Queens and Monsters: A Vampire Shifter Romance (The Blood Falls Book 1)
Queens and Monsters: Chapter 48

“What…are you?” Lou asked again.

Ryddyck’s black wings disappeared–or rather folded away–when we landed in a field not far from the fighting.

“I don’t know.” The answer hadn’t changed with the anatomy. He stared at his hands, confused and blinking. I realized now, in the daylight and away from the zombies, it wasn’t so much of a blink as it was a twitch. Especially when he got lost in his thoughts.

“I’ve never seen anything like you,” Lou whispered, turning her wide eyes on me.

I put my hands up. “Don’t look at me. I’m the new girl, remember?” I would fail a samhain quiz. As far as I knew black winged flying was totally normal.

Apparently it was not.

“I don’t think asking him what he is over and over is going to get us anywhere. How about you explain why you chose to fly us out here?”

Ryddyck blink-twitched. “We need to stop the fighting. So I got us here as fast as I knew how.”

A very innocent and naive response.

“How about you let me shift on my own next time, okay?” Lou spun toward the sounds of battle.

“Shift?” Ryddyck wrinkled his nose.

Whatever he was, he definitely wasn’t from around here. I shifted to the tree and back. “It’s how we move. Well, a lot of us do. Some can’t.”

“Ah. I see.” And he turned too.

It was hard to take in the full scope of the fighting. It wasn’t like a human battlefield with two sides. Not with shifters and other gifts in the mix. In some ways it was like looking at a medieval battle with all the swords and armor, but then someone superimposed a fantasy world on top of it. Some hovered while others shifted, disappearing and reappearing somewhere else. Bears and wolves stood head and shoulders above everyone. Other animals appeared at random. Bats, hawks, cats, panthers, and I was willing to bet a butterfly or two.

An explosion erupted, sending flames and earth into the air. Magic swirled and shot across the field. Incantations created force fields and portals. Trees grew up suddenly from nothing, lightning came down from the sky, a hurricane force wind swept through. Everything happened at once so it was hard to take in the scope of what was taking place from one moment to the next.

Lights flickered everywhere. On the ground and in the sky above. And the ghost-like swirls began to darken and take shape more than ever before.

“This is breathtaking.” I blinked and everything changed again.

“This is horrible,” Ryddyck murmured. “The chaos will come if we don’t stop this.”

My vision flashed in and out and for a moment I felt the crushing sense of being squeezed to death.

“What the fuck was that?” Lou gasped.

Over the top of the hill another wave of the great Dreg Army appeared. Everything about them was focused, precise, and deadly to the point I felt their presence every bit as much as I saw it.

“Them.” Ryddyck pointed. “It’s them. They shouldn’t exist and it’s tearing everything apart.”

Nausea struck at the same time my head began to ring. “It’s getting worse.”

Lou stood frozen. “It’s Iwan.”

I followed her gaze to the tall Dreg that stood front and center. He was broader, stronger than the rest. Even from here I could tell he was intelligent. The way his gaze swept the battlefield, considered his options, and barked orders. The Dregs around him moved instantly. Their speed was incredible and their skill with a sword unmatched. Each move was precise and designed to kill.

They parted the Alliance like a wedge. “There are too many of them. We’re losing.” Their armor flashed in the sunlight. That’s what made it easy to tell them apart from the rest. The others had been fighting for hours. Their armor was dull now. Covered in blood and dirt.

As fast as they drove a wedge, they then spread out, disappearing into the fighting like a virus infecting a host.

The ground shook as another explosion rocked the far side of the field. Bodies went flying.

Lou spun back. “I’m going to replace Iwan. Maybe I can convince him to agree to a truce.” Grista raced between us and disappeared in another flash.

“I can try to hold them back. I won’t be able to do it for long. Do whatever you can to make this fighting end,” Ryddyck said, sweeping his hands out and taking in a long deep breath before closing his eyes.

“I’ll go to Dray. If he agrees?”

Lou shrugged. “I’ve never fought a war before.”

Neither had I. And getting Dray to stand down while Dregs were trying to kill him was probably asking too much. But it was worth a shot. “We meet here.”

Lou gave me a nod and sped off. I reached out through the Plane and found my Mate, shifting to his side.

It was like stepping into hell. The sounds alone made my heart stop. Deafening. Between the screams and grunts, the clang of metal on metal, and animalistic growls, it overwhelmed my senses. Dust and dirt hung in the air from being constantly disturbed. The air tasted of metal.

I almost didn’t recognize Dray. His armor was coated in blood and dirt, his eyes were wild. It was the way his shoulder muscles bulged as he swung Dreadnought that I recognized most of all. He plunged the sword into a man I did not recognize, but he must be part of the House of Axl’s coalition since he wasn’t a Dreg.

His gaze locked on mine as if he instantly sensed my arrival. It was what distracted him from Dray. Then the man blasted backward off the blade. His blood scattered across the dirt. And then he ran off at an incredible speed.

“Dray!” I shouted.

He froze.

“Dray!” I yelled again, using my sword and foot to push a werewolf and Dreg away from my bubble.

Dray turned slowly, his eyes switching from violent to disbelieving. Then he marched the five steps separating us, grabbed the hair at the base of my skull, and pulled me to his lips for a bruising kiss.

A Dreg stumbled into us and Dray stabbed him without breaking our kiss. Then he pulled back. “You’re not dead. I knew you couldn’t be. I would feel it.”

“Not dead.”

“And the things Gigi told us about?” A bear rushed past us, his fur tickling my skin just before he leapt on top of two Dregs.

“Lou and I killed them all. It’s…I don’t know if anyone in that House survived.”

Dray spun me around and fought off a pair. One male, one female, both using gifts while swinging swords. For a moment the world tilted one way and then the other. Light flickered.

“This keeps happening,” Dray grunted. “The lights. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Dray stabbed a male that shifted away and was replaced by another. Except Dray must have seen this move a time or two because he was ready for it and killed the male quickly before turning back to me. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t ask me how I know, but the general idea is that the Dreg Army has upset the fabric of our universe and it’s coming apart. We have to stop this fighting before things get much, much worse.”

As if on cue, a wave of ghostly smoke monsters wove between us. I pointed to it. “Ghosts. Except not ghosts. They’re called Grista.”

“What the fuck are they?”

The ground shook again, but this time it was different. More of a deep rumble that grew louder and louder until the ground couldn’t contain it. A screech pierced the air and everyone crouched down. I shaded my eyes and looked up toward the sound.

My heart skipped a beat.

“Fuck.” Dray’s mouth fell open. Mine did too. I’d only seen one of these before and at the moment he was kneeling beside me. “There haven’t been any dragons in millennia.”

“Except you.”

He started, blinking. As if my words shocked the hell out of him instead of stating the obvious. The dragon swooped over the battlefield shrieking, then its enormous wings flapped in a different direction, bringing it to a stop.

“Run!” Someone yelled. Bodies began to shift to safety, others used their advanced speed or strength to clear as far away from the dragon as possible, but it wasn’t enough.

Fire erupted from its mouth and set the ground–and everyone on it–on fire.

I was so shocked I couldn’t move. Was this the Chaos Ryddyck warned us about? Or something else? The only good thing was that everyone had stopped fighting and was working together to get away from the dragon.

Scratch that–dragons. Plural. A second appeared in the sky and swooped in a circle before joining the other in scorching the earth.

Dray stared at Dreadnought. “I feel it. Them.” The dragon’s egg embedded in the great sword glowed, drawing my hand closer like a magnet. Dray watched as I placed my hand over his.

The hum of the sword vibrated my skin, warmed me from the inside out, like a drug. “I feel it too.”

His gaze locked with mine, his chin lifting ever so slightly. Then he shifted his hand away, pressing my fist around the hilt. The direct contact enhanced everything I was feeling. “I don’t know how this works, but you need to wield Dreadnought while I’m gone.”

“Gone?”

Dray grabbed me, cupped my face, kissed me hard. “I’ll be back.”

“Dray!” I stood up and tried to chase him, but it was too late. One second the male stood there and the next he ran, changing form as he went, and then lifting into the sky.