“Is that true?” Angus asked.
“Nay. Aye. Maybe.” She sputtered. “Legends suggest such a thing, yet ’tis never happened.”
“Let’s test it, Celt.” Malik’s voice radiated menace, the different tones clanging against one another discordantly.
Eletea planted herself squarely in front of Malik. “Your quarrel is with me. Let her go, and we can settle things the dragon way.”
“Aye, I’d welcome a fight to the death with you…egg-mate.” Danne hissed steam.
“Danne. Och, Danne. What the hell happened to you?” Eletea’s voice held sadness and resignation.
“Save your pity.” Malik tossed his head and focused on Danne. “Ye’re not fighting anyone.”
“Why the fuck not?” Danne blurted, fury lining his words. “We have an opportunity to avenge Mitha—”
“I’m not telling you to shut up again.” Malik sneered. “She never cared about you. You were a means to an end for her. The only dragon stupid enough to manipulate. If I let the two of you”—he swung a wingtip to encompass Eletea and Danne—“have a go at each other, she’d win.”
“You bastard!” Danne rushed Malik in a bevy of flame. “Mitha was mine. Mine. You have no right—”
Arianrhod waited until Malik’s focus shifted to the dragon charging him. She wouldn’t get a second chance to free herself, so she took her time. When she felt the talons gripping her middle like hedge shears loosen ever so slightly, she pulled an arrow from the quiver still across her back and drove it into Malik’s eye in one fluid motion. The arrow developed its own momentum, so she didn’t need brute strength.
Outraged dragon shrieks deafened her, and she kicked and punched in an effort to escape his grasp. Angus’s power pounded into her head, and she knew what to do. Weaving his magic with her own, she grasped the end of the arrow protruding from Malik’s eye and sent a jolt of destruction into his brain.
The dragon let go of her so fast she fell like a stone, pulling magic like a mad thing to soften her fall.
“Got you.” Angus closed his arms around her, steadying her before he let go.
Arianrhod blinked back tears from the smoke-filled room. Dragons trumpeted all around her, and everything that could burn in the chamber was on fire.
“Eletea!” Angus bellowed
“Here.” The dragon’s high, sweet voice sounded behind them.
“We’re leaving,” Angus told her.
“But I can’t. I must kill—”
Arianrhod made her way through the smoke and cinder-filled air, batting out small fires that burned holes in her leather clothing. She almost ran into the dragon before she saw her. Eletea and Danne were locked in combat shooting fire into each other’s faces. Blood ran from multiple wounds on both dragons.
Eletea cried as she fought, and a pile of gemstones formed around her feet from her tears. Arianrhod’s heart clenched for the young dragon. She loved Danne. He was still her brother, but she recognized her duty to wipe out evil.
A partially blinded Malik blundered from one side of the underground chamber to another, hitting walls and screeching his pain. Connor was presumably still locked to the earth by Angus’s magic.
“Stand back,” Arianrhod roared. She nocked an arrow and sent it flying into Danne’s open mouth. Dragons had a few weak spots. The arrow would penetrate the back of his throat and impale his brainstem. It wouldn’t be a quick death, but he would die.
Danne bellowed as the arrow hit home, grappling at it with his talons as he tried to pull it free. Arianrhod tossed her head back, nostrils flaring. She still didn’t understand how Rhukon had subverted her first two arrows, but she was confident Danne wouldn’t be able to undo her marksmanship. His cries escalated before he slumped to the ground, still trying to work the arrow loose.
“We’re done here,” she told Eletea.
“Hurry,” Angus exhorted. “Malik pulled your arrow out, and he’s healing his wound.”
“Fuck dragon shifter immortality,” she muttered and drew magic to vault to Eletea’s back.
After an outraged squawk, the dragon ran full speed for the far end of the chamber, pushing past Malik and Connor’s prone form. Angus dragged his knife from Connor’s shoulder and vaulted to the dragon’s back behind her.
Once she realized they were together, Arianrhod shoved power into a working that would not only take them outside, but far from Rhukon’s manor house.
They emerged into a full-fledged lightning storm with the sky cut by jagged bolts of electricity. Arianrhod leaned back into Angus’s warmth. Somehow, they’d not only found Eletea, but saved her life.