Chapter 14
Kate felt like time was frozen as Marissa looked to Grant with a smile of pure evil. Pearce was still trying to talk his wife out of killing Lucy, but his words were falling on deaf ears. Marissa wasn’t going to stop, and as Kate watched, the President began to realize the truth of the situation. Marissa hadn’t married him for love; she’d married him in order to complete her plan.
“I’m a fool,” Pearce said quietly to Kate. “She never loved me.”
“You couldn’t have known that she’s a dragon, sir,” Kate said.
“A dragon?” Pearce said in shock, looking at Eli, who he recognized. “She’s one of yours?”
“She’s a traitor who disappeared before we could deal with her,” Eli said. “The child is mine and Anna’s. Marissa tried to kill Anna and I before we could conceive, not knowing that Lucy already existed.”
Pearce looked dumbfounded.
“It’s a long story,” Kate said quickly. “We’ll fill you in later.”
Pearce turned his attention back to Marissa, who was moving for the first time since they’d found her on the roof.
“I know what you are!” Pearce yelled, his voice echoing in the still night. “This won’t change anything.”
“Foolish human,” Marissa hissed. “What you know and what you can control have no effect on me. You’re just a pawn I used to get Kate to find the child for me. I knew that she would go into Aman even without your orders, but I never anticipated that she would bring the child and her family to me.”
The last words dissolved into a laugh that sent chills up and down Kate’s spine. Marissa was insane with hate and greed, and she wasn’t going to stop until she was dead.
Marissa turned to the man beside her and nodded.
“Kill her,” she said.
“With pleasure,” the man responded.
He picked up Lucy by the back of her clothes, holding her high as his body began to shift. He ran a few steps, launching himself off the roof and into the air as Kate had seen the dragons do before, but something was different. Grant began to shift, the hand holding Lucy changing into a claw, his wings spreading out from his body. He got several hundred feet into the air without his lower half shifting, and when he started to lose altitude, Kate heard Eli curse beneath his breath.
Eli started running, his body already shifting as he ran by Jason and grabbed the man by the arm, throwing him into the air. Eli took off, Jason landing smoothly on his back with a look of shock on his face, then determination. Grant was still falling, his hand gripping Lucy as he fell, Marissa screaming at Grant to get himself together from her spot on the roof.
“Kill her!” Marissa yelled angrily.
Kate turned, looking at Kieran and Anna.
“I need to get into the air,” Kate said.
Kieran nodded, and both Kate and Anna rushed to Kieran as he shifted quickly, then launched himself into the air with both women on his back. Kate felt Anna’s arms around her waist, and when she leaned forward, Kate leaned back to hear what she was saying.
“You don’t have a flight suit. If you fall off, you’ll die.”
“That’s a chance I have to take,” Kate said. “This is my fault; I can’t just stand around and watch.”
“I understand,” Anna said, and before Kate knew what she was about to do, Anna let go of Kate and leapt off Kieran’s back, taking to the sky.
The wings of her suit stretched out, and just like the dragons around her, Anna was in the sky, flying toward Lucy and joining the fight without a thought for her own safety.
“I need to get one of those suits,” Kate said.
Kieran looked over his shoulder at her, his expression what she assumed to be a smile. Without warning, he shot into the sky, and Kate pulled out her gun, which was the only weapon at her disposal. She held onto the back of his suit, which had stretched and melded with his dragon form without a single tear, and she stood up on her knees, ready to fight.
The sky was filled with the flap of dragon wings. When Kate looked around and counted dragons, she realized that several dragons had joined the fold. She took a moment to watch them all and easily picked out Marissa in the crowd. Grant was still struggling to fly even though his body was refusing to cooperate, and Lucy was still dangling from his clenched fist, fighting with all her might to release herself from his grasp.
Kate held her gun at the ready, even though she knew that in the air, she likely wouldn’t get a shot off that mattered. There was something about having it that made her feel better.
Kieran sailed through the air, racing straight toward Grant and Lucy, while Anna and the others centered their sights on Marissa.
They were almost to Grant when he saw them, and in a rage, he hissed at them. His partially formed wings still struggled to hold him up, but when he saw Kate and Kieran coming at him, he stopped, still in the air as if he were treading water, and brought his free hand to Lucy’s throat. He held one bony, taloned finger in front of Lucy, and his intentions were clear. He would slit her throat if they got too close, and then there would be no saving her.
Kieran turned quickly, banking away from Grant and holding a position further away so that the dragon didn’t make good on his silent promise and kill Lucy right then and there. Kate knew what he was doing, and she knew that he was going to use Lucy as a shield to get out of the area before he killed Lucy. When he’d been able to depend on his body to shift fully, he had intended to kill her and disappear into the night. Kate didn’t know what was going on with his body, but whatever it was, he was having difficulty staying in the air and shifting completely, and that had forced him to change his plans.
“Let her go, and we won’t kill you,” Kate called out above the wind that howled around them.
Grant shook his head. He wasn’t going to release Lucy no matter what. He was on a mission, and that mission was more important to him than his own life was. He was willing to die for the cause, and that meant that he had absolutely nothing to lose.
“Damnit,” Kate said, then leaned closer to Kieran. “Get me closer, but go around behind him,” she said, and Kieran gave a single nod of his head to show his understanding.
Kieran turned away from Grant, flying off as if Grant’s threat had made an impact and Kieran was going to go after Marissa instead. Anna was already headed toward Marissa, and from her posture and the speed that she was going, Kate knew without a doubt that Anna was going in for the kill. Marissa had tried to kill the Queen once before, and this time, Anna wasn’t going to let her get away alive.
Kate watched the chaotic scene around her, but she was focused on Grant. Eli and Jason had moved in close, and she realized that Eli had seen what she and Kieran were doing, and he was keeping Grant occupied. Kieran saw it, too, and while Grant was distracted, he turned, heading back toward Grant from behind, folding his wings so that they descended so fast that the wind rushing at Kate’s face nearly took her breath away. She ignored her panicking lungs and focused on the back of Grant’s head, hoping that she could get a shot off before he turned without hitting Lucy.
The hit came out of nowhere, and with a grunt, Kate was knocked off Kieran’s back and into the air. For a moment, she seemed to hang there, completely weightless, but then gravity gained its hold on her, and she began to plummet toward the ground. She didn’t see which dragon had knocked her off Kieran’s back, but she knew that she’d been caught by a tail. Her arm burned, and blood rushed down her skin in hot rivers, but she pushed the pain aside, aiming her gun as she got closer to Grant.