A Dawn of Strength (A Shade of Vampire #14)(42)

The moment the first of the crowd of black witches stepped into the clearing, Caleb moved backward, away from me along the dragon’s back, and began positioning his guns, while all the dragons lowered closer against the treetops. The dragons waited until the entire army of witches had gathered—followed by a dozen or so of their vampires—before they all swooped down. My eardrums ached from the explosion of gunshots.

Our opponents didn’t know what hit them as they looked skyward in shock, just in time to see flames escape the dragons’ jaws and gush toward them. I took particular pleasure in seeing Rhys’ stunned face. Deadly curses shot toward us, but they rebounded off the dragons’ hides, redirecting toward their own people. Several of their vampires were felled instantly in this way.

The dragons circled round and round like a deadly whirlpool, drawing closer and closer to them on the ground—all the while intensifying their fire while we rained bullets down on them. Fire shot from my own palms, merging in with the dragons’ blaze. My eyes watering from the heat and smoke, I hoped our vampires were coping with the temperature. I looked back at Caleb. He looked too absorbed in firing shots in Isolde’s direction to notice much else.

By now, there wasn’t a vampire left standing and I hoped the witches’ palms had already been too damaged by the heat for them to be able to escape the fiery cage the dragons had created. But in that, I was wrong. Rhys, Julisse, Isolde and perhaps two dozen others disappeared from sight.

“Derek, watch out!” Caleb yelled, pointing toward a blazing ball of blue flames hurtling toward my parents at their level.

Ridan raised his right wing just in time, blocking the curse and sending it hurtling down to the ground.

“We need to take out the leaders,” I said suddenly. “Rhys, his sisters or Isolde. Those four are the most powerful.”

“I already killed one of his sisters,” Caleb muttered. “The younger one.”

“Oh, good… Jeriad,” I said, suddenly recalling Annora’s fate. “Swing your tail, stinger—whatever you call that sharp thing—around.”

It would be like waving a knife in the dark, but those things were long and if I were a witch, even if I was invisible and floating in the air, it would disconcert me to have fifty or so of those lethal things flying about. It would certainly impede their aim.

The other dragons began to follow suit as soon as they noticed what Jeriad was doing.

A shriek came from my left. I turned in time to see a black witch fall through the air and hit the ground, motionless. A hole had been gouged through her stomach. The tail of the dragon Kiev was riding on was soaked in blood. While the witch who’d just been felled wasn’t Rhys, Isolde or Julisse, this was a start.

Encouraged, the dragons began flailing their tails around more wildly. A little too wildly. I had to scream at Caleb to duck as Ridan’s tail came hurtling toward us. We both kept our heads down low against Jeriad’s back after that.

Another scream drew my attention. A short warlock with a bald head had been skewered through the groin on the tail of Xavier’s dragon. Now that he was visible, Zinnia shot bullets through his palms, then his head—not that it seemed necessary.

After two more black witches met similar grisly deaths by Neros and Yuri’s dragon, the curses shot toward us appeared to be emanating from a greater distance. The witches were retreating toward the direction of the ocean.

“Follow them!” my father shouted.

The dragons flew toward them, breathing another storm of fire. And as they did, a panicked female voice—perhaps Isolde’s—cried out, “Retreat!”

We followed their trail until we reached the beach, where we lost track of them.

“How do we know they’re gone?” I asked nervously. “They’re still invisible. What if this is a trick, and they just circle back round toward the mountains?”

“We should head back there,” Xavier replied. “Though I’m not sure there’s enough of them remaining to be any match for us, now that we have dragons.”

“I agree. And I think they know that,” my father said as the dragons flew us back toward the Black Heights.

Still, our fire breathers positioned themselves around all sides of the mountains. We all waited with the dragons for hours—some hovering in the air, some on the ground, others perched on cliffs—except Xavier, Ashley and Landis, who hurried inside the Black Heights to make sure everyone was all right.

After six long, tense hours had passed, with no signs of the witches returning, we could only conclude that they’d gone.

Chapter 36: Sofia

A part of me was still in denial, while the other part had already given in to the truth.

We all had so much to do in the aftermath of the witches and dragons’ attacks, yet all I wanted was to lock myself in a room and curl up in a ball.

The nightmarish scene I’d witnessed by the beach still remained etched in my mind’s eye, playing mercilessly, over and over again.

The blistering wave of heat. The cyclone of fire.

The cries of those scrambling to get away.

The silence of those who couldn’t.

Once the dragons had sent down their flames, it had been hard to see for more than a few feet in front of me. I’d been situated further back in the clearing behind the beach, away from the brunt of the first inferno, but if I hadn’t run just when I had, mine would have been another life claimed.