I realized what she’d noticed, and I turned to Xander, lifting some of his blond hair so I could see the marks. He nodded. “Yes, they’re definitely Daelighter symbols.”
Laous regarded the wall, scowling. “Lucky you’re all so diligent in helping me with my task. I never would have found this location otherwise. There are a lot of wards here blocking the network energy, among other things.”
“Guess someone saw your evil ways coming a long time ago,” Callie said, staring daggers at him.
He moved in a flash, reached out to smack her in the face … or maybe grab her; it was hard to tell in the dark. Before he could touch her though, Daniel’s hand shot out and wrapped around Laous’s throat. He lifted the man with almost no effort, throwing him solidly back against the wall with the wardings.
Laous’s people—except Rao—immediately went into attack mode, lashing out with something that flashed brightly in the darkness. Lexen’s hand become a blur of white light; it looked like a path of ice followed the movement of his palm. He intercepted whatever had been thrown at us, sending it shooting off across the water that ran nearby.
“Stop,” Laous shouted, stumbling to his feet. “Let’s just get the damn stone.”
He eyeballed both of his people, sending them a silent message. The woman looked furious, but she backed up without another word, lowering her hands.
“So,” Emma said wryly, breaking the last of the tension. “Anyone bring a shovel?”
Lexen, still looking all muscled up and pissed off, shook his head before sending a half smile toward his mate. “Always underestimating me,” he grumbled, his voice very deep.
The white lights in his eyes were there again. They spread out across his body and down his arms. He grew larger but didn’t do the full shift. His hands started to change first, scales almost completely covering them, which hadn’t happened last time. His fingers curved into long, razor-sharp-looking talons.
“That’s a little more dragon than usual,” Emma said breathlessly, her eyes very wide.
He winked at her but didn’t speak. I wondered if the more dragon he went, the fewer human abilities he had. His phone slipped out of the clawed hand and would have hit the ground if Chase’s branch arm didn’t shoot out and capture it.
It really said a lot about my life recently that my friends were dragons and trees and I barely even blinked when it happened.
“A little closer to the river,” Chase told Lexen, examining the screen.
Lexen took two steps forward, his longer legs crossing the distance to the river in no time.
Chase nodded. “Start there.”
The moonlight didn’t show us a lot of details, but I could certainly hear Lexen tearing up the ground with ease. “What’s the time?” I whispered to Xander. “Is it nearing dawn?”
“Maybe forty minutes until, judging by the feel in air,” he replied, his voice a whisper across my neck.
That low tone immediately brought me back to our afternoon together. He’d whispered words across my skin the entire time we were together. Xander was very open and free with compliments, and at no time had any of them felt fake or cheesy. I had felt beautiful with him, sexy and desirable in a way I never had with any other man. Xander brought out a side in me I didn’t even know was there. Wanton. Needy. Sex-addicted, apparently.
Lexen looked to be about three feet deep now, digging very fast. “I’m not sure this is the right spot,” Callie said, leaning over the hole. “Shouldn’t the stone like … give off a lot of energy if it’s as powerful as rumor says?”
We all leaned in closer, and just like Callie, I didn’t notice a change in energy at all.
“Maybe the wardings block that?” Maya offered.
Lexen continued on for some time—at about ten feet down he gave up, jumping back onto the land in a single powerful leap.
“So, what do we do now?” Emma asked. “Should we just keep digging around here? Maybe the coordinates are a little off because the area has shifted in the years since the Draygo buried the stone?”
No one disagreed with her theory. Lexen moved to another section. For the next twenty minutes, Lexen dug one hole after another, but there was no sign of the stone.
Laous was also growing frustrated. “Do not make me go to war over this,” he said finally, after huffing around for five minutes, staring at the symbols on the wall. “I’m very close to the completion of my plan. I will not let anyone stand in my way.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Maya snapped, and I wasn’t the only one blinking at her. Maya was not really the swearing type. She seemed to be much calmer in general than the rest of us. Her and Chase both. “We’re all here because of you and your bullshit. You’re a selfish asshole, and while I am sympathetic to your childhood, that gives you no excuse for your actions.”
Flames licked up and down Laous’s arms, but he didn’t even seem to notice, his gaze locked on Maya. “I never should have told you that story,” he admitted roughly. “I never expected you to escape and be able to relay that to anyone else.”
Daniel opened his mouth but Laous cut him off before he could speak. “No, nephew, I do not have any interest in your thoughts on it. No one cared when I was locked in hell, and I will never be in that position again. There is only one way to assure that, only one power strong enough to mean I’ll never be truly powerless again. And you have five minutes to find it or I’m going to start killing humans.”
No one immediately piped up and said that he no longer controlled Astoria, which made me wonder if maybe we weren’t 100 percent sure that he didn’t still have hostages there. Or somewhere else we didn’t know about.
