Page 113 of Soul of Fire

The wooden doors crashed behind me, but I couldn’t tear my focus away from my mate. Terror filled every cell of my being as she bled out on the stone floor, her breathing shallow, her ruined back twin to mine.

Kjære!

Eisa lifted her head, and her eyes met mine across the hall, bright and blue and full of anguish.I love you.

And as the Darkness lunged toward her, she threw herself into the Rift.

Chapter thirty-six

Revna

Weweretoolate.

Panic filled me as Arne bellowed, sliding from our back at the sight of his sister in a pool of her own blood.

Kindra roared in kind as we watched Eisa fall into the Rift.

Without thinking, she dove, speeding into the crevasse where we had seen our Drekadrottning’s body fall, desperate to reach her.

Our body was yanked back, a black tail pinning us to the stone floor as a huge, glittering black serpent peered down at us with amber eyes.

A serpent with wings.

YOU ARE NOT WHO I WANT.The voice was ancient and cruel, an assault on my mind where only Kindra should be.

Kindra cowered in terror, losing the shift as I shrank back into a woman, trapped beneath the glittering black scales of the monster that had emerged from the Rift.

Arik lay on the floor several feet away, his back bloody and raw, his eyes shut.

Was he unconscious? Dead? Kindra was too terrified to confirm, every instinct begging me to shift and get our mate out of here.

“Fuck, Arik!” Arne ran to him, but he wasn’t fast enough. The monster seemed to forget me as its barbed tail whipped out and struck him across the thighs. He was thrown backward almost to the edge of the chasm where Eisa had fallen.

Kindra didn’t think. She took control, shifting once again with a defiant screech and scooping Arne into her golden claws as she took to the sky.

No!I screamed, pounding at her mind, demanding that she turn around. But my protest was useless. She was already flying high and fast as a stream of cold, black fire erupted behind us.

Cold. So cold.

Kindra rolled, the fire narrowly missing us and leaving freezing tendrils of ice clinging to our wings.

We have to go back!I screamed, as a second stream of the icy fire barely missed the claw that held Arne.We need to get Arik!

But she was lost to panic and instinct, her fear for our mate driving every other thought away. No matter how hard I beat at the barrier between our minds, Kindra ignored me. She didn’t stopuntil the ruin of Hovedstaden was far behind us, and I was weeping in anguish inside her.

You left them!I howled, furious with my dragon for the first time in our lives. I pounded at the connection between our minds in fury. In rage.We need to go back for them!

It is too late.Kindra’s voice was full of despair as she accepted my fury, her heart breaking.They have both gone silent.

No. They couldn’t be dead.

Fuck. I tried to still our thundering heartbeat. Tried to think between the sobs of guilt and fury that wracked my mind. Whatwasthat thing?

A pair of glistening wings flashed in the distance, and I braced myself. Had the black dragon-serpent-thing somehow gotten ahead of us?

Relief was a tiny drop in an ocean of panic as I realized it was Bryndis. She screeched in welcome, looking as smug as a dragon could ever look, and Kindra replied in words I couldn’t understand.

Bryndis’ answering screech was a lament of such misery, I would have thought she’d lost her mate.