The Blood King

by Abigail Owen

This… This was what dragons were built for. Carnage.

  He zeroed in on an enemy not far away, his back turned as he also seemed to search for a dragon to engage. Using that against him, Ladon arrowed his body. Again, luck was with him. The other dragon didn’t turn to face him, and the sounds and smells of the battle hid Ladon’s approach.

  He could discern no visible open wounds on the guy, so Ladon saved his fire. Deliberately holding in his roar of challenge, approaching in near silence, he opened his maw wide and went for the back of the neck.

  The dragon turned at the last minute, not quite getting his body around where his talons could be used to rip into Ladon. Pain spiked through his own neck as Ladon hit hard, but he ignored that and clamped down roughly. He didn’t get the latch just right, sort of on sideways, which meant he couldn’t snap the white dragon’s neck.

  The fucker went crazy, bucking beneath him like a wild thing, thrashing his long neck every which way, jerking Ladon through the sky. Then the guy pulled in his wings and rolled them over. Ladon slammed into something hard with his back. The impact forced air out of his lungs and triggered a reflex that forced his jaws open.

  The other dragon flipped again, backing away. Only now he wasn’t alone. Two other dragons joined him. They didn’t give Ladon a second to regroup, diving on him all at once.

  “We’re too far away,” the accented voices of Skylar’s two helpers hit him in stereo.

  “I’m coming,” Brand’s voice split into his thoughts.

  Ladon didn’t respond, grappling with the three dragons ripping at him with talons and teeth built to penetrate dragon scale. Agony scissored through him as something penetrated on his back, near his kidney.

  Brand hit the group of them with all the force of his size. The pounding collision managed to crack Ladon’s neck back, a new pain splintering through him. He’d had one of their tails in his mouth when Brand hit, and he didn’t let go, a portion of the spiked end ripping off. The other dragon screamed as the tin taste of blood poured into Ladon’s mouth. He spit out the twitching end of the tail and aimed his fire at the gaping wound.

  He might be broken, but no way was he stopping. He’d fight until every last one was ash.

  …

  Keeping tabs on her mate’s fight while falling through the sky, avoiding dragons, and sending some away was no easy feat. For the third time, Kasia plucked her from freefall only to drop her from a higher altitude over a different section of the sky.

  Skylar looked down and swore. Directly below her three white dragons grappled with Ladon and Brand, one of them trailing flames and smoke, except she couldn’t figure out which one was burning alive. They made such a tangle of dragon parts—wings and necks and tails and talons sticking out at every odd angle and writhing around—that she couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended, despite the difference in colors.

  She was also coming down on them too fast to be able to clear out of the way. She was going to have to go through them and hope to hell they disappeared before she made contact and killed herself.

  “I’m right above you,” she called to Ladon. “If you don’t disconnect, you’ll teleport with them.”

  “Do what you have to.”

  Skylar frowned. Even in the midst of fighting, she could hear the pain in his voice. Was he injured?

  Black fury tunneled her vision on the fray below her, drowning out the insanity still raging all around her.

  Those assholes were going down.

  A deep calm stole over her as she timed out what she had to do. She held steady in the skydiving posture that provided her the most stability.

  Fire flared over her body, her reserves running low but still there. She hoped to all that was good and right in the world that she didn’t splat. “You’ve got five seconds to clear, or you’re going to Ben Nevis with them.”

  Ladon didn’t answer.

  She didn’t alter her position or course, holding steady. Five. Four. Three. Two… Skylar thrust her arms straight out from her body. Just as she hit, Brand and Ladon both flew out of the mass of dragons, though she wasn’t sure if they cleared enough, because she was focused on sending those bodies out of her way, or her momentum would crush her against their massive, diamond-hard scales.

  She was through the space vacated by three of the five dragons as they disappeared before she could even cringe at the impending strike to her body. With a gasp, Skylar jerked her head up. Sure enough, they were gone, Brand and Ladon still above her. A thrilled twitter escaped her even as exhaustion flooded her system, like alcohol hitting the blood, turning her thoughts and movements sluggish.

  Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent three at a time.

  Not that she’d had any choice in the matter.

  Still, that same cold calm remained with her. She probably shouldn’t teleport any more dragons. Hopefully the men still guarding Ben Nevis had no trouble subduing their new prisoners, who she’d sent to a spot outside the mountain, at the bottom of the ravine.

  Right now, she needed to avoid striking any more of the massive creatures battling around her and get as low as possible before pulling her chute. Harder to judge without an altimeter, but she could do it. Hopefully Kasia got to her before she had to.

  Remembering how that white dragon had plucked her out of the air from above last time, Skylar kept her head on a swivel, searching all around her, tracking to the right or left, even going head down once to increase her speed and decrease surface area, shooting the gap between two dragons going at it.

  Her white dragons were tag-teaming a large eggshell-colored beast. A navy blue dragon she recognized as Asher ripped the jugular out of his opponent’s neck, the tendons hanging from his maw, reminding her of a turkey’s gizzard. Brand and Ladon were still busy above. No help from them.

  She didn’t see Kasia coming until her sister smacked into her from above.

  “Gotcha!” Kasia yelled, the word hardly discernible over the deafening winds.

  A blink, a loss of that blasting wind, then she was on the ground again. Skylar’s legs buckled, and she dropped to her ass beside a large pond. Randomly, she appreciated how, despite the battle raging far above their heads, the stillness of the water turned it to glass, reflecting the skies above, which almost appeared to twist in a dance of dragons.

  Only her vision started to constrict, going dark on her. Skylar shoved her head between her legs. “I think I used a bit too much energy.” The words came out groggy, slurred.

  Kasia leaned over, breathing hard. “Yeah. It’s a lot harder transporting such big things. I’m out of juice. You?”

  Together they managed to get Skylar’s parachute off her. At least she hadn’t had to deploy it. Even low to the ground, she’d been fooling herself that a dragon wouldn’t have used it to snatch her right out of the air.

  Skylar lifted her head to look at her sister. “How many did you get?”

  “I slammed at least three into the ground before they knew what hit them.”

  A screech from the pits of hell had them both jerking their heads to gaze upward in horror. Directly overhead, and close enough to hear the disruption of the air as they plummeted, Ladon and Asher had a white dragon by either wing, both of which appeared deformed. Had they broken his arms, disabling his ability to fly?

  Sure enough, both blue dragons released the bastard and stopped their descent as they allowed him to continue to fall. Right at her and Kasia.

  “Kas…”

  She looked to her sister. Kasia reached out and closed her eyes, but nothing happened. “I can’t. I used the last of it to get us down here.” Panic laced her words and landed in Skylar’s chest, clenching hard.

  They couldn’t run. They’d never make it.

  No. Gods no. I just found him.

  They didn’t have time, though. The shadow of the beast came at them, blotting out t
he bright sun like a harbinger of death.

  Shit. No way in hell was she letting both of them die. Searching down deep for the last spark of power inside her, Skylar reached for Kasia. “I love you.”

  Whatever Kasia was going to say cut off abruptly as she disappeared. Not far. Skylar didn’t have enough to send her more than yards, but she got her out from under the dragon, and that was adequate.

  Closing her eyes, she sent what she knew was going to be her final thought to her mate. “I love you, Ladon Ormarr.”

  As the beast’s screams got louder, and the shadow under which she sat grew darker, Skylar waited for the hit.

  A splash of freezing wetness smacked her in the face, and she opened her eyes in time to recognize two arms coming up out of the pond a breath before she was grabbed by the ankles and dragged under the water.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The second he heard her message, Ladon realized his mistake. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her through that connection and knew exactly where she was and that she couldn’t get away.

  A scream of a roar punched from him. What have I done?

  He bolted after the white dragon, vaguely aware that Asher followed a heartbeat later, focused only on stopping it. Except he knew he couldn’t.

  Dirt and grass and water exploded up around the massive body as it struck with a boom that echoed through the air.

  “Skylar!” He screamed her name, a roar ripping from his maw.

  He flared his wings, hardly halting his own progress and hitting the ground hard. “Get him off her,” he yelled at Asher, who was right behind him.

  Together they heaved the carcass up and threw it away from the spot where it landed. Only she wasn’t there. He’d expected to find his mate’s mangled body, but nothing but mud, filling quickly with dirty water from the pond, remained in the crater the dragon’s impact had made.

  “Where is she?”

  Using his talons, he dug deep gouges into the earth, taking care, barely holding a panicked scramble at bay. She must’ve been forced deep, buried even as her frail body was crushed.

  Asher jumped in front of him. “Stop.”

  Ladon snapped at him with a deep reverberation of warning. He’d take his own Beta’s head off if he stood between him and his mate.

  But Asher didn’t move. “She’s not here.”

  “She has to be.” He pawed at the ground.

  “You’d both be dead. Think.” Asher slithered over the crater, stopping Ladon’s digging.

  “I felt her. She has to be here.” Gods, what if she was dying right now.

  “You’d feel it. You’d be dying with her.”

  Asher’s logic finally penetrated. Fuck. He was right. “Then where the hell is she?”

  Brand dropped beside them and prowled over, the outline of his jagged wings appearing as glittering edges against the blue of the sky as he moved. He paused, and Ladon caught sight of Kasia, lying on the ground.

  But no Skylar.

  “Where the fuck is my mate?” Ladon boomed. Every one of the dragons in the area would’ve heard that, and he didn’t give a shit.

  Shifting, Brand pulled Kasia into his arms. She wrapped around her mate, though even from this distance, Ladon could tell she was trembling with that effort. Kasia babbled something he couldn’t hear. She sounded hysterical.

  Brand looked up, well aware Ladon would be listening. “Something pulled Skylar into the water.”

  Immediately, Ladon shoved his head into the pond, but the thing was too shallow and too murky for him to get even one eye under the surface let alone see anything.

  Going by touch, he methodically dragged a taloned claw through the water to the deepest point. But he encountered nothing but fish and rocks.

  “She’s not there.”

  This wasn’t working. He needed to do something else. Something…

  “I’m still alive.”

  Pulling his control around him like donning a suit of armor, Ladon stilled and breathed. He closed his eyes and reached for his mate through a connection that had only grown stronger over the last days.

  There.

  He could feel her. Feel her life force. Her emotions. She wasn’t afraid. No shock there. But she was…confused. Shocked, maybe? And far away. And…holy shit, she’d said she loved him. Those had been her last words.

  “Skylar?”

  “I’m here.”

  His head dropped as relief surged through his veins. “Where are you?”

  “I…can’t say. But I’m safe. Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” Except for the fucking heart attack this woman had caused him.

  “I can meet you back at Ben Nevis.”

  What the fuck?

  “Everything is going to be okay. Finish the fight.”

  Ladon raised his gaze to the skies, satisfaction slowly dripping through the adrenaline of the fight and the terror of having thought he’d lost his mate. She’d said she loved him when she thought she was going to die.

  Above and around them, white dragons were either dead, about to be, or teleported elsewhere. Once he’d discovered Asher’s disobedience, following with Ladon’s guard, he’d spent time in flight planning. Hiding not only his men, but Brand as well, using himself as bait, had worked.

  “It’s already over.”

  The fates—because he no longer denied them—had given them this day.

  …

  Skylar let go of the connection that had allowed her to talk to her mate, her mind falling into silence, and dropped her head forward and sent a small thought of thanks to the fates, wherever they might be. The people she loved were safe.

  All the people she loved…

  Skylar got to her feet and yanked her sister into her arms. “Meira,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Thank the gods.” She pulled back, framing Meira’s face with her hands. “You’re safe? You’re okay?”

  Tears welling in her eyes, Meira nodded. “You’re mated to a dragon?”

  Skylar shook her head in wonder. “How did you know?”

  At that Meira smiled, almost appearing to light up from the inside like an angel. Skylar had missed her smiles.

  Her sister’s strawberry blond curls framed her dear face in such a familiar way, the breath punched from Skylar’s lungs for the second time. The first being when her sister had pulled her through the pond, through a mirror, and somehow into this room, dumping her on the floor beside a stony-looking man.

  She’d thought another creature was dragging her under that water to drown her. Though, in hindsight and without the great, hulking form of a dragon bearing down on her, why would they? Fighting for all she was worth, she’d been pulled into what appeared to be a bedroom in a castle. A really, really old bedroom in a really, really old castle—all velvets, massive four-poster bed, antique furniture, gray stone walls, and frigid air.

  What was this? The Stone Age?

  But then she’d locked her gaze onto her sister. “Meira? What the hell?”

  Meira stepped back. “I’d like to introduce you to Carrick. He is the leader of his chimera of gargoyles.”

  Gargoyles. Damned if that didn’t just make sense. Known to be secretive, mild when at peace, and fierce fighters when roused, Serefina Amon had chosen true guardians for the gentlest of her daughters.

  The man before her looked like both man and living statue—all hard angles, flinty eyes, and dark skin with a gray hue to it.

  Eyeing him with wary confusion, Skylar hoped like hell she wasn’t about to trap herself in yet another prison.

  But Meira was there, calm and steady, and so she trusted that.

  “Thank you for keeping my sister safe.”

  Carrick nodded. “I owed your mother a great debt.”

  Skylar exchanged a glance with Meira, who gave a subtle s
hrug. “It seems many owed our mother a great debt.”

  How or when those debts had been drawn, what her mother had done to earn the loyalty of creatures like wolf shifters and gargoyles, was a damn mystery.

  Situation explained—as best as it could be—Skylar’s natural need to get shit done reasserted itself. There was still a battle raging. “Can you get me back to my mate?”

  Meira wrinkled her nose. “The water is too disturbed, but I can return you to your mate’s mountain. They have mirrors there.”

  Stone man said nothing.

  “Okay, so what happens now?” Skylar asked.

  Meira glanced at Carrick, whose stoic expression didn’t change one iota. “I guess that depends on you. When do you want to go?”

  Good question. “It will take Ladon several days to get back to Ben Nevis, so I guess I have a little time.”

  Meira’s sweet smile returned. “Good. Then we can catch up.”

  Was it horrible that she felt divided at this moment? She wanted to spend time with her sister. It had been over a year now since their mother had separated them. At the same time, she needed to be with her mate, like a compulsion manifesting as trouble breathing, concentrating, or any other damn verb.

  Everything—first the attack on Gorgon’s people, then her imprisonment, the never-ending trip to get to him, and the battle—had kept them apart. The need to be with him clawed at her, almost painful in its intensity.

  But logic had to override desire. She’d be safer going back to the mountain via whatever method her sister used. She could wait and fill that time catching up with Meira.

  She stepped closer, putting her forehead to her sister’s. “I want to hear everything.”

  …

  Pytheios leaned his hands on the raised stone slab, trailing his gaze over the body laid out there.

  Rhiamon.

  The cold had preserved her nicely over the days it had taken him to get home from where that bitch, Skylar Amon, had sent him. His witch lay there, eyes closed as if only in repose, hands folded over her belly. Her pale skin had turned almost translucent with deep purple under her eyes and no doubt pooling along her back, and her neck lay at a contorted angle.