Everything around me is singed, however; only my drakes are not, as we stand in the slightly smoking gaming hall and they face me with terrible, astonished eyes.
Because I was beyond mean to them just now; I was cruel, even though Ström could calm me. I was vicious in the way Mikkel is—without my higher human morals anywhere in the mix.
It was only the fierce roar of my inner black dragon that possessed me as I dealt with them, my compassion and love nowhere in me. Even Mikkel looks knifed right through his heart at how I treated him, after he just opened up, sharing so much of his past.
It’s then that I understand I’m the real enemy, as I heave hard breaths, holding a hand to my chest and feeling Aesa’s Truthstone burn. In that burn, I feel her knowledge scald through me with the most terrible truth.
Find your fourth drake—or succumb to this inner madness forever.
I know I was two shakes from succumbing just now, as I glance at Bjorn and he scowls thunderclouds at me. Though he’s in one of his infamous rages, a wave of blood-heat washing around him from how I just treated him, there’s something else in him I didn’t expect. Fear.
Fear for me, at what I just did.
And what it means for all of us.
“Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck,” I breathe now as I see the whole horrid situation, clear as day.
“Rikyava…” Ström reaches for me, as a terrible concern takes his face.
“No!” I hold a hand up fast. My energy whips out, cracking through the room as it strikes at Ström, though I didn’t mean for it to. Despair fills me because I know he was just trying to console me. “I can’t be here right now. I… have to go.”
I don’t take a last look at any of my drakes as I swipe the chenille blanket off the floor and cover up, then rush out of the room. I’m practically running, horrified and ashamed of how I just lost my shit and mistreated all of them.
They mean everything to me, and I just acted like they were garbage. Tears fill my eyes as I stride through the palace. I don’t even know where I’m going as I surge through the upper halls in the royal wing and shove through a towering set of ornate wooden double-doors.
But as a sensation of peace lifts all around me, I realize I’ve come to the chapel wing of the palace. I’m not a praying drakaina, but as I trot right to the front of the cathedral to the altar, I stumble.
I land hard, hitting the marble and cracking both knees. The pain, added to what I just did and how I ran, plus my wretched nakedness draped only in smoldering chenille, is too much. My eyes fill; I gasp and clutch the blanket.
And lose it, sobbing my heart out.
“Somebody! Help me…” I gasp up at the beautiful winged Storm Dragon that occupies this altar in the Twilight Realm, rather than an image of Jesus or of the Madonna.
As those words leave me, flowing out of my heart in desperation, I feel Aesa’s Truthstone flare like wildfire on my chest. A blast of energy leaves it, golden-crimson magic flaring hard all around me.
It flows all through me, too, as it illuminates a golden number in my mind now. A memory returned after my crazy monkey sex with Mikkel, I recall it’s a phone number.
As I focus on that vivid golden number, reaching out to claim it, a sudden hope fills me. But despair crashes in next, because I haven’t got a phone with me to dial it. Just then, however, beautiful silver-grey wings envelop me as I kneel on the floor and sob.
Big, strong arms curling around to hold me.
Those wings aren’t dragon wings, and those arms aren’t Bjorn’s, though, as I sob my heart out hard now and cling to them. Because someone’s got me; a big, badass Archangel I know so well, yet truly don’t.
He’s someone I’d love to know better, as he holds me and I sob, his beautiful dark etheric seven-layer wings curling all around me and covering my nakedness.
Insinio Brandfort—the buffest, most badass Archangel ever.
“Easy. I gotcha, badass. Let it all out,” Insinio murmurs by my cheek now as I cling to him and roar out all my frustration and tears. His wings move in a wind of their own magic; as they do, I feel a shimmering dark garment weave around my nakedness.
Not a dress, because Insinio knows me better than that, they’re Archangel-style battle leathers that he makes for me now with his magic. I’m grateful as I feel the silvery, leather-like material coat me up to my neck and down to the soles of my feet.
It makes me feel worlds better as I hitch a last few breaths and cough, my inner rage and wrath abating. I actually can breathe now; gracious and strong, Insinio’s magic pours through me, smoothing and calming the places inside me that burn.
I can think again, returned to myself, as I wipe my eyes and pull away. Hunkering with me on the chapel’s stones, Insinio turns me by my shoulder and I let him, so we come face-to-face.
He extends a hand; I take it, and his big, strong hand hauls me to my feet. He doesn’t do it gently, but neither is he unkind. It’s the gesture of one warrior to another—to take to your feet again and fight on.
Squaring my shoulders, even as I wipe more tears away, I nod,understanding. He reaches out, cupping my cheek in his hand and smoothing one last tear away with his big thumb.
