Page 46 of Mad Dragon of Chaos

The images that disturbed him were the dead and mangled corpses that resembled Adrian. Each was slightly different, dead from different methods. Tyche prayed this meant Haru didn’t know where Adrian was or what had happened to him. His frantic mind was simply conjuring up possibilities to torture him.

Tyche abandoned the motorcycle when the road turned into broken rubble. Two-story flames danced in the hollowed-out shell of a building, while spikes of jagged stone jutted from the ground and stabbed at the black sky. The helmet fell from Tyche’s limp fingers as he peered at the road ahead of him. Hundreds of dead Adrians littered the ground.

“I made a mistake.”

A bitter laugh almost tumbled from Tyche’s parted lips as he stared at the twisted scene in front of him. Kaes and all the other major gods would have laughed. They always claimed that the gods couldn’t make mistakes. Everything they did was exactly how it should be.

Yeah, what the fuck ever. Nothing said mistake quite like Zyros, Goddess of the Hunt.

But pointing a finger at the disaster that was Zyros and the godstones did nothing to absolve him of the mess he’d made. All because he’d been too scared to face his failings and fears.

If he had thought before acting, if he’d taken a little more time to truly understand the dragon he’d just started to call “friend,” maybe he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to put Haru through this horror.

Self-loathing became a thick sludge in his veins and churned in his stomach as he forced his feet to carry him forward. He needed to fix this. To save Haru, because he knew in his bones that Shey was going to save Adrian.

Tyche picked his way through the bodies and the rubble, inching closer to the fire and the broken building where he guessed the dragon was wallowing in his nightmare.

“Haru!” His shouts bounced off the smooth stone face and rose above the crackling flames. “Haru! Drag your scaly ass out here!”

An ear-splitting roar answered, nearly knocking Tyche back a step. The ground trembled under his feet as the dragon pounded out of his makeshift den and searched for the fool calling him out.

When he finally appeared, gone were the sunset orange and pink scales. Haru had turned charcoal gray, and his eyes blazed a sickening blood-red. Tyche’s stomach sank. This wasn’t his friend. He was losing him to the goddess’s powers. A lesson all the gods and goddesses needed to learn. Dragons and god powers did not mix.

“Haru!”

The dragon’s diamond-shaped head swung to Tyche, and those red eyes narrowed on him. He sucked in a deep breath and opened his mouth.

Tyche fought every instinct that screamed for him to run for cover, but he stood his ground and pointed a finger at Haru. “Don’t you even think about it! What the hell did you do to Adrian?”

A choked sound left Haru as if the ball of fire he’d summoned got caught in his throat. As soon as it was clear, a heart-wrenching cry broke from the dragon that Tyche knew would haunt him for the rest of his days. It was the wail of a creature who had lost its soul. He’d heard fanciful stories that dragons were special creatures, not just for their long lives and magic. They were the only creatures in all of Thia to have soulmates. Most never found them and still lived long and happy lives.

Yet, those few who did were seen as blessed and cursed. When two soulmates found each other, they knew a happiness no other couple could understand. And when they lost each other, they knew a depth of pain none could fathom.

Tyche had brushed off Haru’s claims that Adrian was his mate as the same silly talk Haru always spouted.

But the cry came from a hollowed-out beast that might never heal. It was an endless loss. No nightmare that Yesuntei could have conjured up could compete with the horrors of what Haru was feeling now.

Haru cried again, but it grew muffled as the dragon shifted into his human form. He stumbled over broken rocks and through flames toward Tyche. His normally pristine white robes were torn and blackened with dirt, blood, and soot. Lines of pain dug deep into his face, and his hands shook as they grabbed Tyche.

“He’s gone. A-Adrian is gone. Can’t…I can’t find him.” Haru’s legs gave out, and he fell to his knees on the broken rocks, pulling Tyche down with him.

“What happened?”

Haru lowered his head, his brow furrowing as if he were struggling to organize his thoughts enough to answer Tyche’s question. His face suddenly jerked up, his eyes wide. “Explosion! There was an explosion. We were walking. Talking about food.”

A small smile lifted Tyche’s mouth. “You and Adrian are always discussing food.”

Tears flooded Haru’s eyes and fell free down pale cheeks. “Yes. Food. I like feeding my Adrian. He makes cute, happy noises. Each time he finds something he likes, he shares it with me.” Haru’s voice caught and his brow furrowed. “Shared with me.”

“The explosion?” Tyche prodded as Haru’s story stalled.

The dragon swallowed hard and nodded twice, the motion sharp and jerky. “Separated. It knocked me out. When I woke up, I couldn’t find him. I-I searched.” He waved a shaking hand at the surrounding city.

Tyche turned, and his stomach twisted into a knot. The illusions of dead Adrians were gone, but what remained wasn’t a big improvement. The dragon had reduced several buildings to absolute rubble, and he didn’t think that was all from the explosion. Blood and cuts covered Haru’s hands from where Tyche could imagine Haru had pawed through the wreckage, first as a human and then as a dragon, in search of Adrian, but he’d never found his body. Whoever had planned the explosion had likely captured whichever of them they could get to. It was a shame they’d reached the human first rather than the dragon. Haru probably would have been able to escape and return to Adrian safely.

“I can’t find him.”

“Someone took him,” Tyche cut in before Haru could deteriorate more. “Someone planned this explosion, and now they’ve taken Adrian to get to you.”