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  A silvery-green dragon followed and she recognized him even before he changed.

  It was Jack.

  In dragon form, her brother advanced on her, snapping at her with his jowls. He forced her to retreat against the wall. The black dragon, still in human form, stood there, holding James. The man was naked, but still exuded arrogance and control.

  The dragon slayers rushed forward, swords raised.

  Jack roared in the language of dragons: Change, Lucy. Change back. It’s your only hope to survive.

  She wanted to roar at him. Shout no at him. But the poison was flooding through her. Against her will, her body began to shift back into human form. Her muscles jerked and trembled. The floor tipped and wobbled beneath her feet. She lost her balance and the floor flew up to meet her.

  A thunderous crash exploded behind her and a male voice roared, “Touch her and you will bloody well die.”

  She knew that fury-tinged bellow. Knew the deep, beautiful baritone that had barked those words, and did it with such mad fury, he had frozen everyone in place.

  She tried to move, but her limbs were numb and cold. All she could do was flop over.

  “Who did this?” The man shouting this was the prince. He loomed over her, his eyes burning with such anger they were red. “Who poisoned her?”

  Her eyes were blurry, but she could see him whip around, screaming the question at his slayers. No one answered. Then suddenly, the prince was jerked off his feet and thrown across the room. Sinjin dropped to his knees beside her. Half a dozen swords immediately pointed at him. The dragon slayers closed in on him, standing only inches away. So close that if Sinjin moved, the lethal points would stab him.

  He bent over her, apparently not caring about the fact that six men were prepared to kill him. “Drink this, Lucy,” he murmured near her ear. Suddenly he pressed his wrist to her lips. She tasted his metallic, slippery blood. She tried to pull back, but then the blood flooded her mouth and some impulse drew her to suckle. To drink.

  “Let me save her.” She heard Sinjin speak the words, saw he was imploring the prince, her brother, and the other dragon to leave him while he gave her blood.

  “Stay back—let Sinjin rescue his damsel,” the prince barked. “Do not touch the other two dragons. Not yet.”

  The other dragon slayers obeyed their prince, moving immediately away.

  Why had Jack come here? Why was he with the man who looked like Allan? Why had they brought James to the dragon slayers?

  It was some kind of betrayal. With a heavy heart and a dizzy, drugged head, Lucy knew it must be.

  Sinjin cupped her face, stroking her cheek. The more of his blood she drank, the more she wanted. Warmth spread through her. The numbness of the poison subsided.

  His blood was saving her.

  Clutching his arm, she tugged and he understood, coming closer to her so she could whisper in his ear. “They ... want to ... kill us. Get away.”

  His face. Suddenly she realized—his face had healed. The skin of his cheeks and forehead was still wrinkled and slightly scarred, but mostly he was as perfect as he’d been before the sun had burned him.

  “I have to ensure you are safe.”

  “How did you—?” It was hard to force out words. She wanted to ask how he had known she was here. If he knew what her brother wanted. Why Jack was here. Why the slayers were not attacking.

  “Your brother told me,” he said softly. “He needed my help to get close to this house. I took care of the prince’s guards, allowing him to get in. I didn’t know his friend would bring James.”

  “The black dragon ... he looks like Allan Ferrars. Like my fiancé.”

  “I believe he is the brother of that bastard, Lucy. But I am not going to let him have you. You are going to live. You are going to feel very strong very soon. Then we will get James and get to safety.”

  Brother ... she didn’t know he had one... . “But why—why would he want me?” she whispered. She could not even hear her thoughts over the loud drum of her heart. “The prince wanted me to lure you. Why would Allan’s ... brother want me?”

  22

  Loss

  Sinjin rested his hand on Lucy’s heart. She was naked, and he wanted to rip apart the other men in the room, since every male except her brother was looking at her. Exploring her with appraising, lust-filled gazes. Sinjin moved his hand, pulled off his greatcoat, and draped it around her. Then he wrapped his arms around her, held her close, and slid his fingers under the lapel of his coat to check her heartbeat once more.

  It proved strong and steady now. His blood had destroyed the poison inside her and had healed her wounds. The problem: she was now a vampire.

  He didn’t know if a dragon could be turned into a vampire and survive. To save her from the poison used by slayers, had he sentenced her to certain death?

  She would have died if he had not acted. But he had not told her what he intended to do—he had not told her that she could die if she drank his blood.

  Hell.

  He had been so afraid to lose her, he’d reacted without thought. Out of the corner of his eyes, Sinjin watched the vampire slayers, the prince, her brother, Jack, and the black dragon, the brother of her former fiancé. They were all shifting restlessly, waiting ... ready to attack if the bargain they were about to strike did not work.

  He knew what they wanted. His prince wanted James, because James was growing up to be the most powerful dragon they had ever encountered. No dragon had been able to shift at so young an age. The prince would want to study James. He would want medical experiments carried out on James, the way some vampire slayers performed experiments on captured vampires. Sinjin suspected the damned prince wanted to see if he could acquire James’s ability to shift into dragon form. He knew the prince wanted to try to be both a vampire and a dragon at the same time—to find out if the combination would make him stronger.

  Sinjin knew the prince had tried to combine vampiric powers with those of a shifter dragon before. He had tried it on other people that he referred to as “subjects.” It had never worked—every subject he had tried it on had died. The prince believed it was possible, believed it like a fanatic.

  Sinjin didn’t know if it was possible, and it meant he had turned Lucy into a vampire without knowing the consequences. He did know from the prince’s experiments, that if a vampire tried to acquire dragon powers, the vampire died.

  Damn. He had to pray it didn’t work the same way if a dragon became a vampire.

  From the gleam in the eye of the black dragon, it was obvious he was determined to have Lucy—even if he had to kill everyone in the room to get her.

  “Enough,” the prince growled. “Release her, or I’ll send so many crossbows into you, you’ll be fractured into pieces and her blood will spurt out of you like a fountain.”

  Sinjin drew Lucy closer to him. He glanced around—half the weapons in the room shifted to point at him, and the rest remained trained on Jack and her former fiancé’s brother, Lionel Ferrars.

  First he had to take care of the prince—and he knew Jack and Ferrars would not stop him from doing that. They would want him to take down their opponents, then they would get rid of him.

  The prince moved over and stood, towering over Lucy. “Fascinating,” he growled. “She is still alive. She appears healthy, and she has the powers of both a vampire and a dragon inside her.”

  His sire’s eyes glowed like silver discs, bright with a fanatical gleam.

  Sinjin knew if he destroyed his sire, he would die. But he had to keep Lucy from becoming the pawn of his prince or of the black dragon. He had to protect her. Guidon had not been able to tell him how long he could survive after killing the prince. Would it be long enough to fight the black dragon and save Lucy? Or would his death be instantaneous?

  In the heartbeat it took him to think it through, the prince reached for Lucy and tried to pull her from him. A crossbow string gave a sharp twang, and a bolt streaked for his head.

&n
bsp; He kicked the prince and pulled Lucy away from the shot. The arrow slammed into the wall where he had just been standing.

  He shook his arm lightly, letting the stake drop into his hand. He pushed Lucy back, hating having to treat her so roughly. The prince followed her with his gaze, ready to pounce, and Sinjin jumped forward. He heard the whistle of arrows past his head, and he slammed into the prince.

  His prince looked down, saw the stake, and screamed, “You fool, you can’t kill me! You’ll destroy yourself.”

  But he drove the sharpened piece of wood upward and punctured his maker’s heart.

  The prince jerked back. His hands clawed at the stake, but it was in so deep, it stuck out through his back. He slumped to the ground. His body began to instantly decay—it was something Sinjin had never seen before. Right in front of their eyes, the prince’s body began to shrivel, then the skin turned gray, then collapsed into dust.

  Sinjin stepped back. Was this going to happen to him?

  The other slayers gaped in amazement and weapons suddenly lowered. He knew why. The king of their clan was dead, and now there was doubt as to whether he would be the new king. They were staring at him because he was still standing. He wasn’t dead. But he didn’t know whether that was temporary or not.

  He whirled around and ran to Lucy. He had to fight the black dragon while he still had time, but he had one thing to do first.

  He pressed Lucy against the wall and clamped his lips on hers for one precious instant. “I love you,” he said, then he turned to face the black dragon.

  But it was her brother who stood in front of him, a stake in his hand.

  Lucy screamed at her brother, “Jack, stop! No!”

  He turned wild, desperate eyes to her. “I have no choice, Lucy. If I don’t do this, I’ll be killed. I have to do this to protect you.”

  “Protect me? If you want to do that, help Sinjin! Put down that stake!”

  But her brother hesitated, then tightened his grip on it and took another step toward Sinjin. He met her frightened, horrified gaze. She saw the agony in his expression. Was he going to die because he had killed his sire?

  No—he couldn’t be dying. He looked too strong. Surely he would have died the instant he had driven the stake into the prince’s heart. He was going to survive—only if he attacked her brother. He snatched up one of the fallen swords.

  She knew he had to kill Jack, but she couldn’t stand it. Jack had turned against them, but he had been forced to.

  There must be a way for her to stop this.

  Sinjin lifted his sword, poised to drive it through Jack’s heart. She winced, shutting her eyes for an instant, but she couldn’t stop her lids from lifting.

  Sinjin turned his sword in his hand, so he held the hilt with the blade pointing down, the tip pressing into the floor.

  He wasn’t going to attack Jack. He was going to spare her brother. Thankfulness welled in her, choking her, making her throat dry and tight.

  But the next sound made her knees shake and her heart fall. It was a howl of pure fury. She jerked around to face her fallen brother.

  Opening his muzzle wide, Jack let out another roar. He hauled his wounded dragon body up, and flew at Sinjin, his jaws wide, and pouring out flame, his claws extended. Heavens, Jack was going to take advantage and kill Sinjin.

  “No! Jack, he spared you! Do not do this!” she shouted.

  She expected to see Sinjin lift the sword again, but he didn’t. He stood his ground, holding the sword pointing to the floor, and watched Jack rush toward him. She was staring at Jack—then she saw a flash of movement in the corner of her eye.

  Sinjin must have seen it, too. He jerked around. Just as Allan’s brother slammed a wooden stake into his heart.

  Shock seemed to grip her like a force of magic. She couldn’t move. She stood helplessly, staring as Sinjin tried to clutch the stake, then fell over, sprawling on the ground.

  It had gone several inches into the left side of his chest. It could not possibly have missed his heart.

  Finally, the horror snapped—she forced her feet to propel her forward. But as she fell to her knees at Sinjin’s side, his eyes went blank. Before she could help him, save him, even tell him how much she loved him, he died.

  23

  Magic

  As soon as the stake had driven into his heart, a red haze had formed in front of Sinjin’s eyes. Now the red glow was gone and he couldn’t see anything. The room was pitch-black around him. He had been able to see in the night for so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to feel blind.

  Was he alive or dead? Hell, he would have thought it would be easy to tell.

  Heat surrounded him. He heard the roar of flames. Something stank, like sulfur, like foul gas. Sinjin tried to shake his head, but he didn’t feel any movement. His body felt weightless, like he was floating in a hot, steamy, stinking void.

  He remembered wrapping his fist around the stake in his heart, then trying to pull it free. Remembered that, like the one he had plunged into his sire’s heart, this one would not budge.

  He had to be dead—and his soul, which was in some kind of dormant state when he was a vampire, was on a swift descent to hell, by the smells surrounding him.

  He had lost James. He had lost his precious Lucy.

  At least he had told her he loved her.

  Hell. At least. What a pile of horse dung: It wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He wanted a lifetime to show Lucy he loved her.

  He had thought it would be worth dying to see the prince die. He thought it would be worth it to know he had made James and Lucy safe. But they weren’t safe.

  Was there a way he could cheat death? He wasn’t finished. He still had to ensure they were all right... .

  Something was dragging him down into the void. A force he couldn’t resist. He was going to hell, he was sure of it. He’d surrendered his soul so long ago, he had killed so many creatures, where else would he be going?

  Sinjin fought to hang on. He strained to hear Lucy’s voice. To smell the subtle fragrance of her skin. To see her and hang on to her and stay with her.

  He fought, but he was losing—

  He had saved her life by giving her his blood.

  Tears streaked down Lucy’s cheeks. Scalding tears that blurred her vision and made it hard to breathe. She brushed at them fiercely, ridding her face of the signs of anguish. Dry-eyed, she looked up. Jack had taken James by the hand, and was holding the boy at his side. James strained at her brother’s grip but Jack yanked the boy back, snapping at him to behave.

  She wanted to kill her brother.

  Sinjin was dead because of her, because he had wanted to save her from the pain of losing a brother.

  The man who looked like Allan Ferrars stalked forward, his bare feet coming to rest in her field of vision. She stared up, craning her neck, and flinched as he held his hand down for her.

  “Don’t touch me,” she snarled. “Leave me. Go away. I will not go with you.”

  “Yes, you will, you stupid woman. Push him off your lap and stand up.” He snarled at her, baring his teeth. Even though he was in human form, his teeth were long, curved, and sharp. “We are leaving.”

  She wrapped her arms around Sinjin’s fallen body. Wishing that by hugging him, she could breathe life into him again. Fury made her body shake. In a low voice, fighting for control, she growled, “Who are you? You look like the man I despise most in the world and I want to know who you are!”

  He gazed down, sneering with disdain. “My name is Lionel Ferrars. Your fiancé—murdered by your family—was my younger brother.”

  “Younger brother? But he never even told me he had a brother.” Allan had lied even about his family to her. Why had he ever asked her to marry him? She didn’t understand. He hadn’t loved her. Or wanted her. Or even respected her enough to be honest about anything.

  “Get up, you little whore. You belong to me now.”

  His words struck like a slap. Then he did hit her�
��striking her across the face with the back of his hand.

  She roared at him. The sound burst out of her instinctually. It came out with a dragon’s power and she felt a strange pain shoot through her upper jaw. She clapped her right hand to her mouth, but her teeth grew. They shot forward and stabbed her palm.

  Fangs. She had fangs.

  Sinjin’s blood ...

  It was how people were transformed into vampires. They were taken to the point of death and then fed the blood of a vampire and they became one.

  She was a vampire, which meant her blood had the power to transform a dying mortal. Dear heaven, what if she gave her blood to Sinjin? Would it save him? Would it turn a dying vampire back into a vampire? Was she too late?

  Ferrars, the brute, hit her again. “Leave him,” he shouted. “Get off your arse, you stupid tart, and come with me.”

  “I will never go with you.”

  “I have only let you live so long because I need your power, you piece of whoring filth. Obey me. Or I’ll break your neck now.”

  What was this madman speaking of? She kept her arms around Sinjin, and she willed one of her fingers to transform, so her fingernail grew and became a claw. Amazing. She hadn’t even known she could do such a thing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw James, still held by her brother. The boy was white with fear and was shaking.

  She felt different. Stronger. She felt utterly in control. Yet how could she? She was in the clutches of a vicious maniac of a dragon and she had lost the man she loved... .

  She hadn’t lost. Not yet.

  She would save Sinjin, then she would protect James.

  Slicing her wrist, Lucy shifted her arm, so the wound in her flesh touched Sinjin’s mouth. The cut stung and blood flowed out. Sinjin was dead so of course he couldn’t drink. She feared she was too late. And she couldn’t let her wrist bleed out. She must survive to try to protect James.