by Meg Xuemei X
I’m yours, always yours, Iokul said quietly in my head.
Of course. I eased back against the soft chair and watched Iokul work the room.
“The Danaenyth dynasty isn’t the only Dragon Realm,” Iokul said casually, inviting a debate. “The Oslan Dominion is also ruled by the dragons on the other side of the continent. Other than the two dragon realms, there’s a hidden dimension, controlled by the Fae. So, how can we humans take over the whole planet?”
“Good question,” a few of them said at the same time, but Toni was a faster speaker, so she took the rein again.
“It’ll start with the Danaenyth Republic,” Toni said. “The Humans Superior and First movement will catch fire and spread all over the Planet of Inanna, and maybe other planets.”
They’d even changed the name of my dynasty!
“We’re a force that can’t be stopped,” Toni continued. “We’ll sweep away all the other species and drop them in dumpsters. Queen Lysandra promised us that.”
I picked up a few conversations from the other tables with my Fae hearing. Everyone was a zealot supporter of the consort, and they marked the day that my grandfather had half-burned the castle where his throne stood and fled as a great victory to humans, and Lysandra’s reign as the new birth of the nation of Danaenyth Republic and the harbinger of a great era.
Iokul didn’t take his eyes off the group, but he said in my head, It’s only been three months and the wildfire of Lysandra’s human movement has spread everywhere.
The room hushed as a handsome man in his thirties strode toward the podium and introduced himself as Victor, the new mayor of the City of Amethyst. He received cheers and applause with a big smile. He then delivered a speech, stressing the theme of humans’ superiority and their destined rule on this planet, and also their future mission of colonizing the universe.
We dragons were an old race, and humans were young. The young were daunting, yet often foolish. May they never cross the path with the true predators of the universe.
The mortals wanted domination, and they wanted our extinction.
“Queen Lysandra has opened the true path for humans’ future!” Victor exclaimed.
The attendees applauded again. Iokul and I joined in reluctantly to keep up our ruse.
When the new mayor presented Lysandra, everyone stood up with passionate shouts and vehement applause. Iokul and I also got to our feet, though we didn’t join in the cheering.
Victor bowed and withdrew, giving the limelight to Lysandra.
Lysandra stood a few steps behind the podium, a radiant smile on her soft lips. The audience gasped, stunned by her beauty.
I’d expected her to be young and beautiful—my grandfather wouldn’t have taken a consort with average features—but I hadn’t expected her to be regal. She indeed looked like a queen. No wonder the humans had thrown their lots in with her.
Her short, raven hair had golden stripes and cascaded under her earlobes; her thick bangs hung above her long, narrow eyebrows. Was her hairstyle that accentuated her porcelain skin also the vanguard of the new era for humans?
She wore a lavender vintage tunic with artful embroidery and a pair of dark purple pants, which was the color of the City of Amethyst. Quite clever. From what I’d seen so far, the women of this period had abandoned wearing gowns associated with feminine beauty.
A blue gem nesting against her exposed cleavage caught my eye. I recognized it immediately. The Dragon Gem belonged to the heir to the throne. It was supposed to be mine on my sixteenth birthday, only I hadn’t had the chance to receive it since I’d been teleported to another planet on my fifteenth birthday.
Had King Daghda given all that were mine to his mistress? My eyes went cold at his profound betrayal, and rage coursed through my veins.
Iokul’s hand touched the small of my back, its coolness and solidness comforting me. When I sat down along with the other attendees, I’d managed to get my trembling under control. My mate placed his hand on my knee to reassure me of his presence.
My stare never left the consort.
Her eyes were pale blue and held no innocence, only greed. When she opened her mouth, power—dark and potent—poured out with her words. Thin smoke twirled around the room, brushing against every member of the audience. But no one else could see it except me.
I wasn’t sure if Iokul’s ice magic could shield us from the foul smoke, but I wasn’t willing to take a chance. Instantly, I brought out my glamour and erected a shield around us.
I glanced at Iokul, and he nodded subtly, his eyes glacially cold. He’d sensed her power. The consort could enthrall and control minds.
Blind devotion etched on every face in the room. Only Iokul and I were immune to her power.
Lysandra snapped her head, scanning the room, a chilly smile ghosting on her suddenly cruel face. Her eyes widened and sharpened as she found me. She stared straight at me, then at Iokul.
I knew she’d seen through my glamour and Iokul’s ice shield. She’d seen his mask and knew exactly who he was—the Dragon Ice Prince of the Oslan Dominion.
As for me—we had never met. Could she know who I was? Was she the one who had sent the possessed dragon to kill me, or was she also a pawn?
From the vicious, knowing look in her eyes, I believed that we were made.
I held her gaze, let my magic stretch out, and brushed over her to get a reading. Her smoke hissed at my magic and pushed it back.
But I’d gotten what I wanted. I had no need to further probe her. I’d seen her for what she was.
Lysandra was as old as my mates, yet she was still a mortal.
The consort was a black witch.
King Daghda was ancient and powerful, yet the witch had gotten him and driven him mad.
I wouldn’t underestimate her.
Lysandra’s eyes fixed on me like a blade bleeding with hate and jealousy, and I hadn’t even taken back my throne from her yet.
Of course, she’d take out the threat at the first chance.
The smoke left the humans, gathering and redirecting their attack toward me.
Instinctively, I threw up a hand, but no shield of light came out of me.
Iokul grabbed me and threw me out of the way just before the smoke smashed onto the spot where we’d formerly sat.
In front of our eyes, our table companions—Toni, Daphne, the businessman, and his wife— turned to clay statues before shattering to a pile of dirt.
Nausea swirled in my belly, even though the potency of the foul magic hadn’t hit me directly.
None of the other humans paid any attention to what had just happened to us, or if they did, they probably didn’t care much.
“We have to go,” Iokul said tightly. “There’s nothing you can do for them now.”
The smoke hissed like a rattlesnake, ready to strike again.
A ribbon of blue fire rammed into the smoke, slamming it into the carbon monoxide alarms attached on the ceiling. Immediately, the artificial ceiling light flashed red and loud buzzing ricocheted off the hall.
“Fire!” someone called, but no one moved.
The attendees were all enthralled. Even if there was fire, they would stay. They’d die for the witch, unable to recognize who she really was. And if she ordered them to assault me, every one of them would try to tear me to pieces.
Iokul seemed to realize that and pulled me further away from the humans.
“Fire! Burn! Escape! Run for your life!” a rich, masculine voice shouted, carrying power, which jerked the humans awake.
Elvey. My throat tightened as my heart clenched, and joy sliced into my chest. Elvey’s here.
But how? We’d left him in the Witch Tower on Pandemonium, light years away from here. How had he managed to beat us here?
Where is he? I darted my wild eyes around, but I didn’t find him. He wasn’t in the room physically, yet his power had come through.
The panicked humans rushed toward the exit like a horde of locusts.
Iokul grabbed my hand, and we rushed toward the flow of the crowd and blended into them.
A flicker of thought pulsed in my mind. Perhaps we should use this chance to end the witch and save ourselves future trouble.
But I also knew how reckless the action was. Even if I could kill her, the Humans Superior and First movement would make her a martyr and use it to drive the dragons into extinction.
They would paint me as a cold-blooded murderer, and my people would never accept me.
Besides, I wasn’t that confident that I could overpower her, even without an army of guards around her.
“Find the man wearing a mask and the redheaded woman with him and bring them to me,” my Fae ears caught her order. “Kill them if they resist. They’re terrorists.”
Iokul was taller and bigger than anyone. He pushed through the crowd as the guards darted toward us. The witch’s magic had broken our disguise, and now everyone could see us as we were.
A scent of magic, familiar and warm, tugged at me. Then a strong hand grabbed my elbow and dragged me from the side of the floral walkway.
Iokul snarled.
“It’s Elvey,” I whispered before Iokul touched the bracelet—a disguised weapon—that coiled on his left wrist.
I came face-to-face with Elvey and stopped in front of a nondescript door that hadn’t been there before. He uttered an ancient Fae word, and the door opened. It closed as soon as we stepped inside.
“Humans don’t have the sight to see the door,” Elvey said with a grin.
Floating blue fire—the same mage fire that had fended off the smoke and caused the alarm to go off—illuminated the empty room.
My gaze lingered on Elvey. He’d had a haircut. His once-tousled curly hair was now spiky lavender and raven-blue.
He was clad in a dark shirt that strained against his muscled chest, and his expensively tailored trousers showed every line of his powerful legs as he moved.
A lithe, lethal panther he was. Again, the image popped up in my head.
His eyes, blue stars in deep space, held my gaze and roved over me with hunger and longing.
If Iokul weren’t here, I’d probably throw myself into Elvey’s arms and cling to him to make sure he was as real as the air that I breathed in.
Iokul growled, not happy at how Elvey stared at me.
Elvey arched an eyebrow elegantly and shifted his glance to Iokul. “Nice mask, princeling.”
“What are you doing here, warlock?” Iokul asked flatly.
“Saving your butts again?”
“We don’t need your saving,” Iokul said tightly. “We had it under control. We were going to follow the crowd out, shift, and fly away.”
“That’s a good plan,” Elvey said, “except the witch’s minions are watching the whole city, including the air, for dragons.”
Iokul snorted. “They can’t stop us.”
Before the two could delve further into a pissing contest, I cut in. “Elvey, thank you.” I had so many questions for him, but it wasn’t the time for any, except the most urgent one. “Should we hole up here and catch up,” I eyed the open archway at the end of the room leading down into a dark staircase, “or should we go down there and leave?”
“We’re not going into any unknown territory without investigating it first,” Iokul said.
“The unknown territory is our only safe path for now,” Elvey said. “The tunnel was built by witches and mages centuries ago to prevent attacks from dragons. They’d never have thought two fugitive dragons would find a good use of it in the future to escape a witch’s attack.”
While Elvey chuckled at the irony, a blunt force rammed into the door near us. I jumped, and Iokul shoved me behind him. In an instant, he uncoiled the band on his wrist and straightened it into a weapon.
A web of dark vines formed on the doorframe.
“The witch has found us.” Elvey gestured toward the archway that led to the stairs. “Shall we go?”
“Can the three of us take her down?” I asked. “You can glamour me, and I can shift to a dragon and burn the witch.”
“Or let me ice her,” Iokul said eagerly.
“Lysandra has a strong shield,” Elvey said. “Not even a royal dragon’s power can penetrate it.”
From the way he said her name, it sounded as if he knew her well, I thought drily.
“I only found out about her lately,” Elvey said in a clipped tone. “I have no affiliation to her.”
He always knew what was in my head without reading my mind.
Iokul watched him carefully. “But you know who she affiliates with.”
Elvey didn’t answer.
“I have White Light, you know,” I said, peeking into his eyes. “It destroyed a smoke-possessed dragon earlier.”
“But you couldn’t summon it today in the hall when she attacked you,” Elvey said.
I bit my lip. He’d seen my failed effort.
“You’re not ready,” Elvey said, a brutal honesty in his voice. “And she brought her coven. Their spells are dreadful and strong. Today isn’t the day we fight her.” He turned to Iokul. “I’ll lead. Daisy stays in the middle, and you bring up the rear.”
Iokul nodded, holding tightly on the bar-weapon.
A spark of blue light floated ahead of us.
We followed it into the endless tunnel.
We ran for a while until I heard a tight whooshing sound behind us. I turned just in time to see a flying sword sail toward us ahead of the enemy guards.
The witch and her minions had broken through the hidden door.
“Iokul,” I screamed my warning, and threw out a hand toward the sword, hoping some of my magic would block it.
Again, my White Light didn’t come to aid us.
Iokul roared, streams of ice pouring out of him, instantly forming a solid ice wall behind us. The ice kept extending toward our pursuers, until I heard muffled screams. My mate’s ice had trapped our enemies and their sword inside.
His ice sealed nearly half a mile of the tunnel, ensuring the enemies couldn’t reach us.
It wasn’t without a cost.
Iokul stumbled as his magic exhausted him. Before he fell, Elvey and I caught him.
With each of us on either side of him, we half-carried and half-dragged Iokul forward.
An hour or so later, we’d finally emerged out of the tunnel into the shadow of the street in the City of Amethyst.
CHAPTER 6
We came out of the tunnel and stepped into a phone booth. Elvey and I still supported Iokul as we left the booth where a notice of “Out of Order” was posted on its door.
“What if the humans find out it isn’t a phone booth?” I asked.
“Even if they enter, the mortals can’t see the tunnel,” Elvey said.
“How do you know so much about my realm?” I demanded.
Elvey winked at me. “I’m a man of layers.”
Right, I often forgot who Elvey was. When I’d been away from the civilization as three Fury beasts, the demigod had been roaming my realm and who knew where else.
Iokul snorted at Elvey’s self-proclamation of being a man of layers and tried to shrug him off. “I can walk on my own.”
“You will when you have a chance to sit down first,” Elvey said, not letting go of Iokul.
Elvey was right.
Iokul’s strength was slowly returning. He would need food, drink, and rest before he was strong enough to fly back to the ship. I knew he was anxious to return to Mistress, thinking that I’d be safer there.
While we’d fled from Lysandra’s minions, he’d used his communication device implanted in him to warn his brothers and the teams about the witch’s people hunting us all over the city.
“It was overkill to use that amount of ice in the tunnel,” Elvey added, “though I appreciate your zealousness in protecting our Daisy.”
Our Daisy? Did he just say that?
Iokul growled, but he didn’t have the energy to give Elvey grief. “Wher
e are we going?” he asked.
“Howling Fun,” Elvey said, half-hurling Iokul through the dark alley.
Iokul arched an eyebrow suspiciously.
“It’s a bar two blocks away,” Elvey said.
“Wouldn’t the witch’s people look for us there as well?” I asked.
“We’ll be fine for the moment,” Elvey said.
We came to the back entrance of a bar at the end of the alley, a purple neon sign on an amber brick wall flashing Howling At Your Peril.
The bar’s metal door was closed.
I frowned. “Should we go around to the front?”
Elvey pressed his palm on the center of the reinforced door. A dark blue light radiated from beneath his hand. A click sounded, and the door unlocked.
“Can you manage to walk by yourself for a short distance?” Elvey asked Iokul.
Iokul nodded.
Elvey turned to me. “Stick with me, Daisy darling. Don’t flirt with a stranger.”
I glared at him. “I’m not the flirting type.”
“Good to know,” he said, and pulled open the heavy door.
A wave of loud music blasted my ears, the kind of music I’d never heard in my lifetime. The drumbeats and the singer’s moaning and unintelligible shouting were quite painful to my Fae ears.
Elvey called this howling fun? He and I had very different tastes.
Iokul and I filed behind Elvey through a dim passageway. Elvey appeared relaxed, even dancing a little to the coarse music, but Iokul tensed like a whip. His ice magic reached out to shield me.
“Stop it,” I hissed. “You’re already spent.”
“Protecting you is always my privilege, love,” Iokul said.
“But you forget that I can protect you back,” I said.
At the next turn, a half bar broadened in front of us. The other half was concealed from the main entrance and from many other angles.
The bar was crowded, dimly lit with amber light.
Human patrons lined up on the red bar chairs, their drinks on the glowing glass. A woman, who looked like she’d just broken up with a lover, studied a large painting of a naked, horned huntress who nocked an arrow.
Two men and a young woman served behind the bar, whizzing left and right, mixing drinks, taking orders, never getting in each other’s way.
