The spineless bastard!
Leya lifted her arms up, magic crackled like electricity, and her entire being sizzled. Power flew out, slamming against the bars and knocking the cage free from its spelled hold.
It flew across the void, out of the sparking wards, and hit the granite wall before crashing to the ground in a deafening clatter of twisting metal. The bars crumpled but held. His sire lay folded in an awkward angle.
Flames roared from below, shooting higher and higher. His gaze snapped back to his precious mate as she hovered high above.
A snarl ricocheted—
Leya flew across the warded chasm, hitting the rockface far above Aerén, his powers snapping back into him as she tumbled into a free fall—
No!Aerén leaped up and caught her before she fell to her death.
A blast of power rammed him, sending him flying across and hitting the gravelly ground. He rolled, crashing into a rock, keeping her tucked to him so he didn’t land on her.
The fucker!
Breathing hard, he scanned for the asshole, but the bastard’s hazy glimmer above the abyss, along with his wards, had vanished.
He wanted to go to his sire who remained unmoving, but Leya moaned, her face as pale as the falling snow. Her brow creased in pain. Careful not to jolt her, he set her down on the ground and reached for the arrow in her calf, broke, and removed it.
Blood gushed, soaking his fingers, and her jeans. He was grateful it wasn’t a fucking bespelled arrow. He laid his palm on her injury to heal, but his power trickled.
Shit.He ripped a strip off his torn tunic and tied it around her calf.“Leya?”
Her dark eyes flickered open, bright with pain. “I’m…I’m fine. Your father. Go…”
He helped her to sit—
“You dare take my prize?”The wavering specter reappeared, his dark voice booming a short distance from them, sending cascades of rocks crashing down.“For that, she will forfeit her life!”
This bastardagain!
Aerén pushed Leya behind him, glaring at the floating figure in a deep red, hooded cloak hovering over the flaming abyss.
“Not fucking happening!” Power roiled beneath Aerén’s skin, but only a smidgen slipped free.
“It’s good to see one like you utterly useless despite all that power.” The fucker laughed, the sound like glass splintering.
Jaw clenched, Aerén channeled the bit of power into a rope and flung it out, the electricity lassoing the bastard. He yanked, but the rope slipped through the sorcerer’s transparent form. His hood fell off, revealing a jagged scar on his red-hued face.
“You’re a spinelesscaeniwho hides behind magic!” he taunted. “Afraid to face me in your corporeal form?”
The sorcerer’s cloaked figure stilled like the calm before a storm, then it flickered.
“Keep the weak male you call king,”his disembodied voice reverberated, sounding like a rolling drum.“But this is just the start. The end is near. The magic is lost. Light will become dark, a new reign will begin…”And he winked out. Flames shot up from the abyss, searing the rockface.
Dammit! He had to get Leya and his sire out of this hellhole fast.
Aerén sprinted back for the smashed cage and faltered as he laid eyes on his sire up close. A skeleton with matted blue hair, a sunken belly, and unhealed whip marks on his chest and back. His pants bore huge slashes. The skin on his legs and torso sported unhealed, burned patches.
Leya, wounded as she was, hobbled over and dropped to her knees. She gently wiped away the blood from hispateri’sface with the back of her hand.
Before grief brought him to his knees, he scooped up his sire’s skeletal body. His hands fell in uncoordinated movements. His arms were broken.
Aerén pulled his rage deep into his gut.I will get reprisal for this, pateri.
A terrifying creak resonated as rocks shifted, and the volcano started crumpling inward.
