Page 68 of Awaken the Dragon
Hoan nodded. Monife snapped her fingers and a spear appeared in her hand. Before Warrick could shift, she’d aimed and threw the spear. It pierced his chest with an explosion of blood. Warrick fell to the ground.
Monife walked over to where Warrick’s body lay. She put a foot on his shoulder and yanked the spear out of his chest. Then she turned to Shola.
“Is she next?” she asked Hoan.
Shola felt no fear. She felt no power either, but there was definitely no fear as she stared into the black eyes of the woman she thought she knew.
“No, my dear. She is going to bring the greatest power to me. With her, I will get so much more than I originally planned. Bring her.” Hoan dissipated into that clawing sludge, and Monife stepped to her.
“You will not live through the end,” Shola said when they stood toe-to-toe.
Monife tilted her head and stared at her. “Who do you think is more powerful, a demigoddess who despite all her training still doesn’t know how to properly wield her powers, or a Drakon who has been trained for war all her life?”
Shola was certain she was supposed to feel intimidated by Monife’s stance and her claims of power. But the Drakon’s eyes didn’t shift the way Theo’s did when he was letting his dragon take control. Monife’s eyes remained as black and cloudy as Hoan’s smoke.
The Legion in the Far Realm
Mt. Cedius was a mountain on top of a mountain. It sat high and looked low over the realm that spread out around it. Massive chunks of land floated around Mt. Cedius and served as the homes of the Noble Drakons. Those homes created a fort around the mountain.
Below, in the valley, the realm stretched out for acres and acres; some areas were thundering waterfalls and lush green grass, while others were a jungle of soaring trees that dripped crystalline raindrops on its magenta-hued water surface. There were cavernous areas cloaked in thick fog and other locations drenched in a perpetual winter complete with snowcapped mountains and a glorious ice mansion.
Theo and his team came through the zigzagging tunnel of silver and white light, stepping out of the In-between and onto land made of rock and laced with thatches of moss.
“Home sweet home,” Reece quipped.
“Not a chance this will ever be my home again,” Ziva added.
Theo didn’t speak, but after looking around to see where they’d come through on the realm, he walked to the west.
“She’s at the mountain,” Bleu said, falling in behind Theo.
“I know where she is,” he replied.
He didn’t possess the same knowing power that Bleu did, but he still knew. The beast recalled what being close to her felt like and therefore could successfully track the feeling it sought above all others. After a few steps, he broke into a run, and in seconds was a blur of light moving over the valley floor. He felt the others following. They’d already decided they wouldn’t shift until necessary because he wasn’t sure what type of situation they were walking into. They wouldn’t have brought Shola here if there wasn’t a plan for either someone to die, or someone to take over the throne.
He hated that it would boil down to that, but had decided the moment he knew she was gone that whatever it took to save her, he would do.
They came to the base of Mt. Cedius and Theo stood looking at the magnificent structure. This was where he’d spent his childhood. It was where he learned to be a Drakon. It was also where he’d watched his father bend to the will of evil with his mother looking on in triumph.
“I’m going directly to the throne room. Bleu, you and Magnum are with me. Steele, you take the others and split up around the other entrances. I don’t know what’s going on in there. All I know is that I’m leaving with Shola alive,” he said.
“We’re leaving with all of us alive,” Bleu countered.
Theo nodded. He could get behind that plan too.
Scaling the two mountainsides was like getting on a bike again.
They entered through a side entrance that opened into the kitchen. The Drakon who worked here weren’t allowed to speak to anyone other than their immediate supervisors. They were Baron Drakons, meaning they weren’t born from a leadership clan and their blood was possibly mixed with another type of being. Theo had no doubt they recognized him immediately when he, Bleu and Magnum walked through the kitchen. They came out in a dark hallway that split off like spider’s legs going in many different directions. Theo chose the path, and they all moved with stealth through the structure.
When he came to forty-foot-tall wood doors, he opened the doors with his mind, sending them flying until they crashed against the walls with an echoing bang. There was just about seven feet of polished wood floor before the planked pathway that wound its way up an additional twenty-foot stretch to the stairs leading to Torrance’s throne. Theo walked the path, keeping his gaze focused on the man sitting in the throne chair. When he came to the stairs, he climbed them and then walked the remaining steps until he was standing in front of his father.
Emperor Torrance Masters had been a seven-foot-tall, broad-shouldered beast of a man. His coal-black beard had reached to the center of his chest, while the hair on top of his head was always kept to a short crop. His Drakon eyes had been a navy blue that almost blended seamlessly with his black dragon body. On the man with caramel-toned skin, that had seemed abnormally dark.
This was the way Torrance used to look.
Today his massive body had grown gaunt, his cheeks hollowed, beard grizzled and gray eyes cloudy and still. The fury Theo was already nursing bubbled and boiled in his gut.
“Theo?” Even his father’s voice was different.
