It was only a matter of time before the Perfects came looking for me, too. Araquiel didn’t strike me as the kind who would’ve gone back to his maker, Ta’Zan, empty-handed.
I looked down and prepared myself for the imminent dive. Upon a quick estimate, I was at least two or three miles from the colosseum already. Araquiel’s last blow had quite the impact. My body hurt, particularly my chest and, of course, my wings. The burning pain made it difficult for me to concentrate, but my survival instincts were quick to kick in, and so was my dragon pride. There was no way in hell I’d let that arrogant, feathery prick be the end of me. I had to live through this.
The water was cool and soothing against my thick skin, as I shot through it like the massive projectile that I’d temporarily become. It instantly chilled me, and it reduced some of the sharp pain that pulsated through my wings.
I was going too deep, too fast, though.
I looked around, watching the waters darken as I got dangerously close to the ocean bottom. I moved my wings and legs in an attempt to slow myself down, but there wasn’t much I could do with a three-foot hole in my right wing.
There was no other choice but to shift back to humanoid form. I could at least swim upward from there. I grunted and exhaled sharply as I turned. Big mistake, as I had very little air left to help me push my way back to the surface. I couldn’t help it, though. The shift always took a toll on me.
My injuries transferred to my humanoid form, but on a natural scale. There was a three-inch hole in my right forearm, which continued to bleed, and I still had a broken rib. I was covered in blossoming bruises, and I still had a tremendous amount of pain to deal with, but at least I was no longer held back by my dragon size and weight.
I looked up and saw the sunlight flickering across the foamy surface where I’d landed. My brain went into overdrive, a quiet part of my consciousness assuming control and forcing me to move my injured arms and legs. I swam upward.
My body gave out quickly. I tried to hold that last cubic inch of air I had left in my lungs, but it slipped out in a few bubbles. No longer able to control myself, I swallowed water. I struggled to swim some more, seeing the flickers of light getting closer. I was making some progress.
The water filled my lungs quickly. My instincts went crazy. My brain got confused.
A signal shot through my head, letting me know that I was about to die.
Panic struck me like a hot knife.
I flailed my wounded arms and legs, unwilling to let go just yet.
It’s not my time. Not yet.
Ben, Rose, and the others were out there somewhere. I could still help them. I could still do something. Derek and Sofia… Corrine and Ibrahim… Claudia and Yuri… Cameron and Liana… Aiden and Kailyn… Xavier and Vivienne… Lucas and Marion.
I’d promised their daughter, Avril, that I’d bring them back.
How would I do that, if I drowned? What kind of dragon was I, if I didn’t fight my way out of this, fang and claw, tooth and nail?
The deep-water currents weren’t helping. I couldn’t breathe.
The image before me started to blur. I was beginning to lose consciousness, and I was still at least thirty feet from the surface.
Dammit, I’m not dying here!
I coughed and took in another mouthful of water. That was it.
I was seconds away from blacking out. Darkness began to envelop me, cold and unforgiving. The ocean didn’t want to let me go. It had swallowed me whole. It wanted to claim me.
Something pierced the water above me. A creature. A humanoid, like me.
I tried to focus and see who it was, but my vision betrayed me. My body was already preparing to shut down. Before it did that, however, it had to separate me from my consciousness. I couldn’t possibly witness what was coming next—my death.
The brightest pair of orange eyes was fixed on me. Hair was long and white, fanned out around her head like an aquatic crown. Whenever she moved, it smoothed into a seemingly liquid form. Whenever she stopped, it spread out again, capturing some of the sunlight that glimmered in the ocean water.
I was transfixed, eager to see more of her.
Was she death incarnate, maybe? Was I seeing things?
She was swimming toward me. There were orange scales on her arms and shoulders, reflecting some of the light. Was I dreaming?
Blackness took over, and I thought I’d never find out, until a pair of arms caught me.
I felt myself get pulled up.
But my consciousness left me in the dark.
Harper
My insides were practically melting and freezing at the same time. Phoenix, Jovi, Arwen, Caspian, Grandpa Caleb, River, and I had just witnessed one hell of a fight in the diamond colosseum’s arena. We’d seen the flashes of light. We’d seen our people go down. We’d seen Ridan get sent flying through the air by whatever those creatures were.
The telescope blood spell followed Ben, Rose, and the others back to the jungles of Noagh, outside the strange cave where Derek had discovered the mysterious pods. From what we could tell, they were going to be okay, but they definitely weren’t safe on Strava anymore, and there was no sign of Ridan.
“What the hell did we just watch?” Grandpa Caleb breathed, unable to take his eyes off the screen. “What were those things?!”
“Did you see the ones scattered around the colosseum?” Jovi replied, frowning. “They kept their distance from the creatures inside.”
“They could fly! And, good grief, they were fast!” I managed, barely able to contain my trembling. My whole body was shaking. “Faster than anything I’ve ever seen. They cause flashes of light whenever they do a sudden speed increase.”
“I’ll bet you they break the sound barrier, too,” Phoenix said. “They were practically shards of lightning, flashing from left to right like it was the easiest thing for them to do. I don’t even know what to tell you.”
River sighed, her hands fumbling in her lap as she sat next to me. She was equally distraught, if not more so. Grandpa Caleb was better at containing his emotions, but he, too, was already on the edge. The telescope upgrade allowed us to see better, much like a more detailed satellite view, and make fairer assumptions about what had happened. Both Ben and Rose had survived that confrontation—but barely, and only because of that creature that had come in at the last moment.
We couldn’t hear what went on, but we’d seen the flashing creatures stop and falter for long enough for our crew to get out of there.
“Why didn’t Kailani just zap them out of there?” Arwen asked. The color had drained from her face, as well. We were all perplexed and terrified, unable to do much from far away.
“I don’t think she could,” Jovi replied. “Though I wouldn’t be able to tell you why.”
“Those things had no problem beating Elonora into a pulp,” I said quietly. “Believe me, I’ve seen that girl fight enough times to know that she’s probably one of the most difficult to kill supernaturals out there. I recognized each of their fighting styles, and I could tell who was who. Whatever those creatures are, they are terrifyingly superior to everything our team threw at them. I mean, look at Ridan!”
Arwen rushed to the telescope and fiddled with its knobs, then cursed under her breath. We all turned to face her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I am trying to get the telescope to follow Ridan based on the blood spell, but it doesn’t work,” she replied. “We didn’t finetune the incantation enough to anticipate a group split. The blood spell stays focused on the group, where most of the blood samples used for the tracking spell came from.”
“Listen, as soon as they get back on their feet, I’m sure Ben and Rose will take the team out to find Ridan,” Grandpa Caleb replied.
“We have a huge problem here, though,” Phoenix concluded, crossing his arms. “Those are not our regular share of hostiles. We know they weren’t there before, but we can assume, at this point, that they came out of those pods
. There were five hundred and five. So that gives us a number of potential enemies that we’d be dealing with.”
“Man… This was supposed to be a vacation!” I groaned, fighting back tears of anger. “Now we’ve got people missing and another team under attack, plus a dragon down…”
My breath was cut short, as I tried to regain control of my composure. I could feel myself coming apart at the seams. I hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. All I’d wanted to do was help give Great-Grandpa Derek and his crew the perfect vacation.
Caspian rushed to my side and took me in his arms, holding me tight and dropping warm kisses on the top of my head. His emotions poured through me, and I found some comfort in what he was feeling—at least enough for me to improve my breathing and fend off the anxiety attack that had been clutching at my throat.
Shame washed over me, hot and ruthless, as I started thinking of ways in which this could have been avoided. As if reading my mind in extraordinary detail, Caspian shook his head, looking at me.
“This isn’t your fault, Harper,” he said. “Nor is it Serena’s, Elonora’s, or anyone else’s who was involved in organizing the trip in the first place.”
Grandpa Caleb scoffed, staring at me. “Are you feeling guilty about this, kiddo?” he asked.
I nodded slowly.
“Honey, don’t!” River said, resting a hand on my shoulder. “You did your due diligence. You scanned the place. You made sure everything was safe and proper before you even endeavored to build that resort. Those pod caves didn’t show up in any of the screenings. You couldn’t have predicted this, and under no circumstances should you blame yourself for any of it.”
I hadn’t even realized that tears were already streaming down my cheeks. I relaxed my body against Caspian, finding tremendous comfort in his embrace.
“What do I do, then? What do we do?” I croaked.
“We take action,” Grandpa Caleb replied. “There are hostile creatures on Strava now, and we have people there who are in mortal peril.”
River nodded firmly. “We summon our strongest,” she said. “A big fleet, perhaps a thousand fighters. All the big guns, too. Dragons, fae, Druids, daemons, jinni, all the heavy players we can find.”
“And we’ll be out there, with them,” Arwen interjected. “Myself, Shayla. I’ll ask Lumi to come along, too. I’ll send a message to Mona and Kiev. Hell, I’ll drag the whole Witches’ Sanctuary here myself if I have to.”
“I’ll speak to Viola and the Daughters, and get them on board,” Phoenix replied. “I doubt they’ll have any issues with assisting us.”
Caspian gently squeezed my shoulders. “We’ll go together, Harper. I’m sure Jax, Hansa, Fiona, and Zane will want to get involved, too. We’ve got this.”
I nodded slowly, wiping tears with the back of my sleeve. I’d never cried in front of people like this before.
“What about Avril and Heron? Avril is handling those Druid murders,” I murmured. “But with these new developments, it’s clear that her parents are in danger now.”
River shook her head. “Avril will stay there and do her job. She’s too close to this, and, frankly, dying Druids is also a huge problem, given that they’re practically a critically endangered species. We can’t stop all our operations. It would cripple the worlds we’ve helped rebuild so far, and it’s not something my in-laws would allow us to do, if they were still here.”
“Lenny’s brother will want to get involved,” I replied.
“Varga has his own mission on Neraka. He was chosen to look after the vampire-fae hybrid,” River said. “With Lenny in trouble, too, however, I think you’re right. I’ll have him summoned and brought here immediately.”
Of all the possible hybrids coming out of our island, the young vampire-fae hybrid had been completely unexpected. Fallon had been born fae, with a predominance for fire. He’d chosen to attempt something rather risky—turning into a vampire. He’d survived the process and had developed all known vampire features, including his fangs, without losing his fire fae abilities. However, he was still quite green and had a lot to learn. Varga had offered to go with Fallon to Neraka, to keep him in a fiery environment, specifically, one of the daemon cities, for him to get accustomed to his new nature and to see how far he could push his fae fire. Fallon still required a lot of training before we could send him off on missions.
Phoenix straightened his back, then took out his tablet and started typing.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“I’m preparing a message for GASP and our allies,” he replied. “They need to know everything we know.”
“Okay, once it’s ready, send it over to me, too,” I said. “I’ll do a mass communication across all the channels available and reach out to everyone who’s connected to our GASP network.”
Arwen kept looking at the telescope, checking the lenses and knob controls. “I’ll try and figure out a way to upgrade the blood-tracking spell. Maybe I can get us a visual on Ridan,” she said, then stilled, exhaled sharply, and moved the telescope back over Noagh. She zoomed in on the resort. There were black spots at the back, where the crew’s shuttles had been burnt to a crisp. “Oh, no,” she gasped. “They had their spell resources in there.”
Jovi let out a low growl. “Those creatures really want to keep our people down there, for sure.”
“Do you think Kailani or the others have any other way of reaching out to us?” Grandpa Caleb asked, looking at Arwen.
“Knowing my daughter, she’d carry some basics with her. My guess is they’ll be sending some info over soon. They’ve obviously learned more, now, albeit the hard way,” Arwen replied.
“We can’t wait for them to send a message at this point,” River said, her brow furrowed. “We’ve seen enough ourselves to ascertain the critical danger. “We need to gather a fleet, and we need to do it fast. My family. Our founders are missing. We can’t idly stand by.”
Grandpa Caleb nodded, then put his hands on both Jovi’s and Phoenix’s shoulders. “It’s true, we have to move fast. Every hour that our people spend there is time lost for us. We’ll summon and gather all the forces we can get in the next few hours. You boys will help me. We need Neraka, Nevertide and the whole of Eritopia with us, too. Leave no stone unturned until we’ve got at least a thousand fighters ready by tonight.”
“That’s cool, Grandpa, we’ve got this,” I said. “I’m sending a message out to the Supernatural dimension, too.”
“Good,” he replied. “This is a code-red situation. Get the sirens blaring, too.”
My blood ran cold at the thought of sounding those alarms. We’d only heard them on drills before. Things had never been dire enough for our teams to require a code-red protocol. When our Neraka debacle happened, that had been a code orange, at best, mainly because there had been communications before—albeit false and perpetrated by the Exiled Maras—and because GASP already knew that Neraka was inhabited.
In this case, however, things were extra weird and urgent, since not only had we thought Strava to be abandoned, but the creatures that had reclaimed it over the course of a few days were appallingly powerful and deadly, like nothing we’d ever been faced with before.
We had a ton of questions that needed answers, but, more importantly, we had family members and close friends to rescue. Those flashing creatures had messed with the wrong people. We were about to bring down a whole lot of fire and fury on them.
Derek
The helplessness filled me with simmering rage. I would’ve given anything to be able to get out of this wretched glass box and snap Abaddon’s neck in two, solely for the way he’d hit and belittled Isda. I didn’t care much for his superiority complex, either, but, based on what he and Isda had let slip, chances were that all of Ta’Zan’s creations were stronger and faster than us.
However, that didn’t make them invincible. I would’ve liked to find out, though. And I would’ve loved to test all my theories on Abaddon, poking, prodding, and hi
tting him until I found his weak spot, then shredding him into thousands of little pieces. That was the kind of feeling that he’d managed to inspire in me, over the course of minutes.
He kept circling our boxes, snickering and looking us up and down. Whenever he did a full circle, he made a habit of kicking Isda in the stomach, keeping her down and limp on the cold floor. That just made my thirst for his blood grow stronger.
“Well, you’ve made your point,” Claudia said, keeping her gaze fixed on Abaddon. “You’re the greatest, yadda, yadda. We’re not, yadda, yadda. So what are you still doing here?”
“It’s a good thing my father didn’t use your genes to make me,” Abaddon replied. “I’d hate to be stuck with your loud mouth.”
Lucas chuckled. “Oh, good. He’s sticking around for some insult comedy!”
“Yuck it up, ladies and gentlemen,” Abaddon said, sneering. “I’m out here, free and powerful. You’re in there, meek and useless.”
“Do any of us look meek to you?” I shot back. “Get me out of this box, and I’ll show you exactly the kind of creature I am.”
“You know, he’s a typical bully.” Xavier scoffed. “The kind that’s all big, bad, and brave if you can’t get to him and shove all those nasty words back down his throat. The moment you’re on equal footing, however? He’s a freaking pussycat.”
We all grinned, watching Abaddon as he walked around. He did a good job of concealing his irritation, but not good enough to hide it from me. I spotted the muscle ticking in his jaw. He didn’t like us ganging up on him like that.
“Smirk all you want,” Abaddon replied. “Genetically speaking, we will never be on equal footing. I will always be better.”
“Maybe. But intellectually speaking, we’re a few levels above you, sport,” I replied dryly, then casually leaned against the glass. The others were quick to notice the change in my attitude and mirrored my relaxed movements. “You see, unlike you, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know you’re not allowed to be in here. That much Isda has made clear. That means you’re not allowed to lay a finger on us, either. In conclusion, as much as you seem to enjoy slapping your chest around here like you’re the biggest boy in town, you are helpless. You can’t touch us. All you can do is bark at the glass.”
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