Chapter Six
Cage as a dragon was terrifyingly magnificent.
He spread his wings wide and a full-blown tornado whooshed out of them, tossing the demon dragons across the cavern and splatting into walls.
“Grab the girl and go.”
Kur-Jara shifted into the Black Dragon and spat a stream of fire toward Cage. He screeched like a giant baby-ass demon dragon when his flames were wrapped up by the tornado and extinguished.
“Not without you.” There was no way she could leave him here to sacrifice himself while she got away. That would be too much déjà vu all over again. The Black Dragon was not that much different from a gang leader and Cage was definitely here to serve and protect.
Just like her father had been.
“Dammit, Azynsa, run. I'll be right behind you. There's no getting rid of me now that I have marked and claimed you. You're stuck with me, babe.”
Well, all right then. Azy wrapped her arms under Fallyn's shoulders and dragged her, using all of the power in her muscles to make it across the rock floor. She'd never had a problem with the maximus of her gluteus, a.k.a. her big old booty, and she was more than grateful for it right now. She wasn't as strong as a few weeks ago. But, once she was back with the Mami Wata and flipping her fins through the ocean again, she would be back to her old self. Physically anyway.
For the first time since she'd decided to get Fallyn out and the dragons had left her down here, she felt a real glimmer of hope that she might actually get back to the ocean in one piece.
She should have known better.
The entrance to the tunnel was only a few more feet away when Fallyn woke up. She slapped at Azy's hands and twisted her body trying to get away.
“Fallyn, stop, it's me.”
“No, it's not you.” She scrambled to her feet and backed away. “I don't know you.”
Shit, Azy did not have time for Fallyn’s riddles. “You do. Come on, we’ve got to get away.”
That she got. Fallyn took one look in Cage’s direction, turned and bolted toward her treasure room. Azy tried to follow, but a demon dragon who’d escaped Cage’s tornado dropped from above, landed on her, and pinned her to the ground with its claws. One pierced her shoulder and another her thigh, burning her from the inside out.
Azy gritted her teeth hard rather than cry out. She wouldn’t distract Cage in his shootout, or, uh battle with the Black Dragon.
“Get off me, you disgusting piece of shit.” She kicked with her other leg and tried to punch it but the thing held her fast.
The demon dragon sniffed her, drooling as it did, it’s spittle burned like boiling mucus. “Too late. No good to AllFather.”
That was a mouthful and a half for a demon dragon. This one was different, there was an intelligence in its eyes. Maybe she could negotiate with it.
“Let me go and the dragon warrior will spare your life.” Probably a lie, it would already be dead if Cage wasn’t defending them all against the Black Dragon.
It turned and looked up at Jett, pinned to the ceiling. “No. You help him.” It released her arm and grabbed her chin. Help all. Do it.”
Help the Black Dragon?
No.
He meant Jett.
The sliced flesh at her leg throbbed as it withdrew its claw. It licked her blood from it, then turned and leapt across the room, into the air, toward Cage and the tornado.
Azy couldn’t keep quiet this time. “Cage, look out. Behind you.”
She clasped her hands over her mouth. A chill, like hell freezing over, washed over her skin and inside. No, no. Not again.
Cage didn’t hear her over the din of the wind and battle. The demon dragon was close. Azy tried to get to her feet, but she was losing a lot of blood and her leg wouldn’t work. She clasped her hands over the wound. She was not dying in hell, God damn it.
“Cage. Cage.” The words were a silent prayer, making no sound, save that of a low keen that escaped from the deepest darkest part of her heart.
She would not lose him like she’d lost her father. She might not be able to walk, but she could army crawl, or do the 80’s worm dance across the floor if she had to. It wasn’t that much different than how she used her tail to swim.
Like she even knew how to swim any more, she hadn’t been in water or even seen her tail in so long now.
If it was the last thing she did, that demon dragon would not kill Cage. She reached out for him, knowing it was useless, but willing him to look at her. Then she grabbed the soul shard she still wore around his neck. It belonged to him, it gave them a connection.
She closed her eyes tight, squeezing them, concentrating on sending him a mental image of the demon dragon headed for his destruction. Cage didn’t react, didn’t turn, or acknowledge her, but a gust of wind brushed against her cheek.
Had she imagined that? No. The wind whipped around her, through her hair and then poof, blew the demon dragon off its course.
Instead of landing on Cage’s back, it was caught in the swirling wind.
Yes.
It tumbled, not flailing about like she thought it would, but spreading its small wings and riding the storm.
Shit.
Cage was easily in its sights, but it flew right past, tucking its body into an aerodynamic arrow and shot straight for the Black Witch.
What?
She hadn’t moved during the battle, except to press herself to the wall. She kept her tight magical hold on Jett, not letting him fall even an inch from the ceiling.
Had it released her only to assist the Black Witch?
The demon dragon circled the room, riding the wind. On its next pass, it dropped from the swirl of dirt and dust, crashing toward Ereshkigal.
She shrieked, throwing her arms up to block the attack, but she wasn’t fast enough to hold back the demon dragon cannonballing toward her. It crashed into her, rolling across the rock in a tangle of limbs and claws.
Jett, no longer trapped by her spell, dropped from the ceiling, spreading his own wings and lashed out at the Black Dragon. Cage didn’t miss a beat. He blew a new burst of wind that carried Jett past the Black Dragon and right in Azy’s direction. Those coal black of Jett’s were pissed as hell when he landed beside her.
“I’ll get him for that demon dragon’s death.”
This was war and if Jett wasn’t with them, who was he with? She couldn’t figure out if he was a good guy or a baddie. “Whose side are you on here?”
“Mine,” he growled. He lifted Azy in one of his claws, underneath her legs and made for the tunnel.
She pushed against him with her uninjured arm, but she was already feeling the effects of her wounds. “We can’t leave Cage.”
“Fuck me. Don’t any of you have any sense of self-preservation.”
Jett rolled his eyes, dropped her just inside the tunnel entrance and turned back to the battle. The Black Dragon had taken to the air and was showering fire down as the pools of lava shot up in spurts. Oh, shit on a shingle. Cage would be caught in the middle.
Jett flew for the ceiling and ran smack dab into a giant stalactite. It and half the rocks in the caldera rained down like hellfire on top of the Black Dragon.
“Get the fuck out of here, gold. That won’t keep him long.” Jett flew right over Cage’s head and into the tunnel, not bothering to stop for Azy this time.
Cage was at her side before she even blinked. He grabbed her up and followed Jett into the darkness.
“Up ahead and to the left is Fallyn’s armory. Maybe we can make a stand there.”
Cage and Jett followed her directions and in another few flaps of their wings she saw the light coming from the cave where Fallyn had hoarded swords and Christmas ornaments.
Neither were going to do them much good if the Black Dragon came calling. She imagined throwing broken glass bulbs at his face and that made her feel a little better.
Jett went through the cave entrance and a power like electricity snapped and sparkled across his skin. “Ouch.”
He landed in a skid and a thud inside the cave. Where he had crossed now sparkled like some kind of force field across the entry to the cave.
Cage pulled up short, landing directly in front of the entryway. He still cradled Azy in his great claw, holding her away from the power. “She has it shielded somehow.”
He sniffed and poked at the energy field at the doorway. “The spell doesn’t have an effect on me. But, I’m not going through without you.”
Azy reached her hand out and through the sparkling energy. Where she touched it, the sparkled faded and she felt nothing, just as when she’d gone into Fallyn’s cave before. If Jett hadn’t crashed through, she wouldn’t know any kind of barrier was even there. “I’ve been in there. I didn’t even know there was a spell.”
Cage glanced over her shoulder and shoved her into Fallyn’s cave, following right behind her.
“I won’t have a dragon stealing my hoard.” Fallyn stood just inside the entrance, a sword held with the tip pointing at Cage’s throat.
A rumble sounded in the tunnel behind them. Jett got to his feet and took a stand in front to the entry, blocking it with his body, his tail poised to strike at anything that came through. A stream of demon dragons ran past the cave, not a one of them even glancing in their direction. They all stayed silent until the final one was gone.
Fallyn was the first one to say anything.
“If you move an inch, I’ll push this blade in to your neck. The poison is not for you, but it will hurt in ways you don’t even understand.”
Cage’s eyes grew wide with Fallyn’s words, but not in fear, in realization of something important. “You’re the one who stabbed Match.”
Fallyn spat on the floor.
Yeah. That wasn’t the way to get her calmed down. What she needed was a distraction. For that matter, so did Azy. Her wounds were throbbing now. She glanced around the room hoping for inspiration anywhere. Whoop, there it is.
“Ooh. Fallyn, I don’t think I remember your ornaments being so, so, brilliant before. Did you do something special to them?”
Fallyn looked over her shoulder toward the display and lowered her sword a few inches.
“The mother gave me a spell to make everything shine like I want.”
Interesting, the sparkle around the ornaments echoed the force field. “They’re even prettier than before. Is it the same one you used on the entryway to your, uh, treasure cave?”
The sword dropped another few inches. “Ereshkigal doesn’t like shiny things. She can’t see in here anymore. She gets mad when I don’t talk to the mates and takes my things.”
Cage stepped away and shifted into his human form but didn’t move his gaze from Fallyn and her sword. His change from dragon to man seemed to calm Fallyn and she let the sword drop the rest of the way.
Phew.
He glanced around the room, nodding to Jett to follow suit. “This ward is a powerful spell.”
Jett shifted and glared at Fallyn. “Who is the mother?”
Didn’t these two know each other? They were both from hell, so Azy assumed they did. She’d kind of wondered if they weren’t related somehow since they were the only people down here and weren’t actively trying to kill her.
She pressed a hand against the wall to continue to hold herself up. Damn that demon dragon. She would have to ask Jett what the hell was up with it later, when she wasn’t so close to throwing up from the pain.
“I think she is mine, or Izzy’s. I’m not sure.” Fallyn tipped her head in that way that she did when she was thinking about something and glared over at Cage. “She’s his mother.”
Cage shook his head. “My mom was a human. A beautiful one, but nothing more. She had no powers.”
Fallyn looked at him like he was stupid or something. “No. Not that one.”
Jett circled Fallyn, clearly trying to intimidate her. “Who was this woman? What did she look like?”
Fallyn snarled at him. “She looked like the mother.”
“You’re not going to get a clearer answer from her than that.” Azy was feeling more than a little woozy and these two weren’t helping.
“When did she give you this spell?”
Jett was awfully interested in the mother and the spell. Couldn’t he give it a rest?
“When the afterlife took the blue dragon warrior.”
A giant pit filled with snapping crocodiles opened up in Azy’s stomach. “The blue…you mean Ky? Ky didn’t die, did he?”
Azy had assumed he’d gotten out with the other dragons. Maybe he hadn’t. One more thing she couldn’t forgive herself for. Ky Puru had tried to rescue her. Once when she’d been taken by the Black Dragon and his stupid minions in the water cavern and again when he’d been brought down to hell himself.
Cage came up to her and touched his knuckles to her cheek and neck. “No. I was just at his wedding a few weeks ago.”
His warmth felt good on her skin, she was cold. For the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel the incessant heat of the hellfires. She grabbed his hand and held it to her skin. She tingled everywhere he touched.
Fallyn seemed so far away now. The room had gotten bigger, and darker. “Why did you say he was dead?”
“I didn’t.” Fallyn stared at her and frowned. “Why are you in this place with your dragon, mermaid?”
Oh, to be a mermaid again, her skin cried out for the cool waters of the Atlantic. Her scales felt so dry, like she would crack if she went any longer without the sea on her skin.
“Azynsa!”
Her legs went out from underneath her. No, she didn’t have legs any longer. She’d lost them. Inch by inch her scales crawled up her skin, fusing her legs together into a tail.
But, those weren’t her scales. She was a rich deep yellow, so dark to almost be copper. These scales were brilliant gold, interspersed with pearly white.
That was probably a hallucination. She could tell because everything in the room was wavering and the colors were fading. A muffled buzz went off in her ears.
Aw, crap. She’d lost complete control of her body and she was going to pass out.
Fucking awesome.
Cage grabbed for her, sliding his arms under her tail and supporting her behind the back an instant before she hit the rock floor.