Chapter 40
Chapter
Forty
The bitch dropped her on a ledge.
Another fucking ledge.
Christ!
Ash shivered and gritted her teeth against the pain in her ribs.
The wind howled off the mountain peaks, tearing at her hair. The drop below was so steep her stomach heaved.
Hastily, Ash shuffled on her sore backside away from the broken, perilous edge, grasped the parapet stones, and climbed to her feet, her sides screaming as if she’d been stabbed with several daggers.
Breathing slowly, she took in her surroundings…
Atop a lonely tower, high in the heavy clouds—miles from everything. The cracked stone floor was slick with dampness. One wrong turn, and she’d be red confetti on those knife-edged rocks far, far below. Wonderful.
Vaesarra’s furious roar split the sky, the force of her breath lashing over the tower like a gale.
“Oh, sod off already!” Ash shouted, her ribs giving a vicious throb of protest.
The she-dragon hit the parapet in a cyclone of wind, and Ash’s booted feet skidded across the wet granite—she grabbed the crenels before she pitched over the edge.
Bloody sack of scales!
That car-sized head snapped toward Ash as if hearing her. Then the blasted red dragon melted into a very naked Vaesarra, her pale skin visible in the dark, her sinuous beauty as lethal as a cobra’s.
Ash spat her wind-tossed hair from her mouth, every nerve buzzing. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Preserving my reign as queen.” Vaesarra smiled as if she already wore the crown. “With you gone, I’ll support Eracier during his time of sorrow. Be everything he needs.”
“You’re delusional.”
Vaesarra sashayed across the darkened, debris-scattered stone floor to a faded black, wind-torn flag on a bent pole and yanked it free. She draped it around herself like a toga, tying it over one shoulder.
“Fitting, don’t you think?” Her lips curved as she smoothed her hands down her hips, as if it were a bloody ballgown. “History reborn on my shoulders. I will be queen again.”
Ash snorted, clenching her prickling fingers. The dark cloud above roiled in response to her fury. “Oh, yes. Tattered flag, tattered morals. You’re a walking tragedy.”
Vaesarra’s stare scorched her like a living flame. “Careful, mortal. Or I’ll make you bleed before I kill you.”
Yeah? Well, I’m not done with you, you pompous lizard.
“What did you mean when you said you sold your soul to Malcarion?” Ash asked.
The she-dragon’s lips thinned. “Do not speak of what you know nothing about, human.”
“You sold Race out, didn’t you?” she baited. “He told you it was over after your pathetic power ultimatum, and you, what? Went running to the nearest dragon lord with the hots for you, with your woes—so, you gave Malcarion the palace?”
Vaesarra’s face turned parchment white, then twisted red with rage. “How dare you?”
Oh, dear God!
The truth hit Ash like a punch in the stomach. Bile rushed up her throat. She’d been grasping at straws, expecting Vaesarra to say Malcarion blackmailed her or something. Not this.
“Oh, I dare.” Fury scorched Ash’s blood at what her mate had suffered because of this bitch.
The clouds above churned in response. “You power-hungry slag! You were furious that he discarded you like yesterday’s trash.
So, you ran to the bastard who promised you a throne, didn’t you?
” Lightning spat from her fingertips, striking the woman’s flag dress. “Tell me, V, was it worth it?”
Vaesarra shrieked and backhanded her, the blow snapping Ash’s head sideways, pain ricocheting through her jaw and skull.
White-hot anger raged. Ash summoned her dagger and hurled it. Obsidian steel flashed, burying deep in Vaesarra’s chest.
The she-dragon froze, blinked in disbelief, then wrenched it free and flung it aside, shrieking. Scales erupted along her jaw. Claws burst from her hands. She swung.
Ash ducked, pain tearing through her throbbing side.
Power surged to her fingertips; she thrust both hands upward, drawing on the storm.
Lightning flashed over the tower in a fiery blaze, striking Vaesarra in a sizzle of electricity.
The thunderous explosion of crashing clouds drowned out her scream.
“Mortal filth!” The bitch struck hard, her deadly talons slicing Ash across her already injured ribs, sending her crashing against a broken pillar. Agony flared white-hot.
Ash gritted her teeth, breathing through her pain as she straightened. Blasted hag! She lifted her hands, letting her powers surge into the churning clouds. Lightning forked again, searing the air between them.
Vaesarra’s wings burst free.
“Pathetic,” she hissed. “Eracier is of the old gods’ line, a sovereign. And you—you’re nothing but human vermin. Storm Summoner or not!”
The blow hit like a shockwave—a massive wing slamming into Ash. The air blasted from her lungs as she skidded across the damp, charred stone and slammed into the broken rampart.
“Shit!” She clawed at the crumbling edge, fingers digging into loose rubble—
Terror consumed her. She lashed out with lightning, the bolt snapping upward and coiling around one of Vaesarra’s wings—pure instinct, a drowning person’s desperate grab at anything—
The stone gave way.
Ash fell with a sickening speed down, toward the jagged bottom.
A scream split the storm as Vaesarra was wrenched over the edge seconds later, her wing aflame, lassoed by lightning.
Race, help me! Ash shrieked through their mind-link.
Just silence. And the winds howling in her ears.
“Oh, God, oh, God—Race, please!” she cried out, her voice breaking.
I’m coming, heart-fire… Hold on! His faint voice finally reached her. Where are you—?
She crashed into granite, her head cracking against the rock.
Agony ripped through her left arm, and she cried out, scrambling for a handhold with her right, fingers clawing at the surface and catching the narrow shelf.
She clung to it with the last of her strength as her vision dimmed at the edges.
And it hit her hard. If I let go, I’m dead—
No. Race must know the truth. V…betrayed…Mal—
Vaesarra screeched past, the sound tearing through the wind. But unable to fly with her shredded wing, she grabbed a lower ledge, clawing her way back up and catching the same shelf Ash clung to.
Smoke curled from her burned wing, her expression feral. “Wretched human, so easily brought down. Eracier isn’t coming for you!”
Ash barely heard her as her grip slipped. Her broken left arm dangled uselessly, every breath stabbing her ribs like knives.
Vaesarra clawed at Ash’s fingers, trying to pry them loose. Teeth clenched, she forced lightning up her arm. It sparked and dimmed.
“All will believe I was the victim,” Vaesarra shrieked as the winds picked up. “You must die so the truth dies with you. My miscalculation with Malcarion will never be discovered!” She wrenched harder. “Eracier can never know I brought Lemuria down.”
Ash’s nails tore against the stone, her fingertips bloody, her strength bleeding out. Her chest cinched tight, her vision fading as her hold faltered, the bitch tugging at her. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—hold much longer.
Her power guttered like a dying storm.
Then the mate-bond flared, molten-hot. Race’s roar thundered through her mind. Hold on—just hold, heart-fire. I’m close!
“No…” Her voice broke, tears blurring her vision. He wasn’t close enough. He would never make it in time.
Her fingers skated farther along the surface, too slick with blood—
And then there was nothing.
She fell, arms flailing, a scream tearing from her throat—
Vaesarra caught her wrist, and Ash blinked up at her, meeting her cruel smile. She crouched on the shelf now, letting Ash dangle from a deathly plunge.
“Scared, little human?” She laughed. “You should be. This is what happens when weak creatures try to climb beyond their place.”
Spiteful…bitch.
Ash gritted her teeth, forcing her mind past the haze of pain, past the terror, to what mattered most. If she died like this, she would drag Race to his death, as well. Their joined souls guaranteed that.
She couldn’t do that to him.
You can sever the bond if one of you is mortally wounded. Echo’s voice cut through her mind. Sharp. Clear. Find the warm thread within you, snap it—
Vaesarra let go. “Goodbye, human.”
Tears dripped, stolen by the winds as Ash plunged to the jagged peaks below. Death came at a dizzying speed. Through her pain and the darkening thoughts, she reached inward, found the glowing thread of their soul bond deep within her—
I love you.
With her mind, she snapped the tether.
Agony, unlike anything she’d ever known, ripped through her chest. Her scream became Race’s answering roar of despair.
The world dimmed as darkness swallowed her.
Race fought the backdraft, desperate to reach Ash as he followed the tug of their mate bond. His head still throbbed from the cave-in, vision blurring at the edges, but adrenaline drove him harder toward the mountains.
His mate was in danger.
Through their bond, her terror and dread gutted him. Fuck! He circled faster around the mountain range. Down which fucking abyss had she fallen?
Then something tugged at him. He had no idea what the fuck it was.
He followed it to a ruined lookout post—and then down into the abyss, reckless in flight, heedless of his wings tearing through low clouds and slamming against granite.
Ash! he begged through their mind-link. Hold on, my heart—
Agony unlike any other ripped through his chest.
He roared mid-flight, the force of it cracking through him like a blade cleaving bone. Worse than the wounds he sustained from the falling ceiling of the secret chamber—worse than Tartarus. His wings faltered, the gale buffeting him sideways.
I love you, a faint whisper echoed in the winds.
Then nothing.
Remnants of her energy—fading threads in the air—reached him yet left him adrift. No tether.
No, no, no—Ash! Race propelled harder down the ragged mountain walls. He couldn’t fucking dematerialize. Malcarion’s dark magic still clung to him like tar, but that didn’t matter. He would reach her. He had to.
He fought against the blasted backdraft—wings thrashing harder, but every fucking thing worked against him.
Their bond was gone.
Her warmth, her very pulse within him, snuffed out.
Noooo! He roared, the sound reverberating against granite. No. No! She couldn’t be dead. If she were, he’d have fallen too. And yet, the bond was gone.
He roared as he dove down harder.
Jagged peaks ripped past like spears—
“Eracier!” Vaesarra shrieked, clinging to the rock shelf. He bellowed a furious snarl at her as he dove past.
Then he saw his heart.
Tumbling against the dark cliffs, her pink sweater soaked crimson, limbs limp as a broken doll. And too close to disaster.
Rage and terror fused into one blistering force. Race folded his wings and dove, the air shrieking against his scales. Faster. Faster. He couldn’t lose her. Not now. He refused!
ASHAYA! His roar thundered off the mountains.
Seconds before her body struck the knife-edged granite below, his talons closed around her. He drew her to his chest, his wings snapping wide to arrest their fall. The updraft howled as he heaved skyward, cradling her against the armored curve of his chest.
Her head lolled over his forelimb, blood streaking her tear-stained face. Panic swamped him, hollowing everything. He pressed the tip of his muzzle to her throat—no heartbeat. Nothing.
More agony flayed him, worse than Tartarus, at her silence.
Breathe, heart-fire, he begged through the shattered silence of their bond. Please. Just breathe for me.
Her chest stirred faintly. A broken sigh slipped free. Relief nearly crippled him, but rage blazed hot on its heels as he landed on the watch tower.
Skaldr shot up, hovering midair, Vaesarra clinging to him in her semi-shifted form, one wing charred, her face smeared with soot and tears. “You saved me, brother,” she sobbed. “The human tried to kill me. She burned my w-wing.”
Skaldr’s draconic eyes shut as he remained airborne, his massive wings beating once, twice.
Vaesarra lifted her head from his immense, tawny-scaled chest. “Skaldr?”
He roared, a sound of grief and rage intertwined. Then he let her go.
Vaesarra’s scream spiraled with the wind, echoing off the mountains as she fell, broken wing dragging her down into the dark abyss.
Her faint cry cut off.
Skaldr wheeled upward, vanishing into the churning clouds.