That was Alaric. I knew that it was. Golden dragons had been extinct, it was true. And they were said to have remarkable firepower.
As if he heard me, he spun on the three close on his tail and belched a flame of fire. When it hit the first dragon, the fire didn’t simply slide over him, it exploded into a firebomb in the night. His target exploded with it, one wing and his tail falling toward the earth, the explosion having singed the other two dragons.
Trajan engaged one of them, then I couldn’t tell who was who as they flew higher into the sky, shrieking and roaring in the clouds, jaws snapping and bodies colliding, sounding like lightning and thunder. As if Lady Fortuna had heard my thoughts, a distant crashof lightning lit up the sky, the silhouettes of fighting dragons painting the night. Then a rumble of thunder rolled a moment later.
“Jupiter seems to be watching tonight,” said the captain, standing next to me now as we slid farther away from Rome.
Yet another dragon flew from the left. Deathriders must’ve seen or heard their roars, falling into the battle with Trajan and Alaric.
I cursed, realizing my power was useless here. The plunge into the Tiber had doused the burn, but seeing my dragon, my soulmate, fighting without me had sung the power back into my veins.
A dragon darted out of the clouds then dove toward us. Another flash of lightning pierced the night, and I saw he was black-scaled. The dragon beat his wings, angled directly for the ship, sending the crew scrambling below decks.
“Come, my lady!” screamed Koska, taking my arm.
I jerked free of him. “Leave me here!”
He didn’t argue, running for cover like the others. The storm winds kicked up the sails and the gods buoyed my powers, for I felt the presence of the otherworld. Supernatural essence flooded through my body as I watched my enemy diving for me.
“Quintus,” I whispered, knowing it was him.
In the distance, my dragon roared, Trajan diving out of the clouds like a fallen star. With the others behind him, he fell toward the ship, toward me.
But my sight stayed on Quintus, halfway to me now. Unexpectedly, a memory pushed into my mind that I’d forgotten, as if Lady Fortuna had breathed it into my ear, wanting me to remember.
Jardani lay dead at my feet, his throat clawed out. Papa shouted at the creature turning away from Jardani’s body toward me, “Don’t hurt her! Leave her alone!”
Papa ran forward, half the size of the black-scaled beast but with twice as much heart. The beast was a hideous monster of all my nightmares, thedemons of Rome we’d been warned about all of our lives. His mouth gaped, his black-forked tongue hanging loose when Papa reached his side, attacking him with his bare fists.
The Roman in half-skin backhanded my father, knocking him into a tree with a crunch, where he fell and lay still.
“Papa!” I screamed as the beast gripped me by the waist and lifted me until my face was his height.
“A beauty,” he said in garbled speech I could barely understand, his forked tongue flicking out of his mouth and sliding over my neck.
“Stop!” I cried, pushing back on his shoulders and kicking with my feet uselessly.
He laughed, that same hideous sound I heard when he killed my Jardani. Furious, I swiped out with my nails, but he caught my wrist, one of his claws scraping the thin flesh beneath. A trickle of blood slipped down my forearm. The monster leaned forward and licked it clean.
“You bleed very prettily, my sweet. I think he’ll like that.”
My body vibrated with the haunting memory, of how he’d killed my father as well as Jardani. Of how he’d sold me to a master who did indeed enjoy making me bleed—not just from my body but from my heart and soul too.
Fury lanced through my body, licking upward, radiating toward my target, who was nearly upon me now. He roared with triumph, but then I raised my palms and screamed to the sky. My piercing yell resonated like a gorgon’s shriek, rattling the heavens, who answered with flashes of lightning and waves of thunder.
“Give me your blood,” I murmured, feeling my wrath whipping out of my body like a living entity, like a sword slicing its target with a hundred knives.
Quintus shrieked as blood streamed from his eyes and his nose and from beneath his scales. Not drops but rivers pouring from his body, raining down out of the sky upon me on the upper deck of theMercury. He flapped his wings, howling in pain, obviously unsure what was happening. Then his red eyes found me, all while his blood misted the air, painting the ship’s deck crimson. And me. I watched him with genuine pleasure, wanting him to feel the pain my family did as his blood rained from the skies.
My poor father tried to protect me, and this monster had swatted him like a fly. It was my turn. I flicked my hand and more blood seeped from the scales beneath his belly. He shrieked again, crying out in a watery gurgle, the fluid filling his lungs now.
“You bleed very prettily,” I told him, my voice echoing on the wind in a ghostly whisper.
Then dragon claws pierced the flesh of his back. A blue-scaled dragon clamped jaws around his neck and ripped mid-air until Quintus’s head left his body. Trajan dropped the carcass and its head into the sea. His body plummeted into the water, the waves rocking the ship. Trajan roared triumphantly into the stormy night, lightning flashing and thunder rumbling. Fireballs exploded far above as Alaric finished off the deathriders who’d come for us.
Lightning crashed overhead, the sky opening and dumping torrents of rain from the clouds. I turned my face heavenward, the rain washing the blood of my enemy from my body and all of the hurt he’d embedded deep inside me. Minerva had given me a beautiful gift, one of both power and healing.
“I will honor it,” I whispered up to the wind and rain and the stars far above, in case she was listening.
