by Abigail Owen
For now.
Off in the direction of the town, the sounds of dragon battle and the blue glow of fire indicated Ladon and his team had arrived on the scene. Wyot, scouting ahead, had found Uther’s trail, indicating the timeline was off, and they’d already turned back early to follow, but as soon as Brand heard Kasia’s cry—a sound he’d been too far away to hear with his ears, but had felt with every part of his soul nonetheless—he’d shot ahead.
Thank the gods he’d beat them there. He prayed Kasia had gotten herself out of harm’s way, or Maul had. But right now, he couldn’t think about that. She’d have to watch her own back while he took care of the monster before him.
They circled each other like sharks testing the water, wings tucked in so they could use all four legs to move. Rather than watch Uther’s eyes, Brand studied his body. Eyes could be used to deceive and misdirect, but the body telegraphed physical intentions.
Sure enough, Uther’s scales rippled as he gathered himself. He lunged, jaws snapping for Brand’s neck, but Brand moved too fast, pivoting out of the way and curving his neck to snap back. Uther jerked out of range before he could land the bite.
A slower, weaker, less seasoned dragon wouldn’t have been able to move out of the way that quickly. Damn, the king was fast.
Let’s dance, old man.
Brand tuned out every other thing around him—the noise of the battle, the growing fire, even Kasia—as he focused solely on his opponent.
They continued to circle, trading jabs and snaps, lunging and counterlunging and retreating. Brand managed to get in a solid swipe with his talon, landing it across Uther’s back, but couldn’t dig in to wrestle the beast to the ground as Uther spun out of his grasp, whipping around to catch Brand across the bridge of his nose with one of the spikes on his tail.
The metallic tang of blood registered as it dripped down his face into the corner of his mouth.
Uther opened his mouth in a grin and blasted a jet of fire at him, trying to melt the open wound on Brand’s face. Brand managed to cover the gash with an arm, protecting it from dragon fire. He also had to close his eyes, which were the only parts of a dragon susceptible to flame. A direct hit could blind him.
At the same time, Brand tried to move backward. As soon as the stream of heat ceased, he opened his eyes, bunching his muscles to move fast. Sure enough, even as he’d spewed fire, Uther had run straight at Brand.
He had barely a second to brace himself before they collided with a crack like thunder resounding around them.
They grappled, grunting and snorting, smoke rising around them as they tried to find purchase, both attempting to slash open their opponent or to topple the other in ways that would leave him vulnerable.
Trees and boulders and dirt flew as they drove with their back legs, pushing and shoving each other across the already torn-up landscape. Uther, bigger and stronger, not to mention more experienced at fighting dragons, had the advantage.
But Brand was no idiot. He’d trained all his life for this moment, as much as he could. Human classes in martial arts had given him moves Uther may never have seen. As a king who eschewed all things human except their possible mates, Uther might have a blind spot to Brand’s fighting techniques.
However, those techniques in dragon form, hampered by wings that served a purpose only in flight, might not work, anyway.
Brand’s muscles burned, and not with his inner fire, as they maneuvered, and scrambled, and flipped, and grasped, and shoved. This needed to end before exhaustion took over, and—after the skirmish at Ladon’s, mating Kasia, and several cross-country flights, not to mention the gashes in his leg from the dragonsteel cage—his body was already shaking with the effort of the battle.
But Brand’s craving for this man’s blood burned inside him, stoking his fire. He’d waited centuries for this moment, each small step moving him ever closer to when he’d take his revenge.
Uther’s death would be the sweetest revenge.
Their wrestling rolled them along the path of earlier destruction, from when Brand had tackled Uther out of the air and into the town. A blue dragon and a gold dragon facing each other down over the smoking remains of what had once been a building had to leap out of the way or be crushed by the forcing of their entwined bodies.
That distraction was the opportunity Uther needed. Brand hadn’t even looked away, but his attention had, for just a millisecond, wandered. The dark gold dragon gave his wings one pump, hauling them up into the air, and then snapped his wings straight over his head. With Brand underneath him, Uther slammed them both into the ground. Brand’s head struck the solid rock with such a crack that the blast echoed through the peaks around them.
Brand lost consciousness for half a beat—falling through the blackness even as he tried to claw his way out of it. If he went out, he was dead.
Sounding far off, another dragon roared, and suddenly a great weight lifted off Brand’s chest. He sucked in air, choking and coughing, even as his vision returned like coming to the end of a long, black tunnel with the light of the world far away at first and then closer and brighter with each step.
“Don’t just lie there,” Ladon’s voice echoed in his head.
That brought him back to the fight with a whoosh of sound as every sense returned to him.
Uther had taken to the air, the deep gold of his scales glittering up above in the dark, reflecting in the gold and blue firelight around them.
Fuck me.
At least Ladon had bought him time. Forcing his body to cooperate, Brand flipped over and launched himself into the sky after the false king. No way was that asshole getting away.
The time it took to get airborne meant he lost sight of his enemy. Brand carefully circled, searching with every sense at his disposal, waiting for the attack that had to be coming. No damn luck.
Had Uther returned to the fight?
He tipped his wings to pass back over the town in a low sweep. Ladon’s forces were outmatched in numbers but so far were holding their own. How long could they last? The wolves weren’t fighting yet.
Where was Kasia?
…
A potentially debilitating cocktail of terror for her mate and relief that he’d come assailed Kasia, except she had a job to do. Wolves to get out of the dragons’ paths.
With her one good arm, she shoved back to her feet, bobbling a bit as the useless arm pulled at her, weighing her oddly down. She reached out and took hold of a hank of the pinned down wolf’s fur.
“Take my hand,” she yelled over the noise of fire and screams and roars of dragons. “I’ll get you both out of here.”
Rafe didn’t even hesitate. He shifted, turning from wolf to man so much faster than the dragons that she blinked. Then he took her by the wrist. “Go.”
She cast an image in her mind of the clearing beside the river, then pulled them through that dark silence between physical planes to end up beside the cool bubbling water.
“I’ll get the others,” she said as she released her grip on the wolf struggling to his feet.
Rafe didn’t let go of her wrist. “Not with your arm like that.”
“Even if I’d lost both my legs, I can still teleport.” She glared. A smile actually kicked up the corners of his mouth. The damn shifter was smiling? She scowled. “I mean it.”
“I believe you. Let me fix the arm first.”
A collective howl rose from the town, a sound so eerie the fine hairs raised on her arms. “Do it fast.”
Rafe wasn’t smiling now. “Turn off the fire.”
She took a deep breath and pulled the flames inside her body, though she kept the fire stoked inside, her skin glowing golden with the effort, the feathers usually invisible to the naked eye showing in stark relief in the dark.
Rafe faced her square on, took her by the wrist, and placed his other hand over her col
larbone beside the empty socket of her shoulder. “On three.”
“If you pull on two I’ll already see it coming—”
He yanked her arm forward with a hard jerk, using the unique strength shifters claimed, and the shoulder popped back into place. Kasia cried out. Pain—like someone had just jammed a red-hot poker into her shoulder—radiated through her. She doubled over, one good hand on her knee, and breathed through the hurt, waiting for it to recede.
After a second she righted herself, gritting her teeth as the poker sensation eased. The shoulder was still sore, but she’d heal. “Stay here.”
Rafe nodded.
Kasia pulled the waiting flames back over her body like a cloak of living light, feeding off the magic the fire fizzed through her blood. With a thought, she popped back inside the town, aiming for a spot by the trees at the edge, since she didn’t know what structures had moved, fallen, or were on fire.
She spied Cairn, sprinting for the woods fifty yards away, five other wolves in tow. Another thought and she appeared before them; fatigue washed over her, dragging at her like hands reaching out of the underworld, trying to pull her down to hell.
How long can I keep this up?
With them unable to touch her flaming body, other than her hands where she’d pulled back the flame, she could transport only two wolves at a time. If she pulled back more of her fire, she wouldn’t be able to teleport—the two were linked.
She managed to get Cairn and the other four wolves to safety, then headed back in. She found Bleidd squaring off against a dragon the color of sunglow who’d landed in front of him. At his nod, she transported him back with the others. After that, she brought three more individual wolves to their people. Fatigue weighed down her movements more with each jump.
The battle continued to rage overhead, on the ground, the dragons seemingly everywhere, their battle deafening. Deafening. She caught a flash of Ladon as he’d gutted one dark yellow beast, blood spraying across his face, giving him a terrible, dread-invoking appearance, living up to every inch of his name as the Blood King.
With every trip, she frantically searched for her mate, but Brand continued to remain out of sight. Uther also didn’t show. Were they somewhere fighting? A bone-deep knowledge that he still lived throbbed through her, allowing her to continue her job.
She found another group of five using the buildings as cover as they skirted the town, only they were close to where they’d have to make a run through a wide-open field. The combination of moonlight and the blaze from the fires all around would make them easy target practice to any gold dragons not engaged in the fight.
Two successful back-and-forths and dark spots were trying to hijack her vision. But I can still see.
Just one more. Just one more.
“Faster,” Cairn yelled after her second teleport.
He pointed over her head to a pale, glittering yellow dragon circling above where she’d just left the last shifter. The winged creature prepared to pounce on the wolf like the predator he was.
Kasia gritted her teeth against the lethargy stealing through her limbs and forced her body back through the void. She arrived in the right spot, only to find her final passenger hadn’t waited. Wind feathered her face. She glanced up only to suck in a gasp as she simultaneously dropped to the ground and used her ability to take herself thirty feet away.
She came out of the teleport lying on her stomach on a bed of pine needles, gasping, and frantically checked her back for gaping, gushing wounds, then rolled over and collapsed with a relieved groan.
Shit, that had been close. She could still feel those talons raking through her even as she’d faded away.
…
Brand watched that pale fucker go after his mate and just about lost his mind. With determined focus, he tucked his wings back, streamlining his body as he flew, planning to attack the shifter—who’d risen into the sky—from below.
As he shot past the tallest tower in the town, blazing with flames forty feet in the air, Uther exploded out of the fire and rammed into him from the side, wrapping him up with a harsh grip. Ribs cracked with the force of the impact, immediately shooting pain through his body.
Wind whistled around his head, and Brand knew Uther was going to try to slam him into the ground again, only this time from higher. He thrashed in the king’s grasp, but talons dug in deep, pierced his scales, burying deep into the flesh underneath.
Brand roared his pain.
He had seconds.
Kasia.
That bastard wasn’t getting his mate, even if Brand had to kill himself to ensure that.
Brand kindled the flames inside his belly, ignoring the pain of his ribs to suck in air, feeding the fire with more oxygen. Then, with only death in mind, he let loose the torrent, knowing the blaze would find his own wounds.
Pain worse than any he’d ever known screamed along the nerves in the gashes in his leg and his face and where claws had dug deep into his sides, but he kept going. He blasted the fire until Uther screeched above him, an ungodly sound that would strike fear in the heart of every warrior below, but still Uther didn’t let go.
And Brand didn’t let up.
His nostrils filled with the putrid scent of charred flesh and blood, and still he didn’t stop. He was melting his own body, but if he was melting Uther’s then he didn’t give a shit. He’d learned to live with pain long ago. He doubted the same could be said of the gold usurper.
As suddenly as Uther had attacked, he released his grip, using his leverage to shoot up, escaping Brand’s fire.
But as he moved, his tail whipped by.
You’re not getting away that easily.
Brand snapped his jaws around that lethal tail. He managed to avoid most of the spikes, but one drove through the bottom of his jaw. Another form of agony joined the rest. With this many injuries, shock couldn’t be far off.
Uther convulsed above him and then turned, beating at him with wings and powerful back legs. He even tried to whip his tail, dragging Brand around.
Brand waited, watching the ground. He had one shot to get this right. Somehow, he blocked out the pain and Uther’s struggles and kept his jaw from being dislocated as he held on to that thrashing tail. And still, he waited.
At the last second, he let go of Uther, using his front talons to pull the long spike out of his own jaw. Then he flared his wings, popping up above his adversary’s body. Uther also tried to flare his wings, but he didn’t have the extra seconds Brand had.
With a satisfying boom that reverberated through the air, Uther hit the ground hard, just at the edge of the burning town.
Brand wasn’t far behind him. He hit hard, too, his debilitated leg crumpling as he struck, but he pushed back to his feet, his gaze on Uther.
The gold dragon managed to lumber to his feet before Brand could attack. With a hiss, he fished his tail back and forth behind him.
Damn. He was a hard fucker to kill.
“You’ll never take my throne,” Uther snarled.
“It was never your throne, asshole.” He gathered himself, ready. “Let’s go.”
They threw themselves at each other, moving slower than when they’d started, but still deadly. One of them would die tonight. Or they both would, if it came to that. Hell, he was knocking on death’s door as it stood. But Uther was not walking away from this.
…
The thundering clash of two dragons nearby had her backing up and searching, moving slowly now, as if quicksand had taken hold of her body, dragging her under. Every step, hell, every twitch, took effort to push through. She could rest later. That pale asshole was still above her—she hadn’t gone that far away—and she had at least one more wolf to ferry to his people.
A quick search of the area showed him limping quickly along the edge of the tree line as he circled the worst of the fighting. Kasia
focused on his location and teleported. Only, mid-leap through time and space, she shorted out. Like electricity in a thunderstorm, her flames blipped on and off, and she stumbled to the ground only halfway to her objective—and out in the wide open, exposed like a live wire.
Fuckballs.
A small part of her almost laughed, something she chalked up to impending hysteria, but obviously she’d picked up one of Brand’s swear words. Figured that would rub off.
Tuning out her returning panic and the deafening noise of the fight, she concentrated on the fire inside her. Like striking flint to stone over damp tinder, it took several attempts, and a whole lot more energy than she thought she had left, just to light up.
But she did manage to ignite again.
Rather than go long distances, she teleported in short hops, trying to zigzag so her destination wouldn’t seem obvious to any dragons monitoring her progress from above. She made it to the wolf and got them both back to the rendezvous point.
Kasia dropped to her hands and knees, pine needles and rocks digging into her skin, but she didn’t care. Chest heaving, she sucked in air, doing her damnedest not to pass out. Thankfully, many more had gathered there than she had transported.
Bleidd knelt beside her. “I think the fight is winding down.”
“Who’s winning?”
His eyes went flat and grim, even in the semi-dark of the firelit night. “No idea.”
Dread sank like a man with cement boots to the bottom of the river. She almost didn’t want to ask. “Anyone else?”
“This is everyone.”
“But…”
“But Maul’s still out there.”
She jerked her head up to look at Bleidd. Her hellhound had shown? When? “How long?”
“He appeared here five minutes ago, then disappeared. I think he went out for you.”
Despite the urge to rush back and find her faithful pet, Kasia’s mother’s voice sounded in her head, memories of the times—so many times—Serefina Amon had drilled into her daughters, Kasia especially, one basic premise. “No matter who is in danger, don’t rush in, or you’ll make a stupid mistake. Wait and think.”
