He glimpsed Kaylia spinning to the side as she waved a hand at the earth. A wave of dirt rose from the ground to coil before her. With a flick of her wrist, she flung it into the face of a warlock who recoiled as he spit out the soil.
A dragon soared into view from over the top of the teepees; it headed straight toward them. It unleashed a blast of fire that churned up the ground, spit out giant chunks of dirt and rocks in numerous directions, and destroyed everything in its path.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-SEVEN
Lexi sawthe dragon coming while a child of no more than four or five stumbled out from around the burning ruins of a witch’s home. The girl screamed as she raced across the blood-soaked earth; red stained the bottom of her yellow skirt, and her blue eyes were the wild ones of a horse trying to avoid a pack of wolves.
Lexi was so focused on the girl and the streak of dragon fire racing toward the child, she didn’t see the warlock until he stepped behind the girl and drove a sword through the center of her chest. Blood sprayed from the child’s mouth; her eyes fell as her hands rose toward the blade before falling limply back to her sides.
The warlock grinned as he pulled the sword free. Rage and desperation propelled Lexi forward; love brought her fire out before, but necessity caused it to encompass her hands and swirl toward her elbows as she ran at them.
A shriek the likes of which Lexi had never heard before pierced the air. Even without seeing the woman, the agony in that horrible sound told her it came from the child’s mother.
No. No. No!The word looped through Lexi’s head as the child fell to her knees. The girl’s mouth parted as she stared at the blood spreading across her chest.
“Lexi, no!” Cole shouted.
Around her, the shadows swirled and danced, but her attention remained focused on the child as the warlock raised his sword over the child’s neck. The vicious bastard was about to chop off her head.
“No!” Lexi screamed.
Throwing up her hand, she unleashed a wave of fire over the top of the girl’s head; it slammed into the warlock’s face. Unprepared for the flames, the man screamed as he staggered back, but Lexi didn’t stop.
The fire continued to erupt until the warlock was covered in flames and his shrieks drowned out those of the dying. He ran a few feet away before staggering and going to his knees.
Lexi saw a streak of orange flame from the corner of her eye as the dragon’s fire raced toward the girl. Dousing her flames, Lexi threw herself forward, embraced the girl, and knocked her to the ground.
Lexi drew the child’s body beneath her as the dragon’s flames enveloped them. Beneath her, the girl didn’t move while the fire burned away what remained of Lexi’s clothes and warmed her flesh but didn’t burn her.
She’d withstood the wrath of a dragon’s fire before and didn’t feel any discomfort from the heat, but the girl whimpered. Lexi didn’t know if that was from the inferno, the fact Lexi was pushing her into the earth, or the blood pulsing against Lexi’s hand with every lumbering beat of the child’s heart.
Lexi pressed her palm harder against the girl’s chest in the hope of staunching the blood, but it was useless. The sticky, warm liquid coated her hand and slid between her fingers as the child’s heart slowed.
“No,” she whispered. “Stay with me. Stay with me.”
She prayed the child heard her above the fierce crackling fire. She wouldnotlet this girl die because of an immortal with a twisted soul.
Tears pooled in Lexi’s eyes as the flames burned against her back and the child’s blood flow eased. The tears never made it to her cheek before the fire seared them away.
The wind whipped her hair around her; it lashed her face as smoke choked her nostrils. She cracked her eyes open enough to see the red and orange inferno churning around them before she closed them again.
But through her anguish and terror for the child, something shifted and changed inside Lexi. Her shield crumpled, her defenses came down, and a warm flood of something she couldn’t quite explain poured through her.
She didn’t understand what was happening, but like lava breaking through a volcano, something seeped up inside her. It spread through her limbs and warmed her more than the dragon’s fire.
She wasn’t sure if defenses she didn’t know she had in place were crumbling. Maybe the last of Sahira’s potion was finally wearing away; perhaps it was her panic for this child’s life or being exposed to the dragon’s flames was burning away something she’d never known existed, but something changed inside her.
A rush of power pulsed through her veins, flooded her cells, and dug into her bones. It flooded her soul with a sense of rightness and of something more.
She was connecting to something… no… not something… she was connecting toherselfin a way she never had before. And when she did, her hands burned, her heart swelled, and power filled her palms as she held the child closer while willing the blood to stop. The girl’s heart was so sluggish, Lexi expected it to stop at any second.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT
The flames cut off,a dragon screeched as if in pain, and Lexi lifted her head to discover the charred and broken earth surrounding her. Stuck in the middle of all the destruction, and with the sun streaming down on her, Lexi glowed brighter than the fire surrounding her.
When hands seized her arms, she sensed their wrongness as soon as they connected with her skin. As Lexi swung backward, fire leapt from her fingers and blasted into the snarling lycan trying to tear her away from the child.
The man staggered back from the impact and beat at his face as he tried to smother the flames. Lexi kept one hand on the child’s back as she turned to face their approaching enemies.
