Dragon Gate (34 page)

“I want to watch.”

“You people are sick,” I said, but I followed her out the back door.

Esther shook her head. “I’ll be with Kelly.”

In the back, Brand stood slightly in front of Junior and Wesley, who had both helped themselves to swords from one of the tables. Did they plan to cut Thomas up afterward? I wasn’t sure how this whole thing worked. I remained close to the door.

Thomas knelt on the black bags, and Lucas stood before him, sword in hand.

“Rayna!” Thomas said. “You’ve come to watch me die?”

“Call it closure,” Rayna said.

I heard something scrabble across the roof, so I looked up and saw the dragon perched there, watching. We were certainly a macabre bunch.

Thomas looked up at the dragon. “And there is Clara. She shall have a long life after all.”

Lucas nodded. “Do you have anything to say before we end this?”

Thomas smiled. “I’d like to repeat Graham’s last words because they seem particularly fitting.”

“Really?” Lucas asked. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘I’m not ready to die.’ And then he knelt, bowed his head, and accepted his fate.”

“As you are,” Lucas said.

“Do it now,” Thomas said and bowed his head.

Lucas raised the blade.

I didn’t want to watch this, and while I knew Rayna did, I didn’t want her so close to the execution, so I pulled her back a few steps.

Those few steps saved her life.

Lucas spun around, swinging the sword toward Rayna.

As I said, most people freeze when sudden violence erupts. Rayna froze.

On the other hand, I’ve seen so much violence in my day that I don’t freeze. I knew something was wrong the moment Lucas started to spin.

I grabbed Rayna and pulled her farther back.

The sword swished around harmlessly.

I was so focused on protecting Rayna that I saw Wesley and Junior only out of the corner of my eye.

They stuck the swords they’d grabbed into Brand before he knew anything was amiss.

Once Lucas’s attack went by, I darted forward, grabbed him, and drove him to the ground. I landed on top of him and saw Thomas bolt toward Rayna. I slammed Lucas’s head against the concrete a few times with one hand while fumbling for my gun with the other, but as I pulled it, Lucas bucked, and as I didn’t have a good grip, the gun slipped from my grasp.

Brand dropped to his knees then Wesley and Junior yanked their swords out of him.

I heard Rayna scream.

Lucas kept bucking, so I rolled off him, grabbing the sword he’d dropped. I got to my feet as his sons attacked me.

Fighting two swordsmen at once looks great in the movies, but I don’t recommend trying it in real life. If Lucas hadn’t been trying to get up, I’m not sure I’d have survived, but he was in Junior’s way, which allowed me to focus first on Wesley.

I parried his first attack then kicked him in the chest. He staggered back and I drove my sword into Lucas’s chest. Releasing the sword, I jumped back to avoid Junior’s attack. I wanted to thank Lucas for blocking his direct line to me. I darted in, grabbed the handle of the sword sticking out of Lucas, and pulled it free while kicking him toward Junior.

Wesley was on me again, but I parried and attacked. I whipped around quickly because I sensed Junior approaching, and I lopped off his sword arm at the elbow. He screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his stump.

I spun back just in time to parry Wesley’s next attack. I circled around to position him where I wanted. His footwork was pretty good, but he wasn’t paying close enough attention to where he was on the battlefield.

I pressed forward in a hack-and-slash manner that relies more on berserker rage and speed than any real skill. While I am skilled with swords, I didn’t need that skill at the moment. I just needed Wesley to retreat. And of course, he did retreat without looking back, and he tripped over his dead father. He hit the ground hard, and I stabbed him in the gut then kicked his sword away.

I knew he’d live, but he and his brother were done fighting. Losing an arm and getting a deep stab wound in the gut will do that to you. I knew they were going to into shock, but I didn’t give a shit. Thomas was after Rayna, and I had to save her.

RAYNA NOBLE

Rayna didn’t know what to think when Lucas spun around and tried to kill her. If not for Jonathan’s quick reaction, she knew she’d have been killed.

Then Jonathan was dealing with Lucas, and Thomas bolted toward her. Rayna ran back inside with Thomas on her tail.

She burst into the dojo where there were tables lined with weapons. She grabbed a dagger from the first table, stopped fast, and spun around as Thomas ran into the room. She threw the dagger, but he didn’t slow down, and it hit him handle first in the shoulder then dropped to the floor.

“Kneel and accept your fate!” Thomas said, grabbing a sword from one of the tables.

Years of conditioning made her stop. Tears filled her eyes as she grabbed the table in front of her. She tipped the table over as she dropped to her knees. Daggers and swords scattered on the floor in front of her.

“Before you kill me, can you answer a question?”

“Perhaps.”

“Did you tell Lucas he could live if he killed me and spared you? Is that why he attacked me?”

“No. He knew he was going to die. Honor required it of him the same as it requires it of you. Our deal was that we would allow his
sons
to live. And if Mr. Shade hasn’t killed them, I’ll stand by that agreement.”

“How honorable.”

“I think so. Now do you have any last words?” Thomas asked.

“I do,” she said. She sobbed and mumbled something unintelligible.

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Women. Must you always cry? Your mother cried too, but at least I could understand what she said.”

She leaned forward so far, she had to put her hands on the floor to keep her balance. “I’m sorry,” she said around the tears.

“Try again. That way you can die with dignity.”

She looked up at him. He had the sword raised high. He waited for her to speak. Her fingers curled around the handle of a dagger on the floor.

“Honor this,” she said.

His eyes grew wide as she thrust the dagger into his groin. He gave her a look of surprised betrayal then blinked several times and dropped his sword.

Rayna pulled the dagger free then rose. “This is for my parents, my brother, and Lucas’s daughters.” She plunged the blade into Thomas’s heart.

“Unnnhhh!” Thomas said and dropped to his knees.

Rayna took a sword from a nearby table. Thomas was already bent over, so she raised the blade. “And this is for me,” she said and brought the blade down hard.

Thomas’s head bounced on the tatami mats, rolled over to balance momentarily on the ear, then dropped back to settle on its face.

JONATHAN SHADE

I raced into the dojo and stopped when I saw Rayna holding a sword with one foot propped up on Thomas’s fallen body. His head lay off to one side.

“Oh,” I said.

“Thought you’d have to save me?” she asked with a grin.

“Well, yeah.”

“Thought I was some helpless little rich girl?”

“Not exactly.”

“I’m actually well versed in various weapons,” she said.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you seemed to need to protect someone. I didn’t want to steal your thunder.”

“I think I’m in love,” I said.

“What about Brand?”

I hurried out back. Brand had rolled over onto his back. I knelt beside him and touched his neck. He had a pulse.

“Don’t even think about kissing me, Shade,” he said.

I laughed. “Don’t worry.”

“That said, I could use a healer. Getting stabbed fucking hurts.”

There was a lot of blood. He made it seem like it wasn’t that big a deal, but I knew he was hurt bad. I also knew that I could get him to Lina inside of ten minutes because we had our own Flight for Life in the form of a dragon named Clara.

“One healer coming up,” I said. “This is going to hurt, Brand.”

“I’ve come to a surprising conclusion,” he said as the dragon dropped from the roof at Rayna’s call.

“What’s that?”

“I’m not a big fan of pain.”

“Don’t be a baby,” I said.

We got him loaded onto the dragon, but Clara couldn’t carry three of us. Rayna promised to take Brand, but she needed to know where.

“Leave that to me,” I said. I gave her directions to Lina’s place. “Watch for the flashes,” I said.

I placed two phone calls once the dragon took off into the night sky with two passengers. The first was to Lina. I told her to wait five minutes then start flashing her lights, both the inside and the porch light since the switches were next to one another.

The second call was to my friend Patrick O’Malley of the Denver Police Department. He was used to calls from me about injured assholes and dead guys. I knew he’d help me through the days of interrogations and paperwork to come.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

JONATHAN SHADE

A few weeks later, Rayna and I met up with Kelly and Brand at the dojo. There were still loose ends with the police departments of both Denver and Boulder, but with O’Malley and Kramer, respectively, plus Rayna making some rather substantial donations to the right police charities, I knew everything would work out fine.

Brand was in good spirits, and he was completely healed. Lina does excellent work. Esther moped around for a week because she wasn’t happy I was dating Rayna, but she got over it.

“Ready for lunch?” I asked as we entered.

“I need to work up an appetite,” Kelly said.

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“By kicking your ass.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea to me,” I said.

Kelly laughed. “But it does to me.”

“Are you all better now?”

“One hundred percent.”

“In that case, I’ll pass.”

Kelly shook her head. “Right before all this started, you took Brand down a little too easily. Then you were a lot faster than I expected. I won that matchup partially because Mike distracted you.”

“You’d have won anyway.”

“Let’s find out.” She stepped onto the mats, which I have to tell you were a royal bitch to clean. There were still a few spots where if you looked closely, you could see bloodstains.

“I forfeit,” I said.

“Come on, Jonathan.”

“I don’t want my girlfriend to see you kick my ass. It hurts my masculine pride.”

She laughed. “Fine,” she said and stepped off the mat. “Brand, when he wouldn’t fight you, what did I tell you to do?”

“You told me to hit him because he’d probably hit back.”

I tried to back away, but Rayna pushed me forward.

“Hey,” I said. “Whose side are you on?”

Kelly grabbed me and threw me onto the mat. I rolled to my feet, and she was on me in a heartbeat. To my credit, I did manage to block a few of the punches before she proved to me that she was back to full strength.

As I flew through the air, I heard Esther say, “Atta girl, Kelly! Show him who’s boss!”

Kelly pinned me to the floor. “Do you give up?” she asked.

“Yes. I tried to give up before you started.”

She laughed and helped me to my feet.

Rayna took my hand and leaned into me. “You got beat up by a girl,” she said.

“I know,” I said, “but I’m used to it.” Then I kissed her.

THE END

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