Page 101 of Primal Dragon

“I don’t know. My guess is he’s got some kind of plan for you. He doesn’t waste his time by turning litigators into vampires unless it serves his bigger purpose.” She wasn’t about to contradict his idea that he was a vampire. She wasn’t even sure she could believe what Grey had told her.

“What bigger purpose is that?”

“Are you not listening to me, Drake? He wants the world to bend to him.”

Drake was quiet for a moment. “Maybe it should.”

24

Burnt

Henrik’s head was two sizes too big and pulsing with a timer counting down to when it would explode. He could barely open his eyes. The way the world came in and out of focus left him nauseated and surly. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The floor beneath him was harder than cement.

The voices filtered in from the other room. Deciphering them wasn’t hard. Syrena was talking in a hushed tone. With his dragon hearing on the fritz, he rolled onto his side and then made a giant heave to get off the floor.

He stumbled into the kitchen to find everyone, including James.

“What the fuck did I miss?”

“Your mate stole the Fire Stone,” Syrena said.

Henrik’s gaze shot to James first then back to Syrena. “Wait, hang on. Would someone please start from the beginning?”

Syrena and Sebastian filled in the story. Quinn had been back here and safe and he’d slept through it only to lose her again?

His dragon was pissed.

Cillian spoke from where he was perched on the kitchen counter. “Syrena checked them for Dragon Fire and a myriad of other things but didn’t think to have either of them checked for vampire thrall.”

“Hang on? She was here? She escaped from Stefano and Grey?”

“I need you to focus, Rik.” Syrena’s voice was clipped. “She managed to get her and James out of the club, but it didn’t matter because she was under Grey’s thrall.”

“Fuck.” Henrik took a minute to fully register exactly what she was saying. “He enthralled her to take the Fire Stone and then what?”

Syrena sighed. “We have to assume Grey has the rock. He’s going to create Dragon Breath if we can’t stop him.”

“Do we even know if Dragon Breath fucking works? If it’s really what Lady Wyxl claimed?” Henrik growled.

Syrena shot him a glare. “The books are a bit vague about what it is and what it does, but I would just like to assume that it’s bad and going to cause us more problems.”

Henrik slammed his hand into the frame of the doorway. “Fuck.”

Nash snarled. “Get a grip. Tell your dragon to get a fucking grip. We need you right now. He’s got Quinn. It’s obvious he’s going to use her to get to you. If you snap, then everything is going to come tumbling down around us all. This isn’t just about you anymore.”

“It never was all about me,” Henrik said quietly, glancing over at Levi who was leaning back against the wall. “It couldn’t be. Grey was locked up in a tourmaline prison. We didn’t know. Only our father and probably our mother knew about him. He escaped. He started putting together this insane plot that he had centuries to plan for and the first thing he did was come at the Tourmaline Clan with vengeance. We were the first stop on his terror train. He’s going to do more and it’s only going to get worse.

“Quinn, me, my brother, everyone in this room, are all forfeit for a victory, if we all move to stand against him. Where is the dragon slayer?”

Syrena sighed. “I sent her packing. King Ash is taking care of her for the time being. We didn’t need any more distractions.”

“That just leaves the vampires to deal with then?” Henrik asked.

“And anything he has up his sleeve,” Nash replied.

Henrik sat down. The nausea and headache were threatening his attention span.

“You’re still working the sleeping powder out of your system,” Arthur said. “You’ll feel better in a little bit. Food and water will help more though.”

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