One Soul To Share Read Online Free Page A

going to sink me, do it now,” he
muttered as much to himself as the beast.
    The dragon paused and, for a moment, leaned
closer. Its tongue darted out, touching Nolan’s face, chest, and
legs.
    The boat rose, and the dragon turned, another
bigger section of its body appearing from beneath the waves—its
tail, Nolan realized, but something more too.
    Wrapped tight in the creature’s tail was
Sarina, her face pale and her eyes closed.
    She hadn’t swum away.
    One simple thought, but it was enough.
    The beast Nolan worked so hard to keep hidden
behind a human face burst free. His fangs extended, and his muscles
clenched. His thick vampire blood pounded through his heart, and
the pulse at his neck jumped.
    He hadn’t fed in two weeks, not from a living
creature. And while the blood of this oversize snake was far from
what he craved, it would more than do for now.
    He ran forward, leaping as he did.
    His arms wrapped around the dragon’s body,
not far below its head and his fangs sank into its flesh.
    Its scales were soft and easy to pierce, but
in an anger-fueled rush, Nolan had taken no time to assess his
target. His bite sank into flesh but missed any veins the creature
might have.
    If it had veins.
    The dragon jerked and tossed its head trying,
it seemed, to dislodge the vampire attached to its throat, but,
determined, Nolan hung on. The creature roared, and steam rolled
from its throat.
    Nolan’s clothing stuck to his skin, and his
hair clung to his face. He was sticky, and his arms ached with the
effort of holding the twisting, angry beast, but none of that
mattered; nothing mattered but getting it to loosen its hold on the
mermaid.
    His lifted his face and yelled, “Drop
her.”
    The dragon sank under the sea, beneath the
boat and lower. Arms and legs wrapped around the creature now,
Nolan closed his eyes and willed his mind to slow.
    He was accomplishing nothing holding the
creature like this. Would accomplish nothing. He was to the dragon
what a mosquito might be to a bear. Annoying but little more.
    Deeper they went until sun no longer filtered
through the water, until only Nolan’s vampire ability allowed him
to see at all. Suddenly, with no apparent reason, the dragon slowed
until he seemed to barely be moving.
    Nolan pulled the sunglasses from his face and
shoved them into a pocket. Then, thinking this would be his chance
to let go and escape back to the surface, he looked around but
quickly realized he had no idea which was up and which way was
down.
    He could as easily swim deeper into the sea
as swim to the surface.
    As he pondered his choice, something slipped
under his waist and curled tightly around him. Then, with no other
warning, he was jerked from the dragon’s throat and dropped. He
floated for a moment, stunned and unsure of what had happened.
    With no sound and no backward look, the
dragon slithered away. The creature had done as he’d ordered. He
had dropped Sarina, and Nolan too.
    Unfortunately, wherever he had left the
mermaid was nowhere near here.
    Deciding his only choice was to take a chance
and hope he swam the right direction, Nolan swept his arms through
the water, pushing his body upward… or what he hoped was
upward.
    He had moved maybe three feet before his body
jerked to a stop. Confused, he looked down.
    A long, green tendril of some plant was
wrapped around his leg. Curving his body down, he tried to loosen
the strands with his fingers. The plant held tight. In fact, if
Nolan hadn’t known better—that plants were incapable of action of
their own volition—he would have sworn the vine actually tightened
in protest to his pulls.
    Tired of messing with the thing, he bent
lower and tried to saw through the tendril with his teeth. After
what felt like minutes of scraping his fangs over the plant, he
pulled back again.
    The plant was completely unscathed, not even
a scratch to show where Nolan’s fangs had touched it.
    The dragon’s unexpected release of him might
not have been