Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,125

so much more.

That day long ago, she’d known she was going to have to leave her town, her school, everything she had ever known, and worse – her best friend. Surrendering herself to Jarrod had meant one more compromise she had to make, another piece of herself she was being forced to lose. So much, so fast.

Why hadn’t he seen that at the time? Why now, when it was far too late?

And he hadn’t stopped there with her five decades ago. Her day hadn’t even been over yet. Jarrod had known there was one more gruesome, trying task ahead, one he desperately hoped she would perform with him. When she agreed to accompany him to the warden battle aftermath that night, he’d been thanking his lucky stars that she was the selfless person she was. That she could help him save at least one more life.

But now… as their eyes met over the space filled with all of those memories and all of his dawning epiphanies, he felt just the opposite. This wasn’t something to thank the stars for. It wasn’t good fortune that she’d become a resurrecting angel, scarred by the souls she’d pulled from the abyss one after another. Because who she was and what she was willing to do was what had brought her right here, right now, to this place of unpleasant choices. It meant that she was required to suffer, kneeling between two people she’d loved and lost solely because of what she had become the same day she slept with Jarrod Sterling.

If he could only take it all away from her. So she would never have to face this choice again.

Jarrod watched more tears slip free from the lavender pools of his friend’s eyes. “Not again,” he found himself whispering, not even meaning to say it out loud. “Never again.”

But she heard him. They all did.

Annaleia’s grip on her friend’s hands visibly tightened. He watched as something strong moved through her, something fate-changingly important.

And then the woman who had surprised him so much fifty years ago surprised Jarrod once again.

Her body went completely still, her muscles flexing. Her gaze hardened, lavender to amethyst. Her chin lowered, and her teeth clenched. She looked straight at him, through him even, and he absolutely knew in that moment that everything had changed.

She shook her head, just once. Very softly she said, “No. Not again. Never again.”

With an incredible burst of speed, Anna spun back around and released the limp hands she’d been fruitlessly holding. She then pressed her own hands to the women’s chests instead.

There was the briefest flash of movement as Antares must have used dragon speed to attempt to reach down and stop Annaleia, perhaps trying to grab hold of her, pull her away from her friends – anything. But she was determined, and after that everything happened in what felt like a single blurred heartbeat.

As power instantly flooded her palms and spread with unprecedented, mindboggling speed to fully engulf the deceased forms of both of her friends, Annaleia Faith threw back her head and screamed.

Jarrod at once recognized what she was trying to do, and he knew the attempt would destroy her. She was going to try to resurrect them both.

But there was no time to try to stop her. Jarrod had never seen anything like it; it was a like a dam breaking, a supernova brightening of which Anna was at the epicenter. The light cast everyone in flash photography black outlines and blinded Jarrod before it developed into a sudden burst of energy solid and strong enough to slam into the people around her like a shockwave.

Jarrod felt the impact as if someone had struck him in the chest with a wrecking ball; he flew backward through the garage, and he wasn’t alone. In the sidelines of his inflight trip, he witnessed the other wardens in the room equally airborne. He barely had time to register the phenomenon before he was slamming into the garage’s far wall, the impact rattling his teeth.

He slid to the floor, somehow managing to keep his feet beneath him. Then he bent at the waist and braced his arms against his knees, closing his eyes in an attempt to remove the stars that swam in his vision. It wasn’t the impact with the wall that had him out of sorts, it was the impact of Annaleia’s magic. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt anything so potent.

No, he thought again, looking up toward the center of the garage