9. Splendorous Shiny Fuckballs and Every Ounce of Glorious Mercy!
9. SPLENDOROUS SHINY FUCKBALLS AND EVERY OUNCE OF GLORIOUS MERCY!
ELOWYN
The dungeon disappeared in a nauseating swirl. This time I lacked the luxury of falling apart. With more strength than I believed I possessed, I ignored the overwhelming sensations that implied my body was disintegrating. I focused only on three actions: bringing Rush with us, allowing the magic of the map to proceed uninterrupted, and ensuring I wasn’t going to land on the sensitive little dragonling who’d been wrapped around my back when the dungeon vanished.
The duration of our travel was at once much too short and far too long. Pru’s rope that had linked me to Rush was severed. But Rush and I were connected to each other regardless, weren’t we? Sure, our mate bond wasn’t a tangible, physical manifestation such as the rope. But it was very real nonetheless. I felt it, and Rush felt it. According to lore, mates were two parts of a greater whole. Their destinies were inextricably intertwined.
And so I did my best to hold on to Rush and my love for him—his love for me. I envisioned myself casting my own cord to my beloved. Our connection was greater than the physical world: it preceded it. We were forever bound, his essence tied to mine. All Rush had to do was know it—and hold the fuck on.
Next, my stomach heaved, and I was plummeting into darkness. I turned to my front, landing so hard my chin slammed onto the floor, snapping my teeth shut around my tongue. Pain flared with the tang of blood. I groaned. I hadn’t been able to twist completely, and I was partially lying on one side with my knee bent. I hoped to the rising sun that Saffron was all right, but I couldn’t move to check. My tongue was stinging like I’d bitten it off instead of merely clamped on it. By a dragon’s claws, I hoped I hadn’t actually caused lasting damage. I had too many wounds to keep track of without tacking on new ones. I lay there just breathing, waiting for the pain from my tongue and every joint that had gotten jolted to pass, for my wits to settle into place and the nausea to recede.
“Uuuuuuugggghhh,” a male grunted before coughing raggedly. “Please tell me we’ve never got to do that again.” It sounded like Ryder, or maybe West.
Our new surroundings were musty and dim. The smell of mildew and stale bodies suggested we’d arrived in another of the queen’s power-draining sites. When no one answered Ryder or West, I guessed the trip had been as hard on them as it had been on me. Long seconds passed before more groans and pained moans arrived, along with my renewed alarm.
Rush! I attempted to call for him, but what slipped out around my still throbbing tongue sounded more like a death rattle than his name.
“By the Ethers,” a man rasped. “My sword almost ended up in my ass.” It was Ryder, definitely Ryder. “ Not the way I intend to go.”
More groans, and then West said, “Still better than what the bitch would’ve done to you if she’d gotten her hands on you.” He grunted. “She wouldn’t have stopped till she’d managed to”— cough, cough —“turn your ass inside out. And then she’d ram a sword through it.”
“Thank-s for the pr-etty picture,” Ryder croaked, his voice stronger despite the breaks in it.
“Rush,” I tried again. This time it was intelligible but too faint.
“E-el?”
Splendorous shiny fuckballs and every ounce of glorious mercy! Despite the hitch to it, I would recognize that beautiful, deep voice anywhere.
“Rush?”
“El?”
Something bubbled out of me that was part relieved gasp, part broken sob, and part agonized cry. I’d never made a sound like it before in my life. “By scorching sunshine, you made it!” I laughed a little as a tear rolled down my cheek onto the floor, which felt like cool dirt. Inching my hands beneath my chest, I pushed up—only to collapse. Fine . I’d get up in a minute. At least the weight against my back implied that Saffron was right where I’d left him.
“I was so worried you wouldn’t make it,” I told Rush, my words pointed at the floor.
“Yeah,” he grunted. Shuffling sounds suggested he might be pushing to sit or stand. “I was worried I’d get left behind too. Are you alright?” His voice was far away, but nothing like in the cavern. He was close enough that he might share a room with me.
“Yeah. Fine.” Maybe . Eventually . “How’s everyone else?”
A mishmash of grunts, groans, croaks, coughs, and ugh s arrived in reply.
It took monumental effort, but I got my palms back under me and pushed up. I wobbled but held firm, already rubbing Saffron’s arms, still wrapped around my neck. After loosening his grip so he wasn’t choking me, I squeezed him.
“You okay, boy?”
He snuffled against the back of my neck and nuzzled closer.
“Thank sunshine.” I swallowed around a relieved lump in my throat. Rush had made it, and Saffron was okay. “There are so many of us now. Let’s sound off in case anyone needs help. Saffron’s accounted for.” I began with the most vulnerable, size-wise anyway. “Zafi?”
“Mmmmmmghhhhphft,” came the squeaky complaint.
“Larissa?”
“Here.”
“Ramana and the four other sleepers?”
“All here,” West said. “As am I, Ry, and Hiro.”
“Xeno?” I asked.
“Here, Wyn.”
“Pru? Edsel?”
“Both here,” Edsel answered.
“Reed?”
“Here.”
“Roan?”
“I made it, lass, though me bollocks might never be the same after that journey.”
“Tell me about it,” Ryder muttered.
“Bertram?” I had no idea if the giant frog would understand or answer?—
“ Waaawaaa-aaa .” His croak was a bit rougher than usual, but otherwise okay-sounding.
“Bolt?”
He neighed.
“Thank the Ethers,” Rush muttered. It was his stallion he’d sent into the Sorumbra with me.
“Einar?” I asked.
“Who’s Einar?” asked Ryder.
“The big black dragon.”
“I don’t see ‘im,” Roan said.
Rush materialized a lumoon, and shortly after several others surged, dispelling much of the dimness. We were crammed into yet another large, dusty room. Wooden planks made up the walls that enclosed us, a few tiny pinholes of daylight streaming through. Familiar unmarked crates and sacks rested against a couple of the walls, and three doors lined the adjoining hallway. They were closed. No beds or “sleeping” fae occupied the space.
There was no big, black dragon. Nor did I find the green dragon either, for that matter. I did, however, spot Azariah. And at the unisus’ side was Ivar, somehow still astride his horse. The sight of him wasn’t as ass-clenching as seeing the queen, but it was close.
“Guys,” I exclaimed, “we’ve got a major problem. Look who’s hiding in the corner behind Azariah and Bolt.”
Several fuck s erupted into the shocked silence that followed my announcement. Scuffs and shuffles scraped the floor as warriors stood, several blades drawn with soft shwiiiing s. With somewhat unsteady steps, Rush, Hiroshi, Ryder, and Roan charged.
Ivar clutched a cutlass in each hand. The light of the lumoons gleamed along their sharp, curved blades. With a fierce snarl contorting his angular face, he kicked his horse’s ribs hard. The stallion leapt forward.
There was nowhere to go. The room might be large enough to fit most of us like arrows in a quiver, but it was still only at most thirty feet wide?—
Ivar’s warhorse leapt over a wooden table, the sole piece of furniture in the room. Wood crunched and splintered as Edsel and Pru scurried out of the way. Tossing his head, rearing, and stomping his muscular forelegs, the steed was heading straight for me .
I flicked frantic looks around me. Dammit, there was no escape! I was pinned between his advance and a wall.
Hiroshi, Ryder, and Roan dove out of the way of the thundering hooves, crashing into Bertram, Bolt, and Azariah. Rush, however, flashed a glance at me, regret tugging on his eyes. His tattoos glowed in a sudden surge of thorny vines before he rolled along the floor, popped up onto a knee—and lunged into the horse’s stampeding path, dragging a dagger along the animal’s front and back legs.
The stallion keened in a heartbreaking pitch as his legs buckled.
Rush twisted out of the way. When he rose to a crouch, gripping the dagger as if ready to attack again, my held breath released in a sharp exhale.
Blood, the same deep, rich hue as a dragon’s, coated the edge of Rush’s blade. The violet ichor spread along the horse’s dragon-like scales, slickening them.
Ivar spurred him again, urging his steed forward, blood splattering his boots. Stumbling, the animal bleated in agony at the blows Ivar inflicted while Reed shouted, “Stop that!”
Ivar only kicked more, until the horse cantered ahead—toward a solid wooden wall. The queen’s advisor dipped his head and said something into the stallion’s ear. The horse reared while Ivar leaned onto his back to stay on. The horse’s hindleg trembled but held, stomping down onto the planks with a booming crash .
The wall cracked. Again, and this time the planks broke, the rough edges tearing at the slice in the creature’s leg. Ivar lowered his head to his ear another time, then the horse clamored up and over the debris with unsteady steps—and staggered outside.
Ivar was escaping. While I had no desire whatsoever to be in his presence, worse was to have the queen’s most trusted confidant free and plotting our demise. As I deliberated if and how we should catch him, Xeno loped past me. He didn’t slow as he jumped through the opening in the wall. He landed lightly despite his bulk—ever the warrior, trained from the time he could first walk to defend dragons—and tore off after Ivar, pulling his shirt over his head and letting it fall as he ran.
Several of the others opened a door that led to the outside and hastened through. Yet others exited via the hole in the wall after Xeno. I was among them.
Just as I was noticing that Rush wasn’t with us, Bolt leapt over the broken planks, clearing them in one jump, and landed gracefully, zigging to the left to avoid the crowd of us gathering outside the cabin, and galloped after Ivar and Xeno with a burst of speed. His muscles rippled beneath slashes of scars that hadn’t been there when I’d left him in the Sorumbra. The stallion charged along a faint path that wound into the dense forest surrounding us. Rush leaned low across his back while branches whipped at them as they flew past.
Xeno’s pants lay shredded across a gnarled tree root, next to his boots, which were intact, suggesting he’d paused to kick those off at least before shifting. A roar I’d heard many times before in Nightguard bellowed farther along the path, out of sight, scattering birds to the sky in droves and sending critters scampering into underbrush.
The thundering footfalls of the horses faded.
I looked at the others, relieved to find Ramana in West’s arms, her eyes closed, and the four other sleeping fae hovering beside Roan. Aside from how defeated Azariah looked, everyone else outside appeared unharmed. Saffron snuffled along my nape.
But where were Einar and the green dragon? Since Rush had made it, would the green dragon have done so too? My mate had been touching him…
“Einar,” I called out loudly, turning in a circle. The trees were tall here, towering over us. “Einar,” I shouted again.
With a thunderclap, a tree snapped from the opposite side of the cabin. My heartbeat sped up. The tree crashed to the ground hard enough to shake the earth. Leaves rustled violently as the canopy smashed against the ground—and ripped through the roof of the cabin.