The Stone Warriors: Dragan
Table of Contents
Praise for D. B. Reynolds’s Stone Warriors...
Other Titles by D. B. Reynolds
Dragan
Copyright
The Sorcerer
Dragan
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Please visit these websites for more information about D.B. Reynolds
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Praise for D. B. Reynolds’s
Stone Warriors...
The Stone Warriors: Damian
“I have to admit, I really didn’t think I would like this new series as much as I love the ViA series . . . boy was I WRONG!! I loved the storyline, the camaraderie, the bantering, the humor, and most especially Damian!!!! He is a Warrior God as he continually and hilariously likes to remind Casey.”
—Dorsey, Swept Away by Romance
“Witty banter, tons of action and sizzling chemistry are woven into an engaging and compelling plot that sets the tone for what promises to be a fantastic new series by this talented and very clever author.”
—Karla, Swept Away by Romance
The Stone Warriors: Kato
Kato was well-woven together and connected various aspects of Grace’s life to Kato and to Nick and Damian. I appreciate how each story builds upon the other and the teaser at the end to Gabriel’s story. . . . Dude! I kept trying to flip pages to read more. I cannot wait to see what happens there either! I highly recommend this series to paranormal romance lovers. Don’t delay in picking this one up.
—The Book Chick
The Stone Warriors: Gabriel
“There is not one moment of boredom to be found in this explosive story that includes some spectacular battles and sizzling romance.”
—Stormy Vixen Reviews
Other Titles by D. B. Reynolds
D.B. Reynolds VAMPIRES IN AMERICA
Raphael * Jabril * Rajmund
Sophia * Duncan * Lucas
Aden *Vincent
Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars
Deception * Christian * Lucifer
The Cyn and Raphael Novellas
Betrayed * Hunted * Unforgiven
Compelled * Relentless
Vampires in Europe
Quinn * Lachlan
The Stone Warriors
The Stone Warriors: Damian
The Stone Warriors: Kato
The Stone Warriors: Gabriel
The Stone Warriors: Dragon
Dragan
The Stone Warriors
Book 4
by
D. B. Reynolds
ImaJinn Books
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
ImaJinn Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-973-5
Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-983-4
ImaJinn Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2020 by D. B. Reynolds
Published in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
ImaJinn Books was founded by Linda Kichline.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover design: Debra Dixon
Interior design: Hank Smith
Photo/Art credits:
Man (manipulated) © Artofphoto - Dreamstime.com
Wings (manipulated) © Algol | Dreamstime.com
Background (manipulated © © Ateliersommerland | Dreamstime.com
Baroque illustration (manipulated) © Rainbowchaser | Dreamstime.com
:Mdfe:01:
The Sorcerer
It was a time when gods walked the earth, when armies fought not for bits of land, but for the very existence of humanity. On such a battlefield, five formidable warriors stood against an evil greater than any the earth had ever seen. But evil is not an honorable foe. Betrayed by someone they trusted, the warriors were cursed, one by one, tossed into the maelstrom of time, imprisoned in stone, their freedom resting on nearly impossible conditions. Alone of the five, their leader, the sorcerer Nicodemus, was left free. His curse? To know that his fellow warriors remained trapped forever out of his reach, condemned to an eternity of searching for their stone prisons and the keys to their freedom.
Dragan
Dragan Fiachna, heir to the curse of royal blood, a horror hiding behind a beautiful face . . . you shall remain locked in stone until a maiden, untested and pure, shall find grace in your beast and safety in your nightmare.
Prologue
1923, Somewhere in Europe
DRAGAN FIACHNA barely felt the hard shudders and jolts as the stone statue which had been his prison for uncounted millennia was removed from the rat-infested basement of a once-splendid European palace. He closed his eyes against the stabbing sunlight while five burly men labored under his weight, cursing as they stumbled their way up the dirt ramp and through the double doors, where coal had been delivered in better times. He couldn’t have said how many years he’d stood in that basement, or even where he’d been before that. For once, his magic had served him well, granting him the grace to lose himself in his own mind, replaying great wars fought and won, the laughter of long-dead friends who’d stood with him on those ancient battlefields. Anything was better than the helpless torment of the sorcerer’s curse, which had left him trapped for all eternity. He’d spent decades, centuries maybe, wondering why he was still sane. And then even longer wondering if he truly was. In the end, he’d decided it was part of the curse, the same one that fed language into his brain, gifting him with the ability to understand every word spoken in his presence. Another piece of torture, that. Understanding everything, learning of events happening in the world, while he stood trapped, unable to convey the truth of his existence, or to beg for release.
He’d finally welcomed his banishment to this filthy basement. Better to stand in silence, dreaming of times past, than to be surrounded by people who didn’t know he existed.
But now, he was being moved—a thing to be bought and sold, dragged up into the light, loaded onto a sturdy wooden wagon. He heard a horse’s soft blow of protest when his stone prison crashed into the wagon bed, the groan of the wood beneath him. The daylight no longer seemed so glaring, as clouds turned the sky gray above his motionless form. He heard a man’s voice snapping orders. Impatient, arrogan
t. A spark of memory drew him to that voice, but only for an instant. The reasons for his relocation, the identity of the arrogant man. . . . None of it mattered.
Not until the day his curse was broken and he walked free. And then the sorcerer would pay.
Chapter One
Present day, The Finger Lakes, New York
MAEVE LAY ON HER bed, trying to read. She’d already given up on the continuing role-playing online game she was involved in, unable to achieve the focus necessary to do her team any good. But her attempt at reading a book was faring no better. Her mind was fixed on one thing only, and that was the winged warrior in the first-floor statuary. Not a real warrior, she reminded herself for the one hundredth time. He was one of the bigger statues. One who was unusually soulful and somehow charismatic—if stone could be called such. But nonetheless, he was very much a statue, and she needed to remember that.
She’d spent the better part of her morning sitting next to him, having a conversation as if he could respond, or hell, even hear a word she said. She’d just felt so . . . bad about the way her boss, Mr. Sotiris, treated him. If he wasn’t tossing insults, he was yelling, even arguing with the damn statue.
Of course, she wasn’t exactly innocent when it came to treating the warrior’s statue like a real person. She’d been talking to him ever since she’d discovered the stunning, stone man in Mr. Sotiris’s statuary room. Though at least she’d never expected him to respond, not like her boss seemed to. She’d seen him stop in his pacing to stare up at the statue’s beautiful face, as if waiting for a response.
She’d spent more time than usual with the statue this morning, after Mr. Sotiris left. He’d been in one hell of a mood today, seeming as if he’d driven all this way for the sole purpose of yelling at the stone warrior. He’d been speaking a language she didn’t understand, or even recognize, but his tone had been clear. He’d spat out what sounded like curses, had sneered in a way that seemed as if he was tormenting the ancient enemy represented by the statue. And then, he’d finally left, thank God!
Once she was alone again, she’d found herself being drawn back to her warrior, with his stoic expression, his staunch grip on the big sword in his hands, and those wings. They were fantastic. Graceful in the way they arched over his head, and yet accented with big, deadly-looking talons at every joint. She’d sat there trying to comfort him, telling him he was a better man than Mr. Sotiris, patting the back of his beautifully muscled calf, and stroking his wing. Because, really, who could resist touching something that perfect?
“Maeve,” she said out loud now, because talking to herself was at least better than talking to stone. “You’ve been in this big, empty house too long.” Tossing the book onto her bed next to her phone, she flopped against the pile of pillows at her back to stare through open drapes at the sunny afternoon. She should be out there in the fresh air . . . getting burned to a crisp. Right.
Feeling restless, she got up and pulled the drapes. This close to the lake, there was nothing to remind her she wasn’t the only person for miles, not from this part of the house anyway. If she walked across the hall, she could catch glimpses of the town a few miles away. But it wasn’t summer yet, with tourists jamming the streets in their cars and filling the shops, so the town didn’t look any livelier than the still lake.
She gazed around her small suite—she called it a suite, though it was just a modest bedroom with a private bathroom attached. It had seemed more than enough when she’d taken this job three years ago. After her college years spent in dorm rooms and tiny apartments shared with too many roommates, it had seemed like luxury. But lately, she’d begun to feel . . . claustrophobic. It was stupid. She knew that. She had the whole damn house to herself, and it was big damn house.
“Fuck!” she cursed and slapped her hand on the bed, making the phone bounce. She’d become a damn cliché. The spinster cousin waiting for family to call, because there was surely no one else who was going to do it.
When the hell had that happened? She loved this job. Loved the weird artifacts and antiques and—well, who the hell knew what some of Sotiris’s treasure was? He’d hired her to catalogue his vast treasury of art and artifacts, a collection that was mysterious and magical and . . .
And an excuse for her to hide away from the world, she admitted. God, she was pathetic. There was no reason she couldn’t find a job at a museum or smaller art gallery in a big city somewhere. They wouldn’t pay as much as Mr. Sotiris’s job, but hell, if money was what she wanted, there was always her other graduate major, which was in much higher demand and far more profitable. She was one hell of a computer programmer, but she was even better when it came to cracking other programmers’ code. She’d had offers from every variety of government entity, from intelligence to law enforcement.
But there’d been only one offer that had used her antiquities major, only one that gave her an excuse to avoid friends who’d known long before she did about the other woman her worm of a boyfriend had been fucking for two months. Friends. Yeah, right.
Even so, she’d intended to stay with Sotiris for no more than a year. Just enough to get her head on straight, and get over the breakup. But one year had become two, and then three. . . . Maybe it was time to leave before four rolled around when she wasn’t looking.
Except if she left . . . she’d be abandoning her stone warrior. Without her, he’d be all alone in this sterile house, with no one but Mr. Sotiris for company, if you could call her boss’s visits company. The creep—and he was creepy—never did anything but taunt her warrior, as if the stone statue could somehow hear the insults. Hell, maybe he did. She’d listened more than once when Mr. Sotiris spoke to the statue as he would someone he hated.
But, even so, what purpose did it serve? Maybe it was a form of catharsis for Mr. Sotiris. The statue couldn’t care either way.
But then, she’d done the same thing, more or less. Her warrior had become her substitute friend, someone she could care about with no risk. What was it about the statue that made it natural for her to form an emotional connection to him? It sure as hell wasn’t the same thing that drove Mr. Sotiris’s rage. She felt nothing but compassion for the stone warrior, for the sadness the artist had so perfectly reflected in his gaze.
She stared thoughtfully out the window a moment longer, then chided herself impatiently. She shouldn’t be mooning over even the most beautiful statue. She had to decide whether she should stay in this house all alone for another year. And it was a decision too big to make based on her feelings for a hunk of stone.
As if in answer to her thoughts, she heard a huge crack, as if something heavy hit the marble floor downstairs, then echoed up through the stairwell to her third-floor room.
Heart pounding, she grabbed her phone and called up the house’s security app. It was still armed, with no motion anywhere, inside or out. She tiptoed into the hallway, never having been one to cower under the blankets, no matter how much of a hermit she’d become lately. Starting for the stairs, she paused, considering. She had a gun in her bedside drawer. One didn’t grow up in the Tennessee hills without learning to hunt, and that meant being able to shoot. Of course, she’d used rifles back then. Her current weapon of choice was more practical for personal defense, especially given her rather petite build—a compact Glock G48, 9mm, with a ten-round magazine. Some users might have preferred a higher capacity mag, but she was more interested in keeping the weight down, so she could handle the weapon easily. Besides, if it took more than ten rounds to take down a threat, she was probably shit out of luck anyway.
Now, she stood outside her room, undecided. Should she bring the gun? Her grandfather’s voice was saying, “hell, yeah,” while her mother’s practical voice was telling her that if there was an intruder, she’d be better off to hide and call the police. Maeve didn’t object to the hiding option. She had no testosterone driving her to defend her castle
, especially since it wasn’t her castle. Besides, even if she did call, the police response wouldn’t exactly be prompt. It would take a while for her request for assistance to make its way to the sheriff, especially this time of year. He could be having lunch with his two kids, or a quick romp in the bedroom with his new wife, or any number of other important duties. She was definitely alone in this isolated house, warrior statues notwithstanding. So she decided to go with Grandpa’s advice.
Going back into her room, she pulled the gun from her bedside drawer and inserted a fresh mag, then continued toward the stairs, sticking to the wall as she descended, knowing there’d be far fewer creaks to give her away.
DRAGAN FOUGHT FOR balance as the stone that had been his prison for uncounted centuries began to crack and fall away. His body had felt nothing in all that time. No pain, no hunger, no thirst. His torment had been of the mind and soul. But now that the curse no longer held him in stasis, his wings—deployed for flight at the moment the curse had struck—disappeared into his body. Agony shot through his back, not from the bloody wounds created by the magical nature of their existence—he’d lived with that pain for most of his life—but from the weight of wings held motionless far longer than his body was ever designed to tolerate.
But while his muscles screamed their torment, his mind soared with this sudden freedom. Fully alert, he dropped to a defensive crouch, eyes flaring in the near darkness as his gaze took in every detail of his surroundings. He spun in a circle, mapping what should have been a familiar room after the decades he’d been trapped here. But he hadn’t been moved in all that time. Not since he’d been transported over foaming seas and endless roads, to finally arrive in this place, to discover he’d become a collector’s piece for the very sorcerer who’d condemned him to this nightmare existence.