Dhampirs of Sgiach

23. Kage

“Kage…”

Echo’s voice brought Kage out of the darkness. His body ached and he looked in the direction of Echo’s voice and her scent. The room was dark. Nighttime. “Echo?” he said in a scratchy voice.

“Thank the gods!” her voice came out in a sob.

Tears streamed down his cheeks as he crawled off the bed and across the floor towards the bed they had shackled her to. In the darkness, he reached out his hand and the feel of her warm, soft skin had him shaking with his own sobs. “Echo…”

They couldn’t get any closer to each other than being able to hold hands. “They showed me Kieran before they brought me here,” she sobbed. Fear filled her voice and scent, but anger threaded through as well. “He’s tied down… Surrounded by lights in a room as cold as a freezer… He didn’t even recognize me!”

Kage squeezed her hand tightly. Kieran always kept the apartment warmer than other people liked and kept it dimly lit. He even had blackout curtains at every window. In learning about what he was, Kage and Echo had also researched Furian Shadow Walkers.

“They’re going to kill him,” Kage said in a thick voice. “They want to kill him. They want to kill me too.”

“He’ll be broken,” Echo’s voice was just as thick as Kage’s. “Or it will fail…”

Lurah’rin’Furian or dead? Kage would rather Kieran become Sanguinai than dead. “We have to help him…”

“How? We’re locked up here.”

“I still have access to my Ley magic,” Kage said as his mind raced. I have access to it. But how can it help us?

“What about that snow you used? When they came for us?” Echo asked.

Kage frowned in the darkness as he reached out for that cold magic. The block was still there. Weaker though. “It’s blocked from me. But the block is weaker.”

He winced as the light suddenly came on. His heart ached when he saw the bruises on Echo’s skin. Dark and blotchy. But it was her eyes that broke his heart. That familiar glaze that he had once always seen in his own.

“No…” he whimpered.

“It dulls the pain…” she said softly and looked away from him.

They squeezed each other’s hands tightly and that’s how the rat found them. He kicked their hands apart and gripped Kage’s hair to pull his head back before he forced the mouth of the bottle into Kage’s mouth.

The blood was cooled but still fresh and gave him a burst of energy that he pushed against the block on that ice magic. It wasn’t enough.

Kage cried out as he was shoved back toward the bed he was chained to and the rat turned his attention to Echo. The scent of burnt chocolate began to fill the room.

“I’ve got more of the dust…” the rat said as Echo stared up at him with wide eyes.

Curled up on the bed, Kage’s eyes never broke from Echo’s. Even as they both sobbed. Even as he fought his own magic and desire to feed on what the man was about to do. It wasn’t the sin he craved, but his instincts wanted to feed on it. Wanted to drain the rat of every drop of this sin until there was nothing left. To feed so deeply he would have the power to make it stop forever.

Feed. Echo mouthed the word to him, and Kage frowned.

He opened himself up to that magic and felt it burst forth. Echo’s eyes widened as it touched her, and Kage flinched. It felt wrong to touch her with that magic, but he couldn’t touch her with it. He focused it on the wererat and watched the man shudder over Echo but not stop what he was doing.

“How about you wait your turn…” the man said as he turned enough to look at Kage. He shuddered as Kage’s magic caressed him and enticed him to the incubus.

Kage slipped his shorts off and laid back on the bed with his legs spread. He closed his eyes and began to stroke himself. He felt the man settle between his legs. Please don’t choose Kieran’s place…

Relief mixed with pain as the man thrust himself deep inside Kage’s ass. The man was rough, but without him touching Echo, Kage could focus his magic just on them. He flooded them with it and pain became pleasure. I don’t want this man to make me feel good… The magic faltered and Kage quickly banished the thought.

With his eyes closed, he tried to imagine it was Kieran. But Kieran had been gentle with his forcefulness. Had seemed to take pleasure from giving pleasure. Tears leaked out of his eyes even as he poured his magic into the man, trapping them both there.

He opened his mouth to ask for the dust. Ask for it all to be numbed. The question died out when he saw Echo. She hugged herself tightly as she watched. Her eyes glazed over with that numbing high as tears streamed down her cheeks. She had no magic and Kieran was trapped.

I can do this…

Kage looked up at the man. He was alright in the looks department. Not nearly the toned sexiness of Kieran. A toned sexiness earned by running around with werebears twice a week. Kage slammed his magic into the man as his fangs elongated. “Isn’t this so much better than just giving me a cold bottle of blood?” he asked, and let desire and magic fill his voice.

The man moaned. “Yes…” His voice was breathy. His soft brown eyes glazed over as Kage’s magic wormed its way into his mind.

“Whose are you?” Kage asked as he pulled the man down to him and slid his tongue along the salty skin of his neck.

“Yours…”

“That’s right…”

Kage’s fangs plunged deep at the same time the rat came. He fed on the rat’s blood, desire, and sin. Tore his way inside and laid the rat bare before him. Rafael. The name whispered to Kage along with everything that made Rafael the wererat who he was.

The incubus sifted through it all. Every sinful desire he deemed unworthy, he devoured and left only the desire to please and protect Kage. Replaced them with his own wants. As he fed on those sins, he slammed at the block, and it shattered under the force of his feed. Cold magic filled him, and he slammed that into Rafael as well. Forming a collar that bound the rat to Kage.

When it was over, Kage looked into Rafael’s eyes and shivered. There was nothing left as the wererat looked at him with complete adoration. A glittering collar of ice encircled his throat. Rafael frowned and nuzzled into Kage’s neck. “What’s wrong?” he whimpered.

“Echo, Kieran, and I are trapped. I want us free,” Kage said.

Rafael nodded eagerly. “I can help!” he said and pulled away from Kage. The wererat paused only long enough to put himself away before he knelt and undid the shackle on Kage’s ankle. He then turned to Echo and did the same. She looked at him in wide-eyed confusion, then her gaze turned to wonder at her freed ankle.

Echo and Kage both jumped as an alarm started somewhere in the building, followed by gunfire. Kage had Echo in his arms and turned to Rafael as the wererat looked at the door with narrowed eyes. He looked like an animal with its hackles raised and ready to fight.

“What’s going on?” Kage asked.

“The pack is being attacked.”

“Take us to Kieran!”

Rafael nodded and cracked open the door to peer out. Kage’s heart was pounding in his throat as he waited impatiently. When Rafael finally gave the all clear, he followed the wererat out of the room. He wanted to run to Kieran, but he wanted to make it there alive more and Rafael seemed to pick up on the conflicting emotions. He moved quickly but was careful around corners as they moved through the maze of halls.

The sounds of fighting continued through the halls and more than once Rafael had to backtrack away from it.

Kage stopped in his tracks when they came upon a dead wererat with a tall man in dirty clothes at his throat. The man lifted his bloodied face from the rat’s neck and met Kage’s eyes. Bloody fangs were extended, and his sky-blue eyes looked slightly purple with his bloodlust.

“It is good to see you alive, Kage,” the man said as he licked blood from the side of his mouth.

“You too, Ezekiel,” Kage said. “Why are you here?”

“The wereraccoon females came to us. They liked that one,” he said and nodded to Echo in Kage’s arms. “Seems they rebelled against the males. When they asked for help, how could we not?”

Kage glanced at the rifle that hung from a strap at Ezekiel’s side. “They don’t carry guns like that.”

Ezekiel looked down at the gun. “The bears are on the warpath. Go find their lost prince. We’ll hunt the rats.” The dhampir Alpha looked over at Rafael and tilted his head. “May I eat that one?”

“No, he’s mine to devour,” Kage said, and the other man nodded as he stood and walked down the hall away from them.

Rafael looked at Kage, waiting for his command. His fellow wererat didn’t even register with him. Both Kage and Echo shuddered at the sight. “Who was he?” Kage asked.

“My brother, Michael.”

Echo whimpered as she looked up at Kage like she had never seen him before. “What did you do to him?”

“I don’t know.”

Rafael continued to lead them through the halls to a door with a keypad lock. Kage looked up at the door and then to Rafael. “Open it.”

“I don’t have the code.”

“Then break down the door!” Kage’s voice was near panic as he yelled at Rafael.

The wererat shuddered as his human form shivered and black fur began to flow along his skin with his shift to the half man half rat form. Beady black eyes looked down at Kage before they turned to the door. The wererat began to slam himself against the door. Over and over again until it buckled and broke under the force.

Kage rushed through the open way and halted as his eyes painfully adjusted to the brightness of the room.

The room was all white and light seemed to be coming from everywhere. In the center of the bare room was a metal table where Kieran was restrained. He was hissing and growling as he struggled against the restraints. His pale skin was covered in bruises and cuts and looked as if he had been mauled by an animal.

“What happened to him?” Kage demanded as he rushed forward and set Echo down. They both began to frantically undo the restraints. Kieran looked up at them and began to laugh and sob at the same time.

He was trying to say something, but it was all an incoherent jumble. Half of it said to an empty space behind Kage.

“He resisted and the pack mage had to use a sunlight spell to capture him,” Rafael said as he helped them.

Kieran stilled when he noticed Rafael, his fangs extended past his lips as he watched the ratman. When the restraints were gone, Kieran moved faster than Kage or Echo could react and rode the ratman to the ground as he snapped those long fangs inches from the struggling man’s throat.

“Stop it!” Kage and Echo both screamed as they grabbed Kieran and pulled him off Rafael.

Kieran turned on them and Kage had just enough time to shove Echo away before those long fangs plunged into Kage’s neck. Pain pulsed from the bite, but Kage wrapped his arms around Kieran as the other dhampir fed. Growls slowly became whimpers as Kieran began to shake and cling to Kage. Echo came up behind Kieran and wrapped her own arms around him. They all clung to each other.

Kage and Echo both jumped at the sound of a gun firing into the room. When they looked up, Rafael was looking down at a hole in his chest before he fell to his knees and slumped over. Kage looked to the door and clung tighter to Kieran before the scent of the armed man hit him.

“Rand!”