Page 159 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

I leap from the tower’s edge and onto my serpent’s back.

My world is crashing down.

Below me, on the ground, I catch sight of Boaz…fucking Boaz…standing at the southern side of this tower, clear of the battle and surrounded by ten other fae.

He smirks up at me.

Dread opens a dark pit in my heart, deep enough that I have to clamp down hard on my rising power. The last thing I want is to hurt my serpent again.

As the golden beast carries me away across dunes that are now empty of Ember Fae, I try to focus through the shock.

What I do next will matter.

I can’t go directly to Thyra because that will draw attention to her. I can’t leave her vulnerable because she doesn’t know that Ortansia and the Tol-Dakri will be coming for her. Let alone whatever Boaz has planned.

But getting to Thyra, along with Stellen and Antony, is still my best bet. Stellen can help Kaiba, and Antony won’t let any danger come to Aeliana, which by extension will mean protecting my Mothers and Zenaida too.

I shudder at the realization that protecting the fae I care about means asking my enemies for help. Antony once trusted me to protect Aeliana and now I must trust him.

A harsh laugh rises into my throat at the fact that I would rather entrust my family’s safety to a vampyr than to my own people right now.

“Fly to the far side of the southernmost point of the charcoal cliffs,” I call to my serpent. “We can stay out of sight and reach the tower that way.”

As I speak, I grip only with my legs, avoiding touching his horns with my increasingly hot hands, concerned now by how fast my fire is getting out of my control.

Damn. Too soon, I realize I’ll be lucky if I make it within half a mile of the cliffs before I burst into flames. I’ve constrained my power all night, and now fear is making me volatile.

My serpent shivers, a sign of his wariness, a second before heat bursts along my arms, threatening to turn the remains of my sleeves to ash.

That’s it. I can’t take chances for another second.

We’re above the dunes and the cliffs are still a mile away, but the black scales across my serpent’s left side are a glaring reminder of what happens if let my fire burn near living things.

Throwing myself off his back, I land on the dunes below, half-expecting to burst into a ball of flame on contact. When I don’t, I break into a run.

Across the sky, the stars are fading. Sunrise is an hour away. Behind me, the border flares with continuing fire. Ahead of me, the cliffs are dark except for…

A running figure, nearly too far away to make out, but the white wolf keeping pace with that figure is a quickly moving blob.

The wolf must be Nara, but the figure is proportionately too small to be Stellen.

Thyra? She’s moving damn fast, sprinting along the very edge of the mountain ridge.

Her cry reaches me, quickly drowned out by the hum of battle behind me.

But…what is she doing?

Fuck!

She launches herself off the side of the cliff, throwing herself into the air, a slip of a figure camouflaging too well against the rock behind her for me to follow her fall.

At the same moment, vibrations in the dunes suddenly hit me. Vibrations I missed because my feet are on fire and the sand turns to lava where I run.

On both sides of me, the dunes shift in rivers, creatures beneath the surface striking toward me.

A heartbeat later, a legion of golden serpents shoots out from the sand, bashing their horns against me and knocking me down.

Chapter Fifty-Nine