Was I trying to make excuse for him?
An hour later, when Sybil flashed a few pictures of Rai and Iokul and their dragon men stumbling toward the edge of the jungle, Blaze told me, “They’ve reached the forest.” Worry deepened the creases of his brows.
It would take hours for them to reach my chamber, and my jungle was another perilous place.
“I’ve ordered my monsters not to eat your men,” I said. “Let’s see what else I can do.”
And so, I did what I usually wouldn’t do and summoned Phantom, the half-beast, half-elemental creature.
He could also shift the jungle, just like Akem. I’d seen Akem’s essence—a living black hole, but I had never seen Phantom’s. But when he passed, I could feel the chill slicing up my spine and it wouldn’t go away for a long time.
I had no idea if Phantom would help me out since he was the only one in the jungle whom I couldn’t control.
But the next minute, Blaze turned to me with amazement. “They’re here, right outside. You can teleport people as well?”
“No,” I said. “The Guardian of the Nightmares did it for me as a favor.”
I believed that Phantom helped me because I’d helped get rid of Akem; the asshole entity had been starving Phantom for as long as I knew.
Blaze blinked. He must have thought my three Furies were the Guardians of the Nightmares.
I winked. “The jungle is full of surprises.”
Sybil flew in and landed on a high beam before Iokul charged in. The ice dragon’s silver eyes found me first, and a light of relief flashed by as he saw I was safe. Then his icy gaze swept over Blaze.
“The warriors are coming in,” Iokul said grimly. “Only a handful of our men survived, and we lost three full-blood dragons.”
So, not all his men were dragon shifters, but I knew all the men had more or less dragon blood in them. I’d smelled that.
Blaze swallowed, his fists clenching. “They’ll pay. They’ll all pay.”
Rai stumbled in with two wounded soldiers leaning on either side of him, meeting my gaze as he entered. Blaze rushed toward them to help. The princes brought in all of the surviving warriors.
Rai’s advisor,Quintrell,was among them. He limped into my chamber and gave me a wearied look. He’d once urged Rai to cut my heads and deliver them to my grandfather to claim the inheritance of the Dragon Realm all by himself.
Probably suffering from the trauma, the rest of the warriors didn’t pay much attention to my three forms. They had a fair share of seeing all sorts of monsters during their short stay onPandemonium.
The wounded were more than eager to crash onto the scattered cushions with pained grunts.
Rai focused on helping Chiron tend to the soldiers. The healer had been the one who had brought the medic kit to Rai and tended to my two other Furies when the drones had wounded us.
Henry, my hellhound, trotted in. He rubbed against my side with affection, then went straight to harass the wounded dragon men, snarling and stalking around them.
The warriors, who were relatively in better shape, trained their weapons toward my hound.
Akem used to have three hellhounds. Archangel Gabriel killed one, and the wolf shifter King Marrok killed the other. Gabriel’s angelblade, the most fatal sword, had gutted Henry in the war against Akem as well, but my hellhound survived.
“Hurt my hound, and you’ll be sorry,” I said matter-of-factly, scanning the dragon men and fixing my piercing gaze on Quintrell, who had every intention of shooting Henry.
Quintrell flinched, and the men all hesitated.
“Do not harm any jungle creature!” Rai snapped, then turned to me. “Daisy?”
I knew what he was asking and nodded.
The blood on the dragon men was sending Henry into a frenzy.
Henry, I ordered sternly.Go play somewhere else.