Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
brIGID
That danger became apparent midday as the sky grew heavy with great shadows of dragon wings soaring over the brown and gray hills, one after another.
We stood in a crowd south of the keep, a few of the betas—including Samuel Cameron—already transformed into their dragons.
Faces turned high to count the incoming arrivals, but Torion and I looked to each other, his whisky eyes solemn as I did my best to keep the gnawing worry from growing obvious in my expression.
"Nearly fifty," Niall murmured at Torion's left.
Torion's hand tightened around mine. We had thirty betas on the field with us, but it was just over half of them who could transform into their own dragons. We were badly outnumbered. My fingertips tingled as I tightened my grip on Torion's hand.
If Damian Worthington attacked without discussion, we likely stood no chance of winning. Torion had to make him demand a challenge.
"Keep close to Ronson and Niall," Torion murmured to me.
"We ought to have Mairwen on the field," Ronson said, his eyes scanning the approaching dragons. "She could bat most of those men aside like flies."
"All the more reason to keep her watching over Tylane," I said, but I directed the words to Torion—a reminder to us both that our daughter was safe and we had to keep our focus on the present threat.
I rose to my toes and pressed my cheek to Torion's, holding tightly to his shoulders, his grip firm on my hips.
His nose turned to trail over my cheekbone as he took a deep breath.
He'd told me once I smelled like "home" and refused to elaborate further.
I forced myself to relax, to lean into him and pretend for a moment that we were alone, even as the cold wind of the hills struck my exposed side.
Torion sighed as my scent bloomed for him, just a little.
"Go," I whispered, and he nodded, but neither of us moved.
What if I was wrong? What if I should've agreed to run, should've demanded that Torion come with us? What if I lost him today because I'd been too stubborn, yet again?
Unacceptable. The declaration was hard and thunderous inside of me, made of stone that ran deep down into the ground below me.
Torion and I leaned back at the same moment, and he nodded, as if he'd heard the word too. "Wait for me," he said, brow furrowing, lips parting as if to correct that, as if to tell me to run if I needed to.
"I will," I answered before he could say anything else.
And then a glossy charcoal gray and black dragon landed before us, sleek and lethal, gleaming and glittering with the shadows of the rest of Skybern's dragons churning above us.
I assumed this was Worthington, as elegant as one might expect of the metropolis's alpha, but Torion frowned and stepped forward, tipping his head shallowly in greeting.
"What does he want, Reeves? To start a war?" Torion called, a deeper resonance filling his throat and chest, the authority of his alpha taking over.
The jet dragon shuddered, and the air shimmered like an oil spill, wind spiralling as the beast was replaced with a young man who looked as slumberous and dangerous as his dragon but was not Damian Worthington.
"Bennett Reeves," Ronson informed me in an undertone. "Rumor is he's Worthington's half-brother, and presumably right hand."
"Presumably?" I asked, not taking my eyes off Skybern's beta mouthpiece.
Ronson and Niall exchanged a glance, and Niall shrugged. "We're not so sure of his motives, but perhaps we're not meant to be. Time will tell."
"If he has to," Bennett Reeves answered, just loud enough to carry to us. A few more of our local dragons shifted in preparation, and Bennett's eyes skipped over them, likely doing the same obvious math we had.
"Then he's a coward," Torion said, looking up to the sky and making sure his words carried. Above us, a large dragon roared its objection. "Counting on others to conquer where he cannot."
I understood Niall and Ronson's uncertainty about this beta, as something in his eyes softened with amusement and he did something that could almost be considered a nod. Still, he remained silent.
"Ground your army and face me as you ought to, Worthington," Torion shouted up to the largest dragon in the sky, who hovered with his wings beating cold air onto us. "Alpha to alpha, in challenge. Or go down in history as the snake you are."
I shuddered at the answering roar, the way it made my skin crawl and my stomach turn restlessly. Impatient clawing in my chest wanted to answer that aggression and I stepped back, catching the eye of Bennett Reeves, any humor he might've exhibited now vanishing beneath blatant calculation.
"The Alpha of Skybern is here to help Grave Hills," Bennett Reeves said, in something like a monotone. "Lord Worthington has concerns over the perversion of tradition taking place here and…elsewhere."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Reeves?" Ronson snarled, moving to bolt forward before his brother caught him by the shoulder.
Reeves ignored him. "With Skybern's leadership, Grave Hills would be cleansed of the questionable changes brought about in dragonkin society."
Rage bloomed in me, hot in my throat, my eyes on fire and my nails digging into my palms like claws. I snarled openly at the beta, baring my teeth like an animal.
"I'll see you dead first," Torion said to the sky, his wings spreading. "You're a half rate alpha. You've stood in your position this long because you're a useful tool for others. Fang to fang, wing to wing, you don't stand a chance of holding your succession."
Reeves's head ducked, and I knew he was smiling now. Above us, the Alpha of Skybern roared once more and took a dive down to the ground, headed directly for my mate.
Bastard, I thought. I was sick of these damn men. I was sick of hearing about traditions. So called traditions that hadn't lasted half as long as the ones before them. Traditions that served betas and no one else. Traditions that made girls like me disposable to the men around them.
I loved Torion. I loved my life with him. But I would've given anything to change how I was raised, how I'd lived before finding my mate, and I would die before I would see Tylane grow up in that same world.
Damian Worthington's dragon glittered like a jewel, arrowing down to Torion, who flexed, already starting his transformation. They would meet in the air above us, blood and claw and wing.
Would I really stand here on the ground and watch it happen? Was I a coward too, even after everything I'd faced already? Would I raise my daughter to stand on the sidelines too?
No.
All right, I thought, with something like surrender and something like welcome. All right. Come to me.
My dragon answered with a joyous scream of freedom, my head thrown back as I startled the men around me.
Not Bennett Reeves, though. He grinned with dragon sharp teeth and then whistled to the sky.
As my body blazed and grew and rose into the air, almost half of Skybern's battalion of dragons twisted in the air and began their retreat.
They didn't matter. The dragons of Grave Hills readying for flight behind me didn't matter. I dove up toward the sky, finding the air beneath my wings refreshing and shockingly natural, and darted for the iridescent dark dragon aiming himself toward my mate.
Weak, my dragon observed cooly as Worthington caught sight of me and reared back.
"Brigid!" Torion cried, his own transformation halting at the sight of mine. "Brigid, no!"
But it was too late. I met the large, lazy dragon in midair, catching its throat in my jaws, my long body whipping itself back and forth to dig my fangs in, jerk it side to side. When his claws reached for me in retaliation, I released him and darted away.
I let out a sound that wasn't a roar but a laugh.
I'm beautiful, I thought, catching sight of my tail coated in daggers, venomous green with coal red tips.
I flew like silk, turning easily, impossible to catch, too fast and sinuous.
I spun over the top of the dragon and landed on its back, raking my talons over one wing and then leaping up.
This is why the betas were afraid of their omegas growing wings. We were beautiful, and deadly.
I flashed under the sun, blindingly bright, bile yellow and lit from within with my fire. I released it into the air, turning circles in greeting to my mate as his huge evergreen body lifted from the ground at last.
Slow, my dragon noted coolly, then grinned as Torion barreled into Worthington, hard enough to make the air quake. But strong, I added mentally, and she purred in agreement.
My wingspan stretched from one horizon to the next, and I spiralled up into the air, warning off the Skybern betas with a roar of fire that made them rear back in shock.
I was a slimmer dragon, but long, with strong legs, feline in form and lethal to my prey.
I swung my tail and laughed again as it scratched through the wing of a dragon that dared to challenge me. Sensibly, it changed its mind.
A cry of warning from the ground behind me caught my attention, and I noticed the odds in the sky were better now.
I twisted and floated down, checking on Torion—he and Worthington were wrestling in the sky, but my mate would outmatch him in a moment—before looking out to the north, where more dragons appeared.
Torion's allies were already here, which meant whoever approached might be a new threat.
I snarled and darted forward, Ronson Cadogan's dragon leaping up from below to chase after me.
Too slow, my dragon cooed cheerfully, delighted to be loosed at last. She'd been patient with me, patient as I considered my future.
She'd protected me during Tylane's birth, waited and watched as I'd adjusted.
Now, after we'd learned to live with one another in secret observation, we were together. We were free.
I roared and behind me, unable to catch up, Cadogan echoed the sound.
Only a handful of dragons advanced, but one was especially familiar. Rust brown and massive. Heavy. Slow, slow, slow. I screamed in violent greeting, a sound the color of lightning, and grew faster, flying straight, defensive spikes flaring out from my body.
The dragon—Malcolm—balked, reared up, and beat his wings in retreat. Coward.
I circled the cluster of dragons. They were older, and they had slowed at my approach. I wanted to attack, but I resisted, waiting to see what their business was. Malcolm transformed and he was so small as a man, so weak, it made me laugh again.
"We came to help," he shouted, irritated and nervous. I could taste his fear, and it was surprisingly sweet.
Ronson reached us and transformed as well, nodding once to me as I continued to keep the dragons in line. "Help who?"
Malcolm watched me circling them and swallowed hard. Oh, yes. He recognized me now. Somehow, he knew who I was, and perhaps for the first time since we'd met, he knew he ought to have respected me from the start. Feared me.
"The Alpha of Grave Hills. I may not see eye to eye with the—with him. But I'll take a man of the Hills over those slimy Skyberners any day," Malcolm said, and then jerked his head to the other dragons. "That's why we're all here. To defend our home."
I grunted, snapped a lick of fire that would heat the air just enough to warn them, and then nodded to Ronson before turning back to the fight. I needed to check on my mate more than waste my time with dragons who flew at the speed of molasses.
Torion was watching me, trying to fight and keep an eye on me at the same time. Foolish. I didn't need his help. In fact—
I screamed as Worthington caught Torion by the wing. He would pay for that.