Sanguine (Kreuzberg Dragonshifters Book 2)

Sanguine Part 13

Richard lay alone in the boot of the car, feeling the wheels turn and slosh through puddles and across tarmac alike. He could hear the beating of the rain pounding against the metal body as the vehicle slowed. He wasn't sure how long he'd been unconscious, merely that he'd been so for a while; he considered changing, unleashing his dragon self, yet he had no time nor the space to do so. Within moments of stopping, he found himself hauled from the boot, cruel hands grappling and grasping at his body, and taking little care of the handling of him. Richard lashed out as best as he could despite his bonds, yelling loudly, which soon turned into roars, as his voice deepened, body beginning to cycle through familiar changes; what seemed to him like a sudden bolt of lightning hit against his head and he was back in human form again, dazed, confused, and more than a little groggy.

Richard swore and shook his head, in an attempt to try and regain his senses, yet he found that he still remained a little befuddled, for longer than he should have done. He cursed again and winced at the bright rills of pain that lanced through his head, which seemed to send spears of agony through his entire body with every movement. He was dumped unceremoniously upon the floor and he lay still, attempting to regain some of his composure. All around him, Richard could smell the scents peculiar to a car garage; heavy aromas of engine oil and grease, and that odd burnt-ozone tang of something having been welded in the not too distant past. He lifted his head and saw that he was surrounded by piles of junk, old engines in various stages of being stripped and re-tuned and an obviously mint condition Buick parked nearby. He tried to move his legs, yet found that his senses were still too fuddled to do anything more than roll around a little.

"Fuck," he murmured, wondering, as he did so, where he was, and where Paul would be in relation to him.

Richard wondered even if Paul had realised he was missing yet, and whether the other dragon would even know how to find him, if he had. He then reminded himself that Paul woud have known almost as soon as Richard had been taken; they were too closely bonded for the Beta not to know. Richard then tried to transmit randomly colourful pulses of light over their bond, hoping with everything in his body that Paul would pick up on the pulses and follow them. After a few moments of trying, he had to rest, concentration forcing a headache to blossom behind his eyes; Richard knew that he couldn't rest for long, as he had to try and signal his lover. Despite the fact that he knew he could take on all-comers with his new and improved dragon-strength, he also knew the advantage of having a back-up plan in place, and Paul would be the most perfect, dragon-shaped back-up plan he ever could wish for. He tried sending a few more pulses of light and even thought he felt a little of Paul's fear and alarm transmitting itself through their bond.

"Jesus," he said, as he rested his aching forehead against the oil soaked floor, eyes tracking over rainbow pools of it sliding in slick stains over the concrete.

"Sleeping Beauty's awake," a harsh voice said nearby as a face hoved into view, heavily scarred and almost horrifying in its ugliness.

One thick weal, long since healed, pulled the man's eye closed on the left side, while his mouth twisted down in a permanent half-grimace. His right eye was blinking rapidly in either anger, fear, or excitement; Richard wasn't entirely sure which and he didn't care. He tried scenting at the man, knowing instinctively that he wasn't human, yet he couldn't determine what the man actually was. The stranger smelt like nothing Richard had ever scented before, yet Richard knew that that wasn't much to go on; he hadn't had much experience with other supernaturals, only dragons like himself, such as the men who'd changed him, and Paul, and the indeterminate myriad scents of those that frequented Sanguine, even though he hadn't quite familiarised himself with which species they all were yet.

"What d'you want from me?" Richard asked, hoarsely, finding that his throat was dry, so that his voice cracked and broke embarrassingly upon each word that he spoke.

"I want nothing from you. I just expect you to die," the man replied, almost kindly.

Richard groaned, and rested his head against the concrete again, wondering when he'd stepped into a bad rendition of a James Bond film. Sudden crazy images of Paul bursting in, driving an Aston Martin DB5, firing rockets and tear gas grenades suddenly floated through his mind and it was all he could do to choke back the sudden, resultant laughter that that image invoked; he knew that that was something that Paul was likely to do, if the Beta could get his excited, nerdy little hands on a DB5, that was. The man saw that Richard was trying not to laugh, despite the Alpha's best efforts and the boot that suddenly connected with Richard's head robbed him of speech, as well as sudden ill-timed mirth. Richard lay mostly senseless for a while, drifting in and out of intermittent consciousness, until finally, finally, he felt consciousness returning. He heard voices nearby; the scarred man wastalking to someone else that Richard couldn't see, murmuring quietly about powerful Alpha fire-breathers, about New York and how their employer would be pleased.

Then he heard the second man saying - "What happens when our New York connection finds out that we're planning on betraying him?"

"We'll worry about that when he finds out," the first, scarred man said, roughly. "By that time, it'll be too late, anyway, or it will be too late for him, at least. All he needs to know for the time being is that we've found the Alpha that he wanted. That's what we're being paid for, isn't it? He doesn't need to know the rest of it, not yet. We get in contact with him, get paid for our work, and then we worry about the future. "

The voices descended into quiet murmurs again, and Richard strained to hear something of all that the men were saying; he caught snippets about elemental magic, and some kind of ritual almost being completed, that water's blood would be the last that would complete the spell and to ensure their eventual success. Richard could smell spent ozone in the air again, as though lightning had arced down from the sky to sizzle its way through the garage.

He opened his eyes and saw the man coming his way again; he studiously closed his eyes again, before he cracked them open a little to check on the man's progress. He opened his eyes fully again when he saw the impossible ball of energy flowing around the man's hands, cracking and sparking like a miniature storm flowing and ebbing across his palms and his fingers. He could smell the expenditure of magic flowing through the air, before that magic arced out and struck Richard on the temple. He screamed, loud cries turning louder still and transforming into dragon's roars, when the pain hit and he felt as though every drop of blood in his body was surging up and into the point where the magic crackled against his skin.