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So I had to. “Tell me everything.”
“Two days ago.” She sobbed through it all. “I suspected Ethan, but then he told me about this other man she was seeing…and took me to the cottage where he’d spotted them together. There was a dead body in the basement…” She paused to sob again. “I think he took her…”
It was like a knife being stabbed in my eye over and over again, and I had to stare at the blade point-blank. “What’s his name?”
“Aurelias.”
“What does he look like?”
“I—I don’t know,” she said. “General Henry took a portion of our army down to the bottom of the cliffs to search for her. Atticus took his own brigade north to the Kingdoms to search. I stayed behind…only because I had to.” She continued to gasp for breath, to breathe through the tears that wouldn’t stop.
I turned to look at Ian.
His face was pale as he stared back.
“This is no coincidence.”
He shook his head. “I just had the same thought.”
Ivory shifted her gaze back and forth between us. “What did you discover about the Teeth?”
I looked at my wife again. “They pled innocence and naivety, and I stupidly believed them.” Harlow may have been there at the same time…and I’d left her there. “I’ll get her back, Ivory.”
The sobs stopped, but the tears glistened like raindrops on her cheeks. “I—I can’t go on if you don’t.”
“I know.” I grabbed both sides of her face and kissed her forehead before I abruptly turned away and returned to our dragons.
“Huntley?”
Ian was in the process of climbing up onto Pyre. We’d already had a long journey, but now our bodies were invigorated with rage. I turned back to Ivory as I stood in front of Storm.
She shook as she stood there, like the rage inside her was a wildfire. “Burn them all.”
* * *
The dragons had covered half the continent in a single day, but they flew twice as hard even though their stomachs were empty and their energy reserves were depleted. And they roared across the sky—like they wanted the Teeth to know we were coming.
Atop my dragon and alone in the sky, I didn’t have to harden my expression and turn my heart to stone. Rage electrified my nerves like lightning in a storm, and my body felt stronger than it ever had, even stronger than it’d been decades ago when I’d defeated the Three Kings with my blade.
But I was scared. More scared than I’d ever been in my fucking life.
If I lost my wife, I would be inconsolable. But to lose my daughter…to picture what they were doing to her…was enough to make me end my own life just to make the suffering stop. I’d fought for freedom, and I’d fought for love—but I’d never fought for something so important.
We’ll save your hatchling, Huntley.
I said nothing, felt nothing as the ice-cold air struck me in the face.
They will release her when they see our fire, claws, and teeth.
It was dark now, because we’d spent the daylight flying from HeartHolme to Delacroix. It was dangerous to approach with limited visibility, but there was no danger strong enough to deter me.
A lifetime later, the dragons lowered closer to the ground to search for the Teeth kingdom, the Crags, and after several turns, they located it in the mountains. Storm released a stream of fire that illuminated the buildings alone.
Pyre released his fire and burned all the trees that surrounded their kingdom, bringing the dark city into the light. They had no torches and no lights on in any of the windows, as if they’d hoped we wouldn’t be able to find them in the complete darkness.
Storm burned the other trees, making a ring of fire in the mountains that displayed the city with a brightness that rivaled sunlight. Teeth didn’t run around the ground or leave the buildings. No one was on guard on the wall.
Take me down.
