“What?” She glanced at Aba, who seemed frozen, then back to Nate.
His tormented gaze came back to hers. “I can’t live this way any longer,laika.”
“But you’re giving in to it by going there!”
“It’s the only way it will stop tormenting me in here—” He stabbed a finger against his skull. “I cannot think. I have no peace. All I feel is…” He shook his head.
Agony?Dear goddess! Anguish daggered her chest at his suffering. “Then we will come with you.”
“No, I don’t know what this place is like.”
“Intolerably hot. Inhabited by the wraconis that feed on fear, blood, and death,” Aba whispered.
“You knew?” Nate’s tortured expression was one of betrayal. “And still you gave it to me?”
His features ashen, Aba shook his head. “No, I didn’t harvest this one. I have no idea how Azgor came to have it. I thought it was a Ys wyvern when I stole it from his private collection. Today, at the fight, I learned the truth of what your symbiont was when I saw your red-tipped wing, and knew it was why Azgor kept us bound to him.” He swallowed. “Nate, when I found you in that alley, I knew a symbiont was your only chance at life,” he again. “You were human. I wanted you stronger than these demons. But I didn’t know, didn’t realize the consequences—”
“Open the portal,” Nate cut him off.
His despair a dark cloud, Aba nodded, and lifted his hands. The air split, revealing a swirling blackness. Nate lurched into the opening, and the abyss swallowed him.
No! Ely leaped through the portal and into a blast of oppressive heat, dead sure she’d fallen into a hot, suffocating oven. The immense dry heat and sulfur saturating the land had her pressing her nose into her biceps. Sweat dripped down her face and back.
Sporadic orange glows flared, lighting up the place, revealing several furious volcanoes, spitting flames and dotting the desolate landscape. New cracks split open in the trembling ground, bleeding lava, joining the molten rivers flowing down the mountainside.
Shit. This place was a death trap!
Aba appeared at her side, jaw clenched, watching Nate as he continued forward, dragging his feet and massive, single wing over the heated granite ground toward a narrow crack in the soaring black cliffs some distance away. But the fractured fissures running along the granite rockface between the mountainous volcanoes Nate approached appeared to be closing.
“Aba, we can’t let Nate go through with whatever he plans!”
“I know,” he rasped. “I wish I knew what else to do. I could hold him down and remove the symbiont, but then he would die. If we don’t, we still lose him.”
No, she refused to accept that! “What about those other symbionts on him?”
Aba shook his head. “Dead. It’s been years, and none of them have ever awakened. I kept watch—”
Screeches echoed. Furious flapping stirred the dense air. Two, massive ashy-black wraconis, the size of a five-story building, appeared high above, beating their immensely long, leathery wings with the jagged, red-tinged spines throwing off even more flames. Her Gaian weapon tattooed on her biceps pulsed at the evil closing in on them.
“They would sense fresh meat—us—here,” Aba muttered, lips twisting.
The screams grew louder, almost annihilating her eardrums, and Ely winced, grateful they hadn’t noticed Nate yet.
Too damn bad if they wanted him. She’d never let that happen.He is mine!
She flexed her tingling fingers, threads of gray streaking beneath the pale skin on her hands. Her breaths escaping in harsh pants, she waited, ignoring the pulsing weapon inked on her biceps. The beasts came closer, their flapping wings sending a scorching gale force toward Aba and her, and she stumbled back a step. Grunting, she flung up her hands and snagged the Wraconis’ shadows reflected on the opposite rockface, immobilizing them in their flight trajectory. Thunderous shrieks erupted.
“Go!” Aba yelled. “I’ll deal with them.”
Ely took off after Nate, ducking the dangerously thrashing wings with spikey ends, but a sharp spine caught her biceps. Shit. She gritted her teeth, ignoring the searing pain, and pushed forward, but the oppressive air slowed her down. Nate entered the narrowing crevice, and the rockface creaked, continuing to close around him—
No, no, no!Breathing in a huge gulp of hot, stinky air, she pressed harder, but it was like moving through molasses. The gap shut.
“Open, godsdammit!”She rammed her fists against the burning rockface.You’re not fucking stopping me!Her heart pounding inside her head, she stared up at the looming cliff.
Jaw hardening, she stepped back, shut her burning eyes, and lunged into the granite—
And stumbled into burning heat on the other side.
