“Your bond.” She had to yell over the rumble of the mountain.
“Nothing will change.” His eyes searched hers. “I don’t expect you to honor the mating bond.”
“You don’t expect me to honor it, but it will exist,” she said, picking up on the nuance in his choice of words.
He held her gaze. “It already does for me, Leena. It’s not something I can control. I think my dragon claimed you after that first kiss. But that doesn’t mean you have to reciprocate. You have your life, your obligations. I understand.”
Leena closed her eyes, tried to find that centering force inside herself she used when she gazed into the tears of the goddess. She wanted a vision, a sign, something to tell her what to do. So she prayed… until something occurred to her. “The goddess is dead?”
Colin blinked. “Yes. But Raven is going to resurrect her.”
The goddess was dead. She’d almost prayed to a being that was no more.
Leena took a moment to wrap her mind around that truth. Her entire life as a scribe had been lived in worship of a celestial being who was …gone. Immortals, it seemed, didn’t always live forever. What did that mean for her? Her vow? Was she bound to a being who no longer existed? If Raven succeeded in bringing the goddess back, would she be bound again?
She swallowed hard before speaking. “Upstairs, when Crimson had her knife to my throat and I thought I would die, I closed my eyes. I knew I should pray to the goddess to care for my soul. But there was only one face I could see, Colin. And it wasn’t hers. When my life flashed before my eyes, all the scenes were of you. When I thought about what I’d regret—” Tears trailed down her cheeks.
“You regret our night together?”
She shook her head. “I regretted that there was only one night. All the scrolls I’ve written, all the years I spent recording what happened to other people, I wouldn’t miss any of that. I didn’t even think of it. I thought of you.”
Colin’s tentative smile twitched at the corners. The mountain rumbled again. Behind him, Raven was circling her wand. One by one, Colin’s brothers and sisters appeared in the cave along with Avery and Clarissa. The witch was calling for Colin to join them. They needed him, which meant Leena had to make a decision. It was so hot. Her brain boiled in her skull, and her body ached.
“I won’t hold you,” Colin said again. “I just want to protect you.”
“Give me your tooth.” Leena met his gaze and raised her hand to his cheek. “And give me your bond.”
His eyes widened until she could see the whites. “The vow I made died with the goddess. I want you, Colin. I want a life with you for as long as I have left.” She didn’t add that at the moment, that life was looking quite short.
He reached into his mouth and turned his head away from her. When he turned back, there was blood on his lip and a sharp, jagged tooth pinched between his fingers. He held it in his palm. His ring glowed red, his dragon magic transforming the tooth into a slender white pill. He offered it to her.
She picked it up, pausing for only a moment to appreciate it in the red glow of the cave, and then she swallowed it down. It seemed to wriggle in her throat, and when it hit her stomach, it radiated its magic through her core, her limbs. Immediately the heat became bearable, and the exhaustion she’d felt a moment before bled from her.
What was left in its place was an intense need for him, one she’d have to wait to act on.
“Colin, we need you,” Gabriel called.
He pressed a soft kiss to her lips and helped her to her feet before joining his siblings. She watched him go, thinking that happily ever after couldn’t start until they survived to see tomorrow.
Raven gestured toward the cradle. “Each of you stand in the crater where your egg would have been,”
Xavier tossed up his hands. “Are ye mad, woman? How in the name of Hades are we to know where our egg once was?”
But Rowan spread her wings in excitement. “I do! I know this! The queen always lays her eggs counterclockwise.” She pointed to the first indentation to her left. “Starting there. See how it’s more worn than the others? That’s from centuries of use. This one looks relatively new, right?” She gestured to the end of the ring. “Mother probably had to make these last two. Nine eggs were unheard of.”
The mountain rumbled around them, and Avery wavered on her feet. “Raven, the heat.”
Raven looked at her sister. She was a sweaty mess, her shirt darkened down the front and at her pits. Her hair stuck to her head. Avery was the only one of them who couldn’t take her mate’s tooth—her magic neutralized it, which meant, for all intents and purposes, she was human.
“Fuck, hold on.” With a wave of her wand and a whispered incantation, Raven made it snow. White flakes drifted over them as if they were sealed inside a snow globe.
“Thanks.”
Her lips pressed flat. “I don’t know how long it will last once we start the resurrection spell.” She placed the bloody diamond she’d been holding in the first cradle.
Tobias’s eyes locked on to it. “What is that, Raven?” His voice was low, solemn. He knew. On some level, she thought they all did.
“Marius. Eleanor spelled the heart to keep his soul trapped inside. As sick as it was, it’s a good thing for us that she did. We need him for this spell.”
Clarissa tightened her blond ponytail. “What now?”
Raven reached for her sisters’ hands. “This is where we come in. Dragons were born in the mountain. Aitna made the first one from the fabric of the universe, and centuries later, Circe gave them the ability to transform. Eleanor has stolen Aitna’s power. Aitna’s dead, but she’s not gone.”
“So, what do we do?” Avery asked.
“We need to resuscitate her. The grimoire said this room is as close as we can come to Aitna’s heart. We’re going to draw power from the nine heirs and send it into Aitna. We’re going to shock her back to life.”
Tobias laughed. “Are you saying we’re going to defibrillate the goddess?”
“More or less,” Raven said.
The mountain rumbled again, and Sylas growled as chunks of stone bounced off the dome of Raven’s magic, which was protecting them all. “Quickly, or things are going to get a lot more complicated.”
Raven gave the dragon a sideways glance but ignored his comment. It was too much pressure. She couldn’t think about what came next after the spell. Would they be able to escape? She shook it off.
Colin said what she was thinking. “Shut the fuck up, brother. She’s doing her best.”
Still, all the dragons got into position, standing in the divot that signified their birth order. Raven took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.
“Clarissa, this is what you need to sing.” Raven copied the music from the grimoire—from her memory—into the dirt over the stone floor.
“Got it!” Clarissa positioned herself so she could see the music and studied the notes.
“Avery, I’m going to draw on your latent magic. Just hold our hands and don’t fight the spell.”
“Do nothing. My specialty.” Avery saluted.
“What about Charlie?” Leena asked.
Raven had been so wrapped up in all the details of the spell she’d forgotten about her daughter, asleep in Gabriel’s arms. She carefully pulled her out of her mate’s grip and handed her to Leena. “Please hold the baby.” She glanced at Marius’s heart, still smeared with Charlie’s blood. “We already have what we need from her.”
Leena gave Raven a reassuring nod and cuddled the child to her shoulder.
Raven shot one last look toward Gabriel and his siblings standing in a ring in front of the giant mural of the goddess and the altar where Raven had once sacrificed her most beloved possession at the time, her emerald wedding ring. It was still there, she noted, as were the stilettos Rowan had left behind.
She took her sisters’ hands. Immediately a charge rose in the room, crackling and snapping between them. She started mutteri
ng the incantation she’d read in the grimoire. Ancient Greek. The only reason she could read, understand, or pronounce it was her magic, this strange ability she had to absorb spells from the page and to understand magic immediately through touch. She repeated the words again and again. And then she nodded to Clarissa.
Her sister sang the notes drawn in the dirt. The music started off low, challenging her range, but then increased in pace and octave as it progressed.
“It’s working,” Leena said.
Raven hazarded a glance toward her mate and saw what Leena saw. The dragon siblings were glowing. Light shafted from floor to ceiling, illuminating the cavern like it was high noon in the desert. The pull of magic threatened to tear her in two. Her sisters must have felt it too, because Avery winced, and Clarissa took more frequent breaths as she continued her song.
They both squeezed her hands as another wave of magic blew out from them. Leena shielded Charlie’s eyes and turned her head away from the increasing glow. Raven tried to check on Gabriel, tried to make sure he was weathering the spell, but the light was too bright. She had to look away.
And then it all became too much. Avery squeezed her hand. “Raven, I can’t… I caaaan’t!”
A loud crack accompanied an explosive force that blew them apart. Avery’s and Clarissa’s fingers slipped from hers. Her back slammed into hard stone, knocking her breath from her lungs. Something inside her crunched, and a sharp pain cut through her torso.
The torches around the cavern extinguished.
For a moment, she lay absolutely still, afraid to move, afraid to make the pain worse. Then the familiar tingle of Gabriel’s tooth kicked in. Its healing properties branched within her, carving out a path in her veins, invigorating her.
She grunted as she pushed herself up to sitting and blinked her eyes open. The cave had gone dark and eerily quiet. She couldn’t see anything but the mural. Aitna’s image glowed red, the light the painting was putting off illuminating the altar in front of her. A crack now ran down the middle, the two halves of the stone fallen to each side.
And the mural was changing, the wall behind it falling away. No, Raven realized, the image was moving forward, becoming three-dimensional, smoothing. She muffled a curse as her hand rose to her lips. Aitna stood before her, dressed in liquid fire, her dark hair flowing in a wind that wasn’t there.
She looked straight at Raven with black, glittering eyes and said something in a language she didn’t understand. Raven shook her head.
There was a pause, and then the goddess said in perfect English, “Who is responsible?”
It was clear to Raven by her tone she meant responsible for her death, not her resurrection. Raven lifted one hand and pointed up what used to be the stairs. She answered with one word and one word only. “Eleanor.”
Aitna’s black eyes roved upward. She bent her knees and leaped straight into the rock. And then she was gone and so was the light.
Raven blinked away the spots swimming in her vision from the quick change in illumination. A groan came from her right. She pulled her wand from her sleeve and ignited the tip, casting light across the cavern. She pointed it at the nearest torch. “Fotiá.” Flames ignited within.
“Fuck me,” Clarissa said, rubbing the back of her head. “That hurt like hell.”
She reached over to shake Avery by the shoulder. She roused and groaned.
“Leena? Charlie?”
Leena stepped out from under the remains of the stairs. “We’re fine. I sheltered in the crevice there when I felt the pressure build.” She handed Charlie to Raven. The babe was awake now, and Leena gave her a kiss on her platinum curls before letting go.
“Gabriel?” Raven approached the cradle with Charlie in her arms. The area had become a giant mass of oddly piled dragons. They were all stacked on top of one another, bent over the grooves and mounds of the cave floor in various states of consciousness. Raven shifted Charlie to her hip to help Colin up, followed by Sylas. Nathaniel shoved Xavier off him after getting an unintentional look up his kilt, then stood and smoothed a hand through his hair. Leena helped Alexander, who removed his leather jacket and beat it with his hand before putting it on again.
Rowan grunted and dusted off her dress. There was a tear at the hem. “Damn it! This was couture!”
Tobias and Gabriel helped each other up, and Gabriel was at her side in a heartbeat. Raven kissed and embraced him.
“We did it,” Gabriel said.
She nodded, but her eyes were drawn back to the cradle, where one more body lay. A body where no body should be. With ghost-white hair, his naked, pale skin carved with symbols, the man wore a ring with a central diamond.
“Gabriel?” Raven’s throat tightened.
Gabriel followed her line of sight, as did the other siblings. The cavern went eerily quiet.
“Who is that?” Alexander asked, and Gabriel gave him a wild look. “It can’t be. He had black hair, and where did the tattoos come from?”
Clarissa gasped. “We did a resurrection spell.”
They all crept forward, surrounding the dragon whose white wings were splayed awkwardly across the stone. Raven thought he matched his ring, a diamond brought to life, a ghost, a wraith, an animated corpse.
The dragon opened his eyes, and there was a collective inhale at his silver irises. Gabriel softened beside her, collecting himself.
“Marius,” he said. “Welcome back, brother.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Colin moved to Leena’s side, his body seeking hers out even as his eyes were locked on to Marius. She slid her hand into his and squeezed.
“Breathe, Colin.”
“I watched him die,” he whispered.
She stroked her fingers along the side of his arm, a simple touch to let him know she was there. “I know.”
Gabriel sat Marius up and shook him by the shoulders. “Marius? Brother?”
The dragon’s strange silver eyes roved to Gabriel’s, but he said nothing. He seemed aware to Colin but unable to respond.
“He’s in shock,” Tobias said. “I’ve got to believe being dead for three hundred years or so and then being yanked back among the living will do that to you.”
Thunder came from above, and stone rained down around them. Raven’s shielding spell shimmered as it buckled at the edges. Colin’s wings shot out protectively over Leena.
“I can’t hold it,” Raven said. “We’ve got to get out of here—now.”
Sylas pointed to a tunnel behind him. “That one leads to the garden… if it’s not flooded with lava.”
Raven shook her head. “Too late. The volcano is erupting. I’ve been holding it back. That passage is toast.”
“Why isn’t it working? I thought the spell was supposed to wake Aitna and that she’d take care of the rest?” Avery asked. She was bleeding from the side of her head and hung on to Xavier as if he were the only thing holding her up.
Raven stroked Charlie’s hair back from her eyes. “The spell did work. I saw Aitna rise. They must be fighting it out up there.” She pointed to the palace and the source of the loudest rumble.
Clarissa dug in Nathaniel’s pocket and handed him his pipe. “This would be a great time for some teleporting, Nate.”
Nathaniel lit the tobacco and took a few puffs. “I’m afraid that isn’t an option. Not with our large number. May I suggest we use our wings and the door above the stairs?” He pointed toward the remains of the flight that led to the main level.
“Great. It would figure the only way out is up, where we face Mommy dearest,” Alexander said through his teeth.
Xavier lifted Avery into his arms. Her injuries weren’t healing as quickly as her sister’s, and Colin remembered her magic made it impossible for her to swallow a dragon’s tooth. They needed to get her out of here. She probably needed a healer.
Gabriel hauled Marius to his feet. The eldest dragon looked wrong, hollow somehow, like the shell of a fruit that had been eaten from the inside out. But
Colin followed Gabriel’s lead and swept Leena into his arms. Together, they ascended and burst into the palace proper.
“The veranda!” Sylas yelled over the rumble of shaking earth and cracking stone. “We’ve got to get off this mountain before it comes down around us.” But when they reached the aerial entrance to the palace, they pulled up short and took cover behind whatever debris they could find. Colin tucked Leena more tightly into his side.
What once was the palace veranda was now a war zone. The entire first floor had been destroyed, leaving nothing but partial walls, heaps of debris, and cracked stone to indicate where rooms once stood. Even part of the ceiling was missing. A portion of the mountain had crumbled and was melting into lava that flowed over what used to be the palace gardens. The only recognizable thing still standing was Eleanor’s red velvet throne, its ornate but blocky frame cracked and missing part of one armrest but still there.
Eleanor now towered over them, at least twelve feet tall and wielding a lightning whip that crackled through the night air toward Aitna. The true goddess repelled the electric magic with a flaming red sword that gave off an acrid sulfur scent. The red glow of flowing lava and the two full moons backlit their battle. Eleanor thrashed. Aitna slapped the magic away with her sword and thrust forward, slicing into Eleanor’s cheek. The wound healed almost instantly.
“We have to find a way to help Aitna,” Raven said. “There has to be a way to give her the advantage.”
Colin whirled. “I don’t understand. How are there two goddesses? Shouldn’t Eleanor lose her power now that Aitna is back?”
“There are no rules for this. Hera ascended Eleanor. We revived Aitna with energy we siphoned from all of you. The two goddesses are equally matched. They’ll fight until all of Ouros burns if we don’t do something.” Raven studied her daughter and then Gabriel. “I think I know what has to happen. Gabriel, I need your help.” She turned to Avery, but seeing her pale and injured in Xavier’s arms, she turned next to Leena. “Can you take Charlie? It’s too dangerous.”
The Dragons of Paragon Page 19
