29. Aeron
Aeron
The chains dug into my scales where they pinned me to the floor.
Quill had been gone for at least an hour, if not more, and it was starting to drive me absolutely insane to know my mate had been ripped from me.
But no matter how much I roared and thrashed and tried to escape, nothing could break the chains holding me down.
And when I’d tried to shift back to slip out of them, I found I couldn’t shift at all.
Something in the magic of the chains kept me trapped in my full dragon form. There was no escape.
Undead and Purity Front witches watched me struggle, their leader gone into some unknown part of my grandfather’s estate.
A part of me hoped he’d come back, that he’d save me and Quill from all of this, from Morgana.
But the longer time went on, the more hope began to slip away from me.
His wards were impossibly strong and Morgana was controlling the house from the inside now.
Even if by some miracle he knew what was going on, I doubted even he and the entire Elder Council could break through now.
A feeling of doom crept into my body, settling in my heart. And soon, I gave up trying to escape. All I could do was lay there with the realization that despite all my power and my lineage and my connections, I couldn’t save Quill, myself, or anyone else in this world. I’d failed them all.
When had everything gone so terribly wrong?
The sound of footsteps drew my attention, and I lifted my head as much as the chains would allow.
Morgana returned, still in that white mask, her green magic pulsing faintly around her fingers like a heartbeat made visible.
Behind her trailed two of her witches, and my stomach dropped when I saw the small silver blade one of them carried, its edge catching the dim light of the foyer.
“Ah good, still awake,” Morgana said, crouching down in front of my snout with an almost affectionate air, like she was greeting a favorite pet rather than a captive. “I was worried the chains might have knocked you unconscious. That would have made this so much less satisfying.”
I snarled at her, baring my teeth, though the chains kept my jaws mostly shut. It came out as more of a muffled growl than anything threatening.
“Now, now,” she tutted, reaching out to stroke a hand along my snout.
I flinched away as much as I could, disgusted by the contact, by the wrongness radiating off her skin like static electricity.
“I need your blood, dragon. Just a small amount. Dragon blood is remarkably potent for what I have planned, and yours especially, given your lineage. Pyre blood hasn’t been used in centuries.
Not since your kind grew too clever to let themselves be caught. ”
She nodded to the witch with the blade, who stepped forward hesitantly. I thrashed against my restraints, trying to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. The chains held firm, biting deeper into my scales with every movement.
“Careful,” Morgana warned the witch. “Not too deep. I don’t need him dying before he’s served his purpose. Yet.”
The blade bit into the tender scales along my foreleg, and I roared in pain, the sound shaking dust from the ceiling above. Blood, my blood, golden and glimmering even in the dim light, welled up from the wound and dripped into a small crystal vial the second witch held ready.
Where was Quill? Was he safe? Was he even alive? The thought of him alone somewhere in this house, hurt or worse, made the pain in my leg feel like nothing at all. I only cared about his safety, not my own.
“There,” Morgana said, straightening as the witch capped the vial and handed it to her reverently. She held it up to the light, watching the way my blood swirled inside the glass. “This will do nicely. Your power will help me greatly on my return to life.”
She tucked the vial into a fold of her robes, and the sight of my own blood disappearing from view sent a fresh wave of helpless fury through me. I strained against the chains again, uselessly, my golden eyes never leaving her masked face.
“You’re wasting your energy,” she said, almost gently, as if she pitied me. “Save it. You’ll need whatever strength you have left for what comes next.”
“What do you mean?” I wanted to demand, but all that came out was another muffled growl, the chains crushing my jaw shut too tightly to form words. Frustration boiled inside me, hot and useless.
Morgana seemed to understand anyway. She crouched again, tilting her head as she studied me with those glowing emerald eyes behind the mask.
“Oh, don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about your little witch.
In fact, I think it’s time we brought him back up here.
Wouldn’t want you to think I’d forgotten my promise, would I? ”
My heart seized in my chest. She gestured to one of the remaining witches standing near the doorway, a thin man with sunken cheeks and dead eyes that reminded me too much of the corpses shambling around the edges of the foyer.
“Fetch the witch,” she commanded. “It’s time for the next part of tonight’s entertainment.”
The man bowed his head and disappeared down the corridor Quill had been dragged through hours before.
I watched him go, dread pooling in my gut like molten lead.
Whatever Morgana was planning, I doubted it would be anything good.
She wanted an audience for this, wanted a spectacle.
And that meant she wanted us both present for whatever horror she intended to unleash.
“You should know,” Morgana continued, straightening once more and pacing slowly in front of me, her green magic trailing behind her like smoke, “that I don’t do things halfway.
” She reached up, pointing to a sphere of crystal floating high above our heads.
It looked exactly the same as the one my grandfather had given me to communicate with him from school, only far larger.
“I want the entire paranormal world watching when it happens.”
Watching what happen? The words settled over me, and I felt the last of my hope guttering out like a candle in a storm.
“You’re going to be a symbol, dragon,” she said, crouching low again so her masked face was level with mine.
“A message to everyone who thinks the old ways can protect them. The Elder Council. The society. Widdershins. All of it, crumbling because they refused to see what was coming. And you, precious Pyre heir, will be the final straw to bring it all tumbling down.”
I roared again, thrashing with every ounce of strength I had left, ignoring the way the chains tore fresh wounds into my scales.
I didn’t care about the pain anymore. All I could think about was Quill, about getting to him, about somehow finding a way to break free before whatever she had planned could happen.
“Tire yourself out, by all means,” she said again, almost bored now, rising to her full height and turning away from me.
“We’re just making preparations. It will still be some time before everything is ready.
The whole paranormal world needs to be watching when we begin, after all.
Can’t have a message like this go unnoticed. ”
She moved toward the center of the foyer, where several of her witches had gathered.
But she only got halfway there before the magic in the air shifted.
It was subtle at first, then unmistakable.
I felt it prickle against my scales, the same sensation I’d felt when the wards at Widdershins had first begun to weaken.
Morgana went still.
“What is it?” one of the witches asked, noticing her sudden stillness.
She tilted her head, and though I couldn’t see her expression behind the mask, I could hear the smile creeping into her voice when she finally spoke.
“He’s here,” she said softly. “Finally.”
The doors at the far end of the foyer groaned open, and every head in the room turned.
I strained against the chains, lifting my snout as high as the restraints allowed, desperate to see who or what had arrived.
My heart hammered against my ribs with a wild, foolish hope that maybe, just maybe, my grandfather had found a way through the wards after all.
But then I saw him.
Elder Thaddeus Pyre strode into the foyer with all the calm authority of a man walking into his own drawing room, not a den of undead and corrupted witches.
His golden scales caught the dim light, his spiraled horns casting long shadows across the marble floor.
Relief crashed through me so violently that I nearly choked on it, a strangled sound tore free from my throat despite the chains crushing my jaw.
Grandfather. He’d come. He’d found a way in. We were saved!
I saw the same desperate hope flicker across Quill’s face as he was dragged back into the room by the thin, hollow-eyed witch, his wrists bound in front of him, his hair disheveled, blood still staining his sleeve.
His eyes found mine first, wide with fear, and then landed on my grandfather, and I watched something like relief bloom across his features too.
“Thaddeus,” Morgana said, and there was no surprise in her voice. No alarm. Just something almost fond, almost warm. “You’re late.”
The words didn’t register at first. I was too busy trying to catch my grandfather’s eye, trying to silently beg him to do something, anything, to end this nightmare.
But he didn’t look at me. He didn’t look at Quill either.
His golden eyes were fixed entirely on Morgana, and there was no shock in his expression.
No fury. No righteous anger at finding his own grandson chained on the floor of his ancestral home.
“The Elder Council is long-winded, as usual,” he said dryly. “You know how they are.”
Morgana laughed, that horrible glass-shattering sound, and extended her hand toward him.
He crossed the foyer, stepping over a fallen chandelier and around a cluster of undead who parted for him without a hint of aggression, without so much as a growl. They knew him. They weren’t attacking him because they’d been told not to.
My mind refused to process what I was seeing, even as my body understood it long before my heart could catch up.
Thaddeus took Morgana’s hand in his and shook it.
The world tilted sideways. I heard Quill make a small, broken sound behind me, and I wanted to look at him, wanted to say something, anything, to make this make sense.
But there was nothing that could make this make sense.
There was no version of reality where my grandfather, the man who’d raised me, the man who’d promised to protect the paranormal world with solemn oaths, was standing here shaking hands with the monster who’d captured and tortured me and my mate.
“Grandfather,” I managed to choke out around the chains, the word coming out as barely more than a growl. “What... what are you—”
“I see you managed to capture the boy,” Thaddeus said, finally sparing me a glance. There was no warmth in his eyes now, no affection, nothing like the man who’d raised me. “Good. We’ll need him for what comes next.”
“You...” I couldn’t even finish the thought. Every certainty I’d built my life on was crumbling in real time, the floor falling away beneath me even though I was already lying flat against it.
“Do you think it’ll be enough?” Morgana asked. “To convince the Council?”
“I do,” Thaddeus nodded, a small grin spreading over his lips. “A dragon, one of the rarest in our world, killed by a witch in front of the whole world? That will make it very easy to convince the Elder Council to separate them permanently.”
Behind me, I heard Quill’s ragged breath catch. “What are you talking about?” he cried. “You’re going to let them kill your grandson?!”
“Not one of them,” my grandfather smiled, turning to face Quill fully. “You.”