7. Jaiyana

CHAPTER SEVEN

JAIYANA

B etween Rehan’s distraction, Og’s invisibility spell, and Tyson’s raw strength, we scaled the side of the castle unnoticed. In the daylight, a line of dragon claws digging into the stone would clearly mark our path.

The world can fuck’n know I stole Lux from his piece of shit family.

What happened to ‘It’s not my problem?’

It’s still not. I’m just fixing something I caused.

Trying to save your mate, then?

Nope, definitely not that.

Sure.

I was so busy talking to myself that I missed how we got into the dark hall we now stood in. However, Og grinned at me from his spot, outlined by a smooth hole in the wall. A slight breeze rustled his dark, curly locks. It was safe to assume he’d used both his warlock magic and elemental magic at the same time to almost silently create our entry.

It was impressive.

I grinned back at him.

You could train him for real once this is over instead of giving him the occasional tip.

Nope. I’m freeing dragons.

FREEEDOOOM.

“Is that the thing that stole your elemental magic?” Og asked, interrupting my inner Mel Gibson Braveheart yell.

At the far end of the hall, an all too familiar star, with quartz at its points, sat chiseled into the wall. According to the blueprints, we were looking at a ‘T’ junction, and according to Og’s scrying, Lux was hopefully to the left.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Og continued, not waiting for my answer. “The earth dragons would never make something like that. I mean, with the right spell work, anything’s possible. You’re teaching me that.” He found my hand and laced our fingers together. “But we would need access to every elemental power to get the frequencies right. Right?

Tyson growled. “It doesn’t fecking matter who made it. Let’s get on with this.”

Og narrowed his eyes at Tyson, who squared himself up to the warlock as if readying for a fight.

I slid between them, facing Tyson. “You just jerked yourself off to Og’s dick down my throat.”

Tyson released a series of syllables which sounded like denial before he blushed. His posturing dropped.

I poked his chest. “We need to work together. We need to move. The Air King loves his security cameras.” I pointed at one in the corner, though it couldn’t see us with Og’s invisibility up. “And Og, who made the quartz stars, is a mystery we can ponder the implications of later.”

Og nodded.

I focused on the hall. “Once we find Lux, Og, use those super-fast legs and get him out of here.”

Og frowned. “I don’t like that part. Lux is not more important than you, Jay. In fact, there’s a possibility this is a trap for you. Did you even consider that?”

Honestly, I had not. But, I wasn’t saying that out loud.

“Tyson has my back, right?” I raised an eyebrow at the fire prince.

Tyson gripped my waist and pulled me close. “Your back is the only one I have, Wiggles.”

Although Og’s frown deepened, it did prove my point, and we booked it down the hall. In three steps, our black-and-white world suddenly burst with color as the quartz star ripped through Og’s invisibility spell.

I let out a frustrated grunt while the red blinking light on a security camera mocked our planning.

Og missed a step as his eyes flew wide. “The Quartz can steal raw magic as well?”

A shiver ran down my back. The diversity of supernatural energy required to make that shouldn’t be possible on this island. Yet it existed. Someone with more skill than even the earth dragon’s strongest warlock worked against us.

“We can’t use any magic, go go,” I yelled, increasing my speed.

The two copied me. In moments, we skidded to a stop in front of a heavy metal door. With just his dragon strength, Tyson pummeled it into a bent lump.

A single light bulb lit the room beyond. My stomach twisted as my assumptions and fears about Lux’s dad were confirmed.

Lux sat in a pool of dried blood. His arms were shackled to the wall, and one of his shoulders was dislocated. He managed to look up at us with hazy, bloodshot eyes. The scales under his skin shifted, trying to call on his dragon, but nothing changed. I doubted he had the strength to stand.

Hatred for his father boiled my blood.

“Mine,” Lux stated, though there was no power to the word.

“Shit, he’s lost in a rut.” Ogden brushed my side. “He could have done all this damage to himself.”

“He didn’t,” I stated, knowing it in my heart. I memorized his injuries, promising to give the Air King at least double what he’d done to his son.

“A rut makes a dragon single-minded.” Og reached out to Lux.

The air prince snapped at him with his human teeth.

Og pulled back and looked at me with wide, hurt puppy-dog eyes. “We can’t rescue him like this. He’ll fight us to get us away from you, Jay.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “I got this.”

Footsteps and shouting bounced down the hall behind us.

Shit. And Og couldn’t use his magic to sprint.

I rushed to Lux’s side and lifted his chin, pressing our lips together. Immediately, he kissed me back. His tongue tangled with my own with more passion than his broken, bleeding body should be capable of. Power surged from me, shocking his already pain-wracked body, and he instantly slumped.

“What the feck?” Tyson demanded.

“He can’t hurt himself unconscious.” I picked up the chains around his wrists. “Help me get these off him.”

We were lucky the quartz star was as short-ranged as the one in the oubliette. Or maybe not lucky. It meant Lux’s dad probably used his magic to help torture his son. My anger burned. Tyson and I used his fire to melt the links of the chain holding Lux to the wall.

The sounds of running feet filled the hall we came from.

“Hurry,” Og whispered.

I bit back a sarcastic response and hurried. The two links melted. Og ducked down and picked up Lux like the delicate princess I called him. Despite everything, a small smile pulled at my lips.

Tyson opened his mouth to speak, and I smacked my hand against his firm chest. “Don’t start. We need to fly, literally. Even if a hundred dragons are on our tail, if we can make it back to Lux tower, all four of us, I can get us out of this shit.”

This isn’t going to be a romantic orgy, is it?

I pointed dramatically back the way we came. “Tyson, ramming speed!”

Tyson flashed me a grin before covering himself in scales and charging down the hall. A group of air guards stood with their backs to us. We didn’t stop to ponder why they weren’t running toward us; we just used Tyson as the wrecking ball he was.

I came in like a…

The song burst into my head as we shot through the line of air guards, only to skid to a halt.

Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball vanished from my mind.

Two large demons took up most of the hallway. Past them, shapes moved in the dark, letting me know they weren’t alone. Fluorescent-green magic, which I would bet my fortune was poisonous, held their charred flesh to their bodies in an almost web-like pattern. Flesh dangled off the one on the left’s lower jaw, while the other had a few thick, green stringy hairs falling below its ears. Both their eyes glowed with the same green, as would their creators.

“What the feck.” Tyson slid to a stop just as the first demon drove forward.

Slightly behind, the fire prince matched the demon’s movements, and the two clashed with a painful boom.

“Maybe a rutting Lux would have been helpful right now,” Og said at my back.

“No shit.” I looked behind me at the air guards who stood frozen in shock before looking at the demon not fighting Tyson.

Its gaze settled on me, waiting. We couldn’t go back, and we couldn’t go forward.

“Time to be the Kool-Aid man,” I said to Og. “Oh-Yeah.”

Og blinked at me, probably having no idea about the drink mascot who broke through walls to hand people beverages. Behind Og, Tyson still battled, punching and kicking the demon like two boxers trapped in a comically tiny ring.

I repeated myself to Og, who finally covered himself in scales—recovering enough from the shock of the last few minutes to at least follow directions.

He handed me Lux. My legs buckled under the weight of the heavy dragon shifter, but I managed to keep him over my shoulders. I wouldn’t be running, but I could still walk.

Our action broke the air guards out of their daze.

“Where do you think you're going with our prince?” One of them demanded.

Tyson let out a roar and punched his demon. A thunking squelch filled the hall, followed by a demon arm flying past me. It hit the wall next to the air guard’s head and slid down. Fluorescent-green goo sizzled, eating through the stone.

“I think the demons in your castle are probably the bigger deal,” I said too calmly.

The guard closest to me swallowed hard. He focused on the gooey mess of rotting flesh and poison splattered against the stonework. A tremor shook his body.

A second demon charged Tyson.

The guard closest to me brought up a scaled claw and pointed past me directly toward Tyson. “For King Leberecht!”

Tyson!

The group charged forward and I almost stepped into their path before a spear of air sunk into the demon Tyson fought… not Tyson.

You were worried!

Shut-up.

“Og,” I barked. “No time. Run through the fucking wall and get us out of here.”

The warlock backed up as far as he could and charged forward. His magic hit the wall first, unnaturally curving it forward before his dragon strength followed it up with a boom that shook the building. Stone and mortar exploded away from us and dropped to the ground. No outside air rushed into the hall. We’d found another room.

“Do it again!” I yelled.

I tried to carry Lux through the hole, but between the rubble and how wide the two of us were together, I didn’t have the strength or the coordination. I ended up half-chucking half, half-dropping him through the opening. The unconscious air dragon hit the ground on the other side head first. I winced.

Dragon shifter. Heads like rocks. He’ll be fine.

I dove in after him before turning back to watch the chaotic close-quarters battle.

Tyson’s red hair flashed in the sea of white air guards. He stumbled backward with his hands clutching his side.

“Tyson!” I yelled.

The fire prince turned to the sound of my voice. I jerked my head, and he leaped for the hole. With bloody hands, he grabbed the sides, intent on pushing through, but someone grabbed his foot. I looked at the air guard gripping my mate and shook my head.

With a wall standing between me and the quartz star, my mates’ magic bloomed at my fingertip. I sent a beam of swirling elements into the guard’s face and grabbed Tyson’s arms, pulling with all my weight. The guard released Tyson’s foot, and the two of us fell backward onto the still-unconscious Lux.

“This wasn’t quite the orgy I imagined.” I batted my eyes at Tyson.

He let out an amused growl before rolling off me, still holding his bleeding side.

I pushed off the ground and immediately found Og standing at the far side of the sparsely furnished room. The air glowed with his dark elemental greens. Unlike the beautiful opening he’d created to get us into the castle or the rubble pile we’d struggled to get over. Stone rolled away from his magic like liquid. Like Noah parting the sea a narrow exit exposed the night sky beyond.

A crack split the air, making me cover my ears. Above us, the ceiling tilted, and the edge of Og’s new exit fell an inch.

That’s gonna be an expensive repair.

Blame it on the demons?

Og looked back once before hanging out of the hole and shifting into his massive forest-green dragon. Two of his claws clung to the floor of the doorway to keep him in place. He spread his wings, perching like an eagle on the tiniest twig. I didn’t get a chance to laugh. Tyson scooped up Lux and flung him toward Og, who caught the air prince in his free foot as he simultaneously launched himself into the air.

Black shapes blotted out the stars and blurred the sky. More demons. Hundreds of them.

My heart raced. What did demons have to do with any of this?

Unlike me, Tyson hadn’t paused to take in the view. With one mighty swing, he grabbed me by my waist and hurtled me out of our exit before sprinting after me. I screamed. The castle whizzed past, leaving me floating hundreds of feet above the landscaping covering the grounds.

After a panicked heartbeat, I remembered Lux’s air magic. I managed to find my brains amongst the terror of falling, again, and slowed myself. Tyson’s massive dragon rocketed out of the castle, and he caught me mid-air. I ignored the brief impact pain and directed my attention to the air currents, bending them to my will.

Ogden and Tyson flew, not back towards the safety of Lux’s tower but into the battle raging in the night sky.