Flying Through Fire (Dark Desires) Read online

  “There’s no need.”

  “Just being friendly.”

  Just seeing him off the premises. Of course, Rico had never forgiven him for zapping Skylar’s mind, either. And he suspected Rico guessed that his powers went far beyond mind-zapping and were, in fact, far greater than he had ever revealed. Hell, even he didn’t know the full extent of what he could do, and it was probably best he never found out.

  All three of them entered the transporter bubble.

  “Docking Bay.” He spoke the words in his mind, and the ship responded. She had been built by Callum Meridian, the leader of the Collective, the old ruling class, so she’d been designed for people with wings, people who could talk with their minds.

  Five hundred years ago, when the human race arrived at the Trakis system, they had stumbled upon a never-seen-before substance. Meridian, named after Callum who had discovered it, bestowed—among other things—increased strength, telepathy, immortality, and eventually wings. The Collective had been born, and they soon ruled the universe with a ruthless hand.

  Originally, they’d believed Meridian was a radioactive mineral. Only recently had they discovered it was actually animal in nature. Part of the asexual reproductive cycle of a dragon-like species of alien, it had the ability to combine with human DNA and form a hybrid. The effects increased with age, and thanks to an unplanned trip down a wormhole—which had taken him not only to another universe and the dragons’ home planet, but also back in time ten thousand years—Thorne was the oldest and strongest of those who had been changed by Meridian. Which meant he could control them all.

  They found Daisy in the docking bay, awaiting the arrival of her boyfriend. She flashed them a worried glance. “You heard, then?”

  “Heard what?” Rico asked. “We’re here to say our fond farewells to Thorne. What’s happened?”

  “Jon called. Apparently, they’ve lost Candy. Again. Seems she got a call and vanished. I checked, and one of the shuttles is gone.”

  “Shit,” Rico said. “Did I not say if she pulled that shit again then I was locking her in the brig?”

  “Actually, I think I said that,” Tannis added. “That girl is more trouble than a nest of priests.”

  As he listened to the conversation, a weird sense of relief swept over him. With a wave of shock, he realized he hadn’t wanted to go. For ten thousand years, his people had been in exile, marooned in another universe. And for all that time, he’d done his duty, protected his people, kept them safe. Then twenty-two years ago, he’d fulfilled his promise and finally got them to their promised land of Espera. He’d seen them settled. Now he wanted something for himself. Of course, he was never going to actually have that something, but it was almost liberating to admit it.

  “Do we know where she’s gone?” Tannis asked.

  “I tracked the shuttle—looks like she’s heading to Trakis Two.”

  “Well, we can’t go after her yet. She’ll have to wait until Fergal gets here.”

  “I’ll give Sardi a call,” Rico said. “Ask him to watch out for her.”

  “No way,” Thorne said. Rico raised an eyebrow, and he continued, “Damn demon has been trying to get into her pants since she was sixteen. I’ll go after her.”

  “Don’t you have somewhere you’re supposed to be?” Tannis asked.

  “Another few days aren’t going to make a difference. And my shuttle is prepped and ready to fly. You can follow when Fergal gets here. If I go now, I might catch her before she reaches the planet and causes whatever mayhem she has planned.”

  “Thorne to the rescue,” Rico murmured.

  Thorne ignored the comment. At least now he knew why she hadn’t come to say good-bye. Because she hadn’t been here. She’d been busy stealing a shuttle and heading back to Trakis Two. He could only guess that she had received news about the people who had betrayed her family ten years ago. She hadn’t given up the search. And she could be walking straight into danger.

  It occurred to him that if she hadn’t wanted someone to come after her, she could easily have disabled the shuttle’s tracking device.

  Had she known he would drop everything and follow her?

  He was guessing—yes.

  …

  Candy stepped out of the shuttle and came to an abrupt standstill. The place was silent.

  She’d set the shuttle down on the outskirts of the city then activated the stealth mode. It didn’t do to leave your ship unguarded in Pleasure City, not if you expected it to still be there when you got back. But all the shuttles from the Blood Hunter were now equipped with stealth mode, and unless someone literally walked into it, she could pretty much guarantee it wouldn’t be found.

  She’d lived on Trakis Two most of her life, except for the last few months on board the Blood Hunter, and she knew the city well, and loved it. It was a total den of iniquity, but also vibrantly alive.

  Usually.

  Today the silence hung heavy on the air.

  A shiver of unease trickled down her spine. But she couldn’t worry about that now. She had a double-crossing bastard to eliminate.

  She wrapped her leather coat—pinched from Rico and a mite too long, so it dragged on the ground—around her to hide the laser pistols strapped to her waist.

  Though, actually, there was no one to see whether she was armed or not. The streets, usually crammed with locals and tourists who flocked to the city-that-never-sleeps, were empty. Even through the recent wars that had almost torn the Trakis system apart, the pace of Pleasure City had never slowed. Loud music would blast from the twenty-four-hour clubs, the air thick with the scent of food of every variety known to man.

  Not today.

  Where the hell was everyone?

  She passed the tattoo parlor where she’d gotten all of her body art done, but the place was locked up and dark. In fact, all of the businesses were locked up.

  What had happened here?

  She had friends in the City, people she had known all her life. Where were they? She would find out, but only after she had dealt with Drago. She didn’t want news of her arrival reaching him, or he’d likely do a runner, as he’d done last time she was close.

  At least he showed a healthy fear of her. She liked that.

  She paused to stare up at the sky. Would they come after her? Tannis had told her that the last time really was the last time. But she reckoned loyalty to her parents would make them follow. Of course, she could have gone to them first, asked for help. They understood revenge; she had no doubt they would offer what assistance they could. But she was used to relying on nobody but herself, and asking for help was an alien concept.

  Then there was Thorne.

  He’d seen her as a responsibility for too long now to just let her go out and get herself killed. Not that she needed his help. She was quite capable of handling Drago on her own.

  If he was even here.

  But her intel had been good and up to date.

  She reached Drago’s bar. Like everywhere else, the place was closed up tight. There was no one to see, so she pulled her laser pistol and shot out the lock, then kicked in the door. The lights were off in the main room, though the place was set up for business. She stood in the doorway for long minutes, but when nothing moved, she stepped inside, the pistol still hanging loosely at her side.

  This was where she had first met Drago. She’d been sixteen and desperate to find any news of whoever had betrayed her parents, and maybe a way to get them back. The longer they remained prisoners of the Church, the more likely they were to give away what they were—werewolves were hardly renowned for their restraint—and that would have meant instant execution. Hatcher hated her mother and would no doubt have loved an excuse to get rid of her. Likely only the fact that the people had always loved their priestess had kept her alive. Candy had let it be known she was willing to buy information, and Drago had contacted her.

  Unfortunately, the price he had asked hadn’t been one she had expected to pay. Her stomach c
hurned at the memory.

  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

  Well, it hadn’t killed her. Though for a while afterward she’d almost wished it had.

  In the end, it hadn’t helped her find what and who she was searching for, either. But that was hardly surprising, as she now knew the person who had betrayed her father was none other than Drago himself.

  A door opposite led into his private quarters. As she crossed the room, her boots sounded loud on the wooden floors, but it didn’t matter. It appeared there was no one to hear her.

  Had she wasted her time? Was Drago long gone?

  All the same, as she came to a halt in front of the door, her heartbeat picked up. She wasn’t afraid. It was pure hatred that was fueling her, not fear. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the silver flask—also pinched from Rico—unscrewed the top, and took a long swallow of whiskey. Warmth spread from her stomach to her limbs, slowing her heartbeat.

  She remembered the feel of Drago on her, the suffocating sense of powerlessness as his body had pierced hers. It hadn’t been rape. Not in the real sense of the word, as she hadn’t fought him. That had been his price for the information. But she’d been a virgin and he hadn’t been gentle. That feeling of powerlessness had never left her, had changed her forever.

  Black hatred of him rose up inside her. Not only for taking her virginity, but for the lies he told and the promises he had made, all the while laughing behind her back. He’d promised to help her find her father’s betrayer when all the time it had been him.

  Now he would die for that.

  She raised her hand and tried the door. The handle didn’t turn, and she chewed on her lip. Did she want to warn him by shooting out the lock? Did it really matter? She was becoming more aware by the minute that she had wasted her time coming here.

  For some reason, Pleasure City had been abandoned; its occupants were gone. No doubt, that included Drago.

  All the same, she stepped back, stretched out her arm and aimed a blast at the lock. The handle was hot when she touched it, but this time it turned and the door swung open.

  The light was dim, and at first she thought the room empty. A weird mixture of relief and disappointment flooded her. The hunt for revenge had occupied her for so long; she was going to be a little lost without it. What did she do for the rest of her life? She’d been focused on this one thing and only this—well, with the occasional detour into trying to seduce Thorne—for ten years. What came next?

  Maybe she had a little longer to find out, as it didn’t appear as if she was going to get any closure today.

  Then something moved in the shadows across the room. Every muscle locked, and her fingers tightened on the grip of her pistol. She held her breath as a hunched figure slowly emerged from the darkness. He shuffled forward until he stood in the shaft of light from the open door.

  For a second, Candy didn’t recognize him. Then she gasped. She raised the pistol, but her hand was shaking.

  What the hell was going on?

  Chapter Two

  Drago hadn’t been a tall man, but he’d been wide at the shoulders and lean at the hips. Good looking if you liked blonds, and if he wasn’t actually blackmailing you into sleeping with him.

  This man bore very little resemblance to the one who’d panted out his lust on top of her. He’d lost a shitload of weight, until his clothes hung off his bony frame. His skin was pale with a slight bluish tinge, his dark eyes bloodshot, and his hair lank and stringy.

  “Well, if it isn’t little Candace Decker.”

  She frowned at the “little.” In her three-inch heels, she towered over him. She took a careful step forward.

  “You here to kill me?” he asked, sounding as though he hardly cared what the answer would be.

  “Yeah.”

  A smile twisted his lips. “Too late, sweetheart. I’m already dead. I’m just too stubborn to lie down and accept it.” He sniffed and a trickle of crimson ran from his nostrils. After wiping it away with the back of his hand, he stared at the dark stain for a moment and then returned his gaze to her face. “Actually, you’d be doing me a favor.”

  Well, that wasn’t any part of her plan. No way was she doing that fucker any favors.

  She shook her head, lost as to what to do. She’d craved revenge for so long and now, by some weird twist of fate, it had been snatched from her hands. What pleasure was she supposed to derive from killing a dying man? She’d be effectively putting him out of his misery.

  The stench of rot and decay assaulted her nostrils, as though he’d already begun the decomposing process. Nausea flooded the back of her throat, and she swallowed. At least she would have given him a clean death. Who or what had done this to him?

  Time to go.

  She should be happy; this was a far better revenge than she could have ever devised. He was dying, she could sense that. He’d passed the point of no return. There was no coming back from this.

  A sense of desolation engulfed her, as though she had no control over what went on in the world. She wanted things to make sense. Drago had betrayed her family. He should die. He deserved to die. But this was for nothing.

  He blinked and a single, crimson tear rolled down his cheek.

  Unable to face him any longer, she whirled around, then stopped abruptly at the sight of the tall figure lounging in the doorway.

  Relief almost crashed her to her knees. She’d never needed Thorne and had always gone to great lengths to make sure that was clear to him, and to the rest of the world. But while she would never admit it to anyone—not even herself, except on very rare occasions—he made her feel safe. At the sight of him standing there, she was instantly steadier, and the world, which had been teetering on the edge of chaos, once again made sense.

  “Candy.”

  She forced her expression to blankness, kept her lips in a straight line. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Are you going tell me you didn’t know I would follow you?”

  She sniffed. “Actually, I thought you’d be halfway back to that boring colony planet of yours, with all those boring farmers. Who need you sooo badly.”

  His wings twitched, a sure sign she was getting to him. She kept her face neutral as she drank him in. Tall, taller than anyone she knew, broad at the shoulders, with those fabulous wings. And he was beautiful—his face chiseled, his dark red hair cropped close to his head, his eyes glowing the inhuman violet of the Collective. Things tightened low down in her belly as her body responded to him. It had been like that for years; he turned her on hard and fast. And he still thought of her as a child.

  He was dressed in black leather pants and a black T-shirt, long boots, with a silver pistol at each hip. If he wasn’t so stuffy and uptight, he’d be by far and away the coolest guy she had ever met. And considering some of the guys she knew… While she didn’t actually like them, she had to admit they were pretty cool. Rico was a goddamn vampire, Callum Meridian was ex-leader of the universe, and Devlin Starke was ex-leader of the Rebel Coalition. Even her dad was pretty cool—a werewolf and an ex-assassin. But Thorne should have been the best of the lot. After all, he was part dragon, complete with wings, he’d survived ten thousand years, and he could zap people with a thought. Instead, he was a boring stick-in-the-mud.

  Someone coughed behind her and she jumped. She’d forgotten all about Drago. How the hell had that happened? She turned slowly as he coughed again, a slick, watery sound that made her stomach roil. He was staring at her, his eyes narrowed.

  “This your boyfriend, Candy?”

  It took her a moment to realize he meant Thorne. As if. The thought of Thorne as a boyfriend made her lips twitch. “No,” she snapped.

  “You sure? ’Cause he’s glaring at me like he’s your boyfriend.” He gave her a sly stare. “You tell him about the two of us?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Oh, I think there is. From the way he’s looking, I’m betting he’d be real intere
sted to know just how close the two of us were.”

  What the hell was he doing? At a guess, attempting to get someone else to put him out of his misery.

  “At least you must have told him about our little deal.”

  She felt Thorne come up beside her like a waft of clean air. “What deal?” he asked.

  Candy gritted her teeth. “Ignore him.”

  “She doesn’t want you to know,” Drago said, speaking directly to Thorne. “Now why is that, I wonder? You ashamed of me, Candy?”

  Oh yeah. For some reason, she didn’t want Thorne to know she had sold her virginity for information. Or maybe it was more that she didn’t want him to know what an idiot she had been, trading her innocence for information that didn’t even exist. That Drago had played her like the naive fool she’d been. He’d taken her on the hard floor, given her some totally bogus information, and then thrown her out onto the street. He’d quickly regretted that decision and sent a few of his men after her to finish her off. Luckily, he hadn’t been aware of the whole werewolf thing. She’d shifted and killed them. The first people she had ever killed. That was the point when she’d decided she didn’t want to be an assassin after all. And she would never forgive Drago for that, either.

  He had taken far more than her innocence that day.

  Never again.

  “I offered her a deal. Fuck me and I’d give her the information she was hunting for.” Drago licked his cracked lips, and Candy’s fists balled at her side. “She was so sweet,” he murmured. “Sweet sixteen. Hot and tight. A virgin—though not for long. She was positively screaming for me to take her.”

  “I was screaming all right,” she muttered. She forced herself to cast a sideways glance at Thorne and went instantly still. His eyes had darkened to deepest purple. His jaw was clenched, and the air around him crackled with an almost tangible fury.

  She glanced down, but his weapon remained in its holster. Good, because if anyone was going to kill Drago, it was her. And she’d decided not to. That was what he wanted—a quick end to his suffering. Well, he wasn’t getting that from her. If he wanted it so badly he could do it himself.