Master of Honor (Merlin's Legacy #5) - Angela Knight Page 0,5
Ulf smiled in genuine pleasure. “Hello, son. How’d it go?”
“Sucked. Mortals are idiots.”
“You were a mortal just last month,” Opal reminded him.
“Yeah, but I got over it.” Adam grinned, a big, powerfully built vampire with shoulder-length blond hair and a thick beard. His expression was pure Cheryl Parker after a hard day at the hospital -- irritation at human stupidity leavened by amusement and compassion. Sometimes just looking at him made Ulf’s chest ache in longing for Cheryl. He should have told Arthur to go fuck himself all those years ago. Instead, he’d obeyed his Liege -- and sacrificed nearly three decades with the two people he loved most.
Now he might have lost her for good.
Ulf managed a smile despite the stab of pain. “Let me guess. Your assignments didn’t want to be rescued.”
Opal Cassidy sighed. “They panicked.” She was a lean redhead whose ethereal beauty was belied by the strength of her build and the cool cynicism of her gray eyes. “Had to put them under a compulsion.”
“Now I see why you cast that spell on my ass,” Adam told her. “I’m surprised you didn’t just let the Fomos have me.”
Opal snorted. “Don’t think I wasn’t tempted.”
An ear-shattering blast of sound made every head snap back to stare at the sky -- mortals, witches, and vampires united in an instant of gut-clenching fear.
Overhead, Kel dove at the black dragon, who winged aside. The two whipped around each other, darting in to rip with claws and snapping teeth. More roars sounded, so loud Ulf’s breastbone vibrated. “Damn,” he muttered uneasily, “that bastard’s bigger than Kel.”
“And Kel’s not exactly a talking lizard,” Adam agreed.
Opal frowned. “Wish we’d known we were facing a dragon to start with. We’d have gated these people farther away.”
As the combatants wheeled and darted in flashing attacks, the two female “dragons” flew low over burning ridgeline, breathing torrents of magic. The whirling gold sparks snuffed out the fires like candle flames.
At least for the moment. If their foe decided to strafe the parking lot…
“Gwen, we need to get these people out of here,” Arthur shouted, before Ulf could suggest as much.
“On it.” Arthur’s wife made a sweeping, elegant gesture, sending a stream of magic rolling over the pavement like fog. A heartbeat later, it formed a wavering oval big enough to admit an eighteen-wheeler. Judging by the view on the other side, Guinevere had chosen a football stadium for the gate’s destination.
Arthur clapped his gauntleted hands. “Come on, folks, let’s take a walk through this nice gate.”
“Where are we going?” a woman asked, her voice anxious.
“Somewhere you won’t end up reptile kibble. You got a problem with that?”
Overhead, a blast of fire roared like a jet engine, accompanied by a high-pitched cry of draconic pain. As one, the mortals lurched toward the gate.
Ulf stole another wary glance skyward. The two dragons circled each other, moonlight gleaming over great wings and darting, sinuous bodies. Kel dragged in a breath and blasted his larger foe with a thundering plume of magic. The black dragon didn’t even flinch. He opened his huge jaws -- for fuck’s sake, he really was the biggest dragon Ulf had ever seen -- and breathed.
Instead of flame, a roiling black cloud surged from the dragon’s jaws, crackling with multicolored sparks like the dance of static electricity in the dark. That much power should have made Ulf’s magical senses ring, but he sensed nothing at all. It was as if the blast was CGI. Yet as the cloud rolled over Kel, his body ignited like a torch. The dragon knight shrieked, his beating wings losing rhythm. Surrounded by a corona of black flame, he fell like a stone.
Nineva screamed, obviously sharing her mate’s pain through their Truebond psychic link. She broke off her firefighting and shot toward the tumbling dragon, every frantic wing beat shouting of desperation.
“No!” Ulf yelled, in chorus with a dozen other Magekind voices. There was no way in hell Nineva could survive a fight with the enemy…
Instead, Ulf felt the wave of magic as she conjured an enormous gate beneath her plummeting husband. Kel dropped into it, and Nineva darted after him, the tip of her tail vanishing a heartbeat before the gate closed.
With a victorious roar, the black dragon wheeled and arrowed toward Morgana le Fey.
“Morgana!” Percival shouted as she turned and fled.
Ulf winced, imagining how he’d feel watching Cheryl fight that thing while he was trapped on the ground.
A gate opened ahead of Morgana, and she disappeared into it. It