Zanaikeyros - Son of Dragons (Pantheon of Dragons #1)(13)

Zane had no choice.

He had to forget the beetles.

He turned his attention away from the bugs, reached up to block the pagan, and swore beneath his breath as a score of vermin attached to his arm. A high-pitched whir sliced through the air from somewhere behind the shadow, and the pagan’s head fell from his neck, dropping to the deck like a heavy stone. A pair of giant hands, belonging to Axeviathon Saphyrius, wrenched the shadow backward by the shoulders and tugged the corpse away from Zane, even as the brutal, blond warrior smiled. He had beheaded the shadow with a lance, and now, he was making exceptionally quick work of incinerating his translucent body before the pagan could rise again.

Levi bounded on the porch with a thud. He grasped the head of the human gangster in one hand, the head of the eunuch-demon in the other, and slammed both skulls together with so much force that the craniums exploded as one, and then he spun around to come to his brother’s aid. “Did they bite you?” he growled in a husky tone, glaring at Zane’s tormented arm.

“No,” Zane bit out, peeling the bugs from his flesh; then, “yeah, shit, just now,” he added, as he felt a pair of mandibles sink into his skin, just above his inner elbow, where a beetle had managed to crawl between his scales.

Levi snatched Zane by the collar of his shirt, drew him upright from his squat, and slammed him against the house, along the back side of the porch, in a desperate attempt to gain quick, easy access to his fully exposed torso. All the while, Axe continued to incinerate the remaining bugs.

“Damn, Levi,” Zane snarled, more out of instinct than displeasure.

“Be still,” Levi barked. He released his fangs, bit Zane just above the elbow, in the exact same spot as the bug, and began to pump counteractive venom into the wound, hoping to neutralize the demonic substance before it could reach Zane’s heart.

Zane sucked in a sharp breath of air. The dragyri’s venom stung like a dozen scorpions biting into his flesh at once—it was far more painful than the demonic poison injected by the bug. He continued to peel off the remaining beetles, those still crawling on his arm, crushing them in his palm before they could bite, while simultaneously regulating his breath in an effort to slow down his heart.

He was trying to give Levi a hand.

Retracting his fangs, Levi spit out a gob of toxic venom and rose languidly to his feet, all the while watching Zane like a hawk.

Zane followed suit. He straightened his spine, brushed off his pants, and shook out his hands, checking the front of his body, just to be sure. Nodding at Levi, he sighed in relief. “Thanks, brother. I think we got ’em all.”

“No problem,” Levi said, backing away to survey the yard.

And then, just like that, another beetle bit Zane—this time, in the ass.

Zane clenched his lower cheeks and snarled, cursing in the ancient Dragonian language. He stuffed his hand into the back of his jeans, grasped the obnoxious beetle, and crushed it in his palm, groaning with disgust.

“What?” Levi asked, staring inquisitively at Zane’s tortured expression.

“Another bite,” Zane answered as his chest began to seize. Son of a demon! That bug had been strong. He would have said it out loud, but his throat was starting to close.

“What the hell?” Axe said, making his way toward his lair-mates.

“I think another one just bit him in the ass,” Levi replied. He touched the tips of his fangs with his tongue and grimaced, staring at Zane’s backside warily. “Damn, brother,” he moaned. He planted his palms on his narrow hips and shook his head rather slowly. “I mean, I love you and all, Zane; but dang—I’m really not trying to suck venom from your ass.”

Zane stooped forward and braced his hands on his knees. The porch was beginning to sway beneath him, and the yard was going all topsy-turvy, spinning in dizzying circles.

Axe shook out his hair, as if he were still creeped out by the bugs. “Ah, hell,” he grumbled. “Strip him.”

Levi took one hard look at Zane, who was now beginning to struggle for breath, and shrugged his powerful shoulders. “Sorry, brother.” He stepped forward, and with a lightning-quick series of motions, he eviscerated the male’s clothes in an instant, leaving only his athletic socks and his steel-toed boots intact.

Zane turned around and spread both legs, about shoulder’s width apart. What a helluva night. He braced both arms against the side of the house, giving his lair-brothers an up-close-and-personal view of everything he was packing from behind, and waited.

Axe sidled up behind him, stopped a few feet short of touching Zane’s hips, and then got straight down to business. He bathed the afflicted dragon in silver-blue fire from head to toe in an effort to heal, cleanse, and incinerate any remaining toxins from the outside in.

Zane grit his teeth as the healing flames got to work.

Burning was nothing new to a dragon.

Not after centuries spent in the Dragons Domain with the feral lords, but it still hurt like a mother when it happened, healing flames or not.

Zane held his breath, waiting for the remedy to take hold, grateful that it was only silver-blue flames assailing him. Orange—or gods forbid, red—would have dropped him to his knees, had him pleading for mercy like a sycophant.

Like a little girl.

When at last his breath had returned, his heart had settled down, and there wasn’t a beetle, gangster, or pagan left in sight, Zane cupped his hands over his privates and slowly turned around. He gestured toward the inside of the house with his chin. “Clothes,” he muttered. “Someone?”