Page 99 of Dragon’s Rogue

She was on her own.

“Really, Silas,” she said, shaking her head in a way that used to infuriate him. “How many hours did you spend teaching me counterspells?”

“Too many, I see,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. The rest of the coven is already on their way. Now that I’m inside, the dragons’ wards won’t keep them out. And when they get here, your life will be forfeit, along with your pet dragons.”

“Kill them,” the idol intoned. It was Vyrkos’ voice, and it made Blaze’s necklace shiver in fear. “The Keepers of the Seals. Kill them now, before they take the Seals to the tomb.”

The dragons’ eyes went wide, and they redoubled their fight to free themselves and protect their mates. Blaze’s mind was racing. If Vyrkos was afraid they’d use the Seals, there must be a way for her to do it. But to leave Tempest and Rebel here, helpless…

Or not. Behind Silas, she saw Rebel moving slowly forward. Rebel, the thief, who could adjust her body’s aura to resonate with magical fields, so they slid right past her.

Blaze fought to keep her face impassive, so as not to draw Silas’s attention to Rebel. Silas raised his hands in an arcane gesture and began an incantation. Behind him, Rebel drew her knife, its blade glowing faintly with the magic that had allowed it to pierce a dragon’s hide. She pointed to Blaze, then to Silas, and then towards the door.

Blaze nodded. They understood each other perfectly.

In one graceful leap, Rebel jumped on Silas and ripped her knife across the back of his leg. The blade sliced the skin, making his leg buckle.

In the first split-second he was distracted, Blaze activated her summoning spell. The idol jerked out of Silas’s hand and flew across the room, smacking into her palm so hard it stung.

In the next split-second, she let loose a global dissolution spell.

Silas overpowered Rebel and threw her across the room with inhuman strength. But he’d lost his concentration, and his stasis spell dissolved.

Zane and Tyr dove for Silas simultaneously. Thorn flung himself at Rebel, getting in between her and the stone wall just before she slid into it headfirst.

The idol twisted in Blaze’s hands. “I am Vyrkos, Lord of Draken, and I rule all Draken!” it thundered. “I command you to take your true forms! Attack the Keepers!”

Blaze wrapped her hands around its mouth and eyes, but it was too late. Thorne—the closest to pure Draken—succumbed first, erupting into his dragon form with a roar of pain. He raised a claw to slash at Rebel, stopping himself just in time.

Blaze could see the power of the mating bond fighting with Vyrkos’ command: the bone-deep instinct to protect his mate at all costs, warring with the need to obey his Lord. He writhed in agony, caught in an impossible dilemma.

Tyr went next, wrenched into his dragon form with bone-breaking force. Zane barreled into Silas and the two of them rolled over and over, locked in combat.

“Tyr!” Tempest, glowing white, screamed at him to Change back. He, too, writhed in pain, trying to follow both her command and Vyrkos’, and torn between the two.

Zane was switching from dragon to human to bear and back again, unable to settle in a ‘true’ form. As Blaze wrestled with the idol, trying to keep it from wrenching itself out of her hands, Zane tried to keep a hold on Silas, who was hammering at him with wounding spells. Blood streamed from a dozen cuts.

Zane turned human, his eyes finding Blaze. “Go!” he said. “Get the idol out of here!”

With one last agonized look behind her, Blaze ran.

She pounded down the stone hallway, the idol writhing in her hands like a live thing. Behind her, she could hear shouts and the trumpeting cries of dragons, and the roar of a grizzly bear in pain.

Zane.

Everything in her ached to turn around and run back to him, to fight by his side. But he was counting on her.

Everyone was counting on her.

The sound of her footsteps echoed down the corridor, and she cast a quick spell to muffle the sound. That, and the sound of her panting.

She felt like she was running in slow motion, as if in a dream. Silas was behind her, and she had to get through the portal before he caught her.

She knew what she had to do. Deep down, she’d always known. This was about her and Silas, about love and pain and trust and betrayal. About Corwyn and Maia.

She carried that conflict in her hands and in her body. Corwyn, the idol, and Maia, the Seal.

Maia had tried to take Corwyn down, and she’d almost succeeded. Now it was up to Blaze to finish the job.