Page 197 of Gift from the Source
“For Elementra.”
The war cries leave our lips as our feet pound across the ground. With every step, the cracking of bones echoes through the air as shifters take form. A roar and a howl shake the earth and an ear-piercing shriek slices across the sky as Tanith zooms overhead.
My bonds surge out and wrap around the hearts of my men and my sister. I flood it as magic fills us to the brim from Draken.
The distance between us shrinks and I call my dragon further forward as the skin beneath my uniform becomes scales.
As I prepare to let her roar ring free, bellowing behind us cuts me off.
“Stop! It’s an illusion. Fall back!”
The warning is too late.
The dark wave of soldiers morphs as Xander tears away the trickery, revealing a real tsunami made of water and earth.
The ground is raised, traveling the surface like raging ripples.
Fuck.
My elements slam out of me and wrap me in a protective bubble that I try to cast out in every direction. I try to grab as many of my men and my family as possible.
I’m too late.
The violent wave crashes into me like a forcefield and my body flies backward. A scream gets stuck in my throat as I crane toward the ground at breakneck speed.
I command my shadows around me and go incorporeal a millisecond before I become one with the dirt. After a few rolls, I jump up to my feet, dropping my shadows and frantically searching around.
Madness is all I see.
The crazed wave didn’t trample through our whole army who’s colliding with their real forces. Only the front lines.
Only enough to separate me from my family.
He knew his best chance was to get us away from one another.
“Where are you?”I bellow in my mind as I start running forward.
There’re so many people.
Bodies, gifts, elements slam together everywhere around me.
“We’re everywhere. Get back to the front center. NOW,”Tillman commands and my feet move faster.
A grunt falls from my mouth as my airways become restricted. My feet kick out from underneath me and my back slams into the ground.
The little bit of air I had in my lungs gets forced out and my eyes squeeze shut for a second as the hit to my head makes them go crossed.
Panic grips me as a weight presses down against my body. The smell of cigars invades my senses, and that panic is swept away by rage. Flames travel to my hands but before I can use them to shove the fucker off me, my head snaps to the side from his fist.
He grabs my wrists and slams them above my head and leans down far too close to my face. “Oh, dear wife. You truly are the stupidest bitch I’ve ever met in my life. You may have grown attractively powerful, but that pathetic little heart of yours and defiant nature is going to be your downfall. Did you seriously think you and those heirs you call men were going to defeat us?”
A small smirk crosses my busted lip, and I allow my body to go limp underneath him. He’s the most ignorant and delusional man I’ve ever met in my life if he truly believes he’ll once again have me in this position without me allowing it.
“You should’ve stayed the worthless, spineless nobody you were in the nonmagical realm, Donald. You should’ve never followed the death sentence your father was giving you when he introduced you to mine. I guess,though, that would’ve just meant some other poor girl would’ve suffered the likes of you. For eight years, I endured at your hands. Mercilessly. I hope you got whatever sick fucking satisfaction you wanted from that because the punishment heading your way is going to feel like eight millennia. I’ll be there to witness every second of it. We’ll talk more then.” I laugh as he howls in pain as my wrists catch fire.
The moment his grip is loose, I buck him off me with my hips.
Rolling us, I coat my hand in stone and lay one solid punch straight to his face. The instant burst of red has my dragon purring.
