Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“You must! Men—come and help me.” General Lupe motioned to the other men who had changed from their Drake form. All of them wore ragged shorts—we who change forms often carry a change of clothes with us. I hadn’t put mine on because I didn’t care about changing—didn’t care about anything but Avery.
“Let him go—leave him!” the General demanded and many arms began to pry Avery away from me.
“No!” I shouted. “Don’t you see? He saved me! He took the Curse from my Drake and it killed him! It killed him!”
Tears were pouring from my eyes—Avery’s face was blurry. I didn’t want to let him go but they were making me, prying him from my hands.
I felt the rage and grief build inside me and tried to release my Drake. If he came out, he could make them stop—then I could take my beloved’s body someplace safe. Someplace I could mourn for him.
But he wouldn’t come out—I could feel him inside but he didn’t respond when I begged for his help. What was wrong with him? Had removing the curse silenced him completely?
“Why don’t you help me?” I raged at him. “Avery cured you and you do nothing! He lifted your curse—he gave his life and now you won’t even come out to help me with him!”
But there was nothing—no reply. General Lupe and his men dragged me away from Avery’s limp form and chained my arms behind me with inhibitor manacles to keep my Drake in check. They didn’t have to bother—my useless Drake was still silent within me. It was as though he was locked in some kind of stasis—as though he was no longer part of me somehow.
Maybe it was his reaction to Avery’s loss—I didn’t know. I only knew that I couldn’t stop crying and raging as they bound me and put me on the back of another Drake. I was forced to ride like a helpless female on the Drake of another—the worst shame a male can bear. Well, other than being labeled a lover of men. But I didn’t care.
I only cared that I was leaving my l’lorna behind and I would never see him again.
36
KAITLYN
We landed as soon as we saw the other Drakes take off. I wanted to try and fight them—to get Saint back from them. But Ari’s Drake told me not to.
“There are too many and we must tend to Avery,” he told me.
Reluctantly, I agreed. My coven mate’s limp form scared me. Saint, at least, was still alive—we had seen him shouting and kicking—trying to get free of the men who held him as they bundled him onto the back of a Drake. But Avery was just lying there in the mud, so still, his face so pale…
I Shifted smoothly to my human form and knelt beside my friend. We should have come sooner, I thought. But we hadn’t wanted to interfere or agitate the Cursed Drake, which was already dangerously unstable. I wondered if Avery had succeeded in breaking the curse. I felt his throat and couldn’t find a pulse. Oh God…Tears blurred my vision. No wonder Saint had been screaming and crying—Avery was dead.
A moment later, Ari was kneeling beside me.
“Oh, no.” His voice was ragged as he looked down at Avery. “Breaking the Curse must have drained him—the dark magic that the Brujas use was too strong for his heart to bear.”
“But did he break it?” I blinked away tears and looked down at his body, lying in the mud of the swamp. The damp, fetid water had wet his dark blond hair and his school blazer was dirty too. But one of his cuffs was red—it was wet with blood, not mud I realized.
“Look!” Ari saw it the same time I did—Avery’s hand still clenched around the Curse Breaker. His fingers were still flexed but I couldn’t tell if that was because the muscles refused to relax, even in death, or if it was because the spines of the ball were stuck so firmly into his flesh they were keeping his fingers curled around it.
“Get it off him—get that damned thing out of his hand!” My voice came out in a sob. We never should have let him go alone. We never should have let him try to break the curse—it was too much for one person. The whole coven should have helped him!
Ari pried my coven mate’s fingers open at last and the spiked ball—now wet and red with Avery’s blood—rolled away into the mud. I felt tears spilling from my eyes. Poor Avery—the flesh of his hand and palm looked like raw hamburger. How could we have let this happen to him? Why hadn’t I flown ahead and stayed near him? How—?
A low choked coughing sound broke my train of thought. I looked at Ari but it wasn’t him. Looking down, I saw that Avery’s eyelashes were fluttering.