Anyone but Him [A Dragon's Growl 12] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove)

  A Dragon’s Growl 12

  Anyone but Him

  Warren, a half breed vampire assassin, has just been taken down by a dragon much bigger, stronger, and badder than he could ever be. And that dragon is his mate. A mate who is incredibly unhappy to have him, and lets Warren know it.

  Lasius, second hand of his former alpha, is pissed. A vampire? Really? The world saddled him with a vampire for a mate. Worse, this isn't some innocent vampire, he's as evil and blood sucking as they come, and Warren is lucky Lasius didn't kill him on sight.

  But is Warren really so evil? Warren's seemed to be stubbornly hiding something since the moment Lasius found him, and as much as Lasius doesn't want to acknowledge the mating pull between them, he won't allow anyone in his clan to harm his mate either.

  A sudden pregnancy and discovering his little assassin might be related to someone in the clan could change up everything for the better or the worse.

  Genre: Alternative (M/M, Gay), Contemporary, Fantasy, Paranormal, Shape-shifter, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 25,759 words

  ANYONE BUT HIM

  A Dragon's Growl 12

  Marcy Jacks

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  ANYONE BUT HIM

  Copyright © 2017 by Marcy Jacks

  ISBN: 978-1-64010-637-6

  First Publication: September 2017

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2017 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marcy Jacks lives and works in Ontario with her cowardly dog, and she loves writing about gorgeous guys in tricky situations. ☺ You can reach her at authormarcyjacks@gmail.com

  For all titles by Marcy Jacks, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/marcy-jacks

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Landmarks

  Cover

  ANYONE BUT HIM

  A Dragon's Growl 12

  MARCY JACKS

  Copyright © 2017

  Chapter One

  They probably thought he was fucking crazy. Out of his mind. Loopy.

  Lasius was still barely part of this new clan of dragons, and now he knew for a fact that he was testing his luck by bringing a goddamned, bloodsucking vampire into the mansion.

  A mansion where omegas slept and worked. Where dragons hated the vampires. Where vampires were the enemy.

  Worse than all of that, Lasius wanted to fuck the man. Even as he glared at the bloodsucker, trying to hate him—and maybe he did a little—he couldn’t stop the raging erection from throbbing between his legs.

  He wanted this man. Clothes off, on his belly, with Lasius plunging into him again and again.

  He was fucked. He was so utterly fucked that he didn’t even have the words to describe how fucked he was.

  The vampire glared back at him. Deep brown eyes. Pretty. He had thick lashes. Lasius could understand why this man was an assassin for Varrick, the most hated vampire in this whole house.

  Good looking enough to be part of the social events, to blend in, but not so striking that he would bring attention onto himself at those same events.

  It probably came in handy when he was sneaking in and out of people’s homes, stealing their shit, or just killing them in their sleep.

  Lasius had him tied up, hands behind his back, sitting on the bed, wearing only the T-shirt and boxers he’d been wearing beneath that stupid black uniform Lasius had found him in.

  The vampires liked wearing that shit. It might have made sense in the middle of the night, but during the day, it didn’t exactly help them blend in with the terrain.

  They used it to hide their skin from the sun. Lucian yanked the mask off the second he’d brought his mate into his bedroom and shut the curtains. Parts of his skin that had been exposed were bright red, burnt, as though he’d been in the sun for twelve hours instead of twenty seconds.

  Any longer and he might have started to bleed.

  “What’s your name?” Lasius asked.

  He was going to need to know that much, and talking might take his mind off his damned dick.

  The vampire continued to glare at him, and then he turned away.

  Lasius growled. He didn’t have time for this. Seth might come marching up here any second for an explanation, and Lasius didn’t have anything he could give to the red dragon.

  He marched up to the vampire, and he nearly slapped the man across the face. He’d lifted his hand to do it.

  Instead, he took him by the jaw, ignoring the pained grunt the vampire let out.

  This might be his mate, but Lasius couldn’t allow himself to feel sorry for him. He’d come here to kill people. Possibly to kidnap a few of the omegas. That couldn’t be overlooked, no matter how much it pained Lasius’s heart to do this.

  “Tell me your damned name, or I swear to God I will pry open your mouth and pull your fangs out with my fingers.”

  He squeezed a little harder, knowing he was going to leave some bruising, but that was just the reality he was going to have to live with. He needed to hurt the man to get the information he wanted out of him.

  The vampire still said nothing. He continued glaring. Strands of his dark brown hair stuck to his forehead, sweat building.

  “Don’t pretend you can’t talk. You were talking outside before I dragged you into the sun.”

  He hadn’t seemed to like that. Lasius still didn’t like doing this, but again, if he had to threaten his mate, even hurt the man he was supposed to protect and care for, he’d made the decision that he would do it.

  “I’ll let you soak up a little more sun if you don’t start singing. Trust me, you don’t want anyone else doing that to you because they won’t be so nice about it.”

  “I don’t care. Don’t pretend to be nice on my behalf.”

  Lasius smiled. “There, see? I knew you could talk. Now what’s your name?”

  The man clammed up again.

  Lasius growled, and then just to confirm something for himself, he lowered his hand between the vampire’s legs. The man jumped when Lasius palmed his hard cock through the boxers. The material was so thin that Lasius could feel the heat of his erection. He might as well be touching the man skin to skin.

/>   “Either you’re a masochist, or I’m right about this.”

  The vampire shook his head. “Just a masochist. That means nothing.”

  “Uh-huh.” Lasius was not impressed or fooled. He grabbed the hair on the back of the man’s head, yanking back hard, exposing his throat, and also preventing him from snapping those fangs forward and biting Lasius on the face.

  Just in case he’d been thinking about doing that.

  “You are a liar. Wouldn’t expect anything less from an assassin or a thief.” Lasius couldn’t resist. He leaned in, sniffing the exposed throat, his inner dragon rumbling, his cock throbbing harder as he wanted to lick at that red skin, taste the man’s salt right before he thrust his cock into him.

  “Tell me your name. You know I’m trying to be nice. You know what this means. The others downstairs? They won’t give a shit. They’d throw you out into the sun, and when your body catches fire, the omegas will come out and roast marshmallows over it and cheer.”

  He didn’t know if they would actually do that, but it seemed like something they would want to do.

  Lasius certainly couldn’t blame them for it, so he might as well stretch this out as much as he could. Whatever he could say or do to convince the man was for the best.

  “They can’t do anything to me that no one else has never done before.”

  That shocked Lasius. He pulled back and looked into the dark eyes of his mate.

  And his heart swelled.

  No. No. He wasn’t going to do that. He wasn’t going to let himself be tricked into feeling sorry for this man. Whoever he was, he was still a vampire, and even if that was supposed to mean nothing, he was still working for Varrick and he’d still been guarding that trap door, waiting for prisoners to come out.

  Or his friends, who would have been covered in the blood of Lasius’s friends.

  “Right, I’m so sure that the assassins have a hard time going through their lives. I bet it’s real hard for you to do your job killing people in their sleep, stealing their stuff, watching as other vampires trade sex and blood slaves. What do you think I am?”

  “An idiot.”

  Lasius slapped him. He felt the rush of guilt for that but then squashed it down.

  The man was smaller than Lasius was, and tied up, but he was still well trained. That would have been nothing.

  Indeed, the vampire glared at Lasius as though it hadn’t hurt at all.

  “That’s a warning,” Lasius said. “I’m trying to save your stupid little life, and if I had any sense, I’d ignore this”—he squeezed the vampire’s cock, but really, he was thinking of his own—“and I’d let the guys downstairs do whatever the fuck they wanted to you. I should let them kill you.”

  “Right, wouldn’t that hurt you if you’re mated to me?”

  “I’m sure I’d get over it.”

  The vampire snorted, quickly glancing away from him. “So why don’t you? Bring me back downstairs and let them roast me over an open fire if that’s what you want them to do so badly.”

  Lasius took in a deep breath through his nose. “Don’t tempt me.”

  He hated to admit it, but he was tempted. God help him, but he really did want to go back downstairs with his mate in hand and toss him into the sunlight and let him burn.

  No, that would take too long. If the man screamed, then Lasius would crack and he would drag the man back inside. He wouldn’t let anyone else near him.

  Lasius took the man by the throat, still holding the back of his head. “If I snapped your neck right now, it would be painless. I’d be doing you a favor, really. You wouldn’t be tortured to death, and it would get you out of my head and life before you ever got the chance to settle into it. I could recover quickly and move on.”

  He hoped he could recover quickly. He’d heard stories, nothing that had happened in his own clan, but it was supposed to be common knowledge that if a mate was lost, then it didn’t matter how new the mating was. It was supposed to be like losing a piece of one’s soul.

  Some dragons even said that if a mate was killed before finding their other half, then somewhere in the world, the one who should have been mated to that person spiraled into an unknown depression, never to come out.

  No, Evzen had survived the loss of his mate, and Lasius had adored Theon. Theon had been killed in the worst possible way, and Evzen had still managed to move on with his life. He’d even taken another mate. A man with wolf ears.

  Lasius could do the same. He could kill this man himself, and then, one day, if he was lucky, he could find someone else to spend the rest of his life with.

  It wouldn’t be so bad. He could do it. All it would take was a simple, quick snap of the neck, something he should have done out there at the entrance to that tunnel when he’d found this man.

  He could do it now. He needed to do it now.

  The problem was in the way the vampire continued to stare at him, as though he expected nothing different. As though he thought he was supposed to die today.

  Lasius…he wouldn’t do it. He wanted to. So badly he wanted to end the life of this vampire before he could cause any more harm to any other people.

  But he couldn’t. He was done. He was trapped.

  “Why you?”

  Lasius released his grip on the man. He felt himself crumbling. He couldn’t look into the eyes of his own prisoner.

  Why him? It was a good question. Why in the name of God did it have to be him?

  Anyone but him. Anyone else in the world would have been great, so long as it hadn’t been him.

  “Tell me your name,” Lasius said, not raising his gaze to look up into the vampire’s eyes.

  The vampire said nothing at first. Lasius thought he was going to be ignored while his mate pretended to be tough. Or maybe he really was just that strong-willed.

  Then, Lasius finally got his answer.

  “My name is Warren.”

  Lasius blinked. His entire body froze up. He honestly didn’t expect to get an answer at all or to hear such a normal-sounding name.

  But there it was, and it was a beautiful name.

  “Warren? Warren what?”

  “I have no last name. That’s not how it works.”

  “Everyone has a last name.”

  “No, not everyone.”

  Lasius had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and he decided he didn’t care.

  He was too weak. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill his own mate when it was probably the best thing in the world to do for himself, for the clan. The omegas were going to pitch a fit when they found out about this, and Lasius couldn’t bring himself to care.

  He only wanted to keep his mate. He didn’t want anything to happen to him. He wanted to protect him, to love him, to make love to him.

  And why in the hell was he bothering to hold himself back if that was what he wanted so badly?

  He had him here, in his room, and Warren clearly knew the score.

  Lasius finally looked up, meeting the eyes of his mate.

  Those defiant eyes stared back down at him. “Aren’t you going to do something about this? You’ve been palming my dick for long enough.”

  So he had.

  Lasius pushed himself back up. He grabbed the back of the man’s head, threading his fingers through his hair in a tight grip, and he kissed the man hard on the mouth.

  Those teeth sliced his bottom lip.

  Lasius winced and pulled back. He touched his mouth, and pulling his fingers back, he saw a little blood.

  Warren didn’t smile at him, but there was something in his eyes that was doing all the smiling for him.

  “I’m hungry.”

  Lasius nodded. “Right.” He pulled Warren forward, kissing him again, and then pushed the man down onto the bed.

  If he was going to be mated, he might as well get this part out of the way.

  The mating heat. Otherwise, Lasius was going to lose his damned mind.

  Chapter Two

  Wa
rren should not be doing this. This was enough reason to get him killed. He was supposed to be fighting for escape. This dragon had acted stupidly. He hadn’t killed him when he had the chance, and now they were kissing.

  Mating. No, that was…maybe it was possible for the dragon, and maybe it was having an impact on Warren’s body, but that was it.

  Mates didn’t exist, and even if they did, Warren would never allow himself to get close to one.

  A mate could be used against him. He would have to kill the woman, or man in this case, to keep that person from being tortured, from being used against him or killed in the most brutal fashion.

  Warren had seen what happened to the lovers of assassins. They always ended up dying brutally, and mysteriously.

  The most un-mysterious mysterious death possible.

  But…Warren couldn’t help himself. Was this what it felt like? The hands of the dragon roamed all over his body, touching him through his clothes and then beneath his clothes. His hands were liquid fire on Warren’s skin, but not in the same horrifying way that the sun could be. He had tattoos of green vines, thorns, and roses that climbed his arms. That touch stung as deeply as only real thorns could.

  Something forbidden and beautiful that struck with a powerful sting when one got too close.

  He was way too close right now. This was the forbidden fruit.

  This felt good. The kiss felt good, as did the taste of blood in Warren’s mouth.

  He’d always wondered why the other assassins who had taken lovers, or mates, as they had claimed, had bothered. They knew the risks. Did they really want their lovers to be killed? Why put themselves through that sort of pain? Why do that to their lovers?

  It seemed selfish, but Warren had always kept his mouth shut about it. He hadn’t wanted to rub salt in already open wounds. He’d just promised himself that if anyone ever called to him in such a way, he would ignore it. He wouldn’t let anything come of it.