Fire of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 3) - Paranormal Fairytale Romance (17 page)

Fuck.
They were nearly to the edge of the mountain range that dipped down into Seattle. Cinaed was right. Even if Tytus’s demon army was going a hundred miles an hour in whatever vehicle they had, they couldn’t have come this far already. Lucian turned back.

I’ll go low and scan for any roads that split off from the main one,
Cinaed thought.

I’ll go high and reach as far as I can.
Lucian didn’t need to tell his best friend to hurry. The creeping sense that they were already too late was itching up Lucian’s golden scales, just as his runes were writhing all over his body, from the tip of his snout, back along his spine, to the end of his tail. As he and Cinaed doubled back, Lucian’s heart sank deeper into a black dread at what they would find when they reached Arabella.

If they found her at all.

Visions of his previous mate drenched in blood flashed up in his mind. He shoved that away. The only blood he would see today would be Tytus’s dripping from his talons. But only if Lucian could reach him before he caught up to Arabella. And Tytus had the distinct advantage of knowing where his demons actually were.

Lucian stopped the curses running through his head and focused solely on spreading his fae senses out to the forest below him. The trees were thick and impenetrable to any kind of visual scanning. He should be able to sense the demons, but Tytus’s words were haunting him.
They are fully human.
That explained why Lucian had such difficulty finding the demons in Seattle and how they waltzed through the wards of the keep. His mind was still wrapping around how that was possible and how this horde came to be, but he would sort that out later. Right now, he couldn’t rely on his fae senses to detect the demon inside the men, at least, not at a distance. But these woods should be unoccupied—any humans at all would be a telltale sign, and Lucian would recognize his own mate’s scent easiest of all. So that’s what he focused on—imagining Arabella and his son, who was almost ready to leave her womb and enter the world and fulfill everything that Lucian lived for. He held them tight in his mind and cast his senses out as far as they would go. He held just as hard to the hope that he would find them before it was too late.

My lord!
Cinaed’s thoughts jabbed into his own.

Do you have them?
Lucian focused intently on the blue dragon flying below him.

Cinaed banked right then slammed into a rough landing on the ground.
No, but I have a call.
He shifted human and fished a phone out of his pocket. It was possible to carry a phone while in dragon form if one took care when shifting to tuck it inside the bony flaps on the back of one’s wings. Lucian had no time for such things in the fight in the throne room.

He soared down. His talons bit into the gravel on the side of the road, bringing him to a fast and hard stop next to Cinaed. Lucian’s wings folded as he shifted human again.

“Yes,” Cinaed was saying quickly. “We’re about ten miles out. No, we’ll be right there.” He swiped off the phone and said to Lucian, “We have help. Leksander and Erelah have summoned her angel faction leader, Markos. He says he knows where the demons are.”

“What are they waiting for?” Lucian itched to shift again. “Let’s go!”

Cinaed scowled. “The angel says he cannot interfere directly—he can only lead us there. And he’ll only speak to you, Lucian.”

“Fucking angels,” Lucian spat. “Where are they?”

“At the keep.” Cinaed didn’t waste time with any more words—he just leaped into the air and shifted into his dragon form.

Lucian followed, and with his fae magic boosting him, he quickly moved ahead of Cinaed. In less than half a minute, he was nearing the keep. The angel stood on the rooftop, glowing with power. Erelah was at his side, angel blade in hand—he had never been more glad to see her. Lucian would be happy to slay every demon involved in kidnapping Arabella, but that would take time—he could slaughter them outright, but Erelah could separate the demon from the man, and in spite of everything, Lucian had no taste for killing humans, if he could avoid it. He was a protector of humanity, not a killer. Not like Tytus. Erelah would make much quicker work of the demons with her blade, leaving the humans a chance at surviving.

Standing on the rooftop beside the angel and angeling were Leksander and Leonidas and a dozen dragons from the House. Lucian didn’t want to think about whether that was all they had left. Leksander’s face was grave, but Leonidas looked outright sick—a gray pallor had taken hold of his face. His look of determination seemed to be all that kept him standing.

Lucian quickly landed on the roof and demanded of the angel, “Where is she?”

“Your human mate is in grave danger,” he said, his voice booming.

Lucian’s heart squeezed so hard, he felt it might burst. “I fucking
know
that, Angel!” He jabbed a quickly-formed talon in the asshole’s face.
“Where is she?”

“I cannot say,” he said, utterly unconcerned about the threat Lucian was posing with his body and his voice. “And I can only direct you to the demons. I cannot assist. Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes.
Talk!”
Lucian was ready to rip it out of the angel’s mouth.

Cinaed came to a skittering halt on the rooftop behind him, just catching up.

“Follow me.” The angel unfurled his broad, white wings as he lifted magically from the roof. A warrior glint shone in Erelah’s eyes as she leaped into the air as well, blade in hand, her wings majestically unfolding. Lucian leaped after them with Cinaed on his tail. Leonidas, Leksander, and the other dragons of the House quickly shifted and followed. Lucian could feel the sickness of the poison still circulating through his body, and Leonidas looked even worse—his flying was neither straight nor steady. The angel climbed and climbed into the air and flew far too slowly for Lucian’s taste. He was ready to screech at the oversized immortal if he didn’t pick up the pace, but as it turned out, they didn’t have far to go.

Markos halted suddenly, mid-air.

The dragons had to circle back to where he had stopped.

“This is as close as I can get.” He pointed a single finger down toward the earth. “There.”

Lucian saw nothing with his eyes—until the movement of a thin black figure skimming the treetops caught his attention. There was no question in his mind who it was.
Tytus.

Lucian immediately dove after him, shoving a thought toward Cinaed as he went.
Take Erelah and find the demons—and Arabella.

I will protect her with my life,
Cinaed responded. Then he spoke out loud, his dragon form using dragontongue, a language ancient and screeching, but it was one the angeling could understand. Erelah’s angel-warrior cry sounded in response, and she took off like a shot—far faster than Cinaed or even Lucian could manage. Cinaed dove after her, toward the canopy, running ahead of Lucian and the beeline he was making for the dark silhouette that was skimming the treetops.

We have your back, my brother,
came the thought from Leksander behind him. And Lucian had no doubt that his brothers and the other dragons were out for Tytus’s blood, but there was no one who was going to reach the black dragon before him.

As Lucian plummeted through the air, Tytus whipped a quick look up into the air. Either he heard Cinaed’s cry or he just sensed Lucian’s murderous intent, but his black eyes locked with Lucian’s for just a split second… then Tytus looked forward and flew even faster.

He wasn’t breaking or turning or sweeping away—or even diving below the canopy to hide.

That could only mean one thing.

Tytus was racing to reach Arabella
first.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,”
Rachel screeched.

The mantra wasn’t helping Arabella.

Then again, nothing really could at this point. The contraction had subsided, but she was burning up, and the baby was threatening to claw his way out of her womb. Tears were running down her face with the pain, and she was gripping the seat in front of her in the Humvee, panting and trying to simply hold on until the next wave of pain hit.

The demon thugs were arguing back and forth, front seat to back. All their voices were jittering and ricocheting around in her brain—all sound and no meaning.

“Oh my God, Arabella.” The panic in Rachel’s voice was the only thing that got through to her. Her hands on Arabella’s arms and face felt ice cold next to the raging heat that was her flesh. “Oh my God, you’re burning up.”

“Too hot,” Arabella agreed, but it was a whisper. She could hardly form words through the thick haze of pain and the suffering, choking feeling of her lungs filling with fire.

Suddenly, something was jostling her… and it wasn’t her baby doing somersaults inside her, trying to escape the heat that was threatening to burn them both into ash. More hands were on her, on the other side from Rachel—big, rough hands, hauling her sideways.

“What are you
doing?”
Rachel demanded. “Can’t you see she’s having a baby!”

“Out of the car!” a man said with a gruff voice. Then he followed it up with a rough tug on her arm that slid her halfway across the Humvee’s slick leather seating.

The pain of the labor and the heat of the fire left her limp. She had no power to resist at all. But it also made her dead weight and awkward. The thug finally climbed out of the car then reached back for her, but it was still hard for him to drag her out of the car.

But he managed it.

Arabella’s legs couldn’t hold her—she fell, her knees digging into the gravel through her jeans. She threw her hands out, catching herself before she landed belly-first on the ground.

“Oh my God, you fucking assholes!” Rachel must’ve clambered out of the car after her. Her best friend crashed down next to her, an arm protectively gripping Arabella’s shoulders while she was on hands and knees in the dirt.

Then the tightening began again.

The pain was somehow worse than the fire that was consuming her from the inside out. It started even lower in her belly now, squeezing and pulling at the same time, then climbing up her back, making it arch with the wrenching pain. Her moan quickly climbed up into a scream again as it reached the peak.

Rachel’s hands were smoothing her cheeks and her forehead and pulling her sopping wet hair off her face, but none of it did anything but give Arabella a tiny sliver of coolness. She focused on that and the love behind the hands.
Hold on, baby,
she said to her unborn son.
Daddy’s coming. I know he is. Just hold on.

The peak of the contraction passed, and the pain started to wind down, but the fire was still ramping up. Arabella was panting, breathing in the hot, dusty, roadside air—even that was cooler than the fire inside her. Boots scraped the ground next to her, and suddenly, someone yanked Rachel away from her side. Screams and protests and curses were met with another bone-smacking sound that made Arabella’s whole body jerk.

“Don’t hurt her,” she panted, but it was just a whisper. And she knew the demon-men didn’t care anyway.

Their hands were on her, lifting her up from the ground. Her toes dragged in the gravel as they carried her away from the cars and toward the forest. It was only a dozen feet away, and it beckoned, dark and cool. The fire in Arabella’s brain longed for it. But a part of her knew that this was a bad, bad thing. If they could hide her, buying time until that black dragon in the sky could reach her, Arabella wouldn’t survive two seconds beyond that.

And neither would her baby.

Somewhere from the depths of her being, she gathered up the strength to fight—she had to slow them down, do anything she could to stop them.

She dug her feet into the dirt. She squirmed in the hold of their clumsy hands. Her body was so slick with sweat, she was like a greased eel. She wormed one arm free, then redoubled her efforts with the other one. One man swore and grabbed at her harder. Another dug fingers even deeper into her arm. Just as they got a grip on her again, the air cracked all around them.

A fiery blur of white fell from heaven and landed with a ground-shaking thud in front of them. Arabella’s vision was blurred with pain and heat. Sweat was dripping into her eyes and making her squint. It took her a second, but when she blinked them clear, could see who it was…

Erelah.

With a raised blade and a look of righteous fury and power, the angeling’s scream shook the air and made the arms holding Arabella tremble. Erelah surged forward and sank her blade into the demon on her left. He jerked away from Arabella and fell to the ground. In a blur, Erelah swiped the blade in an arc, up then down, plunging into the demon to her right. His body dragged Arabella down, its grip still hard even as the man’s head lolled back… but Erelah caught her in an angelic hug that vibrated with power and set her free.

“I have you, princess of the House of Smoke!” Erelah cried triumphantly.

Arabella slumped in her arms. “Too hot,” she gasped.

Erelah’s eyes went wide, staring at her in horror and confusion.

Rachel appeared at Arabella’s side, grabbing hold of her other arm. “She’s burning up!” she yelled. “You have to help her!”