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“If somehow I lose sight of you, I will know instantly if you’re hurt.”

“Like forever? Or is it temporary?”

“It’s not temporary though it will weaken with time.”

“Wait, so you’ll know if I’m hurt, but will it help you to track me?” Dom tracking me without telling me was an ongoing saga we’d beaten to death.

He looked like he’d swallowed something sour. “There is no rune that will let me track you permanently, unfortunately.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “But indulge me with some tracking devices at least for this fight.” He slipped earrings onto each of my ears that looked like pearls. “Just in case,” he added.

“At least you’re telling me when you’re doing that now.”

“We need to learn to trust each other again. It goes both ways.”

He gripped my face in his hands. “Whatever happens, stay alive,” he told me gruffly and gave me a hard, quick kiss. “You will survive no matter what.”

“You too,” I replied softly. The idea that we could lose each other now, when the future held more hope for us than it ever had, hit me hard.

He said something in Druidic with such fervor that I asked him to clarify. “I said that if anything were to happen to you I won’t survive it, I won’t want to. I gave you my soul a very long time ago. Where you go, it will always follow, even into the next realm.”

We were dropped off as close as we could get without the large vehicles being immediately detected, which meant we had to walk the last few miles. The other group was let out on the other side of the compound with roughly the same amount of ground to cover. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than moving in as one big, obvious target.

We fanned out and headed to our destination. We had headsets on but it was radio silence unless one of us spotted a dragon or ran into trouble.

I was flanked by some distance between Dom and Caleb. We moved with quick, measured steps, eyes scanning every inch of the terrain we passed. We moved in sync as though we’d trained for it. We basically had. We were all familiar with methodically tracking prey.

I still wasn’t sure it wasn’t a mistake for me not to try to shift into my draak form first, but it wasn’t exactly a quick or easy process for me and between forms I’d be vulnerable not to mention useless.

Sven, on other hand, was staying back to shift even now. He was confident that he could be of more use in dragon form and said he couldn’t be sure but he thought it would take him about forty-five minutes to an hour.

Dense forest covered the land around the compound my dad was occupying, and we looked for traps as we moved but as far as I could tell we didn’t trigger any sensors on our way. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he had little to no defenses set up. My father’s arrogance and faith in his invulnerability knew no bounds. He’d been alive for a very long time, long enough to be made into a legend for the ages, which had only increased his hubris. I could not imagine a world where he would see me and a group of mixed others as a real threat to him, and I was counting on that. Being underestimated was going to work strongly in our favor.

We moved until we were in throwing distance of the sloping, manicured grounds of what looked like a palace surrounded by many smaller buildings. It looked opulent. Perhaps they’d stolen it from some local cartel.

There was literally no movement on the property that anyone could detect. It was very strange, but we advanced nonetheless.

We encountered what appeared to be a surprised gardener right as we approached the outer layer of buildings, but he didn’t sound an alarm. He just stared at us until Dom caught his eyes, chanted a few words as he made a quick gesture with his hand, and caught him and laid him gently on the ground before we pushed forward again. The whole thing took all of three seconds.

There weren’t any guards, I’m sure my father would be insulted by the very notion, but there were a few ordinary humans working there that had to be bespelled and set aside as we advanced deeper into the enemies’ lair.

I was beginning to wonder if we were too late, if they were even there, when things turned a bit strange.

It was nothing I could even put my finger on right away, just that the very air around us seemed wrong, stale and stifling suddenly.

I paused looking to the men on either side of me. My breath was ragged, but no one else seemed affected in quite the same way.

I put my hand up to stop our advance. Something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. It felt like we were walking into a trap and even one step might spring it.

I crouched, hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath.

We were in the driveway at this point, and I was staring at the pale gray concrete as I managed my breathing when I caught it. My eyes had originally told me that the surface we were walking on was stamped asphalt, but the pattern was all wrong.

I opened my mouth to scream a warning when something caught my breath in my lungs.

I straightened, drew Torst, and whirled a beat too late. A cloud of glowing blue powder blasted into my face, and I collapsed in a fit of agony.

I had shut my eyes just in time, which was lucky because I was pretty sure I would have been blinded for the rest of the fight or longer otherwise.

By the way my body reacted, I could tell that that powder was some residue of whatever component made up the slayer weapons.