Sassy Ever After: Dragon Sass (Kindle Worlds Novella) (11 page)

“You’re more than enough, thanks.” He chuckled. “I don’t think I could handle two of you perplexing creatures.”

“You make me so happy.” She touched her lips to his again, feeling his hands move to the small of her back, pressing her close. Their mouths moved together, tongues twining, her body instantly responding to him. She couldn’t have turned it off if she wanted to. It was like the moon drawing in the tide—something gravitational, bigger than both of them.

“There’s a whole world going on out there and I don’t care,” Kai murmured as they parted, his hands sliding down her jeans, cupping her behind. “I just want to take you to bed, right now, and forget anything else exists.”

“We could lock the door,” she mused. Jules had sung the national anthem and the polo tournament was underway now—an exhibition match. They could hear occasional cheers, even from here. Everyone was involved, watching the game.

He groaned when she slipped a thigh between his. “Temptress.”

“It’s your fault,” she chided, feeling how hard he was through his jeans. “If you weren’t so damned sexy…”

“Me?” He snorted, looking down at her in her riding gear. “I saw you out there on the field with that riding crop and my mouth went dry. I think you need a spanking.”

“Ooo I think you may be right.” She grinned. “I’ve been ever so naughty…”

“You’re killing me,” he growled, grabbing her ass in both hands and lifting her so she could wrap her legs around his waist. He was carrying her toward the bedroom when a knock sounded on the door. He stopped, rolling his eyes, and Jules put a finger to her mouth in a shushing gesture.

“Jules?” It was Barb. Her blonde hair looked almost white in the sunlight as she glimpsed her through the transom window in the kitchen door. “Is Kai in there? I hate to interrupt but… uh… they need him down at the field.”

Damnit.

Their eyes met and Jules sighed, sliding her legs down slowly and Kai let her go with a groan so she could go answer the door.

“Is he in there?” Barb asked, glancing behind Jules and brightening. “There you are! I thought I might find you here.”

Kai scowled. “Someone better be bleeding or on fire.”

“One of the players, actually.” Barb wiggled her fingers from the porch at him in hello. “Broke his arm, I think. Says he wants to keep playing, but…”

“Goddamnit.” Kai strode toward the door and stopped, going back to put an arm around Jules and kiss her. It was hard and fast, but thorough, and he left her breathless when he let her go.

“Cheer up, at least it’s not a horse,” she called as he stalked out the door. “If it was a horse, we’d have to put him down.”

She heard him snort a laugh, but he was already jogging out toward the field.

“Well, looks like you’ve patched things up.” Barb’s light blue eyes were dancing with glee.

“You can say ‘I told you so’ anytime.” Jules couldn’t help returning her smile, opening the door a little wider. She saw Carolyn out near the barn, but didn’t spot Evan. “Might as well get it over with. Do you want to come in?”

“I just came looking for Kai,” she said, glancing behind her and brightening again. “Oh, look, there’s Nigel! I wanted you two to meet. Nigel!”

Jules looked over and almost didn’t recognize the old man out of his funeral director suit. Strange to see him in khakis and a polo shirt. He looked like someone’s grandfather. And probably was, Jules thought, glancing at the big, brawny guy beside him with all the tattoos and piercings.

“Nigel, come meet Jules!” Barb shaded her eyes, waving him over.

“We’ve actually already met,” Jules told her softly and she saw Barb’s face fall.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” Barb cringed. “I forgot. I mean, I didn’t forget, but…”

“It’s okay.” Jules put on a smile as the old man came up the porch steps, the big young man following. “Hello Mr. Abaddon, it’s good to see you again.”

He gave a little formal bow over her hand as he shook it and she saw his gaze linger at her throat. She touched her necklace, glancing down, so glad to see it there again. Sweet Kai.

“It’s good to see you, too, Miss Monroe.” Nigel looked back as the shadow of the big man eclipsed him on the porch. “This is my grandson, Will.”

“Hi Will,” Jules said. He just nodded and gave her a little shrug, clearly not very talkative. She noticed an earpiece and figured he was probably listening to his iPod.

“I just wanted you to meet our biggest donor,” Barb told her, beaming at Nigel. “He’s just gone out of his way to pull this thing together with me. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without him.”

“Oh?” Jules looked at him, surprised. “I had no idea.”

“Well, he offered to help, and I was so swamped, I just couldn’t turn him down.”

“It’s the least I could do.” Nigel gave a crooked, yellow smile. “I’m new to the community, and I thought it would be the best way to get to know all my neighbors.”

“He even offered to help me call all our shifter relatives to invite them,” Barb told her. “Had Will over here making calls, too.”

“There are more shifters here than I’ve ever seen in once place,” Jules admitted. “I had no idea shifters liked polo.”

“They don’t.” Barb laughed. “They like parties. And we’re throwing a big one tomorrow out at the campground. I’ve had the kids planning for weeks.”

“Ah, bait and switch.” Jules laughed, too. “Works every time.”

“Barb!” Tristan Wolfe had come after his wife and Barb glanced over her shoulder at him. “Let’s go—the kids are saving our seats.”

“Coming!” she called. Barb leaned over to give Jules a kiss on the cheek and whispered, “I’m so happy for you and Kai, I could just burst.”

“Me too,” Jules admitted, unable to keep the grin from her face as Barb went down the porch steps to meet her husband.

“Miss Monroe, could I trouble you for a glass of water?” Nigel asked politely from under his hat. It was a fedora and looked kind of silly on him. “This heat has made me parched.”

“Of course, come on in.”

Nigel and Will stepped into the kitchen and Jules went to the sink, getting a glass out of the cupboard.

“Do you want anything, Will?” Jules asked as she filled the glass with water.

“Nah.” The big guy grunted.

As she turned, she noticed the back door was slightly ajar. Wind must have blown it open, she thought, as she handed Nigel his glass of water. He thanked her and she went to close the back door, glancing around before locking it, but she didn’t see anyone.

“So, if I’m to believe the gossip around town, I hear you and Kai Payne are courting?” Nigel inquired, finishing his water.

Jules blushed. Did everyone know? Of course, this was Blue Creek. Everyone knew everything about everyone else.

“We’re… dating. Yes,” she admitted.

“That is a beautiful necklace, my dear,” he remarked, putting his empty glass on the table. “May I look at it?”

“Oh.” She glanced down at the red stone hanging on its brand new chain. “Sure. It was my mother’s. And her mother’s before that. It’s been passed down for… I don’t know how many generations.”

The old man took a step closer, squinting as he picked the jewel up off her chest, turning it back and forth in the light from the kitchen window. His fingers were cold and she suppressed a shiver. His breath smelled rotten, fetid and she held her own as he inspected her necklace.

“Truly lovely. Rare, I think. What is it? A ruby?”

“I don’t actually know.” She picked up the water glass—any excuse to step away from him. “When I had it appraised, the jeweler said he’d never seen anything like it.”

“Yes.” The old man nodded sagely, reaching out to grasp her wrist as she turned to head toward the sink. His grip was surprisingly strong. “That’s because it hasn’t existed in a thousand years.”

Jules stared at him, his words refusing to sink into her brain. How would he know about her necklace?

“Change of plans. Will, get the car,” Nigel ordered, taking something out of his pocket. Jules looked at it but didn’t understand. It was just a little vial. He uncorked it with one hand and she shrank back, trying to pull away, but he held her fast.

“Damned thing’s been under my nose this whole time.” Nigel’s gaze lingered on the jewel around her neck. Then his eyes met hers and she saw the steel in them. “I think I’ll take you, too. Could be useful.”

“Let me go,” Jules cried, trying to pry her wrist from his vise-like grip.

“Go to sleep, dear.” The old man tipped the vial just slightly, and Jules shrank back when she got a whiff of his noxious breath as he blew some sort of powder in her face.

“What—?” was all she managed to get out before the room started spinning.

The last thing she remembered was hearing a shattering sound as the glass slipped out of her hand before everything went dark.

KAI

“Evan, this is very important.” Kai did his best to keep his cool. It was no use scaring the kid—he was already scared enough. “So let me just go over this with you again, okay?”

The redhead nodded, sniffling, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“Hand me a Kleenex, would you?” Kai glanced up at Barb, who took a napkin off Jules’s kitchen table and handed it over.

Kai gave it to the kid, who blew his nose as Kai spoke.

“You went into the pantry to get cookies, right?”

“I’m sowwy!” Evan howled again, looking over at his mother sitting at the other end of the table. “I know I wasn’t s’posed to.”

“It’s okay,” Kai told him, sighing again. “I don’t care about the cookies. You can have the whole damned bag if you want, kid. I just need to know what happened to Jules.”

Evan’s eyes got big when Kai swore. “You said a bad word.”

Kai rubbed his forehead and tried again. “You were in the pantry and you heard Jules talking?”

“The bad man,” Evan agreed, a tremble in his voice. “He swore, too.”

“What did he look like? Do you remember? Was he young? Old? Short? Tall?”

“I couldn’t see nothin’.” Evan sighed, exasperated. “I tole you a’ready. He said he liked Jules’s necklace. And he told her to go to sleep. Then the glass broke. And they all left.”

Kai blinked at him, trying to figure out the puzzle. “Was Jules awake?”

Evan shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t see—”

“Didn’t see nothing… right,” Kai finished, rubbing his chin. “You didn’t recognize their voices?”

The little boy shook his head, looking somber. Then he brightened. “They drove away in a big, long car.”

He spread his arms to show him. Big. Long.

“A limousine?” Barb chimed in, glancing back at Tristan, who had his arms around her waist. Her whole family was there, crammed into Jules’s kitchen. They’d been attempting to sniff her out for hours, trying to find her on the ranch, but they’d told him  her scent was all over the place. It was impossible. And there were too many people. Thankfully, the festivities had finally ended and now most of the crowd was gone. The sun had started to set, giving the kitchen and everyone in it an orange glow.

Just when Kai thought he was going to go mad, Carolyn had brought Evan to him, hoping what he’d overheard could help.

Evan shrugged, wrinkling his nose at Barb’s comment. Clearly he’d never seen a limousine before. Kai slipped his phone out of his pocket, pulling up Google search. Maybe if he showed him one…

“It had curtains in the windows.” Evan said, his eyes all squinty, like he was concentrating hard. “In the back. Oh! Like the one when we went to Stuart’s bury place! Remember, Mom?”

The kid looked at his mother and she nodded her head at him, encouraging. Kai saw tears in her eyes, worry etched on her face. They were all worried about Jules, but Kai was going absolutely insane.

“I asked you why they had curtains and you said because there was a dead person in there,” Evan told her. Then he turned to Kai with wide eyes. “Jules isn’t dead… is she Mr. Kai?”

“No.” Kai refused to even consider it. He reached over and grabbed the bag of Oreos sitting on the kitchen table. “These are all yours. You’ve been a great big help.”

“You can find her now?” Evan asked, hopeful, as he took the bag of cookies.

“Yes.” Kai didn’t know if they could or not—but they had a hell of a better chance now than they had five minutes ago, when they were sniffing blind.

Kai waited until Carolyn and Evan had left, the little boy walking out with a bag of cookies in one arm and a kitten in the other, before turning to the rest of the adults in the room.

“This funeral director, he was the last person you saw her with?” Kai asked Barb, who nodded, looking stunned.

“But Kai, he’s an old man. I mean—truly. Nigel wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Kai’s hackles went up at the sound of the man’s name. “Did you say… what’s his name?”

“Nigel,” Tristan spoke up. “Nigel Abaddon.”

“Abaddon.” Kai put his head in his hands, closing his eyes. It couldn’t be. But he was somehow certain that it was. He looked around the room at all the confused shifter faces. “No one here knows their Bible verses? Revelation 9:11.
They were ruled by a king, the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon
…”

“What are you saying?” Barb asked. “That he’s… some sort of demon?”

“No. He’s a necromancer.”

Kai stood, facing them, the entire Wolfe clan, Barb, Tristan, all their children—and their spouses. A dozen shifters, plus a few cousins in the room, but that wouldn’t be enough. They’d need a shifter army.

“He’s Nigellus Infernum,” Kai told them. “And he’s come back from the dead to finish what he started.”

JULES

Jules woke up in complete darkness. She couldn’t move, except to squirm. Her arms were attached with something, from wrist to elbow, bent up in front of her, hands against her forehead. She tried calling out, but her mouth was covered. Her legs were bound, too. And she couldn’t see anything at all. She attempted to roll, but ran into a metal wall on both sides. And she was freezing cold.

A coffin. I’m in some sort of coffin.

She remembered the old man in her kitchen, the powder, the taste of something bitter. Then nothing.

Terrified, she thought of Kai. They would be looking for her. But she had no idea how long she’d been gone.

Her arms were bound, but her hands were available—even if they were numb from cold—and she used them to work the tape off her mouth. Then she began to scream at the top of her lungs. She screamed and used her feet, still encased in riding boots, to bang against the metal sides. If there was someone out there, maybe they would hear the racket and…

Light.
Jules tried looking back but couldn’t move very well. When the metal slab she was on started sliding, the realization of where she was sank in.

The mortuary. He’d put her in one of the mortuary drawers.

“You’re going to have to be quiet, my dear.” The old man stood over her, frowning with those blood-red lips. “Or I’ll have to put you to sleep again.”

“Let me go.” Her voice was hoarse, her mouth dry. “Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone.”

“No dear.” He gave her that off-kilter smile. “That won’t do. You see, you’re the bait.”

The bait. For what?

“The dragon will come for you.” Nigel leaned over, peering into her eyes. “You’re his mate.”

He wanted Kai? Panic set in and Jules struggled to get out of her bonds, but it was useless.

“He’s not a dragon anymore,” Jules panted. “He can’t shift. Please, just let me go.”

“Oh, but he can. And he will.” The old man pulled something out of his shirt, showing it to her. It was her necklace. He was wearing her necklace. “Because now I have his heart. And when he comes for you, I’ll be waiting.”

His heart? What was he talking about? Why did he want Kai?

Jules craned her head, looking around the room, hoping to find something, or someone, to help her. In the corner, she saw a shadowy figure and she strained her eyes to focus better. Then she screamed.

“No one can hear you.” He sighed, looking over to see what had set her off.

Stuart stood in the corner, his eyes just as dead and filmy as when she’d seen him that day at the edge of the woods. He was perfectly still, looking ahead, staring at nothing.

“Ah, that’s right.” The mortician nodded at the body in the corner. “You know this revenant. He won’t hurt you—unless I want him to. He’ll do my bidding. And I can see through his eyes, if I send him out scouting. Very useful. This body I’m in leaves a bit to be desired, I’m afraid.”

A shudder of horror went through her and she looked back at the old man still standing over her.

“Oh yes, I saw you that day.” His voice dripped venom and his gaze moved over her body, like he was seeing her naked again. Jules shuddered. “I’ve been watching the dragon for a while. I saw you through both of them.”

His gaze moved to the other corner and Jules had to twist and turn her head to see what he was looking at.

This time, she didn’t scream. Her breath was just a hiss in her throat.

It was her parents, both of them, standing side by side, but not as she’d seen them out the window at Kai’s. Then, they had been whole. Now, their bodies were decayed, their flesh pulled away from their teeth, leaving them both grimacing. Their eyes were sunk into their sockets, sightless. She might not have even known it was them if she hadn’t recognized her mother’s dress, the pin on her father’s lapel.

“I didn’t know they were yours. Happy coincidence.” He gave a short, harsh laugh. “You see, I have to use the freshest bodies to get them to walk around for me. The older ones are harder to reanimate. It can be done, but I needed more time. And my God, this is a damned small town—not enough people die here. So I had to start making bodies.”

He looked over at the younger, dead man in the corner and Jules understood his meaning instantly. He’d killed her best friend.

Oh Stuart. Poor Stuart.

Who was this man? And what did he want from her—and Kai?

“You bastard,” she choked, struggling to get out of the duct tape wrapped around her arms from wrist to elbow. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Didn’t your mate tell you?” He laughed. “Nothing can kill me. I’m already dead.”

“Kai can kill you,” she countered and saw his eyes narrow.

This was the lich—the necromancer who couldn’t be killed. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. The tomb was somewhere in Scotland, and this man was here, in little Blue Creek. But she knew it was true from his reaction.

“Not if the dragon is under my control.” His lips turned up at the corners, so red they were almost like a clown’s.

“There’s an entire shifter wolf pack coming for me,” she threatened, although her voice shook. She was shivering—not just because of the cold, but from fear. “You know all those shifters you called for Barb? They’re coming for you.”

“Yes, I know.” He chuckled. “I’m betting on it.”

She gagged when he leaned even closer—his breath reeked like dead leaves molding on the top of a grave. His face was close to hers, too close. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her and that made her gag again and she covered her nose and mouth with her hands.

“You have her eyes,” Nigel said, looking satisfied.

“Who? What are you talking about?” Jules turned her face away, closing her eyes to him.

“Nia.” He spoke her name with relish. “I’m going to enjoy this, my dear. I’ve been sitting in that tomb for a thousand years, thinking about what I was going to do to you when I got out.”

Her heart thudded hard in her chest and she turned her face to him again. She could hardly breathe. The story was fresh in her mind—Kai’s failed rescue attempt, Nia’s kidnapping. How he’d sacrificed himself to save her, and then she’d come back to stop the necromancer.

She couldn’t kill him—not without dragon fire—so she put him in the mystical tomb he’d made for her.

“Goodnight, Nia.” Nigel took something out of his pocket—the vial again.

“No!” she cried, turning her head. “I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

He shoved her arms down, making her yelp in pain, and blew the powder into her face. It rained down bitterness. She tried to hold her breath, but that didn’t last long. When she finally gave in and filled her lungs, she had just one thought before she sank again into darkness.

Kai.

And then there was nothing.

KAI

“So Jules is a descendent of Nia’s daughter?” Kai asked, trying to comprehend what Graham McNeil—the Scottish wulver who had spoken up as soon as Kai mentioned Nigellus—was telling him. “I knew she’d married, but…are you sure?”

Kai had left Scotland, but he’d gone back years later, after her death. He’d seen her grave—her husband’s. Two small bairns she’d lost. He didn’t know one had survived.

“Aye. Tis true. I traced ’er lineage.” Graham cleared his throat, glancing at Barb. “Well, I had some help. But, aye. I’m sure.”

“Her father was interested in genealogy,” Barb piped up. “Jules gave it to me, after he died, thinking it might be something the Blue Creek Historical Society was interested in.”

“You knew?” Kai looked at her, stunned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I suspected.” Barb held up a finger, shaking her blonde head. “I didn’t know. Not until Graham borrowed a few of your books and confirmed it.”

Kai had suspected it himself. She’d mentioned her mother’s heritage—learning Gaelic. And her voice—that song she hummed, the one she didn’t know the words to.

“But tis the jewel Nigellus wants,” Graham went on in his Scottish brogue. “Tis the key to all t’dragon shifters.”

“Her necklace?” Kai mused. “Why?”

“Ye do’na remember anythin’ about that night?” Graham puzzled, rubbing his reddish beard. “Tis all gone from yer memory?”