Fire of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 3) - Paranormal Fairytale Romance (16 page)

Lucian tapped in the number and prayed to all that was magic that Leksander had already managed to capture Tytus and kill the bastard.

After two rings it picked up. “Cinaed, is the princess secure?” Leksander asked.

“It’s me,” Lucian said. “Arabella is gone. Did you stop Tytus from escaping?”

His brother swore brightly in dragontongue. “No. There were more hordes coming in through the royal gate, and he slipped away outside. Many dragons were down, and I was still suffering from the poison…” A horrible weariness came over the line in Leksander’s voice.

“Leonidas?” Lucian asked, his heart clenched.

“Alive. I’ve been healing him. He was healing the others and was almost gone…” There was more, but Leksander wasn’t speaking it.

Lucian’s heart stuttered. “The king and queen.” He couldn’t bear to make it a question. They were already on in years…

“The queen lives.” There was heartbreak that reached through the line and threatened to choke Lucian.

The elevator down to the garage came to a stop, and Lucian and Cinaed stumbled out into the glare of the underground parking lot lights. Black skidmarks crisscrossed the concrete, telling the tale of the assault vehicles that had been here not long ago. Those black lines tore like a laser through Lucian’s grief and focused his mind.

“The demons have taken Arabella,” he said. “I’m sure they mean to bring her to Tytus so he can finish the job with his talons.”

“You go after them,” Leksander said, a rumbling growl in his voice. “Leonidas and I will gather those who are still standing and follow.”

“The demons can’t have gotten far,” Lucian said, partly to reassure himself, but partly because it had to be true.

“Fly, my brother,” Leksander said. “Avenge our father. I’ll see what other forces I can muster.”

Lucian hung up the phone. “Let’s go,” he said to Cinaed.

His best friend eyed the single black sedan left in the underground parking lot. “Flying is faster,” he said.

They shifted and headed out of the garage into the bright afternoon sun.

The demons finally put Arabella down.

Then they shoved her into one of several Humvees, and the entire group took off like they thought Lucian and a horde of angry dragons would be after them in a heartbeat. At least, Arabella hoped that would be true. The demon-men had knocked out Rachel, but they’d also brought her along. Her best friend lay limp on the seat next to her, her head lolled to the side and resting on Arabella’s shoulder. The angel blade was gone, left behind at Lucian’s lair during the fight. 

Rachel and Arabella were hemmed in on either side by hulking mercenaries in black body armor. They were silent and stoic, but Arabella could see the demons inside them, black essences of anger and hatred. There were three more in the front seat of the Humvee, the driver and two others. They were all demon-infected. That first night that Lucian saved her from a half-demon, half-human in the alleyway outside her office, she hadn’t known anything about the immortal world. The guy who attacked her just seemed like one more asshole in a world filled with assholes, only Arabella had the bad luck of ending up in a dark alley alone with one. Now she could literally
see
the evil in these men. Her life seemed irrevocably different now… but once again, it seemed perilously close to ending in the next few minutes. Lucian had rescued her before—she had to have faith he would do it again.

She hugged the baby in her belly with one hand and braced Rachel against the jostling of the Humvee with the other. Then Arabella prayed desperately to whatever gods and guardian angels might be out there that all three of them would make it through this.

The demons first attempt at killing her had failed… so they had to be taking her somewhere they could try again. As the Humvee wound through the curvy mountain roads that led up to the keep, she couldn’t help but wonder how everything had gone so wrong so fast. How her love could be True, how she could have rescued Lucian from the mire of his doubts and fears, how she could’ve survived the sealing and the pregnancy and made it to the cusp of bringing her precious baby boy into the world… only to have it all unravel.

All because
someone
wanted her dead. Or more specifically, her baby.

She was convinced Zephan was behind it, in spite of Lucian’s assurances that it was impossible. Whoever these men were—these demon-infected humans that she could now see because she was filled with her own dragon magic—they were just minions for someone else.

And wherever they were going, that someone else was going to kill her baby.

The baby rolled over in response to all the crazy anxiety that was rocketing through her body. As he did, that white burning force of the blessing that she felt protecting him in the womb turned with him. The inky blackness of the poison was still in her system—she could feel it weakening her arms and gripping her stomach tight. And as the Humvee bumped along the road and jostled her, and one minute stretched into another, it felt like that shield was weakening.

When they took a tight turn that rocked her hard, something turned inside her, and suddenly, a tightness gripped her belly as if in a giant vise.

“Oh!” she gasped, hunching over in her seat and holding tighter onto her belly. She could feel her son thrashing inside her. “No, baby no, it’s okay,” she whispered. She rubbed the spots where he was poking, but it didn’t help. The tightening at the base of her belly just grew and rolled like a wave across her stomach ending in a pulling-apart feeling that seemed like it was ripping her in two.
“Ahhh!”
It was half gasp, half scream.

The thug in the seat next to her dashed a look at her, frowning.

But she couldn’t even pay attention to that—the wave was starting again at the bottom of her belly, only twice as tight, twice as hard, and three times as painful.

This time, she let out a moan that was mostly scream.

Rachel startled awake next to her. The bruise was just starting to take on her face, and Arabella hated to see it, but she couldn’t think about anything through the haze of pain cycling through her body, clenching and unclenching in waves.

“What—” Rachel looked around.
“What the fuck.”
Then she looked back to Arabella. “Ari, honey, are you okay?” she gasped out, one hand going to Ari’s back to rub it and the other slipping on top of Ari’s clenched fist on her leg.

“Rachel,”
Arabella eeked out, but she couldn’t say anymore through the pain. She wanted to say she was sorry for getting her best friend involved in all this. Especially when it seemed like they were on a one-way trip to their deaths. But all she could think about was the baby. “The baby’s coming,” she managed.

The mercenary on the other side of Rachel jerked to attention. He rapped on the plexiglass that separated them from the front. “We’ve got a situation back here.”

The man in the front seat looked her over and seemed uncertain.

Arabella rocked back and forth because it seemed to ease the pain a little.

Rachel rubbed Arianna’s back harder. “Okay, honey, just breathe through it.” She leaned over to peer into Arabella’s eyes. “You are
not
having that baby in this Humvee, you understand me? You need to hold on.”

Arabella nodded. If they were to have any chance to escape, she couldn’t be in labor during it. She had to be able to
run.
But then the next wave hit, and she was moaning and trying to bite back the scream, but it was no use. Her wailing seemed to thoroughly freak out the mercenaries who were on either side of them.

Now the second one was pounding on the front. “You need to park this thing!”

Some kind of argument ensued between the front and the back, grunts and yelling, but all Arabella could hear was her own screaming in her ears, and the white-hot pain that felt like it was slicing her open. She got through the next round, but all the air had been sucked out of her. She panted and tried to pull in a breath, gripping Rachel’s hand so hard she was afraid she might hurt it. A cold sweat broke out all over Arabella’s body.

“Not…”
she panted. “Not going to make it.”

“The hell you’re not!” Rachel joined in with the chorus of yelling, and just as the next wave started to hit and pull Arabella into a haze of pain and screaming, the car swerved to the side of the road and slipped under a canopy of trees. It continued up a steep incline, then they reached a level spot, and the Humvee jerked to a stop.

Arabella creaked her eyes open—they were surrounded by trees overhead and on every side.
How would Lucian find them now?
Because she was convinced he was still alive, and if there was one thing she knew about Lucian Smoke, it was that as long as blood was still pumping through his veins, he would come after her.

There was a tiny sliver of blue sky out the front window of the Humvee, past the other cars, and down the length of the broken pavement road that seemed to lift up into the heavens. Arabella focused on that small patch of sky and willed Lucian to see them through it. Her vision telescoped down through the pain in her belly to that singular hope.

Rachel was jabbering at her and petting her arm and brushing the hair back from her sweaty, sweaty face. Arabella focused on breathing through the pain as the next wave grappled with her. She needed to survive. This baby needed to survive. Her only job was to make sure that happened. She closed her eyes and focused on sending soothing waves to the baby, who was now churning and pushing and poking like he never had before.
It’s okay, baby. We’re going to make it through this.
She gave all of her love to him, every ounce that she had for Lucian, every bit that had been growing steadily inside her for this tiny little being who depended completely on her.
We can do this,
she told him.

The wave passed, and then the next one, and the next after that… she lost count after a while. The car had fallen silent under her moaning and keening. When she was worn from it, bone weary, and needed the reassurance of that blue patch of sky one more time, she creaked open her eyes, wiped the sweat from the corners, and focused on it.

Her heart stuttered when a winging black shape came into focus, flying straight down that little blue patch.

She would’ve smiled if she had any energy for it.

“Oh my God,” Rachel said, but it wasn’t with the relief Arabella expected.

Arabella blinked and blinked again… and then focused on the thin black wings that were pumping their way across the blue sky.

Black wings.

Lucian was a golden dragon.

Arabella’s heart stuttered with the remembered fear of what that black shape meant—
Tytus.

And then a flush of heat washed through her that was stronger than any magical fire she had ever felt. The baby jumped and poked, and the fire flared like it might all of a sudden consume her.

The scream she let out this time emptied her out, body and soul.

Lucian used every sense he had
to scan the rolling mountains beneath him.

They can’t have gone this far.
Cinaed sent the thought to him as he soared next to Lucian, his blue scales glistening in the hot afternoon sun.

Maybe they didn’t stick to the road,
Lucian thought in return. He broadened his scans to the sides of the mountains around the winding pavement below them.
Those demon-infected humans were paramilitary. They could’ve brought an all-terrain vehicle for all we know.

What if they pulled off early on?
Cinaed’s thought was ringed with worry.

Lucian knew his prime concern was finding Arabella and the baby, but he was also just as certain his best friend was worried about his new ladylove, Rachel.

I can’t believe we missed them.
Lucian banked away from Cinaed and made a circle doubling back and scanning the area, as well as climbing into the air to get a wider reach.

How far can you sense, my lord?
Cinaed asked.

Not far enough.
A growl rumbled in Lucian’s chest.

We made haste in leaving the keep,
Cinaed thought.
It’s possible we missed them.