Page 50 of Mad Dragon of Chaos

Tyche rushed toward the God of Storms as he roared. Thunder crashed in response, and the wind howled through the city. Rain slashed in a thick gray veil, blurring Tyche’s vision and chilling him to the bone, but he didn’t stop. He swept together all the bad luck he could find and shoved it in Kaes’s direction.

The God of Storms lifted his hammer above his head, and the handle snapped. The heavy metal head tumbled to slam into Kaes’s shoulder. With a shout, the god stumbled under the unexpected blow. As his foot came down, the rubble under his feet crumbled and broke, sending him crashing to his ass.

“Bastard!”

Tyche ignored his shouts and continued to hit him. Walls of buildings toppled on top of him. Vines shot up to grasp him again. Nightmarish spiders the size of elephants crawled from rooftops and covered him in thick webbing. Millipedes, the size of trains, stomped through the chaos to devour him. It was a quick lesson that one of them had a deep-seated fear of bugs, but Tyche wasn’t sure if it was him or Kaes.

But each time, Kaes broke free and directed more lightning at Tyche. The storm strengthened. Rain turned to hail that battered his sore and tired body. Despite all the new powers, Tyche was running low on energy. He couldn’t outlast Kaes no matter what he threw at the man.

He could see it as clearly as if he’d tossed his old bones. The God of Storms was going to kill him, steal the powers tucked away inside his body, and then he was going to kill Tyche’s friends. He was out of luck.

Pain exploded in Tyche’s back, and he fell forward to his knees. He blinked and looked up to find a ball of ice the size of his fist resting nearby. His skull was going to get bashed in by fucking hail. Freaking bastard.

“Enough!” Shey’s voice rose above the chaos, and suddenly, the feeling of being hit by rain and ice stopped. There was only a sudden chill and the sound of something hitting a barrier.

Tyche winced as he twisted to see that a broad arch of ice surrounded him, Shey, Adrian, and Haru. The dragon had shifted to his human form and was half reclining in Adrian’s arms, appearing worse for wear. Shey had used his gift from Kaes to form a protective cave of ice.

“You dare use the gift I have given you against my will!” Kaes shouted. Tyche blinked, surprised to find that the out-of-control youth was gone and the grizzled, bare-chested man had returned. This was an excellent development. Maybe Kaes was wearing out.

Shey took a step in front of Tyche. “You gave me these powers to protect the people I love. Even if it means protecting them from you.” He’d barely finished speaking when Shey brought his right arm around as if swinging a sword. Magic lashed out, and a spike of ice sliced through the air to bury itself deep into Kaes’s chest.

Tyche threw his head back and let loose a laugh that was all madness. “He doesn’t belong to you anymore!” His words and laughter echoed off the icy walls before flying loose into the world.

Tyche fell over, his vision growing blurry with tears, or maybe it was blood. He didn’t know. His entire body hurt, and his brain felt as if it were little more than mush, but he couldn’t bring himself to care as he watched Kaes disappear with a scowl on his ugly face.

“He doesn’t belong to you anymore. He’s free!”

Tyche laughed as the world faded away into darkness.

NINETEEN

OMARI HARU

Haru awoke to find himself drifting on a cloud. At least, that was what it seemed like. He was lying on something so incredibly soft and fluffy. When he opened his eyes, the walls and ceiling were white with all this golden light gilding them. He drew in a slow breath and exhaled as he closed his eyes again, trying to order his thoughts, but everything was a muddled mess. He recalled the nightmares: losing Adrian, finding Adrian, fighting a god, and then something had happened to Tyche, but he couldn’t tell what out of that was real and what was an illusion.

A noise escaped him, and he lifted his hand, pressing his fingers to his forehead to rub away the rising ache.

“Shhh, rest.”

Adrian’s warm voice was a caress, and he wanted to follow it back to sleep as rough fingers brushed his own hand aside and began massaging his forehead and temples.

“Adrian!”

His eyes popped open, and he was greeted with the sight of his handsome mate leaning over him from where he lay in the bed beside him. There were dark circles under his eyes and there was a horrible bruise on his right temple, but it was still his Adrian.

Tears immediately flooded his eyes, blurring his vision. He wrapped his arms around Adrian, pulling him close, and Adrian did the same. Holding him so tight, it was as if Adrian was afraid that Haru was going to disappear.

“My mate. You found me,” Haru whispered, his voice growing too choked to speak. He turned his body toward Adrian, and their legs instantly tangled under the heavy covers.

“I will always find you. No matter what. You are never getting away from me.” Adrian’s voice started as a growl, almost making the words into a threat, but they crumbled at the end.

“Forgive me. I…I don’t know what happened. The explosion. I couldn’t find you.” His arms tightened on Adrian’s muscular frame until Haru worried about snapping bones, but Adrian didn’t make a single sound of discomfort. He held on to Haru, a fine trembling coursing through his body.

“Don’t.”

“But I lost control. People…I think people were hurt. I don’t know. There’s so much I don’t remember. Nothing makes sense. What happened?”

Adrian finally gave him a push, putting enough distance between them so he could look Haru in the eye, but not so much that they weren’t touching any longer. “The explosion appears to have been created by people from the Federation of Order.” Adrian sat up and rested on a mound of pillows. With a smirk, he patted his chest, and Haru was more than happy to rest his head there while holding on to Adrian’s waist. “From what I overheard, I think they were trying to get you but couldn’t find you in all the rubble. They found me instead.”