“No.” It’s the first refusal of my life directed straight at Bale.
His fists clench at his sides. “If you don’t come with us, I’m taking Fyrestar anyway.”
My eyes shoot wide, and my heart spasms violently. “Don’t.”
“I have to. And I know if I ask, he’ll come.” Bale’s whole face transforms into something I don’t even recognize. Is this what his enemies see right before he rips them in half? I shudder as the next horrible words leave his mouth. “I’ll take Rimblaze too. I’ll need him to replace you.”
My insides hollow in dread. “No! He hasn’t passed his tests.”
“This is his test.” He looks at me harshly. “And yours.”
I start to shake all over, rage and fear so mixed together that I don’t know which is which. “Fine.” My nostrils flare, my breath storming in and out. “But leave Rim out of this. It will be your fault when I’m dead. And if Fyrestar dies, I’ll kill you.”
Bale doesn’t look triumphant at all as he wraps his arms around my waist and takes off, only his shadow wings lifting us both. Locking me against his chest, he flies out the huge, soaring window, calling for Fyrestar to join us as dawn cracks the night darkness over the spiny mountaintops like a jagged rip in the sky.
I grab Bale’s shoulders and hold on, but I refuse to throw my legs around him, this time letting them dangle. Drayke Mountain slips past us, the rough granite walls and carved terraces glowing pink and orange with first light. The wind scrapes over me from one side, the rest of me sheltered by Bale. I feel even more powerless in this position, torso to torso, his fiery, windblown scent surrounding me, and his warm arms infuriatingly reassuring, despite it all.
My voice trembles with wrath. “I fucking hate you right now.”
“Good,” he growls. “Because right now, I fucking hate you too.” His gaze tracks Fyrestar, watching my phoenix speed up and angle down. “I saved the best for you,” he mutters. “Closest to the heart.”
My eyes jerk up, too close to his chin. He doesn’t look at me, his flat mouth and granite-hewn jaw seeming to brutally hold in anything else he might say and then regret. I don’t fully understand, although I’m certain he’s talking about my warbirds. “What do you mean? The damaged scales?” He doesn’t answer. “Bale!” How could he have saved anything for me? He didn’t even know I existed until decades after he created the phoenixes and the Elite Wing.
His grip tightens, sending a shock of sensation up my spine and down my legs.
“Why are you doing this?” I grind out. “If you have answers, I want them.” I wanted them centuries ago.
“When did life suddenly give us what we want?” Something in his voice slices at my heart. Such bleakness. Eons of it hollow out his words.
I don’t let sympathy steal my fury. “I’m not talking about life. I’m talking about you.”
The wind snatches his dry huff almost before I hear it. “Maybe I’m talking about you too.”
His low words explode inside me in a tangle of heat and confusion. They barely have time to penetrate before he opens his arms and drops me. I fall, watching Bale shift above me in a roar of fire and wind. All dragon now, he dives but stays close, huge and dark beside me as I flip over to find Fyrestar flying in.
I settle onto Fyrestar’s back, and we soar over the rooftops of Drayke alongside Bale. I’m out of the mountain now, my choice taken from me the second Bale threatened to bring Fyrestar and Rim in my stead. They’d want to go if he asked, and the thought of making them choose between us makes me sicker than I already am.
Bale’s other words still rattle around inside me like a discordant note from an unexpected tune, but I find myself just as unexpectedly readjusting my mindset. I start hardening my fear into strength and siphoning my emotions into that place inside me that’ll wake up like a thunderclap and turn me into a force almost as deadly and formidable as Bale.
If I’m going to fight vampires, I’m going to fight them like a rabid animal and cut through them so fast they won’t have a chance to bite.
We join the rest of the team on the southern outskirts of Drayke and leave the city behind. The faster we fly, dawn pouring over me in a splash of sunlight, the more I want to fight. My heartbeat settles into a new, vengeful rhythm, and my dread-filled hesitation in the war room starts to feel like it came from a different person.
These vampires want blood? I’ll make them bleed. And then I’ll deal with the Dragon King.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
IDALLIA
With the wind against us, it takes longer than it should to reach the southern peaks of the Silver Moon Mountains. We left at dawn and made two quick stops to eat, but even at dragon and phoenix speed, it takes us the entire day and then some to reach where the vampires might be. At least we’re not bound by roads and can fly straight as an arrow. The only resistance to our direct path southeast across Torridaig is the cold east wind coming out of Fanghaven.
“It’s past dusk,” Bale calls out to us. “They’ll be on the move but blending into the mountains and shadows. Keep your eyes peeled!”
I’d wanted to find the vampires still hiding from sunlight, though spotting them in a cave or under a deep overhang from this high up would be nearly impossible. It would’ve made for an easier fight. They’d have been hemmed in, and we could’ve plowed through them like summer hay. I even started fantasizing about catching some and forcing them into the daylight.
Sadly, my vicious daydream set with the sun.
Kellan pipes up from behind me for the first time all day. “Watch those slopes on the left. There’s a cart road at the base and a deer track higher up. They could be on either.”
