The preservation spells wrapped around the container like ghostly chains. They were intricate and deadly beautiful. Any ham-fisted attempt to break them would've killed Sarah instantly. The Pleiades power was more than brute force. It had taught me to understand the very fabric of magic itself. I let it flow through the spell work. It unraveled each thread with meticulous care.
The toxic fluid that had kept Sarah suspended between life and death shimmered and changed. Its green glow faded to crystal clear. My magic transformed the poison into something as harmless as spring water. It felt good to neutralize fifteen years of torment in mere seconds.
The container opened with a soft, almost reverent hiss and Sarah tumbled into my arms like a broken bird. Her skin was pale as moonlight and marked with the faint tracery of veins turned purple from whatever hell Lyra had put her through. She gasped and retched. Her body convulsed as it remembered how to process clean air instead of that vile suspension fluid. But she was alive. Gloriously, impossibly, beautifully alive. The moment Sarah's bare feet touched the frigid stone floor, the entire chamber seemed to inhale.
Her dark eyes found mine through the tangle of her matted hair. "You did it," she whispered in a voice like sandpaper and smoke.
"It wasn’t easy," I managed before my throat tightened with emotions I couldn't afford to feel. Not yet.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" Lyra's shriek of rage erupted from everywhere at once.
It was a sonic boom crafted from pure fury and the sound of dreams dying. It was loud, and there was a physical force to it that rattled everything. My gaze skipped around, searching for where she was located. She was nowhere to be seen, yet her voice surrounded us. Hell, the rock still vibrated with the force of her outrage. Dust was raining down like ash. This was beyond anger. It was the sound of a goddess having a tantrum.
"SHE WAS MINE! FIFTEEN YEARS OF CONDITIONING, FIFTEEN YEARS OF PERFECT PREPARATION, AND YOU'VE RUINED IT ALL!"
The words themselves hit me like physical blows. I'd destroyed something she believed was hers. She'd poured her twisted love and obsession into these people. In her mind, I hadn't freed Sarah. I'd stolen her.
The temperature in the chamber plummeted, and our breath turned to mist in seconds. Sarah shivered violently against me as ice spread across the walls in jagged chunks that looked like frozen screams. The other containers groaned under thermal shock. Hairline cracks spider-webbed across their surfaces.
"Put her back." Lyra's voice turned dangerously quiet, which was somehow more terrifying than her screaming. "Put her back in the container, and I might let you birth your children before I drain them dry."
"Go fuck yourself," I snarled at the ceiling. "With something sharp and uncomfortable."
Sarah tested her legs. She was wobbling but determined. "I can do whatever needs to be done. That bitch kept me in that thing for fifteen years. I'm not dying now. Not when I can help free the others."
The stone floor began shifting beneath us. Cracks appeared in violent zigzags to isolate us in the chamber's center. The walls started moving inward like massive stone jaws while torchesguttered out. It plunged sections into darkness where things rustled just beyond our vision.
I shuddered to think about what Sarah had been through. She didn’t even give the sections a second glance, where they made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. It was more sad proof of Lyra’s machinations.
Refocusing on what needed to be done, I put my hand on her back and prodded her forward. "Help me with Kieran," I said urgently as we moved toward the dragon shifter's container. I hoped we made it before the floor fractured completely.
Even in human form, Kieran was intimidating. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had intricate clan tattoos covering his arms. His eyes tracked our movement as we approached. He was filled with decades of banked rage over his mate and child.
"Kieran," I began, "I'm Phoebe. How about we get you out of there? I know you’ve been here a long time.”
He puffed out his chest and nodded in agreement. His amber eyes tracked to Sarah and softened. Freeing her first was a good call. It proved to the ones who were powerful enough to turn me into barbecue that I was there to help.
“YOU CANNOT FREE HIM!” Lyra screeched before she began cursing.
The walls were shaking, and I had to brace Sarah to keep her from falling. “When you get out, can you control yourself long enough to help save the others?" I asked Kieran.
“The innocents will be protected,”he told me in a mental voice that rumbled like distant thunder. “But the witch dies today.”
"On that we can agree. Just remember, we need everyone out before payback." I pinned him with my best mom look.
The chamber erupted with splintering stone as chunks of ceiling rained down. With a pounding heart, I began unraveling Kieran’s prison. To save time, I expanded my magic to several ofthe nearby glass cages. Oh shit. Something massive moved in the darkness above.
"You want to steal my collection?" Lyra's voice turned venomous. "Let me show you what happens to thieves in my domain."
Three creatures dropped from the shadows. They were things that might have once been human. Like her other creatures, they had been twisted into something else entirely. Their faces were stretched into permanent screams. And their fingers ended in claws that scraped stone as they landed with predatory grace.
"My early experiments," Lyra announced with sickening pride. "They didn't survive the transformation intact, but they make excellent guardians. Kill the women, but keep those divine babies undamaged."
"Oh, hell no." I placed myself between the creatures and Sarah. My magic surged in response to the threat.
The first creature lunged with inhuman speed, but Kieran's roar of pure dragon fury shattered his container before I could finish freeing him. Preservation fluid exploded outward as decades of suppressed rage found a target. He emerged like a force of nature.
When he landed next to me, he was steady and shifting into his partial dragon form. His hands became talons. His skin hardened into natural armor. And his eyes burned a molten gold. He caught the first creature across the throat, sending black ichor spraying across the floor.
