Immortal Heat (The Guardians of Dacia Book 1) (28 page)

No, I can't. Even if I was out of this hell hole, I could never love you the way you need to be loved. There are things about me that would scare the living hell out of you. I could never trust myself not to terrify you. I'm what nightmares are made of. Just ask any folk historian.

She'd got it. The image of him being shoved into a deep hole…by Gerlich.

Hold on, Draylon. I'm coming.

You better be referring to the sexual release, Marilyn because if not—I'm going to kick your ass

Kiss my ass? You promise? Don't threaten me with a good time, Draylon, I'll hold you to that.

No I said 'kick your ass'—

But she'd already cut off connection by blocking her thoughts and actions from him. She had all the information she needed to track him down. Now she just had to break into Aiden's fortress and get him out safely.

Slipping out of bed, she tied her sneakers and made her way towards the door.

Ren stopped her. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going back to Vamier's."

"What? Like hell you are."

"Draylon's being held captive somewhere in the fortress. He's injured and close to dying. I won't be responsible. If Aiden wants me, he's going to get me…and all that I am."

"Marilyn, don't do this. If what Nonni says is true, you are the key to everything in the Dacian curse. If he has you, it could mean the start of the apocalypse," Ren warned.

"Maybe that is what I was meant for. Maybe it's up to me to bring about a new world."

"You don't understand the powers behind the curse," he stormed.

"Then it's time I learned."

#

She didn't have a damn clue what she was doing. Going off half-cocked was not her at all. She'd been taught to plan everything down to the minute detail before approaching a situation. But she needed Draylon. They were connected on a level so intense that neither one could survive if the other didn't. He was her destiny. She knew this was the right path.

Marilyn tried to weigh the pros and cons in her head, but her heart over-ruled. She'd never had such a strong connection with a man or any human being for that matter. She was no longer a true human, she was part wolf—and other things she wasn't quite sure about, but she sensed them within her.

"I don't like this, Marilyn," Kurren said as he followed her through the early Dacian dawn.

"It's not for you to like. It's for me to do." She stopped and he barreled into her. Toe to toe they stood. "Did you ever get the sense of rightness and know you had to follow through with it?"

"For us it's constant. We call it instinct."

"Well, this is a first time for me. Since my trip here to Romania, I've had a lot of firsts. But I've never had the connection I have with Draylon with any other man."

"It's the telepathy. Somehow you two are connected mentally." He agreed.

"No…it's something deeper. Something so basic and raw it's as if we are two parts of a whole." She started walking again, moving branches out of the way. "If I'm to be here in Dacia for the rest of my life, I can't imagine being here without him."

"Still, you're willing to go in there, knowing it might be a trap and sacrifice yourself?"

"That's what Draylon did. He's forbidding me to come save him to keep me safe." She stopped again. "But you need to let go and believe in something greater than your sacrifice. If your love drives you to sacrifice yourself—how can you enjoy sharing an eternity of immortality with the one you're meant to share it with?"

Ren looked at her with a touch of confusion. He wasn't following her train of thought. Truthfully, she wasn't sure she followed it herself. She shook her head and moved on. Yes, she knew what she was doing, she needed to stay positive.

"Well if you insist on going back to Vamier's then let me get you some weapons and a crew to go with you."

"No. I have all the support I need, right here." She patted her chest, feeling the security of her medallion. She hugged Ren. "Keep my mom safe for me." With that she ran on ahead of him, losing herself in the woods towards Cluj.

She still didn't know what the hell she was doing, but some inner peace had her believing this to be the right direction, her direction.

#

Draylon had given up hope. He lay in his prison-grave weary and in pain. He'd tried morphing into all of his creatures. Nothing worked, not even his mightiest creature, his true Zmei form. It had no room to morph. So he lay here trying to save his energy and heal from the wounds suffered at Gerlich's hands. But whatever drug they'd given him interfered with his normal healing rate. His inability to breathe deeply suggested he might have suffered some broken ribs. He knew he had a broken leg but what was worse was his broken spirit.

Draylon, can you hear me?

Marilyn. His head lifted from his arms where he sat. Where had she gotten the ability to communicate with him like this? He wasn't going to answer. She'd pissed him off by closing off her telepathy from him when he told her to stay away.

So you're pissed at me? Why? You want to play the hero? Fine, let's see you do it.
She sighed.
Why do men have to be such pains in the asses? Wasn't it you who told me I needed to make my own choices and decisions? You were the one to tell me not to be afraid of taking a stand.

I was referring to other's control over you.

Ah, so you are there.

The imp had conned him into revealing himself. Shit. He set his jaw and narrowed his thoughts onto her. He could see her running through the woods on all fours. She'd morphed into a bobcat?

Yeah, about that—damnedest thing happened. I started running and then I felt the change coming on, but my mind conjured up this form. You didn't tell me Dacians can shift into more than one form. Kind of cool if you ask me.

They can't. Dacians are wolves or human, nothing more.

Well then I must be special, like Nonni said.

What?

Nonni told me she'd sent me the wolf half of the Dacian medallion for my twenty-first birthday because I was chosen by the gods. Right now, I've got to get to you. How are you holding up?

Dacian medallion? Wolf half? The only medallion he knew of was the—oh hell no.

Marilyn! What are you doing?
He didn't have to ask. He could see from her vision Vamier's fortress before her as she lurked beneath the overgrowth of the forest.
You are the Chosen One. If Vamier finds out, your life is over.

Nope. That is where you are wrong, Draylon. I've finally figured it out…I'm only the Chosen One if we are together.

#

The outside of the fortress was up lit with massive searchlights giving it more of a menacing effect. Were they still on the lookout for her? Marilyn made her way through a side entrance, keeping to the shadows. She had to admit she felt vulnerable in her naked state, the only security she had was in her medallion.

She made her way through the various corridors hoping to find some insight into Draylon's whereabouts. Instead she at least found some bed linens that she fashioned into a simple sarong-style dress to keep her from feeling exposed. There had to be an easier solution to all this changing and ending up without any clothes. Or maybe she just needed to embrace being naked.

"Ah, you are back." A voice with a slight German tone startled her from behind as she rounded a corner to see if it was all clear. She guessed not. "Aiden will be so pleased."

Gerlich stood, leaning against the wall, looking smug and self-satisfied. It was too bad his smarminess interfered with his good looks. Calming her racing heart down, she smiled.

"Yes, well, it's only temporary. I seem to have forgotten a few things." She could play the game, too.

"I like your dress. Did you make it?"

"Yes, matter of fact I did, recently."

He only nodded.

"So I'm assuming you're going to take me to Aiden," she said.

"I thought about it but no." He studied his neat manicure. "I decided there are certain privileges to having rank. You see, I've been climbing this 'chain of command' to get where I want to be. It's all about leverage and having the insight to use it at the apropos time."

"So you're blackmailing, Aiden Vamier?" Marilyn cocked her brow at him and shook her head. "Not a real smart thing to do if you ask me."

"He seems to think you're rather important. He sent his best troops out to hunt you down more than once, and rumor has it, none of the young vamps can touch you without dying a quick death. I wonder why?"

"Beats the hell out of me." It baffled her, too. And by the way he leered at her, Gerlich looked eager to see if he was immune to her touch. "Care to see for yourself?"

Gerlich laughed. The creep even had a rich sounding laugh that could turn a woman on. Damn shame.

"I like you, Miss Reddlin. You have spirit and sass. There is no fear in you."

Damn. Good thing he couldn't read her mind. Her insides were beginning to take on a fight or flight adrenaline rush as he stalked closer.

He stood within her private space. She could see the minute details in the smoothness of his pale features, the prominent shape of his Adam's apple, the short hairs framing his forehead. Scrawny, pale and charming—did he sparkle, too?

Gerlich caressed her face with his palm, his thumb tracing back and forth across her mouth. Her lips twitched and her nose wrinkled but not in involuntary pleasure. His touch set off something lurking deep inside of her. She stared into his eyes and saw an image of the torture Draylon had endured at his hands.

"Where is he?" she questioned in a low tenor.

"Who?" he replied innocently.

"What did you do to Draylon?"

"I put him out of his centuries of misery. It's kind of refreshing to know I am the one who did away with Rick Delvante's famous pet. And now, I feel the need to make even a bigger deal over removing his new one."

His mouth came down as if to kiss her only he went for her throat at last minute, latching on with his razor sharp fangs.

Marilyn went wild. Fear exchanged places with anger. Anger turned into energy, energy that streamed through her veins and every biological system she could fathom. She saw the wolf, witnessed the bobcat form cross her internal vision but what came next was magnificent and frightening. The creature she'd been recently in her dreams. She accepted it, coming to realize what she was all about. She was a Zmeu!

Gerlich hung on, drawing on her life blood even as her body grew and morphed. Scales the color of garnet replaced skin, her hands elongated into thin, finger-like claws curling under in deadly looking sickles. Her shoulders pressed against the wide width of the corridors and took up the height of the chapel-styled rafters.

Plucking Gerlich off of her, she flicked him down the length of the hallway like a piece of lint. Now she was the stalker. She picked him up, shook him awake, no doubt addling his brain if he had any ounce of mortality.

"Where is Draylon?" Her human voice bellowed off the walls in a guttural bass.

"Fuck! What the hell…" He squirmed like a worm on a hook.

She turned, taking out the walls on her way and threw him down back the way they came. The momentum and acrobatic spins he took were definitely more like bowling but instead of pins falling, the roof fell in as the stone walls and plaster ceiling caved in around them, burying Gerlich.

He still hadn't complied, and she couldn't get a good bead on Draylon. Short of tearing down the fortress, she needed him to confess.

Unearthing her nemesis from the rubble and tucking him under her wing, Marilyn went on a rampage through the thousand year old fortress. Nothing stood in her way. She could get used to this.

Dawn had broken and she unearthed vampires who'd only recently called it a night to avoid the power of the sun god. She exposed them to the old god. The echo of hisses and screams as the smell of burning flesh filled the morning air only intensified her hunt.

Looking back the way she'd come, Marilyn realized she'd destroyed one whole wing of the ancient fortress without any sight of Draylon. She lifted her wing, exposing her cargo to say hello to Derzelas, the sun god. He might be able to help her out.

Gerlich screamed like a girl as sunlight streamed over him before she blocked the light with her body.

"You have one last chance to tell me before I fry you like the worm you are—Where is Draylon?"

He coughed from the burning in his lungs. "Beneath the dungeon in the north wing…the oubliette…"

Lumbering through the courtyards, her tail slammed into everything within its path as she made her way to the north wing, Gerlich hanging on for dear life.

With the strength of a massive bulldozer she ransacked the wing, exposing more victims to their sunlit fate. She didn't care. Her only thoughts were on Draylon.

"There!" Gerlich gasped out as he pointed to the iron disc on the stone floor. "He's in there."

Picking up the heavy cover as if it was a mere dime, she flung it, taking off the head of one of the nearby statues. The hole in the ground was much too small though. She bent her head down to peek one massive eyeball into the dark pit but couldn't see anything at all. Frustrated, she clawed at the ground. Rocks and earth flew in every which direction as her angry breath came out in steaming dew.