Page 23 of Court of Dragons and Ashes

It’s a giant house, made of vines too. The roof is made of wicker, and it must be at least four stories high. The wooden door swings open. “It looks like something out of a horror film, and if horror films taught me anything, you don’t go into the creepy house.”

“We should go inside. This is a test, remember?” Grayson quietly replies.

I look behind me to see that the passageway we came through is gone, replaced with ivy walls. I rub my hand over my face. “Okay, possibly we do need to go inside there, but why do I feel like we shouldn’t?”

He tightens his grip on my hand. Even with Gray at my side, I know that place is evil and we shouldn’t go near it. “I feel it too. You’ll be okay,” he reassures me. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, Elle.”

I blow out a breath. “I really hope you don’t.”

He stays close to my side as we head to the house, the feeling only getting worse. We walk up the few broken steps and through the open door into the clearly haunted house. I’m not into horror movies or anything scary, even with my uncle being the god of horror. Hell, I don’t even watch horror movies on Halloween. Each step creaks and echoes as we walk inside, and we stop as the door slams shut behind us.

It’s one massive room and there doesn’t seem to be a downstairs or upstairs of the house, even if it looks like there is from outside. It’s just one giant room. We aren’t alone. On a chair in the middle of the room is an older woman. I don’t need Grayson to tell me who she is. I can see from the way he goes still, everything in him seems to pause, like the world has stopped. I don’t know if she’s real or an illusion. Gray said this place makes you see things that are not there. Maybe it’s her soul, or maybe this place lured her back here instead of the spirit castle on the night my parents died, the night we thought she died.

Suddenly, vines lash around my body, yanking me up in the air. As Grayson reaches for me, vines wrap around him too, pushing him to the side. The vines wrap around my throat, around every part of my body, and even my mouth. “Touch is akiller, son. The goddess told me who you really are, the monster I always knew. Now you have a bride, and you will make more monsters with her to fill the Earth Court unless I stop her. I promised the goddess I would stop her and teach you a lesson too.”

“GRAYSON!” I shout against the vines as something begins to grow on them. Thorns. They cut into my arms and legs first, and then they stop. Until Grayson steps closer to me. I scream, my blood pouring down the vines. With every step closer to me, the thorns grow, but he can’t hear me. I notice the second he realises, blood draining from his face as he goes still.

“She will die, my son, unless you free her. The thorns will pierce her heart by the time you free her,” Grayson’s mother, the Earth Court queen, taunts. He takes a single step towards me, and they cut deeper, and I scream around the vine in my mouth.

Grayson turns to her, fury and pity written all over his face. Sorrow too. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry you never truly got out of here and a pathetic goddess is using you. But if you don’t let go of Ellelin, I’m going to kill you, because she is my world. My touch won’t hurt her, not like you hurt me.” He moves away from me, and the thorns freeze. The only sound is my blood dropping on the ground, drip after drip. “Your name is Becca. Becca from Cornwall. From a small little village, a human who fought to be a dragon queen and won. You had two children, a boy and a girl, and they loved you. This shouldn’t be your ending.”

“Gray,” I whisper, feeling weak. It shouldn’t be him who does this. He goes to his mum, picking up a knife made of green rock off the ground between them. There are dozens of green knives around and, sickeningly, I realise that’s what she used to cut him with as a child.

“I’m sorry,” he thickly whispers, pulling his mum into a hug even as she fights him. He stabs her straight through the chest, through her heart, as he does. The vines around me fall away,and I slam onto the ground, bleeding everywhere. A roar, male and ancient, shouts over the house as Grayson begins to glow green. Softer vines wrap around me as the house cracks open, and they raise me up in the air with Grayson until we are high above the maze.

The Earth Court king has his powers back. With a scream full of anger and fury, Grayson tears the maze apart, illuminated by flashes of green light. Through the haze of blood loss, I witness the maze being obliterated, torn to shreds by a fiery green light as if the earth is submitting to its true king. No dead god owns this land, King Grayson does, and it is finished.

When it’s all silent, there is a broken metal gate left in the middle of the pit of ruins. Grayson picks me up out of the vines, holding me to his chest as everything fades to darkness, and I hear Aphrodite’s scream of anger haunt me to sleep.

CHAPTER 12

Iwake up to a knife at my throat, pressed against my skin, the icy blade cutting me with my every breath. The haze of everything that happened in the test comes back to my mind as I look up at the hooded figure leaning over me, wheezing with every breath. Water drops from his cloak onto my cheek, and he is heavy, pressing the blanket tightly down on my arms. I try not to panic, not to move, and reach for my mates, but they are too far away to stop him. Their panic mixes with mine until I’m not sure who is more frightened. His breath stinks as he hovers over me, cutting me more when he leans down. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where my kings are. He snarls at me, and all I can see are his mud-brown eyes, thick beard, and little else. “Ares wants me to make you suffer, stupid bitch.”

With a false confidence, my lips tilt up. I’m sure I can rip him away from me, but it’s likely he will get a cut in before I do. “If I were you, I’d start running right about now.”

His eyes muddle with confusion and a tad bit of fear, as I make every light in the room disappear. Before I can even get my shadows to protect me, which they would, vines wrap around the man’s neck and arms, wrenching him back. Green light poursinto the room from the doorway, just enough for me to see vines slamming the assassin into the ceiling, cutting through him in hundreds of places as he screams in absolute agony above me, blood dripping down onto the bed.

I crawl away in the darkness, watching as a shirtless Grayson steps into the room. He is stunning. Grayson’s tanned chest is defined by his muscles, the ripples of his abs across his stomach, and every inch of him is covered in tiny scars. There are markings across his heart, earth symbols and small dragons, and he has a line of hair disappearing into his tight black jeans. I gulp, trying to remember I’m being attacked. Once he has looked me over from head to toe, for injuries I suspect and not the reason my horny self is staring open-mouthed at him, he seems to relax. It’s like the assassin isn’t screaming in agony as he smirks at me, leaning on the wall. “I left you alone for fifteen minutes after one of the female healers dressed you and healed you.”

Rubbing my neck, I climb off the bed. I’m only wearing a dark green top over my bra, and l have black leggings, the outfit sticking to every inch of my body as both are a size too small. Grayson clearly hasn’t seen what I’m wearing before, judging by the wide-eyed gaze and the flush of his cheeks when he looks at me. I spot a black cloak on a nearby chair and slip it on, tying up the buttons. “Ares sent him.”

Grayson’s vines keep cutting into him, and he screams and screams, begging for help, begging for someone to stop this. I have no sympathy for the stranger. Grayson takes my hand, tugging a shirt off the side, slipping it on. “We will find another room. I brought guards with me. They are watching outside.”

He leads me outside, shutting the door behind us. There are two guards out here, in dark brown and green armour, head to toe in it, and I can’t see anything more than their green eyes. There are three dead guards on the ground near them. Theassassin must have killed them to get to me. Grayson touches each of their heads, leaving a green leaf marking glowing softly. A mark of respect. Grayson’s voice holds no mercy when he rises. “Take him into the dungeons, torture him for information, and then kill him slowly. He tried to attack your queen, so make sure he suffers for the seconds he got alone with her.” His voice lowers. “As for our fallen, their families are to be told they died bravely protecting their queen and they will be honoured by the mighty dragon gods.”

“Yes, my king,” the guard coldly responds. “And, my queen, rest easy, the Earth Court is yours.”

Before I can even address the fact Grayson openly called me his queen, and the guards seem to think I’m the queen of their court already, three angry voices fill my mind. Arden and Lysander are in their courts, but they might as well be right in front of me. Our mental bond is insane, jumping from strong to weak. It’s just as confused as I am about our relationships. “I’m fine, calm down. I’m from the shadow court and have my own powers. Even if Grayson hadn’t turned up, I would have been easily able to stop him from hurting me. I just wanted to get some information from him first and know why he was trying to kill me.”

“Information is not worth your pain,” Arden mutters in exasperation.

“For once, the fire king is correct. Just kill the next one,” Lysander all but demands. “And remind Grayson to keep you close.”

“Burning them is the best way to get information. Fire makes any male scream the truth.” I wince at Terrin’s suggestion. He has been a dragon for far too long.

“He’s not wrong,” Arden starts, but I don’t want to continue this discussion.

“I’m fine, all of you. Now go back to whatever you were doing and stop filling my mind with your overprotectiveness.” I can sense none of them are happy, but my mind settles into a quiet.

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