Page 33 of Blue Embers
She stood out of her car, her blazer left behind so she wore only her white blouse tucked into her tailored pants. She was in clothes from the day before, but she made them look classy on her slender frame. She walked with a renewed posture as if she’d organized her thoughts on the drive as well. I made my way toward her as the other two vehicles rolled up and parked in the half empty lot.
In the light of the morning, Persephone looked radiant. The expression she’d pulled over her face could have fooled anyone into thinking she was untroubled, but I knew better. The one thing she couldn’t hide was her pulse. Her breathing. The true indicators that she was stressed beyond her ability to suppress.
“She’s on the second floor,” she said.
We started toward the building, Saxon and Malice following close behind. Hearing the automatic doors slide open, I looked up at the entrance. Three figures stepped out in front of us. All four of us slowed to a stop, as did the three strangers who had come through the doors. A tall, captivating woman with fiery red hair and dark skin looked like a cat caught off guard, her crimson eyes more like an animal than a human’s. The two burly men with her were young. Greenish-gold eyes glared at the four of us as they stepped up in front of their female companion. Something was completely off about the entire situation now. I could feel it in my bones like tiny needles coursing through my marrow.
The woman’s eyes scanned the four of us with rapid vigilance before she turned and took off running, her long legs throwing her into a sprint before anyone else could make a move. One of the Draak men ran with her. Saxon and Malice took chase. They moved with a speed far exceeding any human’s, crossing the parking lot in a matter of seconds.
The fleeing Draak leapt up onto one of the vehicles parked in the lot and launched himself into the air. In a burst of white-hot flames, the man’s body transformed into a pale dragon the size of a bus. Small. He was younger than I thought. He took off and as the woman jumped to mount him, Malice bounded off the hood of another car, bodying her mid-air and knocking her aside. The two tumbled to the ground where he began wrestling her into submission.
As the young dragon banked to defend the woman, Saxon veered to intercept, squaring his shoulders like a lion bracing for a kill. The dragon lunged, foolish and inexperienced, and opened his jaw toward Saxon.
“Killian!” Persephone’s voice rang through the air.
Looking forward, I saw the other man marching toward us. My arm jutted out in front of Persephone, pushing her back as the stranger closed in, fists tight enough to make the veins in his arms swell. Like a charging bull, he snorted and picked up pace. Shoving Persephone away, I planted myself for the attack, jaw clenched. The man raised a fist, swinging at me with a slow but powerful force. I leaned away from his blow, realizing this man was just as young as his companion. The inexperienced youth had no idea what he was doing. Not really. I wasn’t keen on killing him before I knew what his motives were, but he was clearly not in a chatty mood.
Grabbing the man’s throat while he slowly recovered from his missed blow, I delivered a swift kick to his legs, knocking his feet out from under him. His body plummeted down onto the asphalt. Taking his arm, I snapped it over my knee, feeling his bone splinter under his skin. He let out a deafening roar of pain that drew the attention of his already transformed brother.
The dragon looked up with bright, golden eyes and spread his fleshy wings. Saxon moved to keep him in place. As the dragon’s teeth-filled jaws descended down on him, he took his mouth in his hands, growling ferociously as he held the beast at bay. His boots slid backward on the blacktop, the dragon pulling with the claws of his wings in an attempt to move.
I watched Saxon wrestle the dragon, refraining from shifting forms for as long as he was able. Meanwhile, Malice had the woman pinned on her stomach. He had secured her beneath one knee, her hands tightly locked behind her back.
Men and women filtered out of the hospital, watching wide-eyed as the commotion picked up. Aggravated at the attention we’d attracted, I threw my fist straight down onto my opponent’s head with a blow that would have crushed the skull of a human. This Draak, however, only grew dizzy for a moment long enough for me to catch a glimpse of Saxon being knocked to the side by the other dragon. It glanced at his restrained, female companion. Their eyes met for only a moment before the dragon turned its gaze once more, this time on the human crowd. Rearing, he took a deep breath into his thick chest. Orange energy burned up beneath the flesh of his neck and sternum. Quivering, the beast prepared to lunge, flames rolling inside his chest and ready to rain on the crowd.
I clenched, prepared to shift, when a massive explosion of red embers burst into a small storm behind the young dragon before he could release his fire. Flames swirled in a brief display of searing light from which a mammoth figure emerged, bellowing a monstrous roar. The deep, red body of the Ash Bringer wasted no time. Just as the flames reached the jaws of the young dragon, Saxon’s significantly larger, hardened body plowed forward, his teeth clamping down on the young dragon’s neck with force enough to crush a tank.
The crowd shuffled back inside, screaming as the tousle crashed into a line of cars. Metal, gasoline, and shredded tires littered the parking lot as the two dragons rolled over each other and everything in their path. Saxon, five times the size of his opponent, overpowered the youth in seconds, flames dripping from his still clamped jaw and onto the leaking gasoline around them.
Seeing what was about to happen, Persephone herded any remaining onlookers away, yelling commands at them to get back inside while Malice forced the woman to her feet and moved her away. My own opponent reached up, swinging at my head with his other elbow just as yellow, glowing veins began to brighten beneath his skin. Glancing at the civilians and Persephone as they tried to put distance between us and them, I decided to cut the Draak’s moment short before he too was a raging dragon trying to destroy the whole building.
Persephone glanced back at me, her expression soaked in urgency as she shoved the last few people into the hospital. Once the civilians and their cell phones were gone, I grabbed the Draak’s head and twisted it abruptly to one side until I felt his vertebrae shatter. A young one like him had no way to heal from that and part of me sank at the thought.
Standing, I looked up to see Saxon’s mouth rip upward, the dragon’s blood-soaked head in his clenched jaws. Saxon gave it one shake, throwing it across the lot in a heep of flesh and bone and teeth. It landed with a solid thump against a car, setting off an obnoxious alarm. The glow of its eyes faded, tongue hanging from its mouth.
Stepping off his decapitated opponent, Saxon immediately began to shed his beastly form, the dark scales and deep, red spines dissolving into glowing ash and embers that fell away with the breeze. As the dragon dissipated and the man returned, he stood firm, fists balled, nostrils flared, and grimaced at the corpse of the dragon in front of him.
All traces of blood from the fight burned away when Saxon shed his dragon form, but he looked no less menacing. His bright, red eyes turned to me and then scanned the entirety of the parking lot and the mess we’d made. Then his gaze settled on Malice and the strange woman in his grip. She had little expression on her face but what fine traces I could see portrayed arrogance. Her gaze slowly drifted toward Persephone in the tense silence that followed the fight. Turning, I realized how pale Persephone had become. Her breath had stopped. Realization hit all of us like a ton of bricks, but it hit her like an avalanche of sharp rocks. She spun around, pushing through the crowd of people gathered inside the hospital entrance, and disappeared.
“Persephone!” I called after her.
I followed her through the cluster of onlookers, pursuing her down the halls. She didn’t bother with the elevator. Instead she crashed through a stairwell door and ascended the steps to the second floor, frantic.
“Persephone!” I called after her again, worried she was about to stumble on something ugly.
Reaching the second story, I walked briskly down the hall in her direction, certain now that I couldn’t stop her from discovering the worst. I saw her veer into a private room from which I could hear numerous voices and a high-pitched beeping. Slowing my pace, I came to the room and saw a doctor in his white coat and a nurse in blue scrubs calmly turning off an array of monitors and machines. Persephone was frozen a couple steps from the bed as the doctor turned to confront her. I stayed put in the open doorway, waiting for the news to pass. I could hear it in the old man’s heart rate before he spoke the words.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Grant,” he said, placing a gentle hand on Persephone’s arm as he stepped past her.
I turned my shoulder, letting the doctor and the nurse pass me as they left the room. The nurse seemed to be in a hurry, no doubt reaching for her phone to rush outside and catch a glimpse of the ruckus that had just turned the parking lot into a battleground. When her eyes caught mine, she jolted, almost tripping on her heels as she nervously scuttled away.
I sighed, directing my attention back toward Persephone, who was slowly approaching the bed in the now silent room where a woman lay motionless beneath baby-blue sheets. I stepped in, watching as she placed a hand on her sister’s arm. She immediately pulled away as if she’d been shocked with a bit of electricity, and cupped her shuttering hand lightly over her mouth. I took another step toward her, waiting for the right moment to offer my help. Persephone didn’t make a sound. I heard no sniffle or whimpers from her as she processed the reality of the moment. All I could hear was the quiver in her breath as she came to terms.
“Persephone,” I whispered, easing up behind her.
She started to shake her head. As soon as my hand touched her back, she turned into me, curling her arms against herself as she pressed her head to my shoulder. Her body shook, breath vibrating from her lungs in a gentle sob. I could sense her need for support as her legs began to fail her.
Wrapping her tightly in my arms, I held her upright and immediately her emotions began to pour out. Pain. Regret. Heartbreak. Her tears were filled with all of it. She balled my shirt in her fists, muffling her whimpers against my shoulder as if desperately trying to hold them in.
