Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(104)

The hybrids were massive, all tooth and claw and horn, but they seemed helpless. It seemed as if they were dazed by the enchantment thick in the air.

Several of the caregivers—if that’s what they could be called—gathered around one shifter. The others joined them as they chanted, leaving other groaning hybrids behind.

This hybrid vacillated back and forth between human and shifter and something that wasn’t quite either, his features twitching as he shook on the altar. A desperate screaming ripped from his throat, rising over the sound of the chanting.

“We have to help him,” I whispered.

Arren turned to me with a look of disbelief.

“I’ll take care of the keeping alive part,” Talisyn said confidently, pointing to two. “I’ll nab those two.”

“Then the rest of us will watch your back,” Jaik said.

We didn’t want to fight in an area where we were so closely confined. Once we shifted, there would be little room for us to maneuver. Sometimes, being the largest and most terrifying of the shifters wasn’t all advantage.

One of the shifters raised his head, his nostrils flaring. “We’ve got company.”

Two shifters started toward us. Talisyn darted to meet them, his sword still hanging in the harness across his back since he intended to keep them alive. Jaik plunged toward the others, his sword in his hand.

Branok secured his map in his bag, pushing it behind his hip, then drew his glittering sword. He and Lynx seemed to move into the fray as one smooth unit.

“Finally,” Arren muttered. He moved quickly into the center of the fray as the caregivers broke off their incantations and drew their own knives.

The hybrids seemed oblivious to the fight raging around them. I met the eyes of one of the creeps who carried a long, gleaming dagger. There was a feral gleam in his eyes as he braced his hand on the bed and leapt over the body in front of him—the figure under him let out a bark of pain—and strode toward me.

“It’s the dragon royals!” one of them called.

The creep stared at me for a second—I expected him to come and fight—then abruptly turned and plunged his blade into the chest of the struggling shifter. I stared at him in shock, feeling the weight of my own carelessness drop into my stomach. I’d waited for him to come to me, but if I’d move to attack him first, that hybrid would be alive.

Then I burst into motion, advancing toward him.

“Don’t let them take you alive!” he shouted.

I slashed out at him with my sword—and he threw himself forward, impaling himself on my blade.

Fuck. As I kicked him off, I glanced around the room at the other royals. This was bad news. It was hard to fight Fae who were intent on dying, who threw themselves into knives and fangs, who are happy to be incinerated. Trying to fight them, while also preserving their lives when they were so eager to die, was difficult.

One of the creeps leapt toward another groaning hybrid. My rush to reach him must’ve felt like panic to my dragon, because suddenly, the shift took me over, dropping me to my knees as scales raced over my arms. I lunged toward him, trying to stop him—and accidentally bit his head off.

“Lucien,” Jaik chided.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to eat him.” Humans were not delicious. Even in my dragon form, I knew that raw humans were the worst. Humans were all bones and digestive system, crunchy and disgusting all at once.

Next thing we knew, most of the hybrids were dead, and the last of the creeps backed away from us as we closed in, incanting some kind of magical enchantment the whole way. His eyes were wide.

I shifted back too, all too conscious of how I muttered a smothered, “Lucien Finn.” I felt embarrassed that I’d shifted by accident. Tal was rubbing his shoulder, and I had a vague memory of my tail lashing out. Maybe I’d accidentally slammed into him.

Lynx shook his head, but they were too busy to mock me much now.

Jaik held out a calming hand to the Fae who stared around at all six of us as we edged in closer, surrounding him. “Just put down the knife.”

The creep threw the knife to the ground, and it rattled against the stone. Jaik exhaled.

Then the creep grinned as if he’d won—and went up in flames. For a shocked second, everyone stared at the flaming column where a man had been.

“Jaik, what did you do?” I demanded. It seemed only fair, given how Jaik had scolded me like a child for accidentally eating someone just a little bit.

Jaik looked at a loss for how to make someone not on fire. He grabbed a blanket and tried to smother the flames on the man’s body. The creep fell to the ground, his skin blackened and blistered as Jaik blotted the blanket over the last of the flames.

The creep rasped out a desperate sounding breath. There wasn’t much longer left to interrogate him.

“What the hell were you doing here?” Jaik glanced down at the man’s robes, which looked the same as the priests’ clothes in the temples. “What were you doing with these shifters?”

The man pressed his lips together, refusing to speak.

“Tell me,” Jaik warned. He exhaled slowly, a breath of flame forming at his lips, smoke curling around his face.

The priest couldn’t hide his panic at the threat, but he groaned, “I’ll be dead soon anyway.”

“You talk to him,” Jaik said to Arren, straightening abruptly.