Chapter Thirty
Dragons.
Adrenaline hit me in a cold rush. I could barely see the sky now with the forest canopy above us, but my brief glimpse before had shown several approaching dark clouds. How many dragons were inside them?
“Daegal?” I asked. “Or Zenobia?”
“Zenobia is no assassin and Daegal wouldn’t come himself,” Remy said. “Still, he sent them. I’d bet my lands on it.”
Setreg was arming himself, too. They’d brought a small arsenal in those backpacks, apparently.
“Give me one of those turbo rifles,” I said.
Remy put it back in his backpack instead. “It only shoots out nets spelled for a Beast, and if a dragon gets that close, you’ll already be dead.”
“Most of these weapons are useless,” Setreg muttered as he pulled out some and threw others back. “Dragon skin is nearly impenetrable. You should have extracted her claws when you trapped her in her other form, Remy. Beithíoch nails can pierce a dragon’s hide.”
Remy gave Setreg a look that made the other man throw up his hands the same way I recently had.
I grabbed Remy’s arm. Setreg didn’t know it, but I could manifest those claws without going into full Beast mode. “If they’re our best weapon—”
“They’re not,” Remy interrupted. “Just like the nets, if a dragon gets that close, you’ll already be dead, and if one of them draws your blood before killing you, what then?”
I shuddered. Then Remy and Setreg would be fighting a dragon/Beast hybrid. No wonder he wanted me nowhere near them.
I settled on: “Give me something longer-range, then.”
Remy passed over a Glock handgun. “Know how to use this?” At my nod, he said, “Aim for the eyes. They’re the most vulnerable part of a dragon’s body.”
I accepted the gun and cocked it even though I doubted I could hit a dragon’s eyes at a safe distance. Still, if one of them came at me, I’d damn sure try.
Shadows seemed to smother the daylight. It was barely noon, yet now it looked like night was nearly upon us.
“Please tell me you can sic those Vengers-eating ghosts on them,” I whispered.
“Those can only hurt the dead,” Remy responded, equally low. “Stay down, and then run like hell away from me when I tell you.”
“I’ll stay and fight,” Setreg quietly argued. “Dragons are as dangerous to you as they are to me.”
Suddenly I remembered what Remy had said when admitting to the brutal way he’d avenged his grandmother’s death. Beasts are one of only two creatures capable of killing Wardens. Now I knew what the other lethal species was, and it was flying somewhere above us.
Remy cut his chest in reply, painting his hands with his own blood. “If I fight the way I’d need to, you and Raine would die as well. I’m going to unleash the Flay instead.”
Setreg looked shaken. “That spell could kill you.”
Remy gave him a dark look. “Better that than the alternative—”
A deafening boom! knocked me off my feet.
Remy hauled me against him and dragged me away.
That’s when I realized a nearby tree had exploded from a lightning strike.
Fiery branches and leaves still rained down while the remains of its trunk burned as if it housed its own inferno.
My skin stung from getting hit by bits of blazing debris and my hair felt like it was standing on end from the intense static electricity.
Add that to my body spasming as if I’d just been Tasered, and holy shit. That had been close.
“You said … those weren’t storm clouds,” I managed to say.
“They’re not,” Remy gritted. We weren’t the only ones on the move. Setreg loped next to us. “Ancient people saw burned-down villages after dragon attacks and assumed dragons breathed fire, but lightning causes fire, too. And dragons spit lightning.”
They did fucking what?
Another boom! shook the ground. Fire and sparks burst out as a tree close by combusted. Smoke from both blazes seemed to chase after us. In seconds, we were enveloped by a gray haze.
“What do we—?”
My whisper was cut off by two more strikes to our right and left. My whole body rattled from the impacts, and the flashes were so bright, I could hardly see past the hot spots in my eyes.
“Shh,” I barely heard Remy say. “They’re tracking us by sound.”
The wet underbrush might be keeping a wildfire at bay—for now—but it also meant extra smoke. The cloud around us thickened. Panic clawed at my throat as I started to cough. This was all of my nightmares, all at once.
“Take her and run,” Remy whispered to Setreg. “Provide cover for me to work the spell.”
Setreg gave Remy a frustrated look, but grabbed me and took off.
I almost puked, since Setreg’s arm was wedged beneath my rib cage.
On the rough terrain, it felt like he was giving me the Heimlich with every step.
Add that to my coughing from the smoke, and I hadn’t been this helpless since the last time I’d been under attack in the woods.
I might have a ferocious Beast inside me, but what good were teeth and claws against lightning?
A new flash had Setreg pulling up right before a tree exploded in front of us. He flung himself on top of me, taking the brunt of the debris. Just as quickly, I was dragged up and hoisted over his arm again as he ran past the burning tree.
I slapped at the embers that made growing holes in Setreg’s clothes. “I can run on my own!” I hissed.
Setreg only hoisted me up to his chest. “Not as fast as I can,” he hissed back. “Now, hold on to me. I need both my hands to help Remy.”
I wrapped my legs around his thick torso and held on to his neck with one arm. The other I kept free so I could reach the top of his backpack. I’d lost the Glock after that first lightning strike knocked me off my feet, but Setreg had other weapons I could grab, once I unzipped his backpack.
“Need that cover!” I heard Remy shout from behind us.
Setreg grunted as he held out both hands. “Here it comes.”
Birds started flying through the forest, so fast it was like watching water rush down a stream.
I would’ve thought the birds would be fleeing from the fire, but they were flying toward it.
Their raucous caws soon drowned out the crashing sound we made as Setreg continued to dash through the underbrush, and the size of the flocks made a deeper darkness spread through the forest.
Another lightning bolt blew up a tree to our right, but farther away this time. Setreg smiled fiercely.
“Can’t track us now, can you?”
He didn’t bother to whisper. Still, with the endlessly screeching birds, I could barely hear him.
“You’re doing this?” I asked in amazement. “How?”
Setreg finally set me down. “The same way I called the kathilhan and bade it to take you beneath Orion. My father was Tuatha Dé Danann, and his court can command creatures on land, in the sea, and in the air.”
Wow. I’d have a hundred questions if we weren’t running for our lives. That’s why I only asked one. “Can you command the dragons to stop attacking us?”
Setreg let out a bitter laugh. “No one commands dragons.”
Figured. Still, between the hordes of screeching birds and the leafy canopy from the trees that hadn’t burned yet, the dragons could no longer see or hear us.
Need that cover, Remy had said. He had it now.
Two more booming flashes had me leaping aside out of instinct, but the strikes weren’t near us.
A pair of trees much farther ahead went up like Roman candles.
Two more beside them quickly followed suit.
Then another two, and another. Soon, flames carpeted the forest floor, connecting the trees with a wall of fire that now encircled us from all sides.
The dragons might not know where we were, but they’d just blocked off every avenue of escape.
Panic threatened to choke me more than the smoke. The Beast stirred, empowered by my fear. I forced it back, but I couldn’t stop the memories. They ripped free, blurring reality with the past.
I ran through the woods, blisters blackening my feet.…
No, I was standing still, and Setreg was at my side—
I couldn’t breathe, and the fire was right there.…
Dammit, I was breathing, and the fire was farther away—
Flames raced up my leg. I screamed, and a roar came out. My hands split open, revealing knifelike claws and inky black fur.…
No! I was still me, I was here, and I was not on fire. I also wasn’t powerless against the thing inside me. Not anymore.
“Is that the best you can do?”
Remy’s bellow was audible even above the raucous birds and endless crackling of burning trees. I gave Setreg a fraught look.
“What is he doing? They’ll use that to target him!”
Shockingly, Setreg picked me up and ran us right at the fire ahead. The blazing wall seemed to dance in response.
I was appalled. “Stop! I’m only fire-proof if the Beast comes out, and if it does that, you’re dead!”
“I know,” I heard him mutter.
I fought him, but I was once again slung over his arm. I only managed to land glancing blows that didn’t even slow him.
“Stop!” I tried again. We were now so close to the blaze that its heat forced me to squeeze my eyes into the barest slits. If we got any closer, either fire or the Beast would kill him. “Don’t you dare sacrifice yourself for me!”
Was that a snort I heard? “I won’t—”
The forest detonated. I had a second to see a bright ring rush toward us like the shock wave from a nuclear bomb. Then I was on the ground, blinking to clear the spots from my vision while my ears rang like they’d been replaced by clanging cymbals.
“What?” I tried to say, and couldn’t hear my own voice.
Setreg was lying next to me, shaking his head while blood ran from his ears. Embers swarmed around us like fireflies, but the worst of the blaze had died down. How? Hadn’t we just been hit with the mother of all lightning strikes? If so, shouldn’t it have caused more fire, not less?
“What happened?” I mouthed/said. I still couldn’t hear to tell if I was speaking out loud or not.
“Remy’s spell,” Setreg mouthed/replied.