Page 17 of Dragon’s Rebel

Chapter 8

Tempest ran down the stone corridor, glancing over her shoulder to make sure there were no more intruders behind her. Ahead of her she could hear the muted roar of several motors, and the thud of machinery.

This was where the power generator and water pump were. Tyr had showed them to her on one of their tours, explaining that the water supply came from a deep well that tapped into an underground stream far below them, and was pumped throughout the lair.

There were several plain wooden doors in a cluster at the end of the corridor. The one on her right was ajar. The pump room.

Tiptoeing up to it, Tempest peeked inside. The room was filled with machinery and smelled like oil and diesel fuel. There were pistons pumping up and down, and huge pipes bigger around than she was. They all led to a large raised circular platform about two feet high with a wide hatch in the middle of it, like the top of a metal tower protruding through the floor.

That’s where the intruder was standing. Tempest bit back a gasp, recognizing him. The long, hooded robe. The misshapen face, now looking rotted and diseased, like something out of a horror movie.

Corwyn, the dark wizard, wearing Silas’s dead body.

His bony hands were extended towards the hatch, and she could just barely hear him chanting over the sound of the machinery.

The platform was the top of a tower, she remembered. A water storage cistern that extended down underneath them, holding thousands of gallons of water until it was ready to be pumped where it was needed.

Slowly, the hatch twisted open and rose up. As Corwyn moved his hands to guide it magically through the air, she saw he was clutching a glass jar containing red liquid, dark and viscous like old blood.

Her head spun, visions dancing before her eyes. Dragons lying dead with no wounds on them.

Poison. He was going to poison the water supply.

She had to fix it.

And she’d only seen one way to do that.

Tempest shoved the door open, hauled off and flung the golden gargoyle at the sorcerer, aiming at his head.

She missed. It hit him in the shoulder—and then it detonated in sparks of green and yellow light. A man-sized whirlwind seized Corwyn and spun him around faster than her eye could follow. Corwyn’s arms flailed, and a splash of poison spilled on the platform. Tempest held her breath, but none went into the cistern.

The gargoyle tornado broke Corwyn’s concentration. The hatch dropped back into place with a clang that reverberated through the whole room.

Corwyn shouted something, and the whirlwind disappeared with stunning suddenness. He turned on Tempest, his diseased, skeletal face contorted in a snarl. He raised his hands and flung them towards her in a sharp, furious motion.

Tempest ducked. A force like an invisible boulder rushed past her and slammed into the wall. Shards of stone exploded out, hitting her with bruising force, some of them ripping through her clothes and opening bleeding cuts in her skin.

Tempest barely felt the pain. Terror sliced through her, and she scrambled into the hallway and ran, screaming for Tyr.

Tyr sat at the poker table, trying to concentrate on his cards. Tempest had been gone a long time. Had she gone up to bed? She usually said goodnight to him, but she’d been getting quieter lately. More distant.

She seemed unhappy, and that ate away at him. He was her mate, even if she hadn’t admitted it yet.

What hurt her hurt him. Didn’t she understand that?

At that moment, pain sliced through him like shards of glass. Shoulder, thigh, pinpricks along his calf.

And right afterwards, someone called his name.

He looked at Zane. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

But Tyr was already out of his chair, cards scattering across the floor.

Tempest. Something was wrong with Tempest.

As soon as he hit the atrium he went dragon. He could hear Tempest for real now, calling out for him as he bounded through the hallways. He didn’t even think about how he knew where to go—he just did.