A few seconds of disgusting tongue action later, he stiffened.
I sank my fingers into his hair right to the scalp and held him as he started to struggle. His fingers sprouted claws, shredding at my arms. I kept them between him and my face and throat only by the barest of margins. But the life I sucked from him empowered me, enabled me to hold him off. Until I reversed it and used it to shred his heart.
I let Darius’s body go and almost collapsed with him.
Behind me, the stairwell door opened, and more blue-skinned guards spilled out. They glanced from me to the Dragons—and brandished their swords as they joined in the fray.
Another outraged Dragon roar had me staggering to the girls. I lifted them against me with my bloodied arms, and they clung with their baby claws as I staggered toward the pump room roof.
With a whoosh and a slither of talons on stone, a green Dragon landed between us and our escape route. “Wheres yous going, little human,” he hissed. “Those cubs don’ts belongs to yous.”
He wasn’t as big as Talakai, but was still a hell of a lot of scaled, toothy, taloned beast. And I was as weak as a kitten. I didn’t think I had another bout of my monster power left in me.
Suddenly, I wasn’t alone.
Sebastian swirled between me and the Dragon, and froze. He held his gore-streaked horn in one hand, and had appropriated a short sword for the other. The cloak hung in ribbons off him, and his body ran red with blood. His steel-gray hair, loose from its braids and tie, radiated outward from his body, and his eyes snapped silver fire.
That gleam shot my way briefly, and then away again.
Stairs.
Had he spoken? An image popped into my mind—of me and the girls retreating to the stairs.
But... the guards?
Images of him dispatching guards, compared to facing a Dragon...
Right.
I didn’t know whether the conclusion was his, or mine. But I clutched the twins as I backed away from the Dragon.
Then a thump came from behind me as a second one dropped to the roof. I whirled to face him—the scales were deep blue, and my heart seized. I scanned the scaled face—and read nothing but anger in his eyes.
Surely, not Talakai.
But we were surrounded, and cut off from the stairs.
“Gives us the cubs,” the green one repeated, “ands we mights lets you live.”
Sebastian backed until I could hear him breathing behind me.
Stairs.
The word was not as clear as the images flashing across my brain—of him engaging the blue Dragon, and me running for the stairs. He didn’t even look at me, but I knew it had come from him.
Somehow, the river wasn’t the only thing we crossed—we’d also crossed a line. I didn’t understand it. But I knew in my gut that if he did this, he wouldn’t survive.
A roar blared from overhead, and something flashed by. So low I curved my body protectively around the cubs. It sailed over Sebastian’s crouched form and slammed into the green Dragon.
It was another Dragon, only much, much larger. And purple. I’d never seen a purple Dragon.
The blue one behind me hissed, but a second later, was pounded into the rooftop by a distinctive and equally huge turquoise-scaled form.
Tyrez.
They were easily three times the size of the underworld Dragons, and they came with savage friends. Forms tumbled off their backs, transforming as they fell, teeth and claws slicing into Dragons and blue-skinned guards alike.
I caught a glimpse of a Dire, his fur a mix of blonde and darker hair—Matt. Out there. Fighting Dragons.
