Page 48 of Toadstools and Vampire Kisses

To my relief, I see Ulrek slide into position to the left of me. His eyes meet mine and he nods, conveying all that I need to know. My brethren are moving into place to protect my mate’s escape. The rear garden doors that open from the ballroom will give her an opportunity to escape without interception if her departure is protected.

“What? Reynard, no!”

“Go!” I snarl, opening my wings and sending the air volleying in all directions, tugging Fran away from the protection of my body as the gale sends several elite guards to their knees.

Fran’s startled cry hits me harder, cleaving my heart, but I do not turn or take my eyes off the queen as her lip curls with displeasure. Jack’s urgent shout to Fran, followed by hastily whispered words that I don’t quite catch, is what finally gets her moving and I can hear her feet racing across the floor, but my heart slows as her footsteps slow and then multiply. I am about to turn to see what is going on when Ulrek slides up beside me, his expression grim.

“She is taking the children with her,” he growls. “It was the only way Jack could get her to leave you.”

Panic seizes my heart at the thought of any delay, but again the gavoreth anticipates my concern.

“Jack is with her. Now keep your attention where it ought to be! Watch out!” he growls, his body colliding with mine, knocking me back a fair distance just as Rowan rushes forward, his massive sword arching down where I had been just seconds before, burying deeply into the wooden floor.

“My thanks, Ulrek,” I reply, but the male simply pounds me silently on the back and backs away, giving me a clear opening to engage with my attacker.

“Wait a damn minute,” Katherine barks. “Get out! I forbid this! Adeon, what you are doing?” She glares as the dragon finally makes his play, striding forward to capture her about the waist and lifting her up from the floor.

“Come on, you daft woman, leave them to it,” Adeon rejoins, just as Titania’s gaze snaps back toward her.

“My loves, deal with… that,” she snarls, her clawed hand rising in Katherine’s direction.

“Over my scaly hide,” Adeon replies, with a snarl that echoes through the room as he pulls Katherine against him.

Red wings burst free, snapping around them as his size slowly grows, his facial shape changing. I have no time to worry about Adeon’s untimely transformation, however. At that exact moment, Rowan yanks his sword free and spins toward me with a hate-filled snarl that snaps my attention back away from whatever the damned dragon is doing to focus on my quarry.

My wings fan out, delivering violent blasts of air he manages to deflect by throwing up a reflective wall spell just in time. I hiss between my teeth. Vladimiri and their damned passion for sorcery. For a puppet, he is too perceptive to be caught again so easily.

“You will not have my mate, Algriech,” I growl. “I will destroy you first.”

His smile inches up. “Yet another change of plans it seems, dragori. You think you have saved her, but you are a fool. My queen will make her suffer when she catches her.”

My blood runs cold at his words, my gaze snapping away from my opponent as it slides over an open space that was only moments ago occupied.

“No!” I whirl about to rush out to the garden and barely avoid a sword slashing toward my wing.

Spinning back toward him, my wings snap up behind me defensively, prepared to strike him with one if given the opportunity. A loud, angry hiss vibrates in my throat as he chuckles, a hard, grating sound.

“I would worry about yourself, Reynard Bell,” he mocks.

My wings stretch, fanning the air anxiously. I need to get to my mate. The defenses the maze will afford her should protect her, but I know better than to underestimate Titania. That means I must finish this thing with the Algriech king, and quickly.

Feinting to the right, I slashed out with my wing-claw, scoring a bloody tear in the male from shoulder to opposite hip. He stumbles back, the weight of his sword off balancing him with the blow. Despite that, he shows little hint of pain as he straightens and grins.

“Worried yet, dragori? Do you see defeat in my eyes when you look upon the blessing my queen put upon me?”

He stretches his arms wide, his chest expanding with the motion. He does not seem to feel it, but I see something that he obviously has ignored—he is still bleeding. Titania may have given him pain resistance, but it did not protect him from the wound leaching his blood away. Why would she, when he was clearly little more than her plaything? He is clearly of no more use to her than her elite guards, a tool to do her butchering for her.

There was a time when I had once fallen for that myself, believing I had her favor as her most dependable death dealer and one of the most powerful males in the coven by my own right. I had held her above all others, admiring her and willing to serve her however she desired when she summoned me. But that was before I saw her for what she really was and refused to serve her directly, and even longer before she took the human as a blood-bonded mate for whose death I was sentenced.

And still, she erroneously believes that she owns me. But of course she does. Rowan believes she wants me dead, but she does not. She set him against me to toy with me, knowing that I am the stronger, and to distract me. It is still Fran’s death she is after, the only female over whom I have ever set my protection and claim.

“There lies no blessing, only a curse of death that will seize you unawares,” I taunt as I attack, only for him to evade and counterattack.

“Lies!” His enraged bellow of denial is pitiful.

Unfortunately, it is not enough to distract him to give me a way in without risking serious injury to myself. Something I can ill afford when I must confront Titania. The scores we rend into one another are slight at best, though mine are gradually scoring deeper and more brutal with each pass, but it is not enough. I need an opening.

He shakes as he blocks another blow with the flat of his sword and snarls. “You cannot beat me, Reynard Bell. I am the powerful one between us. I am your death bringer!”

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