions of your pupils.” She stroked her hand over his forehead, seeming unaware of what she was doing. He was very aware of it. Something about her husky, nearly uninflected voice set off all sorts of alarms in his brain. “And,” she added, moving back to his side, “of course it can keep you unconscious for days.”
Shit. Aidan ground his teeth, though he couldn’t have said if he was doing it over the information, or the loss of her touch. “How long have I been here?”
“Two and half days.” A glass was pressed to his lips. He strangled back a moan of pleasure as ice-cold water slid past his lips and down his parched throat.
“Try opening your eyes again,” she suggested, running her thumb under his lower lip, wiping away a drop of water that had escaped his mouth. Remembering the dizzy dance the room had done minutes ago, he was much more cautious slitting his eyes open this time. He let out a breath of relief when everything stayed where it belonged, and turned his head to examine his captor.
She had Jenna’s dark hair, though this woman wore hers shorter, in an angular cut that emphasized the clean lines of her face. She had Jenna’s eyes, too, a scorched honey brown that somehow had the power to dig past all his defenses and see the soul he’d worked so hard to keep hidden.
That was where her similarity to her sister ended, though. Where Jenna was petite, soft and gently round, this woman was taller, broader. She was built for strength, for endurance. He had the brief, insane thought that she was built to take him even in his Dragon form, and give as good as she got.
She, like her older sister, defied society’s definition of beauty. Her shoulders were a little too broad, and he imagined she had the ridiculous idea she needed to lose weight.
“Jenna’s fine,” he told her. Her entire expression softened. Yeah, this woman had strength, but she harbored softness, too. A combination that was unexpectedly irresistible to him. “She had a spot of trouble with a couple of ugly-assed hybrids, but she’s fine now, except worried sick about her sisters.”
Her big brown eyes grew suspiciously wet. She swallowed hard, but never left off meeting his eyes...strength and softness. Ah, fuck.
“I’m Rowan.” As his eyesight sharpened, he noticed a ring of dark smudges around her neck. His brows drew down into a frown.
“I know,” he answered absently. “Erin’s the scrawny one.”
A surprised, choked laugh burst from her. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard her described quite that way but, yes, Erin’s the pretty one. Jenna’s the smart one.” She turned her head, avoiding his eyes. “I’m the strong one.”
Abruptly he made sense of the marks on her neck. Fingerprints. Rowan Stone had recently been strangled.
“She brought us here, you know.” He wanted to reach out, to smooth his fingers soothingly over the bruises. To catch the tears trembling on her lower lashes, to taste them. To taste her. “She’s mated Nic Alero,” he continued speaking in self defense, anything to take his mind off how Rowan Stone would taste. She’d been trying to escape her megalomaniac of a father, true, but that didn’t mean she shared her sister’s remarkable acceptance of the night creatures. Maybe the sight of her horror and disapproval would break this maddening fascination she held for him.
“I don’t know any Nic,” she responded, pulling him back to the present. “Is he a good man?”
“He’s a Vampire,” Aidan replied bluntly, waiting for the shock, the horror. What he got was impatience.
“But is he a good man?” she repeated sharply, gaze slicing into his. “Jenna deserves a good man.”
He blinked, totally taken aback by her reaction. “He’s an arrogant ass most of the time,” he answered slowly. “But he’ll cherish her ‘til his last breath.”
She let out a slow, relieved breath. “He’ll keep her safe?” He nodded slowly, still processing her reaction. He told her that her beloved sister was mated to a Vampire, a monster, and she worried if the monster would keep Jenna safe. Fascinating.
“He’ll keep her safe,” he agreed. “And he’ll do most anything to keep her happy as well. Nic has powerful friends. He arranged the raid. Jenna wanted her sister--both of them if we could pull it off--and he drug the lot of us in here to get Jenna what she wanted.”
Her head dropped and her eyes slid away from his again. “And you ended up trapped here. Not much of a thank you.”
“I won’t be here long.” he assured her, flexing against his bonds once again. “Once the Dragon wakes up, I’ll be on my way.” He sent her a deliberately cocky smile. “You can come with if you like, but I’m out of here at the first opportunity.”
Her eyes flickered again. “Um, about your Dragon...”
He got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when she hesitated, rising to pace restlessly across his cell. “What about my Dragon?” he asked in a dangerously level voice.
She turned to face him and started to speak, but stopped when the door to the cell slid open.
“If you’re done playing Florence Nightingale, your father requires your presence, Miss Rowan.” The soldier spoke respectfully enough, but there was something vaguely threatening in his posture. Aidan thought he saw a flicker of unease before she turned to the guard. With her back to him he wasn’t sure.
“I’m not done here, Karl,” she answered quietly.
“The boss says you are, Miss Rowan.” He took a step toward her, and Aidan could have sworn she flinched, just a little bit. He felt his heart rate pick up, and pain knifed from the base of his skull through his brain.
He must have made some sort of noise, because Rowan’s gaze snapped back to him and, with a look of defeat in her honeyed eyes, she moved slowly to the door.
“Awww,” the soldier grinned nastily at him. “You’re alread
y taming the beast.” He chuckled. “And you’re not even a beauty.”
Her shoulders hunched a little and her head hung lower. The soldier’s eyes flickered uneasily and Aidan realized he was growling. Loudly. He might not have decided whether or not to trust Jenna’s little sister, but he didn’t like way the guard seemed to be going out of his way to embarrass her. He smiled at the man, baring his teeth. The guard stiffened, went red with embarrassment and anger and, as soon as Rowan moved from between them, raised a gun and pointed it in Aidan’s direction.
“Nighty night time, monster,” the man taunted before he took aim and shot. The dart wedged in his upper arm, and he cursed foully as the world went dark.
Chapter Two
Rowan was tied to the pole again. The cold steel object was father’s favorite place to punish her. She could feel the greedy eyes of the guard on her bare back. The man had looked downright gleeful as he’d ripped her t-shirt from collar to hem, baring her scarred, mottled flesh to his sickening gaze.
The door opened and she heard her father’s murmured conversation with the guard. She wondered what excuse he had for this beating. There was always a reason, some infraction to justify the violence to his human guards. Of course, there were fewer human guards every day as her father replaced them with his genetically manipulated hybrids. William Stone didn’t bother to give them excuses.
Rowan vividly remembered her first “punishment”. She hadn’t done anything to deserve that one, either.
Erin had been about six, full of energy and sass. Unfortunately, she’d directed that sass in her father’s direction, and he hadn’t appreciated it. Rowan knew she’d never forget the sight of her little sister, dangling from their father’s fist. He’d wound his fingers through her short, strawberry blonde hair and was shaking her like a puppy as Erin whimpered in terror.