Their eyes both widened as if they’d caught onto my train of thought without me elaborating, but they waited with bated breath for me to finish.
“Dragon fire originated from the sun; the life-giving light of it is what powers dragon fire. When Zorion breathed his fire into Neela’s veins after she died, he was able to resurrect her. I have every reason to believe we could do the same for Benedetta.”
“But Errol and I both burned her, and that only seemed to spook her. Are you sure about this?” Razik asked, eyes narrowed.
I smirked. “More sure than ever. When I was with her, she begged me to flame her. More than that, she got off on it. It made her feel more alive, she said. But I don’t think the fire from just one of us is enough. The fate hounds are enough of a clue that all three of us need to be part of it.”
“Because they marked us all for her? Or because together we can recreate the power the Void wielded on his own,” Errol said, more intense than I’d ever seen him. He had a wild look, like he was about to jump out of his skin if we didn’t get on with things.
“Both, I think. So, we just need to get her out of there and somewhere safe where we won’t set the island on fire.”
“Like the middle of the water?” Razik waved a hand at the dock and grinned.
“I think I have a better option,” I said. “There’s a cave around the northern tip of the island, off the beach between two of the glyphs. It’s too remote to access on foot. It’s sheltered from the air, and not anywhere close to the trees. It’ll take ages for them to find us there.”
“I like that option better,” Errol said.
“Then let’s do this,” Razik answered with a nod.
Razik
We flew back to the workshops in shadow form, shifting and flowing like smoke back down into the building once we had a plan of attack. Errol and I would take down whoever was guarding Benedetta’s globe while Salem grabbed her and ran.
Murdoc still sat on top of the bucket like a broody hen, but Tate had joined him, the beefy, bearded ursa leaning against the locked door as if he could keep us out with his bulk alone. We needed to open the door and get them out of the room. While getting inside was no issue for us as Shadows, it was impossible to get Benedetta’s globe out the same way. We couldn’t turn her into shadows, and if she was tethered to the globe still, she couldn’t stray far from it on her own even if we could get her out of it. We had to take it with us, slip in with her in shadow form, and do what we needed from the inside.
Salem’s shadow took shape, crouched atop one of the barrels of recycled glass. Murdoc sat up a little straighter and shivered. Tate straightened too. “You sense something, or did someone just walk over your grave?”
“Dunno. Maybe it was just a draft. I’m no thin-skinned satyr, but it’s fucking cold tonight.” Murdoc darted a look over his shoulder, squinted, then shook his head and shrugged.
“Need me to warm you up?” Tate offered with a suggestive smile, opening up his arms.
“I’ll survive. I’m not moving my ass until I have to.”
Tate nodded and settled back against the door, producing a small sketch pad from his back pocket and a pencil from behind his ear. I peeked over his shoulder at the design, which was so obviously a magic safe, it was all I could do not to breathe fire at the page.
I retreated with Errol slipping beside me into the dark studio beyond. The space glowed an eerie red from the fires in all the furnaces, heated in preparation for classes to begin the next day. There had to be something to create a distraction and draw them out.
I slinked around the room, eyeing the empty shelves and the clean space. They were too clean and well organized. I didn’t want to actually destroy any equipment. Keeping this job would be nice, though I supposed this stunt would risk that being possible. Still, Cassandra needed us, so once we proved Benedetta was no threat, I hoped she’d forgive us.
There was a shitload of fire on hand here though, and while I didn’t want to actually burn the place down, fire always made for an excellent distraction. Good thing this studio was effectively fire-proof. I motioned silently to Errol, and we headed out the door, winging swiftly the hundred yards to the wood studio that was situated a little farther into the trees. Flammable material was what we needed.
I nosed around the rear and found what I was looking for, a pile of rejects and scraps from failed projects that had spent months in rainy weather and were soaked through and coated in moss and leaves.
I grabbed as much as I could in both talons and flew back, depositing the debris as silently as possible at the door to the glass studio. Errol did the same, and then we went to work.
Back in our human-shaped shadow forms, we carefully pushed open the rolling barn door to the studio just enough to carry in the wood, which we stacked in a neat pyre a few feet from the door to the room where they were guarding Benedetta.
The floor was concrete, as were all the walls. The door was steel, and nothing in the space was flammable but the fuel tanks for the furnaces, which were safely situated beyond another wall.
Errol and I faced each other from either side of our newly built pile. On my nod, we both crouched low and let loose controlled lungfuls of black fire, aiming for the center of the pile. Smoke and steam billowed out almost immediately, and we kept going until the very core of the pile was a glowing ember, heating the outer structure. When it was smoking like a volcano about to erupt, we stopped and waited.
Within only a few seconds, alarms went off and the sprinkler system kicked on, but we’d built our pyre to smolder, not catch flame, and the water only made the smoke and steam thicker.
The door flew open, and Tate barreled out with a curse, shielding his mouth with one hand. “There’s a fire! How the fuck did this get here?”
“Those bastards are trying to draw us out,” Murdoc called after him. “I’m not moving!” Then, “You think I’m afraid of a little smoke, assholes? You need to try harder than that!”
The fucker was being stubborn, so the straightforward approach was going to have to work. Now that the door was open, it was our best bet.
We had the advantage of poor visibility, so with a nod from me, Errol darted for Tate, tackling him to the floor with an arm around his throat, holding until Tate fell unconscious. Then Errol matched my movements, slipping among the thick smoke through the door and flanking Murdoc inside the room.
As a Guardian dragon, Murdoc was bigger than both of us, but we only needed to take him down for a second. Lunging at the same time, Errol hooked an arm around his neck while I grabbed his legs. Murdoc howled as we toppled him off the bucket. I couldn’t see shit through the smoke and caught a heel in the gut that made the air burst from my lungs.
“You like that, dickhead?” Murdoc wheezed, twisting and flailing between us. “Just wait till I can see you! I’ll tear your fucking head off!” I heard Errol grunt and curse, and scented blood. Murdoc’s frustrated twisting continued, and we kept a tight hold.
I had no idea where the bucket was but knew Salem was on top of things. We just held tight to the wild, cursing dragon between us for as long as possible.
“Done. Get here now,” came Salem’s message broadcast into my mind what seemed like an eternity later.
“You go first. I’ll hold him,” Errol said. When I hesitated, Errol said, “Go! I promise I’ll be right behind you. You think this bastard could keep me away?”
“You’re damn right I’m going to—ack!” Murdoc’s threat cut off in a strangle.
“Shut up, asshole,” Errol said. “This is for Benedetta. You guys only made it harder on yourselves by taking her from us.”
I slipped away quickly, hoping that Errol could escape fast enough to avoid falling victim to any of a number of Guardian tricks to subdue an opponent.
Flying faster than I’d ever flown, I winged around the island to the cave, where I found Salem standing in the darkness, cradling Benedetta’s globe in his arms. I rested a hand on top of it to reas
sure myself, comforted by the pulse of heat that radiated up into my palm. She was in there but still couldn’t get out.
Errol arrived a moment later with a string of curses about a certain asshole Guardian. He cradled one arm against his chest, the scent of dragon blood strong in the air.
“You okay, buddy?” Salem asked, eyeing the darkly bleeding limb. In shadow form, his blood glowed deep violet, betraying the fire that flowed inside him. Inside all of us.
“I’ll heal. Let’s not waste any time. I don’t know how long it’ll take for them to find us here.”
“Benedetta, we’re on our way,” I said, peering down into the globe. I thought I saw a small ghostly hand press against the glass, but I couldn’t be sure. The fact that she couldn’t come out worried me. Would we even be able to get inside without it being connected to the tree?
“How do we do this?” Errol asked.
“Only one way to find out.” Salem gently set the globe down in the sand at our feet and crouched down over it. His form dissipated into swirls of darkness, coiling around the globe, tapping at it lightly as he sought an entrance.
Nothing happened, and eventually he gave up, reforming into a human shape. “Fuck, there’s no way in. But she’s definitely in there. I can see her aura, scent her too.”
“Then what the fuck do we do?” Errol asked. “If we take her back to the tree, they’ll just take her away. We can’t risk that.”
The light of the globe flared bright, and a tapping noise sounded from inside. Then with slow, agonizing scrapes of what sounded like nails on a chalkboard, a message began to appear in tiny letters on the glass. It was written in awkward strokes, and it took a second to realize Benedetta must be writing it backward so we could read it.
“BURN ME.”
Benedetta
I was done waiting. Done being trapped. There was no way out of this thing, but even if we were still at the tree, my soul couldn’t escape the globe. Only a ghostly manifestation of my body managed to make it into the real world, and only with serious effort. I wanted the glass walls of my prison gone, and there was one sure way to make them disappear.
My backward message stretched the width of my entire arm span, written with a dark remnant of charred bone I found on the ground. The three men were at odds on the other side of the glass, debating whether or not it would destroy me, but at this stage, I’d welcome true death if that was what Fate had in store for me. The fact that I was even here, though, suggested otherwise. I’d been dead. For eons. What purpose would it serve to draw me back into purgatory just to kill me again?
After my three experiences being burned by each of them, I had a feeling fire was the key to my release. Since Salem had left, my body had burned even hotter for all of them. The edge of my dress where Razik had singed me still smoldered, smoking with his scent enough to drive me wild. My cheek where Errol had flamed me tingled like it had been graced by a lover’s kiss. And everywhere else that Salem’s fire had touched ached for another taste of that heat.
Their bickering frustrated me until finally, Salem bellowed at the other two, “There’s no other choice! This is what she wants, we have to believe if it worked for Neela, it will work for Benedetta too.”
That shut them up and also made me curious. What had worked for Neela?
The next thing I knew, I was enveloped in bright, hot, light. Vivid violet fire illuminated the inside of my globe. It seared away the ashes first, and my skin began to tingle. When the glass walls started glowing red-hot, my skin erupted in flames. My heart rate skyrocketed, but I held fast, eagerly waiting for them to break through.
Something was happening to me. I didn’t know what, but it seemed to be working, whatever they were doing. The globe’s glass walls began to melt, beginning with the peak and flowing down around me in a circle. But when the first lick of black dragon fire hit me full-on, then surrounded me on all sides, I wasn’t so sure.
I screamed as the world exploded in a blast of vivid flame. What had passed for a body in my prison no longer contained me, nor did the prison itself. Nothing contained me but their blazes, coming from three sides and remaking me into something else. And soon, their fire couldn’t contain me either.
After so long confined behind glass, I was finally free. My spirit erupted past their flames, propelled by my own power for the first time in ages. I blasted in all directions beyond their three bodies, hitting the stone walls of the cave. I pounded against the rock in frustration. Not another prison!
But no, there was a way out of this one, and I quickly found it, shooting toward the entrance and up into the night sky. The moon called to me first, and I rocketed toward the pale silver light, but that voice was only an echo of the one that truly called to me. The sun was my goddess, the one I must answer to for my very existence today. Not the moon’s pale glow, but the brilliant light that fed that glow.
I was lighter than air and faster than any dragon as I sped across the landscape, searching. I finally found her orange glow peeking above the horizon to the east. A vast cornfield stretched beneath me, but the earth was no longer my home. I was reborn to be one with the sun, and as her fiery light kissed my face, I rejoiced.
I was alive again!
“Yes, you are alive, but you were always a part of me in some way,” came a warm, maternal voice. The glowing orb pulsed as it rose higher in the sky, its heat radiating through my already hot limbs.
“I am your servant,” I said, dipping into a bow as low as I could go while still flying.
“It is not I who you must pay homage to today, little one. There is time for you to honor me. First, you must answer the call of the ones who gave you this gift. They burn for you like none I have seen before. Give them the fire they crave. Make me proud.”
The searing tug in my center made me spin and look back down at the world I’d escaped. Then I remembered with a jolt how I’d been freed. Yes, I had to return to them. To show my three dragons my gratitude. They’d given me the gift of freedom with their fire. They’d given me so much more than that too.
I glanced over my shoulder, startled by the fiery wings that held me up. My hair drifted around me like a corona of flames. I felt a warm nudge at my back, like an enormous hand urging me forward.
“Go to them. They are waiting.”
I returned even faster than I’d left, merely a thought taking me back to the cave, where I slowed as I approached the shore just outside it. They didn’t see me at first, too overwhelmed and absorbed in clawing through the charred sand where my globe had been.
“Benedetta!” Razik wailed. “Please, please don’t be gone. Please tell me we didn’t make a mistake! Sweet Mother, I’m sorry.”
I lowered myself to the ground at the cave’s entrance, steam rising up as my feet hit the wet sand. I walked inside, not even sure they’d see me now. It would not be a surprise if somehow I wound up still being invisible.
Errol was the first to glance up when the glow from my body reached the darkness where they searched for any remnant of me. His eyes widened, but he remained mute, too stunned by my appearance to speak.
I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at him. He beamed back and reached out blindly with one hand, smacking Salem against the back of the head with his knuckles where he knelt on the sand. His fingers found purchase eventually, and he grabbed hold of Salem’s head one-handed and forcibly turned him to look.
Salem’s mouth dropped open. “It worked,” he breathed. “Holy fuck, it worked! Razik!”
Razik’s head snapped up, and he froze, stunned speechless.
“Assuming you three can actually see me, it worked. I don’t know what I am, but I owe my life to the three of you.”
Razik strode past the other two quickly, his eyes blazing with something more than mere desire. The hunger in them went soul-deep, and I felt an answering tug that made my breath catch. He stopped just within reach but didn’t attempt to touch me. He only looked, his gaze sliding from my head to my feet.
/> “Sweet Mother, Salem was right. It worked the same as it did for Neela.”
“What worked for Neela?” I asked, determined to know anything to help me understand.
“When Meri killed her, Zorion resurrected her with his fire. She rose from her own ashes as a phoenix. Reborn.”
I inhaled sharply. I’d heard of such mythical creatures, but never imagined I’d become one. “They exist?”
“You exist, lovely,” Errol said, finding his voice finally and coming to stand beside Razik.
“So fucking hot,” Salem said as he joined the other two to take me in. But that’s all they seemed inclined to do at the moment, which I wasn’t about to let go.
“When Neela became what she was, did Zorion only stand and stare at her? Was he afraid of the creature she’d become, or did he have the balls to enjoy what he’d made? Don’t tell me you three dragons are afraid of a little fire.”
“Fuck no,” Razik growled. He closed the distance in a flash, cupping his hands around the back of my head as he stared into my eyes. “You were beautiful already, but now? Sweet Mother, you’re perfection.”
With an impatient mewl, I closed the distance, nipping at his lower lip first as a challenge. He took the bait, slanting his mouth over mine, his tongue lashing hotly between my lips. Every sensation was heightened like never before. Even in life, I didn’t remember ever feeling this alive. Pure heat bloomed through my body, and the darkness that still remained in the cave was obliterated.
Salem and Errol both emitted soft curses, but my fire didn’t frighten them. On the contrary, they moved closer, refusing to allow Razik the satisfaction of having me to himself. But I wanted him first, and he had earned the right to take me before the others.
He pulled back from the kiss and licked his lips with a curious hum. “You tasted like fire before, but now it’s even stronger. What does it feel like?”
“Like before, only better.” I grabbed the back of his neck and hauled him in again, latching on hungrily. He relented, pulling me close enough that the line of piercings at the end of his cock dug hard into the flesh of my belly.
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