Draygon Inferno | Book 2 | ✔️

Chapter Thirty

          Siobhan pulled back in time for the blade to narrowly miss any vital organs, but it still plunged into her and ripped out her side, leaving a gaping hole. She dropped to her knees, clutching the wound. Her black blood oozed between her fingers and curled over her wrist, making its way to her elbows. While it wasn't a deep wound, it was one that gave Kaylis all the advantage in a fight. The bitch she once called a stepmother smiled in satisfaction, she knew exactly what she'd done.

"You were doomed from the start, Siobhan." Kaylis looked to the Vanguard holding her scepter, the emerald shining brighter at its top. "I should thank your people for gifting me their energy to keep me in this, or else it might've been over before it started."

"The emerald. . ."

". . . is taking the energy from the Draygon and giving it to me. It would've run out once it killed all of them, naturally, but that wasn't going to happen until long after you succumbed to your own lack of energy." Kaylis giggled. "My Lord Master truly is a genius. He knew you'd be easy enough to distract though I also should thank your father as well. For he did teach me one cardinal rule in a fight."

Siobhan gritted her teeth, gasping for air as she continued to kneel. Blood still flowed from the wound, her head pounded and vision blurred. She doubted Kaylis would let her bleed to death, but she'd take great satisfaction in watching her pass out from the blood loss. Her father had taught her the same rule, and if she hadn't been too busy letting Kaylis fool her, she'd have remembered it.

"Always keep a dagger hidden in your boot," Siobhan said. She bent forward, using one hand to hold herself up while the other clung to her wound in a vain attempt to keep the blood inside. A great warrior, felled by her own emotions. Kaylis had used them to get Siobhan to rush her long enough for Kaylis to duck down, pull the blade from her boot, and send Siobhan to the ground in one motion. It was a trick Siobhan herself had done more than once.

"Cheater!" Wren's shouts echoed in the room, or at least it echoed to Siobhan. His screams were everywhere and yet it was nowhere.

She glanced to him as he dropped to his knees, teeth barred, eyes red, skin marbling with ripples of crimson flowing beneath his flesh. He stared back, cheeks puffing under his now fiery red beard. Red streaked through his blonde hair until it too burned with his energy, everything about him turned to fire. Both hands clenched to his sides as their eyes connected.

Siobhan could hear his screams boiling through her head even as they faded from his lips, feel his heartbeats as they slammed within his chest, and she felt something more. It wasn't anger or fear, it wasn't happiness or sorrow, it was something indescribable.

And it was thrilling beyond anything imaginable.

She closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath with the energy boiling within. It was lightness and darkness, it consumed every ounce of her body until she was sure her insides became her outsides. When she stood up, there was no pain where the blood still oozed from the wound. There was no cold or warmth. There was only the sensation spilling through her like a gentle breath of air. It was a kiss of passion, a loving embrace, it was a life force bursting free of the Goddess' womb. Both hands extended from her sides, her fingers stretched as far as she could possibly stretch them. Siobhan was everywhere and everything. Wrens heart continued to beat in her ears, his blood coursed with her veins, he was one with her as she was with him.

For ice to rule, fire must first destroy.

Lady Lenore's words weighed on her mind when she opened her eyes. Kaylis stepped back, eyes widening, hand trembling as it continued to hold the bloody dagger that still dripped steadily to the floor. Too steadily. The blood should've stopped. It was as if the dagger itself bled.