19. Draconic Court
Draconic Court
LORELIE
Tendrils of flame danced between my fingers as I dove into the well of power Ellira had granted me access to, ensuring her daughter remained protected.
Pinching the air between my hands, I traced the manifesting chain that connected my two daggers.
Their hilts followed, nestled in my palms as a tongue of flame lapped at each tip.
“Your kind are such a hindrance,” Sorva’s son spat, shadows curling around his thighs and forearms. “Tell me, Lorelie Alreja, do you miss your home?”
The corner of my mouth twitched with a snarl. With my uptick in wrath, scales spread from my wrists to elbows, their iridescent sheen catching the sun’s rays. “The home that your poison has threatened to consume?”
His sinister grin grew. “Who’s to say Narvendor hasn’t been decimated by now? Your allegiance with the Damned is precisely why your lands have so rapidly deteriorated. Had the Fae, Divari, and Shifter races on your continent come together, then we wouldn’t be standing here, would we, dragon?”
I felt my canines elongate at his taunt, my abilities slightly asphyxiated by the Others’ influence on our mirrored realms. Knowing he was leveraging his words to draw forth my true form, something that would leave me exhausted and unable to protect, I swallowed the charring indignation that crawled up the back of my throat.
Spinning the weapons in each hand, I tugged once on the metallic links to indicate that I wasn’t putting up with his bullshit. “You indulge in speaking more than you do fighting, Evrexiths Draekhar.”
Dark brows furrowing, his ire became palpable as his shadows slithered through the long grass in the clearing. “How the fuck do you know my name?”
“Well, isn’t it quite improper for a lady not to learn a gentleman’s name?” I mocked as I slid the sharpened edges of my blades against each other, flames spewing. “I figured—”
He vanished from where he stood, reappearing in front of me seconds later.
My breath caught in my throat as his nose fell inches from mine, daggers slipping from my grasp at the shock his sudden closeness brought, a sensation I knew was fabricated.
As if acknowledging my thoughts, his emerald gaze held mine, hypnotic in a way that sent chills down my spine.
Knees buckling beneath me, the act occurring out of my control, he caught my frame, drawing me closer as his talons curled around my mind.
“Perfect. Come with me while I feast on your thoughts. Considering I have plenty to look for, by the time I’m finished,” he stroked his sharpened nails through my hair, “I’m not sure there will be anything left.”
Lids fluttering, I met his wielding with my own as he encroached on the walls surrounding my consciousness. Fire foamed in my palm, and with a scream of anguish, I slapped it against his left eye, shoving him away from me as his glamour faded.
The shifting relics I’d witnessed in the dungeons greeted me once more, darting across his body as if trying to aid him as he fumbled to gather his bearings.
Hand slapping over the area I assaulted, the all-seeing gleam of the iris burrowed in the back of it found my glare.
With its languid focus on me, Evrexiths muttered a slew of curses.
Each one was far more potent than the last, until his attention snapped to meet mine.
“Listen here, you little bitch. In case you’ve forgotten the shackles looped around your ankles that prohibit your arrival in Narvendor, let me remind you just how easily it is for me to shift between realms.” Shoulders heaving with each influx of air, his ashen skin was far more decrepit-looking than in the shadows.
“I will gut every single dragon on that continent, starting with your fucking brother.”
Rage unfurled within me, so potent that flames spewed from my mouth with the reply I uttered. “You will not touch him.”
Evrexiths flinched, his polluted essence battling my purity. “Ironic, really. As an elder brother, let alone one who plucked you from the street like the pitiful cunt you are, shouldn’t he be the one doing the protecting?”
“You know nothing.”
“Oh, but I know all,” he crooned. “As a child, you consistently wondered why your complexion never matched his or his parents’, who so readily accepted you.
Only when you were of age and had your first bleed, did he elect to disclose that you were adopted.
But knowing the horrific dragon of Narvendor, bound to Xanthus Sane, is a flawless dark-skinned male when he is not shifted, truly shows how utterly na?ve you are, girl. ”
My jaw tightened, nostrils flaring at the insult his implication carried. He was pecking at my sense of belonging, at the fear I harbored in losing the only family I’d come to know as my own—a family that had always treated me as if I had been born into it, not brought.
The ones the Others had robbed me of seeing.
Flicking my arm out to the side, my sword bloomed to life, combining the two elements I’d accepted as mine—water and fire—the lineage of my bloodline and the essence of those I’d grown up with.
Hilt etched in intricate silver detailing, its cobalt hue spliced down the middle before arching to form the sharpened apex.
Waterfalling down the spine, it pooled outward, coating the otherwise flaming blade.
The inferno that the opposing element worked to calm accentuated the crossguard, lapping at the pure steel with searing hunger.
Its tendrils threatened to consume its lengthened frame, serving as a clear indicator of my bloodlust.
I moved without so much as giving Evrexiths a moment of contemplation, raising my weapon at an unavoidable angle. Water pierced his chest first, followed by the raging heat of all I’d come to embody throughout my years in the Draconic court.
As he darted from the complete path of my steel, the two elements clashed.
A scream ripped from him as my bloodline and opposing lineage feasted on the wickedness in his lineage to purge him of all nefariousness.
Hand slapping against the fresh wound, he heaved, a black, coagulated substance spewing from his lips.
Wiping at his mouth with the back of his arm, his pulsing glower found me once more, the thirst for decimation prevalent in its rippling hues.
With a leveling inhale and the knowledge that I only had one chance, I swung once more with his neck my target.
Heels grounded into the earth, my body moved fluidly with the momentum, one foot lifting to follow through with my perfected blow.
But just as it peeled from the ground, a portal opened in front of me, its spiraling darkness swallowing me whole.
My surroundings became inky, proximity and direction no longer decipherable. Free-floating in what felt like an endless abyss, I kept my weapon poised and ready for his next strike, but when light found me once more and I swung, it was not for Sorva’s son.
Monolid eyes greeted me, their color swallowed by an impenetrable brown. Peering down the length of my sword and where it settled against his pulse point, the man’s moonlight-kissed skin blanched at the nearing reach of Elaros’s hand.
“Lorelie, stop!” a voice—Kael—shouted.
Before I could withdraw to disclose I wasn’t the threat I made myself out to be, a booted foot collided with my side with enough force to steal my oxygen.
A sharp crack followed, agony exploding across my ribs as I slammed against a light-wash, stone partition.
The wheeze I released was halted as a dagger settled flush against my throat, vicious green irises penetrating my soul.
“I don’t give a fuck who you are. Royalty or some feigned princess, I will butcher you if you so much as breathe in either of their directions,” Rohen seethed, her other hand flattening beside my head.
“Let me make something clear—whether you saved us back there or damned us, I don’t discriminate.
Men, women, non-binary… I’ll spool your intestines from your gut and use them to hoist our next sail if you so much as contemplate harming those I care for. ”
Unable to prevent my lips from curving upward, I offered her a non-threatening smile. “Lovely to officially meet you in the flesh, Rohen Levitte.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to—”
“Rohen!” Kael barked, his footfalls approaching. “For hell’s sake, she isn’t a godsdamned threat! Put your dagger away!”
As if she valued the former prince more than enforcing her dominance or satiating her ego, she pulled away from me. Flipping the hilt between her fingers in a way that highlighted her capabilities, her gaze swept over me with billowing disapproval.
“That’s your only warning.”
Rubbing at my throat, my grin did not fall. “I would expect nothing less from you, and as much as I wish to indulge you as to why, we have an artifact to look for, do we not?”
The three of them looked at me, dumbfounded, Kael’s mouth opening and closing as he tried but failed to find a response.
Rohen’s further suspicion became palpable as her grip tightened around the dagger she had yet to put away.
But it was the male I’d nearly killed upon my arrival who spoke with a level mind.
“Do you have an idea of where it is that we need to look?”
With the subtle dip of my chin, I said, “Yes, I do. I’m acquainted with the Goddess of the Sea. Follow me.”
To which Rohen only scowled.