31. Aldrin
Chapter 31
Aldrin
C yprien, the mad bastard, recruited dragons.
Their wide wings block out the sun as they circle over the valley. Thick scales glitter across their bodies, with many horns and long whiskers erupting from their heads. Two are black iridescence, another a forest green and another a deep scarlet, but my eyes fall upon a monstrosity of white wings, golden scales and a barbed tail.
Ezekiel.
He is my dragon, as I am his fae, sworn to each other in friendship. Promised that we will never meet on opposite sides of a battlefield. I have won wars with him at my side.
Ezekiel swings low over the writhing enemy, spitting long channels of his venom into the crowd before swooping back up. A soldier straddles his back, long red hair streaming out behind them while they loose fiery arrows.
I blink at the sight.
Surely not.
The pair swoop again, and golden highlights shine in that curling hair.
Keira is on the back of my dragon.
Most fae are too terrified to even approach a dragon. If I wasn’t already madly in love with her, I would fall head over heels right here and now. I could spend a lifetime watching her kill from the skies, but those dragons send the enemy running, right into my shield wall.
We slam into them with such an intense impact my entire body rattles. I thrust my short sword between the gap in the shields, straight into the gut of a man with broken, yellowed teeth. As I twist the blade and yank it back, the soldiers behind me throw their spears. The long row of missiles curve through the sky and land in the backs and bellies of the king’s forces.
The shield wall pushes forward as one, over the top of dying men and women. The next adversaries fall to my blade, splattering my face with hot, sticky blood. Their sneers twist into grimaces of pain. Their faces all meld into one as I kill more than I care to count.
I fall into a rhythm, merely another part in a huge, moving war machine. I lose all track of time in this close crush of bodies. My entire existence boils down to each stab of my short sword and every block of an enemy’s blade.
I thrust my magic into the roots of the grass before me, growing and hardening them. I stab the woody spears through the boots of soldiers I cannot reach with my sword. They scream and attempt to tear their feet from the ground, but the roots run up the panels of their armor and into the flesh accessible between the cracks. At a single thought from me, those roots tear outwards, ripping multiple people to pieces.
A huge brute of a man pushes in before Silvan, swinging an ax wildly at his head. Silvan raises his shield to meet it and the ax hooks over its top edge. The human attempts to pry it from his grasp. This is how humans break a shield wall—but he has picked the wrong victim. A human cannot match the strength of a fae. Silvan lifts his other hand and shoots a thick shard of ice through the human’s throat.
On and on we fight.
I am coated in blood.
It runs down the gaps in my armor and splatters in my mouth each time I roar my fury. That metallic tang sits on my tongue and fills my nose. I don’t want to focus on the other scents as seasoned soldiers lose their dignity. We advance ever forward, but despite all the bodies piling up, it feels like we make little progress.
I scream a guttural sound, pouring all my raw frustration and need for destruction into a wield. I throw out a pulverizing wave of pressurized air magic. It crests over our foe with brutal force, shattering bones and turning flesh into a red mess. Dozens of bodies litter the ground before me, and we have a heartbeat of reprieve before the king’s force charges again.
I laugh at them. “Who is next?”
After moments, or maybe an eternity, our shield wall disintegrates under the sheer onslaught trying to escape the channels of fire, plasma and lightning the dragons breathe into the valley, and we enter the true battle.
I toss my shield to the side and draw my magic-imbued sword from my back. With each body I hack into, with every soul I take, a fraction of their life force is sucked into my sword.
A churning mess of enemies and allies surrounds me, but as I strike my blade into the ground and release all the pent-up power, it is my foes alone who are struck down. Raw, intense earth magic turns their bodies to wood and leaves, leaving silent screams on their lips.
Explosion after explosion rocks the ground, and I almost lose my footing. Many around me fall. There seems to be a pause, a collective intake of breath by the entire valley, as more tremors run through the ground.
My heart stutters to a stop at the sight of channels of smoke churning out of a black smear across the valley, with dead people and scattered wood around it. Then I notice Edmund galloping through it, laughing maniacally. The bodies beneath his horse are clad in royal purple.
The Lord Protector turns his mount sharply and charges for another wagon deep amid enemy ranks, burning any who dare to stop him with streams of fire. He is utterly crazed, alone and surrounded by hostile forces, crashing through them like a wolf among lambs.
Like the demigod he is.
Red light glows in his upheld hand as he forms another fire crystal, then tosses it into the wagon. I duck right as the black powder detonates and the entire world trembles.
All at once, the enemy breaks and flees through that channel at the bottom of the valley that leads south, into the forest.
As I run in pursuit, two sets of hooves pound toward me from behind. I spin to find an Explosion Brother almost on top of me, his arm outstretched with a musket pointed at my face, and Kai galloping behind him, desperately trying to catch the human.
The kelpie’s brown eyes widen, and his face and bare chest turn a deeper shade of blue as he throws icicles from the palm of his hand, but they don’t make their mark before the Explosion Brother pulls the trigger on his gun.
Bullets fly toward me, but this time I am ready for them. I will not fall under this contraption again. I throw out a hard sheet of air, enough to push the bullets off their course and send them whizzing over my shoulder. In the next moment, Kai’s icicles hit their target, and the man falls off his horse and under Kai’s hooves.
I could hug the kelpie. Gods, I could kiss his scaly face, but there is no time for that.
“Don’t get wounded,” he growls at me in greeting. “I’m not carrying you off yet another battlefield.”
I run at his side. It is a struggle to keep up with the sprint of his horse’s legs.
I barely halt when we reach a row of a hundred men on one knee, their muskets aimed at our advancing lines. I drag moisture out of the very air and rain a spring storm down upon them, the droplets hard and heavy. The signature of Silvan and Klara’s magic curling with mine tells me they are nearby, just as Cyprien materializes at my side.
The empty clicks of the Explosion Brothers’ guns send a wave of satisfaction through me, doubling when panic crumples their faces. Charging Northern soldiers cut them down before they can reach for their blades. I grin wildly, racing past the massacre.
I move through this vale of blood, death and smoke with nothing but violence on my mind. The storm of my creation streaks rivulets of water down my face and into the gaps of my armor, washing everything clean. It is freezing, but does little to dampen the fire in my soul. Beyond the shower, other high fae crouch on the ground, pulling up great geysers from the water table to deactivate the black powder.
The enemy’s horn blows the retreat as thousands of their number race down the narrow channel toward the forest.I laugh and laugh and laugh.Here, surrounded by ancient trees with roots and branches thick with age, I am at my greatest strength.
I blast out a wave of my power, sending that royal command throughout the battlefield for all my Spring Court fae to muster to me. To chase the fleeing enemy.My people answer my call. A hundred high fae warriors. Kelpies, fire sprites and nymphs, all slaughtering humans with sword and magic alike.
Their violence is a delight to my soul.
Three dragons crash to the ground, which reverberates as they land and crush humans carelessly. Their gazes land on me. One is a towering form of blue scales and spines. Another is a scarlet beast. The last to land is my golden friend, largest of them all.
Aldrin. King of Fae. It has been too long since we have met on the battlefield , Ezekiel rumbles in my head, looking away only long enough to snap up a passing human and swallow them whole.
“This is my preferred rendezvous, covered in the blood of enemies and with the anticipation of victory.” I stop before him. His head is the size of my torso. “Do you have my woman with you?” I crane my neck to find her.
Ezekiel chuffs, his brown eyes turning molten. She had the scent of you all over her. Thought I better protect this prize.
He shifts so I can get a good view of her. Keira waves at me from where she is perched between the ridges of his back, then scurries to slide down his front leg, which is as tall as her. She races toward me, but all I can do is examine every inch of her for injuries.
The moment she crashes into my arms, I forget the surrounding slaughter. The wails, the stink of fear, my earlier bloodlust.
All I will ever need is her.
I crush Keira into an embrace, tucking her against my chest as I throw up a shield of hardened air and churning storm clouds around us. Embers race within the tempest as Keira thrusts her own magic into it and her arms tighten around me.
I tilt her chin up with a single finger, searching her face for pain or tears, for any internal battle—but all I see is the thrill of the fight in her rosy cheeks and dancing eyes. I kiss her hard, my lips devouring, my tongue slipping in and caressing hers hungrily.
“I was scared for you,” I say, pulling away long enough to speak, then crashing against her mouth once more.
“Don’t be,” she breathes, pulling her lips away from mine for far too long. I trap her mouth again. My hands run up and down her body, across her waist and hips, skirting across her ass that is irresistible in these tight pants.
“Gods, I feel like I can’t breathe when I am not with you, Keira. You take half my soul with you each time we are apart.” I put my forehead to hers, our noses touching. “Are you ready for more? To make our enemy bleed?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“And you don’t feel sad for them?” I probe. “You don’t feel sickness to the depths of your soul at the mindless carnage?” Her devastation at the brutal deaths of the Assassins of Belladonna as we fled my home city comes to mind. The way she couldn’t grapple with the needless waste of it.
She shakes her head. “I’m sure that will come later. All I can think right now is that they would kill my entire family and kidnap me if we don’t fight. Every single one of them.” A shiver runs through her body, but it is anger, not grief, that twists the lines of her face.
I drop our magic defense to find the enemy skirting far around us, shooting terrified glances at the dragons. I take Keira’s hand and lead her toward Ezekiel. “Mind carrying two of us?”
Always with the useless questions, Aldrin. Why do you think I landed here? he snaps, like he wouldn’t bite my head off, literally, if I assumed to mount him. The chieftain of the dragons has always been prideful. They belong to no fae court.
Drake rushes to us, slicing down a human on his way over with a casual swing of his sword. He glances from Ezekiel, to me, to the other two dragons. “By the Soul Ripper, Aldrin, we are not doing this again, are we?” His eyes are wild.
“Scared of a few scales, are you?” Silvan growls as he climbs onto the red dragon.
“Yeah. One of those things almost ate me last time.” Drake points at the sky with his sword, toward a black dragon. It must be Miryth up there.
“That one didn’t like your tongue,” Silvan calls over. “I suggest you keep your mouth shut.”
“Grumpy bastards,” Drake mumbles, and Klara slaps him across the back of the head, giving him a dark look.
Ezekiel huffs beside me, and it sounds a lot like laughter.
“I am doing this,” I growl. “You can do as you like.”
Still clutching Keira’s hand, I race up the golden ridges of Ezekiel’s tail, picking up momentum to take us to his back and carefully skirting around the barbs.
“I will join you on a dragon, Drake, and protect your back.” Klara leads him toward the blue dragon, talking to it in hushed tones to ask permission.
“You’ll probably toss me in its gullet and find a younger husband,” he retorts, and a half-smile curls my lips. He always makes his damned jokes when confronted with an emotion he can’t handle.
Klara whirls on him and curls her fingers into the chest plate of his armor. “If you die here, Drake, I will march into the afterlife and drag you back by the ear. I will be livid if you make me a widow.”
I straddle Ezekiel’s shoulders, holding on to his spikes and trying to ignore the fact that this is equally as terrifying as riding a horse. At least he is likely to catch me if I fall. Maybe. Dragons are temperamental bastards.
I guide Keira until she takes her place in front of me. She grabs her bow and quiver of arrows, preparing for the next wave of attack. I start to weave straps of air around her to keep her in her seat, but find she has already put some in place.
A squeak erupts from Keira’s lips as Ezekiel launches into the air and she fumbles for anything to hold on to. I wrap my arms around her chest and hold her tight, despite how my stomach dips and my nerves flare.
I don’t let go of her until we are above the sparse treeline and her heart rate slows. Mine crashes so hard against my ribcage it feels like it will shoot out of my chest.
I give Keira the space she needs to nock her arrows and let them loose on the enemy below. It is a marvel to watch the flames dance across her fingers and up the arrow shaft without burning it to cinders.
Warriors flee and fight beneath us in a jumble of house colors, their number spreading far through the forest. The mere shadow of the dragon falling over the humans is enough to send them into a frenzy of fear. Ezekiel swoops down low, spraying clusters of the enemy with his venom before soaring back up out of their reach. It is dizzying, but I keep the contents of my stomach down, despite how it revolts. Keira sends a look of pure exhilaration over her shoulder.
Cyprien rides up on a black dragon beside us, with Lilly straddled behind him, and both give me a nod. As we fly over the sparse forest, I grasp the life force of immense trees and spear their thick branches into the fleeing army, swiping roots across the ground and crushing dozens in a single wave.
I search their number for the men I need to kill. My hands twist with the fierce desire to inflict pain on the mad king or Lord Desmond. To command the trees to pulverize their bodies. To force the earth to swallow them whole.
It becomes an obsession.
Every other hostile life I snuff out as I leave a wake of crimson on our trail holds no gratification for me any longer.
Edmund races past us, standing on the back of the other black dragon, almost entirely in his primal form except for his face. He laughs maniacally as he explodes trees within the enemy’s midst and throws out hundreds of sharp, woody projectiles from them. His fireballs shoot out alongside the flaming breath of the dragon.
I can’t help smiling at the insane bastard. He is all Tuatha Dé Danann craziness unleashed.
Possessive. Feral. Bold.
He has to suppress his true nature every other day of his life to be the good and just lord. The compassionate father.Today, he can be as crazy as he likes.
We attack the army for days across the northlands until they pass out of the ruins of Fort Blackrock and into the midlands. I drain my power multiple times on that mad pursuit. The army is severely fatigued when Edmund makes the call to stop their march.
I stand between him and Keira on the cracked pile of stone blocks that was once the pass of Fort Blackrock. Much of the fortifications hugging the mountains still stands, but the strategic defense of the thick iron gate and battlements above it are nothing more than rubble and ash.
Black soot marks everything, and its scent, mixed with the acrid tang of black powder, still hangs in the air.
“Are you sure about this?” I glance between Edmund and Keira. “We can slaughter that entire army if we continue our pursuit. Maybe even kill the mad king.” My fingers twitch to do exactly that.
Edmund turns rabid eyes on me, the ghosts of flames burning behind the green. “Don’t think I’m not tempted.”
Keira places a hand on my arm, forcing me to look at her. “If we fight into the midlands, the rest of the kingdom will rise up against us, assuming it is an invasion and a grab for the throne.”
I place my hands on either side of Keira’s face and look deep into her eyes. “Say the word and I will help you conquer this kingdom. Hell, I’ll bring in enough fae that you can own the entire realm if you desire it. Whatever you want, Keira, I will give it to you.”
Edmund raises an eyebrow at me, but says nothing. He is probably thinking the same thing.
Keira lets out a long sigh. “I want peace. I want time with you where no one is trying to kill us or tear us apart.”
A group of priestesses converges on her, and she is drawn away from me.
Edmund puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me behind them. I will never get used to this casual intimacy from the man who was once my captor.
“What do you plan to do next?” I ask.
“Rebuild this fortress and hope the mad king has learned his lesson.” Edmund pauses. “Prepare for another war.”
Those words hang heavy in the air, and I cannot deny the necessity of them.We triumphed. We gained a victory and bested the mad king’s army.
So why doesn’t it feel like we are winning the war?