7. Justice Is More Important than a Single Life
7. JUSTICE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN A SINGLE LIFE
RUSH
Entranced, I gaped at West and the familiar woman he clutched to his chest.
Ramana?
But … Ramana was dead—had been dead for two long, miserable years. I watched her die. I’d been there as West had cradled the love of his life across his lap and the essence faded from her eyes. I’d been the one to close her eyelids after they no longer contained my sister. A piece of my heart had splintered away in that moment.
It can’t be her. It just can’t. Can it?
Ramana was tall and strong bodied. She hadn’t learned to fight, not as Elowyn had; no female in the Mirror World ever did. But Ramana had possessed the essence of a fighter nonetheless. She’d rebelled against the queen’s regime, insisting that seeking justice for all was more important than any single person’s life.
The woman in West’s arms only vaguely resembled my dead sister. She was tiny and frail. Her face was tucked into my friend’s chest, a thick sheet of dark hair concealing most of her features, when Ramana's hair had been a dazzlingly bright blue.
“It can’t be,” I mumbled, my inner thoughts spilling over.
Larissa was still running toward us, slowed by having to weave her way around littered remains.
The woman in West’s embrace wore a filthy nightgown that clung to the many sharp bones pushing through her skin. She seemed little more than a skeleton—too weak, too thin, too eerily still.
Chest heaving, Larissa stumbled to my side. Automatically, I reached out to catch her. The other had curled its way back around Elowyn without my notice.
“It’s really her,” West told us, his voice a disbelieving croak.
When my eyes shifted to his, it was then that I knew—really knew. West’s eyes were vibrating, more alive than I’d seen them in two years. I read his immense relief and ball-numbing fear of losing her now that he had her again. It was exactly what I was feeling, and not just for Ramana, but for Elowyn too.
Larissa sidled up next to West. “How is this even possible?” Her question was a whisper when she’d been screaming before. She shook her head, her shock stark. “How is she alive?”
“We found her,” West said. “Following Elowyn’s map.”
My gaze jerked to my mate .
She said, “I activated it by connecting to you. Did you feel me?”
“Yes,” I answered. I hadn’t understood what sensing her had meant at the time, but oh how I’d felt her.
“Don’t touch her,” West warned urgently, and I snapped my attention back to him.
Larissa was frozen in place, the back of her hand a few inches from alighting on Ramana’s face.
“Why not?” I asked sharply. “What’s going on?”
“Ramana is alive, aye. Or at least I think she is. I fucking hope she is.” Grief swept across his face in a wave, pinching his eyes and mouth before it retreated. “But she’s taken over by something.”
“The queen’s magic, we think,” Ryder added, moving to stand beside West.
“There are four others like her,” West said, but when I looked I couldn’t decide to whom he might be referring. There were too many of them, of all shapes and sizes, and it was too dark.
“The others are asleep,” Ryder explained. “Only Ramana’s woken up. Kind of. We think it’s ‘cause of her connection to West. But when she was awake…” Ryder shifted nervously on his feet, something he rarely did. “Bro, her eyes were red. Like, not-good red. And you could see her veins under her skin, like a black blood-red.”
West kissed the top of Ramana’s filthy head. “It was really creepy,” Ryder continued. “She just sat there, not moving, not saying anything, staring off at nothing.”
I took a step closer, bringing Elowyn along with me. No way was I letting go of her anytime soon.
“How come you can touch her?” I asked West. “‘Cause you’re her mate?”
His eyes darted to mine; surprise arched his brows. Among ourselves, we’d never referred to his connection with Ramana that way. But now that I’d found what I was certain was my own mate, I couldn’t help but identify their bond as similar to my own.
His gaze back on Ramana, West eventually nodded. “I think so.”
Hiroshi joined us. “No one but West has touched her so far.” He rubbed his arm, the one Breccan cut off during the Gladius Probatio. Although Hiro had regrown the limb, and it appeared identical to the one he’d had before, I could tell it bothered him. He fretted over it when he was uneasy. “One of us had to touch the others to make sure they came with us, and thank the Ethers that didn’t cause any problems, but we shouldn’t take unnecessary risks. There’s something going on with all of them that we don’t understand, and the queen’s almost certainly behind it. Who knows what she’s capable of at this point…”
“Aye,” said Roan’s gruff voice before the dwarf sauntered into sight, scratching his beard. His tunic was torn at the shoulder, and blood soaked its edges. From the amount of blood, he was hurt, but not too badly.
“We gotta put a pause on the reunions and explanations,” Roan went on, staring up at the group of us intently. “The queen’s got a hard-on for our Elowyn here?—”
Rationally, I was fully aware that Roan meant no threat by saying “our Elowyn.” At another time, when I hadn’t only just been reunited with my mate after believing she might be dead or horribly maimed, I would have probably appreciated that my friends had grown fond of the woman with whom I intended to share a lifetime. But as it was, a growl ripped through me that I struggled to recognize as mine.
I felt every set of eyes land on me, even those peering out from the darkness. I grimaced at Roan in what I’d meant to be an apology but ended up being a baring of teeth.
But the dwarf only laughed good-naturedly and took a step back with his hands up, a gesture meant for the wild beast inside me, I thought, not the man.
“As I was sayin’,” he continued, lowering his hands to pat his ax, which hung heavily from his weapons belt. I hadn’t seen him without it since he was a teenager, when he’d first learned what kind of kingdom we really lived in. “We gotta move. Now that West has warned ya, let’s go. The queen’s gonna be on our asses as soon as she gets Az to tell ‘er where we landed. We’re on borrowed time.”
“Aren’t we always?” I grumbled in irritation.
Roan harrumphed. “So how we gonna get all of us out o’ here?” His neck was craned back, addressing Elowyn. “Can ya take us all to another place on yer map, there? ”
I pressed closer to Elowyn. “He’s seen your map?”
She tsked . “Easy, there. Yeah, he has. So has everyone else. But not like you think.”
What I was thinking was how I’d been as deep inside her as I could get when the glowing lines had erupted along her body—her very beautiful, very naked, very mine body.
She placed a hand on my chest. Automatically, I leaned into her touch.
“With my clothes on,” she clarified. “I reach my hand under my leathers, crazy man.” But her eyes glittered as they took me in, and I suspected she was picturing precisely what we’d been doing when the map first manifested.
A growl rumbled up my chest as I imagined claiming her right here, right this instant, no matter the consequences.
“Oh-kay,” Ryder said, stepping closer. “Obviously you guys have got some pent-up tension going on.”
“They probably need a mating ceremony to settle it,” Roan interjected. When I looked at him with a question in my eyes, he shrugged. “It’s what I’ve heard.”
“Anyway,” Ryder said pointedly. “More urgent matters and all. Rush, you’re just gonna have to keep your pants on for now. We need to get all of us out of here alive.”
“And there are a lot of us now,” Hiro said, glancing back toward the darkness that housed the innumerable cells .
“Okay. Right,” Elowyn said, squaring her shoulders against our invisible enemy: the queen, always the motherfucking queen. She dropped her hand from my chest. Instantly, I needed to touch her again.
Right. Keep it in your pants, Rush. Though my hands seemed to want to stretch toward her all on their own, I stuffed them into my pockets and forced them to stay there.
Focus. Life before love .
Elowyn hitched Saffron higher onto her back, where the dragonling clung to her like I wanted to, and glanced at a large, angry, hungry-looking dragon that had arrived with them.
“Maybe I can get him to help me talk to them. We can’t leave the other dragons behind,” Elowyn was saying. “We’ve gotta try to all get out of here now.”
“That’s a fine plan,” Hiro said. “But, El?—”
I tensed at his use of my endearment for her.
“There are a whole lot of dragons, and they’re in really bad shape. Rush and I got a decent look at them last time we were down here. We might have to accept that we’ll have to come back for them later.”
She scowled. “And what if there is no later? What if?—?”
“Our focus now has to be on getting you out of here safely,” I said hurriedly, before having the self-awareness to add, “Since you seem to be the only one the queen’s actually worried about. Our only true chance at bringing her down and saving the kingdom. You’re the true heir. ”
By the Ethers, what was happening to me? Did I have to sound like such an asshole, dammit? Like I only cared about her, when every single person and creature I loved in the entire Mirror World was here, save maybe my parents.
Fuck, Rush. Get your shit together!
Roan rubbed his beard and hummed. “Rush is right. Elowyn must come before the dragons. Before any of us. Without her, we’re all doomed anyway.”
“I’m no savior. Really,” Elowyn protested right away with a nervous laugh. “It’s not like that, guys.”
“Aye, it pretty much is from what we’ve seen, lassie,” Roan said. “We gotta leave the dragons for now.”
She was already shaking her head. “No. I won’t leave them. They need our help.”
“That, they most definitely do,” Hiro said. “But we’ll return for them.”
“And if we can’t?” Elowyn insisted, looking at me with big, imploring eyes I couldn’t resist. “I can’t condemn them to more of whatever she’s doing to them down here. I can’t .”
My heart squeezed at how noble and selfless she was. “Hiro and I vowed to free them, and we take our vows seriously.”
“Very,” Hiro interjected somberly.
“We will find a way to come back for them, whatever it takes,” I told her. “But we have to get you … and anyone else we can take … out now.”
She examined the deep shadows that hid the myriad cells. As if sensing her attention, several dragons whined and moaned from their depths. Then she studied the green dragon, barely visible from where he hunkered against the wall. Next she looked at the rest of us, slowing on Xeno, who started toward us with grim determination tightening his face. And finally, her attention landed on a pair of goblins, who huddled together. The male goblin was older than most seen at the palace, and when he nodded at her—his encouragement or approval, I couldn’t tell—she nodded back with her own fierce resolve.
She faced me. “Fine. I agree.” She held up a hand. “But … first I have to at least try.”
“There’s no time,” Ryder said at once.
“I know,” she snapped. “I get it. Totally do. I won’t try for long. Just give me three minutes. That’s it. If I can’t get them linked to me in that time, we’ll leave them—but only for now.”
Before any of us could do more objecting, stepping over bones and decaying appendages, she stalked over to the black dragon.
I was going after her before I registered that I was moving. Xeno was right behind me.
Elowyn had assured me that Xeno wasn’t going to try to interfere with our union, that she’d explained to him what I meant to her. But Xeno was a strong, objectively handsome man who seemed to be obsessed with my woman. The savage beast inside me I’d only recently discovered wanted to challenge the beast inside him. He was, after all, a changeling. My beast wanted to challenge his dragon and duel to the death.
I turned on him, unsure what I would do, if anything. When his stare remained fixed behind me, his eyes widening, I whirled back around.
My lungs squeezed. My stomach churned. My heart leapt into my throat.
“By the Ethers, El!” But my complaint was purposefully quiet. I wouldn’t risk interrupting her, distracting her for any reason.
My mate—my courageous, fucking incredible mate—was facing down the largest, fiercest, most formidable dragon I had ever seen.
I sent my lumoon racing over to illuminate the scene, and once it did, a shiver racked the length of my spine. Bravery was one thing, but this…
Atop the bones of dragons the queen had led us to believe were extinct, with a dragonling clinging to her back, Elowyn Xiomara Ashira, ever so obviously the fucking rightful heir to the throne of Embermere, bowed her head to the massive black dragon.
And even though I’d seen her do the exact same thing with a dragon in the throne room, my breath hitched in my chest and my heartbeat thundered.
Without conscious decision, and without wanting to hurt a dragon, but willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to save her, I drew the blade I’d given Gadiel, and my two throwing knives. Against a dragon, they might as well have been darning needles. Regardless, I clutched them and drew as near as I dared without distressing the animal.
I waited as the dragon studied her with the huge, dark, glittering eyes of a predator.
I waited as he scented the air far above her head.
Waited while he ran his tongue across teeth so sharp and so long I feared they could crunch through my mate in a single chomp.
Waited as he peered behind him into the darkness toward the cells that imprisoned his kind.
Waited as he stared at Elowyn some more, my breath straining in my chest.
Waited and waited and fucking waited .
Xeno drew up beside me. His every muscle was so taut, their lines bulged in the dim glow of my lumoon.
Ever so slowly, as if time were of no importance, as if Elowyn hadn’t allotted herself just three minutes, and as if the queen weren’t a cruel cunt of a bitch who might at this very moment be on her way to this hellhole of a pit?—
The black dragon lowered his head, inch by torturously slow inch.
He bared his teeth. I leaned forward. So did Xeno.
He closed his lips. I waited some more.
He puffed smoke from his nostrils. I exhaled sharply.
The entire time, Elowyn held still. Resolute, graceful, empowered. Stunning as fuck. She knelt on a bare patch of dirt-covered stone, her neck exposed to the beast above her that could kill her faster than I could intervene.
His neck was apparently the longest fucking thing in the entire Mirror World, because he was still craning it downward, closer to my love.
And then … when I couldn’t take it another second. When I bounced on the balls of my feet about to charge toward her. When Xeno bounced on his feet too…
The black dragon dipped his crested crown toward Elowyn.
His head was the length of her entire body. And yet the massive creature pressed his forehead ever so gently against hers.