Chapter 67

Iraced along the mountainside keeping pace with my sanguis frater as we weaved through pine trees in pursuit of a huge red Dragon. The beast was banking hard towards the road, spewing hellfire at Seth's car as it did another circle overhead.

The call of the hunt set my veins alight, my fangs aching for blood and the thundering of my heart demanding I bring down our prey.

"I'll get up in the air,"I told Caleb, but the words didn't leave my mouth, our minds snapping together all of a sudden and that knowledge passing right to him.

"I'll hunt from below," his reply came, and our eyes met for the briefest moment before I cast air beneath me, launching myself skyward.

I wheeled over the back of the Dragon, narrowly avoiding a deadly swipe of his tail before taking my sword from my hip and angling it down towards my quarry. I slammed onto his back and drove the blade in deep, making him roar in fury and buck to try and unseat me. I was thrown sideways, rolling over his outstretched wing and as he tucked it under him, I cast air beneath me to propel myself onto his neck, landing astride him the way I would normally ride Darius. With my sword stuck in his ass, I'd use my magic to finish it, but my mind suddenly flashed to Caleb's, seeing what he was seeing from below.

Fire balled in his fists, and it blasted from him with such energy that I braced myself for the impact a second before it stuck the belly of the Dragon.

He roared to high heaven, careering towards the road at high speed, and I saw Caleb sprinting out onto it, leaping right over Seth's car while it moved at a hundred miles an hour. The Dragon dropped from the sky, jaws outstretched as it chased down Caleb in anger, while my sanguis frater threw violent blasts of rocks at his scales.

I focused on my own view, still seeing Caleb move below and working to adjust to the double vision. With a surge of magic, I built two vicious blades of ice in my hands, driving them deep into the Dragon's neck, and he reared up into the sky, wheeling over to try and unseat me. But I had the grip of the wind in my possession, and it was keeping me firmly pinned to his body.

Caleb circled back toward me as the Dragon did another spiral in the air, and I forced the ice to lengthen, reaching deeper and deeper towards his skull.

The beast bellowed and Caleb's voice flared in my mind once more. "Finish it!"

I willed the ice deeper and made it blast into shards, the Dragon's roar dying just like that as I drove them far enough to kill.

The Dragon's dead weight went crashing towards the mountainside and I leapt off of it before it made the impact, using air to guide me lightly down to land at Caleb's side.

We shared a grin, our minds splitting apart again as the hunt concluded, and a rush of adrenaline set all my senses on fire.

Another roar made us turn, finding three Dragons bearing down on Seth's car.

My hearing picked up the beating of wings from behind, and Caleb and I turned as one, finding a green Dragon swooping down over the trees coming right for us. Not as big as Lionel nor as brightly coloured, so I knew it wasn't him, and something about the shape of its face reminded me of Mildred. A relation perhaps.

Caleb raised his hands, fire pouring from them toward the oncoming predator. The Dragon dropped low, tearing up two great trees in its talons and launching them toward us.

We split apart, forced to run as they crashed through the forest, taking down more trees in their wake. And the beast didn't stop there, ripping up more and more of them and keeping us running from the destruction.

I narrowly ducked a falling bough and raced for the road, my feet hitting the tarmac a beat later and my mind reaching for my sanguis frater's.

Caleb was heading along lower ground further down the hill, traversing the uneven, rocky path at speed while the teal-green Dragon turned its attention to him and chased him even further down the mountainside.

I moved to follow but a wrenching of metal made me wheel around, and my heart lurched at the sight of a blue Dragon plucking Seth's car off the road, its talons half crushing the vehicle while it flew out beyond the road before launching the car right over the cliff's edge. I expected Seth to wield air at any second and save himself, but something was wrong. He wasn't getting out.

"Save him!"Caleb's words tore through my head, but I didn't need to be told. I was already moving at the speed of the wind, tearing towards that precipice and hurling myself straight off of it. It was a sheer drop, the car turning end over end beneath me, and I cast air at my back to propel myself faster towards it.

I slammed onto the roof, growling as I fought to hold on, my fingers tearing into the metal as I used my Order strength to keep me there. We had mere seconds before we hit the ground, and though I was moving faster than I'd ever moved before, it might not be enough.

I wrenched the crumpled door clean off its hinges, finding Seth deathly still in the driver's seat with blood pouring from a head wound.

My gut tugged in terror as I ripped the seat belt free and dragged him out by his arm before blasting us skyward with an explosion of air tearing from me.

I closed my arms around him, casting a shield of air around us before we slammed onto the hard ground, and I held us there on the steep hill.

The car smashed into the rocks below, crumpling like paper and crashing away further and further towards the bottom of the mountain.

I lay Seth on his back, listening for a pulse and a curse left my lips at the sound of it thumping, but it was slowing by the second.

"You don't get to die here," I growled, touching the wound on his head and sending a flood of healing magic into his body. The wound stitched slowly over, but Seth's heart was fading. There were more injuries that I couldn't see, internal wounds I reached for with everything I had and worked to fix.

"Come on, mutt," I demanded. "Wake up and annoy the fuck out of me."

He didn't stir, his face so fucking pale that panic took hold of me.

"Seth!" I shouted, shaking him and releasing all of my healing power into his body. "Wake up, you asshole. We're fucking moon friends, alright? There, I said it. I like you. You've made up for what you did. So come back here and let me give you some star damned forgiveness for it, yeah? You can't go dying on me when I didn't even get to stop being an asshole to you. Mostly."

He fell unnaturally still and I rested my ear to his chest, listening for his heartbeat, hardly able to focus on it over the clamouring of my own pulse.

"Seth," I rasped, horror filling me at the loss of him. Of failing Caleb. Darcy. Darius and Max. All of them.

Healing magic was still sweeping from me, but my magic was starting to dull. I needed to feed; I was almost tapped out.

"Don't go," I demanded. "You've made it so far in this war, you can't go now. Everyone loves you so fucking much."

I felt Caleb's mind pushing at mine, and somehow I kept him out, refusing to let him see this. It couldn't be real. It was over too fast without even a goodbye. And I should have saved him. It was on me that he lay here on this fucking hillside with no more air in his lungs, and his life stolen from him.

"I'm sorry," I said, the weight of his loss crushing me.

The slow thud of his heartbeat suddenly started up in his chest and I gasped, lifting my head to look at his face in hope.

He blinked groggily, focusing on me with a frown. "Moon…friend?" he rasped.

I laughed, lurching forward and kissing him on the forehead.

I leaned back and his eyebrows raised in surprise. "You saved me."

"Of course I fucking did," I muttered. With his eyes on me, it was hard not to retreat into my old ways, to pretend I didn't care about him. But dammit, the mutt was under my skin.

I let Caleb's mind connect with mine, doing it all too easily with my adrenaline this high and the hunt still calling to me. I let him see the man he loved and I swore I could feel his joy washing through me. He'd taken down the Dragon that had been pursuing him and was on his way here.

"You called me your moon friend," Seth said on a gasp.

"I don't think so," I said, pushing to my feet and pulling him after me.

"You did! I heard it," he said, bouncing upright and hugging me.

I hugged him back, letting him nuzzle me too because fuck it was a relief to know he was alive. It had been one damn close call though.

"Must have been the wind," I said with a shrug as we parted.

He gave me a knowing look. "Uhuh. And did the wind also say that it loves me?"

"I said I like you, not love."

"I know." He smirked like he was just a cocky little shit in my classroom one again. "I just knew you couldn't resist correcting me."

Caleb came racing down the mountainside, colliding with us and kissing Seth so hard, I could practically feel the love between them burning like an undying fire.

When they broke apart, an intensity passed between them that was filled with passion, and I turned my gaze back to the Dragons above, my mind pinning on Blue and every one of our friends in the clash of the fight.

"Ready to finish this?" I asked.

"You need blood," Seth offered one wrist to me and the other to Caleb.

I took the gift, my fangs slicing into his skin and the stormy taste of his magic riding my tongue. I felt the pull of the Coven bond trying to force me to take more, my bite deepening as I sensed Caleb's bloodlust rising too, but I forced myself to pull my fangs free and my sanguis frater did too.

We shared a look as the hunt called to us once again and I couldn't resist the pull of it, my mind fixing on our enemies. In a burst of speed, Caleb and I shot away up the mountain and Seth howled as he shifted into his Wolf form and bounded after us. Back into the fray.