Page 42 of Curse of the Midnight Dragon (The Moonlight Dragon #2)

Celestina

The five of us—Soren, Cullen, Raya, Gray, and I—stood outside the palace and watched the night sky in silent horror. Every dragon living in the Andalotian Plateau must have come. All around the city fires blazed, lighting up the night with their destructive glow. It was worse than I’d feared. This was the vision come to life.

Cullen looked at me and shook his head. He walked away from us, his eyes tightly closed, his hands curled into fists. Had he given up?

Was this where we’d all die? Was this both prophecies (mine and Soren’s) coming together to create one spectacular disaster?

Soren never let go of my hand. “We’ll figure something out,” he said as if he could hear my thoughts. He couldn’t. But I was sure he was thinking the same things. The dragons would destroy the city. Queen Beatrice would lead her unnatural army of undead warriors into the Fein kingdom, take the land as her own, and exploit those who lived here.

Vampires would be drained for their healing blood.

Humans used as slave labor.

Goddess, how I wished things could be different. But there was no going back in time, no changing reality.

This was our ending.

I supposed I should have always known it would never be a happy one.

Amaya

Come.

Back.

The words whispered in my mind. They shouldn’t have. I had all my barriers up. Doors closed. Windows latched. Flues covered. Cullen shouldn’t have been able to get in.

“Leave me alone.”

He’d said that I’d forged this pathway between us. Well, he’d helped. Our constant thinking of each other, constant dipping into each other’s minds, peeking into each other’s worlds had worn a path—much like the worn away fibers on a well-traversed rug—the barriers where we’d traveled had been eroded. Not completely gone. But weathered enough that his plea had been able to slip through.

I tried to tighten things up, to block him. I needed time away from him. He confused me. Being near him made me want things I shouldn’t want.

The.

Dragons.

His disjointed message continued to leak in.

I turned to my dragon form and instead of simply following the eddies of air above the ocean, I flew faster, further out over the open water. Maybe distance would relieve me of my desire to rush back to him, to spar with him, to tease him.

To kiss him.

Dammit . I was a dragon. I was above all those messy feelings.

Am I? Wasn’t this need exactly how all the other magical creatures were made? Dragons couldn’t help themselves when it came to mixing with the other creatures on the continent. There were the magical humans, the mammoth cats, the venomous bungeroos, the chorts. All dragon-made from a lustful encounter with one that wasn’t our kind.

But I was a midnight dragon. I was better. Harder. Crueler.

I didn’t want to rush back to him. I couldn’t want that.

Celes—

Nnn—

Help—

Not a coherent message, but enough had leaked through to get my attention.

“Celestina? What’s wrong with Celestina?” I turned around and started the journey over the ocean back to Sukoon, cursing myself for having flown so far.

“Protect her,” I pushed the message toward Cullen. “ I’m on my way .”

“Thank the goddess .” I could feel the surge of relief in his thoughts in response to my reply. I threw open the pathway between us and looked through his eyes. And saw my fellow dragons scorch the buildings all around Cullen. Celestina was there, huddled next to Soren. If the fire didn’t get them, the smoke may choke them to death. Did vampires need air to stay alive? Celestina did.

“What the hell are you doing?” I sent the message to Anther. “ You’re going to kill the moonlight dragon!”

No reply came. He wasn’t thinking of me.

“Stop the attack! You’re going to harm the moonlight dragon!” I sent that message to as many dragons as I could picture in my mind at the same time.

Silence answered me.

“Do you need me to shout your name?” Cullen asked after I’d cursed in frustration.

“Will they be able to hear you?” If the dragons could hear Cullen, they could hear Celestina. And she could use her powers to compel my idiot clan to stop their attack.

“No. The dragons are flying too high. And the noise on the ground is too loud.”

The sound of a cannon blast reverberated through the pathway I shared with Cullen. I watched through his eyes as the dragons scattered out of the way of the slow-moving cannonball.

The lights of the capital grew brighter as I shot like an arrow through the sky back toward Sukoon. I hoped I could get there in time.

Celestina

Short of climbing up to the highest tower and tossing myself off the side, I didn’t know how to catch the dragons’ attention. They weren’t here to save me or to return me to the clan. They were here to destroy the place that had dared to help me. I could feel their fury pounding against my skin. My own magic fought against the bonds that kept it caged. It wanted out. It wanted to take to the skies and rip those other dragons’ throats out for daring to touch the sparkly treasure that belonged to me.

This place. These vampires. They were my hoard. My hoard.

I tossed back my head and screamed.

Soren wrapped his arms around me. A spark shot between us. It blasted him away from me. He landed on the ground several yards away, dazed, shaking his head.

Gray rushed to Soren. Raya ran to me.

“What the hell was that?” Gray shouted as he scanned the area, searching for invisible enemies.

Soren rubbed his arm. Were those burns? Had my touch burned him? “Our Sky Girl is furious, and we already know she’s dangerous when that happens.” He didn’t sound worried or scared of my out-of-control powers. He sounded… pleased ?

His gaze locked on to mine as a smile creased the corners of a mouth I suddenly wanted to lick.

“What can we do to amplify it?” Raya pointed to the smoldering sky. “To get your rage up there?”

Soren rubbed the back of his neck as he pushed to his feet. “I’m not sure we can.” He looked over at me. “Can you think of a way?”

At that very moment, a dragon soared overhead sending out a spray of white fire that set the royal stables blazing.

“Shit. The horses!” Gray shouted.

The four of us set off running in that direction. Soren kept pace next to me.

“I can’t control it,” I told him. “I wish I knew how.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

If we live that long .

With all of us working together—I wasn’t sure where Cullen had disappeared to—we managed to clear the stables, saving the horses and the stable hands who refused to leave until every last horse was moved to somewhere safe.

Posey, the horse I’d ridden to reach the capital, nudged my hand as if thanking me as I led her to a stable yard. I pressed my forehead to her long face and soaked in the simple warmth of her spirit. I drew strength from the connection.

I didn’t know how to stop the dragons, but I did know how to help minimize the damage. “We need to get out into the city and help fight the fires,” I called to the others.

“Agreed!” Soren barked orders at anyone he spotted as we ran toward the palace gates, directing them to join us in helping the citizens of Sukoon.

“What about the library?” I shouted as we climbed a long ladder to help a café shop owner put out a blaze on the roof of a neighboring apartment building. The café had already been lost.

The Palladian Library spanned an entire block and was several stories high. To lose that library would mean losing huge chunks of the continent’s knowledge and history.

“The library is fireproof,” Soren shouted over the roar of the fires popping up all around us. He tossed a huge bucket of water over the roof, making the fire sizzle and pop. I took the empty bucket and handed it to the person next to me to be handed back down the line to be refilled. “Also, the mages are instructed to go straight there and set up an impenetrable ward if the city is ever in danger. The books are safe.”

“All the mages?” I glanced over my shoulder at the palace that already looked half-destroyed. “Hopefully, these aren’t the same wards the mages constructed to protect the royal properties.”

“Kings and queens can be replaced.” He tossed another bucket of water on the roof. This one washed over the rest of the smoldering flames, completely extinguishing this fire. “The knowledge in those books cannot. The mages are sent to protect the irreplaceable.”

It hurt to hear Soren calling his parents replaceable. But I supposed on a grander scale he was right. And he’d seemed confident that his parents were on their way a to safe shelter.

“I’m glad.” We climbed off the roof. Raya surged ahead of us, scouting out where we were needed most. Cannons continued to boom from the palace. Still, none of the dragons seemed to care. They raged as if their fire had no end.

We went from building to building. Helping. Providing words of comfort, whatever small snippets of support we could offer, and letting people know where safe shelters could be found. The library, with its impenetrable wards, was one of the many shelters the royals where the citizens were being sent. There was also a warren of tunnels underneath the city where the Fein could escape the fires above.

Helping others helped me calm the pulsing magic battering against Queen Frieda’s bindings. I could draw a deep breath again without feeling as if I would be torn apart from the inside out.

A dragon screamed overhead as we moved through a narrow alleyway. We were helping a young family search for their youngest child who’d run off in terror when the attacks had first started. It wasn’t the first dragon to swoop above us. But as soon as it had moved on, Cullen came running from the opposite direction. We’d not seen him since he’d wandered off outside the palace.

“There you are!” he shouted at us. “You shouldn’t have left the palace. Took too damned long to find you.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, there’s an entire city in crisis.” Soren gestured to the buildings around us. “You’re welcome to join in and help.”

“We’re searching for a four-year-old girl.” I explained how she’d run away when the dragons had started their assault. “She’s alone and terrified.”

Cullen closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. His arm shot out to the right side of the alley. He pointed at a wooden box meant for the storage of rubbish containers. “There.” He opened his eyes and adjusted his glasses. “I need you to come with me, Celestina. Amaya is back, and she might be able to help us. But she won’t do anything until she sees that you’re safe.”

We followed Cullen to a city park where Amaya was waiting. She was in her human form and pacing. When she saw me, she rushed across the distance between us. Thinking she might attack me, I froze. But when her arms tightened around me and the warmth of her hug surrounded me, I relaxed. And thankfully, no magical explosions happened from our touching.

“You’re safe,” she whispered. “You’re safe.”

I wiggled out of her embrace and pointed to the sky. “Can you stop them?”

“I’ve already tried. The clan has been worked into a frenzy, thinking they’ve lost you. There’s no reasoning with any of them, not even my brother will listen to me.”

“How about your mother?” I couldn’t imagine the soft-spoken healer of the clan agreeing to attack innocents.

Amaya shook her head. “If she’s here, I couldn’t find her. Something tells me she decided to stay back at the plateau.” She gestured to the sky. “The ones who have never left the plateau and have lived their entire lives in fear of a world they’d never seen are the ones doing the most damage now.”

“Fly me up to them. I’ll compel them to stop.”

Amaya shook her head. Soren was shaking his head, too.

“That’s a temporary fix,” Amaya said. “They’ll only come back and start again once the compulsion clears.”

“Then what can we do?” Raya shouted.

Amaya looked at me, and I knew the answer. My stomach clenched.

“No,” Soren said. He took my hand as if he planned to never let me go. Don’t let me go. “No. There has to be a different way.”

“What?” Gray asked. “What needs to happen?”

Raya smacked his arm and gave him a look.

Cullen bit his lower lip and turned away.

I drew Soren away from the others. Several yards to the left of us sat a bench surrounded by tall hedges on three sides. It would give us an illusion of privacy. The vampires had excellent hearing and could easily listen in on our conversation if they wanted to. But I needed to feel like we didn’t have an audience for this conversation.

A part of me didn’t believe Soren would give me up, not even if letting me go would save his own kingdom.

“I won’t ever give you up,” he said as if he’d heard me. I knew he hadn’t. But he had to know what I was thinking. He had to know what needed to be done. “I can’t.”

I reached up and cradled the sides of his face in my hands. His scruffy whiskers made me want to rub my cheek against his. He smelled of pine and snow and caramel, my favorite scents in the entire continent. I breathed in deeply, trying to memorize his scent. “Soren, I love you.”

He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek into my palm. “No, Celestina, please .”

“My life has never been my own. I was born to serve a purpose, to serve the dragons. They have waited generations for the promise of me to come to them. And they will burn the world to the ground until I agree to fulfill that promise.”

“There has to be another way.” His voice sounded husky. He still had his eyes closed. He held on to my hands so I wouldn’t move them away from his face.

Goddess, I wished for any solution other than the two of us having to live our lives apart, to live as enemies. “What other way? I’m not willing to fight the dragons. There’s a part of me here”—I touched my hand to my chest—“that feels the dragon fire, that feels the magic that I don’t know how to unbind, that knows I belong with the dragons.” I dragged in a shaky breath. “Before I met you, I knew this with my whole heart. My entire being would ache to go to the dragons who’d kept watch in the valley. They were the missing pieces from my life. What I’d once believed to be the imagination of a lonely child, turned out to be the longings of a creature being kept hostage in a world that wasn’t hers.”

“And then you met me?” he guessed.

“And then I fell in love with you,” I corrected. “I fell so hard that my yearning for my dragons got pushed aside. But not lost. Only muddled within the haze of love. And the dragons, the clan, they never forgot about me. They never questioned where I belonged. Would you ask me to turn my back on my own kind? To wage a war against the blood of my blood?”

He opened his eyes. The gold flecks in his eyes sparkled like we were standing in bright sunlight even though it was a moonless sky. “I will go with you.”

How I wished he could come with me and stay with me forever.

“If you came, you couldn’t be there as my mate. Or my bonded anything,” it hurt to admit. The dragons expected me to produce a new generation of moonlight dragons, which would mean I would have to mate with a dragon. Perhaps even mate with multiple dragons throughout my lifetime. It would be hell for Soren to give up his life, his family, his commitments to this kingdom to come with me to the plateau only to watch me go to another male’s bed. “My future has already been cast.”

“Recast it.”

“Soren.”

“I don’t want to let you go. I can’t let you go. I love you, Celestina. I love you so much that the thought of losing you tears a hole in my chest that I don’t think will ever heal. And that’s just from the thought of losing you. What will losing you do to me?” He stopped himself and pressed his lips together. “You are—and have been ever since I met you in the bailey yard protecting Queen Beatrice’s young sons—my guiding star, my hope for tomorrow, the reason to smile in the morning. You, Princess Celestina, are as beautiful as a sunrise with the heart of a warrior. I will never love another as purely or as completely as I love you.”

“Oh, Soren.” How could I leave him?

I looked over my shoulder at the burning city behind us. I needed to leave for his kingdom, for his people. It would be beyond selfish to do otherwise.

“Goodbye, my love,” I barely managed to whisper as tears clogged my throat.

Soren cupped my face and closed his lips over mine. His kiss was brutal and demanding and a silent reminder that he had no desire to live in a world without me.

But he couldn’t rewrite the laws of nature like he’d once promised to do for me. He couldn’t keep me with him without threatening his kingdom, his family, our lives. I wouldn’t want him to.

Slowly, his lips pulled away from mine. I cried out as cold air rushed in, chasing away the heat we’d shared.

“We need to go,” Amaya said. Her hand tightened around my wrist. I hadn’t even heard her creep up behind us. “We need to stop them before they destroy everything here.”

I let her pull me away from Soren.

“I’ll never stop loving you.” My voice was rocky with emotion. “I’ll never stop—”

Soren reached for me. But Amaya wrapped her arms around my middle and shot into the air, changing into her dragon form before she started to fall. Her leather wings filled with air and lifted us higher.

“I’ve told Trace and the others that I have you. They should back off their attacks now.”

I nodded as I watched my infuriating green dragon incinerate a farmhouse on a distant hillside. How could he do that? People lived in that house. Children lived there. From this great height, I could see the silhouette of a family with several small children fleeing the blazing house.

“Please,” I thought as strongly as I could. “ Please, get him to stop .”

The green dragon was swooping down as if he planned to kill the helpless farm family. If I were closer, I would have used my powers to compel him to stop.

“Get me closer!” I growled at Amaya, compelling her to move faster to get me to shouting range. “Go fast!”

“Stop using compulsion!” Amaya complained, but she pressed her wings back and stretched out her neck. The wind hurt as it rushed past us.

“Stop!” I shouted in my growly voice when we were close enough. “Stop! Don’t hurt them! Don’t hurt anyone! It is OVER!”

The green dragon screeched. The sound sent a chill down my spine. But I noticed that he’d changed his direction. He screeched again, sounding like he was in pain. If pressing that compulsion on him had hurt him, I regretted it. But if my actions saved the lives of the innocents in Fein, I would do it all over again.

“It’s over.” Amaya sent the message to the dragons who were still attacking the capital city. “ I have Celestina. We’re all going back to the plateau.”

I watched with growing relief as the dragons flying over the city rose higher into the air and away from the city.

“We did it,” she sent the words into my mind. “ It’s over.”

Those words rang true for me in more ways than one. My heart cried as I absorbed them. It was over. I’d never see Soren again. Or if I ever did, we’d be facing each other from opposite sides of a battlefield.

I’d fallen hopelessly in love with the wrong male and have destroyed my chance for happiness.