Chapter Seven
WREN
Ididn’t mind that Ronan took a moment to fetch his sketchbook. I could count on one hand the amount of ‘alone’ time I got from my mates since being pregnant.
I would lap it up now.
The sun was warm against my scales, the sand hot beneath my claws, and the tide lapped gently against the stones. Lyoness was currently calm, and the baby in my belly seemed to enjoy the warmth as much as I did.
I was scanning the horizon for Ronan—he should be back any moment—when the first bump hit, a dull, heavy thud beneath the shoreline rocks. I glanced out at the ocean, but didn’t see anything.
I frowned and pushed myself upright, wings twitching. “What was—”
A second bump. Harder. The sand beneath me actually shifted.
“Meruse?” I called out toward the tide pools. “Everything OK?”
No answer.
Before I could ask who, the seawaters out in front of me churned as if boiling from beneath.
And then the first of them rose—pale, wet, and hungry.
My heart sank.
More fucking vampyres.
The first one clawed its way out of the surf, eyes bright red, teeth shining like daggers. Then another. And another. A dozen at first—then more—swarming up the rocks like drowned spiders reanimated.
Far more than twelve.
“WREN!” Meruse popped up from the water, shouted something sharp in her native tongue, and four seawitches immediately dove beneath the waves, grabbing ankles and dragging vampyres straight back under.
But there were too many. I hesitated, knowing I was safe behind the wards. They could climb up the shore, but never reach it.
Unless enough charged and weakened them. Then maybe, just maybe, they could break through.
“WREN!” Meruse cried. “BACK UP!”
I couldn’t. Not when they were coming straight for shore—straight for the treehouses—straight for the families sleeping above us. What if the wards didn’t hold? I’d be the only thing between them and my people!
I was queen.
The closest vampyre lurched toward me and the sand, mouth open in a wet hiss. He hit an invisible barrier, bloodmagick lines flaring out from his impact, but they were black, and as more vampyres pushed and slammed against them, they broke.
Shattered.
The vampyres advanced toward me, eyes mad with hunger
My hand flew to my throat.
“Stay,” I whispered—my voice magicks glowing like silver heat under my skin.
The vampyre froze mid-step.
Then another. Then six more. Their bodies jerked, strained, fought, but the song rising in my chest wrapped around their limbs like chains.
And then I sang.
Female drakens had voice magicks—not that I really knew what I was doing, but I knew I had it. I’d only used it a few times so far.
It wasn’t a melody meant for ears; it was an order meant for marrow. A command older than drakens, older than fire, older than anything that crawled from the deep.
“Back.”
The sound vibrated through the beach, through the sand, through the tide. Vampyres screamed as the voice magick slammed into them, forcing them backward, stumbling, sliding, dragged like puppets toward the seawitches.
Meruse’s coven surged forward at once—snatching the retreating bodies, clawing and binding them with kelp-thick ropes of water and magick.
But still, more came.
The sea behind them rippled with dozens of white, dead faces.
I strengthened the song, pouring every shred of my breath into the command. My vision blurred. My knees trembled.
“BACK.”
The beach glowed beneath me, the sand humming with my voice, the air thick with magick.
The vampyres stopped advancing.
But my strength was thinning.
The baby kicked sharply, a warning. My wings ached. My stomach tightened.
And then—
A new voice joined mine. A low hum. Then a second. Then a third.
I turned my head just as three shapes cut across the beach, wings unfurled, scales shimmering under the sun.
The reclusive female drakens—rescued from the Overlord’s prison cells—were suddenly at my side as if they’d been waiting for this moment.
They rarely came out of their caves, refusing to mate or socialize with the other drakens after the horrors of their captivity.
They’d refused all attempts to integrate with anyone else, preferring solitude as they healed from their traumas.
But they were here now.
Enya.
Mara.
Yazmine.
“We heard you,” Enya said, her hair whipping in the wind. “Your call traveled the whole island.”
“And you shouldn’t be alone,” Mara added, already stepping forward, fire curling off her hands. “We remember the old songs. We will sing them again, with you.”
WHUMP.
My heart soared as Benedict and Kieran slammed into the sand between us and the vampyres.
“We will stand guard, but don’t let us stop you,” Kieran said, grinning at us like it was his name day.
Yazmine bared her fangs. “Let’s end them. Just like the old days.”
Together, four female drakens lifted their voices on Lyoness for the first time in a thousand years.
Our harmonized magick struck the vampyres like a tidal wave. They shrieked. They broke. They fell back, allowing the seawitches to grab them and snap necks, dragging them down to their watery graves.
A rush of draken males descended on the shoreline around us, but they stayed back, sharply watching as female drakens defended the island for the first time in a millennium.
Just like the old days, indeed.
The vampyres who retreated back into the water were dragged beneath the waves by the seawitches, who rose from the surf like crimson-haired spirits of vengeance, snapping necks left and right like they were popping dandelions off their stems.
A final surge of vampyres tried to smash through the wall of magick, but they couldn’t break our voices.
Enya and Mara went in with claws and swords to join the fun, cutting them down as Yazmine and I kept them immobile through our song.
Enya’s claws flashed silver as she decapitated the last one, panting hard but with a shit-eating grin on her face.
When the very last corpse slipped beneath the sea, the beach fell silent except for our panting breaths.
I sagged forward, catching myself with my hands. Kieran rushed forward but Enya threw out a hand, holding him back. I could feel Benedict twitching with the need to sniff me.
“Wren?” Enya dropped beside me instantly.
“I—I just need a second. The baby—” I panted.
A sharp, hard pain lanced across my abdomen.
Too sharp.
Too soon.
My breath hitched. “No—no, not now. It’s too early—”
Mara was already lifting me with gentle, practiced strength. “It’s not that early. Let us get you settled, and see what happens.”
“I’m not—” My voice cracked on another wave of pain.
Yazmine pressed her ear to my stomach and hissed. “Her body’s starting. We need to move.”
“But my mates—they’re—”
“They’re here,” Enya promised fiercely. “But right now, we’ve got you. Everything is fine.”
“No! Where is Ronan?” I asked, but no one answered. The three females formed a protective triangle around me, wings spread wide, shielding me from the sight of seawitches finishing off the bodies in the surf.
They half-carried, half-supported me toward the jungle path.
“Enya, let me—” Benedict protested.
“No, this is female work.” Enya pushed him back politely, but Mara was less nice, hissing at him to back away. My legs buckled twice. Each time, Mara simply adjusted her hold and kept moving.
“We’re staying with you,” Yazmine said, her tone brooking no argument. “All of us. Until the baby comes.”
“Even if it takes days,” Enya added.
“Especially if it takes days,” Mara muttered, tightening her grip as another contraction ripped through me.
“It can’t take days,” I cried out in despair, clutching Enya’s arm. A white-hot pain ripped through me and I screamed, the distress call warping my voice and echoing through the leaves.
Benedict and Kieran flinched behind us.
The treehouse came into view through the canopy, glowing with firelight. Relief flooded me so sharply I nearly sobbed.
The females carried me inside—laid me on the nest of cushions—and took positions around me like sentinels. Kieran and Benedict hovered like anxious birds out on the platform. I liked that they were near, but not so near as to fuss over me as to cause stress.
“Get Ronan!” I called out to them.
“Rest now,” Enya murmured, brushing my hair from my forehead. “We are here.”
Her wise voice held nothing but confidence.
Not vampyres.
Not fear.
Not the storm building in my body as my child demanded to come early.
Surrounded by the strongest females I knew, I finally let my eyes close and breathed.