Page 43 of Destined By Dragonblood (Blood Born #2)

Dolyn

“ T he fuck?” Vanni’s murmur barely reached through the rush of wind in my ears.

I shoved my semi back into my jeans, my gaze flitting from his accusing glare on the floor where I’d tossed him like a pebble to Ashley, who lay trembling on a couch a few feet away, her eyes wide, lips parted.

The scent of the cum smeared between her naked thighs, parted beneath my T-shirt, drew me in like a goddamn black fly to sweat, my tongue needing a taste. I growled my desire, but she shrank into the old cushions beneath her, a hint of her fear thickening in the air between us.

I’d fucking given in like a cowardly wimp, like a needy little child who couldn’t yet think for himself.

“What’s the problem, big boy?” Vanni asked with enough venom I wanted to pop him in the nose as he struggled to sit, touching the back of his head with a wince.

“ You’re the problem,” I hissed at him.

“Dolyn,” Ashley murmured, but I ignored her.

I could sense his human-like pain—her dissipating satisfaction in release.

They had to feel what I couldn’t incinerate in my mind, so why bother trying to hide?

I peered down at the alpha fate had destined me for, and the ache in his head, the frown marring his brow, didn’t ease any of the hardness creeping around my heart as it should have.

“You’re human ,” I reiterated my aversion to his other half.

His jaw clenched, and he pulled his hand away from the back of his head. Blood smeared his fingers, and Ashley gasped, dropping to the floor beside him.

Hands fisted at my sides, I stared as Ashley yanked off my shirt to hold it to the back of his head. Naked, she should have stolen my gaze, breath, and attention, but I found myself focused on Vanni’s expressive face as he winced again—hurt because of the pleasure he had offered me.

And, I’d reacted like an absolute piece of shit, tossing him aside.

Elijah hadn’t ever once allowed me to overpower him.

Vanni had let me hold his head with authority, shove my dick down his convulsing throat—but had it been because of the addiction my cum caused? Or had he given his beta control because he knew it was what I longed for?

He’d lapped at me as though he couldn’t get enough, like he wanted to suck me hard again and fill his belly with another shot of life-giving sustenance.

My temples pounded with conflicting thoughts as Ashley removed her shirt from the back of Vanni’s head to check on the amount of blood.

“It’s not too bad—I don’t think you’ll need stitches,” she murmured, her concern over the human’s wound rather than my aching heart, my goddamn mind on the verge of insanity…

“You aren’t worthy of a full Blood Born.” I hadn’t meant for the words to come out so coarse, but the racist asshole Father had raised, fed with ancient texts, overshadowed the dragon within, begging me to accept what fate had gifted me.

“Well, thanks for that,” Vanni said, his gaze narrowed as he peered up at me, fire glinting in his green eyes.

“We fly across the goddamn country, get lost in a fucking blizzard—because of shared desire to be with you—and this is how you treat us?” He shook his head, lips pursed.

“Fuck. You. Dolyn. Fuck you and your selfish fucking pride.”

A tear slid down Ashley’s cheek as she tended to his wound, but she couldn’t spare me a glance.

“You aren’t worthy of us ,” Vanni continued, peering up at me, tension and anger radiating through the clinching tether between us. “I had hoped you would accept what is as obvious as the nose on your face, but if this is who you truly are inside, then I want no part of you.”

A sob caught in Ashley’s throat as she covered her face with her hands, the bloody shirt falling to the floor at her knees.

My dragon roared like a thousand knives stabbed into my heart, my soul.

My claws shimmered, and the yearning to shift, explode into my full strength and size, shook my body.

I gripped my head in my hands, desperate for the war to stop, begging Father’s voice echoing in my mind to ease, to give me peace and allow me to accept my destiny.

Another sob from Ashley, and I lit from the room, dragon speed taking me through the caverns leading to freedom faster than any mere human could travel on foot.

Tiggy raced after me, and I mourned the poor beast had been forgotten in the library and doubtless seen our fight. Ever loyal, he followed as fast as he could to the front door. I paused to allow him time to catch up, swallowed hard, and bent to throw my arms around him.

“Be a good boy and watch over my mates—I promise I’ll be back.”

He licked my face and sat on his haunches.

I stood without looking into his big brown eyes. A blast of freezing air slammed into my body as I threw open the front door, but I ran and leaped off the veranda, my jeans shredding as my dragon rushed to take over my human-like body.

Tears swept across my scaled face as I shot forward, my wings shooting me beyond my mates’ hurt—but not far enough to ease mine.

I continued onward, seeking refuge from the emotions, the pain, the torn desires wracking my brain, but I doubted I would find solace anywhere but in their arms.

With every flap on my sinewy wings, I sped eastward, the miles disappearing beneath me at a rapid pace. Rage continued to roil inside me.

I needed something.

An outlet.

A way to release the pent up frustration, anger, and disappointment in myself.

Being tied down and feeling the bite of Vanni’s cane sounded divine, and my inner beast begged for me to return for the release we were desperate to experience.

But Father’s voice continued to whisper in my head, centuries of his indoctrination still holding onto the reins of my mind.

Pastor—Jonestown.

My eyesight sharpened on the horizon rather than my internal strife at my beast’s second suggestion.

Yessss .

I banked slightly, my heart racing in anticipation. Recalling all Ashley had told me, and the bit of investigation I’d done on my own into the man, led me toward a small town I’d studied but had never visited.

I’d promised myself revenge and had planned for it at some point in time.

Tonight, I would avenge my female, and hopefully, calm some of the storm raging inside me.

My insides still simmered hours later when I stood cloaked outside a single-story home alongside a white, clapboard church.

Jonestown Independent Bible, the sign along the road read.

The man moving about the house’s interior was a mere wisp of a human.

Stoop-shouldered and bald, he reminded me of a weasel, exactly as I’d thought upon seeing his professional headshot online.

He disappeared down a hallway, and I tried his front door, pleased when the handle turned beneath my firm grip.

Ignorant redneck fool thought he was safe at his home in the middle of no-man’s-land USA.

Huffing a silent snort, I let myself into his home. The house as a whole was neat and tidy, and the only indication of a mess was a stack of papers on the kitchen table to my right. A door beyond suggested a basement. It was locked, a key required to open the damned thing.

Sounds of clicking on a keyboard suggested the pastor busied himself for the time being.

A single flame of dragon fire melted the lock before me. Stairs led into darkness.

Teeth gritted, I descended into darkness.

The low ceiling demanded I bend slightly, and I glanced around, my enhanced sight allowing me to take in the boxes and crates. A wall of shelves held dozens of canned goods. Stackable washer and dryer units—two of them—stood against the opposite wall. A door nestled in between—also locked.

I strode forward, put my beast’s fire to good use, and stepped into the small room beyond.

A single light bulb dangled from the ceiling.

I flipped the switch on the outside wall.

Brilliant white coated the walls, but the room gave off a non-innocent air of staleness. Pristine sheets stretched tight over the mattress laying atop a metal frame bolted to the cement floor in the corner, and images of a young Ashley tied down and held against her will flooded my vision.

I bit my tongue, hands fisted at my sides as a flare of heat burst through my guts.

A worn box sat against the wall to my right.

My inner beast growled, suspicion raising the hairs on my arms.

Did the fucker keep trinkets? Memories to fill his filthy mind for when he needed to get off hours after preaching to a congregation who believed he walked on water?

I couldn’t bear the thought of touching such filth. Refused to allow my skin contact with anything of his.

But if I wanted proof to ease my conscience for what I was about to do…

I elongated a single claw, preferring bone rather than flesh to rip into the box the pedophile’s hands had touched.

Pictures spilled out across the floor.

Old grainy snapshots of a young girl bound on the bed behind me sat atop a stack of magazines.

Evil.

Simmering in agreement, I shifted the pile of photos, sliding them along the floor to reach those beneath.

Dozens of images of the female lay before me, a few of a second even younger girl at the bottom.

I didn’t doubt the man upstairs was Ashley’s abuser, but a few more flicks of my claw through the box’s content didn’t offer the pictures I’d expected to see.

Standing, I strode from the room and made for the stairs.

The man’s heavy breaths sounded back through the hallway once I reached the main floor, the keyboard clicking having gone quiet.

I crept through the kitchen toward his office and stopped in the doorway.

Slouched with his back toward me, the man huddled over an old PC.

My insides burned, the need to send the supposed man of God up in flames raging through me.

While my ancestors killed humans without reason, I’d yet to take a life.

Tonight would be my first.

I lusted to hear his screams, watch his skin sizzle and blacken, his mouth gaping open until the flesh melted from his bones for what he’d done to those girls.

Swallowing back a snarl, I moved closer to the unaware man.

He sighed and sank into his chair, allowing me to clearly see over his shoulder.

An image of Ashley filled the computer’s monitor and not from when she’d been a child.

She huddled in her winter coat, exiting the door of Tolzman Industries.

The fucker had been following her.

Cold eyes.

My roar caused her stalker to shoot upright and spin, knocking over his chair. Hands clasped over his ears, eyes wide, he scanned the room behind him.

Voice lowering to a growl, I shimmered into existence.

He screamed like one of the little girls he’d abused.

And I made sure he lived long enough to shriek again as I burned the house of sin down around him.