Page 84 of Of Blood and Banes
It’s down to me.
I’m definitely not ready, but I have no choice.
I can’t close my eyes. Not with the dragon gunning straight for us. With some internal part of me, I search the earth for that hidden river of magic, summoning it to me. But it doesn’t come, avoiding my call as if it’s an evasive wild animal. Or we’re too far from a ley line.
“You’re running out of time, Katerina!” Marge’s voice kicks up a pitch.
The dragon parts its jagged jaws, a glowing heat collecting in the back of its throat. Those wild, slitted eyes trained on me. It wants me dead. I canfeelit.
“Now! Now!” Marge cries.
My grunt becomes a scream as I try to pull the magic underneath the ground through my fingers, like a master moving its puppet. But this puppet has a mind of its own. As Ilift my hands off the ground a few inches, a soft wisp of blue rises through the cracks of the cobblestones.
The dragon blasts a stream of fire that barrels down the street in our direction, a cloud of heat threatening to consume us. My grip slips, and the magic falls back out of reach. I’m too weak.
“Katerina!” Marge’s scream chills my blood.
I fall to my knees with a roar, digging back into that magic as I ready myself for the rush of flames racing toward me. That roar transforms into something else. Something deep, throaty, and animalistic.
A shadow falls over me, and a black figure dives from above my head. Daeja lands with a hardthudin front of me, cracking cobblestones underneath her feet as she rears up, stretching her wings out to take on the flames. They slam into her chest, pushing her back until her talons scrape at the street.
“Daeja!” I cry aloud, scrambling onto my feet.
Her body absorbs the fire until she glows almost white. As the flames fade, she lowers her body back to the ground as the wild red dragon bursts through the remaining flames and tackles Daeja to the ground.
She’s outmatched.
She’s nearly half the size of the other dragon. And she just took a chestful of fire. She could be injured, though no pain radiates through my body. She twists underneath the red dragon, slipping from its grasp and rearing back with a ferocious snarl.
“Get them inside!”she tells me, her eyes still locked on the red dragon as she snaps forward in warning.
I turn to Marge, who watches in awe and terror. Pointing back at the entrance to the bunker, I realize there are only three people left trying to fit. The entrance is jam-packed with people who peer out from the double-wide doors, their terrified gazesset on the two dragons snarling and circling one another. I usher Marge and the remaining three people near the entrance.
“Please! A few more! Shift back, let them in!” I shout into the bunker. They manage to squeeze enough to let the four of them in, with Marge at the front. Though, there are so many of them the doors don’t close completely, despite how fervently people try.
“Get them out! You’ll kill us all!” a man shouts somewhere inside.
Some mutter agreements, and the crowd surges, trying to force people back out of the bunker.
I slam a fist against the door to get their panicked attention. “No! If you push, you’ll forfeit your right to stay here, do you understand? Stay, and do not move!”
Daeja roars behind me, and I turn and watch as she slithers around the dragon to be between it and me. The wild dragon snaps forward, latching its jaws around Daeja’s throat as she claws at its face.
My blade sings as I unsheathe it, my eyes focused on the wild dragon. Daeja and the dragon fling and snap, swipe and strike, each fighting for the upper hand. Despite her smaller stature, Daeja is quick and still presents a challenge for the other dragon. I slink forward, raising my blade, and ducking under a swinging red tail.
Daeja slips out from the red dragon’s jaws, flinging herself on top and pinning the dragon on its back, before it throws her off into a building. The building groans and folds, showering brick and wood onto Daeja. She ducks under the impact, dust billowing out from the fall. When her eyes flash open, they are pure white with a raging fury.
The red dragon is facing away from me as it snarls. I creep up and stab my sword down into the beast’s tail, straight through its thick muscle until I sink the blade hilt-deep. The dragon roars,spinning toward me with a live fire burning inside its small beady eyes.
I hold its gaze. “Stand down.”
Its lips curl up, revealing decades-old teeth, cracked, stained, and jagged. As it hisses, its rank breath washes over my face, but I refuse to flinch.
“Stand…”
Daeja slinks out from the rubble toward the dragon, shaking off any excess wood and bricks as she approaches the dragon from the other side.
“...down.”
