Chapter 55
Diaval
I wish we didn't have to drive through this town.
Every street, every corner seems to pull painful memories from Feray. I can feel them thrumming through our bond, like a dark echo of something she's desperately trying to bury. It's as if she's reliving it all over again.
I keep my gaze on her, watching her eyes pulse ice blue in intervals that make my heart tighten. Easton keeps glancing over too, his concern palpable as the air grows heavier with each passing mile.
Do you sense any more magic restraining our mate? I ask Easton through our mythic bond.
Nothing, he responds after a beat. I think whatever happened when we crossed into the arctic finally snapped free. Do you think they bound her true form, and returning to where she was meant to be was the key?
His question catches me off guard. I tilt my head, feeling my dragon stir, his thoughts meshing with mine as we debate the merits of Easton's theory. It makes a cruel, twisted kind of sense—that someone might have bound her, shackled her true self to the seat of her species' power.
It's a sound theory, meat bag. My dragon rumbles gruffly. Eggs go dormant for much less.
His reminder brings to mind the egg that sits in Feray's lap now—active, humming with life. It should have hatched years ago, but it didn't. It waited for Feray to find it, waited for the right time, the right place.
Or the rightful ruler of the north, my dragon adds, a hint of arrogance slipping into his tone.
But this isn't the time for arrogance. Feray's pain is too raw, too real, bleeding through the bond and wrapping around my heart like a vice. We're not just driving through a town. We're navigating a minefield of memories.
The crunch of rocks and branches under the tires is a welcome distraction from the storm of theories ricocheting around in my head.
If the school hadn't interfered, if the amulet wasn't worn—would Feray have migrated north like her forefathers before her, on her own?
The thought gnaws at me, but something else gnaws harder.
The pressure inside the car is growing with every passing second. The air feels wrong—thick and heavy, pressing against my eardrums like we're descending into deep water. My dragon stirs uneasily, his massive form coiling tighter in the back of my consciousness.
Something's wrong, meat bag. His voice slithers through my mind, urgent in a way I've rarely heard. His scales bristle with unease, and I feel phantom spines rising along my own back. We're being watched. Hunted.
I feel it too. Every nerve is on fire, every ancient instinct screaming that something is amiss.
The hair on my arms stands on end. My pupils dilate, trying to catch movement in the shadows between the trees.
Nine hundred years of survival instincts are shrieking at me to run, to fly, to get my mate out of here now.
But there's nowhere to go. The road stretches ahead, flanked by dense forest on both sides. We're boxed in.
Feray shifts in the backseat, her movements sharp and sudden as she stuffs the egg into her backpack with trembling fingers.
Her eyes dart around—left, right, up through the sunroof—her senses as heightened as mine.
I catch her reflection in the rearview mirror, and her eyes are already pulsing ice blue, her wolf rising to the surface without being called.
"I don't like this feeling," she murmurs, her voice tight with barely controlled fear. Her gaze scans the woods, searching for threats she can sense but can't see. "Something's out there. Something old."
The trees seem to lean closer. The shadows between them grow darker, deeper, despite the afternoon sun. I could swear I see shapes moving in my peripheral vision—there and gone before I can focus on them.
We cross the edge of town, the road leading us back to Blackmore, when the world explodes around us.
There's no warning. No flash of light, no incantation, nothing to brace against. One moment the air is clear—the next, thick gray smoke materializes inside the car itself, conjured from nothing, filling every inch of space in a single heartbeat.
Dark magic. Ancient magic. The kind that reeks of blood sacrifice and forbidden rituals.
The smoke doesn't just burn—it devours. It claws down my throat like broken glass, sears my lungs like I'm breathing liquid fire.
My eyes stream with tears that evaporate instantly from the heat.
This isn't natural smoke—it's alive, writhing with malevolent intent, seeking out every orifice, every wound, every weakness.
I can't see. I can't breathe. I can't think.
I slam on the brakes, throwing the SUV into park as the heat and smoke claw at every inch of exposed skin. My hands are blistering on the steering wheel, the leather melting against my palms.
POISON, my dragon roars. GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT—
Feray is out the door in an instant, coughing so hard I hear her retching as she drags her backpack behind her. Thank the gods. Thank every god that ever existed. She's out. She's out. But I can't move.
My blood isn't just boiling—it's carbonating, fizzing through my veins like acid eating through copper pipes.
Every muscle locks in place, seizing so hard I hear my own teeth crack from the pressure of my jaw clenching.
I fight for control against the beast within, but it's like trying to hold back a tsunami with my bare hands.
My dragon is thrashing, screaming, scales rippling under my skin in waves that tear muscle from bone.
He's desperate to be free, to escape this metal coffin that's become our death trap.
But the shift won't come cleanly. The poison is blocking it, corrupting it, turning what should be a seamless transformation into a nightmare of half-formed scales and splitting skin.
I hear Khal tumble out the back door, his shift overtaking him in a violent surge that sounds like wet cloth being ripped apart.
His basilisk rises with a shriek that could shatter glass, hissing and thrashing, rubbing its face against rocks, trees, anything it can reach—trying desperately to clear whatever toxin is burning its eyes.
Easton barely makes it three steps from the car before he erupts into flames so hot the grass beneath him turns to ash instantly.
But something's wrong—his wings are crumpled, useless, and he's flopping on the ground like a fish pulled from water, burning everything in his path but unable to control the inferno consuming him.
He's screaming through the bond, wordless agony that tears through my skull.
Torben's door explodes off its hinges as his bear takes control—not a smooth shift but a violent rupture, fur and muscle bursting through human skin.
A massive brown blur crashes to the ground, immediately stumbling, disoriented, shaking its enormous head like it's trying to dislodge something from its brain.
Shit. Shit shit shit—
I'm still locked in place, muscles rigid as stone as the magic intended for me—specifically for me—tightens its grip like a python around my chest. I can't breathe. I can't shift. I can't do anything but sit here and die while my mates suffer around me.
NO. My dragon's roar tears from my throat, raw and furious and terrified—an emotion I haven't felt in centuries. The sound shatters what's left of the windows, sends birds screaming from trees a mile away. WE WILL NOT DIE IN A METAL BOX LIKE CATTLE.
I feel Khal's coils wrap around Feray and Torben, dragging them away from the car with desperate strength. Through the haze of agony, I see his massive serpentine head turn toward me, and the look in those ancient eyes—worry, helplessness, grief—tells me he thinks he's watching me die.
Maybe he is.
The pain is indescribable. No—it's unimaginable. Every pop and crack of my bones feels like molten lava surging through my marrow, like someone is replacing my skeleton with white-hot iron one piece at a time. My spine arches so violently I hear vertebrae separate.
My dragon tears free with a sound that will haunt my nightmares for centuries—the wet, meaty ripping of a creature too large forcing itself through a space too small.
The SUV doesn't just break apart; it detonates around us, metal shrieking and groaning as it's shredded like wet paper by talons and scales and a body that should not exist in this dimension.
The back half of the car spins through the air and slams into the ground inches from Easton's thrashing form, close enough to ruffle his burning feathers.
I stagger on legs that don't remember how to work, then collapse. The ground trembles under my weight—under the weight of a form I can barely control, barely inhabit. My vision swims in and out, colors bleeding together, sounds warping into meaningless noise.
This was meant for me.
The thought comes slow, sluggish, fighting through the poison that's turning my brain to sludge. They didn't want to kill Feray. They wanted to kill ME. Kill the bond. Leave her defenseless.
Leave her alone.
The last thing I see—the very last image before consciousness abandons me—is Feray's wolf launching out of Khal's coils like a white arrow fired from a bow.
Her mouth opens wide, wider than should be possible, and she unleashes a cone of frost so intense I feel the temperature drop forty degrees in an instant.
Ice crystals form on my scales. The poison in my blood actually slows for one blessed moment.
She's not aiming at me. She's aiming at something behind me.
Her paws land on my head—four points of pressure that feel like anchors to reality—and she uses me as a springboard to leap at whatever nightmare is approaching from my blind side.
I hear the impact of bodies colliding, hear the crunch of bones and the wet tear of flesh, hear my mate's snarl of pure, primal rage— And then the world fades to black.
The only sensation left is the fleeting brush of her paws leaving my scales, the phantom warmth of her presence, and the desperate prayer that she survives whatever I couldn't protect her from.
Please, I beg whatever gods might be listening. Not her. Take me. Take everything. Just not her. Darkness claims me before I can hear if anyone answers.
I have no clue how long I was out, but everything hurts.
As ridiculous as it sounds, even my hair aches.
One thing is certain—I'm incredibly warm, lying on something soft that cradles my aching body. I struggle to regain control, fighting through the fog of pain and exhaustion. My eyelids feel weighted with lead, but I manage to blink several times before they finally open.
Snow-white fur fills my vision, and my heart clenches in relief.
Feray. She's curled protectively around me, her massive form a comforting presence.
Her head rests gently on my legs, and I'm nestled in the hollow before her hind legs, just behind her ribs.
My head lies against her side, my face angled toward hers.
The steady rise and fall of her breathing grounds me.
"There's Sleeping Beauty." Khal's voice cuts through the haze. He's crouched beside me, his expression a mix of relief and concern. "You gave us a bit of a scare."
Feray lifts her head, those ice-blue eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that makes my chest tighten.
"The wendigo that attacked Feray's parents came for us," Torben says, his voice heavy with regret. "We think you were the target. It was a paralytic specifically for dragons." The implications hit me like a punch to the gut.
"If they kill you, they kill her," Torben adds. He doesn't look in our direction, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.
Khal offers me a bottle of water, and I take it gratefully, my hand trembling as I unscrew the cap and sip slowly. The cool liquid soothes my parched throat, but it does little to ease the gnawing fear. "So, other than the car being destroyed, what else happened?"
Easton's expression darkens. "Feray killed the wendigo by herself." His tone is tight with restrained fury. "She ripped the being out of its chest, then snapped its head off its shoulders. The husk fell."
The air thickens around us. My mind races, trying to process it all, but the only thing I can focus on is the rage in Easton's voice.
He's furious that he wasn't able to protect her, that he wasn't there to help when she needed it most. I reach out, my fingers brushing against her fur, needing the connection to reassure myself that she's really here.
I stare at the scar that runs down her face, the way it almost glows as an angry red line against the white of her fur.
Reaching out, I cup the left side of her face, my thumb grazing the tail end of the scar. This time she knew what to do, how to fight it and win. It makes me wonder exactly how much is instinct or genetic memory. We've survived this time, but the danger is far from over.
Torben turns, cradling Feray's bag against his chest. "We salvaged everything we could from the SUV." The egg survived against all odds.
"What did we lose?" I manage to ask, my voice rough. Khal helps me sit up. The sudden movement sends a wave of dizziness through me.
Feray shifts, her form blurring as she steps away, her eyes locked on me with an intensity that sends a chill down my spine. She tilts her head, studying me with a calculating gaze.
"Nothing of importance," she says, her voice as cold and sharp as the ice she can conjure.
There's a new edge to her tone, a bite that wasn't there before.
This attack has pushed her past her breaking point.
She's furious, and I can feel the power simmering just beneath her skin, waiting to be unleashed.
Her family was targeted. Now she's ready to strike back.
I watch as she takes her pack from Torben, her fingers brushing his hand briefly before she opens it and checks the egg.
Her eyes flick over it, ensuring it's intact, before she slips it carefully back into the bag.
Her expression is unreadable, but the storm brewing behind her eyes is impossible to miss.
Without a word, Feray turns and walks off, shifting seamlessly as she goes, her form dissolving into the sleek, lethal shape of her wolf.
She's going to hunt, my dragon murmurs, his voice tinged with both admiration and concern.
I glance over my shoulder, catching Easton's gaze.
He nods, understanding immediately. With a quick shift, he takes to the air in his phoenix form, his flames subdued—just a shimmer of heat as he follows her into the night.
Feray's not in a good place. The darkness she's carrying needs an outlet.
She can't be left alone. Not now. Not when her fury burns as fiercely as the ice she commands.