Lærke isn’t having it; she’s furious with her brother as she stares himdown now, in the deadliest standoff I’ve ever come across. He holds his ground, not menacing her with his fangs, though he rakes his black talons across the stony earth. She stares at him, glittering white with her green spiked tail snaking over the beach in the sun.
Before finally snorting—and walking away.
We shift down now, and it’s only then I realize Bjorn and Ström were also still in dragon form, standing firm at my back for a fight with Lærke. But she seems to have lost her piss and vinegar about what we’ve done; as we all shift down, I watch her walk away as her beautiful white dragon, over the sand.
Mikkel’s black eyes are barren, however, as he watches her go. As I step up beside him now, he glances at me—so much love, devotion, wrath, and hate in his dark eyes, I don’t even know what to say.
“She’ll cool off. Eventually,” he says to me as he looks back at her. “She’ll have to…”
“How are you?” I ask him now—understanding that basically our dragons just took each other, without our human brains or hearts having any say in what went down. Our supernatural magics hijacked both of us to make this bond. It doesn’t make it any better, but it makes it somewhat more understandable as I stand beside Mikkel on the beach, and Bjorn and Ström step up beside me, human again.
No one saying anything, as we all watch Lærke walk away.
“Think she’ll forgive us?” Ström asks as we watch her.
“I doubt it.” Mikkel draws a deep breath. “I’m not sure I will even forgive me…”
“You saved our lives in a pinch.” I turn to him now, reaching out to take his hand.
Which he subtly jerks away, though I feel how much it breaks his heart to do it.
“Do you want to leave this bond?” I ask quietly now, as I watch him.
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” he says, just as quietly as he stares offafter his sister. “I did what had to be done in the moment. I did my part, but the cost for me… is high.”
“She’ll come around. I’m sure of it,” Ström says as he watches Lærke go.
“Are you?” Mikkel asks, before he heaves the most barren chuckle I’ve ever heard.
But we have no more time to process as a powerful force swoops in all around. Over twenty dark black, red, and purple Bone Magic dragons are roaring to a landing all around us now, as we whirl in shock at their sudden arrival.
They surround us in a ring on the beach. All of them shimmer with caustic oilslick black runes in the sunlight, as we roar up into our own beasts now, ready to fight.
A blazing violet-red net of Alfhild Fey’s handiwork is cast up around us to prevent us from escaping. That net makes us crash to the ground now, shifting back down into our human forms as it affects us, despite Mikkel’s power in our bond.
It’s then that Alfhild herself comes striding in through her dragons, who I understand now are her Bone Mage thief ring.
Here to destroy us, for good.
30
FIGHT
“Ström Eriksson. You’ve escaped my little test. Well, color me impressed.” Alfhild comes to us on the beach, clapping her black-gloved hands in a mockery of true applause. Her red-haired beauty is searing in the bright day, luminous as her wild red hair fans in the gusting wind.
Though her dragon aura is so very dark.
“Alfhild,” Ström says coldly as she stops just beyond the barrier we’re encased in. Though it doesn’t seem to affect our bodies since her curse isn’t inside us now, I feel how Alfhild’s power is bolstered by every dragon standing in this ring around us.
All her drakes, to the last of them.
“They’re all yours, aren’t they?” I say now, understanding something about her as my instinct flares, bolstered by Aesa’s Truthstone. “You’ve bound them and taken them prisoner to your power to be your muscle in a heist, just like Ström was your brains. But you lost your extra wit in your endeavors when you lost him. It pissed you off he was the one who got away when no one else had ever escaped you. You wanted to punish him…”
“Good girl.” She applauds me now as she turns towards me, pinning me with her vivid green eyes, sparkling in the sun. “Our young Bloodwalker Hög Skjaldmær, if I’m not mistaken. You’re pretty, in a rough-and-tumble, shieldmaiden kind of way. I can see why Ström likes you, but you must know I’m better for him, young drakaina. Better for him in every way. And most certainly, in the bedchamber.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Ström snarls, before I can do it for him.
“Ström, darling. Temper,” she says with the sweetest, most condescending smile as she turns towards him. “I’ve got you surrounded, sweetheart; you can’t escape me, even with all Mikkel’s power in your Bloodwalker’s bond now. I just might allow you to come back to me, however, if you forswearher.” She juts a thumb at me. “And kill her for me, so I don’t have to piss off our King. Hmm?”
