Black Orchid (Svatura)

by Abigail Owen

  “Let me go. Charlotte’ll get me,” Nate called.

  Without hesitation Adelaide released him and turned her attention fully back to the battle.

  Gaining some altitude, Adelaide hit the line of clouds and caught the flash of diamond-bright scales just above her. Her sisters. Looking below, she tried to get a lock on Maddox’s location. “I don’t see him,” she called. “Where’d he go?”

  As she glanced back up to the three above her, she caught a hint of a shadow. “Dive!” she yelled at them.

  They didn’t hesitate. All three dragons tucked their wings in close and headed for Adelaide’s position below. With silent precision the silver dragon burst out of the clouds in pursuit.

  “Move it!” she called to the girls.

  Chapter 39

  Nate could only hear wind as he dropped through the sky. Flipping onto his stomach like a skydiver, he watched as the ground seemed to rush up at him. And then he felt something grab his shoulder and before he could blink, he landed back in the courtyard of the castle, tumbling as he did.

  Nate groaned and turned to Charlotte. “Ouch.”

  “Sorry. I haven’t done a mid-air rescue like that before.” Charlotte reached for Dexter’s hand to help him stand up.

  Nate leapt to his feet and turned to search the skies above him, but he couldn’t see any of the dragons. “Where are they?”

  “There,” Dexter called out, pointing.

  “Damn,” Alex muttered beside him, as they watched three of the girls descending through the skies with Maddox right behind them and gaining.

  “Stop him!” Nate shouted.

  “I’m trying,” Alex gritted through his teeth. Nate suddenly flashed to the battle in Texas when they’d discovered Maddox’s dragon form for the first time. Alex, who could freeze just about anything in place, hadn’t been able to get a lock on the ancient beast.

  Nate cringed. He almost couldn’t bear to watch as Maddox bore down on Lila, Ellie, and Selene.

  Alex dropped to his knees under the weight of the force he was trying to hold back. “Come on,” he breathed.

  They all watched Selene. Easily recognizable as the pure white dragon, she’d always been the fastest in a stoop when the girls had practiced as falcons. Now she pulled ahead of the other two, but she still wasn’t quick enough. Maddox was getting closer, and so was the ground. Just as he reached out for Ellie’s tail, Maddox suddenly froze midair.

  “Tell them to keep going. I can’t hold him for long,” Alex groaned through clenched teeth.

  But then Maddox let loose a wall of fire. Just as it was about to consume the three dragons below him, Griffin slammed up his shield and the flames turned back on Maddox.

  *****

  “Come on,” Adelaide called as she gained altitude. “We need to get above him if we can. Take the advantage.”

  As they came together, the four dragons turned in unison, flying in precise formation that they’d practiced so often, as they sought out the cover of the clouds. Through their newly shared mind, they discussed a plan. When they heard Maddox’s blast announcing that he’d broken free of Alex’s hold, Adelaide flew away from the other three girls.

  It’s now or never. Adelaide suddenly flipped in mid-air, tucking her wings in tightly, and dove straight for the hulking beast below her. With a roar to catch his attention, she opened her mouth and bright yellow flames burst forth. She didn’t expect to hurt Maddox with it. The fire was a diversion.

  Suddenly, too close to Maddox for him to turn and flee, three massive dragons appeared beside her. Light glistened off their magnificent scales in flashes of crystal white, dark gold, and obsidian. Adelaide stopped spewing flame. As one, the sisters roared their rage and pain and retribution. None of them pulled up as all four of them slammed into the silver dragon at once.

  Adelaide felt him suck in, preparing to unleash his fire, but then he seemed to choke, and only smoke drifted from his maw.

  “Ramsey cut him off,” Lila informed them, satisfaction evident in her voice.

  “Let’s end this!” Adelaide didn’t know which of them had said it. She felt the thought come from herself and all three of her sisters at the same time.

  Spinning, flipping, and flailing, they plummeted toward the ground. As they fell, the four dragons ripped into the beast grasped in their talons. Maddox’s terrible screams of pain pierced the air. Adelaide snapped his wing, feeling a great satisfaction at the crunch of bone and sinew under her teeth. But she didn’t stop there, rending and ripping the limb until she pulled it from his body. Blood sprayed from the jagged, torn space where there used to be an arm. Red gushed and sprayed up into the sky behind them, bathing them all in the thick crimson liquid.

  Instinct had Adelaide releasing her grip and flaring her wings. She noticed that her sisters all did the same, as they realized how close they were to the ground. They followed the last small distance and watched as Maddox’s torn and tattered body slammed into the earth. But they didn’t leave it there.

  All four girls landed on each side of the unrecognizable form of the once magnificent dragon. His tail thrashed wildly, and his breath and blood gurgled from a wide gash in his throat. He looked around almost helplessly.

  Adelaide glanced at her sisters. Together, they all took a deep breath and then released a fury of fire. Flames of violet, fuchsia, icy blue, and bright yellow converged and consumed the twitching monster before them. They didn’t let up, didn’t stop, not even when Maddox’s charred form was nothing but a pile of ash. Not even when Griffin’s voice sounded in their minds.

  “He’s gone. Stop. Stop!”

  They ignored him and kept the blaze turned on the remains of their greatest enemy, their fury absolute.

  *****

  Nate inhaled sharply as he felt the wrath broiling through Adelaide in a frenzy. “We’re losing them.”

  And then he thought of all the times he’d helped Adelaide stop the shaking. “Charlotte, get me to Adelaide,” he said.

  Ramsey, Alex, and Griffin looked at Nate and then each other. “Us to.”

  Nate grasped Charlotte’s hand. The dragons were so huge that she dropped each man individually next to his te’sorthene. Finally close to her, Nate reached out and touched Adelaide’s flank. He felt her quiver. He could feel the heat of the blast that they continued to aim at Maddox’s remains.

  “Adelaide?” he asked her softly.

  “Don’t worry,” came the sudden answer. “We’re just making sure he’s as vanquished as possible.”

  Nate started. He hadn’t expected her to be in control. While she’d obviously had it together in the caves, and in the sky, the connection with her sisters in this dragon form seemed to involve a hive mind very similar to that of a wolf pack. He’d expected that mentality to take over. Apparently that wasn’t the case.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, smiling for the first time in what felt like ages.

  Chapter 40

  Adelaide shuddered. Yes, they were in control, though only with a tenuous hold. The animal still threatened to take over completely. She felt Nate’s presence at her side and the peace that his touch brought her. It reminded her of what was important.

  She fought the rage inside her. Not just her own, but her sisters’ too, as they were feeding each other through the link she’d established. Instead, she took all the control she’d learned over the last few months and tried to feed that into their connection. She felt a small pause from the other three as they felt her strength.

  Then she felt it – the glow of warmth inside her that hadn’t come from her. Lila was fighting too, using her ability to heal emotions.

  Then the violet blue flames suddenly shut off. Ellie was fully in control now, the dragon mastered yet again, and now she was feeding that control down the wire to the rest of them.

  Adelaide felt a surge in her power, in the relationship between them, in the concentration on their connection as sisters instead of animals. At the same time, she felt the sudd
en increase in Lila’s emotional control and Ellie’s overall ability to control the morph.

  “Selene? Are you doing that?” Ellie asked.

  “I’m trying,” came the reply. Selene was apparently using her ability to enhance the others’ powers.

  With a deep inhalation, Adelaide shut off the sunlight yellow flames spewing from her mouth. And then Lila’s ice blue flames ceased.

  Selene’s bright pink fire continued to burn.

  “Come on, baby,” they heard Griffin talking to her.

  “He has so much to answer for.” Selene’s grim reply was so full of agony and pain that Adelaide almost felt her own dragon take over again.

  Then, slowly, the fire died down and then shut off completely. The four girls sucked in a collective breath.

  But power was still building inside them, between them, around them.

  “Get back!” Adelaide warned the guys.

  Less than a second later, a terrible explosion of silver fire, bursting like fireworks, flashed from where Maddox’s body was now a pile of ash. The force was so powerful that Adelaide was thrown back. She frantically tried to find purchase in the air with her wings but couldn’t before she slammed back into the ground, plowing a trough of dirt in her wake. Finally, she skidded to a halt.

  Rolling back to her feet, she started searching for the others. “Nate?!”

  “Here,” he answered. But here was a ways away, closer to where she’d just been standing. He, Alex, Griffin, and Ramsey all stood secure under Griffin’s shield.

  Adelaide sighed with relief. Then she took stock, checking herself for injury. Other than the gash on her leg from Maddox, she was okay.

  She leapt into the sky, her wings taking her quickly up into the air. That blast had blown her several miles away. “Lila? Selene? Ellie?” she called out with her mind as she searched for them.

  “Here,” Ellie’s voice groaned.

  “Me too,” Lila called.

  “Yes, I’m here,” Selene answered.

  As she watched, the other three dragons joined her in the air. “The others!” Adelaide called. That explosion could’ve taken out the castle and everyone in it.

  “They’re okay,” Griffin’s voice calmed her fear. “I was able to throw up a shield around them too. But I’m not letting it down until we know we’re safe.”

  “Maddox is gone and his forces released. We’re safe, Griffin,” Adelaide answered.

  “Not from them. From you.”

  “Oh!”

  Adelaide looked at her sisters flying beside her, and a sudden bubble of joy burst within her. They’d done it. They’d finally defeated Maddox and still held on to their humanity.

  “We’re fine,” Ellie said to Griffin.

  “We’re more than good,” Lila said.

  “We’re all safe,” Selene added.

  “Forever,” Adelaide said.

  Laughter, bright and glorious, filled her mind. All four girls were more than good. They’d saved their families, their people.

  “Okay. I’ve dropped the shield. Charlotte will bring us back. But you might want to land outside and come in through the gate. There’s not enough room in this place for one dragon, let alone four.”

  Adelaide giggled along with her sisters. They coasted low along the ground. As they reached the outer wall of the castle, they flared their wings. Dirt and rocks and leaves kicked up under the force of the wind they created. Coming to rest in a soft landing, Adelaide released the beast. As she watched, the ground came up to meet her.

  In shining, shimmering waves, wings became arms, talons turned to nails, scales became soft skin. With a joyous laugh, she ran to her sisters and embraced them. Then, hand in hand, they walked through the gate into the waiting arms of their te’sorthenes and their families.

  All except Adelaide. The one face she wanted to see… the one she needed to see… wasn’t there.

  Chapter 41

  Her gaze moved from face to face, her heart pounding. He just had to be here.

  “Adelaide, your leg!” Ellie exclaimed.

  “I’ve got it.” Her father smiled as he came over to hug her. After a good squeeze, he knelt down, and Adelaide felt the healing warmth as the gash in her leg closed up. But she only half paid attention to what he was doing as she continued to frantically scan the celebrating people around her.

  “Looking for someone?” a deep voice murmured close to her ear.

  With a gasp Adelaide whirled around. “Nate!” And then his arms were wrapped around her and his mouth was moving over hers in desperate, hungry need. Relief poured into her.

  Pulling back, Adelaide blinked up into his smiling eyes.

  “You came for me,” he whispered.

  She smiled. “Yes, I did.”

  “And then you left me to go all dragon and take on Maddox.”

  Adelaide grimaced. “Yes, I did.”

  Suddenly Nate broke out in a grin. “You are so badass.”

  Adelaide laughed, relieved that he understood. She rolled her eyes. “And don’t you forget it.” Then she laid her forehead against his. “But I could never have done it without you.”

  Nate chuckled, and then they turned to face the rest of their family.

  At first there wasn’t much time for anything other than reacting to what had gone down that day. Even explanations about how it’d all happened had to wait for now.

  They found any survivors of the cave-in caused by Maddox’s departure in the underground base and helped them out. They weren’t all released immediately. Instead, they had to figure out which ones had been brainwashed and which had willingly followed Maddox in his insanity. With their combined powers, Griffin and Adelaide worked on that together. But it would still take them several weeks to get through all of them.

  Xavier moved the castle back to their original Canadian location. And then he transported any intact tunnels from Maddox’s installation to sit under the castle. It gave them a place to house all their prisoners until they could be processed. The castles own dungeons weren’t quite expansive enough.

  Finally, their family managed to grab some time together one evening. They gathered in Selene and Griffin’s rooms with Selene’s parents joining them.

  Nate sat beside Adelaide on the couch. Despite being welcomed home with open arms, he’d remained unusually quiet these last days.

  “Something on your mind?” she murmured.

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “You’re still feeling guilty?” Before he could answer, she added, “Just before I killed Talia, I got a mental snapshot of what she was doing to you.”

  Nate raised his eyebrows. “And?”

  “The best way I can describe it was that she was some sort of emotional vampire. She was sucking every good memory, every good emotion out of you.” She scrunched her face and shook her head. “But she also had this feedback mechanism. She’d take all that good, twist it into something… wrong… and feed it back into you.”

  Nate thought about that for a while. Adelaide let him process.

  “So you’re saying that none of this was my fault?”

  “I never believed it was.”

  “You didn’t remember enough to have a belief either way for a while there,” he said dryly.

  “I didn’t need to. My faith in you never wavered. Even at that moment when you left me and my heart was breaking, I had hope that we’d end up back here someday.”

  Turning to face her fully, he looked deep into her eyes. “We have to try again.”

  “What?”

  He gripped her shoulders in his hands. “You are my te’sorthene.”

  Adelaide bit her lip. “We tried. It didn’t work. Can’t we just be in love? Isn’t that enough?”

  “Every moment I have with you is enough. But I remember what being your te’sorthene was like. It may be selfish, but I want that back. And—”

  “And?”

  “Maybe now that your memory is back, you can fix it,” he suggested.<
br />
  Adelaide looked into his eyes and couldn’t deny the hope that stirred in her own heart. She stood. “Te’sorthene is worth the pain, don’t you think?”

  “I do,” Ramsey said. He came up and wrapped his arms around Lila.

  “We all do,” Ellie said. Turning, Adelaide found all the eyes in the room turned on them.

  She smiled and then held her hand out to Nate. “No time like the present then.”

  Taking both his hands in hers, she accessed her ability to see relationships. The torn and tattered strands between them were now almost entirely red and straining toward each other. Adelaide looked into Nate’s eyes and let him see what she was experiencing.

  “Oh, wow,” he breathed.

  “Before I try, I want to show you the memories I got back.”

  Using her telepathy, she showed him the flashes she’d seen when her history had been returned to her. The day they’d met. The first time he’d managed to get her to look him in the eyes. Playing. Kissing. Flirting. Teasing. Laughing. Loving.

  Tears trailed down her cheeks as pain tempered by love flowed through her. She’d almost lost him. Reaching up, she placed one hand tenderly against his cheek, finding it wet with his own tears.

  Then, with her other hand, she lightly touched one finger to her end of the strand that represented their te’sorthene relationship. Pouring the love, and the pain, into it, she forced the glow of healing into the gossamer-fine thread. As she watched, both of their lines turned into a pulsing, deep red. But instead of reconnecting, a sparkling pale ghost of a connection started to form between the ends. Slowly the new section filled in, becoming darker and darker until the only evidence of the break were two pale, jagged white marks where each end had once been.

  Adelaide looked up with a radiant smile. She laughed, and then he laughed, and then he leaned down and gently laid his lips on hers in a kiss of renewal and hope for the future.

  “I love you so much,” he whispered against her lips. And then he was kissing away the tracks of her tears.