by Ella Summers
“There are magical defenses around this place now,” she replied. “That’s what keeps the army outside from transporting in. It also keeps us from transporting out.”
Daemon frowned. “This place is like a prison.”
“Try not to think about it,” Logan told him. “It will only distract you from the task at hand.”
They were finally past the enormous house. Nonstop, magic blasted against the protective bubble that just wouldn’t quit. Alex watched the barrage. Daemon was right. This place wasn’t a protective fortress like she’d thought; it was a prison.
She should have known that Gaelyn wasn’t powerless, not truly, not if he could summon such a powerful barrier that could hold off the Magic Council’s army.
A blast of telekinetic energy rattled the bubble—and the ground too.
Daemon’s eyes darted around. Sweat beaded his forehead. “Am I supposed to just ignore that too?”
Logan gave him a cool, silent look, inviting him to stop talking. Panicking wasn’t helping anyone.
They’d made it to the property’s perimeter, near the woods. The shimmering protective bubble was so close that Alex could have reached out and touched it. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she did, so instead she wound up a magic-breaking spell and prepared to hurl it at the barrier. When her spell collided with Gaelyn’s bubble, it made an impressively loud noise. The barrier split open.
They fled through the opening and into the woods. Alex hoped Damarion would attribute the damaged barrier to the Magic Council’s army, that he would think they’d finally succeeded in breaking through.
She ran faster. Rushing, her heart racing, sweat dripping down her neck, panic taking root in her…Alex had to get away. She couldn’t be here. She couldn’t stay and become the monster Damarion wanted her to be, the Alex from her nightmares. Evil Alex.
She was running fast when she slammed hard into an invisible wall. The impact felt like a punch to the head. It knocked her back. By the time she hit the ground, her magic was gone. The last thing she saw before she passed out was a pair of black boots closing in on her.
31
The Escape
Alex opened her eyes. That ominous pair of black boots was still walking toward her, so she must not have been out for more than a few seconds. She strained her neck and saw Logan, Daemon, and Ellie on the ground too. They were all still unconscious. Actually, she wasn’t so sure about Logan. He might have simply been biding his time.
She heard voices in the distance, but that distance was growing closer. More boots approached. Quiet voices whispered. Alex’s head was still ringing from hitting the invisible magic wall, so she couldn’t quite make them out.
She tried to peel herself off the ground, to see what was happening higher up. What she found surprised her. It wasn’t Damarion’s guards. It was Naomi.
So that’s what that invisible wall had been: spirit magic. Her fairy friend had woven an invisible wall of spirit magic, the magic of hell that drained earth magic.
Naomi waved her hands, dissolving her spell. It went out in a puff of smoke.
“Secure her fast,” Kai said to the commandos. “Before her magic returns.”
“Wait.” Alex’s voice cracked. It sounded dry, horrible.
The commandos were still moving toward her. Alex didn’t blame them. She sounded like some evil something straight out of hell.
Alex made it to her feet. Barely. Then she met Sera’s gaze and declared solemnly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Sera looked into her eyes. “I believe you.” She held up her hands. “Leave her be,” she told the commandos. “She won’t attack us.”
“Last time you saw her, she did,” Tony pointed out as Logan rose from the ground and came to stand at Alex’s side.
“She wasn’t herself. Damarion was manipulating her,” Sera said. “He’s manipulated a lot of people.”
“So you know,” Alex said quietly.
“That Gaelyn is Damarion? Yeah, we know,” replied Sera. “It took a lot of investigating, though. Then we had a long talk with Makani’s sister Leilani. Damarion is a master of lies. Even Leilani didn’t know Gaelyn was a part of him, and she was once in Damarion’s inner circle. But now we know, so we can start doing something to counter him. That’s why we’re here, Alex: to rescue you.” Sera stared at the massive hole Alex had punched in the magic barrier. “Looks like we’re a little late. You already rescued yourself,” she added with a smirk.
“I didn’t rescue myself yet,” Alex said. “A ride out of here would be most appreciated.”
“You can fly, you know,” Sera teased, wrapping her arm around Alex.
“Not right now. That wall of hell put my dragon right to sleep.” She looked at Naomi.
Naomi shrugged, then grinned, obviously very proud of her growing power.
“Let’s go,” Sera said.
Kai waved his people to move into…well, Alex wasn’t sure what it was. It looked like some kind of experimental plane. Parts of it reminded Alex of a helicopter.
Logan carried Daemon and Ellie, who were still unconscious, each over one shoulder. He paused to nod at Kai. “Drachenburg.”
Kai returned the nod. “Slayer.”
Kai was the last one into the plane-helicopter. He shot off some elemental magic fireworks, then shut the door. The Magic Council’s army started to retreat away from the house.
“So the army was only a distraction?” Alex asked as they flew away.
A helicopter then? It could take off straight from the ground. But the interior looked like the inside of a plane. And it was so quiet.
“A distraction to get you out of there, yes,” Sera confirmed. “The battle mages were tasked with making a lot of noise and light to distract Damarion from what we were really there to do: rescue you.”
There had been a lot of soldiers in the Magic Council’s army tonight.
“That was one big distraction,” Alex said. “You really moved heaven and earth tonight, Sera. But not to imprison me. To rescue me.”
“We don’t fight our own,” Kai declared. His words sounded almost sentimental.
“The supernaturals sworn to Damarion… like Marek.” Alex drew in a deep breath, but her shoulders felt heavy and weighed down. “Isn’t there anything you can do about them? Free them from Damarion’s control?”
Kai shook his head. “No. Gaelyn—Damarion—has been setting this up for years, collecting favors. Nearly every one of the remaining old dynasties has at least one member sworn to his service. Most often, it is the family’s youngest son or daughter.”
Like Marek.
“Damarion isn’t controlling them directly with magic,” Kai said. “He’s done it via magical contracts with their families.”
“Contracts that the families signed not knowing what they were getting into. It’s not fair. It’s not right,” Alex protested.
“No, it’s not,” Kai agreed. “But even so, those contracts are magically-binding. Totally legal. This isn’t like things are with humans when they sign something that they don’t understand. These contracts are sealed in blood and magic. Marek and the others couldn’t break them even if they wanted to.”
“But what is Damarion hoping to accomplish?” Alex wondered. “Sure, he has a few sworn soldiers but not enough to take over the world.”
“He’s trying to sow discord. That’s all he’s ever done,” Logan said. “Some magical historians believe that’s where Damarion gets his magical power: from conflict.”
“Conflict,” Alex repeated. “Lately, we’ve been drowning in that. The Grim Reaper split the Magic Council in two. And the Convictionites pitted humans against supernaturals.”
“We believe Damarion was the one who riled up the sect that awoke the Grim Reaper,” Kai said. “And that Damarion was the one who supplied the Convictionites with weapons against supernaturals—and then, when he didn’t need the Convictionites anymore, he took those weapons away from them so they couldn’t tur
n them against him.”
“He’s been manipulating all of us,” Alex growled. “All these people sworn to him from supernatural families…and me… Last year, when he hired me to come to Zurich. He wanted to drag me into this. But why me?”
“Damarion has always seen the Dragon Born as his greatest threat,” Sera said. “Because we represent unity, the opposite of his discord. The opposite of what gives him power. Seven hundred years ago, he worked behind the scenes to turn the supernatural world against the Dragon Born.”
“And he used a Dragon Born mage to do it,” Alex said. “Leilani. Damarion turned her against her brother, against her own kind.”
“There is no greater discord than a severed Dragon Born pair,” Sera said sadly. “Two souls intertwined, who are meant to exist in harmony.”
Alex clenched her fists. “Damarion wants to turn us all against one another. Against even our own families.” She shot her sister a guilty look. “And I let him do it.”
Sera reached out and squeezed her hand. “We both did.”
“I thought…all those times I walked into the room and you all stopped talking…I thought you were plotting against me.”
“We were worried about you, about how hard you’d taken Riley’s disappearance,” Sera said. “I’m sorry. We should have talked to you about it. I should have talked to you about it. I was stupid.”
“So was I,” Alex laughed weakly. “Damarion tried to tear us apart.” Anger burned in her chest. “The stronger our bonds, the harder he works to unravel them. Well I say no,” she declared, rising defiantly to her feet. “We can’t let him break us apart.”
Logan and Sera steadied her, one on each arm, as she stumbled a little from the turbulence.
Alex looked at her husband and her sister. “We have to stick together. We have to fight Damarion together.”
32
One Choice
They all met back at Kai’s parents’ house in Germany. Makani and Leilani had flown in to join them.
“So Damarion has always been Gaelyn’s secret side, the face and name he put on to do evil?” Leilani said. “That certainly puts the last seven hundred years in a new light.” Her dark eyes focused on Alex. “Our situations are not all that different. Damarion used Darksire to change me, to give me fairy and vampire magic. That magic made me not entirely Dragon Born anymore. And Damarion did the same to you, Alex. I bet the chance bite you got from a fairy-vampire hybrid was not by chance at all. Damarion would have arranged that incident to start the change. And start you on the path away from your twin. Also, as with me, he tried to use love to draw you away from your family.”
Alex chuckled.
“Alex?” Sera asked.
“Sorry.” Alex swallowed her laughter. “This is serious. It’s just that…well, Damarion’s first attempt to manipulate me with love failed. He tried to set me up with Marek, but that didn’t work out.”
“He must have meant for Marek to be his other Monster. Like Darksire and I were his Monsters, his warlords,” Leilani said.
“Well, when that didn’t work, Damarion switched his focus to Logan,” Alex said. “Maybe he saw we shared an—ahem—attraction.”
Logan’s bows lifted.
“Maybe he thought he could control you,” Alex told him.
Logan made a derisive noise.
“Not exactly control, but manipulate,” Leilani suggested. “Damarion does not control Logan as he does Marek, but Logan’s origin did create tension and conflict. And Damarion managed to pit you two against the Convictionites. More conflict. More strife.” She chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. “Conflict and strife that fed Damarion’s magic.”
“When Damarion was defeated, his magic was broken by the remaining Dragon Born mages who fought him. Dragon Born mages who died to defeat him.” Anger crept into Makani’s voice. “With what magic Damarion had left, before being banished to hell, he must have cast a spell to retreat into his Gaelyn persona, the oldest immortal in the world. The neutral and kind man who never took sides. Who had much wisdom but no magic left.”
Gaelyn. That was the persona Damarion had built up for himself since he’d created his alter ego to sow mischief on Earth.
“He has recently regained some of his former magic,” Alex said. “As the protective bubble he cast around his property demonstrates.”
“He draws his strength from conflict and strife. That’s what fuels his magic,” Leilani said. “He set up the Grim Reaper and Convictionites to tear the world apart. Humans against supernaturals. Supernaturals against humans. Humans against humans. Supernaturals against supernaturals. His magic is stronger now than it has been in centuries. And he wants to create another pair of warlords, his Monsters, empowered by him, loyal to him.”
“Us, Alex,” Logan said.
“And Damarion wants to back this all up with supernaturals contractually enslaved to him,” Naomi said.
“We have to take the fight to him. We have to end this,” Alex insisted.
“Not so fast,” said Kai. “Damarion has an army, made up of his unwilling servants from the world’s great magic dynasties, sworn by magic and blood to fight for him. Damarion’s numbers aren’t big enough to take over the world, but his forces are strong. And the recent conflicts have made Damarion himself strong again too. He might not be back to his former glory just yet, but he is powerful enough to bestow gifts of magic upon those who follow and worship him.”
Alex thought of the sacrificial magic the mages had used so many times before. That must have been a gift from Damarion.
Logan shook his head slowly. “Defeating him won’t be easy.”
“Alex and Sera, to have any hope of defeating Damarion, you’ll need to combine powers,” Leilani told them. “You will need to magically link, as the Dragon Born are meant to be.”
“Love to, but there’s a problem with that plan,” Alex told her.
“We haven’t been able to link,” Sera added. “We’re not sure why.”
“Well, it’s obvious now, isn’t it?” Makani said.
Alex looked at Sera, who shrugged. “Uh, it is?” Alex asked.
“The problem is your magic has shifted, Alex, just as Leilani’s shifted long ago when she took on vampire and fairy powers,” Makani said. “After that happened, Leilani and I could no longer link. Alex’s magic is out of sync with Sera’s because of the vampire and fairy magic she acquired from the hybrid bite last year.”
“The sneaky bastard,” Alex hissed. “Damarion planned everything. He called me to Zurich. Probably hired the vampire elf to bite me, so it would change my magic. So that Sera and I could never connect. So he could drive us apart and make me his Monster. Then he pushed me to work with Logan, whom he’d also manipulated.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he made sure the Convictionites acquired the knowledge on how to bestow magic on babies, as they did with me and the others,” Logan said.
“Damarion gave the Convictionites anti-magic technology and showed them how to create soldiers infused with magic.” Alex’s head was spinning with all of Damarion’s carefully-laid machinations. “With the Convictionites, he created a worthy opponent to the supernaturals.”
“Alex, shifting your magical resonance allowed you and Logan to link, but at the expense of your connection to Sera,” Leilani said. “Your magic isn’t entirely Dragon Born anymore, at least not like your twin’s magic. You can change your magic back, but to do so, you will need to give up your vampire and fairy powers, just as I recently did. Then you and Sera will be one. You will finally be able to link. You will be what Makani and I could never be: powerful enough to defeat Damarion. That is what he fears: the power of your pure Dragon Born unity. That fear is why Damarion tried to break you and Sera apart.”
“You failed to unite and fight Damarion in the past, but what about now?” Alex asked her. “You and Makani are linked once more.”
Leilani shook her head sadly. “My brother and I are not bonded strongly enough. It�
��s been too long, too many centuries. I was so different for so long. I hope our unity will regrow given enough time, but by the time it does, it will already be too late for this world. We need to take down Damarion now, before he grows even stronger, before even more people die. Alex and Sera, it’s up to you two to stop Damarion now, before the world as we know it is gone forever.”
“But if I change my magic back, I will lose my bond with Logan.” Alex glanced at her husband.
“Yes.” Leilani offered her a sympathetic smile. “Unfortunately, you can’t have both. You have to choose.”
Alex’s heart was divided, torn in two directions. Give up her bond to her husband? Or to her sister? She loved them both. She didn’t think she could possibly make that choice.
33
The Dragon Born Twins
Alex needed to clear her head. She needed to think, to debate, to decide what to do. So she went outside, walking the grounds in the early morning light. She passed a large sculpture of a life-size dragon. One word was engraved on the base plate: Drachenburg.
This house—Kai’s parents’ place, the estate of one of the oldest magical dynasties—was a safe haven for them. At least for now. Soon there wouldn’t be a safe place left on Earth, not if Damarion got his way. It would all implode. Everyone would be at one another’s throats.
Alex continued down the brick path. The air was sweet and fresh. On either side of her, she saw gardens planted with roses and lots of flowers she didn’t know the names of.
She spotted the infamous tank that Kai had broken during his time in the German military, a near perfect match to the one he and Sera had parked in front of their house in San Francisco. Alex kept walking. Walking…well, she wasn’t sure if it helped her think, but as long as she was walking, as long as she was moving, she felt like she was making progress, like she was getting somewhere. It was a good feeling, especially right now when she felt so stuck.