Dove’s smirk is wicked.
The fae is glorious in his darkness, despite smelling of sunshine.
Suspicious, I narrow my eyes.
Who is this blade wrapped in a honey cake?
And why do I wish that I didn’t need to care, when he shows such closeness to nature andrevelsin it?
Why does Dove make me feel like I shouldn’t be ashamed of that side of myself because he isn’t ashamed of himself?
The Alpha dragon twists and turns, desperately attempting to help his rider. Seizing the opportunity, the Dragon Smiter looses a volley of arrows toward the underside of the dragon.
The dragon roars in pain, crashing down into the desert.
Dove and the archer exchange vicious grins. Freya points at a second ruby dragon, which is heading straight for her.
I glance over the village that has become a battlefield.
This should have been my first night with my new nest mates. But now, it’s clear that I can’t win this fight.
I clench my jaw before patting Devil’s flank. “One final journey together, my dear friend.”
Devil roars her agreement, before turning back the way that we have come. Then she gallops into the sand dunes through the glowing shrines to my ancestors, which smell like me of intoxicating incense, to draw the attacks away from White Lotus and my mates.
If the dragons mean this ambush to kill anyone in this attack, then let it be me.
I have been ready and welcoming of death from the moment that the High Priestess caught me in her web of ribbons and my twin, the other half of my soul, was torn away from me.
If it finds me tonight, then at least my soul will finally join the other shades of my family here in the ancestral shadows.
I won’t endure any more pain. Someone else can become this kingdom’s sacrifice.
Tonight, I am Freya and Dove’s.
I find myself smiling as I glance over my shoulder at the brutal warlord dragons who have raided my lands for years.
Let them think that they have finally cornered the Shadow Vampire King.
Let them drive me into the desert to die.
Yet have they never seen how fierce a rat is when cornered?
I falter, however, when I realize that none of the dragons have broken formation to follow me.
By the Void, do they wish to destroy my heart, before they destroy the rest of me?
To desecrate the place of the dead, as well as the living?
Rage surges through me.
A giant dragon swipes with its claws at the chariot, despite the sea of arrows from the Dragon Smiter, breaking the reins on the horses.
The horses rear up in terror and gallop away into the dark.
The chariot tips onto its side, crushing its riders with a terrible screech of splintering wood.
The remaining soldiers snarl, bravely holding their position around my mates. The ex-sergeant slashes the dragon’s tail with his curved sword.
