Chapter Thirty-Eight

Cora

Booms like thunder shake the foundations of the Keep as we sprint through the corridors toward the nearest exit with Conah leading the way. Grayson, Hunter, and Uri are right on my heels as we enter the foyer that we originally materialized in. Guards spill out, weapons at the ready, and Asmodeus barks orders.

“How many troops?” Conah asks him.

“Ariel surveillance spotted four large troops descending on us. There’s another already outside the walls, slinging obsidian boulders into the Keep, but they’re the least of our problems, if the Dragomite isn’t stopped there’ll be no one for Mammon’s troops to fight by the time they reach us. It just burned a path through the eastern defence.”

Conah pales. “All two hundred demons?”

Asmodeus expression is grim. “Yes. It’s circling back. We need to hit it before it rains more everfire on our defences.”

“I’m going up,” Conah says. “I’ll take a troop. Dragomites are said to have a blind spot at their flank and a vulnerable spot between their eyes where the scales are absent. I’ll use the blind spot to get close and stab it between the eyes to take it down.”

Asmodeus looks dubious. “You can’t rely on what you’ve read in an old text.”

Conah’s jaw flexes. “Right now, that’s all we have to rely on.”

But what if Asmodeus is right? What if this Dragomite has no blind spot? In that case they’d need someone who could sneak up on it, just jump onto it. My ability is glitchy here but if I can see my target…

“I’m coming with you.”

Grayson makes a sound of protest, but I ignore him and focus on Conah.

“I can help. Get me close enough and I can jump onto it. I can stab the fucker.”

Conah’s eyes narrow as he considers this before he nods. “Let’s do this.”

Another boom shakes the foundations as I follow Conah out of the Keep and into carnage. Demons in livery run to and fro, taking to the skies in twos, holding silver nets. Something huge and dark hurtles toward us, and the demons swerve and catch it neatly.

A boulder made of smooth black rock.

There’s a whoosh, and Conah yells and yanks me toward him just as something crashes to the ground in the spot I’d been standing on a moment before.

Another boulder.

“Stay with me,” Conah orders. His sapphire eyes are bright in his face, intense and probing. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

I can take care of myself, I mean aside from that boulder incident, but I nod, my mouth suddenly dry.

We break into a run, weaving between the demons on the ground and swerving to avoid the hail of obsidian boulders that crash to earth spraying gravel, cement, and dirt. Someone to my right screams. I glance over to see a demon pinned to the ground by a boulder. The red mess seeping out from under the boulder tells me there is no saving him.

We continue to run until obsidian armored gates rise up in front of us. Several demons in blue race toward us.

“Where’s the Dragomite?” Conah demands.

The nearest demon shouts into a com pinned to his ear. “Tower surveillance says it’s three miles east and headed this way.”

“I need three demons,” Conah says. “Good flyers. I need a distraction.” He rattles off the plan while unbuckling the holster at his waist and strapping it around my hips and tightening it to fit. “Use the dagger in the holster.” He hauls me to him. “Wrap your legs around my waist and your arms around my neck.”

Sounds intimate but I get that it’s necessary and so I hop on. Fuck this is weird. He wraps an arm around me pinning me to him so I can feel every inch of his torso.

“Hold on,” he orders and then his wings flare out, inky black and beautiful, and we’re airborne.

Fuck! I close my eyes and hold on for dear life, wrapping my legs tighter around his waist and burying my face in his neck. Fuck propriety.

How the fuck does Fee do this shit?

Deep breath, Cora, you got this. I open my eyes and look down at the world below. My stomach flips.

“You’re okay.” Conah’s voice grounds me.

Three other demons flank us and then swerve to the left. Conah drops in altitude while they rise. Air whips at my hair and stings my eyes and then a mammoth shape appears in the distance, shimmering gold and red. The Dragomite is something out of a fantasy movie. A huge flying lizard with a wingspan that threatens to block out the sun. Its neck is long and serpentine, and its head is wide and flat. We drop farther while the other demons rise. The Dragomite catches sight of them and swerves in their direction.

We pick up speed and enter the beast’s shadow, flying beneath it as its chases the demon guards.

Conah’s wings beat the air silently, not that the damn thing would hear us over the crash of its colossal wings. Thank god we’re directly under the monster now. I look up at its underbelly, pale pink and ridged, and then a ball of lilac blooms to life at the base of its throat.

What the—

It glows brighter until it’s an electric blue. Oh fuck, it’s about to spew fire.

My gaze snaps to the demons up ahead, do they know. “Conah!” I squeeze my thighs to get his attention. “It’s about to—”

There’s a whoosh and a blast of air so hot it singes my mouth and stings my lungs. I look up to see a stream of blue flame jettison across the sky. Two of the demons evade but the third isn’t so lucky. He doesn’t even get the change to scream and then he’s gone. There is no ash, no bone. Nothing to show that he was ever there.

“Fuck!” Conah curses

We’re too close to the Keep now. I need to get closer, higher, so I can see the spot I want to land when I jump.

“Get us up there.”

Conah rises until we’re too close to the belly of the beast and then he breaks cover, coming up on its left flank. This must be the blind spot.

I need to see the top of its head, so I crane my neck trying to get a lock so I can jump. The dagger Conah gave me burns a hole at my hip. I’ll only get one shot at this.

“Let me go higher.” Conah says. “We’re fine, it’s preoccupied.”

The demons are doing a great job of keeping its attention on them by weaving back and forth in front of it. Any minute now it’ll spew more flame. The Keep is minutes away. I can see it growing larger. I can see the dark mass of troops on the eastern side of the wall.

Conah rises, and the golden scaled back of the beast is so close I could reach out and touch it. Instead I focus on the head. The spot I need to land.

“I’ve got it.” I take a deep breath, ready to jump, when the Dragomite makes an awful screeching sound and turns its head to look right at us.

“Fuck!” Conah cries.

His wings flare as he catches the air, to drag us away from the beast as its head snaps forward and its jaws clamp on the spot where we’d been moments before.

I feel the air heat up. “It’s about to spew.”

Conah dives, sudden and fast like a bullet aimed for the ground, and the air above us erupts in blue flame. Conah changes trajectory away from the eastern side of the Keep which is mere seconds away. Behind us the Dragomite is back on track focused on its main target—the troops—as it revs up for another flame shot.

“It’s too late,” Conah’s voice is saturated with devastation.

“Like fuck.” I close my eyes, visualize the top of the Dragomite’s head and make the jump.

I land on hard ground and a gust of air slams into my chest almost knocking me off my feet. I drop, so I’m flat against the surface of the beast’s scaly scalp. It roars and shakes its head from side to side.

Not shaking me off bitch.

I grip a scale with my left hand and haul myself forward, sweeping my free hand across the scales to find the soft spot. Bingo. The Keep is seconds away, and the troops scatter.

Now.

I have to do it now.

I grab the dagger from my waist and slam it into the Dragomite’s head all the way to the hilt.

The beast gives a strange squawk and its wings stop beating. For a moment, we’re suspended in mid-air and then we drop like a fucking humungous rock.

Oh fuck. I need to jump.

Nothing happens.

Shit.

Fuck this place.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Fee

The portal spat us out on the outskirts of forestland and directly into an abandoned camp. Fires had been snuffed out but the rocks surrounding each pit were still warm.

There’d been troops here not too long ago.

“Imperium is a few miles west of here,” Azazel said. “We can be there in minutes if we fly.”

“Go ahead,” Samael said. “I’ll follow behind with Lilith and Keon. We must keep our queen safe.”

Lilith clung to him like a child, her gaze fixed on his face as if it was the center of her world.

If the Keep was under attack, then we needed to get there fast to help in any way we could. Samael and Keon would keep Lilith safe. We took to the skies, and with Azazel leading the charge, flew west. It wasn’t long before the air on the horizon turned black with smoke.

Oh shit.

Imperium was on fire which meant Mammon had begun his attack on the Keep.

Azazel picked up speed and Mal and I kept pace while Samael and Keon lagged behind with their precious cargo.

Imperium unfolded below us, riddled with fire and swarming with demons on the run from charging troops. The Keep’s walls rose up beneath us, battered and bruised. The ground was charred and abused.

“Look!” Azazel pointed east.

I followed his gaze to see a mammoth creature flying toward the Keep.

“Conah!” Mal pointed at another figure.

I spotted the golden-haired Dominus, wings pinned back, as he flew away from the beast, but there was something in his arms. Someone.

A new feeling urgency bloomed in my chest and frantic moths beat against my ribcage.

I’d only felt this way a handful of times in my life, and all when Cora was in trouble.