Taken by a Dragon Read online

  No need either.

  She knew Loke better now and she felt sure that he would keep his promise. He would take her back to the Third Realm. If he didn’t, she would try her luck with the mountains and the forest that looked as if it might try to eat her. Until then, she would trust that he was going to fulfil his vow to her.

  She stepped back from the ledge, determined to return to the fire before Loke found her gone.

  A sudden rush of air swept down the mountainside, pushing her forwards. She grabbed her hair as it covered her face, wrestling the tangled golden ribbons back so she could see where she was going and wouldn’t fall off the ledge. Another blast of wind came.

  Something clamped around her waist.

  Anais gasped and tried to turn, sure that it was Loke behind her.

  The black ground dropped away and she looked down instead, her eyes widening and a bolt of fear piercing her heart. Huge red scaly talons held her around her waist and legs, each thicker than her body. Glossy black claws pressed dangerously close to her skin and she did the only thing she could think of as her mind shut down and she realised with horror that it wasn’t Loke who had her.

  She screamed.

  The dragon bellowed in response to her shriek and shook her, rattling her right down to her bones and making her ache all over. She bit her tongue to stop herself from crying out and tried to prise the beast’s claws off her as her survival instincts kicked in. She would take a long drop to a swift death over being stolen by another dragon.

  Anais attacked as best she could, alternating between punching the dragon’s talons and trying to get her fingers under its scales. She was going to yank the damned things off and make it hurt. The dragon kept flying, enormous dark red leathery wings beating the air, carrying them higher above the mountains.

  The world beyond them came into view and Anais’s heart plummeted.

  Nothing but more mountains and valleys for hundreds of miles.

  If she had run away from Loke, she would have died out there. She never would have reached Sable and the others.

  She wasn’t going to reach them now either.

  She looked up at the huge red dragon that held her. The great beast kept its large golden eyes on the distance but opened its crocodilian jaw, revealing rows of deadly long white fangs as it roared again.

  An answering roar came this time.

  Anais looked back towards the cave but saw only the barbed tip of the red dragon’s tail. The valley was so far away already, too distant for her to make anything out, but not far enough for her not to realise with disappointment that Loke wasn’t coming after her.

  There was no blue dragon chasing them.

  Anais ignored how her heart stung and went back to hitting the dragon’s paw, using both of her fists this time. She didn’t let up until the dragon dropped lower in the air as they swept over another mountain range.

  Her hands fell to resting on the dragon’s talon as she stared down at the clearing below. Round stone huts filled most of the space, with what looked like an arena carved into the mountain beyond them and a large flat tract of land left open at the end of the village closest to her. Anais realised it was the dragon equivalent of a landing strip when the red beast holding her touched down there.

  The second it set her down and released her, she turned on it, launching punches against anything she could reach. Two bare-chested men rushed forwards from a broad path between the thatched black stone huts and grabbed hold of her, pulling her away from the dragon. She fought them too, wrestling against their hold, even when she knew it was futile. They were far too strong for her.

  The one to her left, a man with silver hair, muttered something in their language and his companion, a green-haired younger male, responded, a grin curving his lips and revealing sharp white teeth.

  She stared at the dragon as it began to transform, waiting for it to turn into a red-haired man.

  It was a woman.

  A very beautiful woman with flame red hair.

  Mahogany leather trousers formed over her legs and she twirled her hair up, tying it in a knot at the back of her head. Anais waited for another garment to appear over her ample breasts but nothing happened.

  A golden dragon circled lazily above them, bright against the dark sky, and snorted. The woman looked up at the beast, her expression souring, and motioned for the men to follow her.

  The men grunted and marched Anais into the village.

  The moment they were clear of the landing strip, the golden dragon touched down.

  She looked back at it and it stared right at her, its elliptical pupils stretching thin as it eyed her. It wasn’t as beautiful as Loke had been.

  Her captor stormed ahead of her and her guards, still topless. When they entered the main area of the village, Anais realised that it wasn’t just her captor who was flashing her upper body. Every female she could see wore only trousers.

  Every male she could see on the broad streets between the rows of huts stared at her, eyeing her in a way that made her skin crawl. She didn’t like how they looked at her. Fascinated. Awestruck. Hungry. When Loke looked at her that way, she found it appealing, but with these men, she only felt a deep need to flee.

  To escape.

  She had the feeling she had made a grave mistake by disobeying Loke and she was going to pay for it.

  The men halted, jerking her to a stop with them, and she looked ahead of her, towards a larger round building that stood on a high solid black stone platform at the other end of an open square.

  A golden-haired male lounged on an obsidian throne in front of the thatched hut, cragged mountains his grim backdrop. His large hands rested over the ornate ends of the arms of the throne and his deep bronze leathers stretched tight over long powerful legs that were spread, giving him a relaxed and easy-going appearance that his sharp golden gaze contradicted.

  This man knew everything that was happening around him without even needing to look to confirm it.

  Was he the dragon equivalent of a king?

  The woman approached him and he eyed her, a bored edge to his gaze as they spoke. She fawned over him but the male didn’t seem impressed with her, not even when she pointed to Anais. His expression only darkened further then, his lips compressing into a thin line of displeasure. What was the woman telling him?

  Anais looked at the green-haired and silver-haired men that held her, their strong hands clamped tightly around her upper arms and their faces impassive. Others had gathered around the square too, standing in front of the huts that lined the edges of it, a mixture of men and women.

  She gasped when the men holding her began walking with her again, jerking her away from her study of the village and the other dragon shifters. Her eyes leaped to the blond male on the throne ahead of her. The redhead moved to one side, her head bowed as she backed away from the male.

  Anais guessed this was Loke’s clan’s village and this man was the chief.

  He looked no older than Loke, but that didn’t mean he was the same age. She had to assume he was older and more powerful than Loke, and not nearly as nice. If she did that, she might just survive whatever was about to happen.

  The two men released her and backed away too, leaving her standing a short distance from the chief in the middle of the circle. She could feel everyone staring at her and it was hard to fight her nerves and not let them get the better of her. She had faced a lot of powerful enemies in her life as a hunter, but never without a weapon and never in such numbers.

  “Where do you hail from?” the man said, his voice silken and smooth, and his English perfect.

  Loke could take a few lessons from him. He spoke it as if it was his native tongue, not a second language. Loke still stumbled from time to time. She looked back in the direction they had come, heart sore with a need to see him flying over the mountain range.

  Coming for her.

  She hated relying on anyone, never wanted to be coddled or have another person fight her battles
, but she was also a realist. She wasn’t so stubborn that she couldn’t recognise when she was in trouble and needed help.

  She needed it pretty badly right now.

  “I asked you a question.”

  Anais turned back to face the chief, because not answering him sounded as if it might not end well for her.

  “From the mortal realm.”

  A murmur ran through the crowd around her but she didn’t take her eyes off the golden-haired male on the throne. His only reaction was a shift in position. He propped his left ankle on his right knee but kept his hands dangling off the ends of the arms of the throne. His fingers began a slow drumming against the carved black stone as he studied her.

  Casual, yet deadly.

  She could almost sense it radiating from him. He was dangerous. More powerful than Loke. She got the impression that being the chief of the clan wasn’t a role you were born or voted into. She had the feeling that it was a position you won through brute force, determination, and possibly bloodthirstiness.

  “A mortal… and how did Loke come across a mortal… may I ask?” He ran golden eyes over her and she felt other men do the same.

  Her skin crawled in response and she wanted to rub her hands over herself to wipe away that disgusting sensation, but didn’t want to draw their attention to her even more by openly touching herself in front of them.

  “He took me from the fight in the Third Realm.” She had figured that honesty would be the best policy to adopt, but the way the chief’s eyes darkened dangerously warned her that it might have been the worst.

  She had the feeling she had just got Loke into a lot of trouble, and possibly herself too.

  “You are a prisoner of war and Loke should have notified me, as the others did.”

  Anais stared at him as those four words ran around her head.

  As. The. Others. Did.

  Her stomach dropped into her bare feet.

  “Others?” she whispered and started to shake her head as that tried to sink in. Other dragons had taken huntresses from the battlefield. They had taken her kin.

  The man smiled cruelly. “Our males always have need of spoils of war.”

  Anger curled through her veins, obliterating her fear, and she clenched her fists and took a step towards the man before she could stop herself. “Spoils of war? Those are my friends… I want to know where they are.”

  His smile only widened and he pointed beyond her. “I believe Zephyr has one… do you not? You could attempt to take her back from him.”

  Anais whirled on the spot to face the green-haired male who had marched her to the village. He folded thick arms across his bare chest, causing every muscle to tense, and she swallowed hard.

  “Perhaps Zephyr would like a companion for his female?”

  The bastard named Zephyr smiled at that suggestion and ran forest-green eyes over her, lingering on her breasts.

  “The female has grown tiresome. She constantly cries and whimpers like a mewling bitch. A new female might suit me.” He took a step towards her. “You have fire. I should have taken you. Perhaps I shall.”

  “You bloody bastard,” Anais growled, scooped up a small pebble from the black ground and hurled it at him with every drop of her strength. It beaned him in the eye and he snarled at her, flashing sharp teeth. Her heart leaped into her chest as he took a step towards her, menace and dark intent rolling off him.

  “Enough.” The chief’s voice rang out and Zephyr stopped and backed off, settling for glaring at her even though she could see he wanted to get his own back and teach her a lesson she would probably never forget.

  She slowly turned back to face the chief.

  Her courage failed, immediately disappearing when he rose onto his feet and came to stand at the edge of the stone platform. He glared down at her, his golden eyes bright with fire that warned her to keep her temper in check. She was no match for him, or for the one called Zephyr, or any of the men present. She wasn’t even sure that she would be a match for any of the women, not without a weapon.

  All she could do was bide her time and hope that Loke would come for her. She wasn’t sure that he would. She had broken her promise. She hadn’t just broken it, she had shattered it into a million pieces. She didn’t deserve to be rescued, but she held on to the hope that he would give chase and save her.

  She hadn’t been a damsel in distress on the battlefield, but she was one now.

  It was ironic that she didn’t want a prince to save her from a dragon.

  She wanted a dragon to save her from Hell’s equivalent of a prince.

  A chief who looked as if he was considering killing her or handing her over to Zephyr.

  Loke had been right.

  He’d had a vision. He had seen something terrible happen to her. He had asked her not to go to the cave mouth and had confessed he hadn’t wanted the other dragons to see her.

  What if she had just made that vision come true?

  Was she about to die here?

  Her nightmare wasn’t going to end here. She knew it. If Loke didn’t come for her, she would end up in the hands of one of the male dragons surrounding her, and she was one hundred percent certain that whichever dragon took her, he wouldn’t be taking care of her wounds, cooking for her, and protecting her out of the kindness of his heart.

  He wouldn’t vow not to hurt her.

  He would view her as a spoil of war, a way of satisfying whatever dark urges gripped him, and she would have no way of stopping him.

  “What did Loke want with you?” the chief said and she stared up at him, her hands shaking at her sides and her knees on the verge of buckling as the gravity of her situation pressed down on her.

  It took her a moment to understand what he was asking and when she did, she knew that the chief was somehow aware that Loke hadn’t taken her as a spoil of war.

  “He didn’t take me prisoner,” she whispered, finding it impossible to speak any louder or with confidence. All of her strength was draining from her and nothing she did stopped it from flowing out of her, leaving her weak and trembling.

  Zephyr’s words haunted her, tearing at that strength, ripping it away from her piece by piece. Whoever he had taken from the war, he had broken her. She rubbed her arms, trying to get the chill off them as fear crawled through her. He would break her in the same way.

  Her heart called for him, ached with a need to see his face, to look into his clear aquamarine eyes and hear his voice telling her that everything was going to be all right. No dragon would lay a hand on her. No dragon would hurt her.

  She pressed her hands to her chest and the chief frowned at them, his eyes narrowing in a way she didn’t like. He looked as if he could see straight through her. He knew her inner fears and her thoughts. He knew her heart called for one of his dragons.

  “Why did Loke take you?” he said, a commanding edge to his deep voice, one that warned her again not to disobey him or displease him.

  Anais looked him right in the eye and opened her mouth to tell him. Her words died on her lips as his eyes left her, lifting towards the dark sky beyond her.

  His golden gaze shimmered with fire and narrowed, focusing on something. She looked back towards the mountains but no dragon broke the bleak sky. What was he looking at? She turned back to face him and a quiet murmur ran through the people gathered around them.

  “Save your answer.” The blond man didn’t take his eyes off the horizon as he addressed her. “I shall ask the dragon warrior himself.”

  His eyes fell to her, intense and fierce, piercing her and leaving her feeling that he knew something she didn’t. He stared at her for long seconds before raising his hand.

  “Shackle her. Let us see what Loke thinks of that.”

  Zephyr grabbed her arm and began pulling her towards the edge of the square just as a distant roar shattered the silence. She whipped around to face the mountains and her heart leaped as she saw the majestic blue dragon zooming towards the village.

  Sh
e fought Zephyr and managed to break his hold, but didn’t make it two steps towards the landing strip before one of his hands clamped down on the nape of her neck and the other struck her across the back of her head. Her ears rang and her vision wobbled, and the grim colours of Hell whirled together into a single swathe of black as darkness claimed her.

  CHAPTER 6

  Loke landed hard in the clearing near the village, threw his head back and roared again, unleashing every drop of his anger so all in the clan would know it. He lowered his head and focused on the clan chief, Ren, where he stood at the edge of the platform in the main gathering place of the village. Ren held his gaze, unflinching as Loke snarled at him, baring twin rows of deadly sharp teeth.

  Several males rushed towards Loke through the alleys between the huts, some of them with red hair. Which was the one who had taken Anais from him? They would be the first to die.

  He growled at them all as they reached the clearing and they backed off, edging towards the circular black stone huts.

  When they had moved to a distance that pleased him, he carefully curled his left paw around his knife so he didn’t lose it and focused on his body, willing it to change. In the blink of an eye, he was back in his more human form and his blue leathers had appeared over his legs. He twirled his knife and sheathed it beside his left hip as he strode forwards, each determined stride carrying him swiftly through the village.

  His gaze locked on the square ahead and Ren and the fire in his veins burned hotter as his chief calmly stared back at him.

  Rayna hurried towards him, her bare breasts bouncing with each step, but he paid her no heed. She always singled him out whenever he visited the village. He had no interest in what she wanted to offer him. There were other males more willing than he was to satisfy her.

  Female dragons were nothing if not assertive. They never shied away from staking a claim on a male they found attractive and often pursued them until they gave up and gave the female what she wanted, slaking both of their carnal hungers. Sleeping with someone who desired you, even if you didn’t particularly desire them, was acceptable behaviour in dragon society.