Page 18 of Claim the Dragon
He warmed suddenly and took a moment to realize it was because he was touching her hair.Looking at his fingers he saw the soft dark strands moving along his palm and then feathering down to fall against her shoulder once more.
“What are you doing?”she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Saving your life,” he replied.“I’m going to save your life, Ravyn, whether you want me to or not.”
Go home.Stay there.I’ll come for you in the morning.
All directives or commands that she definitely planned to ignore because she didn’t know who the hell Steele Eze thought he was, but he definitely wasn’t her father.Not that there was anything General Ford Walsh could say to her now that Ravyn would even consider listening to.That time had long since passed.
Now was what concerned her more.Steele Eze and the way her body had not only changed temperatures but almost spontaneously combusted the moment he’d reached out and she thought he was going to touch her skin.Why she’d craved that touch, she had no idea, but when he’d touched her hair instead, she admitted to a slap of irritation.And then a feeling of discontent.
She shouldn’t want some man she didn’t know touching her and she didn’t need him protecting her, or whatever he called it.She didn’t need anyone for that.Any belief that a man was meant to be her savior had vanished when her father basically paid her to stay out of his life and then male enforcers dominated their way into her business before finally taking that from her.
After slamming her door and then locking it behind her, she walked quickly through her office and into her bedroom.She’d been moving ever since she’d stalked away from him in that alley and now that she was alone in the safest place she knew, she dropped down onto her bed and sighed with relief.Easing her arms through the straps of the backpack she’d been carrying half the day, she let it fall on the bed before covering her face with her hands and stifling a scream.
“What the hell?What the hell?What the dammit hell?”
The words came on a groan that eventually grew to an almost scream as she tried to figure out what had happened in this last week and why her life had taken yet another turn.She twisted around and unzipped the backpack, turning it over so that the green material rolled out and the dagger tumbled free.
“A cursed dagger,” she whispered, because talking to herself came as natural as breathing.That was a common thing with only children when they were in elementary school.For Ravyn, the habit had stuck, and besides, next to Cree, she was her own best friend and confidant.
“This dirty raggedy knife can’t be cursed.Ugly, but definitely not cursed.”
But as she ran her hands over the sheath while the dagger lay on her bed, she began to wonder.How had she jumped from a roof that night and run while calling for the rideshare?And why had she suddenly begun to feel better after being sick all week?
“The flu had run its course.Even Lorna had said four to five days and I’d start feeling better.”
Only she didn’t just feel better, as the day had gone on and she’d walked the streets trying to figure out what to do with this damn dagger, she’d started to feel like normal, but better.
“A curse that heals the flu.”She chuckled.“You’re crackin’ up, girl.”And that was something Ravyn couldn’t afford to do.
There were too many people counting on her.Forty-nine of them, to be exact.Safeside housed forty-nine people who’d been shut out or cut down by the world above.The city of Burgess and all its corrupt leaders and enforcers had beaten these people until their only recourse was to run and hide.There were more, Ravyn was certain of that fact, and she wanted to help them all.She wanted to do something good with her life, despite her father’s bitter and evil summation that she would never be any good to anybody.
“This stupid dagger isn’t going to save the world.”
She picked it up and turned to slide it beneath her pillow, the place she’d been keeping it every night since she’d stolen it.Standing from the bed she headed to the bathroom for a hot shower.When that was done, she turned out the light before climbing into bed once more and pulling the sheets up to her neck.She wondered if tonight would be the night she finally got some sleep.
From the way her mind still raced with questions about the dagger, worry over how she was going to feed everyone in Safeside if she couldn’t sell the dagger, and the man who claimed the dagger would be the death of her if she didn’t let him help her.Or rather, let him save her.
On a huff she turned and punched one of the six pillows on her bed in the same way she’d wanted to punch Steele when he insisted she needed him to protect her.She reminded herself that she didn’t need Steele any more than she’d ever needed any man in her life.If anyone was gonna save Ravyn, it would be her and that was that.
She spent the next eight hours tossing and turning in the bed trying to figure out how exactly she was going to do that, again.
Death in dreams meant death in reality.At least in Steele’s dreams it did.Tonight was no different.
He moved along the concrete streets of Burgess.Buildings, tall and short, marked with colored bands of light or addresses affixed somewhere near doorways in flashing colors.He knew this city inside and out.Those lights and colors began to fade as he continued to walk, his steps leading him toward the financial district.It always seemed to be about fifteen degrees colder in this area.He doubted humans ever felt that difference, but he did because it was a magical marker of sorts, indicating a great number of preternaturals resided here.
The financial district was also known as the home of the vampires.That eerie-looking mansion with the soaring turrets and dark crimson painted door at the end of Cierco Avenue was the home of Chief Lord Hikeen Montoy.Steele had had his first glimpse of that wicked undead creature when he’d visited Theo at the Towers and Shola was taken.That had been the moment Theo decided Shola was his mate.When Theo had walked away from everything he’d built here on the Human Realm to save the woman who’d instigated the fight between the Drakon and the vampires.
With a shake of his head Steele tried to release those thoughts as they were futile.Theo was mated—and in the human world, married—to Shola, regardless of how Steele felt about that union or the one-sided process so many Drakon believed in.And none of that had anything to do with where he was now.
He was being followed.
That wasn’t new.It was the Reaper’s job to follow the Dream Reaper, just as it was the Dream Reaper’s job to lead the Reaper to the next soul on its collection list.Steele never saw names on that list, only snapshots of the death, and with that snapshot he could seek the soul through dreams.That’s how he’d found Ravyn.
But tonight, he was taking the Reaper someplace else, a place he knew Ravyn wouldn’t be.
Twilight was just around the next corner and he moved faster, letting his senses guide him, more so than his mind.He could see golden eyes of vampires peeking from inside dark windows on the buildings he passed, staring at him from inside cars parked on the street and down the alleys, but he barely gave them his attention.If they knew he was here in this dream, they knew why, and were undoubtedly holding their frigid breath in the hope that they weren’t the next name on the list.
