Queen of the Fae (Dragon's Gift The Dark Fae #3) - Linsey Hall Page 0,54
and arrow in the ether and called upon my longest sword. Then I lunged, sprinting for the monster.
Burn ran ahead of me, fast and sure. When he reached a spot about ten feet in front of the snake, he spun and crouched low, turning his red gaze to me.
I got the gist immediately.
I reached the Thorn Wolf and leapt onto his back. He pushed off, hurling me into the air. I directed my blade right at the snake’s chest, sending the metal deep into its body. I kept the blade lodged as I fell, allowing the steel to cut the snake open from within.
Black dust burst out of its innards, an explosion of magic that made my eyes water. I slammed them shut, holding my breath. The dark silt rained down on my head, feeling like spiders crawling over my skin.
I landed hard, then rolled, yanking my blade free as I scrambled away. From behind, Burn growled and snapped as he lunged for the snake.
I turned, opening my eyes. The snake was writhing on the ground, black magic seeping from the huge wound in its belly. I sprinted for it, legs aching, and raised my sword high over its neck. I brought it down with a hard strike, severing the head.
A huge poof of dusty dark magic exploded from the snake’s neck as it rolled away.
Panting, I caught a scent on the air—putrid night lilies and brimstone.
The queen is here.
Heart thundering, I spun, catching sight of Tarron directing water at his own snake. We needed to take these bastards out fast.
He blasted the blinded creature in the face, making it lunge backward, then turned his assault on Aeri’s snake, hitting it with a jet that threw it off track.
She’d managed to hit it several times in the belly, leaving long black wounds that belched dark magic. Wally had somehow managed to jump onto the snake’s giant head and was clawing at its eyes. The little black cat managed to take out one of the fiery red orbs before he was thrown to the ground.
Aeri lunged, putting herself between the snake and a shaken Wally. Tarron hit it with water again, driving it back from her.
Burn lunged for the snake that Tarron had blinded, snapping and growling, trying to keep the beast from attacking Tarron while the Fae king protected my sister.
“Aeri!” I shouted, holding my palm up.
She got the signal, raking her thumbnail down her palm with a wince. White blood flared, bright under the moonlight. I cut my own palm, calling upon the lightning within me. It crackled and burned, surging down my arm.
I raised my palm to face hers, and the electric energy shot from my hand, joining the current that she directed at me.
With the electric whip formed between us, I raced toward the snake, darting around Tarron so he wasn’t caught on the wrong side of the lightning.
Aeri ran as well, and we sprinted toward the snake, dragging our electric current with it. While the snake was reared up, trying to avoid the water that Tarron shot at it, we sliced it clean through the middle. Both halves of the body flopped hard to the ground, writhing as they shot out blasts of dark magic.
I dodged around them, dropping my hand to kill the electricity since we were too far from Tarron’s snake to use it there.
Tarron had already killed his jets of water and was in the sky, shooting around the snake’s blinded head and going for the tail. A fiery cloud shot toward him, as if it were drawn by his presence in the sky.
“Tarron! Behind!” I screamed.
He surged forward faster than I’d ever seen him fly, lunging down with his sword and striking the snake right through the middle. The powerful blow severed the snake’s body in two, and the top half dropped to the ground, writhing.
Gone.
They were all gone.
But no time to recover.
“The queen! She’s here.” A chill raced over my skin.
“I smell her,” Tarron growled.
We raced up the last part of the mountain, leaving the bodies behind as they disappeared, heading back to the underworld. Each of us kept our weapons drawn, and Burn and Wally stayed at our sides, galloping along with murder in their eyes.
The top of the mountain was covered in rocks and rubble, crevasses everywhere. Each one burned with flames that shot from within the earth, a sparkling, fiery glow that was both beautiful and terrifying all at once.