Chapter 34
Chapter 3 4
Elpis
Keyon said he loved me…
He loved me!
I was going to say it first!
We were too slow, Rein said dreamily. Toast already told me.
What? I nearly shouted at her. He must have confessed while they were… baking together. So far, I’d put off watching those memories.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from Keyon’s to get a second to think. I was so elated that my brain stopped working for a moment. I knew… I knew he loved me in some form, but to hear it out loud was euphoric. My eyes watered, and I tried to blink away my overflowing emotions.
“Oh, Keyon, I love you too!” I gasped and wrapped my arms around his neck to kiss him soundly. His sigh into my mouth carried bone-deep satisfaction, and his hands slid up and around my back to pull me against him. Every movement he made with his arms and fingers was a silent dedication to cherish me, and it had me melting.
“I know it’s pretty much a given to love your fated mate, but… Elpis, you’re the most phenomenal female. I can’t believe how lucky I am,” he murmured into my lips. “You saved so many people today, you know that? Without you… all that could have taken weeks—if not months—of Leof obtaining intel to get raid permission and me having to tear an entire area apart to find hidden slaves.
“Elpis…” he said softly, pulling back farther to look at my face. “You’re so beautiful, so clever, so kind.” He smiled and playfully assessed me, dragging his palms down to cup my bottom and whisper, “So very fuckable, but most of all…” His smile faded, and he looked at me in earnest. “A force with which to be reckoned. I can’t imagine anyone else I’d rather have by my side forever.”
I bit my lip hard so as not to fly into a crying fit. “Ah…” I sniffed, feeling my chin wobble as I fought tears. “You give me too much credit!” I smashed my lips against his and pulled a groan from him, but he suddenly stiffened.
He pulled his lips away, wrinkling his nose, and became annoyed. “Leof is looking for me. Something urgent came up.” He growled and stood up to go meet him. I grabbed onto his passing hand and used him to stand so I could follow. I was curious, but I also wanted to be near Keyon.
When I thought about it being urgent, I wasn’t expecting Leofwine to have a massive grin on his face. His pearly white fangs glistened with his grin, and he gestured behind him to what had to be several hundred tired-looking warriors.
“The last spy I was waiting for verified the safety of the location, but it was already full of these guys,” Leofwine said, pointing a thumb backwards. Keyon’s brows shot up in surprise.
“I recognize many of these dragons. These are some of the king’s soldiers. Have they defected?” he asked, studying the males in disbelief. Leofwine nodded, and his face softened as he looked back at the exhausted warriors who were settling down to rest .
“When they quit their duties, the king promised retaliation, so they evacuated with their families,” Leofwine explained. “Their families were left safe and sound at the prior hideout, but this lot volunteered to join our ranks once my spy informed them of our goal.”
“Fucking sun’s fire,” Keyon murmured, scratching his chin. “Cyneric’s really messing things up. He still has more soldiers at his disposal than we do, but this is starting to even out the situation.”
“Are you going to absorb them?” Leofwine asked. “I think you should. This is an all-or-nothing war, in my opinion.” Keyon nodded, and I wandered through the new recruits. I knew I was fairly depleted, but I was compelled to check and see how they were doing. There were only a couple fractures and a sprain, which were fairly lightweight injuries, so I just took care of those. I gave my name and told them where to find running water, then returned to Keyon.
“You look wiped. You healed someone, didn’t you?” he said, playfully accusing me.
“Not so bad… but food and sleep are on my menu,” I mumbled tiredly. I shifted in private and let Rein graze. It was the easiest. Then I trudged to camp to sleep. It was a miracle I made it to my blanket.
With the sharing of rations, volunteering hunters, access to fresh water, and rest, all the warriors were looking revived by morning. My poor mate had stayed up late to bring every single one of the ex-king’s soldiers into his Inferno. He’d gone to bed with a raspy throat, but Toast had healed it before I could.
We soon launched into the sky, and I felt some of Rein’s scales flutter as a shiver raked through her. The size of the group following us was becoming quite the terrifying sight. Toast sensed our trepidation and moved to fly a little closer to us, letting his proximity offer some comfort. Rein and I resolved to not look back again, even if we knew we were safe.
Westrove was next, but it had a surprisingly small number of slaves compared to the other wealthy towns… until I discovered a camouflaged compound several miles east of it. Fortunately, I’d flown close enough to the holding area to feel the misery. It wasn’t between our list of stops, and had I been farther west, I could have missed it entirely. It was a close enough call to make me shudder.
We reunited the two groups after taking down the slavers and the compound’s guards. This engagement had been bloody because no guard at the compound wanted to surrender, and there were multiple attempts to take hostages. These poor Reborn seemed particularly traumatized, and it looked like the holding area was for pre-bidding. I was fairly certain these were all brand-new slaves who were about to be shipped off to sun-knows-where. I was hopeful, though, that many of the hatchlings could be reunited with their families if they were recently abducted.
The next location had Leofwine humming with excitement. Simmer was almost bouncing on the wind as we flew toward Franco’s large property. As we approached, I felt Rein sneer at the amenities surrounding the mansion and neighboring estate. Her eyes traveled over a racetrack to the mansion, and the large…
Keyon! I cried.
I see him! he said and took a wide turn to approach a dragon that had to be Cyneric from the front. Fall back with your guards, Elpis! I felt Rein bite her tongue, not wanting to fall back, but did as our mate asked. Keyon’s army then formed a colossal crescent behind Toast as soon as he landed.
Just for now, Rein. We can and will help once we have more information, I said firmly to her. We weren’t the expert on warfare here.
There was no mistaking who Cyneric was. A dragon twice Toast’s size sat up from behind the mansion and strode forward to stand before my mate. He was… surprisingly colorful. I was ex pecting an evil-looking black-and-red dragon, but Cyneric was a vibrant shade of teal. Another aspect that made him stand out as a king was the large, horned frill that sat just behind his skull like a half moon. The frill, his back, and wings were speckled with maroon; the end result was truly magnificent. I might even have called his dragon beautiful if he wasn’t such an atrocious piece of garbage who’d tried to kill my mate twice. Rein growled low at the reminder. Today would likely be his third attempt, but we wouldn’t let that happen.
His soul is so dark, so poisoned, it’s like ink, Rein murmured to me. I will blind that bastard so fiercel—
I see you’ve squeezed me into your busy schedule, Keyon, Cyneric said, interrupting Rein’s violent thoughts. How could I hear his mind-links? Was it because he was a king? Toast shifted into Keyon, and I whimpered, desperately worried for his safety. Keyon also didn’t seem to care at all that he was gloriously nude in front of royalty.
“You know I’m here for the slaves,” Keyon said, crossing his arms and standing tall. “You haven’t turned into a sympathizer while I’ve been out freeing slaves… have you… Cyneric?” It looked like both of them have chosen to drop the titles.
Cyneric released a heavy series of snorts, obviously laughing. By the Sun God, Keyon, you’re such a sad waste of a dominant. By the way, I’m curious, the “neighboring country”—which was me, by the way—wants to know if you’ve brought the precious slave back. Where is the tasty little thing? Franco said his temple fell to ruin from some kind of rescue. Isn’t that what you said?
Cyneric looked down at a male who pushed away from the wall he was leaning against. Sure enough, Franco was here at his property with his king. “Doesn’t matter,” Franco said gruffly. “We harvested her blood like I said we would. You didn’t ask for anything else. I’m just waiting for you to execute your end of the bargain.”
Cyneric laughed again. Have I not already? I’ve brought all your enemies here. Who cares if it’s still illegal. Just take your slaves as you will once they’re all dead. He gestured with a large claw to Keyon’s army. Act like you’re the top of the food chain, and you will be.
Franco didn’t look happy about that. He simply scowled and kept his mouth shut. Cyneric gestured to a soldier, and a large cage brimming with slaves was carted over to him. There must have been at least fifty individuals crammed in there, and my heart clenched painfully at the sight. Cyneric’s dragon placed his clawed hand on the cage and pressed down, making the top collapse slowly. The slaves screamed in terror, believing they were about to be crushed.
Keyon tensed, and I noticed his right pinky twitch. Did he give some kind of signal? I warned Rein to not look around and draw attention. We just kept our gaze on our mate and the massive monster.
Why are you bothering with these creatures? Cyneric asked my mate, sounding genuinely confused. If these were real dragons, they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to be stolen and enslaved. He kicked the cage, forcing it to roll onto its side. The slaves yelled, screamed, and cried out in pain as they toppled over each other. My anxiety spiked as I felt small injuries pile up among them. Rein shifted nervously, feeling both urges to heal and maim.
“They are your citizens, Cyneric! Civilians!” Keyon roared in anger, gesturing for two groups to flank him. They had their eyes on the cage where Cyneric once again rested his claws. “It’s your sworn duty to protect them!”
That’s a very human concept, and since we are not humans, I think not, Cyneric said darkly and lifted his claws to flatten the cage. Keyon’s two groups charged, and Cyneric swung his tail to crush them, but Keyon’s ground soldiers feinted and dispersed, leaving the king unbalanced. Cyneric growled victoriously when he caught the actual attack and lashed out at the knights who were coming from above his head and to his left. Rein nearly shrieked when that group feinted, and the cage by Cyneric’s feet was instantly whisked away by three of Leofwine’s spies, who’d jumped out from the shadows of the mansion. They flew off into the distance and disappeared. Rein uttered a relieved groan.
Cyneric, seething, tried to regain his earlier composure but only got halfway there. Black smoke curled from his nostrils and the corners of his dragon’s mouth. The massive dragon froze for a moment and then huffed with quieter laughter.
You don’t deserve the strength you have, Keyon— Cyneric scoffed— so I’m going to execute you. You don’t have a beast that’s unbroken enough to be at the top of the chain, and you weaken all of us. You’re a danger to us. Absolutes shouldn’t exist at all. Nothing should be stronger than relative dominants.
And now it’s time to burn the sick and own the rest. There are no limits for an unrestrained dragon, and I would very much like to see no limits to my kingdom.
I saved this moment just for you, Keyon. I wanted my last words to be with you. I want you to watch my dragon purge its humanity. Perhaps the last thing I’ll be blessed with seeing will be you pissing yourself, Cyneric said in a low, dark voice.
He leaned over and opened his mouth so Franco could pour the witch’s potion into it. What Cyneric couldn’t see was the smirk on Franco’s face. Franco thought he was giving him a false potion, but… that probably wasn’t the case.
Keyon’s not going to be the one pissing himself, Rein said, but neither of us laughed. We just watched as Cyneric slowly went from being a monster to a horror.
If I thought that Cyneric was monstrous before, he was a behemoth now. I suppose it was inaccurate now to call him Cyneric. The male, the human part of the shifter, was supposedly gone, and we needed but wait to get that verification.
Keyon, however, had not wanted to waste that moment. He was sending orders out to his army, though I didn’t know what he was saying. Sections of dragons flew off in different directions to meet with the charging army of the transforming king. The enemy had twice as many soldiers, but I believed in our warriors. We had knights, assassins, and the well-trained soldiers of the late king. We had skill, honor, and valor on our side. They had mercenaries and soldiers who were likely demoralized serving an unworthy king.
However, Rein and I were terrified. I had a picture of what would happen in my mind, but it was nothing like reality. Kills were not clean, and none of it seemed like a romantic dance or a beautiful display of skill. It was sickening. We were frozen solid as we watched guts spill onto a battlefield that was quickly becoming soaked with blood and bodily fluids. It was a nightmare. There were things I immediately wished I had not seen, and the fight had only started. I was already traumatized.
W-we need to focus! Rein all but screamed in my mind, as though trying to convince both of us. Focus for Keyon. Focus for Toast. Focus for our army. Focus for the slaves! Focus! Focus! Focus!
F-f-focus, I agreed as we stared at what used to be a king. The behemoth was now three times bigger than Toast and shook violently from its transformation. Its mouth grew wider and split well past its face. I had no doubt it could now fit the entire estate home into its maw. The space between its eyes shrunk, and its orbs no longer held the slits of a reptile but instead looked more like ones you’d see on a bird of prey.
Its eyes don’t matter! I said fiercely to Rein. Take them out!
You read my mind, she seethed darkly and launched into the sky where we were followed by our personal guards.
Elpis! Rein! Stay back! Keyon said, panicking.
We’re blinding it! I replied, trying to sound calm, but I was growing angry. I hated Cyneric, and I hated what his dragon had become. He’d partaken of my blood and had become something truly abhorrent from it. I wanted revenge for that. I felt more violated than ever. We have guards. Let us do what we were meant to do, Keyon!
We felt a bevy of emotions hit us through the bond. He was worried, anxious, panicky, but also proud. Be safe, he begged, and he was echoed by Toast. We love you!
We love you too, so very, very much! I said and urged Rein to get just close enough to be effective. I felt her dig deep; I didn’t see anything, but I felt it. Oh, this time, I felt it. The power Rein collected pressed up against her skin and scales from the inside, as though it wanted to flee through her pores. Once the pressure built up to an almost unbearable sensation, she released it, and the behemoth raised its clawed hands to its face. I grimaced at its clutching, noticing that those claws were now serrated. Then it swayed slightly, as though it lost its sense of balance.
Focus! Rein reminded me. We turned to get to a safe distance, but the behemoth lashed out blindly, and its claws came careening toward us. Rein panicked, and I shifted. We shrunk into my human form, and I fell, becoming a much smaller target. The claws missed my head by a terrifying foot, nearly making me faint in complete terror.
One of my knights roared—likely pissed or terrified from my stunt—and snatched me out of the air. I patted his clawed hand vacantly as he retreated with me, but I had to immediately jump out when an enemy came flying at us. Rein shifted in midair again and glided away with our remaining knights. I turned, and Rein released a smaller burst, blinding the dragon who’d latched onto my knight. He fell off, confused, and the knight dispatched him quickly by gutting him, tearing his wings up and leaving him to fall to his death. If Rein had a slightly weaker stomach, she would have vomited.
I wanted to help more of our soldiers, but it was almost impossible to tell who was who. Perhaps if I had been in the Inferno, I would have been able to tell. That only left one dragon I was even remotely comfortable targeting, and that was the behemoth.
How can we help our army take it down? I asked Rein as we fell back to a safe distance.
Target weak spots, Rein said, watching Keyon rip through dragons to reach Cyneric’s abomination.
Weak spots, weak spots, I murmured, studying the monstrosity. Its wings hadn’t grown with the rest of it. I don’t think it can fly anymore, so targeting those is pointless. That leaves what? Hindering movement and…?
In that moment, I remembered what the Sun God had told me about my people, how the dragons had removed their horns for trophies. Rein took that thought and sharpened it.
Hindering and removing its weapons, she decided coldly.
Our horn is very sharp, and that thing is practically blind. Perhaps we can latch on to a hand and declaw it? I asked, wincing.
Oooh, gruesome. A shudder moved through Rein that was born of both disgust and delight. But it’s a good idea. Those assassins seem to have a similar one, she pointed out, and I saw them swarming around the behemoth’s ankles, trying to sever some taut piece of flesh.
It’s going to take so long to chop away at that thing, I replied, worried. Rein turned and flew us back toward the behemoth, girding her loins for what was sure to be a terrifying experience.
She nearly turned around when the creature let out a bloodcurdling scream, one that parted the air like a slap. The shriek layered on top of a roar, and it sent vibrations through her chest. She whimpered, and nausea roiled like a poisonous fire in her belly.
We were still distracted by that vocal display when several of my knights shot toward the right and tore into a charging enemy. Rein started and nearly threw up out of shot nerves, severely rattled by how our knights ripped the dragon’s limbs from its body.
Oh Sun God, oh Sun God, oh Sun God, oh Sun God! Rein chanted, and I quickly joined her. We were a whirlwind of shock and adrenaline. All our nerves screamed at us to survive.
My knights were severely displeased with me approaching the behemoth and tried to herd me away, but Rein stuck to her target, occasionally snapping irritably at an insistent knight.
What ended up making us stray from our goal was the sight of two females yelling up at the behemoth. Curious, Rein dropped to a lower altitude to see what they were saying, and there was an awful lot of pleading coming out of those two.
“Cyneric! Please! What are you doing?” a black-haired female around my age screamed, her curls bouncing furiously as she waved her arms.
“Come back to us, Brother! What is wrong with you?” another said. She looked very much like the other female; they had to be sisters. They both ran toward one of the behemoth’s planted hands and tugged on it.
What are they doing? They’re going to be killed! Rein yelped.
Are they the ones who buried Keyon alive? Oh gods, I can’t think right now! Go grab them! If you can? I don’t know! I yelled in alarm, confused about my feelings. Rein banked to take a large turn, but Cyneric’s nightmare faced the two females who were tugging on it and lunged toward them with an open maw.
Oh gods! We won’t make it! Rein squawked.
The females tripped over each other to escape, and in a horrifying display of sororicide, the curly-haired female pushed her sister into the gaping maw and ran to save herself. Rein turned sharply, left speechless by what we’d just witnessed. Was this what Keyon meant? When you thought you’d seen the worst, something came along to prove otherwise?
Our knights kept a tight formation around Rein as we flew off in shock. Deep shock.
F-focus, I said, shaken.
Focus.. . Rein agreed, and she turned to approach the behemoth once more. Rein wasted no time and latched onto a hand that had recently settled to take its shifting weight. She swung her head down a handful of times in quick succession and managed to sever two fingers before the behemoth ripped its hand up, sending us the short distance to the ground.
Unicorn! I cried and Rein shifted into her normal body, racing away from the other hand that came down to crush us. It missed in its blind fury, and we escaped under its belly to end up at the back where the assassins were working. The behemoth’s tail was thrashing viciously and had already crushed several of Leofwine’s spies. Rein sobbed at the sight and decided to sever what they’d been working on while she was back here. They’d completed one leg but were still trying to get to the next. Rein released a terrified scream that she couldn’t hold back, dodged a shifting foot, and galloped past its back left leg, severing the taut flesh in one swipe.
The tail came crashing toward us, and I screamed, Human! Rein shifted into me, and I curled into a ball, rolling and barely avoiding the tail that brushed over me. Dragon! I shrieked, and she shifted, taking off as fast as she could while I quaked inside my mind, terrified beyond belief. I couldn’t believe we’d survived that!
Once we’d put some distance between us and the behemoth, my knights caught up to me, and I knew that I was going to get a talking to if we ever got out of this alive.
There was a crashing behind us, and Rein turned to see what had caused the noise. Unable to bear its back weight, the behemoth had fallen into the mansion, crushing a portion of it into rubble. Upon its descent, nearly the entirety of Keyon’s army converged on its neck, ripping savagely at flesh to find a precious artery. A battered and bloodied Keyon shredded at a particular spot, leaned in and ripped at a large tube, sending a scarlet fountain into the sky to pour down in a morbid rain.
The perversion of a dragon thrashed, and the army worked to hold down its limbs until it bled out. Rein turned, and we noticed that the late Cyneric’s army had long since fled. I had no idea when that had happened. We looked down at the battlefield and balked at the number of dead. Our hearts clenched at the sight, hoping that none of them were ours… but that was a fantasy. Rein glided down to a safe spot, and I shifted into my body. I couldn’t describe my feelings. I just knew I had more work to do.
I gestured at my knights. “I can’t tell who’s in our Inferno! Take me to anyone who’s in critical condition, please!” I begged and stepped forward, waiting for a knight to offer a claw. One looked over at another, and they seemed to be discussing something. He eventually held out a claw, and I climbed into his palm, hoping there were some left holding onto life.
Fight! I prayed fervently. Fight to live!
The knight toured me around the battlefield, landing whenever we found someone who desperately needed my help. I lost track of how many soldiers, knights, and assassins I’d healed, but I fought to keep going. Nausea curled deeper into me after healing a soldier who’d concussed and nearly lost a leg, which I managed to save. I stumbled back to my knight’s palm, but my vision tunneled, and I fell into darkness.