Chapter Twenty-Nine
Tor
Lightning led the way as I strode out into the hallway, shooting from my skin and drilling into the outlets and light bulbs. The house came alive as my energy sank into its circuits, illuminating my path despite closed circuits. Power filled me as I followed the path of cold and evil.
Even if I hadn’t been able to find that, the undeniable scent of Mia filled the air.
Our sex had been vigorous, and she’d exerted herself as much as I had.
Now I tracked those pheromones through my house.
She was not going to get away from me. I was going to save her, and in the process, I would destroy the Vorgan.
Then I would end the threat of my sister because I had no doubts that she’d unleashed the Vorgan, much as she had before, letting the untamed creature loose on the dragons of the Manerium.
Tempest and the others had died in their sleep to its brutality. My sister would not get such a reprieve. She would die, and die painfully, for what she’d done.
And that was if I found Mia unharmed. If she’d harmed her in any way … I would lock her up in a cell with the Vorgan and let it repay the pain a dozen times over.
Outside the house, thunder rumbled. The incoming storm was responding to my fury and call for power. It would disrupt the local weather cell, but I didn’t give a fuck. The God-King as my witness, I would tear the house down until the storm built into a hurricane before I gave up searching for Mia.
“Where are you going?” I growled as I rounded another corner, the scent more than strong enough on the charged air for me to follow with ease. The continual tendrils of frozen icicles in my blood just served to confirm that.
I’d expected the trail to lead me outside. But it didn’t. Instead, it wound through the house several times. I saw slashes on the floor and the wall, but none of them were bloody. The Vorgan was just destroying for the pleasure of it.
My lips pulled back in a snarl of fury, and I broke into a jog as I realized where we were going. The Vorgan wasn’t heading for a door after all. It wasn’t trying to get out of the house. It was heading even deeper into it.
I raced ahead, taking the stairs to the basement in a single bound, rolling and coming to my feet as lightning spit in every direction, turning the steel panels into electrified fences as I burst out of the stone tunnel and into the Rift room.
“You bitch,” I growled, seeing the Rift glowing with fresh lightning, indicative of a recent passage.
Rica must have opened it for the Vorgan, guiding it to the other side. They were heading for home. For the mountain under Storm Keep. If they got there, I would never find them. I would never find Mia. She would be lost to me forever.
With a snarl, I rushed at the Rift, throwing myself through it without caring what might be waiting on the other side.
When I was younger, my father had been the one to kill the Vorgan that had attacked. I was too young, too inexperienced with my powers, to be able to take it down. The other dragons, they were too weak.
Now, I was neither. I was heir to the fucking Storm Throne, and I had all the power I needed to destroy the Vorgan the way my father had.
Royal blood flowed in my veins, descended directly from the God-King himself.
My father had taught me much since my sister had been exiled, and it was time I showed her just how poorly she’d erred in coming for me.
My powers had expanded beyond what she could comprehend. I would end the Vorgan, and I would end her. Then I would claim Mia as my mate.
Dragon blood all but sang with promise as I poured energy into my change, swiftly growing in size. Bright blue scales replaced human skin in a patchwork that covered my entire body in the span of an eyeblink. Wings sprouted from my back while my fingers became claws longer than my human forearm.
Without waiting for the change to finish, I hurled myself into the air, a gust of wind coming at my call, sweeping me up and launching me toward the tunnel that would take me into the storm clan lands.
Each swoop of my wings accelerated me faster than any other dragon in the entire realm as the wind pushed against me from behind, gathering me into a vortex of swiftly spinning air.
I shot up the giant tunnel, its width enough to accommodate skyscrapers lying side by side, let alone a single dragon. The sheer scope of Mount Drakonus defied comparison. Even as I raced out of the mouth like a cannonball, rocketing into a darkening sky, I couldn’t help but look behind me.
The tunnel I’d exited was near the base of the mountain, while the peak stretched high, high above me.
Mount Everest, by comparison, would come perhaps halfway up the side of Drakonus.
I wasn’t entirely sure because the peak was always shrouded in a ring of gray-blue clouds, obscuring the top.
Only those with a key could fly through those clouds and find the peak where the God-King supposedly lived.
I had one of those keys, gifted to me by my father the day he went to visit the God-King the final time. I would use it to take Mia there, where we would stand before the immortal ruler of all dragon kind and take the Test to ensure we truly were Eternal Mates.
Of course, to do that, I had to save Mia first.
The sky around me darkened, and thick raindrops splattered against my scales and wings as I continued to accelerate.
I had no idea how large a lead Mia had on me, but I intended to close the gap as fast as I could.
The lands below flowed past as I built speed like no other dragon could ever hope to achieve.
Threatening me was one thing. I could handle that. But going after Mia meant the gloves were off.
Twin or not, Rica, this will be the last thing you ever do to threaten me or those around me. This, I swear.
Up ahead, despite the growing dark, I spotted a shape moving through the air.
It was black and wispy, like a cloud of its own.
I likely never would have spotted it on its own.
However, a bright ball of human flesh was at its center.
Mia, nearly naked and in the grasp of the most terrifying creature in all the dragon lands.
“Release her!” I bellowed as I closed in on it, my voice cracking out with the power of the entire storm, like the sound of thunder after a lightning strike.
I saw the Vorgan turn to look at me, its head an elongated snout with four horns and two giant shadowy fangs that dropped over its mouth.
Eyes the color of burning coal saw me, and it shot forward with a renewed burst of speed.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I rumbled, the storm echoing my fury. I shot after the creature while all around us, lightning began to fill the clouds, blocking the Vorgan’s path. There was nowhere for it to go.
“Give her to me,” I said, “and I will let you go.”
I would never lie to Mia or those I cared about. But I didn’t consider the Vorgan a creature, let alone something I trusted. I would lie to it all day long.
The creature just laughed, a high-pitched shrieking noise, and surged forward toward the nearest wall of lightning.
“Tor!” Mia screamed from within its clutches as thunder boomed from every side, a cacophony of noise that must have terrified her. I could see perfectly well in the dark as the storm enveloped us on all sides, but she had to be near blind, only able to see from the flash of the lightning.
“I’m coming for you!” I yelled in my amplified voice. “I will save you!”
The Vorgan laughed again, and then it plunged from the sky. I tucked my wings in and dove after it, wind shrieking over my scales as I closed the distance. I had no idea what the evil thing was doing, but I knew it couldn’t outrun me. Not anymore.
Before I could reach it, we burst from the lower belly of the storm, the Vorgan immediately swooping off to the left. I had to bank hard to the right, narrowly avoiding the peak of a mountain.
I bellowed in anger, whipping around as fast as I could in pursuit of the Vorgan. In my single-minded pursuit of the creature, I hadn’t noticed just how close we were to Storm Keep. Now we were over the mountain and my home.
The Vorgan ducked over the crest of a ridge, and I followed, just in time to see it dart into an opening cleverly hidden from view unless approached at the exact right angle.
It had reached its home, and it still had Mia.
So I went after it. There was no other choice.
I wasn’t leaving without my mate. I’d vowed to keep her safe, and I would do just that. Pity the creature that got in my way. Overhead, the storm continued to thrash as it wreaked havoc with the local weather cell. Below, I entered the lair of the beast.