So, fight on, my dragon warrior. Live the life you were meant to live. Lead your kin. They need you. Please, I am begging you, if you can hear me, don’t come to hell. Don’t try to save me. Keep making the world a better place. You once said you believed Fate would not be denied. I remember thinking you were crazy, but now I see what you meant. Fate does have a plan, Rian. We just have to survive long enough for it happen. I need you to believe that.
I will love you forever.
Audrey eyes were so swollen from crying, the images on the screen were blurred. Her nose was stuffed up and her head hurt from sobbing, but it would all be worth it if Rian just stayed home.
Closing her eyes, Audrey said one last prayer and drifted to sleep listening to Rian talk to his men. She smiled as he said her name. The last words she heard him say before sleep won the battle was, “Good night.” She pretended he was saying them to her and answered in kind.
Good night, my love. Sleep well…
10
Rian had left Royce’s with the full intention of going home and getting a good night’s rest, but like many things in his life, that didn’t happen. He wandered aimlessly, thinking about Audrey, thinking about his family and friends, and their rescue mission to the Underworld. His mind was a whirl. Sleep was the last thing that was going to happen.
Finally ending up on the same beach where everything had started so very many years ago, the Dragon Leader could only stand and stare. The feel of the sand between his toes and the sound of the waves gently lapping at the shore began to chip away at his anxiety—a feeling he was beginning to think would be with him for the rest of his very long life.
Looking at the moon, only a few days from being full, Rian thought of the first time he met the raven-haired princess. The sound of her voice in his mind unlocked a flood of memories. As they washed over him like the surf across the sand at his feet, he saw Audrey’s violet eyes smiling at him. His arms warmed as if she were actually there with him. Her scent—the sweet alluring fragrance of the wild Bellflowers that only grow in the river valleys—filled his senses just as they overrode even the scent of brimstone and sulfur when he summoned her.
Chuckling to himself, the Dragon Leader thought about how very much his mate was like those little violet, bell-shaped flowers. His Audrey had a soul of incomparable compassion and untold understanding. Her warrior’s heart was strong. Once she decided to love someone, it was unconditionally and completely. Amazing was a mere word when compared to the woman the Universe had made for him and him alone. She was his light, his love…his everything.
But like those tiny little flowers, his mate was not to be trifled with. She was not afraid to fight for what she believed in and those whom she loved with every ounce of strength in her body. Audrey may not have nettles covering her petals to warn predators to stay away like the Bellflowers but when angered, she brought the old saying hell hath no fury to life. Rian had seen firsthand that not even the Devil’s right hand man could back his princess into a corner.
Sitting on the sand, the Dragon Leader let everything but Audrey and the good times they’d had together so far fade away. He watched the reflection of the moon on the water turn to a soft glow as the time when the moon has gone and the sun has yet to rise, settled over his little part of the world. A voice from his childhood drifted softly across his consciousness. A calm he hadn’t felt since Audrey had been ripped away from him almost a month before filled his being.
“It is always darkest before the dawn, stór giolla. Follow your heart. It will never lead you astray.”
“Thank you, máthair,” was all he could say to the mother he’d lost so very long ago. She was still with him in spirit, cheering him on as she always had. Riona’s reassurance was the last piece of the puzzle, the little extra push Rian needed to stand, send one final message through the mating bond to Audrey, whether she could hear it or not, and head home to prepare for the mission of his lifetime.
“Tha gaol ogam ort, mo ghra’. See you soon.”
In less than an hour, Rian showered, dressed, packed, and stood waiting at the training pitch for the others. Methodically and with attention every detail, he played their plans over and over in his head, checking and double-checking for anything he’d missed or forgotten. At exactly eight a.m., everyone was assembled.
Needing to say something before the chaos began, Rian cleared his throat and waited until he had everyone’s attention. “I don’t know how to thank each and every one of you for your willingness to help bring Audrey home. It will not be forgotten. I’ve rehearsed about a thousand ways to tell you how much this means to me, but they all seem incredibly inadequate. So here is all I have—Thank you.”
There was a momentary silence and for the first time since he’d been named Head Elder, Rian had no idea what anyone was thinking. Couldn’t read their faces or feel their emotions. Maddox had told him it only happened when both man and dragon were truly overwhelmed. Not something easily done for an immortal dragon and the warrior who shared his soul. One look at the mad dragon and the Dragon Leader knew. The older man simply nodded in understanding.
No truer words were ever spoken.
The spell was broken when Rory yelled, “Let’s go kick some demon ass!”
The crowd roared with all manner of battle cries and ‘hell yeas’. Even the witches helping Kyra and Calysta were cheering. Rian could only smile at how fortunate he was to have such amazing family and friends.
Time seemed to be simultaneously speeding past home and also standing still. Simple tasks like loading extra weapons and supplies into the duffle bags took forever, while the ninety minutes it took to get to the site of the portal and for the witches to set up the Sacred Circle for the ritual to get them into hell flew by. There was no rhyme or reason to the passing of time. It was his best friend and worst enemy all wrapped into an entity he had no control over. Only one thing remained constant; Rian couldn’t get to Audrey fast enough.
He looked around the valley beside the mountain that housed the Cave of the Ancients and wondered if his ancestors ever knew there was a portal to the Underworld so close to the place they built their lair. Somehow, he knew it had been part of their master plan. Everything those old dragons had done had been with future generations in mind. They’d left nothing to chance.
Rian had worried about using the portal so close to the lair. He feared the safety of all his kinsmen he and the Dragon Guard had sworn to protect. However, both Kyra and Calysta assured him that they, along with the McKennon witches, could and would create a strong enough Protection Spell to keep all the bad in while the Guardsmen where rescuing Audrey and Kayne. He’d asked Calysta where Eleanor and Elmer were and the Grand Priestess had huffed something about ‘useless witches who weren’t powerful enough to tie their shoes’ and kept preparing for the ritual.
“We’re ready if you are, Ri,” Kyra called from her position in the middle of the Circle. He knew she was still very upset with his decision that she stay topside, but she was being a team player and did her job like the dynamo she was.
“You heard her. Time to go.”
Once the Guardsmen had taken their place around the Circle, a witch then took hers between them so they stood dragon, witch, dragon, witch, all the way around. Calysta explained it would make their combined magic stronger, which would get them farther into hell and closer to Adramelech’s castle.
When everyone stood hand-in-hand, Kyra began. “We call upon the Goddess of All the Universe who created everything, Guardians of the North, East, South, and West, along with the Elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, to lend us your power, give us your blessing, and join us as we venture into the Abyss.”
The tiny witch stood and walked around the interior of their circle, dropping a mixture of ground blessed thistle, camellia, red clover, and orrisroot, which she’d earlier explained possessed the powers of protection on both masculine and feminine form. When that was completed, Kyra then walked the circle again, but this time she stopped at each of the Four Corners, lit the large white column candles, asking the appropriate Guardian and Element again for their blessing and support. Her path ended back in the center of the circle next to a huge white candle that she knelt before.
Any other time Rian would’ve laughed when because of her small five-foot-frame, Kyra could barely see over the candle, but on this day, all he could do was look at her in awe. His brother was lucky to have her; they all were. After several seconds of silence, the little witch spoke with a reverence the Dragon Leader could feel in the very fiber of his being.
