Page 4 of Court of Dragons and Twilight

He gulps as the ground rattles under our feet and the castle walls groan, buckling under Grayson’s magic. I know he isn’t even aware he is doing it. A cold sweat covers his skin as I stroke his arm, wondering what is going on his head. The bond might be silent between us, but I can still feel him, feel the shock and devastation in his body. Remy nervously answers Lysander, who is still healing him. “She was dating someone, a young soldier, and I should have told you about that, but I didn’t. She begged me not to, and I’ve never been able to say no to her. She snuck out in the night, and I realised she was gone a few hours later. We’ve searched everywhere for her, but then this came.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a blood-soaked letter. A pink letter with silver writing above it. The air king. Grayson unfolds it as we all wait, and I read it with him.

Grayson loses it. The walls crack and the ground shakes like an earthquake, making people scream from below as the note falls from his hands. Vines stretch up every wall, cracking the stone as I move in front of Gray. Lysander picks the note up at my side and reads it out loud. “Come after me in the Air Court and your sister dies. Signed by Aphrodite.”

Grayson’s eyes are glowing green as he looks down at me, and my heart races, not in fear of him, but from the wrath of earth. The earth king, my precious mate, will destroy the world to get his sister back. I know because he would have destroyed it to get me back, too. I cup his cheek and make him look at me,even as I feel a tear fall over my hand from his eye. “We will save her. Together, Gray.”

The earth king stares into my soul, in only the way a mate can. “I lost all of them but her. I promised to keep her safe, and she is just a kid. I can’t lose—” He feels like he stops breathing as my heart breaks for him. We have to get her back. “If she touches my sister or you, the earth is going to crack open, and I’ll take everyone with me. We will rule in the ruins.”

“I’ll help you destroy it,” I vow. “But I have a plan, and it involves saving everyone.”

CHAPTER 2

Istand in the entrance hall of my home, and my heart pounds in my chest as the castle walls groan in disapproval. This plan is stupid and insane, but at this point, I’ll either do this or lose Emrys—and the chance of losing this entire world with him. The longer I leave them there stirring, the more risk they will attack us first, and we will lose in the state we are in right now. The courts are a mess thanks to Aphrodite invading each one, and the Air Court has fallen. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Emrys that we couldn’t save his court, his people, and there are only a few survivors. If he is still in there, in his body, which I have to believe he is, then he likely saw his own court get destroyed. How does he recover from that?

My mother stands at my side, and at the same time, Emrys’s mother is upstairs crying her eyes out and has been crying since I told her everything that happened to Emrys. Her son. Her heir. I try to make a smile, but I don’t feel it, not in my soul. I’m angry and so fucking done with the gods. I can’t lose him.

“You look ready for war, darling, and I love seeing you strong like this but not when you’re heartbroken and about to face an enemy who has defeated our family once before.” She’s right.

I smooth my hands down my tight clothes. We’re both wearing all black, a silver crest of a crown with a dragon wrapped around it, clipped over my heart, right in the soft protective leather that goes from my neck to my ankles, its scale design reminding me of Grayson’s dragon. She braided my hair, which I re-dyed all purple last night with Livia’s help. Grayson hasn’t slept and nothing I say to him is making it better, but his lips twitched when he saw my hair this morning.

“We are the strongest royals left in this world, and if we don’t face them and try, then we are just as bad as they are. I am heartbroken, but I am angry. I’m angry enough that they should be scared,” I tell my mother, my eyes softening. “I know they scare you, and you don’t have to come with me. I understand and would never judge you for it.”

She touches my arm. “Daughter, there isn’t a fight I would not take for you. I fended off madness in a prison for years with just a dream of holding you one more time. You are my light and my reason to stand. I will fight with you; I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

“I love you,” I whisper, emotion threatening to overwhelm me. Just then, Lysander comes over, searching my face, but I reassure him. “I’m ready for this. You don’t need to check. I’m okay.”

Lysander arches a perfect eyebrow on his deliciously pretty face and smirks. “I know. I was admiring your outfit.” Such a liar and he does it on purpose, knowing I’ll smile. I want to make a joke, say something, but all I can see is Emrys literally choking me. Emrys…disappearing into himself. Lysander cups my face with his hands, no doubt feeling all of my emotions like they are his own. My mother walks away to Arden and Grayson to give us some time.

“The plan will work, and we will get him back,” I insist.

“If we don’t, help me destroy everything, my enemy?” My lips part. “I’ll be the villain, and you can use me however you want as long as I’m with you.” He rests his head against mine. “Say the word and we go in there and just start killing.”

I gulp, knowing he would raise the sea and wash the world away for me. So much power, and yet it wouldn’t save Emrys. I don’t even know if he can be saved.

A roar outside, a dragon roar I know well, makes me look away. It’s only been a few hours since we made a decision and a plan. Terrin listened to all of it, but he’s still not spoken a word to me other than to see if I’m okay, and I hate leaving here while he is riddled with so much guilt it’s choking to feel him through the bond. I know he is protecting me in his own way, but something feels different. “Let me come with you,” Terrin finally speaks to me in my head.

Sighing, I look at the castle walls like I can see through them and to my massive dragon flying in the rain outside. “I need you, but not when you’re a dragon. I’m sorry, but there’s little you can do in the Air Court. I need you to stay here and look after the people, our people.”

“I hate being parted from you when you’re about to go and do something dangerous and reckless.” He growls.

“I thought that was why you fell in love with me. The continuously doing dangerous and reckless things, like riding a dragon, for example,” I point out, needing to distract him.

It doesn’t work. “It’s my fault. All of it. I should have told you everything, and I didn’t. When you get back, I need to tell you something that I didn’t tell you before, but now that the tsar is here…well, I need to tell you.”

I can hear the seriousness in his tone along with the guilt, but I’m confused about what he needs to tell me. “You know that your sister’s decision to take a new rider wasn’t your fault, or for him to bring the West army here. The war, it’s not on you.”

“We need to talk when you get back,” he says with a finality that tells me this conversation is over. “And I love you. Be safe.”

“I love you too,” I whisper into his mind and feel him focus away from me. I get the sinking feeling Terrin has been keeping a big secret from me, and I need to know what it is. I trust him, completely, and I’m surprised.

I was so distracted that when I look back, Arden and Grayson have joined us. Each of my kings are ready for a fight, and I’m as turned on by their dark clothes, weapons and general look as I am terrified to lose them like Emrys. Arden kisses my forehead. “I’m glad that he can still speak to you, princess. You need someone in your overthinking mind.”

“I miss all of you speaking to me like that.” I turn to Grayson and focus. I know every second we don’t go to the Air Court, it’s tearing him apart as much as it is me.

Emrys. Please let there be something left for me to save. If he is really gone…I can’t. Pain shoots through my heart as Grayson makes the portal and I think of my air king. He never deserved any of this. Lysander’s hand is like a rock in the sea, making sure I don’t drown in my own feelings as the Air Court spreads out in front of us. Angry, violent wind blows harsh and forgiving against the thrones and the broken archways that hang above this place. It’s changed since I was last here. There has been more destruction, and it’s almost like the air element has taken out its anger on the throne room. Even on this side of the portal, I can feel the icy breeze through the clothes I’m wearing. The sword seems to warm on my back just for a second, knowing that if I need it, that’ll be my next move. It creeped me out on the battlefield, but I’m not holding it again unless everything hasn’t gone to plan.

I have to believe in myself, in my kings and the plan we have, otherwise my legs would never move. We walk through together, my mother following after us. The wintry winds of the Air Courtalmost seem angry, bitter, but it doesn’t match the pure wrath in my chest as I see Emrys sitting on a throne. It’s not Emrys at all. His eyes are glaring red, burning, like I could see Ares’s soul right there on the surface of his handsome face, smothering my beautiful mate’s soul that is mine. He has always been mine.

Emrys is wearing all red, the colour washing out his tanned skin, only making his white hair look too pale, too much like death. Instead of Emrys’s green eyes I fell in love with, his are now red like Arden’s but a darker shade like blood. I grit my teeth, tempted to rush over and plunge my sword straight through his chest to get Ares out. Even if it breaks me, that would be Emrys too. Ares, the smug bastard, smiles, knowing that I will not harm him. Ares wearing Emrys body is the perfect defence. Aphrodite saw the love between Emrys and me and set up the perfect way to keep them both alive. I wonder how many people they have done this with, how many hearts have felt like mine and been broken by the goddess of love and the god of war? If I don’t stop them, will it ever end?

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