Chapter 53 Blaise
I was running out of time. We all were.
After the negotiations failed, as I suspected they would, I knew deep in my bones that our time was limited.
And that meant I needed to get control of my shifting ability so I could help.
I was part of the reason Murielle wasn’t backing down, and the weight of that realization crushed me more than my years of wishing I was more than just a half-breed.
It was almost two in the morning. The dark skies glowed with the city lights still trying to push the night away.
I’d made my way up to the roof of the abbey after Katarina fell asleep.
We’d all been in her room tonight. Spending time together, working on our bond, and of course, trying to rein in the sexual desires that often resulted from the sharing of power.
We’d failed at that part again tonight, although it was getting a little easier to withstand the need for sex after… even if just a tiny bit.
But Katarina was hard to resist. Especially when her skin glimmered with the power she stole from us and her hair flared out around her head in gorgeous waves of lusty red. The way she smiled at each of us when the desires took control… it was very hard to resist.
The smile plastered on my face had become a regular fixture ever since Katarina came into our lives.
Some days, I looked in the mirror and wondered who the content person staring back at me was.
Sure, there were still demons inside me.
Especially the beast who hadn’t yet fully connected to the man.
Dorian had told me that’s what I needed to work on.
Making animal and human one in the same.
And when I did that, he promised that shifting between the two would become more natural and less painful.
I was looking forward to the time when I could truly call myself a shifter.
It was just a shame that I wasn’t there yet—at a time when everyone needed the dragon the most.
“There you are,” Roman said, climbing up the last of the old stairway that led to my secret rooftop spot. “I had a feeling you’d be up here.”
A rush of anger tore through my bones. The beast wasn’t happy that he’d been interrupted. I immediately pushed that rage away and admonished him for thinking that way, especially since he refused to come out.
Roman came to a stop and studied me. His black attire and dark hair blended with the asphalt roof that needed some repairs.
This was one of the only locations where the roof had been built flat as compared to all the sharp slopes decorating the rest of the abbey.
We once thought there had been plans to build another level here.
I’d always said it would make a nice rooftop greenhouse.
Roman had agreed, but it was a project we never got around to.
“You okay?” he finally asked.
“Yeah,” I muttered.
Roman walked to where I sat on a makeshift bench made from cinderblocks and extra lumber. I think I added this seat ten years ago, and nothing has happened since. “He’s close, I can sense him.”
Referring to my animal. “Yeah, I know,” I snapped a little too sharply.
“Still evading you?”
I let out a breath and rubbed my hands over my face. I needed to shave. “It’s pissing me off. Dorian made it sound like it was so fucking easy. Just call to him and he’ll listen,” I said in a mocking voice that sounded nothing like Dorian.
Roman chuckled. “You have to remember that Dorian was born into it. He’s only known those who could shift on demand whenever they wanted. It’s second nature.”
“Is this supposed to help me? ”I grumbled.
Again, Roman laughed. “No, my friend. I just want you to remember to practice your patience and don’t get frustrated.”
“But we’re going to need my beast tomorrow night, and if I can’t call to him without having sex with Katarina, then we’re all fucked.”
Roman hung his head and looked out beyond our rooftop to the abbey grounds and beyond. He twisted his fingers together in thought, tapping his thumbs against each other while his brain worked. I knew his quirks well enough to see when he was afraid.
“Are we going to survive this?” I asked. “I mean, if I can’t get the dragon to come out?”
“Katarina has grown so much stronger in just these past few days. Her power will surprise the coven, so that should give us an upper hand. Plus, there’s all of us. We know how to win wars, Blaise.”
He used my first name. This wasn’t good. “But?”
With a slight chuckle, Roman shook his head and tilted his gaze toward me. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”
“We’ve been together a very long time,” I reminded him.
“But I have this dark feeling in the pit of my stomach that we may not all make it out alive. And the thought of losing another one—” The words caught in his throat as he remembered Pasha.
I knew he was still struggling with that loss despite him insisting otherwise.
“If one of us dies, the bond will shatter, and I’m not sure we will fully recover from that. ”
I understood that fear. It’s what forced me out of the comfort of Katarina’s bed and onto this roof tonight. Because I knew if I couldn't reach and control my animal, we were facing an uphill battle. “I have to figure this out,” I muttered.
“Maybe you need to think about it differently.” Roman held out his hands when I opened my mouth to argue that I had been trying everything. With a slight smirk, he continued. “Instead of feeling like you need the dragon, maybe ask him to share the body with you.”
“Sounds stupid.” And it did. Because I’ve been asking him to come out for days and days.
“You’ve been on edge and under pressure.
You think that we need the dragon to win this war.
” He lifted his hand again to stop my protests.
“We’ve survived centuries together without your beast. We can fight and we can win without him.
But if he would like to participate, then maybe you can find room to offer him a place. ”
“How much did you drink tonight?” I asked, confused by Roman’s philosophical wonderings.
Roman laughed for real this time and stood. “You’re putting too much pressure on this whole shifting thing. If you transform into your dragon, then great. If not, well, you are still the biggest, strongest, most badass fighter I’ve ever known. You don’t need him.”
I am not needed?
The animal inside seemed… offended. Roman pursed his lips and raised a brow in his way of saying I told you so.
Maybe he had a point. I was putting way too much pressure on myself and this whole situation. Having control over the dragon would be beneficial, but it wasn’t necessary. I’d been living without him for hundreds of years, and I was a vicious fighter on my own. Fuck him if he didn’t want to join me.
I didn’t need him.
“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working,” Roman whispered.
Looking around my body, I noticed the air shimmering with magic.
And for the first time since that night in Scotland, I was consumed with the urge to fly.
I jumped to my feet and started shaking out my limbs.
Okay, if I could calmly invite him to appear, then maybe we could do this on a more regular basis.
I just needed to breathe. I just needed to relax and offer the dragon the opportunity to share the same space.
“Your eyes.”
I whipped my head around to look at Roman and noticed that everything had taken on a brighter tone.
Where darkness had once shadowed the trees along the border of our grounds, they now shown brightly in shades of grays and blues.
I could see every branch, every leaf. I hadn’t remembered my sight being so much better before, but then again, I’d been falling off a cliff and focusing on not dying.
Pain shot across my back like a thousand whips cracking against my skin at once and I howled. Dropping to my knees, I cowered beneath the searing agony and wished for a quick death.
No. Do not fight it.
Dorian had told me that once. It would hurt less if I accepted the shifting of my bones and muscles with grace. Well, fuck Dorian because this hurt worse than anything else in the world, and I had serious doubts that it would ever get any better.
Roman knelt beside me. “Blaise. You need to breathe. You need to try and relax your mind.”
I snapped my head up and glared at him. The bones of my jaw not feeling so human anymore, I knew I must look like a horrible half-breed stuck mid-shift right now.
But to Roman’s credit, he didn’t flinch.
Instead, he offered his unwavering support by simply staying next to me as I tried to get this whole process back under my control.
I don’t need you, I told the beast. But if you’d like to share, you are welcome to.
Something inside my spine snapped and I screamed again. There had to be a better way. There had to be a—
An explosion ripped through the east wing of the abbey, throwing Roman and me into the air.
Like a bomb had landed directly between the two of us, we both sailed backward in opposite directions.
I flipped head over heels several times until my head slammed against the brick wall that hid the staircase.
Stars filled my vision and pain reverberated down my back.
I tried to look for Roman, but the dust was so thick and suffocating I couldn’t see anything.
Even with the dragon’s vision trying to make sense of the scene in front of me.
“Roman!” I called out.
Silence.
Shit. Had I done this? Had I somehow blown a hole into the roof while trying to shift?
“Blaise!” Roman’s voice carried over the crumbling of stone and brick. The building beneath me trembled like it was trying to remain despite the inevitable. Damn, I really messed up this time.
Roman slid into me, crouching down and grabbing my head. “Blaise! Are you hurt?”
I swatted his hand away and tried to get my eyes to focus on him and not the air spinning around me. “I’m sorry,” I muttered.
“What are you talking about?” Roman wrapped a strong arm around my lower back and propped my own arm over his shoulder. “Come on. Get up, you sack of shit.”
It was a lot tougher to stand than it should have been. Maybe I’d hit my head harder than I realized. “I’m sorry about the abbey,” I said again. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
“Shut up,” Roman growled. “We need to get off this roof. It’s going to collapse.”
“I blew up the roof?” The words stumbled out of my mouth. Christ, I wasn’t feeling so good.
“No, you, ass. It’s the coven. They’re attacking us and we need to—”
Another loud eruption shattered my ears as large pieces of brick smashed into us. Something sliced into my face. I felt the moment my skin ripped open and the blood gushed freely. Trying to wipe at it, my hands and arms wouldn’t listen to my commands. I couldn’t move them at all.
The noise reverberated all around and this time, the building didn’t hold up.
Roman dropped away from under me and I tumbled through the air again.
But instead of going up, I was falling. Down, down, down into the black abyss of nothing beneath me.
Large chunks of rubble dropped at the same time, all of us at the mercy of gravity.
And all of us heading toward the basement floor of what used to be our beautiful abbey.
I could do nothing to stop my descent. Despite feeling my dragon a few moments ago, he hadn’t yet taken full control of my body, which meant I didn’t have wings.
Probably for the better as the shards of rock smashed against my human skin.
They might have penetrated those leathery wings and made me just as vulnerable as I was now.
I landed on a pile of debris. Screeching in pain, the breath was knocked clear from me when my body met the sharp, jagged edges of rock and wood that had collapsed around us. There was a snap in my back, and this time, it wasn’t because of the shift. I think I really broke something.
But I didn’t have much time to stress about it because a dark shadow blocked the limited light coming through the three floors above me, and I swore. The shadow grew faster than natural, getting larger the closer it came.
“Oh shit,” I muttered, pulling on my beast and wishing for the best. And a moment before an entire brick wall landed on me, I closed my eyes and thought about that large bed I’d left behind with everyone I ever loved tangled up inside of it.