My beast rose up, snapping out of me, but only in claws. A new trick for me, shifting only one part of my body. Rhys placed his hand on my knee, but I nudged him off. “When were you going to do something?” I demanded. The bitter taint of it made my mouth pinch tight. “After everyone was dead?”
“That will be enough,” Olivia said from the doorway. She crossed the room and sat on the cushion, smoothing her skirt across her thighs before she looked up. “Now is not the time for accusations. We suspected...something horrible was going on there, but we had not been able to confirm anything, and we needed more information before we could act.” Her chest rose and fell with a sigh, and she fiddled with the gold chain she wore around her neck. “We are not as powerful as you think. As Lucerne said, we believe this goes deeper than this realm alone, but there is no way to prove it. We tried to mitigate things, but we were ineffective. You are right to be angry. I deeply regret that we could not do more. But you and Rhys are here, and this complicates the situation even more.”
“Complicates it?” I raged. “We almost died . Others did die! We—”
“Please!” Her beseeching voice cut through my anger. I flopped back against the couch, fuming. “We cannot go back and do things differently. We are dealing with something bigger than all of us. An entity we cannot defeat alone. For now, we need to decide what to do with you two. Surely you know that the Council will look here for you first?”
“Someone led us into a trap, but we escaped. We lost them, didn’t we, Rhys?”
“We did.”
“If the Council is involved, they will still come here, hoping to find you,” Olivia said.
“A dragon…” Lucerne said. He closed his eyes and hummed softly. When he opened them, they gleamed with excitement. “Rhys, my boy, great job. Great job. You’ve found a dragon sentinel.” He grinned at Olivia, who nodded, her lips twitching. “She has immense power. And we can use it.”
“Use me? What does that mean?” I asked Rhys, my belly coiling into a knot. Lucerne talked about me like I wasn’t a person, like I wasn’t even in the room. “Tell me!”
“Remember what I told you at the dance?” he asked, keeping his attention on his uncle.
He had told me a lot of things, but one regarding sentinels stood out: don’t let anyone control me. But Rhys’s family were no longer guardians. Their ability to facilitate bonds between sentinels and masters had been blocked in their minds. Those bonds didn’t form them by themselves. And guardians couldn’t host sentinels, anyway.
Was Lucerne suggesting that Rhys try to bind me to him? Wolfy had been bonded to the headmaster, but the bond had shifted to me after I gave him my blood.
Ah, blood. If giving someone my blood could create a bond—like it had with Wolfy—I needed to make sure it never happened. And here I was in a room with three vampires. Lucerne eyed my neck like a slab of beef. Olivia, thankfully, appeared entranced with her wine. Blood red wine. She wasn’t …I shook my head, not wanting to know.
Rhys was the only one I dared trust.
Magic flickered between his fingers. Would he blast his uncle in his family home? Had he suspected that Lucerne would try to use me?
Lucerne’s grin made the knot in my belly tighten. “We never could’ve foreseen anything like this, but you can—”
Rhys growled, and his glare cut into Lucerne. “We’re not using Maddy. Period.” Turning, he cupped my face. “Listen to me. I need you to know that I didn’t kiss up to you to use you. This is real. We’re real. Whatever my uncle is planning is independent of us.”
“No one knew what I could shift into when we met, not even me.”
“Not until you shared your glorious, wonderful dragon.”
“The one time you talked to them. Was it after you knew?” I studied his eyes and saw only truth there.
“Yup. And I kept it a secret.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Remember what I said.”
“Don’t let anyone chain me,” I whispered.
“Exactly.” Pulling me close, he kissed my forehead.
“This is the perfect opportunity to gain more power,” Lucerne said, sitting forward in his chair and rubbing his hands together, eager to get started.
Maybe for him, but not for me or Rhys.
“Not happening,” Rhys said with disgust. “And you can’t do it by yourself. Maddy will help, but she’s one of us. We’re not going to control or manipulate her.” He stood, as did I. “Besides, we no longer have guardian abilities. That knowledge is blocked, remember?”
“That’s actually not true,” Olivia said, looking up at us. “It just needs the right stimuli to bring it back, and then you or your father can—”
“I thought we agreed never to discuss this with Rhys, Olivia.” Death lurked in Lucerne’s voice. This was why many feared powerful vamps.
“He’s as involved in this as we are, and he is not a child,” she huffed. “I won’t hide anything from my son. We need him.” She locked eyes with me, and in her dark gaze, I sensed pleading. “We need you, too, but Rhys is right. We will not use you.”
“We didn’t come here for this,” Rhys said, his voice thready.
“You’re foolish, boy.” Lucerne loomed over us, and my dragon growled. “She’s a powerful weapon. We may never see an opportunity like this again. The Council is in disarray. Some are dead”—his brow furrowed as he stared at me—“and the others are trying to decide how to save the situation without exposing anyone.”
“You’re right,” Olivia said, laying her hand on Lucerne’s arm, “but while we need Rhys and Maddy, we will not force them. Their participation needs to be given freely. You know the rules.”
“What rules?” I asked.
“About magic. It can backfire if it’s forced,” she said. “You need to speak with your grandfather, Rhys. If you go to him, he might tell you things he refused to share with me or your father. With that knowledge, we might be able to bring this to an end.”
“Where is Gramps?” Rhys asked. “That’s what we came here to find out.”
“Your grandfather is where he always goes when he’s frightened,” she said. “His Alzheimer’s…you know how it is. Paranoia is part of the disease process.”
“Olivia’s father-in-law is willful. Stubborn,” Lucerne said. “He hides behind his disease, using it to keep information from us.”
“I doubt that, Brother.” Olivia’s speculative gaze flicked to Rhys. “Go to the cottage by the sea. I believe you’ll find him there, and he’ll tell you what we need to know.”
“We’ll need a vehicle,” Rhys said.
“The battery in my car was dead this morning and I haven’t replaced it yet. Take your father’s SUV.”
A sudden bang on the door was followed by shouts outside.
My heart crashed against my ribcage. We had to get out of there!
Rising, Olivia waved her hands at Rhys and me. “Go. The keys are in the SUV. You know we always keep money in the glove compartment and basic provisions in the back.”
“Thank you,” I said, grateful for her help despite my unease about the situation.
“You’re welcome, dear. I wish we had more time to talk.” She gave me a quick hug, then embraced Rhys. “We’ll hold them off.”
“I’m not leaving you, Mom,” Rhys said. “You need my power.”
“Your father has spelled the house.” Her grim expression met mine. “They’ll never get past his barriers.”
Another bang on the door was followed by the sound of splintering wood.
“Leave,” Lucerne said, striding toward the entryway. “We’ll handle this.”
“Go!” Olivia said, nudging us toward the back of the room. She twisted a statue standing on the fireplace, and a panel to the right of the large stone structure creaked open.
Rhys kissed his mom’s cheek, then took my hand and led me into the darkness.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cece
“It cannot be,
” the king muttered to himself in total disbelief as smoke and flame erupted from the canvas.
“She’s an empath ,” his wife replied, as though that were the most terrifying magical class in existence. As though I was somehow as powerful as she and the king.
Another shrill cry sounded outside, and the royals, accompanied by their guards, ran from the room, headed for the main entrance. Aidan grabbed my hand and hauled me close behind him. Sarah fell in beside us, and the three of us broke out of the castle to find the sun of Faerie gone.
My eyes shot to the blackened sky in the distance, and dread roiled in my belly. What looked like clouds of death were headed toward us so quickly that even I, despite my capacity for denial, knew we were in deep shit. My cry seemed to have awoken something else—something other than the dragon that had come to life at my scream, then emerged from the Wadsworth painting and flown through the castle halls. Something dark and angry and less than friendly, most likely. And it was headed right for us. Not even the king and queen dared to move, their eyes on the apocalypse barreling toward the castle and everything surrounding it.
Again, that ear-piercing shriek rent the air, shaking the glass towers that shot up into the sky. The sickening sound of that glass cracking sent me scrambling backward into Aidan. Too close , I thought. We’re too close to the buildings. Before I could say the words aloud, the tip of a spire fractured, then sheared off like the side of an iceberg. In the split second before it plummeted to the ground, everything went quiet. Everyone went painfully still and watched as it careened into the black path below and shattered with a deafening crash.
Then all hell broke loose.
“Ho…ly…shit,” Sarah said, her voice full of shock and awe that felt wrong coming from her.
I squinted hard to see what she was looking at. Flashes of bright light reflecting off of something metallic caught my eye, nearly forcing me to look away. It took only a moment to realize that it wasn’t metal reflecting the scant moonlight our way, but something equally hard and shiny.
“Wait, are those—”
“ Dragons ,” she and Aidan replied in unison.
“They’ve escaped,” she said, disbelief still tainting her tone. “But that’s impossible…”
While I waited for someone to argue that point, Aidan looked down at my chest, or more specifically, the dragon pin still attached to my raggedy dress.
“It was you all along,” he said right before he grabbed my hand and started running toward the horde of fire-breathing escapees headed our way. “It makes so much sense now...”
The beasts swirled above us, raining fire down on anything below that moved. While I was all for the deaths of the king and queen, I wasn't so sure that every fey in the city deserved it.
“We have to control them somehow,” I said, desperate for ideas on exactly how that could happen.
“Shit,” Sarah ground out as she watched an army of well-dressed fey pour from the castle. “Looks like your brothers have arrived.”
Her deadpan delivery, though appreciated, did nothing to calm me. Especially not when the siblings I hadn’t known existed started lobbing vicious magic our way.
“NO!” I screamed, and I flung my arms out like I could ward off the onslaught somehow. But it never hit. I cracked an eye open to see the most beautiful creature flying past, its midnight blue iridescent scales glittering in the moonlight peeking through the horde of dragons in the sky. With one pass, it had absorbed the attack that had been thrown our way. Then it looped back around and stared at me expectantly.
“They’re yours to command, little witch,” Aidan shouted over the din. “Do what you will with them.”
Holy shit . I stopped to think for a minute. “Are you sure?” He nodded, and I tried to wrap my head around it all, but there was no time to think. “What would you have me do?” I asked Aidan. “With your parents?”
His expression grew tighter. “Incapacitate them, but don’t kill them. Slaughter anyone that gets in the way.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Leave the king and queen,” I shouted at the beast. “Kill anyone else who attacks you or us.”
With a giant flap of its wings, the dragon took to the air and circled the others—including the red dragon from the painting. Then they dove like missiles at their target. Fire and magic crackled as they attacked those that sought to harm us. It was a morbidly mesmerizing dance of death and destruction that I reveled in, their love of the hunt thrumming through my veins as it did theirs. And with every pass, I felt myself giving into it more.
Aidan and Sarah stormed toward the melee side by side, each using their abilities to eliminate anyone bold enough to attack, and I followed in their wake, navigating the carnage as I silently directed the beasts in the sky. I could see two twin dragons on the ground, circling the royal couple as they tried in vain to use their various magics on them. But every blow just seemed to be absorbed by their scales, the ripples of power shimmering across them.
Aidan stepped toward them, and the massive reptiles of legend paused and assessed him before backing up a pace to let him through.
“You were never fit to rule,” he said to his father, who fumed at his approach. “You stole the crown from your elder brothers through cowardice and deceit. You struck them down so that you could take the throne. That’s why you really wanted me gone. You thought I would slay my brothers and usurp you one day.” The fey boy who’d stolen my heart leaned closer as his tendril of black smoke tightened around his father’s neck. “I wouldn’t have. But I will now…”
He tightened his grip until a sickening crack rent the air and the king went limp, then fell.
The queen’s anger flared, and she lunged at her son like a woman possessed. But she stopped short, coughing and sputtering as Sarah stepped closer, anger stiffening her features.
“You lied to me,” she said as the queen’s lips turned blue. “Manipulated me. Ruined my life . And for what? To ensure your son’s death?” She leaned closer and watched the light begin to fade from the queen’s eyes. “I find the irony here...well…ironic, don’t you?”
The queen made a horrid gurgling sound, then fell on top of her husband, dead. The grim deed that had fueled his escape from Wadsworth was done. Aidan had his revenge.
He stood there, taking one last look at the parents who’d sold him out—signed his death warrant years ago—then turned to me. Even after all they’d done to him, I could feel his sorrow, and I completely understood how complicated it was.
“We need to get out of here,” he said, as the battle continued to rage outside of the protective circle of dragons surrounding us.
“Get me to the trees and I can open the portal,” Sarah said, sounding so much more herself than she had since we’d arrived at the castle.
“Let’s go, then.” I walked past the tip of a tail into the chaos beyond as though none of it could touch me, the heady feeling of power still coursing through me. And with every step, I felt that power protecting me somehow, making me invincible to the war being waged around me.
As I started to run, I felt the hesitation of the dragons, their eyes on my back as I fled the scene.
I realized then that I couldn’t leave them behind to an unknown fate. They’d been imprisoned, and my call had freed them. If I left, would they be somehow subjugated again? Rendered powerless against those that had oppressed them? That was a fate I couldn't stomach. One I wouldn't allow, if I could help it.
I stopped not far from the trees and turned to find them all staring. Then I raised the painting that had transported the dragon that had started it all into Faerie. Could it somehow take them out?
“Come with me,” I shouted over the din. The massive midnight blue dragon’s gaze shifted to the fray, then back to me. Suspicion flashed in those molten eyes, so bright it was plain even from that far away. He saw a cage in my offering. “Come with me, and I promise you, you will never be enslaved again!”
“Cece,” Aidan warned, but
I shrugged him off, stepping closer to the war still raging in the kingdom.
“You were prisoners here, weren’t you? Don’t you wish for something else? Something better?” The leader of the dragons snorted at me, and I took that as a ‘yes’. I unfurled the painting and waved it at the dragon horde. “Then come with me!” I yelled. “Join me and you can leave this place!” The dragons hesitated, their collective attention on me and not the fey attacking them. “Do it now!” I screamed as wild fey eyes turned to me as well. I knew their magic would soon follow. We were running out of time.
Aidan’s magical black appendages shot out around me, striking down a few fey guards running toward us, and Sarah used her ability to subdue as many as she could, but I could see the strain as her power waned. Aidan’s wouldn’t be far behind. One way or another, we needed to get out of Faerie, with or without our scaly allies.
I grabbed both sides of the castle painting and spread it wide for the dragons to see. “Come to me,” I said with a confidence I was actually starting to feel.
The massive midnight blue dragon beat his wings once before turning on a dime and diving toward me. With a battle cry to match the one that had announced their arrival, the others followed. The speed with which they moved was intimidating, and it was definitely made worse by the fact that they were aimed at the two-by-three-foot painting in my hands. If my hunch was wrong, there was a one hundred percent chance I was about to be obliterated by a horde of dragons.
Aidan shifted closer to me, steadying me from behind, his magic swirling and whipping around us, ready to protect us if my plan went awry. And with every passing second that those dragons barreled toward us, I wondered if it would. But then I felt it. A shift—a knowing—passed between their leader and me right before a crack of magic thundered through the city. Fire and smoke erupted around us, the heat forcing my eyes shut.
But not before I saw the peacock-colored shimmer of the lead dragon’s scales flash only inches from my face, right before he dove into the painting.
I looked at Aidan, shock and a strange sense of joy emanating from every pore in my body, but I realized quickly that something was wrong. His jet-black eyes were fixed on the horizon, his inky tendrils still dancing around us, but it was the fear ebbing from him that gave me pause. I turned to find the army that I’d thought the dragons had all but defeated standing on their feet alongside the remaining royals—Aidan’s brothers—ready to attack.
Rogue Reformatory: Breakout (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 3) Page 12