Page 35 of Dragon Exposed

Gently cupping her cheek, I pulled her gaze back up to meet mine. “You are fierce, Izobelle. You have the heart of a warrior. You would make a strong mate for anyone, and I couldn’t be happier that the fates chose you for me.” I smiled softly. “And if you still need to find murderous vampires, or other creatures who kill for sport, for fun, and put an end to them, then I would happily hunt them to the ends of the earth with you.”

13

Bloodsucker in the Basement

IZOBELLE

“Remember, Izobelle, whatever happens in the basement, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Right, like it was just that easy to ignore the fear, ignore the niggling feeling deep in my gut that I was about to see just how monstrous a dragon could be.

But I needed to see this. I needed to know how to kill one of these fuckers, so that when I got my chance again with Viktor, I could gut him like the beast he was.

“Should I take any knives or anything down?” With a smirk, I added, “Knitting needles?”

He bit back a chuckle and pulled me in close, kissing me hard and fast before he pulled away again. “I’ve got the basement outfitted for our needs.” Running his fingers through his hair, just barely avoiding those delicate braids that I didn’t remember seeing him redo, he sighed. “I shouldn’t have called your weapons little more than knitting needles. You could’ve done a lot of damage, as long as you know where to stab.”

“You’ll show me where the best places to hit are?”

Levi grinned, a little maniacal, but still hot as sin. “We’ll make him into your very own personal training dummy.”

That shouldn’t have made me want to drag him back upstairs and find out just what he could do with the monster cock in his jeans. But there was something just so fucking sexy about the idea of him treating me, not like a useless human unable to handle my own shit, but as someone worthy of teaching, as someone he really did see as a fighter, as a warrior.

Descending the stairs into the darkened basement, though, with the scent of coppery blood hitting my nose like I just walked into the infamous Carrie prom scene, I was starting to rethink my choices.

“Are you all right? You can wait upstairs. You don’t have to do this.”

I shook my head. “I need this. I need to know how to hurt them. I need to know how to kill Viktor when the time comes.”

Levi nodded and slid his hand down over the small of my back. His gentle touch settled me, calmed me, and I wanted to lean back into him more.

Instead, he leaned down and trailed a line of kisses along my jaw. “I promise you, Izobelle, whatever we learn today, whatever else happens with me, with my family, I will help you get your vengeance on Viktor. We can draw out the torture of your enemy as long as you need. I won’t let him slip through your fingers again.”

I didn’t know why he was so intent that I get my revenge, but I kind of loved that he knew how important it was to me, and because of that, he’d made it important to him too.

“Would you bring him back here? Torture him for information?”

Levi shrugged. “I could. It depends on what we find out from this vampire, and if we learn that Viktor is involved in the plot.” He paused a second before adding a little more darkly, “We could also just bring him back here and torture him, regardless of what information he might have to share out in his screams.”

Tempting. Very tempting.

As we hit the bottom step, Levi reached out and flicked a switch, flooding the concrete floor in intense fluorescent lighting.

The man in the middle of the room hissed, his eyes glowing red through his squint as he bared his fangs at us.

If I’d had any doubts about this guy being a vampire before, they were gone now.

“Have you dried out some?” Levi strode confidently toward him, sidestepping puddles of dark red liquid pooling under the chair as his hand wrapped around the vampire’s throat.

The hissing intensified, even as his eyes started to bulge out of his head. “You won’t get me to talk, no matter how brightly you make your UV lights burn.”

I raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t say anything, figuring that Levi would explain more of just how much torture he was applying to this vampire after we were done.

Instead, I turned my gaze to the wall of things that looked more like they belonged in a medieval torture chamber than in the basement of a secluded cabin in the woods.

Some of them were pretty straight forward—devices for cutting, for sawing, to prying. Others I didn’t have a name for, things I wasn’t sure I wanted to know how they worked at all.

There was also a large selection of weaponry made of wood. Maybe the stake lore wasn’t that far off at all.

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