The storm above bucked and twisted, slipping her psychic grip.
“You’re losing the eye!” Attor yelled against the howling winds, grabbing her shoulders and dragging her back from the edge. “They need you now.”
“I’ve got it—I got it!” She fought the spiraling winds, mentally forcing the pressure to hold. Lightning speared dangerously close—too close.
Race?she called through their bond, desperate to reach him.
Not...now...heart-fire. Have to...Another surge of the strange burning heat swamped her.
Her legs buckled, but Attor caught her, anchoring her. “Focus, lass!”
“I can’t,” she gasped. “Need a minute?—”
“We don’t have minutes,” Attor barked, his fear cracking through her haze. “They’re counting on you.”
Wind screamed through the peaks, tearing at her coat, the storm threatening to slip out of her control.
No, no?—
Sucking icy air into her sore lungs,Ash reached deeper within herself, clawing for power beyond bone and blood. The storm’s roar ricocheted inside her skull as she fought to maintain control. The world around her howled. Her vision bled red.
Hot wetness streamed from her nose, but she ignored it.
Every heartbeat, every shred of strength went into holding the eye steady, keeping the usurpers’ army of guards out.
Because if she fell, so would her friends, her allies, her team…her mate.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
The soft sounds of seduction,male groans, and muffled laughter, echoed through the tunnel.
Race didn’t care how Rhaedra got those guards down, as long as she did, his mind on Ash, on her dimming warmth in his chest.
Ash?
Still…holding.Her voice was a faint thread in his mind, as if she were unraveling. His dragon snarled, clawing at him.Go. Now.
The children?she rasped.
We’re almost there.The fever raged, his head throbbed, and the pressure built as if his skull would explode. He drove his fist into the granite wall, his skin splitting, bones cracking. Pain flared, sharp and bright, a welcome distraction from the rut-fire strangling him from the inside?—
The others stood quietly aside.
More laughter came from the tunnel, then it was cut short. A heavy thud echoed.
“Get here!” Rhaedra’s shout rang out.
Flexing his fingers, his skin already knitting back together, Race launched forward, Varkyn and Koal flanking him. Thesemi-shifted guard captain sprang to his feet where Rhaedra had dropped him, his throat still bleeding. He met them with a roar that shook dust from the ceiling, his weapon swinging?—
A horde of guards surged in from a back tunnel.
“Protect the forge!” someone yelled.
Steel clashed. Sparks burst. The she-dragon spun through the fray, her blade and fire keeping the guards at bay.
Race ducked under the captain’s swing, his own talons flashing. He plunged them into the male’s bleeding throat and ripped it out. Blood sprayed as he flung the body aside.
