Oh, that’s great. I’m going to be eaten by a dragon. Wait till Wes hears about this.
Something streaked past me in a silvery blur. Mist flew straight into the dragon’s face, sinking her claws into its eyes and muzzle. The Adult bellowed and reared back, shaking its head, trying to dislodge the dragon clawing at its face. Mist snarled and refused to relent, beating her wings for balance as the clone roared and flailed.
Finally, with a mighty fling of its head, the clone hurled the silver dragon into the air. She spun gracefully midfall, flapped her wings and flew toward the armory. From its back, Ember leaped skyward, as well, just as a black, armored truck slammed full speed into the Adult dragon, knocking it to the side. It let out a screech, the first real sound of pain I’d heard, as the truck plowed straight into a wall, crushing the dragon between several tons of metal and brick. Blood streamed from its mouth and nostrils as it gave a defiant scream and thrashed violently, tearing at the vehicle with tooth and claw before it finally freed itself. Soldiers rushed forward, firing their weapons as the huge dragon staggered, stumbling forward in an almost-drunken manner. Blood poured from its mouth in streams as it turned in a confused circle, staring blearily at the humans swarming around it.
Finally, with the last groan of a dying giant, it collapsed to the dusty earth. For a moment, it lay there, panting, still confused as to what was happening to it. Then the silvery eyes turned dark, the great jaws stopped gasping and the enormous head slumped to the side as the vessel shuddered one last time and didn’t move again.
I slumped to the dust as cheers rose around me. I would have joined in the celebrating, but I didn’t particularly feel like shouting, or moving, at the moment. My side throbbed; each breath sent a stab of pain through my obviously broken ribs. Lying here and breathing as shallowly as I could seemed like a pretty good idea.
With a creak, the door of the truck opened and the soldier staggered out, his face a bloody mess. Instantly, Ember launched herself over the dead clone dragon and flew to his side. Her eyes were worried as she leaned in, wings half-spread in alarm, and the human gave her a tired smile, probably assuring her he was fine.
Oh, sure. Go see if the human is all right. Don’t mind me; I’ll just lie here and try not to bleed on everything.
A shadow fell over me, and Mist landed a few feet away, blocking my view. “That,” she stated, peering down at me with glowing blue eyes, “was probably the stupidest thing I have ever seen anyone do, dragon or otherwise. Now I know how you’ve avoided Talon for so long—pure dumb, crazy luck.”
I chuckled, but it turned into a painful, raspy cough. “Uh, pot meet kettle,” I said, not bothering to move from the dirt just yet. “If it was so crazy, why did you come and help us?”
She sniffed. “I was told by my employer to aid you in battle tonight. He made it very clear that he did not want you or Ms. Hill to die.” Her chin rose defiantly. “My orders were to prevent that from happening, in whatever way possible.”
“Ah. So it was just orders, then.”
“Of course.” Mist rolled her eyes, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore. “I take my job very seriously, Cobalt. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Sure.”
Clenching my jaw, I pushed myself to my feet, grimly observing the battlefield and taking stock of our losses. The dead vessel, outlined in moonlight, sprawled like a black mountain in the center of a war zone. Bodies, both soldier and dragon alike, lay everywhere. Most of the dragon bodies were clones, but here and there, brighter scales glinted among the dull metallics, and a cold, sickening lump settled in my stomach.
Stupid, brave hatchlings, I thought, just as my gaze settled on a small brown dragon, crumpled between two larger clones. My heart sank. Remy. And now he would never tell stories again.
The sick feeling turned to anger, making me want to sink my claws into something’s face and char the skin beneath my talons until it melted and fell off. I suddenly wished the clone was alive again, just so I could kill it myself. You wanted to fight, I raged silently. You didn’t want to hide any longer. Was it worth it? Was any of this worth it?
“You couldn’t have protected them, Cobalt.” At my back, Mist’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “Talon would still have come for them in the end. Sooner or later, they were going to have to fight.”
“I know.” Suddenly tired, I sat down, feeling like I was perched on the edge of the abyss, seconds from watching the whole world crumble into darkness. Or maybe explode in an eruption of dragonfire and burn to ash. “And it’s not over yet, is it?”
“No.” Mist came forward and sat beside me, and together, we stared over the battlefield, at the carnage Talon had left behind. The bodies they had wasted, and the dragons they had killed. “I’m afraid this is only the beginning.”
GARRET
The infirmary smelled like blood, disinfectant and smoke.
Fourteen dead. Fourteen soldiers who had been killed in their own chapterhouse. Eleven injured, more than half of them severely, and at least a couple who wouldn’t survive the morning. One stressed-looking medic scurried back and forth between rows, clearly overwhelmed by all the beds that were filled with bandaged, charred, bloody soldiers. I made my way through the room, passing the wounded, the barely conscious and the dying. I’d already been here once; after the collision with the giant Adult clone, my forehead had needed stitches. I had more than a few bruises, but my body armor had absorbed a good deal of the impact. I would ache for the next few days, but I had gotten off easy. I wished I could say the same for everyone else.
“Hey, Sebastian.”
The voice was raspy, weak with pain and drugs. I paused at the bedside of the soldier, gazing down at him. Bandages covered half his face, and one of his arms was wrapped in gauze to the shoulder.
“Your lizards,” he husked out, “did good.”
He might’ve wanted to say more, but it was evident that even that bit of talking was painful. So I simply nodded and moved on, passing other cots with wounded soldiers, until I came to a corner that had been sectioned off with a curtain.
As I pushed it back, my throat tightened. Tristan St. Anthony lay on the sheets, still as death, his chest and head wrapped in bloody gauze. They’d found him buried beneath the rubble of the church tower, barely breathing but miraculously still alive. He remained unresponsive, and the medic didn’t know if he would pull through. But he was still one of the lucky ones.
Pulling up a chair, I sank down beside him.
“Hey,” I greeted him softly. “I just...uh...wanted to let you know how everything went. It worked, by the way. We won. Took some losses, of course, but at least some of us are still standing. Martin sustained a concussion and a broken wrist when part of the roof fell on him, but he’s still up, and he’s still managing the chapterhouse. Though the medic keeps pestering him to lie down. You almost shared a corner with the acting leader of the Western chapterhouse.”
No response from Tristan. The machines around him beeped softly, and his chest rose and fell with each shallow breath. It was strange, seeing him like this. In all our years of fighting together, even when he’d gotten himself sent to the infirmary, Tristan was always awake and alert and rarely stayed down for more than a few hours. I kept expecting him to open his eyes and smirk at me, amused with his own prank.
I sighed. “You’ll probably hear this when you wake up,” I began, refusing to accept that he might not wake up, “and I wish there was another way to say this, but...the Order has been destroyed, Tristan. Martin has been trying to contact anyone from St. George all morning, and no one is answering. The other chapterhouses have gone dark, and the council isn’t responding at all. We might...be the only ones left.”
I paused as the gravity of that statement hit home. I knew it was too soon to really tell. Others might have survived the assault. There might be more of us
left than I thought. But with every passing hour and no word from anyone in St. George, it was becoming more and more apparent that the Order had been decimated. That Talon had won this battle, perhaps even the war, and the Night of Fang and Fire had succeeded in striking the final blow against their ancient enemies.
That left us. Myself, a few rogue dragons and a handful of soldiers. The few remaining survivors. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I admitted, mostly to myself. “I don’t know if we’ll ever recover from this, but if we do, the Order has to change. We can’t remain alone and isolated any longer, not with the power Talon now commands. I think Martin is realizing that we need all the allies we can get, if any of us are going to survive whatever is coming.”
“There you are.” There was a hiss of cloth as someone came through the curtains, and a moment later Ember slipped her arms around my neck from behind. I put my hand on her arm as she leaned in, her body warm against my back. “How are you holding up, soldier boy?”
“I’m all right.” I wasn’t. My best friend was at death’s door, the chapterhouse was in shambles and the Order I’d known all my life was gone. I was enough of a soldier to realize that things looked pretty bleak. We had survived the battle, but the war was far from over. And we didn’t stand much of a chance against Talon and their army of dragon clones.
I could feel Ember’s worried gaze on the back of my head and knew she saw right through my lie. “Are the others settling in okay?” I asked to distract her. Martin had given the surviving hatchlings the officers’ housing for temporary quarters. The few families who lived there had already fled, and more important, the building was isolated from the rest of the soldiers. Most of them were here, in the infirmary, but Martin was taking no chances.
“Yeah.” Ember nodded. “Everyone is shaken up, and there are a few who took some nasty injuries, but they’re recovering. Riley has organized things pretty well.”
“And Jade? How is she?”
“Hurt,” Ember replied. “Cranky. She has her own private room where she insisted no hatchlings would come tripping over her, and she keeps admonishing the Order for not having any tea.” Her tone, though solemn, became a little lighter. “I think she’s going to be fine.”
I felt a glow of relief, tiny as it was, that Jade was among the injured and not the dead. The Eastern dragon had suffered several broken ribs and a few deep lacerations where the clone had slammed into her, but it was amazing she had not been wounded more severely. I wondered if she would stick around after she healed; with things the way they were, none of our futures were certain. And Talon was just getting started.
Silence fell again, though it wasn’t awkward. The machines beeped, and the murmur of voices echoed through the curtain behind us. Ember drew back, then pulled up the remaining chair and sat beside me.
“How is he?” she asked, her voice very soft.
I swallowed. “Tristan has always been a fighter,” I said numbly. “If he can survive the next twenty-four hours, they think he has a good chance of pulling through.” I gave her the words the medic told me that morning, but we both knew what it really meant. Ember paused, and then her hand came to rest over mine, fingers curling around my palm. I squeezed her hand as all the fear and uncertainties I’d suppressed rose up like a flood, threatening to drown me. I’d protected this chapterhouse, kept it safe as best I could, and Talon had still managed to nearly destroy it and everything I cared for.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen now,” I admitted. “The Order is gone. There’s no one left to stop Talon from doing whatever it is they’re planning.”
“Yes, there is,” Ember said quietly. “There’s us. We’re still alive, Garret.” She glanced down at our clasped fingers, her expression darkening. “I don’t know what will happen, either,” she said. “I don’t know what Talon has planned, or what Dante and the Elder Wyrm are doing now. But whatever comes, we face it together. Nothing is over yet.”
I met her gaze, feeling the heat rise up in my veins, letting it burn away the fear and uncertainty for now. Ember was here. I had lost a great deal—we all had—but at least the dragon I loved was still beside me. And I knew she would be there until the final battle with Talon loomed on the horizon. It was closer than ever. For better or worse, tonight the countdown had begun, and we were all rushing toward that final confrontation.
“Talon made a mistake last night,” Ember murmured. “They didn’t manage to kill us. And now we know what we’re up against.” Her eyes gleamed, fiery and determined, and for a moment, I could see the dragon, beautiful and terrible, overlaid like a second skin. “I think it’s time that we took the fight to them.”
EPILOGUE
DANTE
You failed, Dante.
Standing outside the doors to the Elder Wyrm’s office, my hands shook as I reached for the gold handles, hearing the echo of her words in my head, making my stomach turn over.
Failure. I had failed. Talon, the Elder Wyrm herself, had entrusted me with this assignment, and I hadn’t been able to complete it. It didn’t matter that we had decimated St. George. It didn’t matter that their numbers had been reduced to a handful. Almost was not success. My mission was the complete and utter destruction of the base and every living thing in it. If even one soldier survived, that was a failure in the eyes of Talon. Worse, nearly all the vessels in my command had been destroyed, including the Adult that was supposed to have ensured our victory. I didn’t know what had gone wrong. But somehow, Ember and Cobalt’s arrival had thrown everything into chaos, and they had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
Ember, I thought furiously. I won’t forgive this. Next time, you can expect no mercy from me.
If there was a next time. With a deep breath, I turned the handle and walked into the office of the Elder Wyrm.
Like many other times, she was standing at the windows, gazing down at the city far below, and she didn’t turn when I walked into the room. Heart pounding, I crossed the floor until I was a few feet behind her and clasped my hands together, waiting for her to acknowledge me.
“The Western chapterhouse still stands, Dante.”
I swallowed the dryness in my throat. “Yes, ma’am,” I replied simply. “Ember and Cobalt arrived at the last minute with a group of rogues and were able to rout the attack.”
The Elder Wyrm was silent for a moment, then gave a dry chuckle.
“And so you continue to defy me, daughter,” she said, sounding more amused than angry. “Very well. Play your games, if you like. It will make no difference in the end.”
She turned from the window then, and I cast my gaze to the floor as those piercing eyes fixed on me. “Do not worry, Dante,” she said, and my legs nearly gave out in relief. “The survival of a single Order chapterhouse is a minor thing. St. George is truly broken now. They have scattered to the winds, and it will take a miracle to bring them back together.” She smiled, and it held the weight of a thousand years behind it. “Our last opposition is no more. The Order of St. George was the final obstacle that needed to be removed. Now, nothing stands between us and our day of triumph. It is time to move on to the final phase.”
* * * * *
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THE DRAGONS OF TALON: Once hunted nearly to extinction, they are now poised to take over the world.
THE ORDER OF ST. GEORGE: The legendary dragonslayers will stop at nothing to wipe dragons from the face of the earth.
These mortal enemies are locked in secret and deadly combat, and humanity is none the wiser
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Because Meghan is the daughter of a mythical faery king...and a pawn in a deadly war. And she’s about to discover just how far she’ll go to save someone she cares about, stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face...and find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.
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