Page 30

Chapter 30

How It Ends

Xavier

The roar shook the house. I jumped from the bed and ran out, wearing just a pair of shorts. Dawn and Warrick met me in the hall, Claire bursting out behind Dawn.

“What the fuck was that?” Dawn asked.

“Dragons,” Damien said, coming out of his room with Robby. We ran down the hallway, meeting Maddox and Caleb along the way. Fuck. Robby outpaced us, using his vampire agility to disappear down the stairs.

Good. He could protect Blake and Cassius from whatever had made that sound.

Maybe it was a false alarm. Maybe it was someone nearby trying to scare their neighbors. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

“Oh no,” Claire said as we turned the corner in a messy group. The front door was flung open. Blake and Cassius stood behind Robby. He looked so tiny, so frail, compared to the four massive dragons that were poised before them. They had rows and rows of teeth, saliva dripping off their black jaws like oil spills, pooling on the ground and making it sizzle. Tendrils moved on their own accord, reaching out for Robby as if they were going to grab him and stuff him down their maws.

I only ever felt true fear once in my life—when I was facing the mortality of my mother. That had been a fear that felt as solid and icy as a dagger being twisted into my heart, over and over and over again.

Seeing these Shade dragons stabbed me just the same. My mouth went dry, my heart beating so fast I was sure it would burst.

It didn’t stop me from moving. Didn’t stop me from getting to Blake’s side. I reached for his hand. One of the dragons snapped at the other. There was a low and persistent growl coming from all of them. Each had two riders on their backs.

One jumped off.

“Dad.”

Joshua Baldree was not the same man I had met in the White House all those months ago. This man was gaunt with a beard that seemed unbecoming of someone who always wore tailored suits and shiny wingtips. There was another startling difference between this man and the one I’d been introduced to.

He had red eyes. Just like the dragons behind him. Just like the Carpenter, who stepped next to Joshua.

Same scarlet-red eyes. Same venomous aura.

Joshua looked to his son. There was nothing but coldness in his gaze. He placed his hands in the pockets of his dark pants, standing as if meeting with a colleague and not an estranged and betrayed family member. “You do not have to be here for this, Cassius.”

“What have you done? Why are you doing this?” Cassius moved forward, brushing away Blake as he tried to hold him back.

“I am following the will of the king. I am doing this to bring back what I’ve lost. I am doing this for our family.”

“You’ve destroyed our family.”

“I am healing it.”

Damien moved to his left, Maddox following. Warrick and Dawn shifted right. The Shade dragons twitched and snapped, watching. I knew what they were doing, but I wouldn’t follow. Not yet. I wanted to stand by Blake’s side, ready to take whatever came in his direction. Robby and Claire were also with me, flanking me.

Smoke surrounded them as they shifted into their dragon forms. We weren’t about to be outgunned. Joshua and Simon watched, amused. Joshua’s hand hovered over the sheathe dangling from his hip. The dagger’s hilt stuck out from the top, a slightly curved and ornate hilt created from some kind of sparkling onyx.

It must have been the starlight dagger. I had to make sure I stayed away from it.

Cassius continued, the pain in his voice a physical force. “You’ve ruined me. I trusted you. You were all I had left after Mom died. Why would you do this to me?”

The clouds dispersed, leaving my siblings matched up with the opposing force. The Shade dragons were nearly twice the size of even Maddox, the largest in the family. How had they created those monsters?

And would we be capable of taking them down?

“It isn’t just your father making these decisions,” Simon said. They weren’t alone. More Time Turners climbed off the backs of the Shade dragons. Two of them shifted—one into a snarling Bengal tiger and another into an angry-looking timber wolf—and three others toyed with sharp daggers and shining swords dangling at their waists. One moved with the same grace as Robby did and another had the jeweled eyes of a Fae.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked. It was time I attempted to take some control of the situation. Maddox’s tail whipped against the ground.

“I mean that we serve one god. One king. One ruler. And so shall you.”

“The Chaos King?” Blake asked. His voice was steady, even though I could practically taste the fear rolling off him. I had come to know him extremely well, and I could sense that he was scared. It pained me. My natural instinct was to keep him locked up in my horde, safe and sound, while we dealt with this.

Simon opened his arms and smiled, his teeth no longer human but wolflike. “The one and only.”

“You mean the one and only jailed ‘king’?” I spat out the last word.

Suddenly, both Joshua’s and Simon’s red eyes rolled back in their heads. Cassius gasped.

“You shall speak to me with respect.” The voice came from the two men simultaneously. It had the same cavernous echo as an expansive cave, with the cutting edge of a butcher’s knife. Chills multiplied down my back as though someone had dumped a bucket full of spiders down my shirt.

It couldn’t be. Blake reached for my hand. He was pale, his wide eyes glued to the two men.

“I am the stars and the dirt and the air and the blood. I am your nightmares turned true. I am jailed but free. I am Niazatos, the Chaos King, and you shall bend the knee under my reign.”

This couldn’t be happening. This had to be some parlor trick.

“You’re the one who manipulated my father,” Cassius said. He didn’t show any fear. I wasn’t sure if I could sound as brave as he did. This moment—it was unheard of. Niazatos never should have been able to communicate through his prison, much less take control of two individuals who were miles and miles away.

“It did not take much, child. A simple seed planted at the base of a tortured mind takes root with little care. All your father needed was a promise: bring back his wife. Reunite his family. I gave him that promise, and he gave me his servitude.” The voice seemed to echo through the desert. Damien snapped his jaws, fire brimming from under his lips.

Claire stepped forward. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to change, having run out here in her sleeping shorts and a rock band T-shirt. “How is this possible?”

“A Marvel with power such as yours should know. With one of my locks broken, I can stretch out. I can embrace the world that pushed me away.” Joshua, still with the whites of his eyes showing, reached for the hilt of the dagger at his side. He unsheathed it. The blade nearly took my breath away if I wasn’t already so shocked.

There was no doubt as to why it was called the starlight dagger. It was made of some kind of dark metal set with hundreds of tiny glowing stars, glittering and twinkling like the same night sky that sat above us .

If it were any other situation, I’d have my breath taken away. It was beautiful. Otherworldly.

And it was made to destroy me.

“Now, enough chatter. It’s time to free me.” He lifted the dagger and pointed it at me. “No one hurt him. I need him alive.”

Without another moment wasted, the battle had begun.

The fae lunged at Claire, whose attention had been on Joshua. Robby reacted quickly, stepping between them and grabbing the fae’s wrist, twisting and disarming her, grabbing the serrated dagger for himself. Two of the Shade dragons took flight, pursued by a roaring Maddox, who tried to use his horns to batter into their sides. The two other Shade dragons went for Warrick and Damien. Joshua and Simon ran directly toward me with deadly intent in their eyes—no longer turned up to the tops of their skulls. They were intercepted by Claire as she gave a shout and unleashed whips of fire-red mana at them, holding them back momentarily.

The ground shook beneath us as dragon met dragon, claws and teeth clashing in a storm of fury.

Dawn unleashed a bolt of electricity toward one of the Time Turners, the crackling energy lighting up the night sky, making her ivory-white scales gleam almost blue. The tiger shifter dodged, but not fast enough, and the bolt struck its hind leg, sending it tumbling to the ground with a roar of pain.

I kept Blake close to me as the chaos unfolded, my every instinct screaming to protect him at all costs. He had his eyes fixed on the battle, determination etched into his features, but I could sense his fear.

“Blake, stay close,” I urged, my voice strained as I blocked an incoming swipe from one of the Shade dragons with a wall of sand. The impact sent me reeling back, but I quickly regained my footing, summoning another barrier to shield us.

Blake nodded, but he wasn’t standing idle. I watched as he shifted into his wolf form, his fur bristling as he prepared to attack one of the Time Turners who had slipped through the chaos and was coming straight for us. The wolf and the Time Turner clashed, Blake’s powerful jaws snapping at the vampire’s throat, but this was a dangerous game, and I couldn’t keep my focus split for long.

A roar through the chaos caught my attention. I looked up in time to see one of the Shade dragons bearing down on Warrick, its jaws wide open and aiming for his throat. Without thinking, I acted, summoning my bow and arrow and sending a volley straight at the Shade dragon’s side. It let out a screeching roar, turning its attention toward me instead.

Good , I thought. Come for me, not my family.

Claire stood next to me. She continued to send bolts of threaded red mana at the two men, but they were deflecting them now.

Warrick’s eyes glowed green as he caused thick roots from the nearby trees to burst up through the cracked desert ground. They wrapped around the Shade’s body and slammed the twisted dragon down into the dirt. They tightened around its neck like a python, snapping it with a sickening crunch.

One down, three more to go.

Damien and Dawn handled another one, cornering it against a rock formation. It tried to spit balls of acid at my siblings, but Damien countered it with streams of fire.

I turned my focus on the vampire that was fending off a snarling Blake. He was fighting with an aggression I hadn’t seen in him yet. His lips were drawn back, and his canines were on full display as he swiped at the vampire with lethal claws. The vamp dodged nearly every hit except for one that managed to land in his thigh, Blake’s claws shredding through the vampire’s pants and sending out a spray of blood. The vampire dropped from the damage to his muscles, but he’d heal quickly.

I hit him with a blast of sand as he was rising back to his feet. He lurched sideways. Blake grabbed him by the ankle and tossed him toward me.

He rolled to a stop at my feet. “I’m sorry. You chose the wrong side.” I summoned a dagger of solid sand—hard as a diamond—in my grip and plunged it down into the vampire’s forehead. His eyes bulged for a moment as the light escaped from them.

Joshua and Simon came at me from nowhere. Joshua sliced at me with the dagger. I quickly jumped back, the tip of the starlight dagger cutting across my shirt. I swiped upward, raising a column of sand to try and knock the dagger out of his hand.

Joshua was fast. His eyes glowed red. He dodged the sand. Simon came at me from the side with a clawed hand. He got my shoulder and yanked backward. I fell with the momentum, blood warming my back. The ground slammed into my side.

Joshua came at me again. He tried to pin me down with his body weight and raised the dagger in the air. I quickly slipped into the time stream and reversed it, landing back on my feet and dodging Simon right before he could get his claws into me.

Roars and shouts sounded throughout the desert. The night sky blazed blue as Maddox tried to shoot the Shade dragon down with a stream of ice.

Joshua and Simon attempted to maneuver so that they surrounded me. Blake came to my side, still in his wolf form, snarling at the two men.

I glanced at him. His amber eyes locked with mine. A brief moment of total understanding passed between us.

This had to end.

We charged forward. Blake leapt in the air. He crashed onto Simon and dropped him to the ground. I went for Joshua. I summoned a sand dagger in my hand and swiped, slashed, and stabbed, all while dodging the attacks from Joshua. He had to kill me with the dagger in order for it to work, and I certainly wasn’t about to let that happen.

A strangled yelp froze my blood.

Joshua arced a blow, the dagger slicing my cheek. I tried to press the attack, but another cry from Blake made me stumble. I could see him from the side of my vision. Simon now had him pinned. How had that happened?

Damien and Warrick were busy with two Shade dragons, spitting acid saliva that burned through the rock. Robby and Claire were dealing with the fae, who fought like a maniac. Dawn had taken to the sky to help Maddox, while Caleb lay against a boulder, blood dripping from his forehead.

I was the only one who could save Blake.

I was the only one who could end this.

I fought with renewed vigor. Pushing Joshua back. He put space between us, his breathing coming in short gasps. He grew tired. Good. I let the dagger in my hand disintegrate and summoned a bow and arrow instead. There were a few feet between us. I let an arrow fly. It slammed into his shoulder. He winced but didn’t seem fully fazed by it.

I aimed again. I had to breathe. Had to focus. Had to?—

A cry unlike any other made me let loose the arrow without even thinking. It hit its mark. Joshua looked down at his chest. Cassius shouted something I couldn’t hear through the pounding of blood in my ears. His father fell to his knees, the starlight dagger falling free from his hand.

But the cry, it had come from Blake. Simon had shifted. He was a wolf, much larger than Blake, and his maw was covered in crimson blood. Blake was underneath him, motionless, his throat ripped open.

The world around me collapsed. I wanted to cry out, but my throat caved in. My chest tore open, my entire being ripped to shreds.

No, no, this couldn’t be how this ended. How could this be happening? My Blake. So much blood. I failed him. I failed. I couldn’t. I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t.

My Blake.

My Blake.

No. This wouldn’t be how it ended.

I dove for the starlight dagger, still on the ground. Simon came running at me. I wanted to rip him apart, piece by piece. I wanted to inflict an entire galaxy’s worth of pain on him so that even his ancestors felt the torment.

Instead, I raised the dagger in the air and plunged it into my own heart.

Light erupted from the stab wound as my heart ceased to beat. The fighting stopped, my family yelling, coming to my side. Time slowed and sped up and slowed and sped .

Stars burst across my vision. There was pain, but there was peace as well.

The ground spun out underneath me, meeting with the sky above. Everything blended together until there was nothing but empty space. Nothing but the past, the present, and the future, all combined into one singular moment.

Manipulating time was in my DNA. I knew how this worked, but this feeling was beyond comprehension. I had the entire history of the world at my fingertips. I could pluck whatever chord I wanted and alter the lives of every being that ever existed. I could go back in time and stop wars, kill dictators, save heroes, spend time with my mother again.

I chose to turn the dial only by a couple of minutes.

My Blake. I would save him.

And I would save the world.