Filed to story: A Claim of Fortune Book PDF Free by Jaymin Eve
Too fucking well.
Jewels strode into the crowd, using magic to drag a shifter along beside her, while keeping one hand wrapped around her captive’s throat. A captive I knew very well: Cora.
My lungs seized as I frantically examined my friend, only breathing again when I noticed the small rise and fall of her chest.
Hunter stepped forward, angling himself to hide me from witch view. Slade did the same, and I felt the rise of their beasts. “What are you doing, Jewels?” our entitled alpha called, his voice carefully modulated.
From the sliver of view left to me, she didn’t look very happy. “Fletcher made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I’m sorry, but if I had to choose between a future where magic rules or one where shifters use and abuse our power, then I know where my loyalty lies.” She met my gaze from where I peeped between the alphas. “Just hand the dragon and the omega over. She never deserved you anyway.”
“Not a chance,” Slade said, casually. As if he wasn’t concerned at all. “You’ll have to kill all of us first, and we won’t go down easy.”
No!
I would throw myself at Jewels in a heartbeat before I let any of them get hurt. We all just needed to live to fight another day.
Jewels’ faked sadness morphed slowly into annoyance. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, dragon. I have the power to kill you. I mean, how do you think I managed to keep you all in stasis like this? Hmmmm.” She tapped her chin. “It might be thanks to that energy I took from you four.”
Slade slammed his hand against his chest. “It returned to us. I felt it.”
Her snort was a tad deranged. “You felt the touch of energy as I pretended to slip it back, but you were too distracted to realize I never truly returned anything. You’re too freaking powerful to notice the small loss, but for me it was immensely useful. It also allowed me to cater my spells specifically for you all. It was clever of me to enhance that spell on Kellan until he was too weak for any other option than you all to consider sharing your strength. It worked out even better than I planned, except I hoped he would die. Little shit.” She did a fake bow, as if we’d given her a round of applause, and my heart lodged in my throat as my gaze shot to Kellan, who was glaring and moving his arms, though the rest of him remained locked in place.
“The cost of doing business, I’m afraid,” Jewels continued.
Hunter’s fury sent heat pouring from him, scorching my face, and he kept shuffling back to get us further away. He probably thought I was about to sacrifice myself to save Cora and my alphas.
Most likely he was right.
She was my best friend, and they were my heart-no one was fucking dying for me today.
If Fletcher wanted me this badly, then he’d get me.
I had too much to lose.
SLADE
The roar of my dragon was deafening inside my head. We were too close to our family to shift without risking injury, and I couldn’t step away from Emme as she was the most vulnerable and the one this bitch wanted. A bitch who was going to die.
The fact that she’d stolen my energy.
MINE.
I’d been too distracted by my mate and Kellan at the time to properly inventory my power, and that had me ready to blast the entire street to cinders. It took every ounce of my strength, every scrap of control I’d built over the years, to keep a hold of my destructive fury.
My body shuddered when Emme pressed her hand against my spine, and I wished now wasn’t the time she chose to initiate touch.
Today… we were out of control. Today… was the root of all my fears.
My dragon could destroy everyone who stood here in seconds.
It had happened once before when I was fifteen, when Fletcher had taken his torture a little far. He’d cut me until there wasn’t any part of me which didn’t bleed, all in a bid to force my dragon out. He’d wanted me to kill for him, but I was no one’s fucking puppet.
I’d endured the torture, which went on for so long that I believe this was the first time I started to associate any touch with pain. Ironically, I now quite enjoyed pain when it was done right.
That day had a lasting effect on me, severing my bond to my dragon, who blamed me for holding him back. Not that I cared about killing Fletcher, but there were others being contained near me. Hunter for one, along with other prisoners chained against the walls of his torture cells.
By the time Fletcher was done, the rage of my beast had me confusing friend with foe, and even as we healed over and over, the canvas of my skin repairing for his butchery, I never broke.
Not until he brought an omega female to me.
She’d looked about twenty and was naked and blank faced. Fletcher sent her in there to clean the blood from my skin, and then he’d told her to hug me. That full-bodied touch, soft and gentle, had been the last crack in my control. Somehow, he knew all along that an omega was the key to my destruction.
I’d shifted, and Fletcher got exactly what he wanted: the omega torn to pieces and the building torn down around my beast. I’d almost lost Hunter that day. I definitely lost myself. I should have fucking killed Fletcher too, but when I’d finally shifted back, he’d offered me a deal. If I forgave all his sins, there’d be no more pain and Hunter would go free.
I forgave nothing, but for Hunter, I kept the sick bastard alive.
As long as we were free from him, I didn’t care. I should have expected that he’d find other ways to fuck us over.
The rumble in my chest echoed around the street, drawing Hunter’s attention. Whatever he saw in my expression had his features tightening. He nudged Emme’s touch away as he leaned down to murmur to her, too low for me to hear over the roar of my beast.
“You have signed your death warrant, witch,” I informed her, the fires building in my chest.
She smiled broadly, and her tone was heavy with amusement as she said, “You always were my favorite, Slade. I fought Fletcher when he hurt you, and ensured he turned his attention to the other lizard. You should thank me.”