Shadow Of The Vampire. Meagan Hatfield

the side. For a moment, she reminded Declan of a confused puppy. Until she raised a sawed-off 12 gauge and one black eye stared down the barrel at him.

      “Tell me where it is and I might let you live, Derkein.”

      “It’s gone,” he said with a chuckle. “You have nothing to take back to her. You’re as dead as I am.”

      The vixen’s onyx eyes flashed silver before she drove the butt of the gun down to his face. He was still smiling when she pistol-whipped his nose and the world plunged into darkness.

      ALEXIA FEODOROVNA stood in the catacombs, staring into the stone cell. Although the beast lay sound asleep on the floor and chained to the wall, his size and strength still managed to unsettle her.

      Big. Dark. Dangerous.

      She had never seen anything like him. The dragon lords never shifted into human form during battle, and were said to be all but extinct, or so she’d assumed until tonight. After seeing him fight, she wondered how she’d ever believed the lie.

      He’d fought like a warrior of auld.

      The way he’d protected that female of his kind, battled until he couldn’t stand and yet met death with a smile on his face, affected her strangely. Not because she knew she would have met her own death like the coward her mother had called her. But because in the deepest part of her heart, she yearned to experience that kind of love, yet knew she would die without it.

      The prisoner shifted. The metal cuffs around his wrists caught the moonlight filtering in through the rectangular window in his cell.

      Alexia leaned her forehead on the cool iron bars and watched the play of light on the dark wall. Tipping her chin, she took in a breath of salty ocean air, wafting in the window, purifying the rancid odor of her horde’s dungeon. Funny. She’d always thought that tiny window to be the cruelest torture in the cavern. The vibrant ocean, the alive taste of freedom danced on the tips of their prisoners’ tongues, taunting their spirits from the other side of the dungeon wall. A small flavor of a salvation that for most never came.

       At least they died having tasted hope.

      Footsteps ascended the spiral staircase behind her. Sliding her eyes from the prisoner, she adjusted the tray in her arms and turned toward the guard.

      “It’s about time, soldier.” She nodded into the cell. “Are you certain he sleeps?”

      The guard stepped into the light from a wall sconce. Like every one of her mother’s soldiers, he had crew-cut blond hair, a thick pit-bull-size head and dark sunglasses he wore even in the inky-black pits of their cavern dwelling.

      “I drugged that Derkein myself,” he said, unlocking the cell door and propping it open. “He’ll be out for hours, if he wakes at all.”

      “Good. You may leave us.”

      A dark brow cocked over the rim of his shades. “But, Lotharus ordered—”

      She hissed at the name, and stepped up to him. “Lotharus does not make the orders around here. I do. And I said, leave us.”

      Though disapproval radiated off the grunt, he clamped his lips together and bowed.

      Alexia watched him leave under narrowed lids. She didn’t trust those genetically enhanced soldiers. Sure, they were efficient, strong and practically unbeatable in combat. However, their increasing intolerance of showing her the respect befitting her station was troubling. Naturally, her mother blamed her for a lack of dominance over the horde.

      Once the soldier disappeared around the corner, Alexia stepped through the iron threshold, slamming the door with more force than necessary.

      Goddess! Just once she’d like to prove to her horde she was capable of leading them, capable of succeeding on the throne when her mother stepped down. Alexia knew if she retrieved the Crystal of the Draco, no one, not even Lotharus, would question her or the horde’s centuries-old matriarchal way of life again.

      She stopped beside the slumbering beast, realizing the only one who knew where the crystal might be lay bleeding to death on the floor by her feet.

      With a sigh, Alexia settled on the ground, unwound a measure of coarse thread and nipped it with her fangs. Wetting the tip with her tongue, she threaded the needle and shifted onto her knees above the prisoner. Since he faced the outer wall, she decided to start by stitching the gash on his shoulder blade.

      Alexia set her fingers to his flesh. At the contact, he moaned, rolled to his back and took a deep breath. Alexia held hers. Every dip, ridge and contour of his naked, bronzed body rose and flexed with the movement, beckoning her gaze.

      What few noble men of her horde she’d seen unclothed had been tall and thin. Gaunt, when she compared them to this dragon lord. He was thick. Her gaze slid between his thighs. Everywhere. He had long muscled thighs and calves, solid arms and a broad, sculpted chest, not bones protruding beneath translucent skin like Lotharus.

      Intrigued, she leaned closer.

      Rich sable waves of shoulder-length hair curled around his neck. Her eyes fixed lower, on the pulse beating beneath his golden skin. A primal thrum tingled through her body. The air around her thickened, and her fangs burned.

      Alexia sat back on her heels and gave herself a mental shake.

       Just stitch him up and leave.

      Bending, she set the needle to the torn flesh by his ribs. Before she could push it through his skin, long fingers dug into her wrists.

      Her gasp stuck in her throat as the prisoner hauled her down. A pop, like sails unfurling, rent the air. One massive black wing tucked beneath her, cocooning her against his hard flesh and cushioning her fall to the floor. The cool scales glided against her shoulders, a contrast to the hot breath feathering against her face.

      “Did you like what you saw, vixen?” he said in a smoky voice.

      Embarrassment flooded her face. She wriggled beneath his hold on her and barely moved an inch. “Let me go.”

      The dragon propped himself up on an elbow. His electric-blue eyes slid from hers, to the flesh her leather bodice failed to conceal.

      “No.”

      Her jaw slackened. “Release me or—”

      “Or what?”

      “Or—” She looked around, nodding to the needle and thread beside her. “I won’t stitch up your wounds. Unless, of course, you’d rather bleed out in this dungeon.”

      A black brow arched. “If I’m in a dungeon, why bother healing me at all?”

      “Would you rather die?”

      His lips kicked up. “Do you always answer a question with a question, little vampire?”

      Alexia shook her head, and tried to ignore that sinfully sexy curve of his mouth. “No.”

      “Then answer me.”

      She sighed. “We cannot torture you in the state you’re in. You’d never last through questioning.”

      At her words, flames flickered behind his icy eyes. Soft tufts of smoke wafted out of his nostrils.

       Dragonfire.

      Her eyes widened, panic gripping her like a spiked glove to the throat.

      “Don’t tell me you’re frightened of me now?” His thumb began to draw lazy circles over the pounding pulse in her wrist.

      “I’m not frightened of you,” she said, the words coming out in a breathy sigh.

      His wing coiled tighter, crushing her breasts against the warm steel of his barrel chest.

      “Then why are you trembling?” He dipped his head below hers. “I can hear your heart hammering. Right here.” His hot, open mouth covered the pulse beating beneath