Dragon Sin Box Set: Dragon Shifter Romance

Chapter 3

3

Asher stiffened for a moment before he shot down the stairs. The next flight stopped at another short hall, and at the end of the hall was a thick, heavy door made of some black metal. The long handle had been carved into the shape of some ghoulish fiend, and red rubies set into its eye sockets glowed faintly in the light that came through the open portal.

The other three stood inside the room and surrounded a short pedestal. Leon held the lantern aloft and revealed a small vase hardly larger than my small hands. The outside of the vase had been painted a shimmering black like polished onyx that matched the door. The shape was traditional, with a fat belly that curved inward to a smaller mouth. The lip of the mouth, however, was decorated with a vine design that ran around the whole of the circle. Delicate leaves ran along the vine and draped down to cover half of the full body.

“So this is the Vase of Pleasure,” Leon mused as he reached out and grasped the ring of the mouth. He yelped and drew his hand back before he glared at the vase. “There’s thorns in there!”

Asher set me down in the doorway and leaned down where he squeezed my hands. “You stay here, okay?” I nodded, and he gave me a smile and a wink before he hurried over to Leon. “Let me see,” he pleaded as he took his friend’s hand.

“I’ve waited long enough!” Davy shouted as he grabbed the vase in both hands. “I want my wish! I want to be healthy like everyone else!”

“Me first!” Porky insisted as he grasped the container and tugged it away from his friend.

Leon broke from Asher’s attentions and hurried over to them. He snatched the vase from Porky and glared at the pair. “Easy there! You two idiots are gonna break it!”

“You just want your wish first!” Porky accused him before he lunged at his friend.

“Guys, knock it off!” Asher insisted as he, too, joined the fray.

The four of them each took a hold of the vase and a bright light burst outward from the hard shell. The force of the blast blew them apart and they crashed into opposite corners of the room. Asher landed close beside me and slid into the wall close to the door. I, too, was thrown back by the blast into the door and my finger was cut deep by one of the sharp splinters.

I struggled to stand on my short, shaky legs. “Asher!” I yelled as stumbled over to my protector and fell to my knees. I grabbed his shoulders and gave him a couple of hard shakes. “Wake up! Please wake up!”

He let out a groan before he raised himself onto his arms. His face was scuffed and smudged with dust and his own sweat. “I’m. . .I’m fine,” he assured me.

The others struggled to their feet and Leon was the last of them. His whole body shook as he raised one hand to his face. The shards of the vase had pierced his fingers and stuck out at bloody angles from his flesh. His wide eyes and gaping mouth told the story of his horror.

“It’s. . .it’s broken,” he whispered.

Porky’s eyebrows crashed down and he shot a glare at each of his companions. “You guys broke it!”

Davy frowned back at him. “It was your fat fingers that broke it!”

“This isn’t helping anything, guys,” Asher spoke up as he tried to stand, but he winced and grasped his hands. Like Leon, shards of the vase were embedded in them. He stumbled over to his shocked friend and grasped his shoulders. “We. . .we should get out of-”

A sharp, chilling wind came out of nowhere and swept around the room in a fast, tight circle that blew me against the hard wall. Davy was thrown to the ground and Porky stumbled back into the wall. Asher held tight to Leon, but the wind blew them apart. Leon was pushed to the far end of the room near the stones, and a horrible squelching noise came from behind him.

My little heart stood still as a dark portal oozed out of the stones and formed into a rough circle. Leon had half turned around when tendrils shot out and wrapped around his arms. They dragged him backward toward the abyss as he tried to dig his heels into the smooth stone floor.

“Leon!” Asher yelled as he lunged forward and grabbed his friend’s hands. He pulled back, but hardly slowed Leon’s unwilling journey into the darkness. Asher looked over his shoulder at the others. “Help me!” Porky and Davy stared with wide eyes, frozen to their spots in fear and confusion.

More tendrils shot out and wrapped around Leon’s legs. “Asher!” he screamed as they dragged him faster into the portal. His legs disappeared first followed by his lower body.

Asher held tight to Leon’s arms, but he couldn’t stop the persistent pull of those horrible arms. Leon stretched his neck to keep his face from sinking into the abyss, but that, too, vanished into the darkness. The last I saw of him were his terrified eyes as they looked into Asher’s.

“No!” Asher screamed as his own arms disappeared into the muck.

A sudden blast blew him back and he slid across the floor to the center of the room. He sat up in time to watch the portal shrink into a ball that floated out of the wall and hovered over him. A soft, feminine voice echoed around the room.

“The sacrifice has been given. The gifts will now be wrought.”

“S-sacrifice!” Porky yelped as he flattened himself against the wall. “Nobody said anything about a sacrifice!”

The orb pulsed for a moment before it exploded outward as a wall of thin darkness. The shadows swept over the entirety of the room and settled on me like a cold blanket and I heard Porky scream in fright.

Asher flung his hands up to protect him and the moment the darkness touched him a terrible cry broke from his lips. As the shadow sank into stone and flesh he held out his hands. They shook so violently that I could hear the bones rattle. Asher screamed as his fingers mutated into long claws and scales burst out of the flesh of his palms.

“I-I’m getting out of here!” Porky screamed as he tried to make for the door.

He had to pass Davy, and a horrible scream arose from his sickly friend. He clutched his stomach and stumbled against the wall behind him. His pale face grew paler and his ears stretched into points. He fell to his knees and threw his head back in a terrible howl of pain, and in so doing he revealed long, sharp fangs that stretched over his red lips. As his cries fell away he collapsed onto his side and lay still.

Porky stumbled back and shook his head. His bulge quivered like jello and his eyes were wild with fright. “W-what’s happening to everyone? What the hell is going on? What’s-ah!” Porky gave a cry and clutched his own stomach. “Asher!” he yelped as he struggled to move one foot in front of the other. He stretched out one hand and my eyes widened as I beheld his nails grow into long claws. “W-what’s happening to me? Why’s it hurt so much?”

Asher and I could only look on in horror as Porky let out a terrible screech and clutched his head between his hands. Feathers exploded from the flesh of his face and his nose and mouth protruded into a hardened beak. His clothes burst open and wings stretched out behind him. A stringy lion’s tail shot out from his torn pants and his shoes tore apart to reveal clawed feet.

“Asher! Davy!” Porky screamed in a voice that ended in a guttural screech like the bird that he now resembled.

Davy shifted and struggled to climb onto his arms. He lifted his head and revealed a pair of glowing red eyes. His jaw dropped open at the sight of the huge monster that stood in the middle of the small room. “W-what happened? Where’s Porky?”

“That is Porky,” Asher replied as he struggled to his feet. His misshapen hands were tucked underneath his arms and his face was contorted with pain. “We have to figure out a way to save him-”

“Hell no!” Davy yelped as he raised himself to his feet using the wall and stumbled toward the door. “I’m getting out of here!”

His journey to the door involved passing me, and as he did so he paused and those hideous eyes fell on me. I shrank back away from the hungry look in those terrible orbs. His lips curled back in a feral smile that revealed his long, white fangs. He leaned down and reached out with his thin, bony fingers to grab my throat.

A terrible roar from the transformed Porky gave him pause, and then it gave him a headache as a claw came out and swiped him on the side of the head. Davy was thrown through the open door and into the night. I heard his body hit the floor, and then a few moments later the pounding of feet against stone as he fled.

A low growl made me return my attention to the beast. Its golden eyes had zeroed in on me. I gasped and flattened myself against the cold stones. My whole body quivered as it stalked toward me, its fangs bared and drool dripping out of the sides of its mouth.

“Porky!” Asher yelled as he lunged between us and stretched out his arms on either side of him. “Whatever the shadows have done, this isn’t you! You can fight it!”

Porky let out a roar and lunged at Asher. Asher threw up his hands and the creature crashed into them. At the first touch a bright green glow burst out of Asher’s palms and wrapped around Porky’s expanded body. The creature let loose a terrible cry of pain and stumbled backward a few steps. The light constricted tighter around his form and at every point of contact his fur and feathers shriveled and shrank back into his body.

“No!” Asher yelled as he waved his hands, but the glow didn’t dissipate. “Stop it! Shut off!”

The light tightened its grip on Porky’s body and he shriveled into a half naked form of his old self, but with shriveled feathers sticking out at odd angles and his face still twisted with half a beak and half lips. He opened his mouth in a terrible wail that echoed off the walls.

I clapped my hands over my ears and shut my eyes. When I dared open them a moment later I saw Asher drop to his knees as the last of the green light vanished. Porky was nowhere to be seen.

Asher slammed his hands on the ground and the green glow faded. Tears dropped from his eyes as a sob escaped his throat. “Why? Why did all this happen? What did we do wrong?”

My tiny heart ached to comfort the sorrowful young man. I pressed my palm against the wall and eased myself to my feet. At the first step toward him, however, a terrible boom shook the walls. I yelped as I was knocked hard against the wall. My head hit the stones hard and I blacked out.

The next thing I knew a soft hand shook my shoulder. “Cait? Cait, wake up, sweety.” My eyes flew open and I shot up so quickly I nearly knocked my head against my mom’s nose. She jerked back and another flash of lightning illuminated her worried face. “Are you okay, sweety? It sounded like you were having a nightmare.”

I whipped my head left and right to discover that I was back in my room. The storm still raged outside, but the intervals between thunder and lightning were farther apart.

“Where is he?” I asked her.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and shook her head. “Where is who, Cait?”

I grabbed her hand and tears welled up in my eyes. “Asher! We have to find Asher!”

“Honey, you don’t know anyone by that name,” she reminded me.

“But he was there! And Porky, and Davy, and-” My mom burst out laughing. I frowned at her. “What’s so funny?”

“You sound like the end of an old movie, that’s all,” she told me as she drew me into her arms. “And I think like Dorothy, you were just having a very real dream.”

I blinked up at her. “But it was so real.”

“Sometimes dreams are like that,” she pointed out as she rocked me in her arms. The slow motion and her words were soothing to my frayed nerves. “And soon enough you won’t even remember what happened.”

As I drifted off into sleep I made a promise to myself: I would never forget that dream and those four strange boys.

It was a good thing I didn’t.