Page 121 of Clash of Storms
Malin caught his sleeve, shaking her head. The brush of her fledgling psychic senses fluttered against him, and he opened to her and forged the link. "Freyja can handle this.We need to get out here."
Freyja can...?
Leave a defenseless woman to fight threedrekiwarriors? Chivalry was a concept he knew little about, but seeing a female harmed writhed against the very nature of hisdrekisoul.
"Malin, can you kindly take your hulking brute in hand and get him out of here?" Freyja barely restrained a sigh. "He's in my way."
"Trying," Malin called, pulling his sleeve again. "I thought you understood. We're rescuingyou."
Raw power suddenly burst over his senses, as if a storm was gathering over the top of Hekla itself.
Sirius turned his head sharply.
It was centered on Freyja. Lightning flickered in bursts around her fingers, and her plait strained with static. What in Loki's name? That wasn'tdrekimagic. But it wassomething.
The threedrekidrew back sharply. Then Roar smirked. "You want to play games, girl?"
A shimmer of light gleamed in the air in front of him; a psychic shield. Roar had little elemental magic of his own, but he'd learned enough to defend himself. If he got close to her....
"Who's playing?" Freyja demanded, and threw her hand toward him. A flash of lightning electrified the air, and as the blaze of it seared across Sirius's retina, he caught the sound of all threedrekicrying out in shock as they threw themselves aside.
Clearly he wasn't the only one surprised by Freyja's power.
Sirius blinked down at Malin, trying to clear his vision as someone screamed. "Freyja can handle this."
Trust Rurik to find himself a veritable Valkyrie as a mate.
"How do we get out of here?" Malin asked.
"Through here," he said, tilting his head toward the beaten gold door behind the throne. "It leads to the Hall of Mirrors. There are several portals behind the mirrors, though few know of them." It galled him to even admit the words. "We cannot face them head-on and hope to win."
"Speak for yourself," Freyja snorted behind him, tossing lightning bolts at whim as she backed toward them. "But what are we going to do about the others? They'll expect to meet us in the cellars."
"Leave that to me." Sirius turned his head, shutting down the world around him as he reached for his brother. "Andri? Can you hear me?"
* * *
Elin scurried ahead of them,turning at the corner and gesturing sharply. The small blond drekling held a tiny crossbow, the arrows tipped with leviathan blood. She'd already felled twodrekiguards; an itty-bitty menace with big, brown eyes she batted with ruthless intensity.
"This way!" Tormund bellowed, as he dragged Andri toward the cellars. Thedrekiprince wielded a crutch with brutal efficiency, but his skin was pale.
"We're nearly there," Andri said.
"It's about bloody time." Tormund scraped the sweat off his brow.
Behind him came the clash of swords, and the sound of explosions. Sigurd hadn't been kidding when he said the drekling and king'sdrekiwere prepared for war. Powerless they might be, but the drekling had gathered numerous alchemical weapons together. Tormund's current favorites were the Balls of Thunder; the orbs seemed to be made of glass, but they were nowhere near as fragile. But throw them at a wall....
Another explosion of vile smelling smoke churned through the air behind them, as someone did precisely that. He couldn't help grinning. Nobody else seemed to think the name was as amusing as he did.
"Wait!" Andri caught his arm, hobbling to a halt on his crutch. He looked upward, his eyes going curiously blank. "Sirius?"
Tormund waved a hand in front of his face. Nothing.
An enormous snarlingdrekicame out of nowhere, sword angled toward the black-haired prince. Tormund stepped forward and punched his teeth through the back of his head.
"Any time you would like to rejoin us," he snapped, as the bastard went down with a steely clatter, but Andri was staring through the wall.
Right.
