by Woods, Alisa
“That bastard!” Leksander spat.
“No. He meant no harm.” She had to hold onto Leksander now to stay upright. “The baby is…” She was breathless as the baby’s magic wracked her, wave after wave. “He is fighting it.” He was bigger now. Stronger than before. And he was inside her… where she had no defenses against his turmoil.
Leksander’s arm braced her around her back, holding her up. “We have to get out of here. They know where you are.”
Erelah nodded shakily. “Micah will be forced to reveal it. We must move.” The dizziness made the floor seem to lurch, but with Leksander’s steady arm, she made it to the door.
Outside was no better.
Down the hall, two shadow angelings fought a single angeling of the light. They tumbled and launched off the walls and ceiling, screaming their song.
“This way,” Leksander whispered, leading her away before they caught the warrior’s attention. As soon as they were around the corner, out of sight, Erelah pulled him to a stop.
“This way,” she said, taking hold of him and twisting. She wrenched them through time and space back to her cell. It wasn’t empty. She lurched back, protecting Leksander, but then huffed relief when she saw it was only Tajael.
“Where have you been?” he cried out, hands thrown wide. Then he gave her the oddest look, filled with confusion and a kind of embarrassment.
She and Leksnder were still naked.
She quickly conjured clothes for both of them. “We were attacked,” she said quickly. “Shadow angelings.” No need to mention Micah. Besides, Tajael already knew of his help before.
“The entire Dominion is under attack!” Tajael’s gaze fell on her shoulder wound and its inky shadow magic, still visible even with her conjured training toga. “Oh no.”
Just then, the air popped, and Markos arrived in a blaze of light that made Erelah wince. Her baby pulsed his own magic in response, sending a wave of nausea through her. She gripped Leksander’s arm once more.
“She’s injured!” Leksander cried to Markos. “Do something!”
But Markos’s grave look of concern mirrored what Erelah already knew. “I must fight it myself,” she told Leksander. “A life kiss will only aggravate the wound. It’s made of shadow.”
“Fuck that,” spat Leksander. “I’ll heal you myself.”
Before she could stop him, he’d shifted one of his fingers to talon and sliced open the palm of his hand. Markos and Tajael stood back, fascination on their faces, as Leksander pressed his hand to her shoulder wound. The jagged knife slice was small and would be easily healed if not for the shadow magic in it. Just as Leksander had done before, he used the dragon and fae magic in his blood along with the fae runes that moved along his skin—another legacy of his fae heritage—to infuse her wound with healing power. Only the inky tendrils had already worked their way to the child within her. She could feel it intertwined with him, and the battle within was unceasing. The infusion of Leksander’s blood merely added to the fight, her own angel power struggling against the fae and dragon magic Leksander was giving her.
Leksander lifted his hand free, and the external wound was gone, but the internal one raged on. She gripped harder onto his arm—it was the only thing keeping her upright.
“Why isn’t it working?” Leksander’s face was wrought with pain.
Markos and Tajael were conferring in rapid angeltongue. Amidst the racking surges of power of the battle within, she caught snatches. Enough to understand what they were planning.
“My blade,” she whispered to Leksander. “I need it.”
“You’re not slaying anyone else today,” he said fiercely, his eyes glassing.
Her legs gave out with the next round of power surges, and she fell halfway to her knees. “Leksander! My blade.”
She’d caught Tajael’s attention. They’d decided.
Leksander seemed torn, but he left her on her knees, propped against the wall, and shoved past Tajael and Markos to reach the small drawer where she kept her angel blade. He brought it to her, kneeling by her side once again.
Once she had it in hand, she nodded to Tajael. “Take us.”
“What?” Leksander asked, confusion writ on his face.
She would explain later. Or it would be obvious.
Tajael hurried forward and laid hands on both of them. Then he wrenched them away from Markos’s Dominion.
They were going back to the keep.
Before he could blink, Leksander was on the ledge of the weigh station outside his keep.
Erelah was still in his arms, one hand clutching her blade, the other on her belly. Tajael had brought them there, to this dusty, rocky outcropping that was the holding place for any immortals wanting admittance to the keep.
“You could have just told me,” Leksander complained to Tajael.
“We had to leave immediately.” Tajael straightened. “Elyon’s forces surprised us. Markos didn’t think he would dare—”
“Whatever.” Leksander’s focus was on Erelah. “Is the shadow magic still fighting you?” he asked her.
“It’s entwined with the baby,” she gasped out.
“What?” Leksander’s eyes went wide.
“You must gain us admittance to the keep!” Tajael’s voice was pitching up to panic. He was sweeping the surrounding canyon and rocky mountain above and below, probably looking for shadow angelings to pop out of nowhere.
“Right,” Leksander agreed. Once they were in the keep, they could erect multiple layers of wards. That should keep out the angelings. Maybe not a dark angel like Elyon, but it wasn’t like Markos’s Dominion was any better protection. Apparently.
“Tajael, get us inside!” Erelah cried, cringing over her stomach.
It felt like a vise was squeezing all the air out of Leksander’s chest. He looked up at Tajael. “You have to stay by her side.” God, he hated leaving her. “I have to get closer to be able to drop the wards.”
“And you must warn your House not to fight us.” Tajael knelt by Erelah and took hold of her so Leksander could let go.
He stood up. “They won’t try to fight us, Tajael.” Was the angeling losing his mind?
“Markos is gathering Guardian angels as we speak. You must prepare the way for them.”
Oh. “Right.” He watched Erelah cringe. Her face was taking on a horrible grayish cast. “Okay.” His heart was thrumming. “I’ll fly toward the keep. I’ll be able to drop the wards as soon as I’m about halfway there—”
“That will take too long!” Tajael reached for his arm.
Then they were twisting again, and suddenly, they were on the roof of the keep. Erelah cried out, louder this time, and slumped down on the graveled surface.
Tajael scooped her up in his arms. “I do not want to force her to travel again, dragon prince! Get us in!”
The keep’s perimeter alarm was already blaring, a klaxon that should alert the entire keep to their presence if nothing else. Tajael had landed them close to the main conference room, so Leksander sprinted in that direction, just fifty feet away. He reached ahead and dropped the wards to the common area. A spiral door was built into the roof, and he flicked that open. Behind him, Tajael was flying with Erelah curled up in his arms.
“Follow me!” Leksander shouted, leaping feet first through the portal. He landed on the conference table with a thud then scrambled out of the way to make room for Tajael and Erelah. The angelings floated down through the portal, and once Tajael’s snowy white wings cleared the hatchway, Leksander flicked it closed with magic and raised the wards once again.
He’d barely gotten them up before his brothers, Lucian and Leonidas, stormed the room with a half dozen dragon warriors in tow.
Leksander put his hands up. “It’s all right. It’s just us!”
They stumbled to a stop, but Leksander was already on the move again, taking Erelah from Tajael’s arms and hurrying toward the door to the rest of the keep.
“Stay here,” Lucian sai
d to Leonidas, then he ran ahead, swiping open the door. “Are you headed to your lair?” he asked Leksander.
“Yes.” God, he could barely breathe with the torment on Erelah’s face. He tore his gaze away to make sure he didn’t stumble in his headlong run through the halls. “We’ve got shadow angels and angelings hunting us. They stormed Markos’s Dominion.”
“Holy shit,” Lucian breathed. “So double levels of wards, one around the keep and a second around your lair.”
“Triple if you can find a way to do it.” Leksander’s voice was strained. “I’ll raise the ones on the lair from the inside.”
“Got it.” Lucian glanced back at Tajael who was half running, half flying behind them. “What about him?”
“I’m coming with you,” Tajael said to Leksander.
He didn’t have time to argue. “He’s fine. But there are more on the way. Markos and Guardian angels. Let them in the keep.”
“Inside the keep?” Lucian asked, his concern dropping a growl into his voice.
“Yes, inside!” Leksander really didn’t have time for this. He finally rounded the last corner to his lair. Lucian swiped the door open, and Leksander carried Erelah through, but he needed his hands back to conjure a badass, angel-proof set of wards. The strongest he’d ever made. He couldn’t set her down to make the wards because she was squirming and crying out and tearing chunks from Leksander’s heart. Tajael instantly saw the problem and took Erelah from his arms.
Leksander turned back to Lucian at the door. “I’ll call you. But you have to let the angels of light in, Lucian. They may be our last line of defense if the shadow angel breaks through the wards.”
“Breaks through?” Lucian asked, wide eyed.
“Yes.” Then he slammed the door in Lucian’s face because he had work to do. He could hear Erelah crying out in the great room where Tajael had taken her, but Leksander had to block that out and focus.
He closed his eyes and reached out with his fae senses to the perimeter of his lair. Home. It’d been his for a hundred years, and now it would be home for his mate and his child as well. And so he put every ounce of fae magic he possessed into the wards he conjured. His normal wards were already placed, invisible inkings painted during the construction of the building itself. They were easy enough to raise and lower, given he crafted them and left them ready for just the final completion spell. But this… this was different. He infused those ancient symbols with his even more ancient fae magic. He bound them with his True Love for Erelah, buttressing them with a pledge that if they were broken, he would forfeit his life. He emptied himself of magic, pouring it all into protection for his mate. His child. It was an ancient magic, born of love and promised death.
A similar magic forged the fabric of the ten-thousand-year-old treaty that ruled the House of Smoke. A fae queen of the Summer Court had vowed protection over her dragon lover and their child, casting a spell that was sealed by her death at the hands of her enraged and jealous husband. That queen’s blood ran through Leksander’s veins, and he among the three brothers had always carried more of that fae magic—as if the triplets in their mother’s womb had only so much to go between them, and Leksander won the larger share.
Now he would use it to make sure the House of Smoke endured.
Placing the spell went quickly but sapped him completely. He slumped against the wall of his entranceway, laboring over every breath. He was lightheaded, but it was done. He could raise or lower it just like the normal wards before, but the creation of it had taxed him almost to exhaustion. He was so drained, it took him a moment to piece together the words he heard drifting in from the great room.
“Erelah, no!”
“You must help me, Tajael!”
Holy angels of light… what was happening now? He lurched further into his lair. Then he nearly stumbled over his own feet when he saw what was happening. Erelah was propped up at one end of the couch in the center of the great room holding her angel blade poised above her belly! Tajael was holding it as well, but as Leksander rushed to the couch, he saw that Tajael was trying to wrestle it away from Erelah whereas she was trying to plunge it into her own abdomen.
“Erelah, what are you doing?” he gasped, coming around the couch but hesitating. He didn’t want to jar this war of angeling strength—he might accidentally hurt her.
That distraction was enough to break Erelah’s concentration, and Tajael was able to wrest the blade away. Or maybe it was something happening with the baby because she immediately curled up over her slightly-rounded belly again.
Leksander fell to his knees by her side. “My love, what can I do?”
She was panting, and the grayish cast to her cheeks was even worse—almost as if the inky shadow magic had spread and intensified. Was that even possible? The only other explanation would be that his mate was dying before his eyes, and he refused to even entertain that idea.
“Leksander,” she panted through gritted teeth. Her eyes were closed. “Listen.”
“I’m listening, my love.” He placed his hand over hers, which was clutching her belly.
She drew in two deep breaths before trying to go on. “The shadow has reached the baby. The baby is strong… he is fighting… but he cannot win.”
“I can try infusing more healing magic.” He slid his hand to her belly and focused so his runes would race to his hand. But he’d just used every ounce of magic to conjure the wards. It would regenerate given time, and he might have some left, but it was mostly just his less-powerful dragon magic.
“My blade.” She was curling up again, grimacing.
“You can’t… I can’t let you hurt the baby, Erelah. There has to be another way.” God, his heart. She was killing him with this.
“Not hurt…” She panted. “Help.”
Leksander looked to Tajael standing over them. He was holding Erelah’s blade limp in his hand and looking horrified.
Tajael blinked. Twice. “She means…” He swallowed then dragged his gaze from Erelah’s tormented face to look Leksander in the eyes. “She means to destroy the shadow influence with her blade. I don’t…” He just shook his head, helplessly. “I can’t imagine how this can succeed.”
“Leksander!” Erelah gasped.
“My love?” He felt like his heart was tearing in two.
She pried open her eyes to squint at him. “Trust… me.”
And he did. Absolutely. This angeling he loved, who would risk anything and everything for him, and now for their baby… there was no way she would do something that would harm the child. No way she would attempt something she might not survive. Because she had to live for the baby to live, and that was everything now.
“Okay.” Leksander nodded, then turned to Tajael and held out his hand for the blade.
The angeling still wore horror on his face, but he turned it over, handle first. Leksander held the blade out to Erelah. His heart was shaking so badly he was surprised to see his hand still steady.
Erelah grasped it in one hand then splayed her other one over her belly. She placed the tip of the blade between her finger and thumb but didn’t press in. Then she lay her head back on the arm of the couch and closed her eyes.
She took several panting breaths and then said, “Tajael. Hold me. I must not move.”
Tajael jolted as if shocked, but he braced his hands against Erelah’s shoulders, holding her to the couch.
“Leksander.” Her breaths were coming shorter and shorter. “My legs.”
He was so choked up, he couldn’t respond—he just moved on top of her legs, pinning them to the couch and bracing both hands on her hips. He didn’t have Tajael’s angel strength, but he would do what he could.
“Okay,” she whispered, softly, to herself. “It’s okay.” Or possibly to the baby. “It’s all right, little one. Hold still.” Then her teeth clenched as the blade slowly sunk into her belly. Leksander felt her body jolt with the pain, again and again. Blood welled and flowed, spreading wide and fast along h
er snow-white toga. Leksander had to bite down on his own tongue to keep from crying out, distracting her, doing anything but holding her still, precisely as she asked. A keening sound came from deep inside her chest, and when tears ran down her face, they crested and fell from Leksander’s too. “Aaahh… aaahhgh…” Her cries broke loose, and her body jerked against his hold. Leksander leaned in, his tears dripping down, their healing power bringing a tiny measure to the bloodbath coating his beloved’s body. Then she started panting instead of crying, and Leksander feared the worst. That whatever she was trying, she would fail. Whatever grace or luck or joy he’d had until now would slip away with one cut of this blade. “Aah!” she cried out suddenly, jolting him, but then she yanked the blade up and free of her body. Her arm fell loose by her side, and the blade fell from her hand to the carpet below.
Her body went limp.
“Erelah!” Leksander cried out, climbing off her legs and reaching for her face. It was slack, spent, grayish in color… but she was still breathing. Leksander jerked his head up to face Tajael. “Heal her!”
The angeling was staring at her bloody abdomen. “It’s gone.”
Leksander’s heart seized. “The baby?”
Tajael whipped his gaze to Leksander’s. “No! The shadow.” Then he bent down and breathed into Erelah’s gaping open mouth, giving her a life kiss. Leksander leaned away then reached for her belly, covering it with both hands. Her blood was hot on his palms, but he channeled what little magic he had, bending over her to add his tears, praying and praying that it was enough. That the baby would make it. That between the two of them—him and Tajael—they could keep her from dying as she saved their child.
He could feel Tajael’s angel magic flooding her system, sealing the wound below his palms. The bleeding stopped. Leksander reached out with his fae senses to the child within… and the baby’s essence still burned bright. Fae and dragon and angeling combined. This child was truly a miracle.
