Page 20

Chapter Twenty

Gasping in air, I tried to orient myself, but the only thing I could feel was pain and extremely hard ground pressing against my body.

My ears rang so loudly and dizziness made my vision swim, so I couldn’t figure out which way was up.

Someone touched me, but it caused extreme pain to flare through my body and I cried out in pain, pushing at the hands, trying to ward them off.

My eyes slowly blinked open and the first thing I saw was blood on the back of Kayden’s head that lay on the pavement before me. “Kay?” I croaked and tried to reach out towards him, but my body wouldn’t move.

“Stay still, Lily,” Piper ordered me. “A healer is on the way.”

The ringing had subsided and what was left was almost worse as a torrent of sounds assaulted me.

“There was a bomb on our vehicle, human made, which is why we didn’t detect it with magic,” she explained as she knelt next to me.

“De-Dead?” I gasped.

“No, no one died, but all of us are injured. We seem to be safe, but?—”

Her words were cut off by the roar of a dragon.

Sadly, not the one I was mated to.

I tugged on Trey’s bond, jerking it as hard as I could with my limited powers at the moment.

Piper stood on wobbly legs, one of her arms hanging limply by her side, and took a warrior shift with a sword in the hand that seemed to be working. “Protect the royals!” she shouted.

Jeremy limped over as quickly as he could and put up a barrier just in time to protect us from the first dragon’s breath aimed at us. He dropped to one knee, sucking in sharp gasps as he gripped his staff and held the barrier in place.

Where was Mason? I could feel the bond, but not where he was. Was he unconscious? I knew he wasn’t dead, because I would have felt that pain, but I was too weak to do anything else.

Closing my eyes, I tried to mentally communicate with my fathers, trying to get someone nearby who could help us. Or someone who could get Dad or Mom to teleport to us and help fight.

The disorientation I was dealing with made it hard to even do that, so I wasn’t sure if anyone heard me.

“Give us Liliana and we’ll let the rest of you live,” a familiar male voice said.

Who was that? I knew the voice, but … who?

“What is the meaning of this, Alexander? Do you think you won’t be punished for this?” Piper asked.

“Doesn’t matter as long as I take her out,” he grunted.

My mate’s cousin was attacking me. Wow.

“Spineless. Piece. Of. Shit,” I gasped out as I pushed up onto my hands and knees.

He growled. “What?”

I turned my head slowly to look at him. “Couldn’t. Handle us. Full power. Used humans. Pathetic. Dragon. Bastard.”

He roared and tried to use a fire breath, but Jeremy‘s shield was still intact.

I gripped the back of Piper’s shirt as I stood and we leaned against each other, helping to stay upright. “Going to. Watch Trey. Gut you. Put your head. On mantle,” I gasped out. I definitely had ribs broken. No doubt about it. Thankfully, we had decently fast healing rates, so as long as we could hold out, we could heal and fight them.

He spat to the side. “He’ll thank me for curing him of your stench.”

The vehicle we’d been in was completely destroyed and burning about fifty feet from us. Had we flown out of it and landed on the pavement here? There was broken glass everywhere, which made it hard to find a safe spot to rest.

Piper had blood dripping down her limp arm and there was a dark patch on her back that concerned me, but there wasn’t time to check injuries and assess our condition.

“I’m going to pull your spine from your body and use it as a coatrack,” Kayden snarled as he stood up behind us. Blood dripped down his face and onto his shoulder, but his eyes glowed with unbridled fury and he otherwise looked unharmed.

“We do need. New coat rack… in… the house,” I said with a smile at him.

Kayden didn’t look at me as he shifted into his warrior form and ran out of the shield, straight at Alexander.

A dizzy spell hit me and I fell to my knees, but I kept my eyes glued to the fight, needing to watch my mate fighting our enemy.

Piper growled. “Reinforcements are on the way. We just have to hold out until they arrive.”

Turning my head, I found Mason about four feet from us, unconscious on the ground. I hissed in pain as I forced my body to walk over to him. “Mas?” I whispered and slid to my knees next to him, resting a hand on his back. He was breathing, but there was a puddle of blood near his head that worried me.

Trey tugged on the bond and I tugged harder as Kayden took a hard hit to the face from Alexander. I knew Trey and I should be able to communicate mentally, but the four of us hadn’t figured it quite out yet.

A wolf howled and my hair stood on end as I turned to look behind us. Three werewolves in warrior form approached, snarling and prepared to fight.

“If you do this, your life is forfeit,” Piper yelled out to them. “King Deryn and Dan will not forgive you harming Lily. You know this. Why are you being stupid?”

“Once we end her life, they’ll see the demons for the true threat that they are. She’s just covering for them, putting them in a positive light. We know. We’ve been attacked and had family killed by them,” one of the wolves said.

Ah, it made sense now. These were people who had experienced loss at the hands of the demons and couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t accept that things that had happened before our truce could be forgiven. That there were bad apples in every group.

“I… didn’t do anything,” I challenged. “I’ve always… supported the wolves and other races.”

If Mason would just wake up, be safe, he could protect us. He was our best fighter.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone, but the device was completely destroyed. Useless.

“Mine’s broken, too,” Piper whispered and gripped her sword harder.

“I can’t hold a shield… much… longer,” Jeremy gasped.

People had started to come out of their houses, but when they saw there was a battle about to happen, they went back inside. At least they had seen us, perhaps they would call to get us help.

“Hurry, before they get help,” one of the wolves snarled and charged at us.

Protect. I had to protect Mason. Had to help keep Piper and the others safe, too. It wasn’t their fault they were assigned to us. They didn’t deserve to die because of who I was.

Reaching deep within myself, I drew on my power and coaxed what I could out to take a partial warrior shift, scales flowing over my vital parts as the werewolves breached the shield. I also made sure that my shift included a partial tail.

The first werewolf reached me and I punched him as hard as I could in the chest, sending him backwards, away from Mason’s prone form. I seemed to be their target, but I couldn’t let them get Mason while he was vulnerable. Risking them getting Mason to hurt me wasn’t an option.

The werewolf swiped his claws down my arm, slicing through skin down to the bone and causing me to cry out in pain.

I kicked him away, clutching my arm, which bled profusely.

“We can make this easy, Princess. Let us put you out of your misery,” he said as he circled me.

“I am Princess Liliana of the Hybrids and Demons. I will purge your hatred from the clans. I will go down fighting you to protect others you may target next.”

“You can’t even protect yourself,” he scoffed and kicked me in the chest.

My broken ribs that had just started repairing themselves cracked again from the kick and worse from hitting the ground.

The air whooshed from my lungs and I couldn’t breathe. Black tendrils clouded my vision.

More dragons roared, but I had no idea if they were friend or foe.

Was this it? Was this how I died?

Getting to my feet, I barely stood upright before he tried to slice his claws across my face. Spinning around, I hit him with my tail, sending him flying into one of his accomplices that had been fighting Piper, saving her from his attack.

“Get Mason and get out of here,” I ordered her.

She gritted her teeth and shook her head. “Not leaving you.”

“I am ordering you!” I shouted.

“No!” she shouted back, turning to face the werewolves as they returned to fight us.

“Stubborn bitch,” I hissed at her.

“Takes one to know one,” she snapped back.

Two dragons dropped out of the sky and my jaw dropped as Trey’s mother was one of them. She was in a warrior shift, something I didn’t realize she was capable of.

“You,” I hissed. “You orchestrated this?”

She bared her teeth at me. “It wasn’t hard to find others who want you dead as much as I do. So, why don’t you just accept your fate and die so that Trey can move on and find someone worthy of him.”

“Your son won’t even grieve for you and no funeral will be held as I’m going to burn your body and let your ashes wash down the sewer pipes!” I bellowed and ran at her.

A breath of fire whooshed out of her, but I dodged to the side and continued my approach.

Luckily for me, she wasn’t a trained fighter and despite my injuries, it wasn’t long before I had her wrapped up in my coils. I hesitated for a second, debating whether I should crush her or not. While she was evil and would have killed me had she had the ability, she was still Trey’s mother. Would he hate me for killing her even though I was protecting myself?

My hesitation gave one of the werewolves a chance to run over and attack me, their claws cutting into my scales and skin.

I screamed, but instead of loosening, I tightened my hold more. Bones cracked and after a second, her heart stopped beating against my underbelly.

Shifting quickly, I rolled away from her body and faced the werewolf who continued to advance on me.

He drew a sword from his back and smiled evilly. “This ends now, Princess.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw reinforcements arrive in the form of two of my adoptive fathers, Branson and Riddick.

Relief surged through me, but it was short lived as I had to duck and dodge away from the werewolf’s sword.

I stumbled over a piece of the car smoldering on the ground and the werewolf thrust his sword towards me.

Branson was suddenly there, between the werewolf and me, taking the sword to his stomach in my place.

“Bran!” I screamed.

He elbowed the werewolf behind him, forcing him to release his hold on the sword and jerked it out himself with a grunt.

I scrambled to my feet, gripping his shirt to pull it up to check, but he grabbed me in a bone-crunching hug. “We’re here, Lily. We’ve got you.”

“Bran Bran,” I sobbed.

He suddenly released me, spinning around and took a warrior shift, his body becoming mostly bear, and roared at the attacking werewolves and dragons. His roar shook the windows on the nearby houses and for a split second, fear crossed the faces of the werewolves near us.

Riddick knelt by Mason, checking him over.

“Go sit with Mason while we handle this,” Branson ordered me.

“Yes, Dad,” I whispered as I limped over to my still unconscious mate.

The werewolf who had stabbed him tried to run around Branson at me, but Branson grabbed him around the throat and lifted him off the ground, strangling him. “You hurt my daughter, so now you die.”

The werewolf’s screams followed me as I limped towards Mason and a smile spread over my face knowing Bran Bran was killing the one who had hurt me and my mates.

Riddick had gone off to help Piper with the dragon and wolf she was fighting against, so it was just Mason and I as I sat down on the pavement, being careful not to sit on broken glass.

Kayden was still fighting Alexander, seemingly in a stalemate as both sucked in breaths and bled from various injuries, about ten feet apart, glaring and snarling at each other.

Mason’s body suddenly jerked and he went from laying on the ground to standing in the blink of an eye. Black shadows danced across his skin a moment before disappearing. He looked down at me, an expression I hadn’t seen before on his handsome face, his eyes black orbs that glowed with power. “Lily, safe?” he asked in a deeper than usual voice.

I nodded. “I’m safe.”

He turned and took in the scene before us. With an eerie growl and chirp, he sprinted across the road towards Kayden and Alexander.

What was that? I had never seen him act that way before or have black eyes? Was it from the piece of my power that he had inside of him?

Too many questions without a simple or known answer.

A new dragon roared and this time, I relaxed, recognizing the roar of my mate, Trey.

“Took you long enough,” I whispered just before my body fell to the side and I slipped into unconsciousness.