She gasped. Her stomach mimicked the somersault.
Jaden held on through the first loop. The second loop sent him tumbling from the daeva’s back, but he grabbed onto a wing tip.
Two hundred and fifty feet below him, the ground beckoned. Densely packed dirt studded with sharp rocks promised a painful landing.
The daeva snarled. Its massive wings beat down as it spun into more aerial acrobatics.
She was already moving toward him when the daeva flung him off. Like a discarded rag doll, he was hurled to the ground. His scream of raw terror arced through the air.
The friction from the wind burned pinpricks of heat into her skin. The sand, whipped up from her frantic race to reach him, scored her eyes.
She snatched him up two feet from the ground, and circled twice to slow her speed before landing. Her racing heartbeat settled into a calm and steady thump the moment she held him in her arms. She suppressed a chuckle as she cradled the trembling man in her arms, a man who fearlessly rode a daeva but who had yet to uncurl from a fetal ball. “Jaden? Are you all right?”
He shook his head. His eyes remained closed, and his throat worked for several moments before he forced the shaky words out. “I hate flying.”
“Then why did you get on the daeva?” She did not even want to imagine the amount of wrestling it must have entailed to mount an angry daeva.
He laughed, the sound unsteady, but edged with humor. He opened his eyes, and for the first time, she saw Jaden and not Rohkeus in the stunning, gold-flecked green depths—a human, not an icrathari, yet as easy to love. He smiled. “I told you I would catch up.”
“Flying is easy; landing is difficult.” She dragged him to his feet. He wobbled, staggering against her. She clucked her sympathy, but the sound wavered perilously close to a giggle. “Can you run or do you want me to carry you?”
He pushed her away. “I’ll crawl before I get back up in the air.”
That time, she failed to swallow the laugh. “Fine. See if you can keep up.” It was cruel to bait him, but her lover, so daring, so stubborn, was such as easy mark.
She took to the air and circled large loops, keeping her eye on the vampires running ahead, and Jaden coming from behind. He was, she noted with a slight shiver, more than keeping up. He was gaining on the vampires—an utter impossibility for a human.
He had fought off a pack of daevas and emerged unscathed when a mere forty-eight hours earlier, five daevas had brutally bludgeoned him to his knees.
Her blood was taking hold, transforming him. Finally, he had a body that could keep up with the boldness of his spirit and the demands of his circumstances—a body that was neither human nor vampire. What was he changing into? More important, did he know, or care?
She raced past the vampires and looped back around. The heaving breaths of the vampires broke the silence as they pushed their bodies to extreme speeds.
The sliver of light on the horizon deepened into a glow. The air warmed. The curved surface of the dome glistened, sparkling like gold, as the sun inched above the horizon.
In less than five minutes, the rays of sun would penetrate Aeternae Noctis.
They were still a mile from the dome. They were almost out of time.
From the north, a low tremor rippled through the air. Ashra threw a glance over her shoulder. The sky darkened as massive bat wings blocked the sun’s nascent light. Daevas swarmed in numbers that made the prior attacks seem like scouting parties. She bared her elongated incisors; finely honed predatory instincts overrode the flutter of panic churning in her stomach. Her pearlescent fingernails extended into curved talons as she twisted around to meet them, but large numbers of daevas bypassed her and plunged after the two vampires.
In the air, Ashra ripped through the wall of daevas that tumbled toward her. Her claws slashed out indiscriminately. Screams of terror pierced the dawn. Golden blood drizzled to the ground.
The temperature climbed. Warm became sweltering. The dazzling glow of the rising sun obliterated the line of the horizon.
The city lay minutes from incineration.
Damn it! Where was Tera? They were so close to the city. Surely their battle would be observed. Surely help would come.
Harrod screamed as two daevas pulled him into the air. Ashra surged to his aid, but two other daevas reached him first. They grasped his legs. With hideous cackles and a viciously sharp tug, they ripped him into quarters. His blood splattered across Ashra’s armor.
She drew a deep breath and screamed. Her battle cry shredded the night.
The daevas recoiled and scattered from Ashra’s fury. The pieces of Harrod’s body tumbled to the ground. A dark streak shot across the sandy terrain. Jaden. He shoved past the daevas, bowling them over with his greater weight, speed, and momentum.
“Ashra!”
She instinctively caught a glowing capacitor that Jaden tossed up at her. Another capacitor followed.
“Get them to the city! Go!”
Her wings beat down, carrying her out of the murderous reach of the daevas. They raced after her, but she was faster still. One caught up with her, the silver-ringed daeva. It swiped out with its talons, ripping across Ashra’s abdomen.
Pain flashed white across her vision.
Ashra gripped the top of the capacitor with one hand and swung it around. It smashed the daeva in the face. Bone shattered at the impact. With a wail, the daeva fell away, its wings beating back in hasty retreat.
The sealed entrance of Aeternae Noctis cracked open, the fissure widening. Ashra swooped up, folding her wings to get through the narrow door. She tossed the canisters into Siri and Xanthia’s waiting hands. “Where’s Tera, damn it?”
Siri’s eyes were wide. She pushed her capacitor at Xanthia. “Load them up. Get the city moving. I’ll find Tera.” She caught Ashra’s wrist. “No, you can’t go back out. You’re hurt.”
She glanced down. Her golden blood oozed through rents in her leather armor.
Ashra pulled her hand free. “Jaden’s out there.”
She dove through the narrow opening and into a thick cluster of daevas. She did not stop to fight. Like a missile, she drove through their ranks, breaking out on the other side. Her heart caught when she saw Jaden and Dana, fighting back-to-back. Jaden skewered a daeva on the end of his blade, and then leaned down to grab the remaining two capacitors off the ground. He tossed them to her.
The first rays of the sun burst over the horizon, burning through the thin atmosphere like death rays. The daevas screeched, their bat wings fluttering in panic as they veered away from Jaden and Dana, and shot off to the west, racing ahead of the sun.
Out in the open, with no hope of shelter, Jaden pulled Dana down to the ground and crouched over her. He threw a glance over his shoulder. Even from that distance, Ashra could see the pain etched on his face. “Go! You’re out of time.”
His command threw her into motion. The heat scorched her skin as she soared back to Aeternae Noctis with the precious capacitors. A low sound rumbled through the air, a prelude to the initial splutter of superheated jets of air blasting from the thrusters. Like a ponderous behemoth, the city shifted into motion. Its massive engines spun; it gathered speed quickly, leaving Jaden and Dana behind.
Ashra soared into the city. A swarm of faces—vampire and icrathari—were gathered at the entrance. Where had they been when she’d needed them? She flung the capacitors into the hands of the waiting vampires and spun around.
Tera seized her arm. “You can’t. It’s too late.”
The words, calmly uttered, ignited Ashra’s fury. Her vision blurred into a red haze. She slashed out. Her talons, already dripping with daeva blood, ripped across Tera’s face. She turned and launched herself out of the city.
The ground wavered in and out of focus as the scant water in the ground evaporated in waves of undulating air. Her skin was smoking by the time she reached the two huddled figures on the ground. She pulled Jaden from his knees, but he pushed Dana to her. “Take
my mother,” he forced the words out through his cracked lips.
Her gaze swept over the vampire. Dana’s face was contorted with agony. The blood spilling from her injuries evaporated before it hit the ground. Desiccated chucks of charred flesh peeled off her bone. Her chest sagged with her final hissing breath.
Ashra closed her eyes against witnessing the death every vampire most feared. She reached for Jaden, but he pulled back, his eyes wide with disbelief, his face twisted with anguish. “No. My mother.”
Large wings beat through the air behind her. Tera soared overhead, blocking out the sun. Siri swooped low, snatched Dana’s body up, and raced back to Aeternae Noctis. When Ashra reached for Jaden again, he did not resist.
She took to the air. Her black wings smoked beneath the unforgiving light of day. Faster. She swept from sunlight into the shadows and cool underside of Aeternae Noctis. The city accelerated away from the sun, but the icrathari were faster, despite their heavy burdens. Siri disappeared into the opening that led into the tower. Ashra soared after her.
The room was cluttered with bodies in motion. The heightened emotions and low murmur of voices grated on her nerves. “Out!” She flung the word like a curse.
The vampires huddled around Dana’s burnt corpse scurried from the room, but Siri and Elsker held their ground. Ashra gently lowered Jaden to the floor. He rolled to the side and pushed up on one elbow. His motions were slow and pained, but he was still moving. His skin, where exposed, had bronzed to a deep tan, but as a human, he did not possess a vampire’s acute sensitivity to sunlight.
He dragged himself to his mother’s blackened body. He curled over it, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
Tera soared through the slowly closing doors. Ashra closed her heart to the quiet sounds of Jaden’s grief and spun around to face the icrathari warlord.
Tera’s wings snapped to their full ten-foot wingspan before folding against her back. The scratches Ashra had marked on her face were already fading, but her jaw was tight. She threw a glance at Dana’s body. Sorrow flashed almost imperceptibly over her features, but the softer emotion vanished in the heat of her anger. “You forced me to risk my life for a dead vampire?”
Ashra’s jaw dropped. “Forced you?”
Tera’s voice was quiet but it vibrated with fury. “It was too late. I told you it was too late, but you struck me, and you went out there, risking your life, risking all our lives…and for what?” She flung her arm out at Jaden. “You are so infatuated with him, you can’t think straight. How can we possibly trust you to lead us when all you’re focused on is saving the life of one human?”
“How dare you! Where were you when we were fighting for our lives a mile outside Aeternae Noctis?”
“What?” Tera’s eyes widened.
“Fifty daevas, enough to darken the sky. They attacked us, quartered Harrod. I looked to the city for aid, but no one came.”
Tera glanced at Siri; Siri looked at Elsker. He shook his head. “The sensors picked up nothing.”
“Nothing?” Ashra’s upper lip curled into the hint of a snarl. “Fifty daevas a mile from Aeternae Noctis, and you saw nothing?”
He held up his hands. “I can only tell you what the sensors reported.”
Ashra turned on Siri. “You said there was enough energy in the capacitors to maintain the city’s defenses and keep its sensors running while I was out.”
Siri’s brow furrowed. “Yes, there was.”
“Then what happened?” Ashra demanded.
“I don’t know.” Siri frowned and folded her arms across her chest. “Are you implying that—?”
“The capacitors are destroyed. The sensors failed.” Ashra stalked up to Siri. She gritted her teeth against the pain pulsing through her torso. “You’re responsible for running this city. What the hell is going on?”
Siri retreated until her back hit the wall. Her wings twitched.
Elsker placed himself between Ashra and Siri. “Ashra, don’t let him do this to you.”
“What?” Her gaze darted to Elsker's face.
“Don’t let him turn you against us. If anyone’s the catalyst, it’s him.” Elsker pointed a finger at Jaden. “Don’t you see? It all started with him. At the last full moon, the city functioned perfectly; our defenses were intact. Now, scarcely a week later, we’re fleeing from the sun with mere seconds to spare. For a thousand years, we have sustained and protected this city, and in a week…just a week, ever since the human came into the tower, we’ve teetered from disaster to disaster.” His face tightened. “In a week, he’s turned you against us—against the three of us who have labored beside you for a millennium in the service of Aeternae Noctis.”
Tera, grim-faced, nodded.
Jaden pushed to his feet, his slow movements betraying hints of extreme pain. “You overestimate the kind of damage I can do in a week.”
“Your sister is the chosen one, is she not?” Elsker demanded. “The one prophesized to end the eternal night and the reign of the Night Terrors? What have all these events been if not a step closer to the end of the night?”
“We can’t survive in the day, not any better than the vampires can.” Jaden looked down at his mother’s charred body. His voice shook, cracked by grief. “Why would we end the night?”
“It’s all you humans have been trying to do for hundreds of years.”
“Because we didn’t know any better. You didn’t give us a chance to see you as anything other than a captor.”
Elsker’s mouth tugged into a sneer. “And you think that you humans, so insular, so superstitious, will give up your long-held beliefs.”
“Yes, because more than the vampires and icrathari, we understand the transience of life and beliefs. We can change.”
“You’re human. For centuries, you’ve tried to destroy what the icrathari and vampires have fought to sustain. Ashra, surely you must see that he is not one of us. Tera?”
Tera inhaled. “He has influenced you, Ashra. He commands; you obey. If not for him, you would never have considered a human army.”
Shards of cold shot through Ashra, radiating outward from the injury the large daeva had inflicted. She pressed her hand against the still-open wounds on her abdomen. “We can’t defend this city, Tera.”
“We’ve defended it for a millennium, and yet, after this human begins whispering in your ear, you doubt me. You doubt my army.”
“I don’t doubt your courage. I doubt your numbers. The daevas number in the thousands. You have twenty-three vampires and none of them can fly.”
“There’s no evidence that the daevas number in the thousands,” Tera said.
Ashra’s brows drew together in the hint of a frown. “He’s seen them.”
“And he’s the only one who has,” Tera pointed out coolly.
Icy talons clawed through Ashra, inching toward her heart. What was wrong with her? Why was the injury not healing? She sagged against the wall. “The daevas attacked us when we went for the capacitors.”
“In tens, not hundreds, let alone thousands. There’s no evidence of the threat, and we cannot take the word of a human.”
“Why not?” Jaden asked. “I have no need to undermine the city.”
“Your sister—”
“Forget my sister. Forget the prophecy. I have seen what lies outside the city, and I know there is no future for humans out there.”
Elsker walked up to Jaden. “The only threat I see here is you. You’ve turned Ashra against all of us.”
Ashra snorted. “A week ago, I ordered him killed, but the three of you stopped me, and now you’ve decided he’s a threat? What changed?”
Siri swallowed hard. “Ashra, something’s wrong. You know it. We all do too. The number of accidents that have happened in the past week cannot be coincidental.”
Siri’s words blurred into an incomprehensible jumble. Ashra closed her eyes to shut out the world that spun around her. She wrapped her arms around her stomach to fend off the chill that
penetrated to her extremities.
Vertigo seized her. Darkness swept in.
She lost consciousness before she hit the ground.
“Ashra!” Jaden lunged forward, but Siri was closer to Ashra and broke her fall.
The icrathari pressed her fingers against Ashra’s open wounds and shook her head. “Something’s wrong; her injuries aren’t healing.” She gathered Ashra into her arms and pushed to her feet. “Lucas may be able to help. I’m taking her to the infirmary.”
Jaden’s head spun, the sharp ache of his injuries crashing through him, but he followed Siri as she carried Ashra from the room. He could not leave Ashra alone with Siri, not if Siri was the traitor.
Elsker caught his arm, jerked him back, and swung him around before slamming him against the wall. The male icrathari’s face twisted with anger. “Haven’t you done enough damage? We should never have allowed a human inside. We put those laws in place for a reason. Nothing good can come out of our relationships with the humans.”
Jaden ground his teeth and forced himself to speak through a head throbbing with pain. “What are you afraid of, Elsker? A mere human, or the sliver of Rohkeus that lives in me?”
Elsker turned his head and spat onto the floor. “You are not Rohkeus.”
Tera nodded. She shifted her weight, her wings rippling against her back.
Jaden swallowed painfully. “No, I’m not, but like Rohkeus, I have a stake in the survival of this city, and I love Ashra. In your eagerness to cast blame for the events of the past week, perhaps the most important question you need to ask is: why would anyone conspire to end Ashra’s reign?”
His question silenced them.
Confusion flickered across the female icrathari warlord’s face. Tera broke the quiet with a sharp inhalation. “You have a way of seeing to the heart of the matter, human.” She spit the word out like a curse. “But I can’t give you free run of the tower while I search for the answer to the question. I’ll take you to a holding cell.”
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 161