Wildest Dreams (Fantasyland #1)(168)

Twice, I had to raise my bow, take aim and let fly as I caught a soldier’s eye and knew he meant harm.

Twice, my aim was true.

More blood on my hands.

I still didn’t care. The only thing I thought was I was pretty f**king pleased I’d practiced so goddamned much.

I kept moving, quickly, always vigilant, glancing left and right, up and down, over my shoulder, around tents, my witches always with me.

We got out of the tent area and into the forest but it was happening there too.

God, there were so many of them. Men all around, beasts, dead, wounded, it was everywhere, blood staining the melting snow in what seemed like a river of red and pink.

But our way was clearer, we only had to look around trees not tents and we moved more swiftly, gaining ground. I was feeling hopeful until I felt the loss of a grip on my gown. I heard Valentine cry out and I whirled, bow up, arrow at the ready and I looked into a man’s eyes. That man was holding Lavinia with a dagger at her throat while her hands were curled around his forearm, her back arched, her head pressed hard in his shoulder to get away from the blade, her eyes filled with terror.

I aimed my arrow at his face. “Drop the blade.”

The battle raged on around us as Valentine pressed close to my back with hers, protecting it.

“Drop the bow, Winter Princess, or she dies then I take you,” he replied, pressing his blade deeper and Lavinia whimpered.

I pulled the bow back tighter. “Drop the blade,” I repeated.

“Your life for hers or I take both,” he returned.

I closed one eye and lined my arrowhead to my target.

“Drop the blade,” I whispered.

“Listen, princess, listen all around you. Your men lose. Die now or die at the noose. Our heads hold no affection for you as the prince had done. You will drop through the gallows,” he whispered back. “Your choice.”

He was wrong.

I had another choice.

And I took it.

I let my fingers loose and hit a bulls-eye, he fell back, dead instantly as my arrow shot through his eye socket and pierced his brain, his arms dropping and Lavinia fell forward to her hands and knees.

“Let’s go,” I commanded but suddenly Lavinia’s head snapped up then twisted like she was listening to something and Valentine whispered, “Oh my goddess,” at my back.

I opened my mouth to tell them to get a move on when it happened.

I heard it.

Flapping.

Loud, leathery flapping that accompanied an enormous shadow that was sweeping quickly over us, so vast, it blotted out the sun.

Lavinia pushed up so she was on her knees, her head tilting back to look at the sky, her lips parting in shock as I felt Valentine tense behind me and the noises of battle faded as men stopped to stare.

I looked up and that was when I saw them.

Dragons.

Dragons.

A delicate, delicious shiver slid over every inch of my skin as I watched the huge beasts fly through the air, webbed wing to webbed wing, hundreds of them, big as houses, their barbed tails snapping, their ferocious, horned heads tilted down, their beady eyes sweeping the landscape then it started.

They spewed fire.

Streams of it shafting out of their mouths, screams of shock silenced in nanoseconds when the flames hit their targets one after another after another.

It was terrifying.

It was awe-inspiring.

“Run!” Lavinia shrieked, gaining her feet, grabbing my hand and Valentine’s, she tugged us and we took off as the dragons flew, raining fire, incinerating men leaving nothing but ashes and melted steel in their wake, trees burnt instantly to a cinder, snow melted straight to the earth, and through it, leaving a charred crater.

We all halted as one when a man combusted ten feet in front of us, we backed up several paces, shifted simultaneously and ran through the random shafts of flames, dodging this way and that, certain to get caught up in it as the fire streamed down all around us.

Then we reached a clearing, halted at the vision before us and instinctively huddled together, all of us staring at a line of standing dragons, wings rolling and curling, long necks arching and writhing, tails snapping and thrashing, claws scoring the snow and then, as one, we turned to run but halted dead in our tracks when the next thing happened.

What appeared to be a large, white, sparkling meteor fell to the earth one hundred yards away exploding in a burst of white light from which a misty ice blue ring shot out moving so fast, if I’d blinked, I would have missed it.

And it left in its wake two types of men. Those frozen completely in their tracks in whatever position the ice blue ring caught them in and those who still had the capacity to move and did, running for their lives.

“We must go, we must go,” Lavinia shouted, pulling at my hand and I felt Valentine grab my other one and tug.

But I couldn’t move.

“I can’t move,” I forced through immobile lips.

“Pick her up!” Valentine yelled, sounding panicked and when this didn’t work she screamed, “Drag her!”

They pulled, tugged, pushed and yanked but my body was rooted to the snow.

I was caught in the ice ring and I could tell by the frightful, restless sounds of the dragons behind me they were about to blow.

“Go!” I cried through my frozen lips.

“My princess –”

“Go, go, go!” I screamed but it came out weak for I couldn’t make it stronger.