Chapter Twenty-One Zara

Chapter Twenty-One Zar a

I'm summoning lightning. Even if I kill with it.

That's something I swore I'd never do again. Lose my shit. Kill with lightning. Let my deadly witchcraft slip the leash.

Under normal circumstances, I'm no killer.

But I'll do anything to save Lucius.

Including manslaughter.

My fingertips crackle with voltage. That fatal hum rises in my throat. The air turns thick and staticky with the metallic tang of ozone.

That's when the floor caves in.

The glittering silver scroll of Vasili's snaky dragon uncoils through a shower of falling rubble and explodes into the student commons with a rattling hiss. Iridescent wings, glinting with cobalt and emerald, launch his thrashing body airborne with a scream of rage.

Lucius' wolf, howling with alarm, bounds across the collapsing floor toward the huddle of spell-stunned Hadrian kids who are about to become the innocent victims of this clusterfuck. Cleo's sidekick Skyler scrambles off the table where she's been crouching and dives for the choir loft stairs.

That's smart, because it's a tight passage where dragons can't follow. But it's good for me too, because Skyler can't levitate, so she and Xiao (the small fry) are now contained up there.

Nikolai Romanov (who's definitely large fry, if there is such a thing, especially with my backpack slung over his shoulder) veers right across the commons and vanishes into the narrow passage that leads to the cloister. Which is another place dragons can't follow .

This time the scream of rage is mine.

That fucker just stole my crown.

I suck in a breath to hurl lightning right through the open door after him. That's when a hard punch slams into my diaphragm.

My breath spills out with a winded "Oof!"

The impact empties the air from my lungs before I can let loose with the lightning voice.

The crackling electric charge in the air fizzles out. My balance shifts. I stagger back to stay on my feet. But I lose my grip on Cleo.

That's when the slippery bitch twists out of my hold and shoves me hard in the direction I'm already heading.

Which is backwards.

Right off the treacherous sloping surface of the study carrel roof.

I've got a heartbeat to grasp that I'm falling. The flagstone floor rushes toward me with bone-breaking speed, while Cleo sprints across the carrels toward the cloister and her mentor.

Then a taloned foreleg closes around me and snatches me right out of the air.

The world swings upside down and the blood rushes to my head. I flail around with a yell. Before I can summon any kinda witchcraft, hard hands encased in green leather gauntlets grip my flailing arms and drag me into the dragon saddle.

I scramble behind a gilded leather pommel worked in green and gold like something from a jousting match at the Renaissance Faire, tug my plaid skirt down over my thighs, and fight furiously free of Zephyr's hold.

That homicidal Dark Fae maniac lurks right behind me in the saddle.

"What do you think you're doing, you crazy fuck?" I shout over the earsplitting crack and grind of the settling floor and Xhevith's trumpeting bellow. "Telling Xhev to boil Lucius—?"

"No time," Zephyr says tightly, arms closing hard around me (again) to snatch his discarded reins. "Watch the girl."

My gaze veers toward the carrels to see Cleo launch into a flying cartwheel that morphs into a catlike twist. She can't fly, but it's pretty obvi she's been trained in freerunning or parkour or some shit (one more secret she's been hiding). She pushes off from the carrel roof, uses her outstretched hands to bound away from a flying buttress, and hits the floor in a tight roll that absorbs the impact .

Hissing with menace, Vasili's flying serpent twists in a tight loop and flows through the air to get between Cleo and the enclosed maze her mentor just vanished into. V's silver mane streams in the wind and his pretty blue eyes narrow in rage. His long muzzle splits and a flurry of snow and ice streams through his gaping jaws.

Cleo pivots in mid-stride to avoid his icy breath and darts into the narthex that connects the church to the piazza. She slams the door hard behind her.

Yeah, no. That's stopping no one.

Vasili veers to overfly Lucius' wolf, who's herding the shocky Hadrian kids and Skyler's abandoned besties toward the same exit. Our headmaster's growling and snapping to make them run faster, like he's a massive German Shepherd.

With a sinister hiss, the Goblin King flows through the broken oculus window and soars into the open sky.

I tense and lean out, all ready to levitate from the saddle and launch right after him and probably shift myself. But Zephyr's gauntleted arm wraps tight around my waist and drags me against his supple strength. With a powerful bunch of the massive scaled body between my knees, Xhevith roars and launches into the air after the Goblin King.

Le Chiffre, I mean Nikolai, is temporarily outta reach.

Which has to mean we're all going after Cleo.

I catch a flashing glimpse of Lucius and my classmates scrambling to safety through the same exit Cleo just took. Then Xhev tucks his wings tight and sails through the broken oculus into the hot blue blaze of the summer sky.

As the church's slanted roof drops away beneath us, a brisk wind, briny with sea salt, whips through my pigtails and flutters my skirt around my thighs. If I'm gonna ride like this, I really need my catsuit or, better yet, the nifty dragonscale armor Zephyr had made for me in Avalon, and not my school uni. Right now, I'm barely decent.

Then again, it's not like the whole witching world hasn't already seen me naked.

Thanks for that, Witching Inquisitor .

A powerful beat of Xhev's vast green wings tilts us sideways. We chase Vasili's glittering silver scroll as he twists lithely through the air. We plummet from the sky with the wind screaming in our ears and soar across the piazza's cobblestone expanse. My own inner dragon (who doesn't like it when someone else takes the wheel while we're airborne) bugles in alarm.

Sweet Jesus.

I'm not even wearing the fighting straps that are supposed to harness you into a dragon saddle. But I know Zephyr (whatever his other shortcomings, which are major) won't let me fall.

I lean way out to see around Xhevith's scaly green shoulder so I can get eyes on Cleo.

Takes me a tick to find her, already halfway across the piazza and making excellent time, pelting with her light-footed Fae grace for the harbor and the turquoise dazzle of the sea like she's Usain Bolt nailing the forty-yard dash.

Vasili's dragon hisses in fury and arrows in her wake, eating up the distance between them. The tinny scent of snow floods the air—that's him revving up another round of his Asian dragon cloud breath. A direct hit of that shit will encase her in ice and freeze her right to the cobblestones.

Which I don't think she'll survive.

My pulse roars in my ears. My heart shoves up against my throat.

I don't normally get airsick, like, at all. Still, I feel like I'm gonna hurl.

Get your shit together, showgirl. I give my skittish conscience a bracing pep talk. She just punched you in the throat and pushed you off a roof, remember?

Yeah, my conscience whispers back. But she didn't really wanna kill you. She knows you can fly.

Xhevith roars like a tyrannosaur in Jurassic Park and labors to close the distance between him and Vasili. With a powerful beat of his scaly wings, we pull up alongside my snake. The big green rumbles under my legs as flesh-eating acid fills his gullet. His massive ribs expand like a bellows.

Of course, that dragon's linked telepathically with his rider.

And I know the Dark Fae King really wants to be the one who brings me Cleo's head.

"Don't kill her," I scream at everyone, shoving the command through my mating bond with my snake for good measure. "Just grab her. "

If we've got Cleo, Nikolai having my crown won't be such a show-stopper. Because there won't be a rival claimant who can wear it. If we're lucky, he and Messalina might even be willing to trade that crown for Cleo's royal half-Unseelie ass.

Of course, neither one of my guys likes this command. V's dragon, who doesn't have limbs to do the requisite grabbing (because snake), swings his long toothy muzzle toward me and screams in protest. Zephyr's arm clenches hard around my waist.

"Don't be a softhearted fool, my bride," the Dark Fae hisses in my ear. "The girl is your enemy. She deserves to die."

"For fuck's sake, Zephyr. She's your long-lost cousin, right? Just grab her." I crouch in the saddle so I don't slide off and catapult that order at both my guys, both out loud and through my bond with V. "I mean it."

My snake lets loose with a teakettle scream of frustration and fury.

Xhev roars like blazes in response. But he angles his wings and dives, soaring low behind Cleo's sprinting form with forelegs extended.

I'm not bonded to this dragon, so obvi his rider's told him to do what I want.

For once.

Yeah. Zephyr and me, we've got some shit to discuss once we handle this immediate sitch.

And it's a nick of time kinda thing, for real, because Cleo's almost reached the boat dock and the refuge of the open sea.

We're soaring right behind her fleeing form, with her burgundy hair streaming in her wake (because I've pretty much destroyed her schoolgirl braid). We're all ready to do the snatch-and-grab when my ex-bestie glances over her shoulder.

Her face fires with alarm. With a cry, her arm sweeps wide.

A curling wall of water rears up from the harbor like a tsunami. The tidal wave crashes over V and engulfs his thrashing form to drag him out of the sky.

Riveted to the saddle by shock and horror, I scream his name in the lightning voice. A deafening crash of thunder shakes the sky. Purple lightning forks and flashes.

Zephyr snarls and reins Xhevith violently away from the looming wave. From Cleo's racing form on the dock below, a blinding blaze of light sears my retinas and practically fries my optic nerve .

When my dazzled vision clears, we're winging over an empty dock.

Fuck my life.

I barely glimpse the coiling slap of a forked merlot tail as Cleo's sea dragon dives into the drink and vanishes.

"Elemental Faerie magic," Zephyr growls in my ear as we soar fruitlessly over the empty sea. "Clearly, your rival possesses it. My element is air, but hers is water."

While Xhevith circles helplessly and croons in dismay, the airborne curl of water showers down into the sea. An awful stillness settles over the harbor.

"Goblin King?" I whisper through a bone-dry throat. Through our bond, I reach for him, groping for his lurky, snaky vibe.

What if—?

Vasili's silver snake explodes from the depths with his mane drenched and water streaming from his jaws. Half-drowned, he coughs to expel a torrent of water from his lungs. My snake's new to shifting, just like me, and he's flying pretty erratically (though he'll never admit it).

Under the awful hack of V's retching, the sea's blue expanse settles into stillness.

Cheese on toast. Cleo's gone deep.

And I already know Nikolai's gone too.

That bastard has my crown.

I'm linked up with Lucius, who's still in wolf form. Now that he's gotten his students to safety, my headmaster's using his shifty senses to hunt the cloister for Le Chiffre. Judging by his vibe, my wolf's pretty frustrated.

Nothing gets past his nose. Plus we already know from last night that Messalina's gang includes some Mogadon witch or warlock who teleports.

That has to be how Nikolai's slipping through the wards.

The slender spear of the harbor lighthouse, sooty and black with burn marks, looms dead ahead. I use that landmark for target practice when I'm hurling lightning, so I know it's abandoned.

I shoot a worried look at Vasili's uncertain flight, while my snake hacks and heaves.

Time to make an executive decision .

"Meet up at the lighthouse," I tell everyone I can reach through our mating bond, while Zephyr gets the downlow out loud. "Lucius, we better find Neo and Ronin. Make sure they're okay. Bring 'em out here with you in the dive boat. Goblin King, you get that pretty ass of yours outta the sky, like, now."

Normally I wouldn't be able to get away with bullying my alpha like that. But he just almost drowned. V twists his long neck to give me a horrible hiss, but he spirals shakily down to the rocky breakwater that holds the lighthouse and settles clumsily on the stone pier.

He's barely down before he shifts, with a weak flicker of light that's barely visible, into his hunched human form. While Xhevith wheels overhead, I eye my alpha's huddled body, naked and miserable and still weakly coughing.

Then I add for Lucius, Better bring Vasili some clothes, okay, Teach? And maybe some bottled water. He's looking kinda rough.

Lucius can't project human speech while he's wolfing out, he's pretty primal like that, but his instant surge of concern for our alpha floods through our bond.

I know he'll be here ASAP. That knowledge settles me down too.

"Okay, Your Radiance," I announce out loud for Zephyr without looking at him (because even the sight of him pisses me off). "You too. Get your ass down there. And you better not even look crosswise at my warlocks. You're on the last of your nine lives in this harem."

His gauntlet fists around the reins. In response, Xhevith tilts into a lazy descent toward the breakwater.

"You're angry with me," my Unseelie observes, after a long beat of silence.

I shrug off the lean warmth of his body pressed against mine. "You think?"

He leans in till his breath teases my ear and his scent of burnt amber tickles my nose. "Concerning the wolf—"

"Lucius," I remind him tightly. "He has a name. He's one of my mates."

"Zara." Zephyr sighs into the wind. "At the church. I was bluffing."

I twist around to glare into his single eye. "Yeah, right. You can't bluff."

One corner of his mouth tilts into a wry grin .

"I assure you I can. Wordcraft is an infamous Dark Fae gift. 'Tis merely that I cannot lie ." He leans his forehead against mine. "I was buying you time to act, Zara. I never actually said I'd slay him."

"Word games and semantics." I snort and jerk my head away, then whip around to face blindly forward before I can fixate on how close he is to me.

The closest he's been in ten whole weeks.

At times like this, I suddenly remember he isn't human. He's not a witching race. He's Fae. To hear him tell it in class, they were here way before us.

All I know is, his twisty Unseelie logic makes my head spin.

Xhevith's slow circling descent makes my own inner dragon chafe and fret. But if I let that genie out of the bottle and shift myself, I'll be nakey.

Right now, I don't wanna be that exposed.

"Zara the Moon-Blessed. Lady of Lightning. Queen of Dragons." Zephyr's silvery whisper singsongs in my ear. "You're my bride. That means you command me. Not through your power, although that is formidable indeed. You command me through your love."

My chest clenches and my tummy flutters. Him and me, we haven't said the L word yet.

Now doesn't feel like the time or place.

Even when Zephyr's warm lips graze the piercings that rim my earlobe. Or when his hot breath fills my ear. Still, I shiver and his breath hitches.

Damn.

I missed him.

Even now, it's really hard to ignore the lithe press of his lean strength against my back, the supple slide of his dragonscale against the backs of my thighs, and especially the hard jut of his codpiece nestled against my ass.

Heat pools low in my belly. Moisture gathers under my gusset.

But I'm a witch on a mission. I really am.

That's why I ease away from the major physical distraction of a sexed-up Fae pressed against my back. That's why I wait till Xhev settles to the sea-washed jumble of rocks below the lighthouse.

Then I scowl up at the lightning-scorched landmark towering over us and shake my head. "Here's the thing, Your Radiance. I don't feel like I can trust you."

His breath rushes in on a hiss.

"Zarina Selene Gemini," he grits through his teeth, fierce with heat. "You know I cannot lie. That makes me the only man in your bed you can truly trust—"

"Nope." I pop the P hard on that shit. "One, you're not in my bed right now. Two, Vasili hates you. Three, Max feels threatened by you—God, not to mention, just hearing your name's enough to make Ronin a hot mess. And fuck knows how Lucius is gonna feel after that stunt you just pulled on him in the commons."

I swing my leg forward over the pommel and jump down to the pier before Zephyr can try to help. Then I spin around to face him, tilt my head back to glare at him while he looms over me on dragonback, and plant my hands on my hips.

Still seated in the saddle like an emperor on his throne in his dragonscale armor and gauntlets, with his ever-present swords crossed over his back, the Dark Fae King frowns down his royal nose at my belligerent stance. His eyebrow lifts and his moss-green hair streams behind him in the ocean breeze. With his tiny fangs and his pointy ears, the eyepatch slanting across his face just makes him more savage, like a sky pirate.

"Zara," he murmurs, in that silky ribbon of voice that strokes my senses like a finger.

Under my Academy blazer, goosebumps rise along my forearms. Heat licks along my skin.

But fuck that shit.

I'm still pissed at him for, like, so many reasons. I can't even articulate all the reasons.

Next to me, his dragon noses gently at Vasili, who's finally stopped coughing and stretched out like a cat to dry on the pier in the summer sun, with all that sleek skin pulled taut over the yummy long lines of his sinewy body and his pretty cock on shameless display. Oblivious to his whole effect, my snake is wringing seawater from his dripping hair with a look of utter disgust.

Now he stops fussing long enough to shove the inquisitive dragon irritably away .

Xhev really doesn't wanna go. His hopeful muzzle hovers over the Goblin King. The dragon's nostrils flare wide with interest to breathe in the scent of caramel and vetiver and Mogadon aggression.

Rudely Vasili shoves that interested muzzle aside, more roughly this time, with a huff.

The knot of worry in my gut unclenches in a rush of relief.

He's fine, showgirl, I tell my own fretful and restless inner dragon. Peace out. Our snake is fine. No thanks to this guy.

I swing back around to confront the waiting Zephyr—who's also watching the naked Vasili with a singular intensity, his dragonrider gaze smoking with heat, a blazing smolder in his feral face.

Yowsa. Talk about distraction.

Like I just said, V hates his guts. Even more now than he did before. Plus those two guys are both dommy as fuck. If Zephyr's gonna start lusting after my alpha, that'll definitely make things in this harem, uh, interesting .

I resist the urge to fan myself, but I do clear my throat. Zephyr's alert gaze veers back to me.

"You still want me to go with you to Avalon, right?" I wanna hear him say it, on account of that whole no lying thing.

"Indeed I do. Ash needs us." His fist clenches hard on the reins. "My kingdom— our kingdom—is where you belong, my bride. The seat of your strength. At the Faerie Ball in Avalon, you'll come fully into your power."

I wish.

Wish I could put Ash first, the way that sweetheart Seelie Prince Charming of mine deserves.

Wish I could trust Zephyr.

At times like this, I've never felt less trusting. Or more powerless.

"Yeah, well, the Faerie Ball sounds like a fairy tale to me." I sigh. "Plus you're got major ulterior motives, Your Radiance. It's not only about Ash. Am I right?"

When he stays silent (because he can't deny that shit), I nail him with a look of challenge. "Right. Before we go anywhere, you're gonna need to convince me—convince all of us, and that includes Ronin—that you're someone we can trust."