of the mage clans. The trackers. No prey ever escapes us.”
“But we’ve been tracking you!”
“Are you sure about that?” Thomas chuckled.
Ravi tried to pull Sahan behind him, but he knew it was already too late as a dozen Jaeggi mages popped into existence, forming a circle around them. A transportation spell. Difficult to manage at the best of time, the spell was rarely used, according to Lisette. But it was clear that the Jaeggi were still comfortable with it. Particularly if the Jaeggi leader was expertly luring his prey into a trap.
Sahan swore softly under his breath as he looked at all the mages surrounding them. Ravi’s heart raced. Magic started to build in the air like a gathering static charge. He had only seconds to act.
Grabbing Sahan’s arm tightly, he put his full strength into throwing his cousin toward the railing.
“Tell Alric!” he shouted.
As he expected, his cousin shifted into his dragon form before he could hit the water. With wings thrown wide, he caught the air and rushed up into the sky, a dark dragon-shaped blur. Sahan’s angry roar shook the night.
Ravi understood his cousin’s pain. He wanted to stay and fight, to protect Ravi, but if they both died on the bridge, then the mages and dragons back at Burkhard would never know the danger they were all in.
Ravi didn’t know if he could get free fast enough, but he was game to try. He didn’t want to be stuck here, either. The magic was thick and cloying now. It felt like it had a lock on him, but like hell would he just sit there and wait for the transportation spell to fling him to some unknown destination. His best bet was to shift and fly out, as his dragon form was much faster than his human form and the transportation spell could be far-reaching.
Skin rippled, and he could feel the shift. His human mind was starting to fall back as he happily handed the reins over to his dragon. But the shift never completed.
Something slammed into him from behind, hard. The world went completely white and then cold, as if he’d fallen into a snowbank. Then, nothing.
Something was wrong.
Sora couldn’t define it. He couldn’t put a finger on it. There was nothing obviously out of place. But still, unease lingered upon him. Not a dark cloud, per se, but a twisting sensation in the gut that hinted at something but gave no particulars.
It left him restless and out of sorts. It didn’t matter that it was close to two in the morning. He couldn’t sleep. Not that he’d been sleeping much since Ravi had left the castle.
Sora tried to console himself. Maybe it was just having Ravi out of his sight that unsettled him. With their promise to bond, of course he wouldn’t rest easy while his mate-to-be was out there, scouting an enemy location. It might well be just that. He’d rest better when Ravi was back home again.
Trying to shake off the mood, he left his room and headed down the stairs toward Ravi’s. They’d need to figure out how to put another armoire into Ravi’s room to make room for Sora’s wardrobe. He’d measure a few things, maybe plan out how to rearrange the bedroom a little. It wouldn’t be easy moving Sora here—he had quite a large collection of books alone—so trying to cram it all into Ravi’s room wasn’t feasible. Even with spells. Maybe a room adjoining this could be used as his office?
There was a loud thud outside the castle walls. It sounded like a dragon who had not slowed down sufficiently before crash-landing. Alarmed, Sora instinctively turned toward the sound, his feet carrying him that direction without conscious thought. Surely that wasn’t Ravi? His Ravi landed much more lightly than that.
Calls of alarm went up in the courtyard, heralding trouble. That sense of unease landed like a lead weight in his stomach. By the time he burst through the side door and into the courtyard, Sora knew that he wouldn’t like whatever had happened.
Quite a crowd was gathered, everyone who had heard the landing coming to see for themselves what it was. Sora could only see by craning to look over their heads, and the picture wasn’t a good one.
Sahan was laying on the courtyard paving stones, panting frantically, wings splayed out as if he’d overexerted every possible muscle. He spoke in short bursts, trying to communicate and breathe at the same time.