Shadow Dragon Box Set (Dragon Shifter Romance)

Chapter 4

4

I gasped and jerked back. The face moved out of the shadows and stalked toward the foreground of the painting. There was more than just a pale face. The figure was that of a painfully thin man with an overcoat draped over his frame. The flesh on his hands and face was the pallor of death, and the black eyes stared at me with an unbending will that frightened me more than anything.

I scrambled backward and hit the wall beside the door. More figures appeared, three in number. They were piggish men with flat noses and flaring nostrils. Their belts held scabbard sheaths and gun holsters.

I dared breath as they reached the bottom of the portrait, but I couldn’t move. Those black eyes had captured me in their horrific willpower. Warm tears streamed down my face as I tried to will myself to move, but nothing happened. Nothing to me, that is.

The pale man reached the edge of the canvas and then reached even further. His head extended beyond the boundaries of the picture and became three dimensional. The rest of him followed, as did his three snoutish companions. The last one caught his leg on the staples that strapped the canvas to the frame. He struggled for a moment before he pushed the picture away from him. The easel clattered to the ground.

“Shut up!” another of the men hissed.

The noisier pig sneered and nodded at the pale figure that stood in front of them. “Not my fault the damn thing didn’t work. He’s the one who did the magic.”

“Both of you shut up,” the third one snapped, and I noticed he sported a pair of tusks that poked out from his lower lips.

The pale figure didn’t pay any mind to his bickering cohorts. His attention was completely on me. My body began to shake as he stepped closer. His even, shallow breath wafted over me as his black eyes flickered over my person.

“So that’s the girl, is it?” one of the pigs spoke up. “Doesn’t look like-” His superior knocked him upside the head.

“What did I say about keeping quiet?” he snarled.

The stiff figure in front of me leaned back and raised its arm. The black sleeve slid down to reveal his pale armor. He reached up and, with one sharpened fingernail, cut a long gash in his limb. Thick blood congealed around the narrow wound and some of it dripped on the clean carpet.

The man, if I could call such a ghoul a man, pressed the palm of his other hand on one side of my face as he drew his bleeding arm close to my face. “Drink,” he hissed. His voice was as warm as the deep ocean. I recoiled in disgust and flattened myself against the wall. He pressed his arm against my lips. “Drink.”

I pressed my lips tightly together and tried not to breath in the scent of the blood. It smelled like death. The pale man reached up and pried my lips apart. My arms wouldn’t obey my silent pleas to stop him. He shoved his bleeding wound into my parted lips. The cold liquid slid inside my mouth and down my throat. I choked on the putrid flavor, somewhere between battery acid and rotten flesh.

He pulled his arm away and those unblinking eyes stared into mine. I unwillingly swallowed the disgusting bile and my whole body chilled like I’d swallowed a block of ice. As I stood there shivering, however, an unearthly black glow arose from my skin. The light flickered and danced like fire, and yet I was not warmed by its appearance.

The man stepped back and didn’t even glance at the others as he addressed them. “Grab her and take her.”

The piggish men hesitated, and the tusked one arched an eyebrow. “That’s it? She just needs some blood?”

The man turned his head to one side so they could see one of his terrible black eyes. They shrank back. “Grab her and take her.”

“Y-yes, sir,” the tusked man agreed as he looked to his men. He jerked his head toward me. “You heard him. Get her and drag her into the picture.”

The pair stalked past the others and they each grabbed an arm. The pale man turned away and I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. My body once again obeyed my commands, and I had only one command to give. Kick.

Fortunately, the piggish men were still men and my aim was true. I kicked one in the crotch and his eyes bulged out of his head before he squeaked and collapsed onto his knees.

His companion snarled at me. “Why you little-” Another well-aimed kick and he had joined his friend to worship the floor.

I spun around and dashed through the doorway. The heavy footsteps of the last piggish man followed, and I had only reached the center of the living room when his fat arms wrapped around my waist. He lifted me off the floor and my feet kicked the air beneath me.

“Let go of me!” I screamed as I thrashed in his hold.

“Stay still, you little b***h, or I’ll squeeze you like a melon,” he growled.

I stiffened, but I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks. There wasn’t a noise in the apartment, and yet I could still sense the approach of that horrible pale figure. The man stepped in front of us so he stood between us and the windows with his back to the glass. Those hideous lifeless eyes stared into mine, but I forced mine shut.

“This one needs a good spanking,” the piggish man snapped at his compatriot. He glanced over at his two subordinates who were easing themselves onto their feet. “Get up, ya mangy sty-sleepers! Are you going to let a human woman beat you that easily!” The pair stood on shaky legs and glared at me.

“Take her,” the pale man commanded.

The piggish man turned us back to the bedroom. “I’m taking her, don’t you worry about that.”

A crash of glass forced my captor to spin around back to the windows. Even the pale man turned his face to one side to see what had happened. The curtains flapped in the wild wind that flew through the shattered windows. My breath caught in my throat when one of the curtains pulled back to reveal a shadowy figure. They wore a long, black trench coat that allowed them to blend almost completely with the darkness. Their hands were covered in black metal gauntlets with claw-like fingers and heavy boots fitted their feet over matching thick pants.

A broad rimmed hat covered their head, and as they lifted their face to us I saw that most of their features were wrapped in a thick bandage. Only one single yellow eye, his left one, could be seen, but that was enough. There was fury in that eye, an untamed anger that settled on the pig and the pale.

“Who the f**k are you?” piggish man growled.

The pale man stepped between us and the stranger with his back to us. “Get her into the portrait.”

“My men can take care of this,” the pig argued as he glanced at his men and jerked his head toward the stranger. “Get him!”

The pair drew out their short swords and charged the cloaked man. They swung their weapons down to slice his limbs off, but he raised his arms and the swords met a clang of hard metal beneath the thick gloves. The stranger, with an ease of a man swatting an insect, pushed them away from him. They stumbled back and the pale man was forced to side step to avoid them crashing into him.

The distraction was a good one as all eyes had been on the bumbling pair. When I next looked at the stranger I found myself face-to-chest with him. That terrible yellow eye glared at the pig who I felt tremble against my back.

“G-get back!” he commanded as he tightened his grip on me. “Get back or-”

Whatever he intended, he didn’t have time to finish the threat much less pull off the promise. The stranger’s hand shot out and wrapped around the piggish man’s many throats. The pig let out a garbled noise and released me to claw at the other man’s arm as he was lifted off the floor. I myself collapsed onto the carpet. My shaky legs wouldn’t let me stand, but I crawled toward the door and only glanced over my shoulder when I reached the entrance.

The stranger tossed the pig toward the pale man, who again dodged the attack with ease. The pale man stepped toward the stranger and raised his skeletal arm. A ball of swirling black light, much like the light around my body, formed in the palm of his splayed hand. The stranger tensed a second before the ball shot forward, when he dodged out of the path of the orb. The orb, however, swung around like a heat-seeking missile and careened toward the man’s back.

The strange spun around and swung his arm downward. His forearm struck the ball and the orb shot into the floor. The carpet burned and the wood in the sub floor burst into tiny splinters that sprayed everywhere. The orb left a devastating hole some three feet round, and the tenant in the ground floor vacated their room with a scream and a stumble toward the door.

I covered my face with my arms as the sharp wood rained down on me. The next thing I knew strong arms had wrapped around me and I was hefted over the trench coat man’s shoulder. He turned to face the pale man who now pointed both thin hands at us.

“Release her,” the pale man demanded.

The stranger’s reply was to jump down the hole. I screamed as we fell through the sub floor and dropped onto the carpet below. The man shot forward and crashed through the front windows, sending shards of glass everywhere, including on me. He cleared the parking lot in seconds and made for the forest of single-family homes that surrounded the apartments.

My position granted me a fine view of the apartment we had just vacated. The pale man stood at the window, his dark eyes glaring at us as we disappeared around the corner. I had the feeling we hadn’t seen the last of him.

My car, however, would never be seen again.