Page 27 of Fae Reckoning

At that, Rush’s step hitched, but then he continued. “I’m almost there.”

So were the guards.

And so was the queen, I feared.

The green dragon drew in a deep breath?—

“Rush,” I shouted.

“Rush!” Ryder, Hiroshi, and West yelled at once.

“Rush,” Roan bellowed a beat later.

But my mate ducked under the dragon’s head, some-fucking-how evading his awfully sharp teeth as they snapped at his torso, and slapped a palm to one of the creature’s forelegs—between deep, open gashes that looked horribly painful.

The dragon yelped and snaked his head toward Rush?—

An awful reality settled upon me. “Rush, you’re not touching anyone that’s touching me!” How could we have been so stupid? How couldIhave been so blind in my panic to get everyone else out of here? How?—

“Will rope work, Mistress?”

Pru was at my side. I hadn’t noticed her approach. I blinked down at her. “Rope? You have some?”

“Yes.” Already she was pulling her handy little sewing kit, which I’d learned was a treasure trove of useful emergency items, from her ruined frock. “It’s imbued with goblin power,” she was saying as her nimble, knobby fingers unrolled the kit, allowing its magically expanding end to unfurl atop the bones at her feet. “So it should work with your power, Mistress.” She glanced up at me with those big, dark eyes and corrected herself. “Elowyn.”

“Yes. Yes, it’ll work!” I bent down and pressed a loud smack of a kiss to her ashen cheek.

Edsel gasped in surprise, but Pru only flushed—and bless her, she didn’t so much as pause in herendeavor. An instant later she was pulling a rope from her enchanted kit that extended and extended and extended—magical in-fucking-deed. Its length glowed a soft orange.

Reed launched the end of the rope toward Rush. He caught it just as the guards flooded into the cavern.

“Stop where you are!” yelled the guard in front in a singsongy lilt.

“Where the hell are we?” whispered another guard to the one beside him, but his voice carried.

“Is that a … fuck me, is that adragon?” another practically shouted.

“Remain focused,” singsonged their leader. “Rush, do not move.” The lead guard pointed two swords in Rush’s direction. But even as stalwart and intent on fulfilling his purpose as he appeared, I caught how his stare flicked to and from the green dragon, well enough illuminated by Rush’s and the guards’ lumoons now to reveal the extent of his size—and injuries.

“What is this place?” asked another of the guards. There were a dozen or so of them.

I reached for my bond with Rush, experienced immense relief to feel it still strong, and began to wish us out of there to reveal my map.

Braque stumbled into the cavern. His jowls were so pink and his chest heaving so alarmingly, there was a real chance the queen’s alchemist would drop dead on the spot. He attempted to speak but was panting too heavily.

“Now, Elowyn,” Edsel urged.

With the sensation of Rush’s touch across my skin, and an overwhelming desire to get my friends and I the hell out of there, a subtle red glow began to creep along my skin.

A crunch as several heavy somethings landed suddenly on bone, and Zafi’s high-pitched squeak as she went invisible, were my first signs that the queen had arrived. The next was her wickedness coating the air like a stink.

Holding tightly to the connection to Rush and the burgeoning map, I turned to find her. She was astride Azariah. Ivar, atop his scaled horse, was beside her. If the unisus had been defeated before, it was nothing to the current brokenness of his expression. His large, dark eyes were wells of sorrow that had no apparent end.

Was there a way to liberate him? Not only would we save an ally, but he was the entire reason the queen kept finding us. He was a weapon she used against us. Ending her control over him would buy us freedom to prioritize our defense, perhaps even to organize an actual attack. We couldn’t keep running.

“My queen,” Braque wheezed, and the queen’s attention jerked toward her alchemist.

Though it was a challenge while keeping the map active, I worked to contain its glow so she wouldn’t realize how close we all were to disappearing beneath her very nose again. For someone as unskilled in her powers as I was, it wasn’t easy to pull back on the reins of my magic.

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