Running to Dimitri [A Dragon's Growl 6] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove)

  A Dragon’s Growl 6

  Running to Dimitri

  Josh Peterson couldn’t stop thinking about the dragons who spared his life when they seized the vampire mansion where he worked. Knowing they’re his only hope to live a normal life, he and his brother flee their master and run back into the dragon stronghold.

  Only for Josh to be captured by the most handsome dragon shifter he has ever seen. A man with a beautiful body and a flame tattoo on his cheek. A man who claims Josh is his mate.

  Josh doesn’t believe in mates, but he can’t deny the intense pull of lust he feels. It’s physically draining, and yet he always wants more.

  But little by little, as much as he is falling in love with his protector, it’s looking as if he may have made a mistake. Unless Dimitri can prove otherwise, their fragile relationship will end before it can begin

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

  Length: 25,920 words

  RUNNING TO DIMITRI

  A Dragon’s Growl 6

  Marcy Jacks

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  RUNNING TO DIMITRI

  Copyright © 2017 by Marcy Jacks

  ISBN: 978-1-64010-506-5

  First Publication: July 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 Canada with her loyal hound, and she loves writing about gorgeous guys in tricky situations.

  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

  Landmarks

  Cover

  RUNNING TO DIMITRI

  A Dragon’s Growl 6

  MARCY JACKS

  Copyright © 2017

  Chapter One

  “I let you go. You begged me to release your brother, to let you take him with you, and yet…you came back?”

  It was said in such a condescending tone, as if the alpha of this dragon clan thought Josh was the dumbest man alive for daring to have returned to this place.

  Josh didn’t take his eyes away from the dragon shifter in front of him, but he could see from the corner of his eye the way his brother, Zane, stared at him.

  As if Zane was thinking the exact same thing.

  Josh hadn’t forced him to come along. So, as far as he was concerned, this was as much Zane’s fault as his own that he’d been caught.

  Not that it would stop Josh from doing anything and everything in his power from getting out of his situation before everything went to shit.

  “I came back because I want to work for you,” Josh said. “No one just lets someone go like that, not in the vampire world.”

  One of the dragons standing around him snarled at that, as if he was insulted by what Josh had just said.

  Josh didn’t understand that in the least.

  He and his brother were both on their knees, their hands tied behind their backs with rope. He knew how to wiggle free, but that required time, which he was pretty sure he didn’t have.

  The dragons stood around him and his brother in a half-circle, as though getting ready to pass judgment down on him and Zane.

  For the vampires, that judgment usually involved death. Josh didn’t want it to be the same for him and his brother. He needed to get them out of this.

  “You’re not like them,” Josh said, ignoring the one dragon that was sneering at him. As if he were trying to punch a hole through Josh’s forehead with that angry look.

  Not a good sign if Josh wanted to get out of this.

  “Oh?” The leader chortled. Sethraghck. That was his name. Josh had looked into everything he could find about the man when he brought his brother safely back to their employer.

  Sethraghck got down on one knee, getting a little too close to Josh for his liking. Zane tensed beside him. “And how do you know I’m not just as bad as the monsters you left behind?”

  He said it with such an intense smile on his face that Josh swallowed hard, struggling to hold back a shiver.

  “Maybe he is here to work for you,” said one of the dragons.

  Seth turned his head to look back at the man. Though it was considered incredibly stupid of Josh to do the same thing, he couldn’t help it either.

  It was the dragon with the sandy-blond hair. It wasn’t long and didn’t quite reach his shoulders. Josh never liked that look on anyone. He was used to clean-cut, but he had to admit, it did look good on this dragon.

  The fact that he was so tall, and looked as though his steroids had been taking steroids, might’ve helped out a little with that image. Yeah, that was definitely a big help.

  The guy would definitely be able to beat Josh in a fight, outrun him, and hold his own with a weapon, even if he hadn’t been a dragon. Everything about the man screamed skill, stealthy, and deadly force.

  Which was why Josh had to look away from the man. It had been he who brought Josh and his brother back. At the same time. He’d done it on his own without help.

  Josh hated that he respected the man for it, feared him a little, and he was never going to admit it out loud, but was kind of, sort of, totally a hundred percent attracted to him.

  That dragon had grabbed Josh from behind by his throat, yanking Josh’s body to that massive chest.

  He’d felt for himself how rock solid it was, how wide and powerful.

  The fact that the dragon had also been naked when he’d taken Josh and used him as bait to get Zane to surrender hadn’t helped in the least.

  Sethraghck shook his head, turning away from the blond-haired dragon, clearly dismissing what he’d just said.

  The alpha dragon pushed himself to his feet, as if he needed to get away from Josh and Zane before he lost his mind.

  “Well, neither of you have your weapons anymore, and you’re clearly not bugged.”

  “Clearly,” Zane sneered. This time it was his heated glare that looked as if he were trying to melt a hole through Sethraghck’s head.

  Josh didn’t blame his brother. He’d been part of that search, as well. To say that it had been invasive would have been the nice way of putt
ing it.

  “Hey, I was gentle,” said the blond dragon, and he actually winked at Josh.

  Josh looked away from him, scowling down at the carpet.

  He wasn’t going to blush. He wasn’t. He had more strength and self-control than that, and he wouldn’t let it happen to him.

  No, no, no!

  Fuck. He might be blushing a little. Could the dragons see it? He hoped not.

  “Despite how gentle you were, there’s still the chance you two were sent back here to spy on us,” Sethraghck said. He leaned back against the desk where Varrick used to do his taxes. “I really should just kill the both of you.”

  Josh’s heart started to pound. No, this was wrong. Sethraghck had released him. He’d offered Josh the chance to run away, and when Josh said he wanted to take his brother, the alpha dragon had allowed it. He wasn’t a monster. He couldn’t be.

  “I read your file,” Josh said, looking up at the red dragon, forcing a calm into his body he barely felt.

  Zane always said he should have been an actor.

  The same might be true for Sethraghck. He didn’t so much as lift a brow. “What file?”

  “The one Varrick has on you. I know what happened. I never knew it when I worked in this house, but I know what it is. This is your family territory. Varrick took it from you, killed your parents, and pretty much all of the older dragons, most of the children, and even the hatchlings. They could have been alphas, omegas, men, women. It doesn’t matter. You and a few of your friends got away. You rounded everyone up, and for the next two hundred years, you focused on training, on finding more dragons, and growing your clan. I know this about you. You just wanted to take back what was yours. You didn’t want to kill anyone who might have been innocent.”

  Again, there was no outward reaction from the red dragon. He might be a better actor than Josh had turned out to be.

  “I didn’t know Varrick was aware I was alive for all those years.”

  Josh shook his head. “He wasn’t. This was all the stuff he pulled together after you took the house. He still wants his son back, but we all know you probably killed him.”

  Josh was legitimately sad for that. Sorin had always been polite and definitely didn’t hold the same personality as his father.

  It had taken Josh awhile before he’d been able to see that the young vampire had been sincere in that, as well, that it hadn’t been an act he’d learned to put on from his teachers and nannies over the years as he’d grown up.

  All the same, Sethraghck wouldn’t have known that about Sorin. He would have just seen the son of his enemy, and killed him. Josh couldn’t blame him for that, and he was still focused on how Sethraghck had spared him and his brother.

  “It doesn’t bother you that I killed Sorin?” the red vampire asked, using Sorin’s given name, which shocked Josh a little.

  How long had they tortured him before Sorin had revealed that information?

  Maybe this hadn’t been the best idea after all.

  “It does a little. He wasn’t like the other vampires.”

  “A minute ago you just said all vampires were evil, horrible monsters,” said the brunet dragon who had been growling at him earlier.

  Josh shook his head, and he used all the willpower he had to keep from growling back at him. “I never said it like that, and he was different. He was good to the servants, and he never gave the guards any shit.”

  The brunet dragon lifted a brow, and smiling, he turned his head and nudged the dragon standing next to him, the man with the piercings on his face.

  Josh took note of that. He didn’t know what it meant, but it meant something. Was Sorin still alive?

  He wouldn’t hope for that right now.

  Sethraghck rubbed his chin, his eyes narrowed down at Josh.

  “Well, no matter how much you might flip-flop on the vampire issue, it doesn’t change the fact that you and your idiot brother showed up here in full gear, weapons and everything, and you just expect me to believe you want to come to our side? Does Varrick not pay you enough?”

  “Not really,” Zane said.

  Josh could have hit his brother for that one.

  The handsome, sandy-blond-haired dragon shifter chuckled at that.

  Josh felt more of that heat rushing to his face. He pressed his lips together hard enough that it hurt. He didn’t want to let this get the better of him. He couldn’t allow that to happen. Not now.

  “Oh?” Sethraghck raised a red brow. “So you left because you thought I could give you better benefits? How do you know I’m not completely broke?”

  “We didn’t come here for money,” Josh said, briefly glaring at his brother. “Even if we did, we know you have the cash. This place had enough capital in it to melt down and sell even if you were completely broke. Varrick may have let you take over the house, but he thought doing that would mean you would destroy it. You haven’t. The lights are still on. The grounds are still in good working order, mostly, and I’m inside the mansion right now and it doesn’t smell like sewage. You’re paying to maintain the place, and even if you’re getting the rest of your dragons to volunteer on the cleanup or whatever with the slaves you took, you’re still paying for heat, electricity, and water.”

  Sethraghck smiled at that. “Does that piss off Varrick?”

  Josh nodded. “Definitely. He screams about it sometimes, and he’s broken a few things and killed a few people.”

  Something flashed in the red dragon’s eyes. “Is that why you left?”

  “Pretty much.” Josh looked at his brother. “We were just taking a job. We’re supposed to be security and first aid, occasional bodyguard work, but I don’t want to die for him.”

  “So why do you think coming to me is the better idea?”

  This was where Josh revealed his hand, and he had to admit, it was almost as nerve wracking as when he and Zane just walked away from their posts, got in the car, and drove back here wearing the same gear they were supposed to be working in on Varrick’s second property.

  “We came here because Varrick will find us for leaving otherwise. You don’t just quit a job working for vampires. People disappear, and then their stock of blood fills up a little too quickly for it to have been a coincidence.”

  Sethraghck nodded, his arms still crossed, but for that split second, Josh began to hope.

  Then it was shattered. “No. I’m not taking the risk.”

  Josh tensed.

  His brother spoke up. “What do you mean, no? You said it yourself that we don’t have any wires on us, and you took our weapons!”

  The alpha dragon shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah, still not buying it. Varrick slaughtered my parents when I was still a kid. I’ve got a new family now, and I’m not going to risk anything happening to them because you both came up with this sob story about being afraid of Varrick. You weren’t afraid to fight for him, to shoot at us when we came to take the house.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Josh wanted to scream at him. “Of course we were afraid! We’re just trained to deal with it. You let us go that first time. You’re not evil.”

  “Yeah, I did let you go that first time, and I’m pretty sure I threatened to kill you if you ever came back. Actually, I can’t remember exactly what it was I said, but I was definitely not all gung ho about the idea of letting you walk away like that.”

  “So let us go right now,” Zane said. “We’ll leave again and deal with this on our own. We won’t bother you again either, and everything will be fine.”

  Sethraghck smiled, and it chilled Josh to the center of his bones.

  The red dragon wasn’t planning on being so merciful this time around.

  “Okay, come on, can’t we just give them a chance?” said the blond-haired dragon. He actually left the half-circle and stood in front of his alpha.

  Which also blocked Josh and his brother from Sethraghck’s potential rage.

  “Get out of the way, Dimitri.” Claws were coming out. Big red ones
from the alpha. “I gave them their chance. I’m not risking something happens to Miles.”

  Josh took those words in. Miles was still alive? The dragon was thinking about him right now? What had been happening since Josh left this place?

  “I know you don’t,” Dimitri said. “But you can use them. You’re so worried about him spying? Well, he just said that he knows things about us because of what he found out when he was still working for Varrick. We can use that.”

  “Assuming anything he said is correct and he’s not planting information,” said the dragon with the piercings.

  Dimitri didn’t sound remotely impressed with that level of reasoning. “Right. Because he just rattled off all that stuff about Seth and he just made a lucky guess, right? We’ve been leaving a paper trail, and Varrick’s been looking for it. He could know anything about all of us. Andrei, would you be happy if Varrick found out information on you and Mandy and tried to use that against you?”

  One of the dragon shifters with ice-blue eyes and black hair tensed, his expression pinching a little, as if he hadn’t thought of that and didn’t like it now that he had thought of it.

  Dimitri nodded. “Right, he could figure out all of our histories, and he could use them against us. He’s probably already doing that right now, but with Josh and his brother with us, if this is really going on, we could make a play for wherever Varrick is keeping this information and get rid of it.”

  Josh nodded. “I can do that. I’ll help you do that. I came here with my brother because we don’t want to die. We don’t want to work for the vampires anymore.”

  He didn’t know why the handsome dragon was defending him and his brother like this, and it didn’t much bother him either. He would take it and be grateful for it so long as he and Zane got out of this alive.