Page 38 of Her Dragons

Mark ran back into the house.I moved after him, with Ross right behind me and Jake right behind us.As soon as we were through the door, a piercing scream rang out into the wood and stone space of the living room.Mark stood to one side, breathing heavy, husky breaths, flexing his claws and his tail, looking over to a hallway across the room where the big stone fireplace was.From out of this hall, the one thug who came to Mark’s side dragged a struggling and terrified female figure.

Together, Jake and I cried, “Lily!”

The sight of her made me feel as if someone had dropped a stone into my stomach, and I could only guess Jake felt the same way.

Her clothes were torn, her hair a tangled mess.One side of her face was black and blue.She was crying desperately.Through the torn places in her clothing, we could catch hints of other black and blue places, of bruises and cuts.The bastard had beaten her again.He had laid his filthy claws and tail on her again.What Jake and I were seeing now was the life that she had escaped, what she had run away from to come to us.

I had never wanted anyone dead in my life until just that moment.Seeing firsthand what Mark Reinhardt had done to Lily so many times, and what he’d just done to her in this house, what I wanted most in the world was to see him lying bloodied and dead at my feet.

Mark said, “Right now, my men and I are leaving this house — with Lily.And if anyone, you or the police, tried to stop us, my man there will twist her head off.”

Lily whimpered in the grasp of Mark’s henchman.Jake, Ross, and I reared back, scared to death that this bastard and his thug were crazy enough to do what Mark was saying.

“And maybe if you live through the next few minutes,” said Mark, “the last thing you’ll see is us taking her away.”

If Mark got away with Lily now, he’d take her someplace else, to some other hiding place, maybe one that we couldn’t find the way we did this one.We’d never see her again and her life would be over.That couldn’t happen.There were only seconds to do something, seconds of unbearable tension that were filled with the sound of her crying in agony, “Alex…Jake…”It shredded my heart to hear her in fear and pain like that.We only had seconds to do something.Seconds…

The thug edged her towards the door.She cried at us in his rough grip, “Alex…Jake…please…”I judged the distance between Mark’s henchman and me.He was careful and didn’t come within an arm’s length of me.

But the moron forgot about my tail.

Like a cowboy cracking his whip, like a rattlesnake striking, I lashed out with my tail.The tip of it caught the henchman across his eyes.He threw back his head, screeching.He started pawing at his face and staggering backward.And when he did, he let go of Lily.

The thug fell against one wall and crumpled to the floor, kicking and squirming, holding his claws over his face.Lily crawled away to the side of the room where the fireplace was.Ross, Jake, and I faced Mark, who stretched his wings and tensed his entire body, and went into a crazed, bloodthirsty roar.

“Sons of bitches!You’re dead!YOU’RE DEAD!”

We braced ourselves for whatever was about to happen next.

CHAPTER 17

Lily

I dragged myself across the floor, past Alex and Jake and the other dragon who came in with them.The sound of Mark’s bellowing reverberated in my bones: “Sons of bitches!You’re dead!YOU’RE DEAD!”His voice was the sound of pure lust for blood.It was the sound of hatred, of rage, of murder.I crouched next to the big stone fireplace and sat there, frozen with fear, staring at the scene of violence about to erupt in front of me — a violence that none of us, not Alex, not Jake, not I, might survive.These might be the last moments of my life.

Time seemed to slow down in my mind.Everything moved slowly, through a haze, as if in a dream.I seemed almost detached from my body, watching myself and everything and everyone around me.The Drake who had dragged me out of the locked room was lying on the floor, hissing in pain; scaly, clawed hands over his eyes.The eyes were one of a Drake’s most vulnerable parts.He’d be blinded and helpless until whatever wounds he took sealed themselves up.I was in such a trance from everything that it never even occurred to me to think that it served him right.

In front of me were Jake, Alex, and the other Drake that I didn’t recognize.They were all tensing and bracing themselves, wings and tails twitching, at the hulking, looming figure of Mark, who hissed and seethed at them as if sizing up and deciding which one he’d murder first after he battered and clawed them into submission.Watching them, I was hardly even aware of what I was doing.

At the edge of my vision, just a few inches away from me, there was something shiny.I looked from the corners of my eyes at the things that caught the glint of the fading sunlight from the big windows of the living room.

Of course!I was crouching next to a fireplace.A fireplace has a stand next to it — and in the stand were shiny, hard, heavy metal objects, pokers for the burning logs.Yes, the pokers were long things, heavy, made of brass.Heavy — and sharp at one end.

Hardly even conscious of my own actions, I reached over with one hand while transfixed on my two lovers, their friend, and the monster that I once thought I loved, getting ready to unleash bloody mayhem on each other.And time seemed to slow down even more as my hand closed around the metallic rod of one of the pokers.I shifted to crouch on the tips of my toes, feeling the cool metal in my hand.Quietly, as if in a dream, I pulled the poker from the stand.

Suddenly, time sped back up to normal, and movement exploded in my sight.Jake, Alex, and their friend lunged at Mark, while Mark charged at them.There was a blurring of wings and a mad thrashing of tails.A table on that side of the room was flipped into the air and crashed against a wall as if it were caught in a tornado.The room was filled with the deafening sounds of shrieks and roars.Mark lifted Jake up and slammed him down onto the floor with a bone-cracking impact.He grabbed the one who came in with Jake and Alex by one arm and threw him the way an angry child would throw a rag doll.He went flying through one of the big plate glass windows.I flinched at the loud, shattering sound of the window breaking, and then the awful cracking of the wood railing outside.Jake and Alex’s friend must have gone right through it.He did not come back in.

Now it was only Alex and Mark standing.My breath sped up, my teeth clenched — and my hand tightened around the handle of the shiny metal poker.

Mark lunged out with one arm.Alex feinted back, dodging him.Mark swung with the other arm.Again, Alex dodged the awful claws.Mark thrust out with one arm — and this time he caught Alex by his neck.With the other claw, he grabbed Alex by the arm.Roaring bestially, he lifted Alex over his head.Alex struggled in his grip.Would Mark slam him to the floor as he did Jake?Would he have them both helpless at his feet that way?

He might have done just that — if Alex did not suddenly whip out with his tail and wrap it around Mark’s steroid-thickened neck like a python wrapping himself around a deer.Furiously, Mark raked his claws along Alex’s tail.Alex raised a leg and kicked Mark in the snout, staggering him, then shoved his foot into Mark’s chest, dropping him onto the hard wood floor.

The crash of Mark and Alex hitting the floor together made my heart jump — and made my fingers flex and coil like that ambushing python around the shaft of the fireplace poker.

Suddenly, Jake was in motion again.He sprung up and pounced on Mark, and now the two of them were pinning him down on the floor together.They had my tormentor on his back, his neck writhing and his dragon jaws snapping, his legs kicking and tail writhing crazily.Together, my two Drakes were far stronger than any human.But by himself, Mark was too strong for both.They couldn’t hold him down very long.He would force them off of him and attack them once more, and perhaps this time kill them both.His enraged, furious roaring erupted at the ceiling like a volcano of mad animal noise.It was Mark’s promise of a terrible, brutal death.

Outside, coming in from the distance, was the sound of sirens blaring.Was it more squad cars?Police wagons?I couldn’t tell.Mixed in with that were voices shouting something about “reinforcements.”

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