Page 86 of Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1)

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I stood fixed to the spot, even as someone tugged on my arm desperately, and I heard Queen Calisa demand, “ Laura ! In the Palace ! Now ! ”

But I couldn’t move.

I could only stare as Tanyn , Cormac and Bainon all leapt over the balustrade like we weren’t a story up, and in the Palace garden, shifters shifted, sparks of witch, conjuror and fae magic flew, blazes of dragon fire rained down, and flashes of demons and vampires raced, all of this lanced by screams of terror and shrieks of pain.

Catastrophic pandemonium was playing out in front of me.

But no matter what they threw at them, nothing touched the trolls.

They were even immune to dragon fire.

Gods.

How could it be?

Trolls .

“ Laura! ” Aleece screeched right in my ear.

But I was watching a golden-brown bear I knew had to be Sirk tear across the garden. He barreled into a troll who had hold of a female. The troll went off balance, dropped her, and Sirk reared up and slashed with his mighty claws at its chest.

His claws did not perforate the troll skin.

However, the troll backhanded Sirk so hard, he flew ten feet in the air and twenty feet across the garden, landing on grass and skidding uncontrollably into a bed a of flowers.

That was when I heard a familiar dragon’s roar and watched in terror as Aleksei divebombed the troll who struck Sirk .

He got too close to the ground and two trolls jumped on their mighty legs into the air, clasping him around his neck, just as another one caught his tail and swung it. Off balance, Aleksei lost control and went crashing to the ground.

NO!

My beast thudded violently in my chest.

“Unzip me,” I demanded.

“What? Laura get inside!” Aleece replied on a shout.

I looked to her, and the instant I did, she reared back.

“ Unzip me! ” I screamed.

She unzipped me, my heavy gown fell away, I jumped out of it, raced to the balustrade, went as if to dive headfirst over it, and she burst from me.

She glided low, listing and banking to avoid the grasp of troll hands.

When she got close, Aleksei’s creature was already on his hind feet, sending trolls flying with tail, wings, and he clamped one in his maw, biting down, and three bits of bloodied, ravaged dead troll fell to the turf when he opened his jaw.

She dove into the troll who’d had his tail, and she heard Aleksei’s creature’s roar, but it didn’t stop her.

She caught the troll in her jaw in mid-flight, ascended, and even as the creature struggled in her mouth, beat at her snout with his fists, she soared over the sea, faster, farther, faster, higher, faster, and then she dropped him.

A ferocious, unearthly wail escaping the troll’s mouth as, limbs flailing, he fell to the depths from a height that would likely shatter his bones on impact with the water, but even if it didn’t, he was in a place no creature could swim back.

She turned and he was there, sending a line of infuriated amethyst dragon fire over her head.

And then she did something she’d never done.

She opened her mouth, and a stream of white-hot flame streaked out, aimed well below his magnificent body.

His wings flapped back, exposing his claws and breast. He bellowed, but she ignored his surprised fury and beat a tattoo back to the Palace .

He soared into place beside her.

By the time they returned, the defense bots had been unleashed, and the flashes of laser beams coming straight from the ends of their limbs were downing trolls all over the west gardens.

He bumped her and tried to guide her, but she ignored him, so he had no choice but to allow them to fall into sync, releasing distraction streams of dragon fire in aid of still-battling shifters, demons, fae, vampires and witches.

And he dispatched another two trolls by divebombing (to her fury) in order to capture them, severing them in his teeth and fangs: one who’d cornered a fighting female fae, and another who looked to be besting a male demon.

They circled and blasted, Timothee’s blue and black beast and the king’s fierce golden dragon with its amber eyes took their wings until it came clear the defense bots had it in hand, and Aleksei’s creature guided us to the courtyard.

The other two dragons sought their own shrubbery, he and she landed behind a line of conical arborvitae.

He shook off his creature.

She let out a cute sneeze and I stood naked with Aleksei in the garden.

He had blood around his mouth and down his chest.

Along with murder in his eyes.

But two could be pissed right the heck off.

“You need to stop divebombing!” I shouted.

“She streams?” he asked with clearly barely controlled calm.

Some dragons had fire, some did not. It wasn’t about gender or class, it was about genetics.

Until that night, mine did not.

I shrugged. “ She hasn’t before. It’s new.”

I tensed when he suddenly whirled, and Aleece rounded the shrubbery with her arms full of clothes.

Gaze averted, she handed him what looked like a sweater and jeans, then she came to me, her eyes avoiding mine, but she was smiling, so I didn’t think she was protecting my nudity, but instead, hiding her insane amusement (what was amusing, I ask you!), and she gave me the same.

“I’ll just…” She hooked a thumb to the shrubbery and skedaddled.

“Never again.” Aleksei’s voice was vibrating with fury as he spoke and yanked up his jeans.

“Honey.”

“ Never do that again! ” he thundered.

Okay.

I was learning he had to shout it out, so did I , and then we could carry on like adults.

But now, he had to pull it together.

I was also dressing as I said with as much calm as I could muster in the face of his pulsating wrath, and frankly, all I’d just seen and done , “ We’ll battle it out, but we can’t right now. We need to see if our loved ones are okay and find out what the farg is going on.”

My mate agreed with me, I knew, because he yanked down his sweater, snatched up my hand, and dragged me through the courtyard to the Palace .

Once inside, there was still pandemonium.

I could see the green and orange flashes of constabulary craft outside the opened front doors, defense bots standing at attention just inside, ambu-lift medics were hard at work, beings were milling about in shocked stupors, and some had fainted and were on the floor.

To my despair, the latter were intermingled with those who were battered and bloodied.

And worse, some who were obviously dead.

I saw Dr . Fearsome , Rya not too far from him (they were guests), both of them administering to some wounded.

And then I lost sight of them when Aleksei pushed me into Timothee’s arms and ordered, “ Take her to the king’s study, and I swear to fuck, Tim , she steps one foot out of it, I’ll hold you responsible.”

Timothee nodded, but he also looked like he was fighting a smile, when, again , I had no idea what could possibly be funny, and he started pulling me to the stairs.

I didn’t want to go. I was no medic, but I could wield a Medi - Aid , for goodness’ sake.

But my mate was in a state, so I said not a word and accompanied Timothee to the king’s study.

* * *

The first to join us were Monique and Mrs . Truelock .

Right.

Two down.

Good.

Seven to go.

“The others?” I asked after I rushed to them to give them hugs.

“In the crush to get back to the Palace , I lost track of Gayle and Cat ,” Monique told me apprehensively. “ I … I don’t know about Mr . and Mrs . Vinestrong . But Mr . Truelock was talking to a constable when we were located and escorted up here.”

Right, three down, six to go.

“The queen?” Mrs . Truelock asked, glancing at Timothee .

“I don’t know. I believe she went inside at the beginning of the attack. But Aleksei , Aleece , and the king are okay,” I said.

“We saw Aleksei , Aleece and Fillion ,” Mrs . Truelock said. “ But we haven’t seen Calisa ,” she finished as the door opened.

“I’m here. I’m fine,” the queen announced.

I hurried to her and threw my arms around her.

She gave me a brief squeeze, pulled away but kept hold of one arm, patted my cheek with the other hand, her eyes moving over my face, a strange light in them.

And she murmured, “ My little Iphelia .”

Whoa.

“I should have read it,” she said mysteriously, just as the door opened again.

Cat and Gayle came in.

I hastened to them too.

After we embraced, I looked to Gayle . “ Your mom?”

“She refused to come up. Somehow , she got her hands on a couple Medi - Aids and she’s slapping those babies on anyone who has the faintest bruise.”

Gods, I adored Mrs . Vinestrong .

“Did either of you see Sirk ?” I asked.

Cat nodded. “ I saw him. He was helping to load wounded onto ambu-lifts.”

Okay.

All nine were good.

I could relax, at least a little.

“Now that we’re all together, can someone tell me I had a drug slipped into my drink and I’m hallucinating the fact that there are a slew of dead trolls with blast holes strewn all over the west garden of the Celestial Palace ?” Cat drawled.

“I wish I could,” I told her.

“I can’t believe you flew,” Gayle said.

I shrugged. “ They’d downed Aleksei .”

“Wow. Really ?” she asked, obviously having missed that part.

“He was down for less than five seconds,” Queen Calisa announced. She narrowed her gaze on me. “ If it wasn’t so magnificent what you did, Laura , I would be lecturing you on how tremendously foolish it was, you doing it without a hint of training.”

“What it was, was fucking epic ,” Timothee muttered.

The queen whirled on him and snapped, “ Timothee .”

“Mom, you said it yourself,” he retorted.

Although I felt the breakthrough Tim and I had in the mural room strengthening, and I thought that was awesome, there were other, more important things afoot.

“What’d you do?” Cat asked me.

“One of the trolls that downed Lex is fish food, for starters,” Tim told her.

Cat, Gayle and Monique all gaped at me.

We’d get into that later.

“Um, can we talk about the trolls”—and not me—“for a bit?” I requested.

“I would like to talk about that too,” Queen Calisa sniffed. “ But since they haven’t been sighted in nearly eight hundred years, until tonight, I don’t have that first clue what to say.”

“Credits to croissants, those demons up at the Edge have been breeding them for forever ,” Cat remarked.

This would be my guess.

But wouldn’t Tanyn have known about that?

Though, perhaps not, considering he was banished from Berg Castle when he was only a year old and confined on an island until he was old enough to go to school.

And he’d famously never been let back into the Castle , or his father’s orbit, even if he’d been given a prince’s education, and he and his mother lived in a citadel on the island that wasn’t a castle, as such, but it was nothing to sneeze at.

“Timothee, your mother needs a brandy, if you would be so kind,” Queen Calisa ordered.

“And I need a whisky,” Tim muttered. “ Anyone else?”

“Shot of tequila,” Cat said.

“Times two,” Moniqe put in.

“Snifter of almondine,” I requested.

“I’ll help,” Mrs . Truelock said.

“No need. I have it,” Tim told her.

Yeah.

He just said that he’d make a bunch of females some drinks.

I stared at him because…

Who was this male?

“I need something to do, sweetheart,” Mrs . Truelock told him.

Tim jerked up his chin.

“Can you make me a martini?” Gayle asked. “ Stiff . Olive .”

“I change mine to that,” Cat said.

“Me too,” Monique added.

Tim and Mrs . Truelock headed to a bureau that had the makings of a full bar on top of it and got to work.

They made our drinks, and we settled in, only for Mrs . Vinestrong to arrive ten minutes later on a massive eyeroll to her daughter and the words, “ Your father commanded I remove myself from the melee.” She turned her attention to encompass Queen Calisa and Mrs . Truelock and griped, “ Males .”

“Indeed,” Queen Calisa agreed.

“So things are still crazy?” Gayle asked.

Mrs. Vinestrong nodded as she collapsed into an armchair.

“ Not like at the beginning, of course. They’re restoring order.

I think every constable in Nocturn is interviewing guests.

And two banks of army dragons have arrived.

There are beasts sitting sentry all around the island, and more flying overhead. ”

Suddenly, Gayle asked, “ Where’s Errol ?”

I tried not to meet Tim and Queen Calisa’s eyes as they did the same to me, because he couldn’t shift, though he didn’t know he couldn’t shift, and now he probably wondered why, which was not good.

They far more successfully avoided my gaze without looking like they were, and Queen Calisa answered breezily, “ Helping , I’m sure.”

Under the guard of some defense bots so he wouldn’t put two and two together and make an escape, I was sure.

“Okay, is it only me who noticed that King Arnaud didn’t show his gross, smarmy face at the Masque ?” Cat asked.

More eye avoidance from the royals, and Queen Calisa waded in again. “ As Elayne said, there is what I have no doubt will be a thorough investigation already underway. We’ll learn what there is to learn when there’s something to know.”

“Perhaps we should turn on the screen?” Mrs . Truelock suggested.

Before the queen could stop him, Tim , who was leaning against the front of the king’s desk, said to the room, “ Screen engage. Play latest newsfeed.”

A large screen unfurled from the ceiling and a human female newsreader appeared on it.

“We’ve received reports of a massive malfunction of the ground level fireworks display at the Midnight Masque this evening,” she was saying.

Sounded like Germaine hadn’t missed a beat, as usual.

At least it was good to know she was fine and functioning on all cylinders.

“There may be casualties, but we haven’t received official word,” she went on. “ Emergency forces were dispatched to the Sceptred Isle . We await further news on developments.”

“Screen mute,” the queen called.

The newsreader continued to be displayed, her mouth yapping, but we couldn’t hear her.

“They can’t possibly think hundreds of people who saw, and even battled, trolls are going to keep their traps shut about seeing and battling freaking trolls ,” Mon remarked.

“No, we won’t be able to keep that under wraps,” the queen agreed. “ However , perhaps we can do it long enough the appropriate comms can go out so we’ll be at the ready.”

“At the ready?” Gayle asked. “ For what?”

The queen turned frighteningly sober eyes to her.

And then she decreed, “ My dear, I’m not certain who did it, but someone did. They launched an attack against Nights ’ Fall . And now, we are at war.”