44. THIRTY-NINE

THIRTY-NINE

Rowan

IshotRoaka venomous glare as my magic burned inside my veins.

Wren had gone incorporeal, and Alister and Rebeka fought the humans and human specimens to get into the facility.

I faced off with the dragon who haunted my nightmares.

He shifted first, his large form shrinking down as if he wasn’t afraid that I would burn him still in this form, though maybe I should have, but I had to know what he wanted to say.

I shifted back as well, boiling with fury and clenching my teeth so tight, it fucking hurt, but I needed the pain to ground me.

He placed his hands on his hips without a care in the world as blood was being spilled around us. “Rowan, I’m going to give you one more chance. The Dragon God has blessed you with being a firedrake. Don’t make the same mistake as some of your brethren.”

A black curtain of hate fell over my eyes as I stared at him. I hated Roak. There was a fire in my heart, stoking the hate. “I’ll pass,” I snapped.

His cruel face twisted in anger. “You are foolish! To reject the gifts that the Dragon God bestowed on you, is to reject the Dragon God himself!”

“The Dragon God is a made up entity by you.” Every word came out a growl as my body flickered with scales, but I didn’t stop the shift. I leaned into it.

Heat boiled over before I sucked in a breath and directed my fire upon his regular form. I would kill him today, and he would never be able to leave his stain on Kalista again.

The flames whirled in a straight shot for Roak, and his eyes went wide with disbelief as another dragon threw itself in front of my flames.

The stench of the dragon flesh hit my nostrils as the scales began to fall off. A terrible roar left its jaws as it died.

Roak didn’t care, his heart was black and his mind was lost. A terrible hatred spilled over me. I couldn’t stop fighting him until he was dead. Vengeance had to be mine after what this man had put my family and Norman through.

He stepped aside, his face twisted in fury as if he finally realized exactly how I felt about him. “You will not walk out of this war!”

He shifted into his dragon form and attacked. I blew another stream of fire in his direction, but he was expecting it this time. His powerful legs launched him into the sky, and I took to the sky myself.

My leathery wings beat against the air just as the downpour hit. Large droplets of rain pelted down from the sky, making it difficult to stay up.

Roak roared as he dropped to the ground, without even trying to land a blow.

Amusement flickered through me at this feared dragon dropping from the sky over a little rain.

I swooped down right above him and spat a stream of liquid fire, catching his leg and making him shriek as a few scales burned from his leg. He bared his large fangs as my talons dug into the ground, and I pushed myself forward and struck a heavy limb at him.

Hooking another one of his scales with my talons, I dragged it to the ground as his leathery skin resisted it and finally tore.

A quick flash of his leg entered my vision before a stabbing pain shot through my chest, my magical energy seeping out from the scale he’d sliced off.

I inhaled deeply through the throbbing ache and breathed flames at him, but he dodged the stream, my fire burning what little grass was still on the ground.

My vision blurred, and my body stumbled back. I had only ever lost one scale before, and I had forgotten how much agony it was and how fast it drained magical energy.

We were both weakening quickly from the loss of scales, taking strike after strike at each other.

He roared and threw himself in the air, coming from above and catching a few more scales with his talons from my back as he did so.

I roared, fire spewing out of my mouth as I shook my large body in an attempt to stay upright. My body flared with fiery slices of pain, and I gnashed my teeth at him, tasting blood, but we kept at it.

Swipe after swipe, losing scales until we both had weakened and slipped into our regular forms.

I’d never gone against him, but it was just like I’d imagined it to be. I could take down dragons and drakes with one swipe of my talons, but so could he.

I bent over with my hands on my knees and glared, my hatred burning as spasms racked my muscles until it seemed like my bones were about to snap.

My magical energy was painfully low. I couldn’t shift again, but I could use my fire.

“You’re fighting me for what?” Roak chuckled, and I ignored the rattling of my lungs. “You just don’t want me to fuck your mate? Is that it?”

A snarl ripped out of me. “I don’t want you to rape my mate. How fucking obvious is that?”

“It’s not rape. It’s what the Dragon God wants.” His eyes were crazy. Was it maybe that he believed it himself? I suppose it made sense. All that preaching for all those years.

“That’s exactly what it is, you old corrupted dragon!” I ran at him full force with flames licking up my arms, and I threw a punch at him.

Bones broke in my hand, but I felt his face crumble, and the smell of his searing flesh filled the air as he took the hit.

A gurgle left my throat as blood poured out of my mouth. Glancing down, I cursed myself for not preparing for this.

He’d somehow transformed his hand into his talon and nearly gutted me.

I clutched my stomach, my eyes rolling back into my head as I held my guts in and dropped to my knees.

“That was a good hit, Rowan, but you missed your chance to kill me. I’ll be merciful and give you one more chance to hand over your mate and join our family again.”

“Fuck you. You won’t touch her.” I spat blood at his feet.

He lifted his arm, his talon shining as the rain smacked down on us. My hair stuck to my face with sweat, blood, and rain. Yet, all I could see was my fledgling.

Wren flashed before my eyes. All of her cute expressions, sweetness, and pureness. So innocent, and yet she took my stern nature in stride.

I was in love with her from the day she walked into my office, and now, I was going to let her down and break her heart just as I promised not to.

A flash of dark green slithered into my vision, slipping against Roak’s form, carefully not touching me as it slipped between us.

He dropped backward, and the tingle of my magic attempting to heal me spread around the opening in my stomach—without replenishing my energy.

My vision blurred as I staggered to my feet, one hand pressed to my gut as I turned my head to Sabine. She had poisoned Roak in her basilisk form.

Disappointment flickered through me at not giving the final blow, but I gave a grateful nod to Sabine, who flicked her forked tongue at me with a hiss before her large snake form slithered away.

Roak gurgled as I stared down at him in disbelief. My eyebrows knitted together as I frowned and moved toward him.

“Rowan,” he croaked. “Help.”

I shook my head, using the last of my magical energy to blow fire at him, turning the pathetic dragon into a torch. The smell of his poisoned body burning would be a pleasant memory for years to come.

I staggered to the ground, catching Alister’s relieved gaze in the distance before he flung blood out of another human that was coming up on his mother.

Sabine crouched next to me. Her basilisk form had been shed, and she wore her uniform. “Let’s get you back to the camp.”

“I have to fight!”

“You cannot fight,” she hissed. “Think of Wren. She needsss you. You lost well over ten scales fighting him. You have to go back and rest.”

All of a sudden, Blair flickered next to us. “You may rest, Headmaster Barrington. You have fulfilled your role in the war. You will go to the infirmary at the academy. Finch is waiting for you.”

A low rumble left my throat. There was no way I would be leaving Wren in the war without me close by.

“I’m sorry, Rowan, but you don’t have a choice.” Blair snapped her fingers, and Sabine and I ended up back at the academy.

The anger that surged through me faded as I fell forward, and my vision darkened. “Wren,” I murmured before embracing the darkness and going unconscious.