~~~
There were at least two hundred Sifts below him. Roque tilted his wings and banked to the left, sweeping low over the hollowed out factory the ugly monsters were crawling over, scaling the sides of the husked out building like rats.
What in tarnation was going on?
What had happened to Shaw and the handful of men who had gone out on the rescue mission with him? They’d been looking for the survivors they’d made contact with through Morse code over the static radio frequency.
Roque hoped they weren’t holed up in that factory, but something in there definitely had the Sifts’ attention.
He circled again, looking for any indication that Shaw or any humans were within, hoping for their sakes that they were far from here.
Either way, whatever the foul beasts were gathering for was worth getting a closer look at.
He banked low, coming in close. Heat boiled in his belly. Dragon fire. A primal roar bubbled inside his essence, snapping at his self-imposed restraints to let loose, be free, soar high into the sultry skies and be the dragon. Just be.
He trumpeted out a roar, exultant in the power of his being, the strength of his wings, pulling through the currents of air.
Dragon.
Ancient of blood.
The insignificant creatures below him cried out, futilely mimicking his thunderous bellow.
Prey. Cattle. Food.
He hungered. Salivated.
Tucking his wings in, he dove at the corner of the building where a meaty succulent cow clung, unimpressive claws embedded into the crumbling brick.
The beast screamed, sensing approaching danger, nostrils and mouth chuffing the air, sightless face upturned to the wind.
At the last moment, the dragon rounded his wings, slowing, and extending his legs forward, he crashed into the beast, talons ripping it from its perch.
Wings stroking the silky air, he lifted higher. All the beasts below shrilled after him.
The prey in his talons shrieked, claws gouging into the shiny green scales of the dragon’s underbelly.
He locked his talons against the struggling cow. It was no match for his brilliance. Primitive teeth nipped at him, drawing blood beneath scales.
The dragon crowed, pleased with a good fight and swung the beast into the air, somersaulting it in the sky, then dove, swatting it through a wisp of clouds while it howled and hissed, spurting trails of blood through the cerulean sky.
He crashed into the falling prey again. Bone crackled. The beast went limp.
Disappointed that his fun came to an abrupt end, the dragon opened his talons and let the wilted body fall.
He rolled in the sky, frolicking, free, unencumbered by…what? Nothing of importance to him of ancient blood and ancient birth, reawakened to a new world, his for the taking.
He hungered. He yearned.
He would gorge on the beast that gave him the most play.
Perhaps two or three.
Then he would search out promising females to mate.
Green eyes flashed though his mind, framed in wild fiery tresses. Treasure.
Mate.
His humanity clawed to reach the surface, to gain back control.
The dragon growled, low rumbles vibrating through his belly.
Hungry. Eager to resume the chase.
He swooped in hard and fast across the side of the factory, releasing the pent-up fire building in his throat column.
Dragon fire poured over the hapless beasts that scattered across the walls, burning a dozen or so to flaming husks that fell and rolled in the air like bright orange fireballs.
Extending his talons, he reached for another of the creatures, knocking it from the wall it futilely tried to scurry down, when movement in the window caught his attention.
Ever curious to the world he’d awoken to, the dragon let the gray bulbous cow drop, flicking it off when it tried to grab hold. It’s shrieks spiraled away with it.
Rounding his wings out, he pushed great drafts of air to hover near the broken window and see the small figure within.
Human. His nostrils twitched. The being waved frantically for his attention, mouth moving, words unheard, unimportant, snatched away by the hissing, screaming beasts that scrambled off the building, spilling down into the gutted streets like frightened insects.
Yet here the human stood his ground in the face of his majesty, trying to gain his attention.
Intense gray eyes bore into him. Long dark hair flew back from the blasts of his wings.
Unafraid.
The dragon’s heart twitched with fascination. He would teach the human fear.
With a lurch, he grabbed the human about the waist, pulling him out of the building and sprang up into the sky.
Wind streamed across his scales. The frail human clung to his talons wrapped into his side, scrabbling for a more secure hold.
The dragon grinned deep within.
“Roque, stop! What are you doing? Take me back. The others are unprotected. Roque! Deithe, ye are Roque?”
Dragon.
He was dragon.
And this puissant human would soon realize it.
He stroked high above the streets, and then with wicked pleasure, opened his talons and let the human fall.
With perverse glee, he watched the figure tumble through the blue, limbs failing, trying to grasp onto nothing. Amusing how these short-lived creatures clung so tenaciously to life even when there was not a thing the human could do to save himself.
Amused, the dragon rolled into a dive and collected the human by his shoulders as gently as he would pluck his own offspring from a fall.
The human’s lungs heaved along the edges of his talons. The smell of blood coursing rapidly through the human’s veins awakened another beast residing deep within the dragon.
Vampire.
He sniffed. The richness pumping within the human made his mouth water.
Blood. Ancient ripe blood. A familiar aroma. He hungered. No. He yearned.
For his mate. The dragon wanted his treasure.
The vampire sensed the man in his draconic grasp. Not his treasure, but similar. Similar blood. Old. Ancient.
The vampire stirred, senses dominating the dragon, overpowering.
The human drew in a shuttering breath. “Damn it, Roque. Do that again and I’ll skewer you.”
Insignificant boast, the dragon mused while the vampire stilled, cloudy images drifting through his essence.
Strapped to De Schwarzen Klaue’s table, bones crushed and reformed, burning from the inside out. “Exzellent, my son, let the hatred surge in you. Be the dragon.”
“Roque,” the human cried. “Come back to yerself. Edeen will have my hide if I hurt you.”
Edeen.
Edeen saved him. He burned, consumed in flame, rioting in the sky with a hundred planes dropping death from their bellies, and a trumpeting red and black dragon chased him upon the smoke-hazed air.
He had lost himself then and she had saved him.
She had been his anchoring thought. He had to remain a man to save her from Hitler’s grasp. From the tortures Geschopf would put her through.
Edeen. His treasure. His mate. For all that he was, vampire and dragon, Edeen was his everything.
Roque pushed himself to the forefront, pulling back on his primal essence. Edeen had been right to worry. He’d remained in dragon form too long and went he came upon the succulent beasts he nearly lost himself to his other half.
He flexed his talons and nearly dropped the human. Human. Shaw. Shite, what had he done?
Played with Edeen’s brother like an excited overgrown pup.
Gods above.
Steam spouted form his nostrils. Low tremors pulled across his muscles, igniting a transformation. His bones creaked, sinews and flesh contracting.
Roque folded in his wings and dove. He had to make it to the ground before he lost the form of the dragon. He couldn’t hold it, already felt the change.
/> Shaw clung tight to his talons, a string of Gaelic curses streaming across the whistling wind.
He aimed for the top of the factory, but was falling too fast so dodged it, flaring out his wings to slow his reckless decent and headed for the street farther below.
He was losing his form, already in transformation, wings shrinking, Shaw a heavy burden.
Groaning, he pushed against the air current, slowing, slowing, almost to the pavement and let Shaw go only a few yards up from the street when his muscles seized tight and he transformed into a man.
The impact was brutal, skidding across broken pavement in a plume of dust and debris, scraping swathes of skin from his bones, and burning hotter than the fire in his belly.
He hit the rusted frame of an abandoned truck and finally stopped, naked, still, and broken, choking up dust and gravel. But at least he was a man again. Er, well, vampire.
“Roque, Deithe!”
Gravel kicked up around him as Shaw slid to his side. Strong competent hands turned him.
He sucked in a screaming breath. Bugger, that hurt.
Worried gray eyes blinked down at him. “Damn you, Roque. How are ye alive after that fall? By the rood, what are ye doing here?”
“Searching for you,” he replied dopily. His natural endorphins were kicking in. Gods grace there was one advantage to being a vampire. “I flew too long, almost got lost to the…” he yawned. “…the dragon.”
Shaw snapped fingers in front of his face, drawing his attention up. “Do not swoon.”
Roque snorted. “I don’t swoon.”
“As ye say.” Shaw studied his face. “See that ye do not. Remain awake. I’m going to get you to aid.” His jaw flexed. “We’re in the middle of nowhere surrounded by Sifts.”
“I’ve been in worse scrapes, mate.”
Shaw narrowed his gaze, obviously not believing him.
Roque tugged on Shaw’s shirt. “No really. Vampire, remember. Just give me…” His jaw cracked with his second yawn. He’d better focus or he wouldn’t be able to tell Shaw why he’d taken the risk to remain in dragon form for so long. That reason being…? His mind was fuzzy on that just yet, but it had to have been important. “Eh, give me a moment.”
“A moment’s more than we have. I must get back to those children.”
“Children?”
“The survivors who ray-de-ohed us. We found them holed up in an old prison with women of the cloth.”
“Nuns?”
Shaw nodded. “Twelve children, tucked in safe all this time until the Sifts snuffed them out. We reached them just in time and I had to open a rift in space to get them out.”
“But Shaw…” Opening any kind of rift, whether through time or just across distances was risky with the monsters’ ability to sense any rift and follow it to its destination.
“I know.” Shaw pulled Roque up into a sitting position where the buildings made a full rotation around him. “I’ve opened two more rifts so we could lead them off our scent, but they keep finding us. ‘Tis why I haven’t made a rift back to the lighthouse. I can’t lead the Sifts there.
“ ‘Twas a huge gamble, but we’d gone through all our ammunition. Sorcerer’s fire has been the only thing holding them off.”
Roque noted the dark shadows beneath Shaw’s eyes. Using his Moon Sifter magic to summon fire and opening several rifts in space had taken its due.
Roque’s clarity was returning, the endorphins easing off. “I don’t understand. There were hundreds of the beasts amassed around you. Why so many? Either something big is going down, or—“
“Or they’ve exhausted their food supply.” Shaw pulled Roque to his feet. “Think ye can stand on your own?” Shaw flicked his head to the side and Roque followed the direction to a pair of bold—or extremely hungry and desperate—Sifts that were edging toward them. “I may be otherwise engaged for a moment.”
“I can stand if it comes to it.”
They started shifting back toward the factory. Shaw’s natural sorcerer’s, or rather, Moon Sifter’s fire would keep the beasts back, but they had to get to those kids. The handful of Holdout soldiers that had set out on this rescue mission with Shaw would do what they could, but without ammunition, or weaponry since they’d come through several rifts, or magic…
He sensed movement behind them and craned his head back to find half a dozen of the beasts once again scaling the factory walls.
He had a terrible thought. Once the Sifts depleted their food supply—humans—oh bugger. In dire circumstances, normal predators would then turn on each other. Yet Sifts were far from normal.
They had the ability to think, to organize, and to open rifts, albeit small ones, able only to traverse the span of a hundred years, give or take. And so far they hadn’t shown the ability to create rifts in distance or space. Otherwise, they would have already been inside with the children. Although once they felt one, they could duplicate it and had apparently been doing that, following Shaw through the rifts he’d been taking the children and soldiers through. He’d been right to stay away from the lighthouse.
But with the ability of the Sifts to easily cross through time…they could go back to the past. All of them.
The monsters would always have an unlimited food resource.
Metallic bile flooded Roque’s throat. He choked it back. “Shaw, if there are so few people left in this time…”
“Aye.” Shaw cut him off.
Roque slanted a glance to his grim features. “It’s not your fault.”
The arm supporting his back flexed. “My magic created the first of the beasts within the witch’s womb.”
Roque swallowed, knowing Shaw carried the weight of the world upon his conscience. If their places were reversed, he couldn’t say he’d feel any differently.
Shaw guided him toward an area of the building that seemed impossible to get into. The whole lower floors were boarded up and also surrounded by makeshift concertina wire. Roque briefly wondered what had happened to the group of Holdouts who had once obviously fortified this place. He hoped they had made it out and joined Alexander’s growing refugees.
“The formula,” Shaw suddenly asked. “Tell me it worked. Tell me that Alexander caught his Sift to test the formula upon and that we can take away these monsters’ ability to travel through rifts once and for all. Tell me that and I’ll believe we can set what I’ve done to rights.”
Roque stopped dead in his steps. Shite, this is what he had come for.
Shaw’s gaze bore into him with the intensity of a hawk. “Roque?”
The dragon beneath his skin opened an eye to peer closer.
“He didn’t get the chance to test the anti-rift. A Sift got to him instead.”
Shaw’s eyes flared. His palm clamped hard over Roque’s wrist. “Is he?”
“Stable. But, Shaw, the beast bit him and escaped into a rift in time.”
Cursing, Shaw stepped away, putting his back to him and pushed his hands against his temples.
Roque swayed without the support, but braced his back and remained standing. Barely.
Hissing, the Sifts edged closer. There were a dozen more now, hemming them in.
Roque glared at them and revealed more to Shaw. “Col dived in the rift after him.”
Shaw spun back, features horrified and cursed louder. “That child is forever seeking to throw his life away.”
Roque flinched. Col was hardly a child. “That’s why I came to find you.”
“To open a rift so we can rescue the lad. Both lads. Col’s too reckless by spades and I fear Alexander is the same.” The tenseness fell from Shaw’s shoulders. He shook his head. “I can open a rift, aye, but to when?” He glanced around at the Sifts circling them. “I dare not have them follow me even if I knew where to go.”
“I have to carry you to the lighthouse. Edeen and Lenore are with Alexander. They might think of something…”
“Memories.” Shaw’s eyes suddenly glittered. “If he encountered
this Sift in his past, he’ll have memories of it.”
Roque grinned. Married to an empath all this time and that thought hadn’t occurred to him.
Shaw eyed the Sifts with a predatory grin.
Roque felt the dragon rising up. “Even if I was in any shape to fly you out of here, we can’t leave the children.”
“Nor can I take them through another rift and lead the beasts to the lighthouse.”
“Unless…” Roque loosened the hold he had on the beast purring hot beneath his skin, testing his strength. He was still weak, the dragon still exulting in the recent freedom he’d enjoyed. Shaw watched him curiously.
Roque flexed his fingers. “Unless they are too busy fleeing for their lives to notice the opening of a tiny rift.”
“Roque, no.” Shaw shook his head.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Aye, I experienced how fine ye were before. The dragon nearly consumed you.”
Roque wet his lips, pushing back his own nervousness at the prospect. “I’ll only hold the form long enough to do some damage and chase them out.”
“And what after that? You’ll be a man out here alone, weak, amid hundreds of the beasts. Will ye have me explain that to my sister?”
Roque’s lips curled back to reveal his long eyeteeth. “Do not dismiss that there is another side to me. I can do this.”
Shaw stared at him for a long moment, weighing options of which there weren’t any others. A muscle jerked in his jaw before he nodded and slid his arm against Roque’s in an ancient clasping of forearms, and pulled him in close. “Be safe, dheartháir.”
Touched by the endearment, Roque nodded, saying nothing as Shaw turned and gave Roque the distraction he would need to transform.
Blue-white moon conjured fire blasted out into a clean arc, slicing across the closest monsters while the others shrieked and scurried away like rats to their holes.
Roque felt the transformation come upon him fast and hard, too hard.
The dragon craned his neck to sight upon the cows scaling the building and launched into the air.
Chapter Four