Chapter Eighteen
Save Me
Jakob followed the demon dragon down the street. The one turned to many as it called its brethren to rise. First two, then ten. More and more formed out of the shadows until a river of them were flowing toward Ciara. Where the fuck were they all coming from and why were they here and now?
It had to be connected to Ciara and the relic. The bastards had never shown any interest in a single human being before. They had only ever been bent on causing plagues and spreading death. They’d brought the black death to Europe, Ebola to Africa, SARS to Asia, and H1N1 around the world. Each outbreak had been stopped from becoming a species annihilator by the dragon warriors.
He and every other dragon ever born had rooted them out, usually one by one, and destroyed them. To see this many gathered together twice in a lifetime was more than a little scary. But, for them to be fixated on one human didn’t make sense.
They were missing vital clues, and he didn’t have time to hunt them down. He was too busy hunting demon dragons.
Jakob slashed and destroyed them from the back of the newly formed hoard, but as soon as he killed one, two more appeared to take its place.
He had to get ahead of them and warn Ciara. Get her out of there and to safety. Preferably back to his villa where he would build a brand new, high-tech safe room, hidden in an underground bunker, that only he knew the location of and the combination. He would hide her away there forever.
Except she would kill him for it. He would enjoy every second of that, and the make-up sex to be had once he rid the world of every last demon dragon.
They were falling fast, he was taking them out two or three at a time. It wasn’t enough. As a highly-trained warrior he knew better than to use only his claws, tail, and fangs to fight his enemy. Use your head, asshat.
They couldn’t fly, but he could. If only he had fire. As soon as he thought it, dragon’s fire spewed down upon them.
Match swooped in over the hoard and took out a dozen right down the middle. The remaining right flank of them froze in their tracks, encased in blocks of ice by Kai which he then shattered into hundreds of chunks of demoncicles.
Jakob shouted his thanks and jumped into the air over the battle. He put on a burst of speed, needing more than his own wings were capable of doing. He flew faster than ever and still hadn’t caught up to the front of the pack.
A warm wind blew him from behind. “Go to her brother. Save your white witch. Save your mate. We’ll protect the rest of the humans from here.”
Jakob sped ahead, cracking more skulls with his tail as he flew overhead. He spotted Ciara’s apartment instantly by the broken glass door.
Fuck. Three demon dragons were inside, and he didn’t fucking fuckity fuck fit through that doorway. He wouldn’t even fit inside her apartment. Not as a dragon.
His only weapon as a man was his command of earth, and they were a hundred meters up from the ground. Ciara had cleverly brought a good metric ton of earth up, but much more and her floor would collapse.
He landed on the small wooden porch and had to dig his claws into the brick of the building to keep it from collapsing under him. Inside, she had the demon dragons encased in what looked like termite hills, but they were already breaking free. If he shifted now his human form would be too vulnerable to do any good. He could protect Ciara for no more than a few minutes before the demon dragons would slice through that weak form.
But, he couldn’t stand out here with his thumb up his ass watching as they attacked her.
He roared and ripped the frame of the sliding glass doors out of the side of the building, tossing it to the ground. That garnered him only a little more than a glance from one of the demon dragons. They knew they were safe from him inside this tiny space.
But the look of relief on Ciara's face made the effort worth it. Her energy was flagging, he could see it in the exhaustion written all over her face, and the way she supported herself against the kitchen counter. Poor thing had been going like an damned energizer bunny hopped up on meth for days. He hadn’t given her half a chance to rest. He’d barely fed her. If they made it out of here alive, he swore he’d take better care of her, feeding her gormet meals in bed if she wanted.
Her breathing was labored and her outstretched arms shook like blades of grass in the wind. She wasn't used to battling these bastards or even wielding her magic, didn’t know how to conserve her energy. If he didn't do something soon, her reserves would be exhausted.
“You are doing great, my love. I am here for you, we just need a plan to get you out of here.”
She gave one quick shake of her head and looked toward a closed door on the side of the room. “I can't leave, my friend Wes is hiding in the bathroom.”
One of the demon dragons broke free from his dirt bonds and advanced on her. Jakob swiped the one part of his anatomy that he could get into the apartment, his tail, trying to reach it. The demon Dragon jumped to the ceiling to avoid the dangerous spikes, realizing when it did, that Jakob couldn't get to it. It landed back on the floor and turned its back on him, stalking toward Ciara.
Christ, he made the situation worse.
Ciara pulled a spray nozzle from the sink and shot a steady stream of water, pumped up by her command of the element to the level of a fireman's hose. That deterred the demon Dragon for only a moment, until it pushed forward through the water, inching closer to her.
Another beast broke free and she was forced to move the spray back and forth between the two of them, only managing to irritate them.
God dammit. He had to figure out a way to get the focus off of her and back to him. They could easily destroy him if he shifted back to a man, but why would they? He’d be no threat.
He scratched and yanked out more pieces of the wall, trying to get to her. An older woman came to the window above and stuck her head out. “Shut up, down there. You'll wake the —” Her eyes went as wide as the rollers in her hair when she saw Jakob clawing at the side of the building. He roared at her and she disappeared back into her apartment. If he was lucky she would think this had all been a dream. But, to get to Ciara he would need to destroy that woman's apartment too. That would be hard to explain away.
“Jakob, help me.” The third demon Dragon had freed itself and the three of them now had Ciara penned in the kitchen. She had climbed up on top of the counter with the help of the plants growing up the walls.
Why weren't they just attacking her? What were they waiting for?
The answer to that would be the key to saving her.
“Stop fight. Dragon not save you. Come now, witch.” One of them screeched and growled words at her.
Holy shit holes. They weren't out to kill her. They wanted her to come with them for some reason.
He needed to find something they wanted more to get them away from her. He didn't even know until tonight that demon dragons wanted anything. They were mindless monsters.
Someone or something else had to be pulling their strings. That was some powerful dark magic.
One lunged for her and Jakob threw up a wave of the earth inside her apartment to push it back. He used the momentum of that to propel the demon Dragon hard into the wall, and then he gathered the rest of the dirt and tossed it and the demon Dragon over the side of the building. It fell those eight stories, flapping its useless wings and crashed into the ground below
One down, two to go. Except the in watching that bastard fall to its death, he’d seen the hoard he’d had overtaken was now approaching the building. The wyverns, Steele, and a young red Dragon who must be Daxton were taking them out one by one. But, there were so many that their efforts were more like thinning a herd, not sending them all off to slaughter.
He had maybe three minutes before they reached her building and began the climb up.
Think, for fuck sakes. What did these demon dragons want, besides Ciara?
The only other thing he'd ever seen any of them tried to get, was his soul shard. He had no idea why they would want it, but twice in as many days they had tried to nab it off his neck. One of the two pieces of shit left in Ciara's apartment had gripped its very paws, and instantly seemed to know exactly where she was.
If their mission, from God knows who, was to capture Ciara and get his soul shard, maybe, just maybe they would be dumb enough to turn their attention on him. They would be more likely to attack if he was less of a threat.
With so many demon dragons around, and Ciara's life in danger, it was difficult to push his Dragon back down. The shift took longer than he wanted it to. He could hear the hoard and the ensuing battle getting closer.
He prayed to the first Dragon that this would work. “Please, help me save her.”
He finally shifted into his human form and gripped his soul shard in his fist. He knew dragons who had taken their shards off and had lost their ability to shift along with it. He never had.
He yanked on the cord, breaking it free from his neck. His heart stuttered and for a second, he thought he might fall to his knees from the sensation that shot through his body. He gritted his teeth and pushed through the waves of weakness washing over him.
He wrapped the remnants of the cord around his fingers, held his hand aloft, and dropped the shard to dangle from his hand. “Hey assholes, look what I have for you.”
The two demon dragon’s heads snapped around and stared at him. The soul shard shined like a beacon, green light filling the apartment and the night sky.
“Yeah, that's right. Come and get it.” Behind them he could see Ciara shaking her head and reaching her hand out for him.
Jakob’s energy drained and his vision blackened. He hadn't expected that. No other dragons had reported something like this happening to them. But then again, he had never heard of anyone else's soul shard glowing or helping them find a mate. This kind of information would've been nice passed down through the generations. Not that he had another plan to distract the demon dragons, even if he had known.
He called upon his reserves to give him a small partial shift, turning his hands into claws and talons. The longer he could defend himself, the more time it gave Ciara to get her friend and get away. That little cock sucker had better take care of her.
“Go, Ciara. Run. Get your friend and get out of here.” Jakob's knees buckled underneath of him and he fell to the wooden slats of the porch. The structure wavered under the weight of his fall, and the damage he had done to it.
“No, I won't leave you. No way, I can't. I love you, you asshat.”
The words filled his heart with hope and joy. He thought her lost to him forever, and even if he only lived a few more minutes, he would die a happy man knowing she'd been with him at the end. But he would haunt her from the afterlife if she put herself in danger now. “The others are coming. They will save you.”
The two demon dragons snarled and continued their approach. They were rightfully cautious of him, but he could see it in their eyes, they understood probably better than he had that they were now much stronger and any defense he put up would be no more than that of a newborn youngling. He shook the ends of the cord, swinging the shard back and forth in front of their eyes.
“Here, demon, demon, demon. Here, demon, demon. Come and get it.” His voice came out raspy and weak, but it got the point across. He and the shard, and it was theirs for the taking.
Of course, he had no intention of actually letting them get it. He had saved a tiny bit of strength, fueled by the memory of his first kiss with Ciara, the first time he'd been inside of her, the first time he'd made her come, and her final words to him. I love you. Technically, her last words were you asshat, and even those words gave him the strength that he needed.
With the demon dragons half a meter in front of him, he called out an ancient war cry and rose to his feet thrusting his talons through one of them and throwing his soul shard, with all of his might across the room to Ciara.
He heard her wail as the final demon Dragon attacked him using its fangs and claws to tear into him.
It was a good death, even though he hated to leave her. It was with the knowledge that in the end, he had finally given her his soul. It had always been hers anyway.