Chapter 22 #3
“My name is Mia,” she said.
I nodded. “Come with me, Mia. But watch out because they will attack me.”
Tearing the curtains off the hooks, I tossed them aside. The corridor widened here, opening into a cave with a high ceiling. White curtains divided the space into sections with moans coming from behind them all. I yanked aside the curtain closest to me.
Mazra lifted her head from the crotch of a human man lying on his back on a pallet of blankets. All six of her tendrils were buried deep in his leilathas.
“Close the curtains. Erik doesn’t like being watched,” she hissed over her shoulder. Her attention remained on his cock with her hand replacing her mouth.
“Where is Elaine?” I growled in a hoarse voice I hardly recognized myself.
Mazra jerked her head, turning to me. Her eyes seemed clearer than Ray’s, though it still took her a moment to focus.
“You…” she snarled, bearing her fangs.
“Where is she?” I roared with the barely contained rage smoking on my breath.
I didn’t wait for her reply, yanking another curtain off its hooks, then another. Inside one enclosure, a male fae held the flaccid cock of a human man who lay on a blanket spread over the stone floor.
“This one is done,” the fae complained, not looking up from his human toy.
He let go of the human’s cock and punched an empty teapot on the floor next to the blanket.
“Where is the servant? That lazy moron,” he mumbled, crawling on all fours as far as his tendrils connected to the human would allow, while upturning every single dish that littered the floor.
“Guards? Someone needs to bring us more tea!”
His knee landed on a clay shard of a broken dish. The sharp edge cut through the fabric of his skirt and sliced his knee open. Dark blood stained the stone floor, but he hadn’t even glanced at it, peering into the narrow spout of yet another empty carafe instead.
Mia gripped the end of my skirt, holding on to me like a child in search of protection.
I found the third human man behind the next curtain.
A fae woman straddled him, riding his cock while a fae man and a second fae woman lay on each side of the human.
All three shared his pleasure, with two tendrils each connected to him.
All four were moaning harder and harder as he came closer to his completion.
“By gods, what are you doing here?” Mazra yelled after me, scrambling to her feet.
I yanked another curtain aside and froze.
With a moan, a male fae tried to lift his head from between a human woman’s thighs, but she had her fingers tangled in the intricate weave of his long, thin braids.
“More,” she demanded in a hoarse voice, yanking at his hair.
A female fae lay on her side, leisurely circling the human woman’s nipple with her finger.
Another fae woman sat next to them, her tendrils were out but not connected to the human woman yet.
My woman, I realized, barely recognizing Elaine with her thick hair tangled into a messy mane, her eyes shut, her brow furrowed, and her teeth bared as she growled again, “More.”
Pain sliced through me. She never wanted this. This had been one of her biggest fears. I’d told her I wouldn’t let it ever happen to her.
And I failed.
I could no longer hold the inferno inside me. Anguish erupted from me in a blast of fire. Tossing my head back, I sent the blast up into the ceiling. The curtains caught on fire.
Grabbing the man’s head, I wrenched his hair from Elaine’s fingers. I yanked so hard, his neck snapped, killing him instantly. Something about the way he wore his hair was familiar. I turned his head to me.
“Suhai,” I growled into the face of the dead mage. “Fucking traitor!” I tossed the lifeless body aside.
One of the fae women screeched, grabbing a long rusty knife from her belt.
The other one jumped to her feet too, leaving her tendrils in Elaine’s leilathas.
I lashed out with my tail, slicing through her tendrils.
Their severed ends curled and spread, dissolving into the air around us.
The woman screamed in pain, dropping to her knees.
I felt no pity, no compassion inside me.
Only the pure, burning rage.
“You demon!” the woman with the knife growled and rushed me.
Her blade sliced through my left leg. Blood burst out, drenching my skirt. But I hardly felt the pain. All my emotions, anything that was ever good inside me, had turned to stone and only the inferno of fury and hatred remained.
I wrapped my claws around the fae’s skull and squeezed until her bones crushed and her brain burst between my fingers. Then I tossed her aside and swept Elaine from the pallet of dirty blankets. She whimpered, arching her back. Her body was tense, every muscle tight like a string of a bow.
“No… I can’t…I have to…” she moaned, writhing restlessly in my arms.
I kissed her hair, breathing in her warm familiar scent, and something in my chest eased. Just holding her made this vile place feel bearable.
“I love you,” I whispered into her hair.
She jerked her head back to look at me. The haze momentarily cleared from her eyes.
“Timur?” she whispered uncertainly, as if struggling to recognize me.
Her eyes looked glossy, welling up with tears.
A fae man tossed an empty teakettle at me. The human man he was with crawled off the blankets and retched, standing on all fours. Mazra growled, charging at me with a sword. But I was done here. The most precious person in the world was in my arms now, and no one could take her away from me.
I shoved Mazra away with my tail. The human man she was with, Erik, walked out from behind the curtain, then helped the retching man up to his feet.
“You all need to leave,” I told them calmly. “This place will burn, and you will go up in flames with it if you stay.”
Erik blinked at me, staring at me in confusion. His gaze was dazed, just like the eyes of the other humans, but he seemed to be slightly more lucid than the rest.
“Where will we go?” he asked.
Mia touched his arm.
“I’ll show you.” She gestured at the exit from the cave.
The fae with the kettle snarled, lunching after her, but she avoided his grabbing hands, running to the exit with the other two humans.
Erik remained in place, however, staring at me. No, I realized, he wasn’t looking at me, but at Elaine in my arms.
“She’s mine.” I cuddled her to my chest like the treasure she was.
I lowered my body as far as my wings would allow while supporting me in flight, then brought my face to Erik’s.
“Run,” I uttered softly.
Smoke curled out of my mouth with that word. Sparks crackled. Heat blew Erik’s tangled light-brown locks from his face.
He took an unsteady step back, then ran after the other humans.
I soared into the air, twisted around, and sent a blast of fire toward the back of the cave. All curtains caught ablaze, those on the floor and the few still hanging. The flames engulfed the blankets and pallets on the floor, churning in a fiery tornado around me.
I turned away, shielding my woman from the inferno I’d unleashed, then flew out, letting it all burn behind me.
The flames roared, spreading through the tunnel and chasing me. I caught up with the humans at the exit into the tavern.
“Faster!” I urged as the fire raged behind me, heating my back and scorching my tail. Once the flames were unleashed, I lost control over them.
The fire caught up with us and shot past me.
It wouldn’t harm me, but it would burn the humans faster than the curtains in the cave behind us.
Folding my wings around Elaine, I rolled across the tavern’s floor.
Knocking the humans off their feet, I shoved them in front of me out of the cave and onto the beach.
Safely out of the fire, they climbed to their feet, looking around in bewilderment.
Pale morning light filtered through the dark clouds of the growing storm. The heat of the battle was dying out, and the dead bodies littering the black sand had already begun to smolder with the shadows of afterlife.
Survivors were captured, their tendrils clipped, their hands and feet shackled. A group of them huddled in the middle of the beach, trapped between the burning Wall and the stormy ocean. Prince Rha’s warriors guarded them.
I unfurled my wings, taking Elaine up into the air with me.
The beach seemed much wider than normal today. The ocean receded way past the tidal line, leaving behind a wide stretch of wet sand that glistened with the remnants of broken coral and shells.
“The Big Wave is coming,” one of the captives said, his eyes open wide in horror.
A panicked murmur rolled through the groups of the captured Ashgate dwellers. From above them, I could see the gray water of the ocean rising in a high swell on the horizon.
“Take the humans back to the desert, keep them safe,” I said to the warriors, then flew along the beach in search of the prince.
I found him at the other end of the beach, leading the fight that was still ongoing.
“The ocean is rushing in,” I warned him. “It’ll flood the beach and the caves. You’ll need to leave and take the humans and warriors to safety.”
“Did you find Elaine?” He glanced at my woman pressed to my chest.
“I did. And I’m not losing her again.”
The Big Wave was on its way to flood Ashgate. It’d extinguish the fire. Maybe it was the mercy of the gods that spared Ashgate from complete annihilation. But I wasn’t going to change its fate now. With Elaine in my arms again, my rage at the city was extinguished too.
Spreading my wings, I rose over the chaos of fire and flood, taking my woman with me.