Chapter 57 Blaise
Something felt different.
The building on top of me didn’t hurt as much anymore. The rubble crushing my chest felt like mere pebbles now. The pain in my head was gone. I didn’t smell my blood seeping from the cut I’d sustained.
Best of all, I could see the top of the abbey through the hole that had been blown into the east wing.
When the building crumpled down on top of me, I must have passed out. But now I was awake. And I was in my dragon form.
I could hear again. I could see through the dusty air.
I could sense them all—Katarina, Aiden, Dorian, the Crescent Coven who’d chosen to attack us on our soil yet again.
The sheer rage coursing through my chest had me climbing out of the rubble faster than when I first fell in.
The ceiling cracked underneath my clawed wings as I pulled myself up.
It took several tries to get a good grip, but when I heard Katarina’s fury-filled scream echo across the abbey, I pushed off the ground below me and jumped into the night sky.
At first, I couldn’t open my wings. I was still partially inside the collapsed portion of the building. But once I scrambled along the rooftop and got a few decent shoves with my enormous, clawed feet, I felt the wind calling to me.
It only took four good flaps of my wings to get the lift I needed.
The abbey quickly disappeared beneath me while I climbed.
I still didn’t think I had the best control of my flying abilities, so I needed some space to get turned around and then find out why Katarina had been screaming with so much rage.
I turned my massive head toward the ground and observed.
Somehow, I’d flown through the magical protection bubble the coven had thrown over the battle.
Either that, or it had been weakened by my family.
The fire still tore through the farthest side of the east wing of the abbey—it was going to be a total loss.
But I was happy to see it hadn’t spread much beyond the damaged area, at least not yet.
Circling overhead like a vulture sniffing out a meal, I homed in on the activity below.
If only I would have been able to shift years ago.
This kind of undetected surveillance from the sky could have saved us a load of trouble in previous battles.
But that wasn’t important now. What I needed to focus on this minute was Katarina and the others.
There had to be nearly a hundred coven members lined up along the edge of the courtyard.
Far more enemies than I would have thought Murielle could persuade.
They were fighting as a unified team—Murielle directing commands and her foot soldiers following blindly.
There were so many and… was that Roman lying at her feet?
I let out a roar so guttural, so massive, that the protective bubble disappeared with a pop, and at least half of the witches and warlocks looked up into the dark sky to find the source. No, they knew the source. It was why they’d decided to challenge Roman in the first place.
And in that moment, I decided to show them exactly what a dragon working against them could do.
I tucked my wings, and after a few seconds of weightlessness, my large form began to fall straight toward the ground. Still unsure of how well these wings could work, I waited just a few seconds before opening them wide and letting the air flow underneath.
I skimmed along the courtyard, just feet above the heads of everyone below. A warning. Some screamed. Some cowered and dropped to their knees. But others, like Murielle, grinned at me as though they knew I would belong to them soon.
Katarina, Dorian, and Aiden were fighting hard.
They were surrounded and each time one of them took out a coven member, two more would turn up in their place.
I banked left, nearly slamming my feet into the undisturbed part of the abbey.
I pulled them up just in time and quickly pushed them in front of me as I did my best to land directly behind Katarina.
The wind from my beating wings sent dirt and smoke and dust into the air.
I landed in a spot with several piles of ash forming a complete circle around me.
The stench of burning flesh stung my nose and the withering remnants of magic loomed over the area like a mourning widow. What had happened here?
“Blaise!” Aiden shouted, grabbing my attention a split second before a harpoon grazed past my shoulder. A harpoon? Like I was a fucking whale?
Aiden teleported around the battlefield, sometimes sneaking up behind a witch and other times being shoved back toward us by a spell.
Katarina’s wild hair flowed around her while tossing coils of magic out toward anyone she could reach.
Again, some of them hit their target, and I could feel the way she siphoned their energy.
But other times, she was thrown to the ground when she missed her objective and made herself vulnerable to an attack.
Dorian snapped and clawed his way closer to Roman and Murielle and was taking a beating for it. The second he got within ten feet of Roman’s lifeless body, Murielle sent her soldiers in with spells, and knives, and rocks. He was a bloodied mess, and I could no longer sit here and watch.
Falling forward so I was on all fours, I scrambled toward the front lines.
Another harpoon flew past my head, and I immediately ran toward the group of three now reloading their gun…
and stomped right on top of them. I felt their bones crush into pieces under those massive feet of mine, understanding now that I had another valuable use for them.
Whipping my head from side to side, I tore through the coven like a bowling ball.
Left and right and up and over, the bodies flew through the air.
If I was lucky enough to grab one between my teeth, I tossed them over the property fence line.
Aiden cheered me on while he continued to teleport in and out of trouble.
But it was Dorian and Katarina that I watched.
Both were struggling despite their best efforts to reach Roman.
I let out another roar, calling to my family. At once, they all turned and jogged over to me until we stood as one united unit. Backs to mine, they observed the remaining witches as they regrouped, catching their breath and calculating our next moves.
“Do we go at once?” Aiden asked.
Dorian huffed and shook his head. “There are still too many,” Katarina agreed with him. “It will be too easy for them to separate us again.”
While I couldn’t say as much, I also agreed with her.
“Then I think it’s time, Katarina,” Aiden said through gritted teeth, feigning an attack when two of the witches tried to make a move. “You need to blow them out of this city.”
“I don’t know if I can—”
I nudged her with my nose, almost knocking her to the ground. She spun and looked at me, not mad, just worried. “I…I…” she didn’t finish her sentence because, at that moment, another harpoon buried itself directly into the side of my neck.
The screeching sound coming from my mouth was out of my control. It hurt. Bad. And I was going to let everyone know that they’d just made the biggest mistake.
Katarina spun to face the witches, Aiden bent his knees in preparation, and Dorian snapped his teeth at the coven. All three of them standing in front of my body like they needed to protect me.
My heart warmed with emotions I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“Now, Katarina,” Aiden whispered to her, grabbing her hand.
She sucked in a deep breath and nodded once.
Dorian limped to her other side and I wrapped my wings out around the four of us in a protective cocoon of sorts.
Digging my hands into the grass, I held on tight as spells were tossed at my leathery wings and harmlessly bounced away.
I would hold them off for as long as Katarina needed.
“We don’t have Roman,” she cried, doubting herself again.
“We’re doing this for Roman,” Aiden answered for all of us.
Yes, for Roman, who had a silver stake in his heart and hadn’t moved. He needed us now more than ever, and I tried to push those thoughts out through our bond so Katarina could let go of her inhibitions.
When nothing happened, Aiden stepped in front of Katarina and kissed her deeply. She stiffened at first, but then quickly melted into his kiss as the power began to flow between us.
That’s it, I thought. Let us feed you.
Dorian brushed his head against her hip and she dug her fingers into his fur. Still kissing Aiden, she shuffled back far enough that my nose pressed into her shoulder. She needed to feel us. To touch us and know that we were here for her.
Power surged and for a few moments, the witches stopped throwing their stinging spells at me.
Katarina’s hair began to float, simpering noises escaping her lips as Aiden continued to seduce the magic out of her.
I sent my air magic from my body, begging her to suck it down and use it to save us all.
The ground around us shook as the dirt started to rise, as though gravity no longer existed.
Dorian’s connection to the earth had probably helped save him from his wounds, but as he passed along that strength to Katarina, I could feel him weaken.
Aiden pulled away, fire reflecting in his eyes. He stepped back to his place on the side of Katarina and continued to encourage her. But she hesitated and said, “I need more. I need Roman.”
And as though that bastard was just faking it the whole time, a blue tendril of magic snaked out from Roman’s feet and slammed into Katarina.
She lifted into the air, her hair floating, her body shimmering with power.
Many of the witches gawked. Several of them turned and ran.
But the most important one was now standing over the top of Roman with a silver sword in her hand.
If Katarina saw her, she didn’t stop. With a flick of her wrist, waves of power surged out from her hands, knocking down the first row of witches, only to completely void the power of those standing behind.
My woman screamed as she destroyed entire groups of coven members in one go.
And each time she stole their magic, her strength intensified.
She was ten feet in the air, blasting every last one of the bastards when Murielle jumped forward, grabbed Roman by the hair, and pressed the sword against his throat. “Enough!” she screamed. “Take out one more of mine, and I will end his life forever.”