His eyes blazed as he glared at us, he flung his hand out and a wall of ice shot up behind us, blocking us from our exit. The air glowed faintly blue, shining through his thick wall of ice as we turned back to face him. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said darkly.
Blade stepped up next to Eva, “You got this, kitten.”
She gave him a curt nod before turning her back to Frost, trusting all of us to protect her if needed. Eva took a deep breath, centering herself as Frost continued to yell. Jax stepped in and deflected the ice that Frost shot at us.
“You will pay for your insolence,” Frost bellowed at Jax as he shot a line of ice in his direction, pushing him back a few feet from our line.
Frost started shooting shard after shard of ice at us, not stopping as everyone ducked to dodge his radical aim. It looked like it was getting to be too much for Jax to hold off, so I concentrated and summoned a cyclone of water, twisting and twirling, catching the ice as Frost flung it toward us, until it was a swirling mass of ice shards and water.
Behind me I heard the ice crash to the ground and light poured in again, the sun lighting the space once more. Inspired, I looked behind me, the speed of the spinning water whipped my hair around me, and tugged at my skirt. “Throw those shards into the cyclone,” I shouted above the roar of the water.
Eva nodded and all around us ice flew into the swirling water, making it grow even larger in size, and more deadly looking than anything I had ever seen before. “Go for the door, this isn’t going to be pretty,” I shouted as I strained against the power of the cyclone, struggling to keep it under control as it gained momentum.
Once I was sure everyone was out of the way I sent it moving toward Frost and dashed for the door as I released my power and the masses of water and ice rained down upon him.
Blade scrambled onto the back of the nearest dragon and Sebastian and Jax followed behind. “One of you will have to ride with us,” Sebastian shouted.
“I’ll go,” Beck yelled above the screams from inside. He joined the guys and their dragon took off into the air as the rest of us mounted the second dragon.
Calex lifted Eva in his arms and took off as our dragon's wings began to beat powerfully and lift us from the ground. We flew toward the edge of the island, Frost’s shouts still clear even as we gained altitude. That water and ice was certainly going to keep him busy for a hot minute.
I grinned as I looked over the horizon, toward our freedom as the bright green of the dragons scales glinted against the afternoon sun. It reached the edge of the land and pushed harder, I was certain just as grateful to be away from here as we were. Suddenly, Shay let out a scream and I reached out to hold her but only grabbed air as she disappeared from in front of me.
“No!” I shouted. “We have to go back!” I yelled at the guys behind me. Jet held me tight, not letting me move as the dragon soared across the sky.
I arched my neck, straining to see the speck of island that remained, hoping I could at least spot Shay. I had no luck though, as the castle grew tiny. I leaned back against Jet and cried for the friend we had left behind. Though by no choice of our own. I knew now how Eva felt having to leave me and Jet behind.
After what felt like hours the air began to grow cold and I huddled against Jet, my tears long spent. The ground beneath us grew white, as the mountain peaks we flew over gained altitude and were covered in snow.
“Almost there!” Eva shouted as we soared toward one of the tallest peaks. The dragons let out a loud roar as the castle came into view. The ice towers rose high in the sky, and the blue sheen of it glistened under the setting sun.
The dragons landed in a large field just in front of the castle and a man rushed forward, dressed much as Chan had been. This must be the other dragon shifter he had spoken of. “Cronan will take care of the dragons, get them settled in and see if they are able to shift now. We need to get you guys inside and warmed up,” Sebastain said, ushering us forward.
“We need to go back for Shay,” I blurted out. “I can’t leave her there like that. I won’t.”
“What happened?” Eva asked.
“She was in front of me one minute, and then the next she was screaming in pain, and disappeared,” I replied. “We broke the spell. This shouldn’t have happened. Hell, we saw Craig die ourselves. He has no more ties to her.”
“What is the exact moment she cried out?” Sebastian questioned.
“When we flew off the island,” Jet answered for me.
“This is interesting indeed,” he tucked his hands in his cloak pockets. “It would seem that your Shay was not bound to a person, but to the land instead. We will have to figure out another way to free your friend.”
“Don’t worry, Una. We will go back for her. Now you all need to warm up and regain your strength. We’ll figure something out,” Eva reassured me, linking her arm in mine.
Jet reminded me, “Ry will protect her. We can get word back to Chan and they will find her and care for her until we can go back.” He was right, and I told him that even though tears welled up in my eyes.
In front of us, Blade shifted to his black lion, shaking his massive fur as his paws landed on the packed snow. Adar let out a small gasp as Jax chuckled good humoredly, “Get used to it, he spends most of his time like that when we are out.”
We entered through the doors of the castle and it was even more beautiful than I imagined. Actually, I hadn’t known what I imagined, but this wasn’t it. “Our home is yours,” Eva said.
“Thank you, your majesty,” I stopped and hugged her. “Just don’t expect me to curtsy to you.”
Her laughter rang out, “I would never expect you to do that. And please don’t call me your majesty. It’s annoying enough when Cronan calls me his Queen. I hate titles and never wanted this. Though I will take the castle and to be fair, I don’t mind when my mates call me that.” She gave me a sly wink and I was proud of how much she had grown since we first met. Shy little virgin she was no more.
“It is pretty sweet,” I admitted. “I can’t believe this is all made out of ice.” I was in awe of the details she told me Jaxon made her do to practice her affinity with electricity. From her display with Frost, and this castle it certain looked like it had paid off.
When I asked her why she had not used her electric against Frost, she chuckled. “Una, when Calex melted that first wave of ice from Frost, it melted on the floor. We were all standing in a pool of water.”
“Gotcha,” I chuckled.
“Probably best not to light everyone up,” she laughed with me.
I never thought I would be free from that hellhole, yet here we all stood. As that thought passed through my mind I remembered my sister, and Adar’s family. As nice as it would be to stay here, we needed to save our kingdoms too.
I glanced at the guys and they gave me a knowing smile. “We appreciate everything and we will stay and help where we can. Help get Shay and Ry out of there. Eventually, we need to get back to our own kingdoms. Make sure they are okay as they were not left in the best of hands, and we have been absent for quite some time.”
“I totally get it. It’s an open invitation Una. Our home belongs to all of you whenever you need it.” She grinned, “Now let’s go catch up and plot how to bring Frost down once and for all.”
We walked with our arms linked through the grand foyer of the castle, and for once I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Keep reading for special announcements!
Special Announcements
First, Thank you for reading our book! We hope that you love it as much as we loved writing it. It would be very helpful to us if you left a review by following this link: Amazon Reviews
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Everly Taylor
Everly Taylor is a Fantasy author, but enjoys all things paranormal and suspenseful.
She loves spending time with her three boys and niece, filling their heads with fantastic stories of the fae and creating little adventures for everyone to go on.
She is the proud mommy of a sasshole husky named Suki. No, she's not named after that show, or that place, or that person. A chi, named Apollo whose attitude is as big as his name. And a black cat, named Blue. She is often mistaken for a witch by her neighbors, but of course she encourages this belief with the utmost enthusiasm.
She has what might be termed an unhealthy obsession with Jackie Chan, but owns that to the fullest, still hoping one day to rock his world.
A lover of all things creative she is in fact a tattoo artist, a painter and loves instruments. And let's not forget the cupcakes, she loves them too.
She prefers rum over wine and has a language to match it. You can often catch her telling dirty jokes with her brothers if she isn't writing even dirtier scenes for her readers.
Follow her on social media if your up for some hardcore stalking!
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Melody Calder
Melody Calder is a multi-trope romance author with an addiction to chocolate, books, and swearing; not necessarily in that order. Her mind is always full of interesting characters and plot twists. She not-so-secretly loves cliffhangers but tries not to do that to her readers. She hopes to survive the teenage years of her twins and life with her handsy husband.
She has an extensive collection of elephant figurines and Chewbacca toys. Her family and friends will tell you that she needs reminders for everything, especially putting the clothes in the dryer, but they love her anyway.
You can follow her on social media for games, prizes, teasers and more:
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Acknowledgements
We have so many people to thank for being a part of not only creating this book, but supporting us through our crazy journey.
Rozie Marshall, thank you for the stunning formatting! Your dedication and hard work on making this book look beautiful on the outside and the inside is truly appreciated, along with your friendship.
Our Alpha team: Katie, Penny, Donna, Brook, Lynne, and Jennifer; you have all done a wonderful job making sure that this book was the best it could be as you did the first. Your comments and reactions kept us going, wanting to write it faster for you all. And your patience when we left you hanging is much appreciated. Your encouragement and funny comments kept us laughing and so excited even past the end of both books.
To our PA, Sarah, who is invaluable, thank you for your hard work on keeping us on track and all the little things you do for us both like running groups while we were in the writing cave throwing out our crazy ideas.
Thank you to Lawanda for being an amazing fan and admin for Melody’s group. You’ve made it a fun space for everyone one in the reading world to hang out in! We both admire you as not just a fan and a fantastic cheerleader, but as a person as well and are so glad we became friends.
To Ira, thank you for being the amazing support that you are. You supported us with all of our insane ideas and hung in there while we fought to not kill our characters off! Your feedback was invaluable on this project.
To our readers, thank you for taking this journey with us. We hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it, and that’s setting our bar high because this project was so much fun. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your support.
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Book 3- Coming Soon
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Book 2 coming Summer 2020
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