She was a powerful, beautiful, vibrant being who exuded life, and these plants loved her for it.
When her hand rose out of the center of the vines, the moonlight filling the room spilled across her sun-kissed skin before the vines enveloped it.
“I… I didn’t know what to do,” Niall said. “I’ve never seen anything like this, and she’s laughing, so I… I just….” His voice trailed off when Lexi laughed again. “What is going on?”
“The luna flowers like her.”
“No shit,” Niall snorted.
“Lexi!” Cole called.
The vines and flowers shifted, and Lexi’s flushed face popped out from between them. Despite the radiant smile on her face, his heart slammed against his ribs. She was so beautiful, so alive, and soon, so many would want her dead.
He had to be enough to protect her.
“Hey,” she said breathlessly.
The vines and flowers started to unravel as she slipped out from between them. They followed her across the room as she practically skipped over to him. When she stopped before him, a couple of the vines brushed his arms as he hugged her.
Cradling her against his chest, he watched as the flowers turned their faces to the moonlight streaming into the room. His hand slid up her back and into her hair; he ran the silken strands through his fingers as he pondered how much time they’d have before he would have to keep her sheltered.
He was about to tell Niall to leave them when the thud of running feet drew his attention to the hall. Releasing Lexi, he stepped in front of her as a breathless, dark fae teenager rounded the corner.
“Milord! Milord!” he called.
“Now what?” Cole muttered.
The young fae skidded to a halt and bent over to rest his hands on his knees as he panted heavily. “Milord! There is a dragon in the Gloaming!”
Cole’s blood turned to ice in his veins. Had it come for Lexi?
Chapter Forty-Five
Cole ran ahead of the boy and the others as he raced down the corridors to the main doors. Before he could get to them, the doors swung open, even though no one stood near them. He stopped at the stairs and looked to the sky as Lexi and Niall skidded to a halt beside him.
Lexi’s heart thundered in her chest, and she was trying to catch her breath when Cole turned toward her and nudged her back inside.
“Don’t come out here,” he commanded.
“Cole—”
Before she could say anything more, a thunderous roar erupted across the land. It shook the windows in the palace, vibrated the ground, and quaked the earth beneath her feet. She didn’t see it yet, but she knew what creature made that sound.
She almost ducked back into the palace, but that roar caused something like a tuning fork to vibrate inside her. Since the end of the war, she’d heard the dragons bellow often in the human realm, but she’d never had such a visceral reaction to it before.
She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out as she gazed up at Cole. Whatever he saw on her face caused silver to flash through his eyes as a muscle twitched in his jaw.
“Get inside,” he told her.
Lexi almost did that, but when the screams of the dark fae pierced her shock, she knew she couldn’t run from this. Everyone in this realm had been through so much. They were injured, broken, beaten, and trying to flee from the beast now haunting their kingdom.
She couldn’t retreat when there might be something she could do. She had no idea what that was, but she couldn’t retreat.
“Cole,” she whispered.
Whatever else she might have said was drowned out by another loud bellow. And then, a red dragon rose over the top of the charred hills of the Gloaming. It swooped across the burnt-out land and toward them.
Lexi gaped as the magnificent, terrifying beast soared through the sky. In the moonlight, its red scales shimmered with silver. The flecks of yellow decorating it underneath reminded her of the sun even as it became a part of the moonlight encompassing it.
She’d never seen a dragon so large before. Its lethal, three-foot-long talons were held curved against its belly as it twisted to the side and arced toward the palace.
The screams of those in the courtyard grew louder as they ran around, looking for somewhere to hide. They dashed into the stables, ran into the homes of the soldiers, and hid where they could.
On the fence surrounding the palace, the head of the dragon Cole killed remained staked to a spike. It was rotting but clearly the head of a dragon; Lexi doubted that would make this giant beast any happier.
Had it come here to destroy Cole for killing one of them? Though it was a warm night in the Gloaming, she suddenly felt encased in ice.
Its next roar kicked up a breeze that blew the tendrils of her hair back from her face. Dirt and ashes billowed across the land as the dragon swooped toward them before soaring high again.
It wasn’t until it was swooping over the top of the palace that she realized it wasn’t releasing its fire. This creature could cause so much destruction, but it wasn’t unleashing its wrath upon the realm.
She had no idea why or what it was doing here, but after the battle and the craz, she was grateful for this small reprieve. That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to start destroying at any second.
She craned her head to see where it went, but the palace blocked her view.
“We have to find out where it’s going. It can’t stay in the realm,” Cole said.
“We told Sahira we’d be back soon,” Lexi said.
She didn’t dare say anyone else’s names. Cole trusted Niall to protect her, but she didn’t know how far that trust ran.
“I’ll send a crow back to let her know we’re going to be here for longer than planned,” Cole said.
Lexi didn’t like that, but he was right. The dragon couldn’t remain in the Gloaming.
Brokk opened the letter the crow had brought to the kitchen window earlier. As soon as Sahira announced she had everything she required for the spell, he’d been in a rush to return to the tunnels where Orin and Varo had already retreated.
He’d returned with Sahira and Del and hadn’t taken the time to read it beforehand. He wanted this spell over and the stone out of their possession.
In the dim glow of the flashlight Sahira held, he scanned the note. His eyebrows rose when he saw the word dragon, and an uneasy feeling settled into the pit of his stomach. Had the Lord sent the dragon or had it just flown into the realm as they sometimes did?
The arrival of a dragon in the Gloaming was a lot less common than it used to be; they had the human realm to explore and torment now.
Was it seeking revenge against Cole for killing one of its brethren? But it had been a while since then, and they hadn’t eaten him yet; the Lord ensured that. He didn’t see one of those beasts breaking the Lord’s control to go after Cole now when they could have easily killed him in Dragonia.
What if Lexi somehow drew it there?
He hoped not, because the longer they kept what she was a secret, the better they would all be. And having a dragon following her around was not going to help them keep that cat in the bag.
And for all he knew, the dragon might eat her first. He had no idea how the creatures were going to react to her. Some of them had probably never met an arach.