Page 62 of Dragons' Future

Clearing the storm cloud, I unleash my magic into its dark mass. A charge races through it, a luminous vein spider-webbing across its surface. Shadows and highlights flash, silhouetting Salazar’s dragon just beneath. Then the lightning forks and bolts straight down.

My breath stills as fingers of that blinding, deadly current streak down toward Salazar.

And miss.

The world stops. Or maybe that’s my heart, the shock of devastation stripping me of my bearings.

Beating his massive wings, Salazar rushes toward me through the storm. His claws are out and my luck is gone. I try to dodge his attack, but his talons pierce straight through my wings, shredding the membranes. The muscles. I feel it at once, the moment when I can no longer hold myself in the sky. When the only thing still keeping me in the air is the black dragon’s punishing grip.

With my remaining strength, I coil in on my own body, clamp my jaws around Salazar’s neck and hold on. My life has only heartbeats left, but I can still leave Massa’eve with one gift—a world without Salazar in it. Maybe that’s the role the prophecy always intended for me to play. I’m no longer a hunter. No longer prey. I’m just a dragon-size ballast of dead weight pulling Salazar down, down, down to the earth.

We drop fast. Salazar alternates trying to shake me off and desperately beating his wings to slow the descent. Be he can do neither. My mating bond, which I’ve been too busy to listen to, now vibrates with unmitigated terror. My mates don’t know what’s happening to me, but they know it's bad. Very bad. And they are afraid. My mates who are never afraid of anything are terrified. For me.

Gathering everything I have left, from my lifeforce to my soul, I turn it into love that I send back to them. I want, need, for them to be left with that. My love for them. My pride in them. My demand that they fight and win and live. That they be happy.

The ground races up to meet Salazar and me. The world blinks in spots of color as the storm sings. Or maybe it's death singing. Whatever it is, it is loud and rhythmic and it’s… chanting?

My queen.

My queen.

My queen.

The voices are all different, and they seem to sound inside my head.

I blink through the haze to see that the shifting spots of color aren’t at all phantoms of failing vision, but dragons. A whole riot of them, all racing to surround Salazar and me. Half a dozen of them break off to descend on Salazar, their claws and teeth shredding him to bits. The others all extend their wings beneath my belly, taking my weight as they carryus carefully down to the courtyard.

There is a jolt as we land, my body transforming back into fae form. I crumple. Strong arms catch me before I reach the ground, Quinton’s panicked gaze gripping me as tightly as his hands. Over his shoulder, I see Cyril and Tavias—the latter supporting Hauck—hurrying toward me as well.

“She’s alive,” Quinton calls back to them, his voice breaking. He gentlly lowers me to my feet, his healing magic pouring into me just as the rest of the pack reaches me and the chanting sound I’d heard in the air ripples through the courtyard.

My queen.

My queen.

My queen.

The calls continue, each in a new voice as dragons drop to a knee in recognition. My mind is spinning too quickly to make sense of it, my clothes sticky with blood as I grip Quinton’s arm in a vice hold. “The rift,” I rasp through my aching throat. If we are about to be overrun with spinecrawlers?—

“-two dozen people rushed in to help a few minutes ago,” Cyril says between panting breaths as he reaches out to brush hair from my face. He is scanning every inch of me desperately. “It’s enough to hold the line until it closes. Bloody stars, nymph, what were you thinking going against Salazar alone?”

I exhale in relief. My body is one giant pain and I want nothing more than to just bury myself in Quinton’s shoulder. But it’s not time for that yet. “Salazar?” I ask. “Where is he?”

“Over there,” Quinton says before Cyril can object. He jerks his head toward the base of the palace steps. “What’s left of him.”

“I want to see.”

Instead of arguing, Quinton adjusts his hold on my waist. Cyril sighs, but comes up to help me from the other side as they carefully walk me toward a bloodied heap on the ground. The small crowd gathered there parts for us, some dropping to one knee when they see me.

I brace myself, then look down to where Salazar bleeds on the marble steps. His legs are bent at unnatural angles and more than a few of his entrails are on the wrong side of his belly. It’s a wonder his chest still rises.

As if sensing my arrival, Salazar opens his eyes. Our gazes lock for a moment and he laughs. It’s a horrible wet sound. “You think you won?” he rasps, his chest shuddering as his laughter turns to choking coughs. “You are dead… you all are. Or will wish to be.”

I know he is lying. Taunting me. That’s his way. But it works, anyway. “What are you talking about?” I ask.

A smile starts to spread across his face but freezes half way through as the last bit of life drops away from the false king.

Shit. Of course. The bastard probably planned it that way, just so he could haunt us even from the grave.

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