by Kira Nyte
Blond hair, blue eyes, an angel in his own way. Gabriella resembled him more that she would ever know. Each day she blossomed into a woman that brought her closer to Corvin.
“I wish you had known him,” Taryn said, his voice thick with emotion. “You are so like him.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, trying to clear the old grief from his mind. Gabriella brushed her fingertips beneath his right eye, leaving a trail of moisture. He mimicked the tender motion to dry her own eyes, then kissed her.
“Thank you,” she said against his mouth.
“You will learn him, love. I’ll make sure of it.” He hugged her tight. “He may not be here, but you will know him as if he breathed the air beside you now.”
* * *
Gabby took to Taryn’s back with new resolve. Her father’s riding coat weighed heavily on her shoulders, but it didn’t hamper her climb to the harness. The split at the back of the coat allowed her to straddle his wide girth and fasten the harness around herself without much difficulty.
Her father was with her. At long last, she saw him clearly despite all the lies her mother had tried to fill her head with. She might never know him in the flesh, but something about the coat offered her strength and comfort. He hugged her, in essence. She could almost feel his pride in her through the coat. Pride and love.
In this land of magic, she refused to cast her impressions off as nonsense. Not now. Not ever.
“How do you feel up there?”
“I’m ready to go, dragon.”
“Mmm, confidence. Such a turn-on.” His enormous bulk shifted in a fluid motion as he pushed to his feet. She scraped her nails over a few of his warm scales, although she doubted the effect was a sensually potent when, in dragon form, one scale easily exceeded the size of her entire hand. “Damn it, woman. You’re lucky I’m behaving.”
“I give you permission to be on your worst behavior when we return.”
His neck curled and his head whipped around. She pulled her leg back, but he easily caught it in his teeth. His fiery eye flashed playfully.
“Promise me.”
Gabby leaned over, holding tight to one of the smaller spines along his back, and teased the scales along his snout. “I promise. I’ll even let you nibble, too.”
“I do that already.” He released her leg and faced forward. “You’ve fastened yourself in the harness like a pro. Hold on.”
Gabby gripped the harness and braced herself for the forceful jolt of takeoff. Taryn leapt, his wings swept powerfully down and he soared high, sending the air rushing against her. She angled her body to the side of his spines and pressed her chest flat to his scales.
When he leveled off, wings spread to settle them into a glide, she sat up and took in the colorful scenery below. Flying over The Hollow was like a dream. The mountain peaks towered over lush green valleys. Mist from the numerous waterfalls added depth to the streams and mystery to the forests. Trees reached skyward, some resembling silver spruces, others oaks with leaves in hues of purple and grey.
This world exploded with color.
And even in flight, the air smelled sweet, clean, fresh.
Pure.
Taryn flew in lazy circles until Syn and Briella joined them. Briella waved from her perch on Syn’s back. Gabby smiled and waved back.
“Angel, you don’t remember when we came into The Hollow, so I’m going to warn you now. Don’t panic if it looks like I’m going to fly into the side of a mountain. Magic and speed are the only two ways to pass through the veil. Speed is the easiest means for us.”
She was glad he’d thought to warn her. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Gabby enjoyed the feel of freedom, of the air coasting over her body, until Taryn’s speed forced her to hunch over and hold on tight.
She didn’t care to see the mountain as it approached. The old and familiar constriction in her chest grew with each beat of his wings. She pressed her head against him and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Gabriella, calm down, love. Open your mind. You’ll be able to hear Briella’s thoughts. She’ll keep you calm, too.”
Gabby hadn’t realized she’d almost surrendered to the grip of her anxiety until she started to breathe instead of gasp.
The first sound beyond Taryn’s voice filtered into her mind.
“…not that bad. A strange musty smell, like wet cave or wet forest, but the transition between worlds is fast. I’d estimate less than five seconds. There’s this energy that trickles over you, kind of like static, as you pass through the veil.”
Briella’s thoughts. Not the telepathy Gabby shared with Taryn. Thoughts like she used to hear back on Earth.
“Taryn, can I communicate with her like I do you?”
“No. That’s a bond between dragon and Keeper. Keepers pick up on thoughts. It’s important not to close yourself off completely because you may miss something that other Keepers are trying to relay to you. Turn the volume down, but never shut it off.”
“Good to know.”
Syn pulled alongside Taryn long enough for Briella to give Gabby a thumbs up. She nodded, returning the gesture with one hand while she continued to grip her harness with the other. Oh, to possess the ease Briella displayed on Syn.
One day.
After they crashed through a mountain veil.
She glanced up and instantly regretted it when she saw the side of the mountain coming toward them at lightning speed.
“Trustyoutrustyoutrustyou…”
“Breathe, my angel.”
Every muscle in her body tensed. Her knees pulled up until her stirrups stopped the motion. She hid her head in her arms, which were wrapped in a death grip around the spine in front of her. She barely felt the harness bite into her wrist as she stretched the loop.
A low moan escaped her lips.
Darkness swallowed the light against her closed eyelids. The clean air that filled her lungs turned dense and musty.
One. Two. Three…
Static rushed over her body.
“Up!”
Briella’s shrieked thought barely registered. She jerked her eyes open in time to see snow-capped mountains washed out by red.
“Fuck!” Taryn spiraled upward. A loud boom echoed between the peaks.
Gabby swallowed down a scream, her hands grappling for a tighter grip on the harness. Her stomach flipped at the sudden change of direction.
Taryn jerked. Deep blue sparks tore through his wing. A shockwave of pain and fury not her own struck her.
“Taryn!”
“Don’t let go!”
Sparks of light launched from several areas on the mountainsides around them, but Taryn’s chaotic glide left her on the verge of vomiting and she couldn’t even attempt to pinpoint the source of the attack.
Syn bulleted up beneath Taryn, slamming his full weight into Taryn’s belly to help give him lift. Gabby couldn’t see Briella, but could only assume the other woman was somehow shielded from harm between the two draconic bodies.
Blue light streaked into the mountain, barely missing the dragons.
Rock exploded, particles raining over them all.
The force of impact shot Gabby up and away from Taryn. The harness caught her and her ass slammed onto his back. She pitched forward.
Gasped as blinding pain ripped through her torso.
She looked at the source of the pain, her mind reeling, and saw the blood-smeared tip of a spine.
A smaller spine that impaled her side, front to back.
Her eyes went wide. Tears spilled over her eyelids.
She clawed at Taryn’s scales, now turning slick with her blood.
“She’s hurt!” Briella screamed.
“Gabriella?”
Taryn’s head snapped around as Syn lifted them higher, barely keeping ahead of the bolts of light that chased them up the mountain.
A roar shook the peaks. Chunks of snow and ice separated and began to slide downward.
The air trembled beneath her dragon’s fury.
“Stay flat, Taryn! Stay flat!” Briella yelled. “Don’t move her!”
Taryn unleashed an arc of Hell’s fire from his mouth, the excruciatingly hot flames spitting across the mountainous terrain.
Screams rose up through the air.
Gabby clung to Taryn, one hand on the tip of the blood-slicked spine to keep her body from sliding lower. Her strength quickly depleted.
“Gabriella, you hold on, you hear me? You hold on and don’t you give up!”
“It hurts, Taryn. I can’t feel my leg.”
“Feel your fucking leg! I won’t let you die!”
Gabby concentrated on breathing. Numbness crept outward from her side.
A storm of energy bolts rained all around them.
The shriek of rock splitting, the pain of fist-sized debris pelting her back and head, robbed her of what little strength she had left.
Taryn jerked and his body was thrown into the mountainside.
Gabby fell free of the spine.
She caught sight of Syn clinging to a rock face, clawing his way up.
The air, cold air, cradled her back as she fell through the sky.
And then her dragon, tumbling down the side of a cliff after her, his wings nothing more than bloody bits and pieces of membrane.
“Gabriella! Gabriella!”
“No fear, my love.” Numbness took away the pain. Death hovered close. A faint smile touched her lips as she plummeted toward the ground. “No pain. I love you.”
“Gabriella, noooo!”
Fire filled her vision.
The deafening roar of anguish followed her down.
She closed her eyes.
At least she’d learned what happiness was. What love was.
Her body jerked.
All went black.
Chapter Thirty-One
War waged in a brilliant display of fire and ice. Flame and magic.
The tremors that rocked the ground warned of the avalanches the battle produced. The invisible barrier kept the threat at bay.
Malla stepped up to the unconscious woman floating upside down. Bright red blood streamed from the gaping wound in her side, a thick river of crimson that streaked over her face, staining her golden hair and marring the pristine white snow below her head.
“You’re a prize,” she said, stroking the ashen skin of the woman’s cheek. “Such strength.”
Her gaze lifted when the air reverberated around her. The dragon rolled back from the barrier, the force of his collision sending his body rebounding away. When he regained his footing, he unleashed a stream of fire.
The barrier reflected it back, stopping the dragon’s attack instantly.
“Madness, is it not?” Malla asked quietly. She guided the woman to the ground, controlling her descent until she lay flat. Confident the dragon throwing himself at the barrier could not break through her magic, Malla knelt in the snow, her back to the war that wreaked havoc on the world beyond. “Pure madness.”
She observed the woman as more color drained from her lips and her eyes became sunken. Her breaths grew further and further apart. Her heart beat slower and slower.
“Why must they treat us so?”
Malla sighed and lowered her gaze to the woman’s lethal wound. Red soaked the snow, spreading in a pool that stretched for Malla’s knees.
“I’ve seen your torture.”
Malla turned a faint smile up to the woman’s unmoving face.
At her death mask.
“I would not wish to live the past you endured.” She cupped a hand close to the perimeter of the blood pool and flexed her fingers. Drops lifted from the snow as she created a mercurial sphere of life’s most precious essence. “No living being should endure that torture.”
Malla held her free hand over the wound. She hesitated, staring at the fringe of flesh and tissue and fabric. Organs.
A strange blockage formed in her throat that she tried to swallow down. It took a few times, but at last it dislodged, letting air into her lungs. Her heart fluttered.
“This life, Gabriella, holds no glory. No victors. We are all products of another’s ultimate plan. You. You will become the victim of the horrors you escaped.” She shook her head and peered into the woman’s face. A decision. She needed to make a decision. “I cannot fail.”
Malla allowed her magic to flow through her fingertips, smoky gray tendrils that seeped into the tattered edges of the woman’s wound and began to weave her back together. The tendrils drew thin strings of blood from the wobbling sphere Malla balanced close to the woman’s body, replenishing her vascular system as each vessel reformed.
“I found a suitable punishment for your mother.”
Speaking to the Keeper made it easier to cope with her decision. There would be no going back after this. Forgiveness had no place in her life. The punishment would be brutal.
“The men of my father’s army are voracious. They are merciless. How the women enjoy mating with them I can’t comprehend. Maybe it is the only way they can endure their lives.”
Malla glanced over her shoulder. War. Such brutality.
Yes, she participated in her own kind of justice. But this? This was lunacy.
“Product of bloodlust. Powerlust. Desire for things that are simply not possible.”
The dragon stopped running into the barrier to stare at what she was doing to its lifemate while others dove and spiraled over the rugged terrain, blasting fire down at her father’s army. She held its glowing eye for a long moment, then gave the beast her back.
“Do you believe in redemption, Gabriella?”
The pieces of flayed skin and tissue mended slowly and seamlessly.
Death picked the pace at which it struck. Life took time.
“Do you believe one who was lost can be redeemed? That one who dances with the Devil can find peace?”
She doubted it.
Her lips tugged beneath the weight of a frown.
“I didn’t think so.”
As the last of the wound pulled together and the final string of blood disappeared into Gabriella’s body, Malla sat back on her heels and admired her handiwork. A faint blush of color had returned to the woman’s face.
“Everyone has secrets, Gabriella. You hid yours well, but a woman who has survived torture recognizes another’s torture. It’s felt.” Malla tapped her chest. “Here. In your soul.”
“Is a soul something you possess?”
Weakness flooded her, sending her heart into a sputtering thump.
Without hurry, she drew herself to her feet and turned to face the man who owned that deep, gravelly voice. It took a mask of magic to conceal the impact that struck her true in the chest.
“Do any of us possess souls?” she asked.
The towering man lowered ember red eyes to Gabriella. “Call off your men before more death plagues our factions.”
Malla lifted a hand and ticked a finger back and forth. “Tsk, tsk. You wear blood on your hands.” She turned her hand, palm out, to show the streaks of the woman’s blood. “We all do. Death is but a consequence of life.”
“And yet you heal your enemy.”
Malla scowled. “She holds purpose. I hold purpose.” She stepped back, putting distance between herself and the woman. “I will not fail. I will not concede.”
The dragon bared fangs behind a deep red beard and mustache. The sharp angles of his face became more pronounced.
“You will fail because your kind has no place in this world.”
“An ultimate plan.”
The dragon lunged at her, transforming into his scales before his booted feet left the snow.
Malla misted and vanished from the battlefront, tearing down the invisible wall to make her escape.
* * *
Taryn scrambled across the snowy ground, head spinning as he shifted forms. He gathered Gabriella into his arms and pulled her onto his lap.
“Gabriella, come back to me.”
Cade sank to his knees a
cross from them, having shed his scales when the female sorcerer vanished. Taryn pulled his angel away from Cade when his leader reached for the gaping hole in her sweater.
“Taryn, let me see her.”
Taryn gritted his teeth, but relinquished his hold enough to let Cade examine flesh that no longer held any evidence of injury.
He damn near lost his mind when he saw Gabriella impaled on his spine. His heart tore open as another magic bolt struck him, destroying the last of the safety harness and sending his beloved falling. With shredded wings, he was helpless to save her. Syn tried. Tried to reach her.
Then the sorcerer used her magic to cast him aside before sealing Gabriella and herself behind an invisible wall.
Panic and fear raged through him. He couldn’t remember how he reached the rugged notch between the peaks or how many times he tried to break through the magic he knew subconsciously was an impossible task for him on this side of the veil.
It wasn’t until he realized the woman was healing his angel that he stopped senselessly beating himself against the wall.
But…why?
Taryn glanced up at Cade. “How did you get in here?”
Cade didn’t spare him a glance. “It wasn’t sealed off completely.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
Cade draped the tail of the leather coat over Gabriella’s exposed skin. “We should get her back to The Hollow.” He lifted his head and gazed out at the blasted landscape. The attack had ceased. A few of his brothers circled overhead, monitoring danger from the sky. “They lost many more today.”
“How many?”
Cade shrugged. “Enough.”
Taryn gauged his leader for a long moment before pressing the question. “Why didn’t you stop her, Cade?”
Dark fire flared in Cade’s eyes. “I wasn’t in the vicinity.”
Taryn narrowed his eyes. “Does it have anything to do with your reaction to her after her minions blew up my house?”
Fury rolled across Cade’s expression. He stood up, brushing the snow from his knees. “There was no reaction, Taryn. Don’t fool yourself. That woman is our enemy. She may very well be the leader of the Baroqueth. The only reaction she will receive from me is that of justice being delivered. Now, I suggest we return home. Spring water will aid in Gabriella’s healing. Amelia can assess her to ensure that…creature didn’t do further damage under the skin she healed.”
