Not like this.
“Rayna.” Landers let out a rattling breath, and the near finality of it caused something to snap inside of me.
“No!” I screamed.
Wind whipped my voice away.
“No!” I screamed again. And again. And again.
Each time I said it, the wind intensified, as if responding to me.
I had magic. I had power. I was strong. I could fix this.
I needed to fix this. If he needed my magic to breathe fire, then who was to say I couldn’t share myself so that he’d live? I pumped Landers full of my magic. Kept pushing and pushing, willing myself to give him all of it.
“Rayna,” someone said, but I ignored them.
All I could focus on was Landers’s barely open eyes, the rattling in his chest, and the blood all over him.
So, I pumped more magic in him. Over and over. I gathered, and I pushed. Gathered and pushed. Determined to give him whatever he needed if it meant he healed and lived.
Something exploded nearby, and I looked up to see Neyil staring at me with wide eyes, his hands held out in front of me. A swirl of air around him kicked up dust, and then the air pulsed with his magic. I thought it was going to slam into me, but the moment it hit the whirlwind around me, it was absorbed into it, and I swore I could feel the whirlwind become strong because of that blast and not despite it.
“Don’t touch me!” I snarled out, my voice deepening as it became beastly.
Even I didn’t quite recognize the sound that came out of me. It was as if my whirlwind responded to me and snapped out, a piece of it flying toward Neyil. It slammed into him hard, and he went flying again, landing the middle of the wall and a few feet off the ground.
As he fell, the Fae gathered to him and helped their king to his feet. All the Fae moved over there as the dragons gathered to stand around me. A clear line was drawn between the two of us, and without having to look at the dragons and Divines, I knew—just knew—that they were itching to murder the Fae before us.
I wanted to murder all the Fae.
No longer caring and wanting this misery to end, I let go. Of everything, of every restraint I’d ever had in place. All of my limitations had been intended to protect me, but at this point, I wanted to protect Landers. My mates. Even the other Divines.
So I let go.
And it was on par with a dragon’s revealing, no doubt about it. Any surviving windows shattered, the entire room shook hard, as if a big earthquake were hitting us. Within all that movement, my magic filled every nook and cranny. The Fae were shoved back, literally forced against the wall. All the dragons and Divines around me were fed my magic, just like I’d fed my mates. Inside my chest, it felt like a million small connections were made, and down each little link, I sent magic. As I went, I poured even more into Landers, the wheezing sound in his chest disappearing, and his chest slowly moving more steadily again as his body warmed under my touch.
Alive. He was going to survive.
Neyil strained against my magic but not to the degree of the Fae around him. Yet he understood. By the way his gaze flickered around at me, at my mates, at those around me, and then at the Fae around him fighting to even remain on his feet, I knew that he knew.
He wasn’t going to win this battle.
“This is an unfortunate outcome,” he said softly. “Not what I expected at all.” The tightening of his jaw and the fury in his eyes told me exactly what he thought about that. Neyil was absolutely enraged. “Another time, little Divine. We will have to do this another time. Prepare yourselves because you Divines are not my only source of power.”
His smile at the end was cruel, and then there was a bright light, a wave of air smashing into my whirling maelstrom. By the time the dust and debris had cleared up, the Fae were gone, and we were left with the chaos of a dead dragon king and more casualties than I wanted to think about.
This wasn’t what I’d wanted, not exactly.
Yes, the dragon king was dead, but at what cost?
33
Idrew in a breath that burned as I looked down at Landers. The hole in his chest was gone, he was breathing regularly, and frankly, he looked like he was restfully sleeping.
‘Rayna,’Philit said.
‘What?’