Chapter 5 Don’t Go Dragon Me Down
Jaxon
After Flint leaves, I take a quick shower to wash the blood and the stench of the night away. And contrary to what some people think, I don’t let shower gel touch my wound even though it’s already half healed.
To be honest, I’m a little surprised it’s taking this long to scab over—maybe it really was deeper than I originally thought. Either way, I should probably just sit on my ass for the rest of the night and let my body do its work.
Except that’s not going to happen.
If I just sit here staring at the walls for the next several hours, I’ll end up climbing them—or worse, bringing them and the rest of this damn place down around me.
Better to go to the training floor and get a quick workout in.
At least the pain will keep me focused and hopefully stop me from obsessing about whatever’s happening between Flint and his father right now.
Although I probably already know.
The floor beneath my feet trembles at the thought, a surefire sign that everything that’s happened tonight has eroded my control.
To combat it, I take a deep breath and concentrate on burying all the rage and fear and pain and love—because I really do fucking love that asshole dragon—down deep enough inside me that I can pretend not to feel it.
Because actually not feeling it isn’t an option anymore, and it hasn’t been since the moment Grace crashed into my life and turned it into a carnival funhouse where nothing is as it seems and everything is a million times worse than you thought it was.
To be fair, everything that’s happened in the last year is no more her fault than it is mine. Too bad knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to live with the aftermath.
Again, the floor trembles—only this time, the walls and windows do, too. Damn it. If I’m not careful, the Dragon Court is going to be in for its very first earthquake—as is this entire block.
Yeah, definitely time to hit the mats. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a dragon or three willing to take me on.
Turns out I only find one, but she’s tough enough to give me a run for my money. Not to mention knock me on my ass if I let my guard down, even for a second.
Too bad seeing her right now turns the memories haunting me into full-fledged ghosts. So many people dead. So many people I couldn’t save.
Windows rattle along the length of the training center, turning the view of Manhattan wavy for a few seconds.
Eden—the only other person in the place and a good friend of mine from Katmere Academy—lifts a dark brow as the room, too, begins to shake. “Rough night?”
“Something like that.” I nod to the long spear she’s holding by her side. “Planning on piercing someone’s heart with that thing?”
She grins, but her deep purple eyes stay watchful as she gives my answer right back to me. “Something like that.”
“Want to take a shot at mine?” At least a spear through the chest will give me a real, tangible reason for everything in my chest—and elsewhere—to hurt as much as it does tonight.
“I thought you’d never ask.” Her black braid flies behind her as she jumps, turns a full one hundred and eighty degrees in the air, and then stabs her spear straight toward my heart.
Or at least where my heart used to be. Because I’ve already faded across the room and grabbed a bo staff from the large collection hanging on the wall.
“That was cute,” I call to her. “Was that a demonstration, or did you actually think it was going to be that easy?”
“Just giving you a chance to warm up. I wouldn’t want you to accuse me of taking unfair advantage when I kick your ass,” she calls back with a look that is all sharp brows and sharper eyes.
My only answer is a snort—which she replies to with a stream of ice that nearly knocks me unconscious. The necessary adverb there being nearly.
This time, instead of fading, I use my telekinesis to push the ice spray—and Eden—to my left as I run to the right.
She snarls and pushes against my magic, but she’s not strong enough. Which only makes her snarl more. Dragons are ridiculously competitive.
The second I let her go, the spear clatters to the floor and she comes at me again—this time with teeth and talons. She’s semi-shifted, and her wings take her several feet in the air as she tries to grab at me with her claws.
The first time, I dodge them, but the second time, one of her hands connects with my shoulders and I feel the talons pierce through the skin. Shit. Flint is going to get pissed all over again.
But right now I’ve got a bigger problem, because she’s coming back for more.
Talons spread, eyes narrowed, and the ice breath she’s spent months working on is flying at me in huge chunks.
I dodge, fading across the room already, but she’s ready for me this time.
Instead of shooting at me, she aims where she thinks I’ll be.
And ends up hitting me in the shoulder, the back, and the knee.
The third hit has my leg screaming at the pain. It threatens to buckle, but sheer will holds it in place. I’ve trained with Eden enough in the last couple of months to know that if she gets me on the ground, the match is over.
The dragon is relentless.
I stay on my feet, then let my own dragon come out to play just enough to gain some altitude. It’s still new to me, this feeling that something else is alive under my skin.
The first time I felt it, I thought I was sick. Thought my body was rejecting Nuri’s heart or something. But then, when I was alone in my room at the Gargoyle Court, talons popped out of my fingers.
I still wasn’t sure what was happening until a couple of days later, when I grew wings for the first time.
A few hours in the extensive Gargoyle Court library, and I realized I had more than Nuri’s heart inside of me.
Somehow, her heart had also given me a dragon.
And as much as I hate that she lost her dragon in the process of saving me, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love every single second of being able to shift.
Of being able to not just experience the dragon’s power but to feel what Flint feels.
I meet Eden’s next round of ice with my fire, and it melts on contact, turning into water as it rains over the floor.
But I’m too busy striking out with the bo staff to pay much attention to where it falls.
Moments later, I strike Eden hard enough to send her careening through the air and slamming into the wall.
She cries out as she slides down the wall and hits the ground. Her wings go limp, and she struggles to stand but can’t.
“Shit, Eden.” I land in a crouch next to her. “Are you oka—”
Before I can try to figure out where she’s hurt, she plucks the bo staff from my grip and plows the end of it into my stomach—and by stomach I mean a very deliberate couple of inches above my groin—as hard as she can.
As I double over, she jumps to her feet and hits me with the bo staff again—this time a wide blow against my injured side.
“Fuck!” I gasp out as I crumble to my knees. With dragons, there really is a fine line between competitive and psychotic. A very fine line.
Especially since Eden remains on her feet for several seconds, bo staff poised in front of her like she’s waiting for my next attack. Considering blood is gushing down my side from my newly reopened wound, that’s not going to fucking happen.
Instead, I wrench the bo staff from her grasp and throw it as hard as I can. It soars all the way to the other end of the training center.
“I take it you’re crying uncle.” Her tone and smile are both smug when I push to my feet.
But because she’s also my friend, the smug smile melts the second she catches sight of the blood. “What the hell, Jax? Did I do that?”
Immediately, she tries to help, but I hold a hand up to ward her off. “I’m fine. You hit a gunshot wound I got earlier. I just need to walk it off.”
“Walk it off?” she squeaks in a voice I’ve never heard from her before. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything? Flint’s going to kill me.”
“More like seriously maim,” I tell her as I limp my way over to the closest bench. Shit. I feel worse now than when I first got shot. “But don’t worry. He’ll be aiming for both of us.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” She sinks onto the bench next to me. “How exactly did you get shot, anyway?”
I give her the abbreviated version, and she’s immediately livid. “You know it’s the fucking Council, don’t you? They’ve been trying to stir up shit since we got here.”
“I’m aware.” I lift up my shirt to see if the bleeding’s stopped, and Eden yelps.
“Damn, that looks rough. Why isn’t it healing better?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because someone just slammed a bo staff into it?”
“Well, maybe if someone had mentioned he was injured, I would have been more careful,” she shoots back.
I give her a disbelieving look. “Or you would have aimed there first.”
She tries to look offended, but we both know it’s probably true—Eden doesn’t let anything get in her way.
Because she can’t argue with me, she switches back to the previous topic. “You know you guys have to do something about this, right? Sooner rather than later?”
“By you guys, are you talking about Flint and me? Because I can assure you, we both just did something.”
Eden rolls her eyes. “I don’t mean a street fight. And I don’t mean just you and Flint. I mean the entire dragon royal family—Nuri, Aiden, Flint, and you. You’ve been letting this ride for months, dealing with the symptoms instead of the cause. You need to start attacking the cause or…”
She trails off, but I know what she’s going to say. Or there won’t be a Dragon Court—at least not the way there has been for centuries.