Page 42 of Mad Dragon of Chaos

There was only one way to stop this chaos. Adrian had to find Haru and help him get the magic under control. They’d made a mistake in leaving the goddess’s powers in him. They’d thought Haru could stay in control, and he could…so long as nothing happened to Adrian.

On the bright side, a rusted fire escape was outside Adrian’s window. Under normal circumstances, Adrian wouldn’t have touched it, but he didn’t have any choice. He needed to get to Haru. Adrian conjured up another knife and worked it around the window, cutting through what felt like decades of grit and grime, loosening it from the wooden framing enough that he could slide it up with a minimum amount of noise. It was an annoyingly slow process, forcing him to stop every so often to make sure he hadn’t caught the attention of his captors.

The second he had the opening wide enough to squeeze out, he shimmied onto the fire escape that groaned and squealed under his weight. Fuck it. There was no helping it now. Adrian charged down the rungs, his heart racing with every step he took. The metal fire escape trembled under his feet, threatening to collapse beneath him. He was only four stories up on the side of what appeared to be a brick apartment building, but he had no desire to plummet those last couple of floors to the hard concrete below.

At the bottom of the ladder, Adrian let out a cry and hit the ground hard. Pain shot up both legs, and he stumbled several steps, finally catching himself against the wall of the next building. But he didn’t stop. Limping, Adrian ran away from his temporary prison, searching for a major street. He didn’t know where in Sirelis he was or even where Haru was. But he had a guess.

As he reached a street clogged with cars that people even now were abandoning, Adrian looked toward the north to see that the sky had taken on a deep red cast, as if the very air was on fire. Black clouds swirled, forming an ever-widening funnel. The ground trembled under Adrian’s feet. There was the center of the nightmare. The gaping wound that was Haru’s heart. That was where he had to go to save his mate.

SIXTEEN

SHEY THRUDESH-VO

Shey tightened his grip on Tyche’s hand as they ran through the main corridor. He’d been loath to leave his mother behind, but they couldn’t fix this from a distance. There was no one else besides him and Tyche who could reach Haru. Especially if something had happened to Adrian. If he wanted to save the people of Sirelis, he needed to find that dragon.

After a few more turns, they reached a set of wide doors that opened to a balcony, which presented a perfect view of the city. But it was a vision of Sirelis Shey had never seen before. The sky was pitch black, with faint lights from the buildings barely more than pinpoints piercing the gloom. Yet to the far south, the sky was a blood red with swirling mists of black. It was the neighborhood where he’d seen Adrian and Haru set down after taking out the ships in the harbor.

From that bleak region, piercing screams, moans, and dragon roars arose. Goose bumps formed on Shey’s arms, and something hard sank deep in his gut. While it was hard to tell from this distance, it looked as if buildings were missing, replaced by jagged rocks that shot up from the streets.

“This seems worse than anything we’ve seen yet. Tell me I’m wrong.” Shey tore his eyes from the scene.

Tyche shook his head, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the city. His voice was soft, but his words sounded so haunted. “No, this is worse. Something happened to Adrian. It’s the only thing that could have caused this. He’s dead or wounded. Maybe…if we’re lucky…they got separated.”

Shey ripped his hand away from Tyche’s and took a step back. The heavy weight in his stomach turned into a ball of ice. “He’s not dead!”

The words tumbled out of him not just because they’d be damned in the worst way if Tyche was right. He didn’t want Adrian to be dead. The Erya royal guard was a good man. A funny, caring man who didn’t deserve to die so young. Haru and Adrian had headed off on their own only an hour ago. Maybe two. How could something have happened so quickly?

No, he refused to believe it.

“He’s not dead,” he repeated as much for himself as for Tyche. “Adrian is tied to the God of Hope. Even if it’s not a lot of power, he’s got some. It has to give him some protection.”

Tyche’s brow furrowed as he gazed at the city. A few seconds ticked by before the God of Luck nodded. “You’re probably right. It must mean they’ve been separated, and Haru is panicking. If Adrian had been injured, Haru would have scooped him up and carried him directly here. We need to find them.”

“Agreed, but…” Shey’s voice faded as he stared at his city. Sirelis was over two thousand square miles, from the harbor to the wall, from the palace to the historic district, and everything else in between. How the hell were they supposed to locate Adrian? Finding Haru didn’t feel like a big problem. The dragon had to be in the middle of the red and black swirling mist.

“Caelan!” Tyche shouted, startling Shey out of his wandering thoughts. His companion swung around and grabbed both of his arms. “Can you call Caelan? He could sense something from Adrian. Or maybe they can talk telepathically. Fuck! I don’t know. Something, right?”

Because of that magical link between them. It made sense. And by now, Caelan was likely to have returned to Stormbreak, making it possible for Shey to reach him.

Shey ripped his new cell phone from his pocket and nearly dropped it in his haste to pull up the phone number he had programmed into it.

The call rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Until it went to voice mail.

Shey paced and lowered the phone to end the call rather than leave a message. “Fuck!”

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s not answering. He might be in a meeting.”

Tyche waved his hands at Shey as if he were trying to chase away such thoughts. “No, it’s more likely someone is trying to convince him not to hop on his boyfriend and fly here. He would have felt it if Adrian had been hurt.” Tyche huffed and made a face as he suggested, “Do you have Rayne’s number?”

He did, actually, even though it didn’t feel safe to admit it. Rather than saying anything, he pulled up Rayne on his phone and called the number. Thankfully, it rang only twice before Rayne answered.