48. Jaiyana

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

JAIYANA

T ime slowed down. My ears rang.

In slow motion, Lux pulled his shredded wing into his back. Tyson and Rehan both dug their claws into the poison-dotted ground, their nostrils flaring with pure rage. Ogden bent his dragon legs, clearly intending to take to the sky.

They were going to pull the same move, and they would win. But just like the last time, Gorm would move on to the next body and the next until we had nothing left to fight with.

We couldn’t defeat a god.

“You made that face when you left me,” Brad’s wheezing voice drifted to me.

I took a step. The sound of my foot landing on the ground echoed. More of my mate's muscles bunched, each one connecting with power and ready to spring. The mad energy of battle hovered like a wave, moments from crashing. It wasn’t just my sense of time that slowed… actual time ground to a halt.

Everything except me and Brad.

My ex and a mad god share a body.

Hot?

I wished I could hit myself.

Not where I was going with that, more along the lines of a dramatic: who knows what he’s capable of anymore.

I stepped to my ex’s charred husk, where it lay in a pile of blood and poison-soaked robes.

Not capable of healing, apparently.

I knelt. “I didn’t make the same face.”

“I’ve stolen part of a god’s power to stop time with my dying breath, and you’re arguing with me?” Brad asked.

“That was a complete sentence. It can’t be your dying breath,” I pointed out.

Brad chuckled, which turned into a cough, and fresh blood spilled out of his mouth to coat his lips. I looked down, finding a hole the size of a dragon claw in the middle of his chest. He was dying. The part of me who spent twenty years at the giving artist's side grieved. But the weeks I spent as a zombie bimbo, ending with the disaster he’d unleashed on the world, made me pretty okay with the situation.

“Why’d you do it?” I asked.

Brad put his hand over his heart. “Because I love you, Jaiy. I wanted us to be together for all eternity. I didn’t want to grow old and die like everyone else. I wanted your life. For both of us to have the power you took for granted.” He cupped my face with his ancient hand. “You were my everything, Jaiyana. But I wasn’t yours. You’re not even yours.”

I opened my mouth, but Brad’s weak squeeze on my arm made me close it.

“It makes sense in context. Do not derail this conversation.” He said with more strength than I thought he had.

More blood bubbled on his lips. Despite everything, two tears dropped from my eyes.

“In the end,” Brad continued. “I became someone I didn’t recognize, and you still didn’t love me because you didn’t love yourself.”

A second set of tears ran down my cheeks. He wasn’t wrong.

Brad coughed, and the light in his eyes dimmed. “You made that same face when you left me. But you don’t have to let them die today.”

I jerked back. “Let them die? Gorm’s a bloody god, and I have diddly squat for magic.”

Brad just looked at me.

Denial bubbled in my gut before shame flooded it. Maybe, on some level, I’d known that not winning was the easy way out of my emotions. The world was full of wars. Bad shit never stopped. Who caused it just shifted.

You’re an asshole.

I am.

Tyson’s first dragon paw left the ground, and Og’s back muscles lifted to pump his wings.

Brad coughed. “I cursed you, Jaiy. Not Gorm. He wanted you here to take your magic like you tried to take his. I didn’t want him to have it.”

“Am I supposed to thank you for that?” I asked bitterly.

Brad managed a single shake of his head. “I left you a way to break it. Did you find it?”

My bitter resentment grew. “No.” I scrubbed the tears from my face. “I banged those guys in every combination known to man, and all it did was improve my eyesight.” I snorted. “There has to be a joke in there somewhere.”

“The curse has nothing to do with dragons, Jaiy.”

I bit my lips together, already knowing the truth in his words.

“I just told you that so you wouldn’t ditch them,” he continued. “If you knew they were with you of their own choice, you would have run.”

I narrowed my eyes, hating how right he was. Once I thought I’d trapped them against their will, freeing them had become my only goal.

Had it?

I took a deep breath. At first.

Brad opened his eyes a final time. “Don’t let the world burn because you can’t find value in the only thing that matters… yourself.”

A puff of air bubbled in the blood on his lips before his body went still. I watched the light leave his eyes until only the outline of my reflection stared back at me. The same outline I’d seen in the mirror for the last thousand years.

I forced myself to breathe.

My mates chose me: magicless Jaiyana, who talks to herself and loses memories to her crazy ex who brought a god down on the world. I spent weeks trying to drive them away, even purposely pitting them against each other like a manipulative child. And they stood by their marks, even using my dick moves to bring themselves closer together.

The world around me slowly sped up. Like a carousel, demons and dragons came back to life. Energy buzzed around me and filled me with exhilaration. My dragon’s powerful forms flew and sprinted toward an enemy a hundred times more powerful than them.

They believed in themselves, and they believed in me.

Thousands of moments I’d taken for granted overlayed the battleground.

“Push, girl, you’ve got this!” A thousand people at the gym shouted at me, believing I could do more than my mind and body wanted.

A thousand Arias’ youthful faces smiled at me, believing in the adult brightening their world.

A million micro-interactions filled me with meaning. I watched myself carelessly turn down Superintendent Kelly, passing him off to a woman who became the love of his life. I ran into Og at the Social, who pointed Caoimhe to Tenzin, who would become the love of her life. Little moments I could never predict the outcome of but helped the people I touched. My actions filled my world with love. It was that simple.

A crack, like the split in a fault line, shook my insides. Magic I hadn’t felt in months surged forward.

I stood. The fault widened into a canyon, and pure power made my blood dance. The repetitive self-doubt that had haunted my existence died in a flood of truth. I was worthy of love. My own, and the love of my stupid dragons, whom I was letting beat themselves to death for my mistakes.

The words of a long-dead language tumbled out of my mouth, and my magic glowed around me. Unlike Og, I didn’t need runes to focus my will; I made demands of the world, and it bent. Four lines of invisible power raced to my dragons and wrapped around their chests.

One by one, I pulled them back to my side.

Tyson, who showed me how badly I wanted to be soft.

Rehan, whose quiet resolve forced me to confront my truths.

Ogden, whose simple acceptance made even my negative qualities shine with rays of good.

And finally, Lux, my damsel in distress who reminded us true strength came from the heart.

They skidded, or crashed, as I’d pretty much just pulled Ogden out of the sky, to a stop with various looks of confusion on their faces. Like cats, they regained their feet with dignity, licking their asses like they meant to do that.

Ok. They didn’t lick their asses.

We could make them.

Maybe later.

With the return of my magic, the one-way mate mark bloomed into a genuine two-way connection. I shoved pure magic into my mates. It wasn’t healing; Just like Og, that would require time and lots of energy, but the rush of power would give them a second wind. They formed up; Rehan and Tyson stood at my sides. Og and Lux crowded my back. The four let out a roar, and streams of elemental magic crackled through the space in front of me.

“Now we can kill a God,” I said, thrusting my fist into the air.

We still can’t.

Shut it, I have a plan now.

Gorm streaked towards us and sprayed another round of poison. I stuck my hand in the air, palm up, and caught every last drop before sending it back directly into the Gorm’s demon dragon eyes.

The beast reared up. Rehan and Tyson leapt forward, slashing at its exposed neck. I needed to get higher. Literally responding to my thoughts, Og lowered his neck. I jumped onto his head and called a flame sword into my hands... not just any flame sword this time. I pulled the pure elemental flames of all four of my mates and fused them with my raw magic to give the weapon a core.

Opposite our fight above Lux’s tower, where Og wouldn’t even put me down, he charged into battle with me on his snout. The moment we got close enough to Gorm’s dragon, I jumped. Like a knife through butter, the sword sunk into the demon dragon’s skull and lodged itself in its poison gland.

I released the hilt and jumped back, finding Rehan’s head waiting for me.

Pure joy and adrenaline surged through me.

Gorm thrashed before focusing on me. His neck contracted, ready to spit. Except when he opened his mouth, the gland with my sword stuck in it burst. A stream of poison flooded his mouth and body, drowning the demon dragon in its own toxic goo.

But not the god.

Gorm’s oily blackness oozed out of the dying undead dragon. A set of red eyes appeared, frantically looking around, only to find his demon army being slaughtered by elemental dragons working side by side.

He looked up before shooting into the sky.

I calculated his trajectory and called to my mates. While the three of us were fighting, Og shifted and tried to repair enough of Lux’s wing to fly. Even if he could, it would take too long to get any of their massive bodies off the ground to follow.

I met Og’s gaze. “Catapult me.”

Og grinned, and an image passed along our combined enhanced mate bond. In seconds, I found myself clinging to the last spike on Tyson’s tail while he jumped straight up in the air. Dragons were not great jumpers. Fortunately, they were three stories tall and stackable. Rehan, standing on Lux, who, despite his missing limbs, held the bigger dragon strong and steady, snagged Tyson out of the air and jerked him forward and back down.

My hands, gripping Tyson’s spike, screamed bloody murder as his tail whipped up, following his body. Before his momentum could pull me back down, I released the spike and was slingshot through the air. With a burst of Lux’s air magic driving me even faster, I sailed after Gorm, who already entered the dragon’s shield.

My eyes watered with the speed of my flight. I squinted, my gaze zeroed in on the black ooze now spreading across the invisible surface.

A ribbon of Ley Line magic tingled around my neck, urging me forward. Everything happens for a reason. Gorm might have set up my car accident, but the Ley Line had literally prodded me out of the gym. It needed me on this island for one reason. It hadn’t replaced my replaceable ass because I wasn’t replaceable. I was unique and loved for it.

A grin exposed my teeth, making my gums burn from the cold air whipping past me. I knew exactly what the Ley Lines wanted. “I’m fucking fixing it, you needy bastards!”

Gorm’s blackness spread faster.

I hit the shield, and a hundred years of dragon magic sizzled against my skin. Instead of fearing it, I reveled in it. Magic. Magic that could be mine. Without a second thought, I did what I did best. I opened my third eye and sunk my fist into something that didn’t belong to me.

With my dragon’s elemental magics inside me, the shield responded like a long-lost lover. It embraced me, and I embraced it back before pulling. A hundred years of dragon magic flooded my body. I forgot about Gorm, my guys, about everything except drinking in every drop of the abomination that single-handedly unbalanced my Ley Lines.

Gorm’s oily blackness began to drip back down to the world as the magic it had been trying to possess disappeared into me. The massive dome gave a final shimmer before the last drop filled my ever-hungry need.

For a moment, I floated. Then, I wasn’t floating anymore.

“Shitttt!” I screamed as gravity pulled me back down.

Strong arms settled under my knees and across my back.

“Oh, I know what that one meant,” Tyson said. “Squeak.”

I laughed. I fucking laughed. High on magic and love. I reached up and pulled his mouth to mine, sealing our lips. He kissed me back before tensing, ready to lock his wings so pain wouldn’t drive us out of the sky.

Except nothing came. Or I assumed nothing as he relaxed again. His lips curled into a cheshire grin and angled us down, diving toward the ground at a speed that made my already racing heart beat in my chest. He pulled up fast and landed so hard his feet dented the packed dirt of the start line.

“No more curse.” Tyson set me down and dramatically stepped back. “It’s decision time.”

My heart stuttered and almost stopped… he still wanted me to choose.

“You’re a piece of work, Tyson.” Lux came to my side and kissed me hard. When no pain filled his body, he cupped the back of my neck while his other hand pulled me close.

Too soon, he released me, only for Og to pull me against his chest and kiss my neck. I made eye contact with Tyson, who grinned, his dragon-slit gaze glowing with lust.

He’s messing with you. You have all your magic back. You literally leashed four dragons and ate an all-powerful shield protecting an entire race. You’ve shown all of them exactly who you are, and they're still here, loving you.

Every muscle in my body danced with joy. I turned my head and kissed Og as graphically as possible. His long tongue curled around mine as our lips darted in and out, letting Tyson see every over-the-top movement.

Tyson groaned. “Feck me, you win.”

“All of us win.” Lux kissed my neck and squeezed my ass.

I wiggled happily between the two.

“Gorm’s still alive,” Rehan stated, pulling me back to reality.

The mad god’s oozing black seeped into a demon’s half-dead body. The pile of rotting meat and flesh lurched but couldn’t rise.

I stepped out from between my mates. “He’s a god. He can’t be killed.”

A pink disk half buried in the churned ground of our battlefield caught my eye. I retrieved it and opened a little pink makeup compact with a cracked mirror on the inside.

I slipped to Rehan and gave my only responsible dragon a quick kiss so he wouldn’t feel left out before focusing on Gorm. “Shift into your dragons and blast him. I think Gorm’s Casket is getting an upgrade.” I snapped the compact shut. “Not even a god can stand against us.”

My mates puffed out their chests and surrounded the still-recovering god while I started chanting.