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Ben gave one nod, never taking his eyes off the demon Ere before him.
“On three,” he said, and didn’t wait to see if Cloud understood.
“One…two…”
“Three!”
As one, they both leapt toward Ere, arms and hands outstretched. The others followed them two steps behind, as if in slow motion, suspended in mid leap—
While Ere pushed off the ledge of the terrace wall with one mighty flap of his wings, blood-red eyes blazing, mouth twisted in that furious snarl. He pushed his hands toward his would-be pursuers on the ground, lightning streaking from his palms in an endless torrent.
The Pure Ones froze within the electrical net that crackled around them, their expressions a mixture of alarm, astonishment, worry and fear.
Not for themselves, but for Ere.
For what he was in this moment: a terrifying, powerful, uncontrollable being they’d never encountered before and didn’t know the limitations of.
Perhaps he had no limitations. Who could tell? They couldn’t take chances. They had to contain him before it was too late.
But there was nothing they could do, frozen in the lightning net as they were. It didn’t seem like they were in pain, Ben saw with a turn of his head. However, the electricity that coursed through their bodies didn’t look particularly comfortable either. At least Ere hadn’t tried to fry them to a crisp on the spot. Ben somehow knew that he could if he wanted to.
What was this monster capable of? None of them knew.
As Ben and Cloud each latched onto one of Ere’s clawed feet, a white dragon undulated through the black skies in the distance. Had humans looked up to the atmosphere, they might have thought it was a fast-moving cloud or a burst of laser light.
But Ben knew it for what it was—Cloud’s “little cousin,” the dragon that always carried them to the Celestial Realm when the Jade Emperor summoned Ere to fulfill a quest.
Ere jerked his head in the white dragon’s direction, his obsidian eyes flashing red, his nostrils flaring. Seemingly unaware or uncaring that he had two hangers-on with Ben and Cloud, he flapped his wings mightily, once, twice, and shot after the white dragon like a heat-seeking missile.
Well, that was one way to get him away from the City, Ben thought, as he hung on for dear life with both hands wrapped tightly around Ere’s ankle.
What a way to spend his twentieth birthday, he huffed a small breath and rolled his eyes, allowing one second of feeling sorry for himself before bucking the fuck back up.
He had to brace himself for whatever might come.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
Catch him, catch him, catch him…
The furious litany ran through Ere’s beast mind in an endless loop.
Destroy, destroy, destroy…
The white dragon would lead him to the Celestial Realm, he knew. It was the realm of dragons, ruled by the Jade Emperor, a mysterious god with unfathomable powers. Ere would confront him, make him show his true face, find Sorin and bring him back. There had to be a way.
Sorin, Sorin, Sorin…
Amongst the few simple thoughts that echoed like thunder in the emptiness of his bestial brain, this last one took precedence over all others. It was the only thing that kept him clinging by the skin of his teeth to the last vestiges of humanity.
If he couldn’t find Sorin…if he couldn’t recover his Mate, hisLight…
He would show them—gods, humans, Immortals—what dragons were really made of. Capable of.
He would rain darkness upon them all.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
Ere fully transformed into dragon halfway through the chase. And when he gained on White Dragon in the final leg of the journey to the Celestial Realm, when he almost caught the much smaller courier dragon’s tail between his teeth, the invisible forcefield of the hidden world shocked through the black dragon with palpable potency.
