White Wedding Nightmares
Sharon Ashwood
Father? I gaped at the figure striding through the zombie flambé. Just when I thought the day couldn’t suck any worse, the gods had cracked open a fresh case of horrible. Shock cracked my defences, letting fear inside. I cringed low on my haunches, fur ruffling along my spine. Father? I wanted to rage in denial, but words rolled into a feral snarl.
Lucien, still throttling Mark, said it for me. “Drago. You never struck me as the paternal type.”
Drago, my dragon lover, was Mark’s evil sire? The senior sorcerer? The big bad?
That meant Mark was at least part dragon.
That meant I’d been about to marry my ex-boyfriend’s son. Ew!
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That meant Drago had been in on this from the start.
All right, I was shocked, but somehow not surprised. Dragon minds were twisty, dark places full of hidden gems and deadly traps. Deep inside, he terrified me.
Served me right for getting cozy with a lizard. Drago was in human form now, reminding me of all the reasons I had slammed the door on our love affair. I realized I’d been sidetracked from ripping my groom-to-never-ever-be into snack-sized pieces. Drago was darned distracting.
Given my other ex-lovers, that was saying something.
“Gurk!” Mark clawed at Lucien’s hands, face turning beet-red. Apparently strangulation impaired wizardly powers. “Gelch!”
“Vampire, let my son live. I have uses for him yet,” Drago called grandly, issuing orders without hurrying his pace one bit. He expected obedience.
Lucien gave Dracula Face. “He tried to steal my wife. No one touches what is mine without paying retribution.”
“Grrrrrr!” I chimed in. I wasn’t really into all that Alpha male crap, but right now vampire logic sounded pretty good.
The dragon kept coming, making me cower and growl all the more. I skittered away a few feet, tail between my legs. And yet, I had to fight a deep, burning urge to fawn at his feet. To put it mildly, the feelings between us had never been simple.
Drago’s face, with a blade-straight nose and strong cheekbones, was softened only by the slight cleft of his chin. He was built like a Viking—tall, sculpted and hard in a way beyond what comes from a gym. He wore pants and a vest of leather—no shirt—and tall black boots soft enough to wrinkle as he moved. Once upon a Solstice Eve, I’d given him those boots.
We’d spent close to a year together, and I knew the colour of that vest was a brilliant, shimmering blue just like his eyes, like his dragon scales. I knew his hair, a waterfall of silk, was the fiery red of autumn leaves. I knew it like a sweet pain in my bones even though my werewolf eyes were blind to color. He’d burned his image into my soul long before this.
Vampires are seductive, werewolves stuffed full of animal magnetism, but dragons are in another league altogether. Perfect, without even the memory of mortal flaws. Drago blazed, full of hellfire the way my Seth radiated sunny gold.
Yes, holding all that dragon beauty in my arms had inspired awe, and not always in a good way. The other reason Drago terrified me? Bad boys were appealing, but he was no boy. That just left the bad part, circling like a shark underneath layers upon layers of dragony charm.
If Lucien and Ulfric were Alpha guys, this one was the Omega. And he had almost reached us.
“You should really let Mark go, Lucien,” Drago said, sounding amused. “Like you, he would crush me if he could. That almost makes you allies.”
“If he wants to kill you, then why not let me do your dirty work? I could crush him like a grub.”
“Because he makes an excellent pawn. Chasing him has kept you off my scent for months.” Drago’s words were unemotional. Whatever happened to Mark, it was all the same to his father. Dragon dads aren’t great with the hatchlings.
Swearing, Lucien finally let Mark go. My ex-groom dragged in his breath with a ragged wheeze. Lucien sprang to his feet, but put one boot-heel on Mark’s windpipe. No pressure, just the reminder that death was a stomp away.
Drago barely noticed. His eyes were on me. He stopped a few feet away, folding his arms. “Poor Raven. You spun the potion’s wheel and went to the dogs.”
Then he laughed. The sound was warm and ripply, reaching low in my belly. I wanted to roll on my back, give him my throat, lick his hand. I hated him. I loathed myself for still falling prey to his magnetism. My skin jumped with disgust. To my horror, I lifted up my hind paw and scratched.
Ugh! This wolf thing has to end. Now. Before I start rolling in garbage.
Drago closed the distance between us, reaching out. Mustering a shred of pride, I snapped at his hand. Quick as thought, he caught my muzzle, clamping my jaws shut.
“Let go of her!” Lucien snapped, but Mark thrashed, drawing the vampire’s attention back to his prisoner.
“Bad dog,” Drago said to me with mock sternness. “No cookie.”
I snarled around my teeth. Drago smelled of smoke and spice, exotic and mouthwatering. He lowered his face so close I could feel his breath stir the fuzz in my ears. “My son thought to use your power to stand against me. I have to give him this much credit: once he finally took the bait, he was quick about setting my plan in motion.”
“Plan?” Lucien asked, holding Mark by the throat and hair now. Mark was watching him with the patience of a viper. Baby dragon might be down, but he wasn’t out.
“I planned to let Mark find Raven and coax her to the altar. To let him play the mortal husband. She would feel safe and secure in her happy suburban bungalow. Her power would be easy to steal if her defences were down. I never worried that Mark was clever enough to actually harness Raven’s magic for himself. He was sufficiently dimwitted to think this was all his idea.”
“But you were her lover already,” Lucien pointed out. “Why involve your son?”
“She would never open herself to me. Her magical shields always remained in place, high and strong as a steel tower. Raven adores powerful men, but she does not let them inside her heart. Notice it was my weakling son who finally put a ring on her finger.”
Even though they were enemies, the vampire and the dragon shared a look that made me want to crawl away in shame. So I have intimacy issues. They have fangs. I’d call that a draw.
While they’d been talking, I’d been taking advantage of my new, improved hearing. Ulfric and Seth were nearby, just behind me and to the left. I could smell Seth’s wound. The scent of his bloody wound hit my tongue like burnt honey.
Still holding my muzzle with one hand, Drago stroked my head, curling his fingers over my ears, caressing the thick fur of my ruff. He was too strong for me to pull away, or I was too weak to resist the feel of his hands on my flesh again. I gave a confused whine that brought an amused curl to his lips.
Beside me, Mark wilted where he lay. Lucien had grown tired of fighting and had put the treacherous worm into a hypnotic slumber. Clever Lucien. He’d just been keeping the conversation going until one enemy was down and out. Now his hands were free to deal with Drago. From the corner of my eye, I saw him look behind me, exchanging a silent signal with the others.
The question was whether Drago saw it, too.
He must have. He slipped the silver collar over my head before I even saw it in his hand. The links of the silver chain glittered in the fitful glow of smouldering zombies.
Silver. It stole my strength, my four limbs trembling with the effort to stay on my paws.
Drago leered. “It’s time to go, Raven, my girl.”
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