Page 90 of Cursed

I focus on gathering all the magic pouring through me, shifting it so I can channel it into my mates. It’s too much for me to hold on to anyway. I’ll explode with it. And I might hurt my mates if I do.

I push the magic out, down through my magical mate bonds. Our etheric cords light up.

Even Quade seems to perk up at the end of his.

But with Rourke… our cord is only a thread, and I can barely send him what I have to offer.

The dragons wrestle and snap at each other. Several times, I’m almost slammed into the ground and crushed. But Drake needs me alive, so he has been careful not to let that happen yet. He wants to steal my ability, and that will be his downfall.

Branden is awake now, and his presence is close, although I can’t see him. With the extra dose of magic, and Drake’s current vulnerable state, my vamp uses his water-blood mage affinity to slow the dragon’s blood.

Drake becomes sluggish and sways.

Arden calls upon the earth. Roots wrap around Drake’s tail and back legs, anchoring him to the ground.

Giant shadow tentacles circle Drake’s digits around my waist and pry away his too-tight hold on me.

I suck in a breath that I desperately need. Then I fall twenty feet from Drake’s hold, plummeting to the ground.

Landis’ shadows catch me and pull me out of the wrath of the fighting dragons.

My incubus cradles me to his chest.

But I need to focus on the battle, so I turn and place my feet on the earth. With a stinging pain, I briefly glance down to see I’ve lost more blood than I thought. My clothes are soaked from fresh wounds to my torso.

My incubus’ shadows keep me upright, but he doesn’t try to interfere with my goal.

I must finish draining Drake of his unnatural magic. Only then will we be able to overpower him.

Drake breathes out a torrent of flames at Rourke. My dragon, no longer worried about me getting hit, returns fire.

“Fuck.” Branden waves us back as we are sweating with the inferno of heat.

I don’t want to back up. I’m worried any distance will cause me to lose my ability to weaken Drake.

I struggle against Landis’ hold.

Arden steps in front of me. “I see what you’re doing. You can keep it going but from a distance. And I think I can help.”

I concede, allowing them to move us farther from the dragon’s heat.

As we back away, I become conscious that the world is burning up all around us.

Arden, with his power of connections, and Landis, with his shadow, aid me in the draining, helping me draw more power from Drake.

The older dragon screeches and turns on us, sensing what is happening now.

Fuck. We could be hit.

Rourke leaps and throws his body in front of us to block the path of Drake’s blaze. Rourke’s wings are burnt, and he cries out in agony.

At the same time, Quade, in his wolf form, runs up Drake’s prone body and latches onto his throat.

I focus my attention there, wondering if I could take away the magic needed for his dragon form. Could I steal it from him, just as he had stolen and killed so many mages?

Seeing the shifter magic as if it were a tangled knot I could unravel, I pull on threads instinctively.

Within a few moments, only a mean, angry male is collapsed on the ground with a wolf tugging at his neck. Not a killing bite, but if he were to move up and chomp down, it would be.

---