The growls and snapping jaws halt. The noise quiets. Smoke clears. Three hellhounds look up at me with big blood red eyes. Nyra’s tawny wolf looks to Vanitee in the shadows. Vanitee tilts her head up high until we’re holding each other’s gazes. She nods only once to me.
And then I know.
“She’s killed the queen!” Someone screams out.
Roars of all kinds erupt. A fury of batting wings take flight around me as knifelike pain hits me from all angles.
“Get her! Get her!” The words of the fae are a vengeful chant among the screams of violence.
Their daggers of magic slice against my scales, burning, stinging, paining me in a thousand tiny pinpricks of agony. My tail lashes in a flame of fire that burns the smell of flesh and wings into the midnight air. Those screams slice the air with fear, anger rising with each crashing second.
I break through the layer of creatures clinging to my feet and hovering above my head. My talons claw out at anything within reach as my wings push down furiously, and I fly up in a panic to escape the pressing feel of those thousands of nails sinking into my scales. Their bodies tumble off of me, but their magic continues to sear into my flesh until it burns right through. A roar so loud it shakes my lungs as it leaves my body is all I can think about as my flight falters, and the throbbing sensation of cool wind flitting through my right wing is all I feel. Another biggush of wind forces through that wounded space, and I nearly tumble right to the dirt.
Sharp teeth snap at the onslaught of violence as several wolves and beasts try to keep the fae at bay.
There are too many. I have to get away. I need to save myself from them before they rip me apart little by little.
With a huff of hot coals in my throat, I throw fire out at them blindly. The smell of smoke is thick in the air. With all my might, I push myself to soar higher. A stumbling pace lifts me little by little as I blaze out more and more fire, and soon a meager amount of space separates me from the others.
I search the ground for those intense hellish eyes of the High Hell.
Where are they? Where are they? Where are they?
It isn’t a mane of inky fur or crimson eyes that draws me to them. It’s the way he says my name. It’s a vow of a sentiment. It’s the sweetest voice I’ll ever hear as long as I live.
And it’s spoken with the breathlessness of death clinging to his tone. I hear it … I hear it within myself even.
“Cers. Cersia,” Avian whispers so faintly but so peacefully, I’d recognize his gentle voice even among a war zone.
Which we’re currently in.
Flames of fire and broken bodies litter the ground. And there among all the death and dying lies a naked shifter. I can’t see his beautiful features, but I know it’s him. I especially know it’s him by the other two men surrounding their friend.
Avian.
The creatures I nearly stomp over as I land and come barreling toward them are nothing more than an afterthought as I lean in so close my snout brushes his chest. His breath fans my face in shuddering exhales of pain. His hand lifts but falls to his side before he ever touches me. And his heart... his fuckingheart beats so slowly, it hurts my own soul to hear the pause of silence between every thud.
“Creatchin struck him. Her magic it’s deadly. He’s hurt. He’s hurt.” Roman’s lifting his friend, one arm thrown over his broad shoulders as he staggers toward me.
Zilo lifts him carefully on his other side, and the two of them fling Avian over my neck with a grunt that leaves the poor man in a breathless cough. Then they, too, are climbing up my wing and onto the large space upon my back.
“We have to go. Calm your mind, beautiful,” Roman says in a rush. “Fly us out of here, and calm your mind. Avian can get us out of here with your help. Avain, stay with us,” Roman whispers and my heart thunders in my ears.
Beasts: wolves with two heads, demons with long horns, and fae with frightening teeth are all hurtling toward us with flames, magic, and swords all pointed our way.
“Get her!” someone yells out from somewhere in the distance.
It’s no longer my future on the line.
It’s Avian’s life.
I wanted so desperately to destroy their queen when I was so certain I’d be saving realms and worlds of people. Now, I can’t help but think about what this world would feel like without Avian in it.
His shy smile and warm voice shiver through my mind.
My wings shove hard, and with every move they make, agony strikes through the wound in my right shoulder that’s stabbing through my spine. I fight through it and carry us higher. Higher and higher until I can smell the peace of the clouds and feel the light of the stars upon my face.
It feels like hope.
