Dungeons & Dragons Honour Among Thieves Doric Novels & Stories

Bodies littered the floor wolves, warriors, women. Dorian knelt at the center. Broken. Bleeding. His hands were covered in red, and his eyes gods, his eyes were vacant. Hollow. He was whispering something over and over again. Her name. Just her name. And then a shadow stepped beside him. A figure of smoke, crowned in horns, eyes like dying stars. Tharion. He placed a hand on Dorian's shoulder like a father comforting a grieving son. And Dorian wept. "NO!" Seraphina screamed, jolting awake.

Dimitri panicked, the islanders were totally outnumbered and if they were to truly fight, they would be fighting a lost battle. None of them knew about werewolves so their fighting skills were going to be even more lacking in the battle. “Alpha Ronnie, they were trying to save me because they thought—" Moko boiled in anger, “Have you lost your spine after leaving home? We never bow to our opponents. If you have lost your spine, then you sit back and let my warriors fight alone. We are not cowards.” “Father, you don’t understand they—” “Festus!” Moko ordered as he knocked Dimitri unconscious.

We weren’t going to make it. Thorne was 20 feet from the vault door when we burst through the smoke. 20 feet and Aria was on the other side with only Roric and two healers between her and a 400-year-old Archmage. He didn’t even look at us. He just slammed his palm against the vault door and spoke a word in High Lycan that made the stone scream. The door exploded inward. “THORNE!” Darius roared and threw himself forward, but a wall of silver magic snapped up between us and the vault.

His face carried the complicated guilt of a man coming home to a pack he'd betrayed to serve the truth. Sera came through with blood on her arms and a new cut across her jaw and her mother's blade at her belt. She walked straight to me and looked at Lumi wrapped around my waist. "She did that to everyone," Sera said. "Even Zuri. Zuri pretended to hate it." "How bad was the fight?" "Bad. We won. Three of Dorian's wolves surrendered when they felt their bonds scramble. Seven didn't." She paused. "Three Silver Ridge warriors wounded. None dead. Ronan's arm is worse."

"You dare touch her?" My grip tightened. I wanted to feel the life fade out of the person who had used thorns in prickling my love story. Ada’s eyes went wide; rolling in its socket, her hands clawing at my wrists, her face turning that same blue I had seen in the movies of people dying . "JOSHUA! STOP!" THIRD PERSON POV The door burst open. Chief Adeyemi didn't hesitate. He was a man of his age, but he had the desperate strength of someone protecting his last remaining asset. He lunged forward, his heavy arms wrapping around Josh’s neck, pulling him back with a guttural grunt.

It wasn’t an overly big maze but it was intricate enough to make the game fun. “Just stay behind me,” I said to Charlotte as we walked to the far end and I pulled her in behind me. Jack blew a whistle and I lowered my stance. I crept forward while Charlotte followed me. I saw Nick’s elbow sticking out and I shot him. “Damnit, Jericho! We just started.”

My thrift-store hoodie weighed ten pounds. "Group Four," Madame Arnaud read. "Vesper Aldric. Darcy Vaughn." Darcy turned in her chair and looked straight at me. Her smile was slow. Satisfied. I dropped my eyes to my notebook and bit down on the inside of my cheek. It doesn't matter. Veritas matters. Paris matters. He doesn't. "Group Five." Madame Arnaud adjusted her glasses. "Thea Voss. Juniper Rhodes. Soren Solvane. Ash Solvane."

Her presence steels my nerves. We reach the clearing. The cave yawns open like a hungry mouth, and the enemy waits. Rogues. Dozens. No masks. No mercy. They form a living barricade around the cave mouth like sentries of hell. And Dorian stands among them. He looks different. Taller. Pale. Something… inhuman. “You’re late,” he drawls. “Touch him and you die,” I bark to my warriors. “He’s mine.” Dorian raises the perfume vial and sprays it across his neck like it’s cologne, not corruption.

He looks for a long moment at Rowan, wide-eyed at his mother's side, and then he lowers himself down to one knee on the stone. "The boy has the Alpha's eyes," Dorian says, his rough voice carrying to the rafters, "and the Silver's own heart. Thornridge has bled five long years under a false friend's hand. I, for one, would sooner bleed for the true thing." And then, one by one, all down the length of the hall, my warriors go to their knees. Not for me. For the boy. For his mother. For the family I threw into the dark, and that the Goddess, in her mercy or her terrible humor, has seen fit to hand back to me anyway.

Dorian and five warriors stood close about us in a squat circle. The battle began with a resounding crash down the corridors. Cries, snarlings, the keen scrape of steel on steel. Theodore had hired mercenaries. Four dark-hearted wolves and rogues who served gold, not honor. As we rounded a corner, two shapes lurched out from hiding in the darkness. Gianna—and Theodore. Gianna wore black, her long hair hanging free about her shoulders, and her eyes gave off a delirious gleam.