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Anger coursed through me instantly. Holding me hostage was one thing, but messing with my Dragons…
“Braxton.”
Evie’s call brought my attention back to her, and I forced my temper to stop simmering. My emotions seemed to be more volatile now that I had yet another Dragon linked to me. “Whatever the case, he can feel what is inside me. Raithian told me he ‘craves’ it.”
“Magic calls to magic,” Evie explained, shaking her head as anxiety rose inside her. “Now he will stop at nothing to get it. It’s what his entire life has been about. Power. He killed his own family to take it from them. He raided the temple, seizing the hallowed crystal with the essence of his ancestors, so he could channel that stolen magic. Nothing will stop him from getting to you.”
“It’s not magic… What I have inside me,” I clarified when she glanced at me, confused. “I think…” I sighed. “I’m pretty sure today I found out what it is, while reading my father’s journal.”
Taking her hand, I guided her to the chair where she’d been sitting when I arrived, and crouched before her.
“Evie, my parents couldn’t have kids. Something afflicted my dad, not allowing him to procreate, and in his heartbreak, or desperation to give my mother a baby, he looked for answers elsewhere. When he was a slave, he used natural medicine to heal, but years after he was free, he went to the Mirror World and learned more about medicine. He devised a treatment that would cure his illness, and that is how my mom got pregnant.”
She processed my words, a calculative gleam entering her gaze. “That makes sense, since Kingston couldn’t remember your parents having any children before they left. What kind of treatment?”
“He used Tharion’s blood to heal himself, administering it directly into his veins. His, and that of a few other Dragons he shared some kind of affinity with…”
“Their blood healed him?”
I nodded. “But it also changed him, enhanced him somehow, and I inherited it when I was born. It was science, not magic.” My words were simple but cautious, unsure of how she would react.
Understanding danced in her features, but she offered me a small smile. “Braxton, Dragons are purely magical creatures. If their essence is a part of you, so is their magic.”
Right. When she put it that way…
She nodded knowingly, yet her features swiftly became serious. “Why didn’t Raithian kill you right then, and siphon your powers out of you? He already had you in his claws, you were as good as dead. Why did he let you go?”
Her words sobered me instantly, giving away the true danger I had been in under the Warlock King’s mind meld. It all could have ended so easily.
“He didn’t let me go. I broke free of his hold.”
“That is impossible,” she declared. Not a single doubt clouded her words. “The Devenish’s power is supreme. They are the chosen family, and their magic supersedes any other. Especially Raithian’s. No one could have escaped that mind prison unless he let them.”
Blinking, I thought back to that moment. “I did. But I didn’t do it alone. I called to the Dragons for help through our connection, and one of them answered my plea. He gave me the strength to break free, and I slashed the Warlock King’s jaw with the blade Harrison had given me.”
Evie stood from the shock. “You cut him while in his mind?!”
“Yes…” I mumbled, standing too. “My sword was gone—it remained with my body in the battle—but I remembered the dagger hidden in the back of my belt. So, I used it.”
Strands of her hair swayed as she shook her head, her gaze lost in the window behind me. “Whatever power the Dragons gave you saved your life, Braxton,” she confessed, focusing on me again. “Which one of them helped you? Ours were trapped by his curse during the battle.”
Funny story… I thought, trying to figure out how to tell her without pissing her off again. “It was Venom, the Dragon that appeared out of nowhere when we were in the woodlands, and I had just accidentally agreed to Lachlan’s duel.”
Rage returned to Evie’s eyes with the reminder. Epic fail.
“Go on,” she instructed, her body clenching like she was trying to focus on one thing at a time. There would be enough time for her to strangle me later.
“He was there searching for me,” I confessed with a troubled sigh. “Venom tracked me through the connection we had just formed. I guess he was the closest Dragon when I begged for help. Evie, his energy is like nothing I have ever felt. He has the gift of lightning, and that current was what rushed through me, freeing me from Raithian’s supremacy.”
Wonder and awe lightened her gaze, letting me breathe with relief for a moment. “But if he was there just trying to find you, why was he so enraged? Why was Venom trying to attack?” The thought sobered her, and she blinked. “You mentioned something about him feeling the tempest inside you…”
Oh, boy. I was going to die tonight.
“Yes, because he could, and that in turn distressed him. It felt like a storm raged in each of us, one feeding the other’s, and at the time, I was in the middle of an argument—”
“You were fighting with Lachlan!” Her cheeks reddened with ire and she walked past me.
“I’m sorry, Evie. But I don’t like him.”
