Hunted Warrior Read online

  Praise for The Dragon Kings

  BLOOD WARRIOR: BOOK TWO

  “Piper did a great job setting up this new series with the first book, and this second knocks it out of the park… . The romance is swoonworthy, the sexual tension is red-hot, and it’s suggested you find a chunk of free time or you’ll be reading long into the night, unwilling to put this book down.”

  —RT Book Reviews (Top Pick!)

  “Lindsey definitely knows how to stuff her books full of interesting characters and situations… . I absolutely loved Lindsey’s writing (she’s got talent!).”

  —USA Today

  “A very unique and definitely imaginative fantasy series … [with] vivid world-building, cryptic myth, and one-of-a-kind plot.”

  —Talk Supe

  “Piper creates a paranormal world that is unique and exciting. This is not your typical PNR book. Blood Warrior, and the entire Dragon Kings series, will take you on an adventure of epic proportions. Believe me when I say, it isn’t something you want to miss!”

  —Coffee and Characters

  “Dramatic and packed with intensity… . The world of Dragon Kings is uniquely depicted with colorful details and characters with exceptional traits.”

  —Single Titles

  “A heart-pounding adventure from the very beginning. The paranormal world that Piper writes is fresh and multilayered.”

  —Literati Literature Lovers

  CAGED WARRIOR: BOOK ONE

  “I loved it. Seriously one of my new favorite series. The characters were extremely well developed, and the world-building was solid and fierce.”

  —USA Today

  “This new series is off to a promising start, pairing paranormal elements with a gladiator setting… . Keep[s] pages turning at a fast clip, and the setup for future books is sure to have readers coming back for more.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Piper’s gritty tale of survival and love will appeal to those who like blood-and-sweat fantasy and romance.”

  —Booklist

  “Fans of gritty paranormal romance will appreciate the strong and emotional story, which builds slowly to an exciting conclusion.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “If you’ve become jaded toward serial paranormal romances, you should give the genre one last try. Caged Warrior is an excitingly fresh beginning to what promises to be a quality new series. The story is complex and demanding, the hero is both brutal and somehow innocent, and the premise, well, that’s just insane. The plot has a really nice twist, a shock that occurs that’ll have you dashing through the pages to find out what happens. Highly recommended.”

  —All About Romance

  “A fresh, innovative take in the world of the paranormal… . An excellent beginning for what looks to be a winning series.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “I read this book in one sitting. I just couldn’t make myself find a place to stop.”

  —Fiction Vixen

  “I was captivated from start to finish… . Lindsey Piper does an outstanding job making this new world vividly ingrained in your imagination and creating a story that will have you riveted to the pages.”

  —Tome Tender Book Blog

  “At its heart, this is the story of a mentor and his protégé—where both learn more than they expected from the exchange, and it helps them to grow and to fall in love. New fan girl obsession? Yup.”

  —The Window Seat on a Rainy Day

  SILENT WARRIOR:

  THE PREQUEL NOVELLA

  Available exclusively as an ebook!

  “A must-read… . The perfect opportunity to jump into the series.”

  —USA Today

  “Darkly imaginative and exceedingly sexy.”

  —Single Titles

  “Blistering and brutal… . I can’t wait to see this world expand.”

  —All Things Urban Fantasy

  “The world-building is incredible… . A compelling introduction to this series.”

  —Fiction Vixen

  “Fighting scenes, smoldering passion, and vibrant worlds are just some of what Piper has in store for you! Scenes are poignant and seething in detail. Piper has opened a door into a riveting new world that will have readers pleading for more.”

  —Readaholics Anonymous

  Thank you for downloading this Pocket Books eBook.

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  To NCW and RM.

  We made it.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am forever grateful to the following people for making this book possible: Lauren McKenna, Elana Cohen, Kevan Lyon, Cathleen DeLong, Tria Braun, Sarah Maudlin, Mary and Janet, Fedora Chen, Sarah Frantz Lyons, Ericka Brooks, Dave Schilz, the Group That Shall Not Be Named, Dennis and Kathleen Stone, and Keven, Juliette, and Ilsa Lofty. From confidante to life raft to compassionate professional, you’ve been there for me. I thank you.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  They called her the Pet, but she didn’t think of herself as a creature in need of protection, care, or condescension. She’d left that life behind. Neither was she a captive, as she picked her way through the ruins of a crumbling rock labyrinth on the island of Crete. How she’d come to be there was a story she didn’t dare contemplate for fear of going mad. There was no rhyme, no reason, no guide other than the future she saw in bits and patches.

  The sun was fierce and gorgeously freeing on the back of her neck. She was a Dragon King, and Dragon Kings loved fire. Most wouldn’t admit how much the cold sunk under their skin and sapped their sense of near-invincibility. Maybe that was for the best. The would-be gods didn’t realize that all empires ended, even those blessed with access to what humans would consider supernatural.

  Turning to stare into the blinding white-yellow glare, she didn’t bother to shade her eyes. Her second sight—the gift from the Dragon that gave her the ability to see the future—was always with her, no matter its unpredictability. A man sought her.

  A man who hid his violence behind titles and lineage.

  Time was slippery like moss on a riverbank. Time was slippery on her fingertips. Time was running out.

  She continued her cautious journey through the abandoned ruins of ancient kings. The ground was strewn with pieces of the crumbled labyrinth. Once-high walls had been reduced by countless rains and droughts, decades and centuries, until all that remained were bleached waist-high spikes and jagged edges. There was nothing to grab should she fall—not without impaling her hand. Dragon Kings healed rapidly, but some damage was too much for even their advanced physiology to repair.

  Archaeologists had long ago dubbed the site of little historic worth. Its condition was so deteriorated that they could gather little new information about the Minoans of Crete. How blinded they were. Humans suffered the hubris of a society that believed itself the most advanced to ever walk the earth. Any thought as to the Dragon Kings’ existence was disregarded as fairy tales of Valkyries and Olympians and countless messiahs.

  The woman called the Pet knew differently. All the myths were true. What was once, would be again.

  The Chasm isn’t fixed.

  Why her predictions of the future had led her to Crete as a means of stopping the Dragon Kings’ slow extinction was beyond her. She had to trust. She’d always needed to trust, when little in her life stood as an example of why to believe. Maybe her real gift from the Great Dragon wasn’t the ability to see the future but to have faith in what she couldn’t explain.

  The labyrinth
was waist-high, yes, but it was still a tangle of dead ends, wrong turns, and twenty-foot pits. When she realized a mistake, she couldn’t climb over the wall and continue on. Her hands would be shredded. So, as with all mazes, she doubled back and kept the details firmly in mind. The conventional wisdom was that if one chose a direction and stuck with it—all left turns, always, no matter what—the heart of the geometric puzzle would be revealed.

  Those three-story pits barring certain passages made that impossible.

  And time … Yes, time was slippery. She needed to hurry, because the man was coming.

  Yet she couldn’t even describe what she sought. A gift for Cadmin. That’s all she knew.

  She drew on powers as both soothsayer and true believer to remind herself of her journey’s importance. Cadmin was the closest she’d ever known to having a baby of her own, although the fetal child had developed in another woman’s womb.

  “It took some time to find you,” came a voice at her back. “But you knew I’d never give up.”

  The Pet turned and met the steady, distant glare of Malnefoley of Tigony, the Honorable Giva. With that title, he should’ve been the unquestioned leader of their people. His leadership was a listing ship, however—the derisive nickname the Usurper attested to as much—barely righting itself in time to escape the swell of each new wave. It wouldn’t survive much longer.

  “I escaped,” she said. “I didn’t attempt to hide.”

  “I’m taking you back to Greece.” He flicked his eyes across the irregular half walls. He stood some two hundred meters away, just beyond the outermost wall that marked the border of the labyrinth. Given time and patience, he could climb across three lanes to apprehend her physically, but he had a gift far more crippling and violent than hers.

  Electricity was his plaything.

  “I don’t want to go back to Greece.” She pushed at the sleeves of her thin purple blouse, which contrasted with her militaristic cargo pants and heavy boots. She was a lover of contrast. In revealing bare skin, she also revealed parallel incisions across her left biceps that had healed to papery scars. “There’s work to be done. For all Five Clans.”

  “You were Dr. Aster’s companion for how many years? You commit blasphemy when speaking of the Five Clans.”

  “I was his companion. Now I’m not.” She nodded to the parallel scars. “These are the reminders I gave myself as proof of my freedom and loyalty to our kind.”

  The intensity of Malnefoley’s expression increased a hundredfold when he narrowed his eyes. His lips tightened. She could see his anger, even feel it, despite the distance and obstacles between them. He looked like an emperor whose displeasure would result in countless deaths.

  Did others see him as she did? Were they so awed or bitter as to miss the signs? Or was fear what caused so many to whisper “Usurper” behind his back, rather than challenge him outright?

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe a brainwashed servant.”

  “I didn’t serve him,” she said, snarling.

  You wouldn’t understand. No one would.

  In some warped way, her relationship with Dr. Heath Aster, heir to the human Aster cartel, was that of a victim coming to love her torturer. He had hurt her. He’d also left her in isolation for months at a time. She’d been twelve years old on the first day of her imprisonment. After decades of such treatment, she’d craved his attention, no matter how painful, because being alone was far more devastating. Affection was a strange emotion to feel for the man her logical mind knew was her abuser, her dismantler, her maker.

  “You aided in the perpetuation of his crimes,” the Giva said. “You helped him keep hundreds of Dragon Kings imprisoned as the victims of his sick experiments.”

  She exhaled. Her shoulders slumped, which was a surprise. Had she really expected anything different from the Giva? “Your mind won’t be changed by anything I say.”

  Without looking at him again, she resumed her slow, careful push through the ruins, searching, not knowing what her eyes—her soul—needed to find.

  “You can’t walk away from me.” His voice was no louder now, but more commanding. He possessed some trick of supreme confidence. It radiated from him like the pulse of heat from a raging furnace.

  “I can if you don’t know the way to follow,” she said.

  The hair on the backs of her arms and neck lifted—such susceptible little pores, awakened by the smallest wash of fear. The Giva, however, was no slight threat. The Tigony were like turbine engines. They pulled bits of electricity out of the air, down to the barest hint of static, then whirled and intensified them into storms worthy of the mighty Zeus throwing lightning bolts. The Pet briefly wondered if Malnefoley was descended from the Tigony man who must have inspired timeless Greek myths of Mount Olympus.

  “You’ll come back with me,” he said, his voice darkly ominous. “Now.”

  She turned a corner, then another, looking back only briefly.

  He was the revered, hated, distrusted, undeniable Malnefoley of Tigony.

  He should’ve looked ridiculous wearing an Armani suit in the middle of an abandoned archaeological site. Yet, tall and imposing, his body was built for well-tailored clothing. Electricity snapped from his fingers and arced like a heavenly rainbow across his aristocratic features. The sun was merciless, but it cast shadows as it dipped toward the west. The Giva banished shadow. He was completely illuminated. Blue eyes were bluer. Cheekbones were more dramatic. Blond hair was transformed into filaments of gold.

  He bore his considerable power as if it were featherlight.

  Surrounded by the snapping proof of his clan’s magnificence, he adopted a grim, humorless smile. “Don’t make me repeat myself. And don’t give me reason to lose my temper.”

  “You won’t hurt me. I spent enough months detained in your Tigony fortress to know that. You’re too convinced of my worth.”

  Her heartbeat was a metronome that kept time with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, pounding a frightened tempo in her chest. She had survived so much, and she would survive the Giva in all his tempestuous conceit. But surviving was wearisome.

  Rest was a word from another language.

  Cadmin was waiting for her. Somewhere. The Pet could only pick her way through the rubble and wait for the worst to happen, let it pass through her, and move on. That had been her life. That would always be her life. She gave herself a moment to absorb the sadness and pain, then reduced it down and down and down until she could breathe.

  When it came, the bolt of electricity stole her vision, obliterated her ability to hear, and seemed to peel back layer after layer of skin. In the moment between strike and agony, she was glad she couldn’t see her half-bared arms, for fear of finding exposed bone rather than healthy flesh.

  But the agony would not be denied. Her heart’s metronome stopped its clicking smash. She blinked three times and fell to the rocky ground.

  *

  The crackle and fire in Mal’s veins was like having indulged in the strongest spirits. No, even stronger. Lava replaced blood. He was made of lightning and his pulse boomed like thunder. The release of a single bolt of concentrated energy was practical; it did the trick. But it was also a tease. A woman sliding slim, feminine hands between his thighs, massaging, urging, then jerking away—that would’ve been less frustrating. When he let his gift build and build, it was such a temptation to let it all go.

  Yet he had taught himself restraint a very long time ago. He was cautious in his use of violence, no matter the resentment that simmered deep in his bones. His temper, if left unchecked, could level cities. He knew firsthand.

  As the head of the Council that served and oversaw the governments of the Five Clans, he was the consummate politician. In truth, he was a warrior forced to live a lie. He was no politician, not in his heart and his blackest soul.

  That didn’t mean he was prone to giving in to the urge to solve disputes with force. His temper was ever-present, but it was a constant reminde
r of his younger, deadlier self. It was a part of him he constantly needed to restrain, for the sake of the Dragon Kings.

  Dr. Aster’s Pet, however, was an exception.

  Unlike members of Clan Pendray with their berserker furies, the Tigony were a refined people. Mal knew his gift’s potential down to the slightest variable. To deliver his electric punch, he had taken into account an estimation of the woman’s weight and physical condition, and even the ambient temperature. The result was a strike strong enough to knock her out for no more than two minutes, without lasting damage.

  Then he breathed. He put his fleeting, petulant anger away. For two decades, he’d been the Honorable Giva, even when behaving like a calm, neutral leader had constricted him like a full-body straightjacket. That entailed rational thought, smooth negotiations, and measured discussion—the training he’d received from his parents, the heads of the Tigony royal house. For years, he’d kept his powers close like a gambler holding a straight flush.

  The Pet was far too canny for his liking. He needed her back in the Tigony stronghold. And he needed her to start talking. That meant finding her in that tangled labyrinth. She’d dropped to the ground following his blast, behind the rugged half walls of the ruins.

  Five days before, she’d escaped the stronghold of Clan Tigony, high in the mountains of Greece. He didn’t know how. None of his guards—loyal and tested—knew how. It was as if she’d transformed into air, swished through ventilation shafts, and caught the first breeze south to Crete. Yet she told the truth: A woman who feared getting caught would’ve made a better point of hiding. When he asked humans about an unusual, plain-speaking, coltish young woman with wild raven-black hair, the answers had been quick and sure.

  She had served Dr. Aster as his devoted companion—so devoted that no one referred to her as anything other than the Pet. She must know the madman’s secrets, including how he was able to help Dragon Kings conceive. A woman connected to the highest echelon of the Aster cartel was invaluable.

  Why was she here? What scheme was she enacting? Something on behalf of the Asters?

  That didn’t ring true. If she wanted to remain with the insane doctor, she would’ve escaped with the man when Mal had helped liberate his cousin from the Asters’ laboratories in the Canadian tundra. Instead, the Pet had stayed behind. She had surrendered to Mal without protest. Every minute since had been a study in silence and frustration—silence from her, and frustration strong enough to consume his patience.