Page 110 of Saving the Last Heir
Dropping the dying drake, I jumped on the blinded one, clawing at his face with my talons. He screeched and kicked at me, but I shoved him onto his back. Opening his mouth, he took a deep breath to blow fire into my face, but I slammed my hands on his jaws, then shoved them closed with a loudclack. Unable to use fire as a weapon, he thrashed about, trying to throw me off. Instead, I opened my own mouth and rained boiling hot death down upon him. He twitched and dragged his claws across my body, but his strength had already waned as the fire roasted his eyes in his sockets and melted the flesh from his skull.
My flames were so hot they melted the glass in the window beside us. The curtains caught on fire, starting another inferno on the top floor. Tossing the dead drake aside, I skirted the fire, then shifted back to my human form, continuing on my quest to find and save my baby sister.
I came to a room that looked promising. The door had been modified to use a heavy padlock. Thishadto be where he had her. I kicked the lock a few times, but it proved to be stronger than my enhanced strength. I moved my attempts to the hinges, kicking again and again, screaming in anger with each kick, until the thick wood cracked, snapped, and then crashed inward.
The bullet struck the door jamb less than three inches from my skull, and I ducked as two more shots fired from within the room. Silver bullets again. Another human henchman, it seemed.
“Come out, motherfucker,” the man inside screamed as he fired again. “Time to see what I’ve got for you.”
Clenching my hands into fists, I spotted a decorative chair sitting against the wall of the hallway. I stood, flinching as two more bullets came flying out and burying themselves in the opposite wall.
I grabbed the chair and tossed it into the room, doing my best to aim to where I’d heard the man’s voice. I dived inside, tucking and rolling. The chair caught the guy’s attention, and he swung his gun toward that movement. He realized his mistake an instant later, but it was too late. I was on him, kicking the barrel of the gun away, and bringing my fist down on his forearm, shattering the bone and drawing a scream of agony from him.
He clutched at his bent and broken arm, and I kicked out as hard as I could, catching him in the chest. Beneath my heel, the drycrackof broken ribs reverberated up my ankle. The impact drove him backward out the window behind him. He screamed for a second, then all sound ceased as he struck the concrete below.
Panting for breath, I turned. There, on a blanket, surrounded by heat lamps, lay my sister’s orange and red egg. I nearly collapsed to my knees with relief. Finally, after all this, she was here.
Stumbling forward, I stretched out my hand. Heat radiated from her. Tears sprang to my eyes, blurring my vision. All I could think about was that scream my mother had released the night we’d discovered the egg was gone. The terror, heartbreak, and sadness that sound had encompassed. Now, Ididfall to my knees, unable to think, driven by nothing but emotion. Wrapping my arms around the egg, I pressed my cheek to it, sighing with relief as the heat oozed into my flesh.
When the egg rattled beneath me a moment later, I jerked back in shock.
“What?”
As I stared at it with wide-eyed surprise and wonder, the egg rattled again.
“Oh,God,” I muttered.
She was hatching. Now. She wasfuckinghatching.
From the hallway, I heard the shouts and screams of men searching for me. Her egg couldn’t be jostled or disturbed much while hatching, or she might be injured or possibly die. That meant I couldn’t simply fly her out the window and take her home. I had to protect her until it was done. Holy shit. Not good.
Across the room, a second door I hadn’t noticed rattled in its frame, someone trying to get in.
“Damn.” I looked around. This room was too small for a fight in my dragon form. I needed space to move. I could move her a bit early on in the hatching process, and if I was going to do it, now was the time.
Cradling her egg gently, I lifted it and walked out the door, doing my best to keep from jostling her too much. The egg shuddered in my arms, and I could sense the movement of a small body within. My joy at the approach of my little sister was washed away by the terror of what might happen.
I managed to get back to the landing of the stairs when the noises of men gathering drew my attention. A glance around the corner down to the entrance showed me seven or eight men scurrying around, shoving furniture against the battered-down door, shouting at each other.
“Get ready,” one shouted. “He’s gonna come through any second.”
Frowning, I wondered what the hell they were doing. I was already inside. What were they barricading against? Or had they gotten the wrong information?
Sighing, I resigned myself to defending the egg here. I eased her down inside a closet near the stairs and closed the door. Once she was safe, I shifted and stepped out onto the landing. The first man who saw me screamed and called out to his fellows an instant before he shifted. The cacophony of battle erupted around us as they all shifted, sending flames toward me as they crawled up the stairs. I unleashed a roar of rage, beckoning them on, thirsty for more warfare. My dragon was drunk on the violence.Thiswas what dragons were made for—flying and fighting.
Before my cry finished, the front door burst open, and I froze in surprise as the massive, muscled serpentine form of Christian’s wyrm shoved its way in, thrashing his head to the side, catching a drake, and sending him tumbling aside. I had no idea why he was here. This was not part of the plan, but I’d take it. The numbers were not in our favor, and any help would better our odds of keeping my sister alive.
As massive as the foyer was, it was still tight with this many shifted dragons, and Christian found it as hard to move around as I did. Two drakes clawed their way up the grand staircase toward me, stomping through the ashen remains of the human I’d killed earlier. They descended upon me, and I rushed headlong into battle, slashing, clawing, and biting them with a feverish rage.
Unable to see what Christian was doing, I kept my attention on the two drakes I fought, but a loud roar from outside pulled everyone’s attention away. A pair of bright lights shone from outside in the darkness, blinding me.
When the car came crashing through what remained of the doors and slammed right into the leg of one of the drakes, all hell broke loose. The drakes bit and clawed at the car, but it drove straight forward, crashing through one of the walls already weakened by the fire, revealing a large ballroom. Joseph reallyhadtried to build an opulent refuge here. I doubtedanyonedid any dancing in this place.
The drakes I’d been struggling with left me and rushed down the stairs to chase down the car. Following, I caught the tail of one between my teeth, yanking him back and shaking my head like a dog on a rope, slinging him back and forth with enough force to snap his neck.
Christian battled two drakes. They bit and clawed at each other until they also rolled through the hole in the wall, creating an even bigger opening, the debris falling onto the black-and-white marble floors. I followed, finding six more drakes surging into the ballroom from a door at the far end. There were at least two dozen now, all of them thirsty for our blood.
I’ll kill all of you, I snarled in my mind, and my dragon growled in agreement.
