Page 82 of A Heart of Crimson Flames
I moved all at once, smashing the rock into the side of his head and spinning. I was rewarded with a satisfying cry of pain as blood trailed from the man’s temple. The blow was not enough to knock him unconscious but that wasn’t the entirety of my hastily laid plans. In another life, I’d dream of pummeling him to death, watching as his eyes fell from their sockets and flesh pulled from bone, but I couldn’t risk his superior fighting skills against me now.
There was no sorceress to hold this one back. I felt her magic buoying me even still, but this kill would be from my strength alone.
The man before me was a high-ranked Wolf, a commander. I knew he’d use his size and brute force, try to shove me backwardand pin me again. The fool. He should’ve been trying to run. Instead, as I stepped to the side, he charged into me, and right as he did, I twisted, kicking out his leg and sending him flying through the window.
Glass shattered and he plummeted.
As I looked out the broken windowpane, my only regrets were that I didn’t have enough time to kill him slower and that my mate wasn’t there to watch him fall.
Such regrets were short-lived as another crash sounded and the wall beside me began to tremble. More rocks jostled loose. Dust and grit fell from the ceiling above and my mouth fell open.
“Sweet Moon,” I whispered. The wall was about to crumble, and I’d be crushed beneath it.
I looked at the door that led to the grand hall. Risk my luck with the sorcerer or submit to certain death here?
Fuck it.
I bolted to the doorway as the wall began to give way down the corridor, a zephyr of grit and debris chasing me. I ran as fast as I could before a rock hit me in the back and sent me sprawling. A dust cloud ate me up as I covered my head.
I lay there, bloody saliva dribbling from the corner of my mouth, my ears ringing, a sudden stillness to the fighting all around me. The grand hall doors were thrown open and I searched for familiar faces amongst the fighting. So many bodies and many more still on their feet, not all of them friendly. A horde of Silver Wolves had entered the battle, tearing apart the ones Nero’s lightning bolts had yet to touch.
The Silver Wolf King still stood on the dais. His pupils had disappeared to churning emeralds, power flowing in and out of him in spitting sparks. He moved his fingers this way and that as if conducting an orchestra, and his magic obeyed, shooting through the air. He wore a crazed smile, lost in the frenzy of bloodlust.
My vision blotted in and out, my mind spinning. Was I wounded?I must be, I thought, as more of my blood spilled ontothe stones. I shook my head, my fur ruffling, and it was only then that I realized I had shifted. The shift was so sudden, trying to save me from the crumbling wall. One of the Silver Wolves caught my scent, his eyes trained upon me as he prowled in his furs in my direction.
I blinked, trying to clear my double vision, and looked up beyond him to the window. Was I hallucinating or... was a ruby red body silhouetted through the stained glass window? Like a god of fire, it flew through the night’s sky, its form growing bigger and bigger.
A dragon.
Our dragon, I thought.
The beast kept coming and coming, unfathomably large. And then I realized it had no intention of stopping. I had just enough time to curl and bury my face in my tail as it exploded through the window. Glass and stone flew all around me, rubble littering the floors of the great hall. The far wall crumbled, and the ground trembled like a drum beneath my body.
The dragon screeched and I peeked between my paws to see its glowing red eyes. Its chest began to glow, too, and I recognized what it intended to do. I felt its fire, like magic hanging in the air, before it even opened its mouth. I scrambled to a stand, bloody paws cutting across the shards of glass.
I faintly heard Calla scream my name, but I wouldn’t slow to find them in the distant crowd. I prayed my twin wasn’t about to watch me die.
And I thought of Maez. Glad she wasn’t there to watch me die either, that our mating bond was severed and that she would live on without me. Maybe in the next life we’d have that little home in the corner of the world. Maybe in the tales they’d tell about this battle, they’d change them so that we could be together. Maybe we’d be remembered better than we lived.
“Goodbye, my mate,” I whispered and ran.
I bolted, uncaring of the pain, hoping my speed would save me as the dragon opened its mouth and unleashed its ferociousflames. The blast threw me forward, losing my footing. The world was engulfed in smoke and fire and pain. I felt it now, scalding into me.
I lay there, unsure if I was alive or dead. Half my fur had been singed off in one single dragon’s breath. Smoke choked my lungs, and my eyes watered with unshed tears as I blinked through the plumes of flame. The first peeks through the haze were of devastation.
Smoking Silver Wolf bodies trailed on and on and on. As the smoke slowly cleared from the dais, there was still a flicker of Nero’s green magic. Utter defeat filled me as I saw him standing there, surrounded by the bodies of his pack, looking fierce and unscathed. I reached a hand up into the smoking air like a drowning person reaching above the waves, grasping for some lifeline that would pull me through this.
More green magic flickered, and I blinked, my watery eyes playing tricks on me. But as the smoke cleared, I realized the magic wasn’t sparking from Nero...
. . . It was sparking from Maez.
Maez’s eyes found mine as if magnetized to my gaze and she mouthed one single word to me. “Go.”
And then the room erupted into dragon fire and dark magic.
Calla
MAEZ.
