Page 87 of Ashborne Phoenix

Then I offered the vow—keeping the words so low, the others had to lean in to make out the words.

And while they would hear a spell, a perverted twist of power designed to bind her to my will—I called up an increasingly powerful storm of those tendrils of power and smoke to keep them entranced—what I offered her in the privacy and joy of the link was my truest heart. A vow before God.

‘You are blood of my blood. My blood becomes yours. Our blood is one.

‘What harm befalls you will strike me down. What blessings pour on me, fall also on you.

‘Any who stand for you have my power at their call.

‘Any who stand against you, face me in your stead.

‘As God is my witness, Grace—I give myself for you.’

Her chest hitched, and a sob broke in her throat. I wished I could comfort her truly, pull her in. Around us, those coils of power tangled and began to whirl, like smoke caught in a wind, but not dissipated by it. Faster and faster, slowly thickening, growing up around us to obscure the altar from sight of the gathered witnesses. Then parts of us on the eschara. But I didn’t stop. I repeated the vow, and poured reassurance to her.

I will win this for us.

I will find our way through.

You’re safe.

You’re safe.

The room vibrated with the storm of power, and the chants and moans of the Cruors—some with lust, others with fear. Everyone watching hoped I brought them something that would increase their power—and feared it in the same breath. They were fixated.

“Witness the power!” I roared. “Witness your Heir Apparent—see the power of the dragons alive!”

Then I fumbled to open my trousers, as those coils and tendrils whipped, faster, harder, a tornado between us and them, shrouding sight. Grace played along, letting herself gulp, keening as I lowered myself to her, curled my body around hers and whispered to her in the link.

‘Move with me—make love to me with your body. I’ll obscure their vision. But let them see what they need to see.’

She nodded against my chest as I gripped her hair and pulled her head back, then kissed her, calling up that storm of serpents and smoke, and the shrieks and calls in the cavern rose to echo over our heads.

I clung to her, burying my face in her neck, and writhing against her as she clawed her fingers into my back, her chin high and head thrown back.

For a moment I thought we might get away with only that.

For a short minute, as I called the darkness around us so they saw only the barest flashes of flesh, or heard the thinnest cry, I thought it might be enough.

But amid the shrieks and calls and chants of the watching Cruors, I heard my mother’s voice. And when I risked a single glance to the side, as if I were writhing with pleasure, I caught her frozen stance, and her dark, dark expression.

She wouldn’t be fooled by a display.

She wouldn’t be convinced by a pageant.

And I couldn’t risk leaving a question in her mind.

‘Kham… it’s time.’

As if I’d climaxed, I shoved upright, arched my spine, and screamed for the ceiling. “They come! The dragons come—to take power, and to give it—argh!”

‘Now!’

Dropping over Grace, I tucked her head under my chin and covered her with my body, curling myself over her as a cacophony of roars rose above us—above ground. So deep, and loud, they shook the natural cavern like a small earthquake, and the first small pebbles and clouds of dust were shaken free of the ancient roof above.

Roars, as if the ocean consumed the mountain.

Stone shaking, breaking, falling from the ceiling to break flagstones below our feet. The altar shuddered when a small boulder dropped, missing Mother by mere feet.