“Drake!” I cried out, trying to warn him. Before I knew what was happening, Drake had rolled his body over to the side, and was tipping me off his back. Tumbling into the open air, there was nothing I could do as I watched the shadows hit Drake’s massive form as one giant unit, engulfing him.
“Nooooo!” I cried, the heart-breaking sound echoing through my mind. There was no doubt in my head – Drake had tossed me overboard on purpose; to save me; sacrificing himself.
A sob broke out from my chest, as I watched the dark shadowy creatures claw at Drake’s flesh, dragging him down towards the ground…and in that instant, all my fears came bursting into life.
They were going to kill Drake…and there was nothing I could do to stop them, or to save him.
I was probably also going to die.
Tears filled my eyes as I started to cry. My sobbing became harder as I started to feel something tearing at my soul, and I sensed Drake’s life-force ebbing away…
In that brief moment, I gave up. It was over.
I let myself fall, my limbs no longer struggling against my inevitable plummet. Closing my eyes, I whispered a final prayer and goodbye. “I’m so sorry, mum,” I breathed. Goodbye, Drake. And thank you…
I continued to plummet downwards, defeated and resigned, when suddenly – out of nowhere – a high pitch shriek pierced the air, and my eyes snapped wide open. I turned my head, gazing wildly about.
That’s when I saw it.
A long flame of fire, shooting out from the beak of a golden, mythical creature I never thought I’d see in my life.
It was a phoenix. And it had come to save Drake.
Large, fiery wings spread across the sky, flapping to keep the bird afloat as it rained flames down on the wraiths. The sight was breath-taking…
I heard the sound of something large and massive swooping beneath me, and seconds later I found myself landing with an oomph on something wide and solid.
Turning my head to the side, I spotted a scaly green surface.
“Hold on tight,” Knox’s familiar, soothing voice rumbled, and I swallowed the lump lodged inside my throat as hope blossomed in my chest. He swerved right, circling back, rising higher and higher up into the sky.
I rolled onto my side, and pushed myself up with my arms to sit upright.
“I need to go help Ethan,” Knox told me.
“Wha – ” I started, my brows puckering in confusion. That’s when the realization hit me. “The phoenix…” I breathed, and Knox nodded his neck at the end of his thick, spiky neck.
Speeding through the air, he reached Ethan’s side and began blasting the wraiths with flames of greenish fire, and I watched on in awe as one by one, the wraiths disintegrated, even as they split apart from the group, trying to escape.
Catching a movement a few yards below us, I saw Drake’s human form lying prone on the back of a silver dragon. Who’s that? I wondered, only to have my question answered a few seconds later by Ethan.
“Get Drake home, Liam!” Ethan ordered, as he paused momentarily from shooting flames out from his beak. My eyes widened, awestruck by the sight of the majestic creature, blazing a silver trail as it zoomed through the air, taking Drake to safety.
It was not long before the silver dragon was beyond my vision.
Knox flew around, helping Ethan chase down the remaining wraiths who had managed to escape, blasting them one by one, until all of them were gone.
“Is that all of them?” he called out to Ethan, when a flash of light caught our eyes, and we all swivelled our heads upwards to see a spec of blue, far off in the distant sky.
There was an explosion of blue and white energy, and I watched as the portal erupted in a ball of flames. A massive beast of a blue dragon near it, roaring loudly, as it blasted out an incredible beam of energy at the portal’s core. Even from this distance I could feel the power of the dragon’s flame pulsating – deadly, and powerful enough to kill anything in its path.
“Damien…” I breathed out the whisper, the puzzle pieces locking together and everything sinking in.
“I think Damien’s got it,” Ethan said, turning to his head to the side to look at Knox. “Let’s head home and see how Drake is.”
“Roger that,” Knox replied and they both turned in the air, heading in the same direction Liam had gone.
We had won; and now, we were heading home.
❖❖❖
I didn’t know what to do as I watched Ethan, Knox and the rest of the guys rushing about Drake, probing and poking him with all kinds of instruments and tools, as he lay unconscious and shirtless, and on his back in the recovery room.
Masses of scratches and scrapes covered his once beautiful, smooth and perfect skin.
“What is this?” Ethan muttered, starting to undo the bandage across his injured shoulder.
I rushed over to the bed to stop him. “It’s a wound. It’s still healing,” I quickly explained as Ethan gazed down at my face with questioning eyes.
“From when? This doesn’t look like it’s from the wraiths.”
I looked down at the floor guiltily. “He told me not to tell you guys...” I said reluctantly, and glanced up as I heard Liam throwing the tweezers in his hand, down onto the silver tray beside Drake’s bed, in total frustration. He had been busy picking out bits of black shards from Drake’s flesh from where the wraiths claws had snapped and stayed buried inside.
“Typical! He’s such a freaking dumbass! Always keeping important shit like this from us…what the fuck? Why does he always feel the need to play the cold and silent hero? Seriously, it pisses me off…!” Liam huffed for air, breathing out hard and fast, as he ended his rant.
“Clearly someone was after him because of the scroll,” Knox muttered, applying some sort of white salve on Drake’s wounds and scratches.
Ethan caught my eye. “Go on,” he prompted me. “How did Drake get this other wound?”
I’d already explained to the guys everything that had happened at Lupin’s house, all the way and leading up to the moment when they had reached us, when we were being attacked over the lake.
Biting on my bottom lip, my mind entered a tug of war as I tried to decide whether to them about the incident that cause Drake’s shoulder injury or not. On one hand, I had promised Drake, and spilling his secret would be breaking his trust. While on the other…
Ethan narrowed his eyes at me, sending a shiver of fear through me, and I made up my mind. “After the clan meeting, Drake followed me outside into the alleyway at the side of the building. There was an attacker on one of the rooftops nearby – he shot a bolt of energy at Drake…” I told Ethan, leaving out the fact that I’d transformed into their second cousin, Ariel, and that was the reason Drake and I had been out there in the first place.
Ethan sucked in a sharp breath.
“They must be desperate to get their hands on the scroll to dare something so brazen and risky. To attack us at a clan meeting surrounded by so many powerful dragons…” Damien muttered angrily, balling his hands into fists.
“Where’s the scroll now?” Ethan asked, looking to me for an answer.
Bending down, I untucked the end of my pants from my boots, and pulled up my jeans, pulling out the scroll hidden inside. “Here it is,” I said, straightening and holding it out.
Ethan took it from my hand, unfurling it.
Where it had been blank, yellowed parchment before, there were now black ink lines drawn out to look like a map.
I looked down puzzled. The landmasses looked all weird…it didn’t match the map of the Earth, but at the same time it somehow looked familiar.
The cogs in my mind slowly began to turn and I recognized where I’d seen a similar image before: in the study on the weird globe of the world there.
“Where is this?” I asked, pointing to the red x on the parchment, which I assumed was the location of the amulet.
“On a different plane,” Ethan muttered, holding the scroll out in his outstretch
ed hand and showing the rest of the guys.
“Fuck, of all places…” Liam swore, and Knox shook his head.
“Wait – what is it?” I asked, looking around at all of them for an answer.
“It’s on the border of Fae lands,” Ethan answered, sighing, rolling up the scroll. The expression on his face became serious. “We need to get the amulet as soon as possible – before any one of our enemies, finds it. Damien, Knox, Jasmine – ,” he said, looking at each of us in turn. “You need to leave immediately to find the amulet.”
“No, I don’t want to leave Drake,” I argued, earning a hard look from Ethan.
“There’s nothing you can do for him here. You’ll be of more use to us helping the others track down this amulet. I will take care of Drake with Liam. Don’t worry, he is in the best of care. We aren’t going to let anything happen to our own brother.”
I stared down at Drake’s motionless body, reluctant, as dread pitted my stomach. “At least he in a stable condition,” I breathed, reassuring myself as I felt Drake’s life-force pulsating inside my heart.
Ethan gave me a sharp look. “How do you know that?”
“J-just a guess…” I stammered, trying to cover up my fumble. Lupin’s voice rang inside my head again. “Don’t tell anyone else…it may bring unwelcome danger…”
Lupin was right. The situation regarding Drake’s mate bond with me, needed to be kept a secret. There was too much to risk and too much danger at stake. I couldn’t even trust his brothers with this piece of information.
“Okay…I’ll go,” I nodded, finally agreeing reluctantly.
Ehtan nodded, his shoulders relaxing a little at hearing my response. “Then, it’s time for you all to go,” Ethan said, motioning to the three of us. “Use the lounge room, or the study – just make sure you open the portal inside. I don’t want a repeat of our earlier incident…there might be people lurking outside, waiting for an opportunity to strike at us.”
Damien nodded, and I followed him out of the recovery room as I walked beside Knox.
Damien took us into the study, and as soon as we entered the room, my eyes searched for the globe I’d seen before and once I spotted it, I trotted over to inspect it. My memory had been right. The landmasses on the globe and the map on the scroll, were exactly the same.
“What sort of map is this?” I asked Knox and Damien, as they bent over the floor, busy drawing something on it with the tips of their fingers.
“It’s of the lay lines. The intersecting lines of magic where the different dimensions meet.”
I turned away from the globe to watch what they were doing.
Magic sparked at the tips of their fingertips as they drew two concentric circles, one smaller than the other, with a star inside. They chanted in soft voices in an archaic tongue as they drew…it wasn’t one I was familiar with, but I presumed it was some sort of language unique to dragons.
The drawing shimmered on the ground as Damien completed the final stroke, closing the drawing up. He rose to his feet, standing on the opposite side of Knox.
“Do you want to do it, or shall I?” Knox asked, looking to his brother.
“I’ll do it,” Damien replied giving a nod of his head.
He walked into the circle and dropped to the floor on one knee, extending his right arm out so his hand was flat against the floor. Closing his eyes, he bent his head down, and I watched as a burst of blue energy rose up, off the ground, whipping his hair up, engulfing and twirling around his entire frame.
I gasped, the sheer force of the magic taking my breath away.
I could still see Damien clearly through the transparent blue vapor, as the pulsating sound of the energy rolled into my ears. Raising his head, he opened his eyes and slowly stood back up, the hem of his shirt flapping, and the locks of hair whipping across his face.
He turned to me. “Come on,” he said, offering me an outstretched hand.
I looked over at Knox, who nodded at me encouragingly, nudging me forward gently with his hand.
I took a nervous step forward, then taking in a deep breath, I quickly walked all the way into the circle to take Damien’s hand. As soon as I reached the inner circle, the force of the magic gale began blowing at my hair, and whipping around at my body. The drawing on the floor glowed brighter…
Knox stepped in to stand on my other side, and I found myself being cushioned between the two of them.
“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay…trust me,” Damien lips murmured against my ear, and I closed my eyes, shivering involuntarily.
A split second later, there was a flash of blue lights, and I felt my body being sucked away, into the portal, and then, the three of us disappeared completely out of sight.
❖ ❖ ❖
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❖ ❖ ❖
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My body landed with a thump, as the portal spat me out on the hard-packed earth, and I groaned, pushing myself up on my arms, looking around to see Knox and Damien getting up from the ground not too far from me.
Slowly getting to my feet, I began checking all my bones and joints were in order, and was relieved when nothing appeared to be broken.
I dusted myself off, brushing the dirt off my clothes then lifted my gaze to look at my surroundings.
I found myself standing on a grassy plain surrounded by rolling hills and valleys, with snow-capped mountains residing in the far off distance.
“Where are we?” I murmured, slightly in awe at this untouched landscape, walking over to the two guys, who were bent over the unfurled scroll, studying the map.
Approaching them, I glanced down at the map between the gap between their two heads.
My brows scrunched down, confusion and surprise hitting me at once.
The picture had changed, and seemed to have morphed; it was now showing a detailed map of our current terrain. Judging by the marking showing where we were, and the red cross where the amulet was located, we weren’t far off from the location.
“It seems we’re in the right spot,” Damien said as he nodded down at the image showing on the map, looking up just long enough to spare me a quick glance. “We’re probably about half a day’s trek away from the location where the amulet’s hidden. If we take this route – ” he said, tracing his finger across the map, “– this looks like it’ll probably be the quickest way.”
Knox nodded his head, agreeing, as he rolled the scroll back up, and hid it safely inside his shirt. “You okay?” He turned to look at me, scanning me from head to toe for any injuries.
“I’m fine,” I replied. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m tougher than I look.”
Knox ruffled my hair. “Yes, I know, Little Lionheart.”
“Come on,” Damien said, peering up at the sky, shading his eyes as he squinted a little against the bright sunlight. “We need to hurry. The portal spell will only hold up for the next twenty-four hours.”
Knox and I followed Damien as he lead the way. All of us were anxious about finding the amulet and getting back home as soon as possible.
&nbs
p; Personally, I didn’t like the idea of being stranded here in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know enough magic to create a portal myself, and by the sounds of things, it would be difficult for Knox and Damien to create one back home from this plane in a short amount of time, because of the strong magic that had been casted over the land from many eons ago.
Even now, as I took a stepped forward, one foot after the other, I could feel the tingle of power and magic radiating off the ground. The earth sung out; a gentle melody in an ancient tongue I didn’t recognize.
❖ ❖ ❖
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“Are you sure the kid’s information was good?” Hiding in the shadow of a large oak, I silently cursed my terrible nighttime eyesight even as I rolled my eyes. Glancing only briefly at Todd, my pupils narrowed on the bored skepticism painting his face.
“Alpha Jackson believed him. That’s all that matters. Just keep your fucking eyes peeled, Todd – you know I suck at this shit.” A snigger was all that met my annoyed snap, and my eyelid twitched in irritation. Todd was the absolute last person I wanted to be on sentry duty with, no matter how bad the threat. He could’ve been the last leopard shifter in the world, and I would rather go in almost completely blind.
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