Page 49

49

Secret Guardian

NYX

“ O h, fucking hells,” I grumbled, scrubbing my hand over my face. My head was pounding with the world’s worst hangover. My guts churned with all the greasy food I’d stuffed in my face before passing out.

Jedidiah and Solaris were splayed out on the floor, unconscious.

I crouched beside Jed, looking into his blacked-out eyes as they stared right through me. A shiver rushed down my spine.

“What’s wrong with them?” Christina peeped timidly from behind me. She was smart to hang back, not getting too close.

“They’ve fallen into the shadows.”

“Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“No.” I grimaced against the throb of my headache. If I leaned over too far, I’d throw up.

I could not deal with this shit right now. I needed to sleep for a year or two first.

A dark, magnetic tug latched onto my heart. I thrust myself back, away from them. “Shit!” I hissed. I shot my hand out, summoning every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen to fly open at my kinetic demand. They were all fucking empty, save for one above the stove that never got used. A jar of salt flew across the room into my waiting, open palm.

But before I enclosed them in a circle of salt, I knelt beside Solaris and rooted through his cloak until I found the padlock and key. Then I stumbled back and flicked my wrist, casting a ring of protection around them. Nothing could get in or out. The threat of hungry shadows waned. The darkness would not claim anyone else.

I wiped my brow, forcing myself to breathe evenly.

Daylight drenched the penthouse, bringing the truth to light. It was a fucking war zone. The floor was coated in blood and shattered glass.

I stared at it for a moment before I laughed. A sharp, cold, humorless laugh.

The sight of the two of them like this did something to me. Stirred something deep and nameless. Their fallen bodies, blacked-out eyes. Together, bound inside my magic.

The urge to collapse to my knees nearly consumed me. To break open the protection circle and fling myself over them, descend into the shadows to—

“No,” I hissed to myself. I tore my glare away from them, focusing on Christina. She stood back by the bar, taking everything in as if it were a murder scene. It almost was. “Do not let me go in there after them. Okay?”

Her spellbound eyes met mine. “How am I supposed to stop you ?”

We slept for days. I didn’t know how many exactly. Three, maybe four.

During that time, Solaris and Jed did not wake up. I checked on them here and there but mostly I stayed curled up in bed next to Christina. Soon, I’d need to venture into the city and hunt for food. We’d eaten everything we’d brought back the other night, and her stash of pepperoni was getting dangerously low.

“Holy shit!” Christina cried, jolting upright in the bed. “What was that!”

I startled. “What?”

Her huge dark eyes were plastered to the window. “Something massive just flew by!”

My heart, a stone to the ocean floor. “What do you mean?” I kicked off the blankets and rushed to the glass, peering out into the night. I saw nothing but faded stars. I snapped my neck toward her accusingly. “What did you see?”

“I don’t know! It was yellow and enormous. Bigger than any bird I’ve ever seen.”

Yellow?

“You mean…was it gold ?”

Her brows narrowed, contemplating. “Yeah, it could have been. I only saw it for a second. It went by so fast, I—what are you doing?!”

By the time she was done speaking, I’d already punched out the glass window and began climbing out to scale the side of the building to the rooftop.

I heaved myself up over the ledge, grunting against the strain of my weak, trembling muscles. Christina was yelling after me, but the wind swallowed up her voice and carried her words away before I could make them out.

I landed on the rooftop in a heap, the impact harder than I’d intended. For a moment, I stayed on my back and looked up at the dark sky.

The wariness in my soul expanded. The exhaustion was bone-deep, despite all the sleep. The bewilderment, confusion, anger, grief. All of it consumed me.

I kept thinking I’d reached my lowest low. Then I’d sink some more.

Whoosh.

The sound had me sitting up on instinct, holding my breath to hear better. Leathery cracks against the air sent my heart into a fit.

Please , was all I could think.

I stood up, searching. The sky remained empty, the stars fading as the first blot of sunlight bled over the horizon.

But I could hear it. The unmistakable beat of wings.

My chest heaved. Nothing was flying over me, not even fucking Zazu. I was losing my mind. Truly going mad now. Hearing things. What was next? Hallucinations? How could I trust anything I thought I knew? What if I’d just made up everything that happened with Jed and Solaris?

Liquid acid filled my eyes, burning down my cheeks once more. I was so done with crying. But I couldn’t stop. Everything was rising inside of me, mirroring the morning sun. Everything I’d tried to bury and burn and run from. It raged up my spine like a furious serpent, tingling the back of my neck until my hair stood on end. Chills rushed across my flesh in a hurry, the dawn scorching my eyes as I stared into it.

The sun broke over the shoulders of the horizon completely, warm light reaching for me.

At the same moment, he materialized.

Out of thin air—as if he was born from the sun’s radiance itself.

It beamed off his brilliant scales, casting a golden halo around him. His sharp, bat-like wings were splayed, at least six feet wide. Silver-blue eyes lit with churning power seared into me. A long, lithe body reminiscent of both serpentine and feline natures, lined with pure muscle under rippling metallic scales. He sat proudly on the ledge of the rooftop, staring into my soul while his flaming club tail lashed behind him.

I thought I said something but only the Goddess would ever know the true words that left my lips.

Every inch of me trembled.

He cocked his head, sizing me up.

Jedidiah had been telling the truth, after all. The dragon had grown. Impossibly so. But his comparison to a dog was a joke. There was nothing canine about him. He was large, but thin and serpentine. I couldn’t imagine how he’d grown so quickly. From what I knew of dragons, what my mother had told me, dragons took years to grow and mature. And his wings. Goddess, his wings . They were glorious, though they did almost look too big for him. Like if he leaned too far to one side, the imbalanced weight would have him tipping over. The thought coaxed a breathy, involuntary giggle through my parted lips.

Smoke curled from his nostrils, his flaming tail whipping back and forth like a mischievous cat.

Up close, I could see he wasn’t just gold. His horns were dark, nearly black, and he had dark scales rippling down his chest as well. His claws were obsidian daggers, which I imagined could slice through stone.

“I was wondering when I’d see you again,” I whispered.

He angled his head, absorbing the words. His bright eyes blinked, those slitted pupils fattening slightly as he looked me over.

The way he was looking at me made my stomach tumble. It struck me then, his nuance. He was mythic, yes—beyond ethereal and majestic. A creature born and made of fathomless magic.

Yet…he was still an animal. One that was regarding me as if I were his next meal.

It ignited a nameless instinct inside me. A wave of power rippled over my flesh—a power had never felt lucidly before. I gasped as it melted over me like cold wax. I blinked, and blinked again, with each one, my vision sharpened. Like the Goddess was turning up the contrast in my senses. The dragon became more defined, the sunlight around him full of rainbow hues I hadn’t seen before.

Something pinched my lip. It made me jump. I raised my hand to touch the sore spot, and—

My hand.

I had to be dreaming. There was no way this elongated black-clawed mitt that belonged to a beast out of a nightmare was mine .

The dragon watched me, his club tail lashing fiercely.

Gingerly, I ran my tongue over my teeth. It snagged on my fanged canines, drawing blood that pooled in my mouth and spilled over my bottom lip.

You transformed into something, Nyx.

I breathed hard, shaking my head. “What is happening to me?”

The dragon trilled. The sound was melodic and comforting, like a bird singing to the dawn. We stared at each other, and despite the absolute mayhem firing through me, my shoulders relaxed. He held my eyes, and his trill deepened until it sounded identical to a purr. The most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

Running on pure instinct, I stepped closer to him, erasing the space between us. He snorted excitedly, blue sparks flying from his nose. We didn’t look away from each other once. His ethereal silver-blue eyes beheld me, and it was impossible to feel like a monster with him looking at me like that.

With my sharpened vision, his details were nearly psychedelic. His flaming tail whipped behind him as he nudged his nose closer to me.

I placed my shifted hand on his sharp, spiky cheek. A bolt of power shot through me, filling my mind with blue light. My heart tumbled then raced, and there was an echo to it as if I had two of them dancing behind my ribs.

He trilled a beautiful song for me, nuzzling into my touch.

I let my eyes flutter shut. “Where have you been?” I asked him, my voice raw. “I thought you’d abandoned me.”

His trill dipped into a sorrowful tune, and then a montage of soft-lit visions burst in my mind’s eye. He showed me visions of him outside my tomb, guarding me day in and day out. Fast forward, and he was in a tree outside of the beach house, coiled up tightly in an abandoned eagle’s nest. And then here, on this very roof, curled up in a corner amid a pile of charred animal bones.

When the visions faded, I was weeping. I glanced to the left, to the corner of the roof, and saw the pile of bones from the vision.

“You’ve been with me the whole time.”

The dragon purred softly, smoke seeping from his nose. He cocked his head sideways, so I was looking into one big eye. In it, I saw my reflection.

My eyes matched his. Beaming brilliant silver-blue, with a thin slit pupil.

Dragon eyes.

Before I could process any of this, another vision appeared in my mind.

A vision of me taking my place between Solaris and Jedidiah, offering myself to the shadows.

It faded quickly, leaving me confused. “What…?”

The dragon reared back and shrieked, severing the moment. He vaulted off the ledge, flying right at me. I yelped and fell into an impulsive crouch. He soared directly over where I had just been standing.

The sight of him in flight knocked the wind from my lungs, reducing me to a breathless, starstruck mute as I watched him go.

Then—a primal, protective energy hatched inside of me. Was he just going to fly right over the city at first light? He would be seen! Goddess, if they found out about him… Mortals and Celestials alike. It would be a fucking witch hunt.

I opened my mouth to cry out to him, but at the same moment, he disappeared, vanishing into thin air, the same way as he’d appeared.

A thousand questions exploded like fireworks in my mind. He could make himself invisible? Or was he transcending this realm altogether?

This was way, way too much to take in at once. My brain cracked in half, draining my old thoughts.

Nothing was as it seemed.

I looked down at my black-clawed hands. The darkened skin glittered slightly, a faint pattern of scales visible when I angled them in the light just right.

And then, as simple as a dissolving glamour, the black faded and the claws shrunk. Right before my eyes, until I was looking at my normal hands. My sight dulled, my canines flat again.

For a moment, I just stood there.

But I needed to act. I’d been given a mission.

I hurled myself over the ledge and scaled the side of the building, sliding back into the bedroom through the shattered window, where Christina was waiting with bated breath.

“What the hell!” she shrieked. “What was it?”

I breathed heavily. I knew what I needed to do. But first, I needed to get Christina somewhere safe.

And there was only one place in the world I knew she’d be safe.

I grabbed her hand and used the selenite stylus to draw the anywhere rune to open a shimmering portal in front of us.

I portalled back into the penthouse within minutes. I knew what I needed to do. The dragon had made it clear.

It was getting myself to do it that was the challenge.

I swallowed, hard. They’d been in the shadows for days. I couldn’t imagine what they’d seen, what they’d been through. Were they together? Or on their own? Were they roaming aimlessly through darkness, or witnessing suppressed memories like when I’d found Solaris as a child?

My mind was running wild with theories.

The only thing in my way was me. I procrastinated as long as I could. I showered, standing under the water until it ran cold, and then braided my hair. It was a dramatic, high ponytail braid that was thick and long enough to be a weapon. I washed my leathers and dried them with my magic. Lastly, I did my makeup. Maybe it was ridiculous but it was my armor. I felt more powerful this way. If I was going to descend into the Underworld, I was going to look fucking good doing it.

“Okay,” I muttered shakily. “I’m going in.”

With a flick of my wrist, I opened the salt circle, instantly feeling the tug of shadows. My ears rang and the ambiance intensified. It took every ounce of willpower I had to step inside.

Amid blood and wings and brothers, I lay myself down, heart thrashing as I took my place between them. Before I was even down, I was falling. Into the darkness once more.