Page 85 of Mad Dragon of Chaos

Shey frowned at Jules, but there was a bit of softness in his gaze. “Don’t make promises you can’t possibly be sure of keeping.”

Tyche reached up, grabbed Shey’s jaw, and forced the prince to look at him. “Then I promise to get us both out safely, but that’s only going to happen if you, Haru, and Adrian are outside making a big fuss.”

“Let me go with Ty in place of Jules,” Adrian suggested.

“What?” Haru gasped. His hand landed on Adrian’s shoulder and tightened to the point of pain. “You can’t.”

Adrian ignored him and leaned forward. “I can do it. No one can match my memory for directions. I can memorize the various routes through the building, plus I have more combat training than Jules. If there’s a fight, I have a better chance of keeping Ty safe.”

Tyche closed his eyes, his lips pressed into a hard line. There was a faint tingle in the air, and Adrian suddenly felt the urge to pull on the magic that he drew from Caelan. The urge to conjure a blade was almost an all-consuming itch, but he tamped it down.

“No,” Tyche said in a somewhat faraway voice. His eyes opened, and he blinked twice as if clearing his vision. Adrian wasn’t sure what Tyche was doing, but he had a feeling that he was sorting through odds and luck. “No, the best chance is for Jules to accompany me. Adrian, Haru, and Shey will work in the square. Haru will get Adrian and Shey out if things go wrong.”

“But—” Adrian argued, but Shey cut him off.

“Very well, but you have to survive this.”

Tyche snorted. “Of course. I’ve already started making plans for my apartment in Sirelis. It’s going to have a balcony that faces the mountains and I’m going to sit out there every day while I drink my morning coffee.”

Shey smiled, but it was tinged with sadness. “Okay. We’ll work on that as soon as we’re done here.”

Adrian swallowed against a sudden tightness in his throat. Come hell or high water, he was going to make sure that happened for Tyche.

By the time they escaped to their bedroom on the second floor, it was nearly midnight. They’d gone over the planning repeatedly, working through every possible complication and potential shift so that they were prepared.

Since Jules and Tyche would try to pass themselves off as police, Quill put them through hours of drilling, making sure they walked and stood as someone with training would. He gave them a variety of phrases to use to get them through potentially sticky situations that would remove them from suspicion.

All too soon, they would head out to the protests with the singular goal of assassinating Chancellor Feng to save them from something that could make the last god fight look like a vacation. So far, Tyche had been vague about the reaction of the gods if the killing continued, but Adrian was no fool. There was no way the gods would lie down and let themselves be slaughtered. Once word got around that some humans were hunting them and stealing their powers, the gods and goddesses could band together to declare war on all humans.

A pair of strong arms held Adrian from behind, and Adrian released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He’d simply stopped in the center of the room; his eyes locked on the far blank wall as if it held all the answers he sought.

“You’re worried,” Haru murmured. He brushed his lips across the shell of Adrian’s ear and rested his chin on his shoulder. Adrian wasn’t entirely sure if he was making a statement or asking a question.

“I am.”

“About us? Or about Tyche?”

“Ty.”

The dragon grunted and Adrian thought he sounded surprised.

“What?” Adrian turned in his arms, moving so he could look him in the eye. “You’re not worried about Ty?”

Haru made a back-and-forth motion with his head while lifting his shoulders. “If I must choose between worrying about us or worrying about Tyche, I am more concerned about us.”

“Are you serious? Ty is going in there practically alone.” Haru opened his mouth to argue, but Adrian held up a hand to stop his words. “I know what you told me about Jules and those three soldiers. Yes, it was impressive, but they are going to be facing far more than just a handful of guards.”

His mate stepped away, putting a couple of feet of open space between them. He took Adrian’s hands and lifted them so that they were at chest level. With a smile, he turned Adrian’s left hand over so that it was palm up.

“On one side, there is you, me, and Shey with all these protestors and…what did that Quill call them?”

“Rabble-rousers,” Adrian supplied with a smirk.

“Yes, professional troublemakers. To enter the square we must be unarmed, but we will face men who are heavily armed. We must remain in that square, causing problems without weapons for as long as possible, and we won’t be able to tell when it has been long enough. You can use your subtle magic. Shey can call his storms, but he must be careful with his ice. That would be too obvious. And me? I cannot be myself because it would cause an international incident.”

Haru finished with a roll of his eyes, and Adrian nearly choked to death in his attempt to hold in a laugh.

“No shifting. There’s nothing subtle about a dragon.”