Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
IDALLIA
With the wind against us, it takes longer than it should to reach the southern peaks of the Silver Moon Mountains.
We left at dawn and made two quick stops to eat, but even at dragon and phoenix speed, it takes us the entire day and then some to reach where the vampires might be.
At least we’re not bound by roads and can fly straight as an arrow.
The only resistance to our direct path southeast across Torridaig is the cold east wind coming out of Fanghaven.
“It’s past dusk,” Bale calls out to us. “They’ll be on the move but blending into the mountains and shadows. Keep your eyes peeled!”
I’d wanted to find the vampires still hiding from sunlight, though spotting them in a cave or under a deep overhang from this high up would be nearly impossible.
It would’ve made for an easier fight. They’d have been hemmed in, and we could’ve plowed through them like summer hay.
I even started fantasizing about catching some and forcing them into the daylight.
Sadly, my vicious daydream set with the sun.
Kellan pipes up from behind me for the first time all day. “Watch those slopes on the left. There’s a cart road at the base and a deer track higher up. They could be on either.”
I scowl at him over my shoulder. What does he think I’m doing? Snoozing on Fyrestar’s back?
“I’m glad to see your obvious fatigue isn’t affecting your ability to annoy me.
” Kellan’s not so far from me that I have to shout, especially with his dragon ears doing the hearing.
He still speeds up to fly beside me, and I glance over, asking, “Did that fae girl make you work to keep her safe? Or did she use her glamour magic on you and steal some lifeforce with a touch and a kiss?”
His eyes flash to mine, ice blue and striking. I see teeth. “Jealous?”
I instantly regret this conversation. “Worried,” I answer truthfully. I have been since the moment he showed up in the war room, looking exhausted and like he didn’t even care about winning right wing.
Or that I won it.
He might look disappointed by my answer, though it’s hard to tell under his iridescent scales and burning eyes.
Kellan’s hide is dark overall, but when the light hits him in a certain way, he’s every color in the world.
“You’d be surprised by how many fae have zero scruples and want a starborn royal to spring from their loins. ”
My brows lift, mocking. “Spring from their loins?”
“You wouldn’t think it was funny if you were the one constantly running or hiding from attempts at forced marriage. Or forced anything,” he mutters.
I sober. No, I definitely would not. “Is she nice?” I hope I won’t have to make small talk with her next week inside Drayke Mountain.
And how in the holy stars am I going to avoid running into Rannigan Bloodthief?
“She’s scared.” Kellan faces forward again. “Small and weak and scared.”
So Bale sent Kellan to escort her. I should be grateful. If there’s one thing that’ll distract Kellan away from me, it’s someone who needs him.
Sudden suspicion hits me along with a cold gust of wind. Was this Bale helping me? Or helping himself? Maybe both, but I’ll bet the Fae Queen came last in the calculation.
“How did you get back so fast if she refused to fly?” I ask. Secretly, I’m glad she didn’t ride Kellan. He’s never carried anyone but me on his back.
The thought is utterly unfair since I’ve now flown with Bale. If anyone broke that special link between Kellan and me, it was me. Just like I broke the rest.
“We rode.” His dragon’s voice rumbles with disgust, and he shakes his big, elongated head, his nostrils emitting enough heat to make the air around his snout waver. “And it wasn’t fast. It took fucking forever.”
I grin. “Because she was bad company?”
He turns a blazing look on me, fire rolling between his jaws. “Because she was terrified of me.”
My brows fly up. Kellan is the quintessential knight in shining armor—except when he’s plaguing me. He’d probably let the helpless queen walk across his body rather than let her step in mud, and she was afraid of him?
I bite back an incredulous snort. “Did Stuart at least coat you with fae-resistant magic so she wouldn’t try to trick you out of some years and strength?”
“No. But she didn’t try.”
I frown over at him. “How do you know?” A fleeting touch could siphon off little enough lifeforce that Kellan might not notice. She could have done it twenty times, leaving him just a tiny bit more tired and haggard with each brush of her fingertips.
“Because I saw her pay handsomely for a burst of vigor partway into Torridaig.”
I huff. What a hero. “She’s going to have to coax more gildenfae back into Tanturriff if she’s going to keep that up, but at least she’s paying. But who would sell their life away?”
Kellan swings a critical look at me. “Not everyone has endless chests of gold, Idallia. I saw a mother sheer years off her life so her children would never be hungry again.”
“Is that why you look so harrowed?” I shoot back, stung. “Because you stood there and watched a leech steal someone’s future?”
“How is it different from Fanghaven vampires? They pay for blood.”
“Blood regenerates.” Just look at me, strong again. “But years don’t. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
“The mother was a dragon shifter,” he says tonelessly. “Her years are long.”
That makes me feel a little better about the Fae Queen’s strength-gaining and life-prolonging snack. A human doesn’t have years to spare. A werebeast, even less. But dragon shifters and vampires…Sometimes, they live so long they grow bored and weary with their days.
The fae age faster than dragon shifters or vampires, but their ability to siphon years from others puts their lifespan on par with the other long-lived peoples of Ellonrift.
“There! On the road with two wagons.” Bale is the first to see the vampires moving along the cart road.
I squint in the same direction but don’t see them at all.
Fyrestar angles down with the others. Once we’re lower, I finally spot the raiders, cursing my probably vampire eyes for not seeing as well.
The entire group is dressed in hooded, granite-colored cloaks. They’re well hidden, especially in the near dark. I count fifteen in all.
“They’re hard to see,” Kellan remarks, maybe as an excuse for not spotting them first. We were talking when we should have been looking. We used to bring out the best in each other. Now we seem to bring out the worst.
I don’t respond, focused on the blood traffickers.
Even the two wagons and the horses pulling them are the color of stone.
Everything is gray on gray. They move at night and sink straight into the base of the craggy mountains during the day.
If a routine patrol of dragon shifters near the border with Ruthinock hadn’t spotted them before they hit the granite and shale lining the base of the mountain range, the vampires could easily have taken this batch of humans all the way to Bloodwold.
We descend. There’ll be no surprise attack. We’re several huge, winged blotches, unmissable, even against the darkening sky.
I glance at Kellan again. “Are you sure you’re up for a fight?” I’m worried he’s not in any shape to engage.
“Not with you.” He drifts away from me. “I’m tired of that.”
I press my mouth flat, my throat growing hot as I watch him lengthen the distance between us.
He falls behind me, honoring the formation the race to the pillars dictated this morning.
Turning back around, I stay my course with Fyrestar.
If Kellan and I don’t have fighting, I guess we don’t have anything anymore.
Or maybe we can finally be friends.
“They’re sticking with the wagons,” Bale growls. “We need to drive them away from the humans.”
“Do we try to take prisoners?” Maia asks.
“Kill,” Bale says darkly. “Danica, Wade—get the humans to safety before anything else. The rest of you—no quarter!”
We dive, wind whistling, wings burning, and battle lust rising in my veins.
Even if we can’t do anything about the blood slaves already in Bloodwold—or the farming of people there like livestock to feed the population’s lust for crimson gold—here, Bale is king and can stick each of these vampires on a pike and watch them burn with the morning sun if he wants to.
Personally, I don’t have the patience for that. Heads are about to roll.
“Fyrestar.” He cocks an ear toward me. “Do you remember the battle at Sinjar Hill?”
“That was werebeasts. A lot of bears.”
“But do you remember that move we pulled?” He trills a yes.
“Don’t get too low. You have to stay out of striking distance.
” The first volley of arrows arcs toward us.
Fyrestar pivots expertly, avoiding the bolts.
Hatred burns through me. Like all blood traffickers for nearly two hundred years, they’re going to force dragon shifters out of the sky and into skin.
“Swords out?” Fyrestar snarls.
“They are now.” The ring of my blades harmonizes with the whistle of the wind, a melody that belongs in nightmares. Tonight, they won’t be my nightmares.
Fyrestar banks left and right, avoiding the near-constant barrage.
A spear hurtles past us. Fyrestar must sense my need to start—and end—this fight, because he flies so fast we outpace the others.
I tighten my grip on my blades as we head straight for the back of the caravan.
The wagons are in front with only their drivers. Vampires take up the rear.
“Hey, bloodsuckers!” I want my revenge for the holes in my flesh and the blood I lost. For my nightmares. Did I really resist flying out this morning? Now I want their deaths all over me. I’m going to slice them to ribbons and swim in their stolen blood.
Grinning like a knife-opened throat, I reach for all my hard-packed emotions from this morning, setting them loose in their altered form.
Fury, not fear. Resolve instead of reluctance.
They detonate inside me with a roar only I can hear.
Strength rushes through me. My senses come alive.
My focus sharpens. I can make out every fang glinting in the low light.
I can see the whites of their flaring eyes as I arrive like a shooting star on my blazing warbird.
“Now!” I shout, clamping my legs so hard around Fyrestar’s body that I won’t move as he rolls.
Blood rushes to my head as he flies upside down above two vampires, and my outstretched blades cut through their unsuspecting necks like warm butter.
We kill the two just behind them in the same way before Fyrestar rolls back over, pumping his wings hard to regain the elevation we lost. Leaning over, I swing low and decapitate another as we wheel around.
The rest of the team arrives on our heels and shifts as they crash down and plunge into the battle. Wade and Danica head straight for the wagon drivers. Bale and Arran attack from the side while Maia and Kellan slice into the back of the group where I entered and carved my way toward the middle.
I vault off Fyrestar, slamming feet first into the face of a vampire.
The blood trafficker keels over, my boots crushing his head.
I spring off him, and Fyrestar pounds his beak down on the vampire’s neck and tears out his throat.
We fight side by side. Every head I sever feeds my fury and starves the fear that’s been living like a parasite in my stomach ever since Draywood.
I move faster than ever before, avoiding hits, sliding away from swords, and dodging arrows.
I move so fast that I barely see myself, my ability to recognize friend from foe in this accelerated state stretching far beyond my usual limits.
Skin opens, blood sprays, and bones crack under my blades.
Fyrestar guards my back, allowing me to plow ruthlessly forward.
I revel in my victory—over these vampires, over my fear, over that thunderclap of strength and speed that ignited the moment I asked for it.
I kill without mercy until suddenly, there’s silence.
Breathing hard, I look around. All the vampires lay dead on the ground.
The Elite Wing stares at me, Bale’s amber gaze heaviest of all.
Half escaping its pins, my hair drips crimson beads, the blood-soaked mass heavy on my shoulders.
My chest heaves as I gulp down air that tastes of clashing blades, fresh kills, pine boughs, and shale-tumbled mountains.
The first stars appear and shine down on me.
My warbird glows beside me, his inner heat drying villainous entrails right onto his feathers.
We’re both covered in blood, and some savage part of me wants to lick my arm and taste the death of my enemies.
I swallow down the impulse along with my own saliva. What if I truly am a vampire? That might be too close to drinking from a vein.
I lift my chin as Bale looks at me, his eyes wary. The team stares at me in shock from across a slew of mangled bodies. I don’t know how many they killed. I killed a lot of them.
As the team takes me in like I’m something different from before, I start to realize that I might not be able to shift like they can, but there’s just as much of a beast inside me. The difference is that it doesn’t come out on command.
Except, I was in control tonight—of my senses, my speed, my focus. For the first time, I chose.
And just as I promised myself, heads rolled, and I swam in the death of the Vampire King’s soldiers.