“It is our honor.” Dris curtsied in a fun mocking way and Emrys, who looked exactly like a Dramen, smiled excitedly. Desmire stood, ready to carry us to the place that looked like a nightmare brought to life, and Rune . . .
I turned to the werewolf and looked him in the eyes. “Thank you.”
He had been calm, diving down into that well of rage inside him, that place where he had no fight about ripping a man’s head off with his teeth.
“It’s dark enough now. We can stay above the clouds and drop Emrys in. You guys ready to do this?”
The humming intensified beneath my skin, and my mind danced with the scent of revenge in the air. They nodding with resolve, not fear.
The city was a siren song of death, and we were ready for blood.
Chapter Fifty-Three
The city was lit only by torches. People fought in the streets randomly because they could. Decomposing heads of all colors and ages dripped blood down the spikes of the walls around the city. The castle was gray with iron everywhere. There were leafless vines growing up the side, adding to the eerie appearance. Laughter and screams were the soundtrack to this mission.
Rune growled from below. He hadn’t wanted to sit on top of Desmire this time, so he stood on the dragon’s hand with only his grip holding him to the dragon. He looked like a werewolf pirate staring at the city. The queen’s balcony had been in the tallest part of the tower facing the east, so we swooped around with a quiet ease, and Emrys hopped off Desmire, rolling through his landing, then popped back up with an arrow nocked in the bow to shoot.
No one came after him, and after a few seconds, he lowered his bow and walked into the castle. My hands wouldn’t stop fidgeting against the hem of the diamond armor, feeling it between my finger pads, testing it against my nails as we waited.
“Do you really think it will be this easy and he’ll just pop back there with Tor?” Dris held onto me as we flew in circles high in the night’s sky.
“No.”
“Me, neither,” she admitted, watching the balcony.
Five minutes went by, and Emrys hadn’t come. People were still out in the roads of the city going about their own lives, so I believed everything was OK for now, and no one had caught onto us.
Suddenly, a loud noise echoed throughout the sky, and Rune roared just as Desmire turned to the left sharply. A fast flying ball of stone flew toward us. More shots and stones rained from the sky. They had seen us and knew we were here.
“Desmire, get us down!”
My grip struggled to keep up with his hairpin turns and speed. Dris was not faring well, either. Desmire’s wings moved harder and faster as he swooped down toward the city. Fire sprayed from his mouth in a line, scorching everything below us.
“We need to jump,” I told Dris, just as Desmire slowed by the queen’s balcony again, and we leaped into the air, then landed with a hard cry. No one rushed to kill us or take our weapons, but it wouldn’t be long. Desmire would cause havoc outside, and I didn’t know if Rune was with him.
“We’ve got to move,” I whispered to Dris, both of us standing as quietly as we could. The sounds of fire, and Desmire’s roar drowned out the screams and shouts for blood from the Dramens both outside and inside the castle. With our weapons in hand, ready to fight, we took a step past the billowing curtains into the queen’s room.
“She kinda has nice stuff,” Dris commented, taking in the lavish furniture made of wood and gold and the large four-poster bed with chains wrapped around the top.
“I do not wanna know what those are for,” Dris murmured and walked past the bed with haste.
Neither did I. The more we looked around the queen’s room, the more disgusted I became. Weapons lined up in order on a dresser looked like a torture station, but there was no trace of blood anywhere.
It was obvious the King of the Dramens did not sleep in here. Despite the chains, the room oozed femininity with all the gold and luxury.
“Let’s get out of here,” I muttered. We managed to make it out of the queen’s room and down the stairs before we ran into our first person, a normal-looking girl wearing a short dress and tie-up shoes. Her matted hair touched the pointed bones of her pelvis; her dirty body had splatters of blood over her tanned skin. There didn’t appear to be any weapons on her, which I found odd.
“I don’t know if we should kill her or save her,” Dris whispered beside me as we stood there, weapons drawn. The woman watched us, not making a sound, but tilted her head from side to side like she couldn’t figure out what she saw.
“Do you need help?” I asked, for some stupid reason. I asked despite that little warning in my head telling me to back away.
The woman’s mouth opened wide, and she screamed. Her arms lifted with sharp fingernails and came straight for us. She was wild and would bite and claw until we were bloody scraps on the ground. Dris stepped in front of me. With her quick Fae movements, she smacked the girl’s outstretched arms away, then hand chopped her three times against the side of the Dramen’s neck. The girl went down instantly.
I stood there and thought my eyes were going to bulge out from my head. Dris turned to look at me with shaky hands, but then smiled.
“I’d read how to carotid chop from the Elite Guards Manual. Never thought I’d get to try it. I’ll need to jot down in the notes that it did indeed make an attacker unconscious.” Dris smiled.
Laughter bubbled up from my chest. Leave it to Dris to be a badass from reading books. We needed to move before the Dramen woke up. First we’d check the terrifying trophy room to see if Emrys was there.
We weaved through the halls, just like the survivor’s encounter book said to do. Dris took the lead since she knew the layout better than I did. Her flawless memory was filled with the words of every book she’d read in her life.
“Oh, I’m going to puke.” She gagged as we entered the room and saw heads and body parts of humans and beast hung on the red walls like trophies.
“Emrys.” I covered my mouth and nose to keep the scents away.
“Emrys, if you’re in here, get your ass out!” Dris yelled, her face ashen.
“I don’t think he’s here. We should head to the dungeon.” I pulled Dris’s arm toward the exit, not wanting to stay in this room any longer. Body, flesh, and organs hung like decorations. The Dramens were past redemption, past their humanity. They were evil.
Desmire had created a perfect distraction outside, so we made it to the holding cell with only going through two more unsuspecting Dramens. Dris used her chopping hands, and I managed to throw two hatchets into the chest of the other.
Emrys was picking the lock when we showed up. He was covered in unmentionable parts of humans and blood.
“You OK?” I asked my spider, relieved.
He nodded. “These are not humans; they are something else.” Emrys’s words were both a fact and a lie. They had been humans—were still technically human. They had changed into something brutal and bloodthirsty. I squeezed his shoulder.
“Prince Torin!” Dris gasped and I saw a man lying in a holding cell with five other people who looked at us with fear.
“Tor!” I breathed. Emotions flooded my chest. I sobbed, as I looked over his ripped clothes and dirty body on the stone floor.