A mean and skilled combatant, Isis spared no one.
Nephthys was no different. Her moon dragon clawed and chomped, severing heads and disemboweling demons with a quick, mortal slash to their mid-section.
When the twins were finally side-by-side, dragon and hybrid, neither winded and both ready to take on more demons, Osiris’s headache eased.
Now that the twins, the Scepters of Nebty, were together, Osiris could breathe a little easier. But the fight wasn’t over.
He headed for the forest and Hathor’s gray mist dragon.
The rock dragon’s vision was limited, the mist thick and cold but not as dense as fog. He could hear them, though, scurrying from one tree to the next.
Instead of entering the forest deeper, Osiris retreated to the edge.
“Where are you, Hathor?”
An off-white dragon, forty-five feet in height, formed from the millions of water droplets suspended in the air around and in the forest. Her long face and thin tail glistened with water, her body ethereal, scales translucent layers of bones. She had no wings, her glide through the air reminiscent of a serpent swimming in water.
She hovered above the forest, while Osiris planted himself on the ground.
“You wear Isis’s mark. You’re one of the Tyets now.”
Osiris lifted his right wing and saw the Isis Knot in the center. He didn’t know if that made him a Tyet, not that it mattered. He and Isis were bound to each other. Their love was more important than magic.
A torrent of demons surged from the forest, and Osiris prepared for battle. With his massive rock dragon form, he flew at the demons, leading with his fire and ending with claws slicing through bodies. His headache lessened with each demon he shredded and burned.
Hathor used her freezing mist to direct the demons through the forest and straight to a waiting Osiris.
He put everything into this battle, his mind no longer able to forget the brutality done to Isis and Asim. He wanted the demon who shot his mate and stole his daughter. He hoped the coward was among the demons he planned on eviscerating.
The rock dragon didn’t have a taste for demon blood and flesh, but he gorged himself on both this night.
“You remember, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I also remember how you and the others fight.”
“Good. Merit’s light is bright again, which means we’re needed at the manor.”
Osiris didn’t immediately follow the gray mist dragon. His eyes and ears were focused on the trees. He heard nothing from the forest, which didn’t mean it was free of demons. Unwilling to take the risk of an attack from behind, the rock dragon soared into the air.
Streams of fire had the forest burning. He waited, heard screams, and smiled. Burning demons ran and flew from the forest and Osiris squashed each one with his large paws. The morbid enjoyment of having their inconsequential bodies under him eviscerated the last embers of his migraine.
Hathor, when this was over, could extinguish the forest fire with her mist.
The rock dragon flew toward where he’d last seen Isis and Nephthys fighting. They weren’t in the sky, but the Tyets and Nut were, their gazes cast to the ground where the twins waged war against a demon horde.
Isis’s red dress hung from her in torn pieces, her arms and legs covered in blood. Some hers and red, most black and thick from the demons she’d slain.
The moon dragon’s white feathers appeared as if they’d been dipped in tar, as did her maw. Stab wounds and bites marred her pearl body, but the damage didn’t stop her ferocious attacks.
Snakes and vultures littered the ground, and so did dead demons. Mangled bodies inched, stumbled, and crawled to Nephthys’s side, a death shield for the Scepter of Nekhbet. They defended the moon dragon, forcing the demons to cut down their kin to get at the twins.
“Why is everyone up here instead of down there helping them fight?”
The sky dragon flew parallel to Osiris. Her eyes went to the markings on his head and wings. He thought Nut would say something about the djeds. What, he didn’t know. But she only met his concerned gaze with a mother’s worry and a former queen’s fatigue.
“Isis is sending a message to the Demon King.”
“What kind of message?”
“That his demons have no place in this realm.”
Osiris watched as king cobras spread over Isis’s entire body. Their scaly forms stretched from her as she fought, attacking and poisoning demons when she blazed through the horde with deadly fluid grace.
“That the dragons have risen and will return.”
The moon dragon bit the iron feet from a demon and handed them to her twin. Using the feet like Chinese hook swords, Isis hacked into the horde, fast, strong, and ruthless.
The moon dragon’s speed of attack was incredible. Isis had her flank, cutting down and burning any foe who got too close.
“That they’re the Scepters of Nebty. The most powerful and deadly preternaturals.”
Isis decapitated a demon, and Nephthys stomped its rolling head as she charged forward.
Vicious and cunning, Merit had said of the twins. They were both. They would have to be if Isis hoped to defeat an entire demon army and the Demon King himself.
The rock dragon flew downward and into the battle. He didn’t give a damn about the twins’ message to the Demon King. When the survivors of this battle flew home, broken and bloody, the demon would receive the message loud and clear.
The Scepters of Nebty were under the protection of Osiris, King of Death and Resurrection. He understood, finally, his new role, and it wasn’t as Dragon King. Isis had misinterpreted the djed, but she was correct about his heart. It wouldn’t beat again. He lived, yet he was still dead.
This was his afterlife, and he intended to live it to the fullest, which meant war.
Chapter 14
Impossible. No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t have seen right. As he flew away from Philae Manor and toward home, he switched from delusion to beratement. He’d seen the truth, after all these years. The symbols of the goddesses marked their bodies. Vulture, lotus, and Shen ring on Nephthys’s moon dragon. Cobra, ankh, papyrus and red crown on whatever in the hell form Isis had taken when she’d flown from Osiris.
He sped toward Manhattan and his apartment. That behemoth rock dragon had been Osiris Ombos, but not the rock dragon he’d known his entire life. Osiris should be in his grave, decomposing and not threatening his life and plan with his resurrected presence. What were those images on his body? Were they connected to Isis and her unnatural form?
How had eight dragons defeated five hundred demons? Isis’s friends should’ve made for easy prey for the demon hordes. The only dragon he’d anticipated putting up a credible fight was Nut’s sky dragon. As former queen, the dragon was old and strong. Yet Merit, Serqet, Aset, and Hathor had surprised him, their fighting skills honed, their teamwork effective and lethal.
He thought the demons would take them by surprise, their numbers assuring their victory.
The shift began several feet before he landed on his balcony. Bare feet met concrete. In a few hours, it would be morning. Did he risk staying there? What if Osiris’s memory came back, and he remembered his betrayal? Would he come after him? If he did, would he show him mercy the way he had the last time or would the rock dragon make him pay the ultimate price for his disloyalty?
He locked the balcony door, after entering his apartment. The lights were out, just as he’d left them when he’d decided to spy on the battle. Thanks to Hathor’s mist and his black scales, he’d been able to hide and watch. He hadn’t seen it all, but what he had glimpsed let him know he’d underestimated his enemies.
Then again, if he bided his time and waited for the fallout from the inevitable war between the twins and the Demon King, he could scavenge what was left. Yes, the more he thought about it, the better it sounded. But it all hinged on Osiris’s memory and how far the rock dragon would go for revenge.
He slipped into the shower, already plotting his next move. The Philae household would be busy, for the next few hours, if not days, cleaning up from the battle and answering questions from the police. He’d seen red-and-blue lights, as he flew away from the battle scene.
Nut would have one hell of a time explaining hundreds of dead demons on her lawn. Then she would be pre-occupied with finding the entrance to the preternatural realm and the decision of whether to close it to keep humans safe from the bloodthirsty demons.
He doubted if the sky dragon would take the same extreme measure as she had a century ago. If nothing else, the demons’ presence at the manor, not long after the attack on Isis, pointed to them being responsible for almost murdering the queen and killing her hatchling.
War would break out between dragons and demons. Nut and her daughters were too arrogant and unforgiving to not go after the Demon King. From what he witnessed tonight, it would be one hell of a bloodbath. Once the females went through the gateway, no doubt taking Osiris’s big ass rock dragon with them, he would take a page out of Nut’s playbook and destroy the entry point.
Whether Osiris’s memories returned wouldn’t matter then. This wasn’t what he wanted when the demons forced the alliance. But he’d made it work for him. Hanif and Edjo were dead, thanks to Osiris. Nour didn’t know of his involvement in the initial plot to intimidate Osiris into stealing the scepters and neither did the other two former members of Kemet Holdings’ board.
The shower and clear, calm thinking made all the difference in the world. The stress and shock of seeing Nephthys’s potent and vicious moon dragon with Nekhbet’s ancient symbols on her, as well as Isis’s part human, part dragon body from which cobras slithered and struck, a grotesque extension of the woman, no one would blame him for being rattled.
The twins weren’t normal. He’d always known that, but he’d never suspected how abnormal they were. Abominations like them belonged with the demons.
He would forego his original plan of taking over Nebty. With Nut, Isis, Nephthys, and Osiris trapped in the preternatural realm, DIG would be his. CEO couldn’t compare to being king, but it was one hell of a consolation prize.
Dressing in boxers and a T-shirt, he flopped on his bed. His plan needed a bit of fine-tuning, but he could do that in the morning. Thanks to working during the day and demon relocation at night, the dragon could sleep for a month. The Demon King wouldn’t be pleased with the ass-kicking his first wave of immigrants had taken at the hands of Queen Isis. If he wanted to do something about it, King Sansabonsom would have to either get off his imperial ass and travel to the human realm or wait for the twins to come for him.
If nothing else, King Sansabonsom proved himself patient. Then again, preternaturals lived long lives. A hundred years or five centuries, it didn’t matter for their kind, as long as they got what they wanted in the end.
Hours later, he bolted up in bed, sweaty from a nightmare. Sunlight peeked through the closed blinds. It didn’t feel like morning, despite the sunrise. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Six a.m. His alarm wouldn’t go off for another thirty minutes.
Shit, what in the hell was wrong with him? Normally when he slept, he crashed and didn’t awaken until he heard the annoying buzzing of his alarm. Even then, he’d hit snooze a couple of times before dragging himself out of bed.
Scrubbing his face with the palm of his hands, he tried to erase the images of fire, vultures, and snakes. All three had chased him, multiplying the closer they drew. He’d flown at his maximum speed, but they’d kept coming, pursuing him to the point of exhaustion. Fighting back had proven pointless, although he’d ripped into the vultures and snakes with all that he had. With each creature he bit, ate, and slit in two, five more replaced them.
Hissing fire had surrounded him, cutting off his escape. From the fire, even more snakes and vultures emerged, bigger and deadlier. He could still feel the press of fangs against his scales, the snap of fire in his ears, and the pain of talons across his eyes.
It had felt so real. Even now, he could feel cool scales sliding against his thighs. His feet. His… He flung the covers off him.
“Unless you want my pets to fill you with venom, I suggest you stay very still.”
Without looking, he knew the owner of that voice. Sultry with more than a hint of danger.
He tore his eyes away from the four king cobras in this bed and to the red eyes of Isis Philae. Shit, she was in the same form as last night. White-and-red feather wings, red tail, and a form-fitting black dress with spaghetti straps. Her braids, with gold beads on the ends, fell to her shapely shoulders.
Beautiful and deadly, his mind screamed.
“What are you doing here?”
She smiled, the kind that reached the eyes but still wasn’t sincere.
He made his voice as calm as possible, which was damn difficult with four lethal predators crawling over his legs and lap.
“I’ve never seen you in that form before. What are you?”
Isis stood at the foot of his bed, face impassive when she said, “This form allows me to see past the artifice and to the heart and soul of the dragon. I imagine your father’s heart and soul looked the same as yours, although King Geb never thought he had to use the scepters on border guards he should’ve been able to trust. Until yesterday, I would’ve never appeared to you in my hybrid form. Would’ve never thought you capable of all that you’ve done. It’s there, though, in your tarnished aura.”
If Isis wanted a confession, he wouldn’t give her one. She’d said nothing concrete, certainly nothing that would make him indict himself. If she’d seen him at the manor last night, she would’ve said. If she’d known he’d orchestrated that attack, he would already be dead.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Call off your snakes, so I can get up, get dressed, and then we can talk about what has you so upset.”
“Upset?” She laughed, a menacing sound that had the cobras rearing up and poised to strike. “This isn’t upset. Upset would be me using one of my snakes to strangle you to death after burning your worthless balls and cutting out your lying tongue. Upset would be me ripping out your coward’s spine and shoving it up your nose and through your malevolent brain. Upset would be me telling Osiris that his beloved brother was behind his murder and the death of his child.”
“I didn’t—”
“Shut. Up. Enough of your lies, Set. Nephthys located what was left of Edjo’s and Hanif’s remains after the demons finished gorging themselves on dragon meat. Aset found the orphanage in Cairo. An entire orphanage with no children. All gone a couple of weeks after my shooting. No one heard anything, but a few witnesses claim they saw a black dragon that night.”
“Isis, listen—”
“I said shut up, or so help me, Set, I’ll forget how much I love my mate and Makara and kill you where you sit. Not with my snakes or fire, but with my bare hands. It won’t be a quick death either. I’ll make you feel every pain done to Osiris. You were there. ‘In the decade you’ve been mated to Isis, she must’ve mentioned the scepters at least once. In bed, a post-coital conversation after she came on your face.’ Sound familiar?”
He thought Osiris was a blank slate. How in the hell did Isis know what he’d said to his brother?
“Osiris still doesn’t remember it all, but I know you were there. If you weren’t, it wouldn’t hurt so much when he tries to remember. You allowed those monsters to kill your brother. You let them hack him into pieces as if Osiris didn’t love you with every scale on his rock dragon body.”
“No, I didn’t—”
In a flash of frightening speed, white-and-red wings brought darkness. A furious Isis was over top of Set, one hand to his throat, the other wrapped around the head of a cobra. Pinned on his back, he met the flashing red eyes of Isis’s sun dragon. The head of the cobra dangled close to his mouth.
“I told you to shut up. I know what you did. I have so much evidence against you that it literall
y made me sick to my stomach. Beyond power and greed, which seems to be the prime motivator for betrayal, I don’t know why you would turn against your brother. Osiris would do anything for you, give you whatever you wanted.”
“Not the scepters.”
“Of course, the scepters. What would you have done if Osiris brought Nephthys and me to you?”
“I didn’t know you and your sister were the scepters. He should’ve told me. If he had, I wouldn’t have…”
“Wouldn’t have what? Plotted to kill your brother? Given a demon the garage access code to Philae Manor with a directive to find the scepters and kill me? Enlisted the help of Hanif and Edjo?”
The hand around his throat tightened, digging deep and cutting off air.
“You disgust me, and I want to end you right here and now. I could force your mouth open and let this snake slither down your throat. I want to. You have no idea how much I want to make you suffer before cutting off your head and feeding it to Nephthys’s vultures.”
With a hard shove, Isis lifted off him but dropped the king cobra on his heaving chest.
“You’ll die a hero’s death, Set. I will not permit your disloyalty to hurt Makara the way your traitorous father did. She’ll not go through that pain and embarrassment again. It’s taken the Clan of Ombos a century to rebuild the trust your father broke. I also won’t allow Osiris to suffer any more than he already has. He doesn’t want to remember that his younger brother killed him. Even if you didn’t intend to murder Osiris when the demons attacked him you chose to do nothing.” Isis pointed to his left shoulder. “The two of you fought. His rock dragon bested yours, leaving you with a shoulder injury but alive.”
Isis floated farther away until she was on the floor and at the foot of his bed again. Thankfully, the king cobras followed her. He watched her lower her hand to them. They reared up from the bed and crawled up her arm before blending into her body, looking like a sigil.
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