“We have made a deal, you and I,” he held the flail in his hand, glancing at it as he spoke, “I wonder if it would work for me, the way it works for you? Would it draw in energy from my enemies? Would it suck them dry?”
I nodded. “I have no doubt it would take their energy. Their lives.” He grinned, and I answered it with a smile of my own. “The real question is will it try to kill you when it’s done.”
His smile slid. “So that much is true about it then?”
“It tried to kill me several times,” I said.
“But you survived. How?”
I shrugged. “Bad luck.”
He laughed. “Introduce me to your mate. I want to know who is fucking my granddaughter.”
Maks stiffened and Lila let out a low hiss. “Don’t you talk about them that way.” Her wings spread. “Love sought is good; but given unsought is better, and they have not looked for this in each other, but they have it. Don’t sully it with your shitty words.”
I put a hand on her while he stood there, watching us with my flail in his hand.
“You three . . . there is magic in threes,” he said finally.
I nodded. “I know. But you are bound by your own words. You will stand with us against Ollianna.”
His dark brown eyes flashed. “And your curse, of course, I have lifted it.”
“I can feel the magic in me different than before,” I said. “That’s very true.”
He gave the flail an experimental swing. “I did not say I wouldn’t kill you. That is something you never asked me to promise you. Foolish of you, wasn’t it?”
Well, fuck.
23
Standing there within the Emperor’s Throne with Lila and Maks, and facing the Emperor himself after I’d given him the flail with those words of his “I did not say I wouldn’t kill you” ringing in my ears, I could do nothing but stare at him.
Lila let out a low hiss that sounded wet with her acid, and the weight of her began to increase on my shoulder. I held up a hand. “You’ll crush me, Lila.”
“I’m going to kill him if he dares break his word,” she snarled. Next to me, Maks’s magic curled against my skin, mingling with my own, strengthening me, and feeding back into him.
I kept my hand up. “You will have no one to find those last two stones, Shax.”
“I could find them,” he purred. “They are tuned to Ishtar’s magic.”
I smiled. “But I didn’t bring the four stones with me. I hid them because I didn’t trust your sketchy ass. Which means you have six to find, all before . . . what? What timeline are we working with here?”
His eyes narrowed, then he laughed. “Fine. You go find me the stones.”
That was not the deal, but I could see that I’d lost whatever “good” side of him I’d had in the dreamscape. “And the dragons . . . you will do as you said, or I will instruct the flail to drink you down right now.”
I had no idea if that was even possible, but by the way he looked at the weapon he held, he considered it was just that.
“Fine. Go. Fight the dragons. I will meet you in three days, sundown, on the water’s edge where the falak will rebirth into the world.”
Oh, all the questions I had burning in me, but I didn’t dare voice a one of them. I took Maks’s hand and backed out of the chamber, found the stairs with my feet and kept backing until I could no longer see the Emperor. Then I turned and we ran.
The interior of the throne was riddled with the traps we’d set off, that I’d walked through as if they were nothing. I saw them now.
Acid.
Flame.
Pits filled with spikes.
More magic than I could shake a fist at with spells varying from those that would knock you out, to those that would pull all the air from your lungs.
“How did we get through this?” I asked, slowing to look at one of the pits and the spikes filling the bottom.
“You led us through,” Lila said. “It was like you knew exactly where to put your steps, and we just followed.”
I barely remembered what I’d done, like it was a dream where I’d followed my mother, a dream that I couldn’t quite grasp. But was it my magic, or was it the pull of my grandfather to save him?
We reached the first narrow hallway and once more the sound of the dragons at the top battering at the trapdoor met our ears, only now the sound was deeper, the ground shaking with each blow.
“The prison no longer holds,” Maks said, his blue eyes worried. He looked at me, one brow raised. “I assume you have a plan?”
I crouched down. “Can you blast the door open so Lila and I can fly out of here? We’ll draw them off the door and then you can get out. After that we’ll need backup.”
Maks stared at me. “What did the Emperor give you?”
Part of me wanted to surprise them both, mostly because Lila was going to flip her shit, but maybe this wasn’t the moment for surprising them. “A one-time deal. I’m going to shift into a dragon to fight at Lila’s side.” Before Maks could protest, I held up a hand. “I tried to get you in on the deal, Maks. Because three against one is far better. But you . . .”
“I don’t have a connection to the dragons like you seem to.” He let out a slow sigh, his jaw ticking. “Be careful. Both of you.”
“You’re going to fire at them from the ground. Use whatever you can to help tip the scales in our direction,” I said, and finally looked at Lila who’d hopped off my shoulder and sat in front of me. Her jeweled eyes just stared at me. “What?”
“You’re going to fight at my side, in the sky?”
I nodded. “Sisters.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “They could kill us.”
“The Emperor could kill us,” I pointed out. “We need to deal with Corvalis and Trick or we’ll never get the final two stones, Lila. And we have the greatest Jinn in the desert standing with us.” I looked at Maks and smiled. “Together, we can do this.”
I grabbed Maks behind the neck and pulled him in for a hard kiss. He didn’t hold back, and for that moment, I breathed him in. Only for a moment, though, because we had to hurry. The falak was growing stronger in Ollianna, and it wouldn’t be long before it would be free to wreak havoc on the world.
“One super-baddy at a time,” I said.
Lila nodded and then grinned. “Starting with a super-baddy dragon daddy.”
Maks laughed. “Okay, let’s do this. We should really be far more serious going into a battle of this size and danger.”
“Meh,” I flopped both hands and shook my head, “life’s short. Let’s laugh at the assholes.”
The three of us crept toward the trapdoor. I counted the timing between the blows and it was pretty set. “Ten seconds between. As soon as they blast next, blow the hole open for us.”
I shifted from two legs to four and prayed the Emperor was truly going to hold to his word. He’d said that I needed to be high in the air, that I needed to be dropped for the dragon he woke in me to emerge. “Ready.”
Lila flew above me, reached down and tightened her talons around my middle. “Ready.”
Maks nodded. “Ready.”
The next blast hit the ground of the throne and Maks stepped up, his Jinn magic swirling hard and fast, slamming into the trapdoor . . . and doing nothing.
Twice more he hit it, with no effect. I held up a paw. “Wait. It could still be tied to me. I might have to open it.”
Lila put me down and I shifted back to two legs. “This is going to be a quick change, you ready?”
Maks grabbed my arm. “All three of us. We’ll push it open faster that way.”
I nodded. We waited for the next blast from above. But it didn’t come.
“Shit,” I whispered.
“They know we’re here,” Lila said. She clung to my shoulder, shaking, but I didn’t think it was in fear.
She was ready to fight, all three of us were.
I looked at them, my best friend, and my mate. “On three.”
/>
Maks and I lifted our hands in tandem and when my palm came in contact with the trapdoor it buzzed with electricity. “One.”
“Two,” Maks said.
Lila clenched her claws around my shoulder. “Three.”
Maks and I pushed on the door, flinging it open as Lila began to drag me upward. I shifted to four legs and we shot into the air, just dodging a bolt of lightning.
That went straight for Maks.
A look down confirmed he was on the ground but moving. He’d somehow dodged out of the way, barely missed by the lightning if the scorched ground was any indication.
“Gnat, don’t do this!” Trick yelled. “You need to give us one of the stones, then we can trade for the emerald stone.”
Lila kept flying up, higher and higher. “No!” she yelled back. “You’re a liar. You’re no better than Corvalis.”
The massive pitch-black dragon that was her father swept across our path through the clouds. “Do you feel ready to die, you miserable excuse for a dragon?” Corvalis boomed the words.
“Now, Lila,” I whispered. “No matter what, don’t catch me.”
There was a single tremor and she let me go, and she shifted to the dragon she’d been born to be. She let out a bellow and then I had to pay attention to my own flight.
Or fall as the case was.
Legs splayed out, I fell fast. “Come on, there’s a dragon in there!” I whispered. My words whipped away from me.
The Emperor had said to fall, but there had to be more to it than that.
I stared at the oncoming ground, at Maks watching me fall, ready to try and catch me. But I needed wings if Lila was going to survive this. I had no doubt she could take Corvalis, but not if Trick helped.
A bellow of pain rippled from up above and then several bolts of lightning lit the sky and all I could think was that she needed me, more now than ever.
And my body shifted, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, shimmering and twisting until I was no longer a house cat, or a jungle cat, but something I’d never have thought was possible.
I snapped my wings out wide, catching myself before I fell any farther. A glimpse down and Maks grinning up at me said it all.
I was a dragon. A bitching, big-ass dragon!
Black and green scales caught at the edges of my vision as I swept upward, my own magic curling through me, rising to meet the challenge of two dragons. The power of the desert, the power of the Jinn ran in my blood and I embraced it, weaving it with the strengths I’d found along the way, turning it into a new weapon. I flew as hard as I could, not realizing how fast I was going until I was on top of the battle high in the clouds.
Lila flew between the two male dragons, her talons digging in hard to her father’s talons as they spun in a circle, their mouths snaking at one another, taking chunks out of their hides. Blood fell like rain, and Trick threw lightning at the pair.
And he hit Lila. She bellowed, and clung to her father, the bolt going through them both at least, though it hit her the worst.
All of this was in the few heartbeats that it took for me to see them before body slamming into Trick.
His eyes were wide with shock as they locked onto me, but it was too late for him. I clawed my way across his body and was on his back in a flash, slashing and digging at him, fighting not like a dragon, but like a cat. I dug my back talons into either side of his spine and dragged them through the muscles that worked his wings. “You cheating, lying asshole!” I snarled as I went for his neck.
“Who are you?” he bellowed as he rolled in the sky, spinning faster and faster, trying to throw me off even as we fell. Lightning tried to hit us, but we were moving too fast.
“Your fucking nightmare!” I snarled as I gave one last dig with my claws and then let go as he rolled, throwing me into the sky even as he slammed into the ground with a boom that left him completely still. His neck lay across a protrusion of rock that left his head dangling at a strange angle. By the way his chest rose and fell, he was unconscious but not dead. Not yet.
I beat my wings, getting my balance, looking for Lila and Corvalis in the sky. But they weren’t there. Hearing a roar below, I twisted around.
Lila floated in the air, out cold, just above the ground, Maks’s magic wrapping around her, protecting her with one hand as he fought off Corvalis with the other. He’d stirred up the desert wind, turning it into a twister that pushed Corvalis back, keeping him at bay.
Barely.
I let out a roar, a challenge in any language, dragon, lion, cat, or human. Corvalis turned and glared at me. His ability was one not unlike the flail. He could absorb his opponent’s abilities and strength. I just didn’t know if that was before or after his opponent was dead. I was hoping after death.
My magic curled through me, stronger than I’d ever felt it. I formed and aimed it like a spear, then sent it flying faster than any bullet from a gun straight for him.
Grinning, Corvalis caught it with his front talons, crushing the threads of magic as if they were nothing. “Best you got, pussy cat? You might look like a dragon, but you’re as weak as you were before.”
A low rumbling hiss slid from me. I couldn’t check on Lila even through our bond. “Why don’t you come and see, bitch, just how weak I am then?”
With his wings spread wide, Corvalis made a formidable dragon, but I’d faced him before, and I was banking on him remembering that. But I didn’t have the flail any longer strengthening my claws and talons.
He didn’t know that, though.
And I had the high ground. I tucked my wings in tightly to my sides, turning my body into a missile with a hell of a lot of weight behind it. Talons outstretched, I thought of the desert hawks and how they’d tangled with one another.
Corvalis didn’t slow but grinned up at me.
Only he didn’t know what I was capable of. He didn’t understand how I fought.
We were ten feet apart when I rolled in the air, slid under his belly and raked him the length of his body.
Scores of long wounds sliced through his hide, a spray of blood fell, but no guts. I’d been hoping to completely open him up. I kept spinning, snapped my wings open and turned as he slammed into me, knocking the wind from me.
“I’ll kill you and take your magic too!” he bellowed in my face, the smell of dragon musk thick in the air, clogging my throat.
“You can try!” I yelled back, snapping my teeth at one of his eyes.
I kept my wings close, forcing him to hold us both up as I clawed and dug at him. He was doing the same, only not as well. I snaked my neck in for a bite and caught him at the base of the throat. He yanked his upper body out of the way, swung back and wrapped his talons around my neck and squeezed.
Shit.
I twisted and fought, but there was no getting away from him and with each movement, he tightened his hold further. “I will never be defeated. Certainly not by some mockery of a dragon!” he roared.
A shadow passed over us and the air around us thickened as if a storm were brewing. Lightning bolted down and cut through Corvalis’s hold on me. I was thrown backward, but the lightning didn’t touch me, skating across my scales as if it didn’t dare hurt me.
As I fell, the magic that had given me the shape of a dragon slid off me, like sloughing a skin that was not my own. Well, shit, that didn’t last as long as I’d been hoping. And with Trick back in play, Lila was in danger.
I fell, four legs and a small house cat once more, limp from the battle with only one hope.
That Maks would catch me.
And together the three of us would stop Corvalis and Trick.
24
I fell from the sky, my black fur fluttering in the wind that swept past me, and knew that if anyone would catch me, it would be Maks. If he saw me anyway.
Even as I thought it, his magic spun around me, slowing my fall until he lowered me to the ground at his feet.
“Get up, Zam, you have to see this.” Maks held his h
and out and I forced my body to shift back to two legs, knowing that any wounds I had would heal in the transition, no matter how bad it hurt.
I bit back the scream that wanted to fight its way through my bruised and torn muscles, through the gashes I could feel on my belly and thighs, healing them as I shifted, but at a cost. Wounds I’d barely felt as I’d fought.
Maks took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Look!”
I did as he said, tipping my head back. Lila was above her father, her magic all around her. Not just her magic, but Trick’s too. I looked away to see the storm dragon still on the ground, his neck still at that strange angle. Dead or knocked out, I wasn’t sure which, but the storm magic wasn’t coming from him.
“What happened?”
“I think she has her father’s ability to absorb other dragons’ magic,” Maks said.
I looked at Trick again, not seeing a rise or fall to his chest. “She took his magic then?”
“I think so. She landed on him before she flew up to you and snapped his neck.” Maks’s hand tightened on mine and I felt him draw on my own abilities. I relaxed and let him, knowing he had more practice at using magic as a weapon than I did.
Unless . . . I pulled a little magic toward me, picked up a stick and let the magic flow over it, bending and turning it until I held a bow in my hands. I picked up another stick, lengthened it and put a tip on it. It had been a long time since I’d shot a bow and arrow, but I was willing to try.
Pouring my magic into the weapon, I lifted it, sighting down the length until Corvalis slid into view, dodging Lila but not well.
I breathed out and released the arrow. Powered by magic, it shot through the sky and drove into Corvalis’s side, exploding on impact.
He bellowed and fell, his wings collapsing on themselves. Lila followed him, raining down blow after blow, until he hit the ground.
The earth beneath our feet shook, and I reached for Maks to steady myself. Lila landed next to her father, put a foot on his shoulder and when he whimpered, she reached down and twisted his head, snapping his neck.
Emperor’s Throne: Desert Cursed Series, Book 6 Page 17