Page 162 of Lady of Starfire

The roar that echoed from the cave shook the entirety of the mountain.

And she felt rage. So much wrath and fury that was not hers.

He was coming.

He had heard her.

He was coming.

She had seen Tybalt in his dragon form, but the dragon that swooped out of the cave was larger. His scales were black as night and seemed to absorb the sunlight. Two horns protruded from the diamond-shaped head, and a spiked tail thrashed in the air as he soared up, banking hard. Blue glowing orbs locked on her as his wings gave a mighty flap. His neck stretched out, and black flames spewed from his mouth when he released another roar. Two seraphs were nothing but ash.

He was diving, coming straight for her then, his head rearing back for another onslaught of dragon fire. Careful. He was being careful of her because she could not shield against his flames.

But the roar that came from him was not one of wrath and vengeance. It was one of agony, just as her scream had been when the arrow had struck her.

Because that was a bolt protruding from his chest, right above one of his front legs. A bolt as dark as his scales. Nightstone or deathstone. She couldn’t tell from here.

She was screaming. Screaming around that gag so loudly she thought she might blow out her vocal chords.

Razik!

She tried to push to her feet, but Varlis shoved her back down. All rational thought left her mind when she saw Razik beginning to fall from the sky. She surged against Varlis again, needing to get to him. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she needed to get to him. That was all she could think.

His wings splayed, trying to balance his weight and slow his fall.

But that was another bolt going straight through his right wing.

Her scream mixed with Razik’s roar.

That was the last thing she heard when Varlis’s vines tightened around her throat.

And the last thing she saw through her blurry vision as she struggled to breathe was Razik plummeting to the rocky mountainside.

Chapter29

Callan

“She’s nearly here,” Juliette said, sticking her head inside the tent that Callan shared with Azrael.

They had entered a rather odd daily routine. With Drake and Tava only able to make their way here in the dead of night, Callan found himself getting a few hours of sleep in the evenings and then falling back onto his bedroll in the hours before the sun rose. Tava and Drake weren’t able to come every night, and Drake had far more freedom than Tava did. He had been here last night, but it had been three nights since he’d last seen her. Not that he’d had much time to think about it. If he wasn’t getting those few precious hours of sleep, he was training with Azrael or Juliette, attending endless strategy meetings with rebel leaders, or just helping around the camp wherever he could.

It had taken a few days for the rebels to even come close to him, and it took Ezra talking to some of the men the second night to get them to discuss their plans around him. Callan couldn’t blame them. The third night, when the Tyndells were able to return again, it had only taken seeingthemto include him without worry, and suddenly they welcomed him into the fold without another word said about it.

Callan grabbed his cloak and swung it around his shoulders as he ducked out of the tent, Azrael passing him a tin cup of some watered-down stew as they moved through the camp.

“Did you get enough rest?” Callan asked him.

“Enough to bolster my reserves for the night, but after this meeting, I do need more to fill them completely,” he answered.

They’d spent all of last night rescuing a group of people being brought in from outlying villages. With the poorer districts all but emptied, they were seeing more and more people being brought into the capital in wagons. The rebels in the city would report that they were being brought in to work since they could not pay their share of the newly increased taxes. But there were never any wagons taking those same people back to their homes. The wagons always left empty and returned full. Men. Women. Children. It didn’t seem to matter.

Azrael had to be exhausted. He was using his magic to create diversions, cover tracks, whatever he could really. He was training mortals in the camps, and this morning he’d had to leave to go create a portal for Eliza. It had been a fast trip. He’d only been gone a few minutes, but the distance drained him more than anything.

Tonight they were meeting to discuss what they were going to do with their growing numbers. They couldn’t keep everyone here, and many of the people couldn’t fight. The women and children being rescued. The elderly. With so many people, they would surely be discovered soon. Juliette had wards around them, but they were being stretched thin.

They had just stepped beyond a copse of trees and into a semi-private clearing when Azrael cursed soundly.

“Watch your mouth. There arechildrennearby, Plant Prince,” admonished a voice of silk and honey.

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