He raised the Fang of the Heartstrikers at the same time, bringing the bloody edge of his sword to his mouth and biting down with a bone-chilling clang. The flash that followed was so bright that even Julius, who knew what to expect, had to close his eyes. When he opened them again, the human Justin was gone, and in his place stood an enormous, and enormously pissed off, dragon.
Something sharp dug into his shoulder, and Julius jumped before he realized it was Marci’s fingers. She’d scrambled to his side during the fire and was now gripping his arm like she meant to rip it off, staring at Justin with eyes so wide, they looked ready to fall out of her head. Julius didn’t blame her. If Justin had been his first dragon, he probably would have had the same reaction.
The Heartstriker clan was known for its beauty, not its size. Justin, however, was the exception to the rule. Even at twenty-four, he was already nearly forty feet from nose to tail, a heavy, winding snake of a dragon with a viper’s head crowned by a feathered crest. A pair of enormous, gloriously colored wings in blue, green, and gold extended from his feathered back, and his tail was a long whip of trailing plumage. All of this was supported by four thin, scaly, but enormously strong legs that ended in raptor-like feet tipped with curving talons, which were currently digging into the scorched parking lot like the asphalt was freshly turned dirt. But while his claws were definitely not to be messed with, it was his brother’s fangs that made Julius shiver.
Now that Justin had cast all illusions aside, his sword had followed suit. The Fang of the Heartstriker was a blade no longer, but a bone-like shell encasing Justin’s front fangs. Magic poured off them, filling the empty air with the sharp, biting fury of the Heartstriker’s power. Any wounds Justin inflicted with those teeth would never fully heal, and when the fire spewing out of his mouth passed them, the blaze changed from yellow to the brilliant green flame that had once made their grandfather the most feared dragon in the Americas.
By this point, the magic coming off Justin was so intense it was almost dizzying. But when he turned that green fire on the magic eaters, they did not feast as they had on Julius’s blood. They fled, surging into the air with a chorus of terrified wails.
Justin followed with a roar that cracked the blacktop, launching off the ground with a flap that nearly blew Julius over. By the time he’d righted himself again, Justin was high overhead, burning the magic eaters out of the air with gouts of green flame until the ashes fell like snow over the three remaining figures huddled together in the now-empty parking lot.
“Julius,” Marci whispered, her face lit up by fire and wonder. “He’s a dragon.”
“Yes,” Justin said, looking down to check on Katya, who was still somehow asleep. “We’ve established this.”
“A real dragon,” Marci clarified. “With fire.”
“He’s a dragon flying around and breathing fire inside the Lady of the Lake’s city,” Julius said heatedly, bracing against the pain as he tried and failed to pick Katya up. He tried again anyway, growling in fear and hurt and frustration and a thousand other things. Chelsie was going to kill them all for this. “We have to find some way to wake Katya. There’s no way we can move fast enough with her like this. Can you see if she’s under a spell? That’s the only thing I know of that could keep a dragon unconscious this long.” He paused, listening for a reply. When he heard nothing, he looked over to find her still staring at the sky. “Marci,” he snapped. “This is kind of important.”
She nodded absently, eyes never leaving Justin. “Do you have feathers like that?”
Julius sighed. Clearly, she was going to be no help at all until her curiosity was satisfied. “Yes,” he said quickly. “All Heartstrikers have feathers. It’s why we’re called feathered serpents. I look like Justin, but much smaller and with a different coloration and no green fire. Now, can you please check to see what’s making Katya sleep?”
Marci blinked like she was hearing him for the first time, and then, to his relief, she dropped down to examine Katya. A few seconds later, she pulled up the dragoness’s sleeve to reveal a silver chain wrapped around her bicep. “Here, there’s a spell on this.”
Julius wanted to slap himself. Of course Estella would know about the chain. For all Julius knew, this was the reason Svena had given it to him in the first place. The only question was what kind of a moron was he for not figuring it out earlier? When he grabbed the chain to yank it off, however, a wave of drowsiness swept over him, nearly taking him under as well before he snatched his fingers back. Apparently, the spell was now activated. He was about to ask Marci to give it a try when he heard the squeal of tires in the distance.
He froze, listening. Considering the show Justin was putting on, his guesses were evenly split between bounty hunters, a news crew, or, if they were really unlucky, one of Algonquin’s anti-dragon task forces. When he didn’t hear any shots, sirens, or excited screaming, however, Julius dragged himself up on his knees to try and see what was actually coming, and was subsequently nearly run over when Bob power-slid his Crown Victoria around the corner and into the parking lot.
“Bob!” Julius cried, clutching his chest, which felt in danger of collapsing under the combined weight of injury and shock. “What are you doing?”
“Helping,” Bob said cheerfully, hopping out of his car. “Or didn’t you want help? Because I can go.”
That was enough to nip Julius’s anger in the bud. “I’m always happy to receive any help,” he said humbly. “Yours most of all. Thank you.”
Bob sighed. “So beautifully said, but why isn’t Katya awake yet? She’s supposed to be awake. We’re on a tight schedule.”
“Working on it,” Marci grumbled, ripping off the duct tape Bixby had used to secure the chain to Katya’s arm.
“We need to get the vest off her, too,” Julius said, showing Bob the detonator he was still clutching in his hand. He’d been holding it so tight for so long now, his fingers had started cramping. Before he could explain the bomb to his oldest brother, though, Bob leaned down and yanked out one of the wires seemingly at random.
Julius felt like he was having a heart attack. “What did you just do?” he cried. “That could have—you would have—how did you know that was the right one?!”
“I don’t know!” Bob cried back, slapping his hands to his face in an exaggerated expression of horror. “It’s almost as though I can see the future!”
“Oh,” Julius said quietly, shoulders slumping as he looking down at the detonator in his hand. “Right. So I guess I can let go of this, then?”
“Only if you want to,” Bob said, scooping Katya up and stripping off the bomb vest before tossing her into the Crown Vic’s back seat like a sack of potatoes. “Right, then! Let’s get going, because between you and me, this place is about to get very crowded.”
He looked pointedly at Justin, still flaming in the sky, but Julius didn’t need the hint. He was already turning to tell Marci to get into the car…and found only empty space.
At this point, Julius would have thought it impossible to panic any more than he already was, but the sudden lack of Marci sent his brain into overdrive. “Marci!” he shouted, whirling around. “Marci!”
“Just a second.”
Her voice was like a balm, sending relief running through his body. The feeling was short-lived, though, because when he finally spotted her, she was crouching on her hands and knees all the way back at the edge of the blackened circle where Justin had first shifted.