Chapter 33 #3
For a moment, he could only stand back and watch as the dragons fought the Jaeggi in hand-to-hand combat. There wasn’t enough room for any of them to shift into their dragon form and not risk bringing the entire building down on their heads.
He was attempting to tear his gaze away to look for the missing Taavi mages when a Jaeggi with a shaved head and jagged scar across his throat prepared what felt like a particularly nasty spell, and his eyes locked on Baldewin, who was already tangled up with another Jaeggi.
“Fuck no,” Tori snarled.
All logical thought stopped in his brain, and pure rage took over.
This asshole thought he was going to attack his dragon, hurt his mate?
He was delusional. Plunging his right hand into the pocket of his jeans, he fumbled around for a moment until he came up with the element the angry part of his brain was searching for.
He thrust his left hand out toward Baldewin, calling up a ball of energy from his mate.
At the same time, he smashed the glass vial in his right hand against the concrete.
The ancient wild rose seeds were only meant as part of a cleansing spell, but when Tori barked out, “Resti gev adi,” directing the power he’d borrowed from Baldewin, vines the size of full-grown Burmese pythons shot from the seeds and snaked around the screaming Jaeggi.
Thorns the length of Tori’s arm sprang from the vines and stabbed deep into the Jaeggi.
In a heartbeat, his screams were silenced, and he stopped struggling against the vines tightening around him.
“Holy shit,” Baldewin exhaled.
Tori blinked slowly, as if waking from a nightmare, and looked up at his mate.
“He was going to kill you,” he simply said, and he knew that no matter Baldewin’s reaction, he couldn’t regret what he’d done.
The Jaeggi had meant to hurt his dragon, and his dragon needed to be protected no matter what.
“Thank you,” Baldewin said with a shaky smile.
“Tori,” Evora called out. “Do you know the spell for Titan’s Shield?” She held up a vial of troll skin flakes. Tori grinned and dug into his pocket for the captured sunlight he’d grabbed from the satchel.
Crossing over to where Evora stood, he prepared to pull the stopper free.
Titan’s Shield was a basic spell he knew the mechanics for but had never attempted to cast, thanks to the restrictions of his teachers.
Now he had no doubt that he could do it.
Not after what he’d already accomplished since coming to stay with the Burkhard Clan.
“I will cover the Valerii dragons if you can get the Burkhard dragons,” Evora said as she prepared the vial of troll skin.
Tori nodded, mentally pulling on Baldewin’s energy again.
The power curled and brushed against his mind.
There was a strange sense of joy and exhilaration that came with the dragon’s power, as if the dragon himself was happy to be helping Tori in this way.
Did he feel the same sense of completion that Tori did when he shared his energy?
Evora opened the vial, and Tori released the captured sunlight. As one, they said the spell command.
Titan’s Shield wasn’t an overly complicated spell, but it was one few mages had managed to cast in the past several centuries, simply because it required so much power that a mage had to draw energy from a dragon.
Without a dragon, a dozen mages at least needed to chain together their own power, and even then, it wasn’t as strong as what a bound mage could cast.
Tori grinned like a madman as he watched the beautiful golden shield fall over the dragons and Cameron.
His new clanmates were now as invincible as he could make them.
The spell wasn’t perfect. It could be stripped away by an accomplished mage, but these Jaeggi were now on the run and had little chance of beating the dragons.
With his dragons protected, Tori turned his attention to locating the missing Taavi mages.
It didn’t take much. They were gathered together in the far corner, their faces bruised and dirty.
The girl held one of the male mages in her lap, his face slack.
From across the room, Tori couldn’t tell if he was dead or merely unconscious.
He carefully worked his way around the room, trying to stay out of the line of fire as the dragons took down the Jaeggi. When he finally reached them, he knelt down and pressed two fingers to the side of the unconscious mage’s neck.
“Nestori? What are you doing here?” Panu asked with a hint of surprise and maybe disgust in his voice.
“The dragons and I are saving your asses,” Tori snapped.
“Is he going to die?” Tanja asked.
Markku’s pulse was thready and faint but still there.
His skin was cold and clammy. It was clear his magical core was damaged much like Cassie’s had been, though not to the same extent.
They must have reached them in time. Tori shook his head.
“No, but we need to get him back to Nuorgam and the healers as soon as possible.”
“It was like they sucked the power straight out of him. What the fuck!” Panu cried, but Tori largely ignored him as he glanced back at the dragons. They’d managed to destroy all but one of the Jaeggi, who was on his knees in the center of the largely destroyed room.
“Stay here,” he barked and pushed to his feet. He walked over to where Baldewin and the other dragons were standing around the Jaeggi. The man with shaggy black hair stared up at them, blue eyes blazing with hatred.
“You dragon cowards! You can kill me, but it’s not going to stop our clan,” the Jaeggi snarled.
“Why are you attacking mages? What can you possibly hope to accomplish?” Rodrigo demanded.
The Jaeggi laughed, the sound pitched high and a bit hysterical.
“Accomplish? We’re going to destroy all the dragons.
You’re the ones who broke our power. You’re the ones who ruined our lives.
We want you dead. All of you dead!” He paused, and his grin cut like a gaping wound across his face.
“But first, we’re going to drain all the power out of you and every fucking mage that exists in the world.
We’re going to be the most powerful creatures on this planet.
We’re going to remind the humans what it was like to have mages in the world.
The Jaeggi will rise up and take control of all. ”
“We will never let that happen,” Alric vowed. His deep voice fell low and rumbled like thunder through the room. “The Jaeggi should have been destroyed centuries ago for what you did. You killed dragons and slaughtered thousands of mages. You wiped out entire clans.”
“You’ll never stop us all.” He giggled slightly. “You’re not even going to get out of this room.”
Tori’s heart leapt into his throat as he felt the power rise within the mage. He had only a second to act. Meeting Evora’s panicked gaze across the room, he could only hope she would be able to follow his lead.
“Grab the shield!” he shouted. Calling on the power that still flowed freely from Baldewin, Tori raked his fingers down Baldewin’s chest. His fingertips barely brushed his shirt, but that was fine.
He needed only to touch the Titan’s Shield coating his lover.
It was enough to allow him to snag it not only from Baldewin but Ravi and Gunter as well.
He wasn’t willing to steal it from Alric.
There was no question what his first duty was—protect the king.
Tori turned and threw the shield around the Jaeggi so it formed half of a bubble.
Evora mimicked his action, creating the other half of the bubble, closing him within a shimmering golden light.
Ravi started to speak, but the words were cut off a moment later when the Jaeggi mage exploded.
The blast pounded against the shield, and Tori shouted in pain as it reverberated up his arms and slammed against his chest.
Strong arms wrapped around him from behind, and Baldewin’s strong torso pressed against his back, supporting him when his entire body wanted to crumble. “I’ve got you. Lean on me,” Baldewin whispered gently in his ear.
Tori took him up on that offer and put all his weight on the dragon as he held back the blast. The energy seemed to burn along his muscles and rattle his bones.
He and Evora slowly pushed the shield inward, suffocating the fire until there was nothing left but a black smear on the battered concrete floor.
With a relieved sigh, he dropped his arms to his sides and released the shielding spell. He glanced across the room to find Evora collapsing into the arms of her mate, Thiago. The dragon pressed dozens of little kisses across her head and face as he praised her. She looked exhausted but happy.
Closing his eyes, he sank into Baldewin’s warmth and support, letting his dragon love him and care for him.
“Tori, thank you,” Alric said. There was a catch in his throat that seemed to wrap tight around his heart. “You and Evora saved us.”
“That’s it. I want to be Tori when I grow up. Coolest mage ever!” Cameron shouted with a laugh.
“Baldewin, I have a request,” Tori said softly.
His lover nuzzled the side of his face and kissed his neck, sending the most delicious tingles through his body. “Baby, you just saved our lives. You can have anything you want.”
“I want to go home.”
Baldewin’s head jumped up, and he twisted around enough to look Tori in the face. “Home?” There was a line of worry that formed between his brows, and his full lips pulled down into a frown.
Tori nodded. “Home…to Burkhard. I wanna go home.”
His mate’s face broke into the most beautiful smile. “Then I will take you home.”
Common sense said that it would still be another day or so before that could even happen, but some part of him needed to hear it. He needed to hear that he was going home with his mate, and they were going to live a wonderful life together away from the chaos of the Taavi and the Jaeggi.