32. Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Two
Eldrake
The warmth of my soul had been ripped away, leaving only a cold, merciless void.
She was gone. My Eva. And nothing would stand between me and getting her back. I didn’t know what she’d heard—just that it was enough to break her. The lie… or the truth.
Either way, it was my fault.
“Where is she?!” I roared at the gathered villagers. My voice echoed like thunder off the stone walls, laced with a feral edge I barely recognized as my own. They flinched, fingers trembling as they pointed toward the cavern’s exit.
They didn’t understand what was coming—what would happen to anyone who dared harm her. White-hot rage seared through my veins, but it wasn’t reckless. This was the focused burn of a warrior. Every thought, every breath, every beat of my heart narrowed to a singular purpose: bring her back.
I tore through the sewers, my boots slamming into the brick with punishing force. Julian and Avod trailed behind, shouting something I didn’t hear. The stink of rot and old blood hung in the air, but I only smelled her—honeysuckle and heat, still clinging faintly to the stone.
My mate. My everything.
I rounded a corner—and froze.
A foul stench hit me. Blood. Sulfur. Magic twisted wrong. Then I saw it: her tracks in the grime, suddenly ending. The drag marks. The struggle.
“No. No!” the words cracked from my throat. I dropped to my knees, my fingers scraping at the filth like I could claw time backward. My breath came in ragged, stuttering gasps.
“What?! What is it?!” Julian’s voice snapped behind me.
“Vyper found her.” My voice was barely a growl, trembling with fury. I staggered to my feet, my fists clenching until the bones in my hand cracked. “Fuck!”
I drove my fist into the stone wall. It shattered with a deafening crack, shards raining down around me.
“Please, Gods,” I whispered. “No.”
Tears blurred my vision, but they weren’t weakness. They were molten. They were war.
I saw her face—smiling, brave, soft. I remembered how she curled against me in sleep, how she whispered my name like it meant something.
All of it—ripped away.
Julian inhaled sharply. “If Vyper has her… then the King has access to a Seer.”
He looked between Avod and me, his voice grave. “He’ll exploit her magic to create more Vyrmin. Or he’ll kill her to keep her from helping us.”
The image of her—dead, alone, afraid—sent a sound ripping from me that wasn’t human. A Dragon’s grief. A promise of destruction.
“It’s okay, Drake. We’ll find her,” Avod said, placing a hand on my shoulder.
I shrugged it off with a snarl. I didn’t want comfort.
I wanted blood.
“I’m going after her.” My voice scraped like metal. I bolted toward the surface, every step fueled by purpose.
“At least take Avod with you!” Julian called after me.
I didn’t slow, but I heard the thunder of Avod’s boots behind me. Good. He knew what was at stake.
Back on the ship, I moved on instinct. My hands trembled slightly as I buckled on my armor, but my focus never broke.
Each strap fastened with brutal finality.
My blades clicked into place like punctuation marks on a vow.
Avod stood in silence. He knew better than to speak.
I wasn’t the same man I’d been yesterday.
That man had smiled. That man had slept.
He was gone.
As I fastened the last strap, a single tear carved a hot trail down my cheek. I didn’t wipe it away. “I can’t lose her, Avod,” I said, my voice low and raw.
“I know,” he replied. “We won’t.”
My Star-Glow pulsed, blazing with a light that belonged to something ancient and furious. The dragon inside me roared to the surface, its rage folding into my very being.
Vyper had taken what was mine. And I would burn the world to get her back.
No one— no one —gets between a Dragon and his mate.
The heavy stone door sealed Riftreach behind us, and with it, the fragile peace I’d clung to. The cold bit at my skin as we emerged into the wilderness, but I welcomed it. The chill kept me focused—held back the fire threatening to consume me.
I strode forward with purpose, my shoulders squared, my jaw set. Avod’s gaze lingered on me, wary but silent for the moment. The only sound was our boots hurriedly crunching over loose gravel, the silence a taut string between us.
At the city gates, a stablehand met us with a knowing nod, producing two Riftborn-bred horses. Their pale coats shimmered under the moonlight, spectral and silent.
“Drake,” Avod muttered, his voice low. “We should stick to the shadows.”
“No time for shadows,” I growled. “We ride.”
As we mounted, Avod shot me a sidelong glance. “You know where we’re going?”
“I smelled sulfur and blood in the sewers,” I said grimly, gripping the reins tightly. “Vyper’s creatures reek of it. I’ll follow the trail.”
Avod raised an eyebrow. “You’re tracking him like prey?”
“He is prey,” I said, my voice low and hard.
We rode hard into the wilderness, the rhythmic pounding of hooves echoing through the stillness of the night like a drumbeat of war.
The air was crisp, laden with the faint, earthy scent of damp leaves and moss.
As we pressed deeper, the forest closed in around us, their gnarled limbs like dying hands.
The canopy above was dense, blotting out the moonlight and casting the path in shadow, but our Riftborn horses moved with unerring precision.
They were bred for this—fast, silent, tireless—sure-footed as ghosts.
The terrain grew more rugged as we pushed on, the once-firm path giving way to uneven ground littered with jagged rocks and tangled roots. The horses barely faltered, their muscles rippling with each stride as they carried us over obstacles with grace.
The forest seemed alive, watching us with an unseen presence.
Every crack of a twig and rustle of leaves made my hand twitch toward my blade.
This wasn’t just nature’s song; something lurked out here, hidden in the shadows, its foul presence prickling the edges of my senses.
The deeper we rode, the fouler the air became.
Damp leaves, wet stone… and beneath it, the rot of something unnatural.
Avod broke the silence. “You sure we’re on the right path?” His voice was low, cautious.
I nodded, scanning the forest floor as we rode. “The stench of sulfur lingers. They passed through here.”
Clawed footprints marked the ground. Drag marks. Blood. I crouched, running my fingers through the soil. The scent hit me like a hammer—decay, bile, and a faint hint of Honeydew—her scent.
“Fresh,” I growled. “They were here recently.” We pressed on, cutting through thick brush until we reached a clearing.
The stream that wound through it ran sluggish and dark; its banks clawed with gouges.
Bark hung in bloody strips from nearby trees.
Carcasses—deer, foxes—lay torn and partially devoured.
Dark, congealed blood stained the roots.
“Here,” I said, pointing to the carnage. “They stopped. Likely fed,” remnants of a meal—raw, partially consumed animals, their carcasses were torn apart in ways that made my stomach churn.
Avod crouched beside the marks, his expression grim.
“Vyper’s beasts don’t kill cleanly. They enjoy the taste of suffering.
” Hours passed in a blur of relentless pursuit.
We encountered more signs of the creatures’ passage—another shredded deer carcass, its bones picked clean, a patch of ground trampled into a muddy mess of clawed footprints.
I sniffed the air and was met with the rotten scent of the beasts.
“They’re close,” I said, my voice low. My eyes scanned the edges of the clearing.
“We should move,” Avod said, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade.
“No,” I said, stepping forward. “They’re planning an ambush. We wait.”
We led our horses deep into the underbrush, the dense foliage muffling the night’s stillness.
The undergrowth muffled sound, but not enough.
Every breath I drew felt like bait. Every heartbeat landed too loud, too careless.
I shifted my stance, weight rolling to the balls of my feet, and let the silence wrap me tight.
My senses burned sharp with the anticipation of the hunt.
Every snap of a twig, every rustle of the wind through the trees was a warning. Somewhere close, they hunted us.
Avod crouched low, blade drawn now, his gaze narrowing into the dark. “They’re watching us,” he muttered.
“I know.” My fingers brushed the hilt of my sword.
The leather grip was familiar, grounding.
The longer the silence stretched, the more my body itched to break it.
Every instinct screamed at me to move first, to strike before they could.
But they wanted that. They wanted us blind, swinging at shadows.
So I waited.
Sweat ticked down my spine despite the chill. I kept my eyes on the tree line, breathing slow, steady, trying to bleed the tension out of my muscles before it made me careless. And then?—
Movement.
A shadow peeled itself from the forest floor. Hunched, malformed, limbs jerking with a sick wrongness, like a puppet pulled by uneven strings. Its head lolled, then snapped up too fast. Two burning coals flared in the dark—red eyes, glowing with unnatural hunger.
Another followed, this one gaunt to the point of grotesque, its skeletal frame draped in tatters of fabric that clung to its rotted flesh. The stench of decay rolled off them in waves, mingling with the sharp tang of my fury.
“Stay back,” I growled at Avod, my voice edged with an unnatural ferocity. He hesitated but nodded, gripping his hammer.
I stepped forward, my blade sliding free in one fluid motion. The steel glimmered in the faint moonlight. The Vyrmin hissed, crouching low as they prepared to strike. Their movements were quick but not quick enough.
The first lunged, claws aimed for my throat.
I met its charge with a roar, my blade slicing cleanly through its arm.
A sickening screech erupted as the severed limb hit the ground, black ichor spraying across the forest floor.
It shrieked raw and gurgling. The other Vyrmin circled, its glowing eyes watching for an opening.
It darted toward me faster than the first, but my rage made me faster still.
With a guttural snarl, I spun, catching it mid-leap with a fiery arc of my blade.
The force of the strike sent it crashing into a tree, its body crumpling lifelessly.
“Is that all?” I spat, my chest heaving, adrenaline roaring through my veins. But the battle wasn’t over.
More figures emerged from the shadows, their twisted forms shuffling toward us with guttural growls. Three. Five. A dozen.
Then the fire inside me snapped its leash.
A surge of heat, blinding and overwhelming, erupted from deep within. Flames licked at the edges of my vision, my rage pouring forth like a tidal wave. I let it consume me.
A guttural roar ripped from my throat as fire exploded from my hands, engulfing the nearest Vyrmin. The flames danced and twisted, their screams filling the night as the stench of burning flesh filled the air.
My skin burned hot, more scales erupting along my arms, my fingers elongated, claws bursting from my knuckles. I felt my jaw stretch, my teeth turn to blades, and my senses sharpen to a feral clarity. I was no longer just a man. I had become something more, something primal.
A Vyrmin lunged, but I caught it mid-air, slamming it into the ground with enough force to crack its bones. Another swiped at me, but my claws raked across its chest, splitting it open and spilling its black ichor.
Then, I burned. Fire erupted from my mouth, a torrent of rage turned flame. The forest lit with screams as my flames tore through the beasts, consuming them in a wall of light and death. The clearing became a battlefield of ash.
When the last screech faded into silence, I stood amidst the carnage, my chest heaving, the scent of charred flesh and blood filling my nostrils.
Slowly, the fire in my veins ebbed, and I felt the beast recede.
My claws shrank back into hands, the scales receded from my arms, and the world returned to focus.
The fire had barely receded from my veins when my knees buckled. The world tilted sideways. The smell of scorched flesh, blood, and earth clung to the inside of my nose like a curse. My vision narrowed, and the last thing I saw was Avod’s face—wide-eyed, cursing—as he rushed toward me.
Then, darkness.