Page 41 of Heavy is the Crown
Drago
(“Judith” – A Perfect Circle)
The sound of my cell phone vibrating nonstop pulls me from my sleep. I roll over and slap my hand along the nightstand until I land on it.
“What?” I grumble.
“The Order knows Ava is with you. They are coming for her,” Jackson starts with no preamble. “You need to get her out of there. Now.”
My hand jerks to the side of the bed Ava was on but comes up empty against the smooth, cold sheets. I glance around the room—no sign of her. Panic lodges in my chest as the reality hits me. “Shit!” I don’t acknowledge Jackson in any way before I’m ending the call and dialing Ava. When it goes straight to voicemail, I try again, only to be met by the same response. “Fuck!” Next, I try Shadow, but his phone also goes straight to voicemail.
Vaulting out of bed, I slam my palm into the panic button that feeds directly to Kai, who lives in the apartment a floor down. We put it in place long ago, and it has rarely been used, but today, I’m grateful for it.
I try Shadow again but am sent straight to voicemail for the second time. “Motherfuckers, why can’t anyone answer their gods damn phone!” I scramble, grabbing a T-shirt and sweats as I flee my bedroom, only to run headfirst into Kai. I know by the look on his face I’m not going to like what he has to say, but I motion for him to follow me into my home office.
“Ava was seen leaving in the Hellcat not long ago. Shadow . . .” He trails off, and I already know what he is about to say. I know because my chest hurts. It’s pulling like a rubber band stretched too far.
“FUCK!” I throw my phone against the wall. The piece of titanium bounces to the floor, skittering across the hardwood.
“My men say the harbor is destroyed; he didn’t leave anything standing. What wasn’t burned was flooded by the waves he created,” Kai says, ignoring my outburst.
I scream again, grabbing my desk and flipping it up. The wood splinters and cracks, much like how my chest feels right now. I want to deny it, but the pain in my chest tells me everything I need to know. He left us.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” I can’t stop pacing, can’t stop moving, as I feel my world slipping away from me. The world I’ve tried so hard to keep together. Panic compresses my lungs, cutting off my breathing.
“Drago.” He steps forward. “Breathe. We get Ava first, then we get Shadow.” Logically, I know he is right. Shadow is safer than Ava; they aren’t after him. Without her magic, she is vulnerable to whoever is after her, and if they know about us, then Shadow’s show at the harbor will alert them that she is unguarded by at least one dragon.
I finally manage to pull air into my lungs. First one breath, then two, then three, until my chest no longer feels constricted. My mind starts to clear again. I straighten up and smooth my hair back.
“Has anyone seen Ava since she left the parking garage?”Breathe in. Breathe out, I keep reminding myself.
He shakes his head as he sends out a text, presumably to our men.
“Get people to The Playground. If she is there, keep her there. Close the fucking club down, no one in once you have her.”
He nods, sending out texts rapidly. “What are you doing?” he asks without looking up.
If he had looked up, he would have seen my shift, seen the golden eyes replace the blue, seen my hands start to turn skeletal. My dragon is no longer content with sitting back.
“I’m going hunting.”
Ava
(“Down With The Sickness (feat. Ai Mori)” – Violet Orlandi)
The music shifts, the sounds vibrating over the roar of the engine, as I enter the last mile or so of road before The Playground. My attention is solely on the small amount of traffic that has suddenly appeared, so I don’t notice the subtle change in the air around me until the massive shadow passes over the car, causing me to slam on my brakes. The sound of tires screeching fills the air as all the vehicles on the road come to a halt.
Dread fills me as I fling the door open and spy a massive skeletal dragon clinging to the side of the nearest skyscraper. Glass and metal fold under his weight like they’re paper as he crawls down the building. He’s only a football field’s length away from me when he lets out a great roar, black flames shootingfrom his maw. People scream around me, fleeing into buildings or down the road, but I stand stock-still as he slowly approaches.
“Shit . . . Drago . . .” I start, holding my hands up, palms out in surrender, expecting him to shift back.
But he doesn’t. Instead, his dragon shakes his head, snapping that massive jaw. I growl at him, snapping my own dull human teeth. His golden eyes flare at my defiance. “Fine. You want to do this? Let’s fucking do this.” I spin on my heel and take off at a dead sprint, adrenaline pushing me forward as he lets out a devastatingly loud scream that rains glass down around me. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I chant as I dodge and weave through the discarded cars. Drago’s dragon barrels through them, not stopping, and I realize it may have been a bad fucking idea to run from him.
Death Dragon
She ran. Like a little rabbit. And when I catch her, I’m going to fucking devour her.
Ava
