Mentored in Fire by K.F. Breene
Twenty
Here we go, Archion. Finally!I pointed down at the violence sect. Darius’s light and energy pulsed below, waiting for me.
Light was creeping into the sky. We’d lost precious time helping Ja and her vampires escape the inner kingdom. She hadn’t accounted for a patrol, something that wasn’t there when she’d come in. It made me wonder just how long Ja had been spying on the castle.
We’d had to kill the border patrol. We couldn’t afford them running back to the castle and tattling on us. It had thrown our plans all to hell.
Thankfully, Ja’s team was incredibly vicious and effective. It had been a little unnerving to watch, actually. Even Archion had gotten squeamish. Saphira had been altogether useless. Hopefully she’d just been shell-shocked and would redeem herself with future carnage. The vampires were still headed to meet us at the violence sect, but they might be a bit delayed. We’d need to get Darius and the others out while the dragons burned everyone in the perimeter. When Ja finally showed up, she’d join the fray.
What’s our plan? Archion asked.
Don’t have one. I figure…we just dive down and scorch them all.
What if they don’t scorch?
Then I flatten them with air.
Good plan.
My kinda dragon. No plan was a good plan.
Cahal flew right behind us, Saphira behind him.
What about Saphira? I asked, taking stock of the minimal activity going on around the squat stone building. There was an expansive courtyard, but the building itself was only a couple of stories high. Either most of it was built below ground or it simply wasn’t that big. Hopefully it was the latter.
This is new to her and she is on the timid side. She’ll follow our lead.
I looked back at her, not sure how to get her going. With Penny, it was easy—I just shoved her in front of danger. But how did you do that with a dragon?
My foot slipped and shot off Archion’s shoulder. My weight shifted and my body followed.
“Oh crap—” Archion adjusted immediately, but I held out my hand and slowed my fall with a hover.
Why wait? The plan started now.
Burn it all, I thought to Archion. Work the perimeter. Keep the way as clear as you can for when Ja gets here.
I righted myself so that my feet were pointed downward and then released my hover, falling fast. Near the ground, I firmed up the air around me, slowing my descent drastically, and dropped down in front of a very confused demon with five horns on his head, no eyes, and his dick swinging so low he should consider knotting the thing to keep it out of the way.
“Horns and a big Johnson don’t make you better at violence, idiot,” I said.
He startled, his hand slapping toward the sword strapped to a bare, furry hip. I punched him in the face. His head cracked back, and I reached beside him and yanked out his sword before torching him.
His high squeal indicated this sect would not take kindly to fire. Good.
He flailed his arms and ran, a horned torch.
“Stop, drop, and roll, bub.” I looked up as Archion flew by. The dragon opened his great jaws and blew fire at the ground, rolling over me and then scorching everything in its path. Demons came away from the walls, just now cluing in that there was danger in their midst. They clearly didn’t spend a lot of time getting attacked from the air. Or maybe at all. They didn’t seem very good at the violence game, given the way they threw up their hands and just took the fire as it blackened their skin or fur. More good news.
How the hell had Darius, Penny, and Emery gotten taken by a sect this bad at violence? Maybe there was something I was missing.
“Reagan!”
Cahal shot down from the sky, nearly to me. That was the problem with not having a plan: you nearly missed important moments, like when it rained grumpy druids.
I slowed his flight as his dragon bellowed, a thick wave of depression flowing over the area. It dragged me down for a moment before I labored to shake it off. Archion followed with a roar of his own, but that didn’t impact me at all, probably because of our growing bond.
Cahal wasn’t recovering so easily, though, arms and body stiff from Archion’s paralyzing roar, reaching for the sword I held.
“Come on. Push through it.” I grabbed Cahal around the wrist, the effect like thawing him out. He blinked and shook his head.
“Effective,” he said, and I felt a burst of pride. That was my dragon. I totally got the best one.
“Here. Hurry! If my dad isn’t on his way yet, he will be soon.” I handed over the sword before I sprinted toward the nearest door.
“You called him your dad,” Cahal said, running behind me and scooping me up with one hand. He held me tightly to his uncomfortably hard body, swirling his shadow magic over us.
“Stop. I want to kill people. Also, eat a donut. You could do with a little padding for situations like this.”
“You can kill people after we find the others. This will be faster.”
Annoyingly, he was right.
“Yeah,” I said as he ducked into the door and flattened us against the inner wall. Demons ran by, strapping armor to their bodies, trying to find the fight. What they’d find was fiery death from the sky. “He is my dad, after all. And after this, we’ll be even. If he wants to make up, great. If not, I’ll just call him a deadbeat dad and be done with it.”
Usually people like you have daddy issues, Cahal thought as he stayed near the wall and ran down the corridor. My feet dangled down his side, my toes occasionally touching the ground as he moved and dodged people. His shoulder clipped a demon and sent it reeling into the rushing crowd, which was large enough that this place definitely had more than just two stories.
“There is no usual for a person like me.”
He cut across the corridor at a gap in the onslaught, and I suddenly wondered how the hell we were going to get out of this place. They had a whole lot of people, it turned out. Without Ja—or even with her—we didn’t.
A faint echo of a dragon wail made my bowels watery. Not with fear, but like they would let go and I’d physically soil myself.
“What the hell,” I said softly as Cahal put on a burst of speed, cutting through a gap in the crowd heading to the front and to the other side, where a window looked out over the courtyard in the middle of the building. Weapons were strewn about in a way that suggested the demons had been training when the warning bells went off. Clearly, they were practice weapons, though they still seemed metal. Hardcore. The fae better be wary of going up against violence demons.
“Darius is at a diagonal to the right—” I shook my head in confusion. We’d have to snake through the building to find the way to him. “Where are you going?”
He turned a corner and slowed, looking for something. In a moment, I found out what.
My feet hit the ground, and I staggered into the wall to catch my balance. Cahal grabbed a humanoid demon with a wrinkled suit and bare feet and shoved him against the wall. The shadows peeled away.
“Where are the prisoners?” Cahal asked in a low voice born of nightmares. Rough and wicked and dangerous.
The man-demon’s eyes widened to the point of comedy. “Wh-wh-whaaaat?”
“The vampire and mages. The prisoners. Where are they being kept?”
“Dungeon. In the dungeon. In the stone cage so they can’t magic their way—”
“How do I get there?”
“D-down the rear steps. B-ba-back of the building.” He put forward a shaky finger. “That way.”
Cahal stuck his sword through the center of the demon, twisted, and ripped it out again.
“Make sure he dies—” Cahal started, but I was already on it. One swipe of an air sword, and the demon’s head fell to the ground. I ran in the direction he’d pointed, wiping goo from my hands. Cahal caught up and smashed me to his side again, covering me in the shadow. It was like physically being between a rock and a hard arm.
He hit the end of the corridor as someone shouted behind us. I glanced back over Cahal’s shoulder as he turned right. The dead demon had been discovered and the discoverer was currently looking around wildly, either for the culprit or someone to help. It had missed our escape entirely.
I sulked a little, because right now it was the Cahal show, and looped an arm around his shoulders so I could haul myself up just a little. His hip was digging into my side.
He slowed a little as a few demons ran around a corner up ahead, wearing helmets with metal nose guards protecting nothing above wide mouths full of large, sharp teeth. Metal breastplates covered wide chests and thick, hairy arms held spiked weapons or spears.
Better than guarding a prisoner… one thought as they rushed toward us.
I slammed all but one of them against the wall. Blood splattered and bodies crumpled to the ground. Cahal dropped me, immediately launching into a flurry of action—sticking them with the business end of his sword to make sure they didn’t get back up.
I caught the last one in a vise grip of power and immediately felt the same sort of power trying to shove me away. It froze. It knew who I was.
“Where’s the dungeon? Which way?” I asked, stepping closer, then back again because I didn’t want to tilt my head up that much. Given the width of its shoulders and the size of its massive arms and chest, the demon looked shorter than it actually was.
“Princess. I’m sorry… I have to wait for the Great Master. I can’t tell—”
I lit his legs on fire. “Tell me or I’ll kill you very, very slowly.” It couldn’t possibly know that I didn’t have that kind of time. “I won’t tell my father how I found out.”
It licked its thin lips, its expression one of consternation and agony. It didn’t give any other signs its lower half was burning.
“Two rights and a left. Down the stairs to the bottom. The Great Master said to hold—”
Off with his head, I thought, and stepped aside as his body hit the floor.
“I really didn’t need— Ugh.” I winced as Cahal squeezed me to his side again. “Seriously, how about a piggyback instead? This situation is not amazing. As I was saying—”
He ran around the next right, then veered to play Dodge the Demon as another group of huge, armored creatures jogged through.
I put my lips to the shell of his ear and used very little sound as we took the next right. “I don’t think I needed to storm the gates. I probably could have just told them who I am. They won’t fight the heir.”
Please back off a little, he thought, and I frowned and pulled my head away.
“Why? What’s the matter?”
He took a left, the hallway empty now. Midway through was a door labeled with what looked like a picture of stairs drawn by a five-year-old.
I am almost always your platonic friend, but sometimes, in certain situations, I remember that I am a man, and you are a beautiful, fiery woman, and my body responds accordingly. I have a thing for women in battle…and a thing with my ears. You are hitting too many buttons right now. I need you to back off.
I couldn’t help an evil grin. Too bad this wasn’t the time to mess with him.
He paused by the stairs and looked up and down the connecting hallway. An elflike demon in a fuchsia dress walked by at the other end, rounding a corner.
Cahal opened the door and stepped into the stairwell, stairs curving up and down. He set me down on the landing, turned his broad back, and flared his arms backward for me.
“Oh yeah,” I whispered sarcastically. “This’ll be much better. I won’t be near your ears at all this way…”
Most notably—he caught me as I jumped up and left it to me to hang on—you won’t be randomly brushing against my cock.
“Wow. So I was hitting buttons and working at a lever…”
Please stop.
“Too bad Penny is taken. You guys could really explore the weird together.”
I do not know why she puts up with you.
“Yeah, me neither. I don’t push her buttons like I apparently do yours.”
I regret mentioning it.
“You certainly will, yes.”
Changing the subject for obvious reasons, he added, They won’t fight the heir specifically, no. But they’d try to kill me and surround you with the intent to hold you for your father. Any sect leader will know the situation with you.
He was taking the steps two at a time, a big guy with a muscular woman strapped to his back, and yet he barely made a sound. He was great at sneaking.
The light dwindled as we got lower and lower, the fairy lights affixed to the stairwell walls not all lit. They’d have no way to fix the problem, since demons weren’t allowed in the Realm, and fairies weren’t allowed down here. It was an incredibly crazy situation, and I was surprised the guy I’d gotten to know had been willing to put up with it all this time. Sectioning people off like this was crazy.
While I wasn’t sure about Lucifer’s goal to obliterate the elves and take over their castle and their world, I would help him rectify this wrong. Romulus was right—order needed to be reintroduced into the worlds. The coming war was necessary, even if it promised to be a great big hassle.
At the bottom, the light was nothing but a dim glow. I felt Darius’s nearness and his calm expectation, waiting for me. Knowing I would show up.
“Put me down,” I said, heart in my throat, needing to see him so badly it was a complex.
Cahal didn’t waste any time, and as soon as my feet hit the ground, I was running along a stone wall. Three furry guards waited outside of a doorway with no actual door. I lit them on fire and let Cahal stick them with his sword while I ran through the opening. Around a corner, still hugging the stone wall, I made my way down a small hall that dumped me into a torture chamber of some kind, filled with complex contraptions that were apparently meant to cause pain for long periods of time. They looked like they’d kill a human pretty damn quickly.
Penny better still be alive. Emery with her.
At the other end, the smell down here horrifically musty, like the place had been used a few too many times and never aired out, I found another doorless opening with a few glowing fairy lights beyond. Darius waited right in there. Right on the other side of that—
I crashed into a huge form stepping around a corner. Startled, I stuck it full of air swords and knives and added a little splinter on its right pinky, just in case it was one of those people who said a paper cut was so much worse than any big wound. I shoved fire in the middle of those holes, expanding it so the heat would boil its insides, and then ripped it out of my path as it gurgled its way to an awful death.
Don’t fuck with my friends.
All the cells were open save one in the middle. Fingers came through and wrapped around the bars. Lady fingers, belonging to one very bedraggled mage badly in need of a shower.
“What happened to your hair?” I asked her, stunned to see a mostly bald head with a tiny bit of stubble and face cleared of hair.
Tears covered Penny’s luminous blue eyes as she beheld me, her lip quivering. “I was supposed to save you this time,” she said.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Next time, I promise. And it’ll be ah-mazing!”
“We nearly lost a battle to a fire field,” she said.
My gaze zipped to the man uncoiling from the ground, dangerous and deadly, corded with muscle and pent-up aggression. Darius’s beautiful hazel eyes took me in, feasting on my face, then my body, then my lips. His relief and pleasure at seeing me flooded the bond.
I flicked my fingers, and the bars bent away from each other, my air power stronger than their steel. I was in with him in a moment, wrapping my arms around his neck and crushing him with my kiss, so grateful to see him again.
“Hello, mon coeur. This isn’t quite the rescue for you I had in mind.”
I laughed and kissed him again. “It was perfect. You gave me a reason to leave. Do you need blood?”
He grabbed the back of my neck and moved his lips down, blindingly fast, his teeth piercing my flesh. Sweet pleasure quickly covered the bite of pain, and I groaned with the feel of him taking from me. He pulled back with an intake of breath, his elongated canines stained crimson.
“Better than memory,” he murmured, and then licked the wound, sending a jolt of pleasure through me.
I pushed away from him, needing space. Especially from the urge to drag him down to the ground on top of me. Now I felt bad for making fun of Cahal.
A glance up revealed that Emery had already hastened Penny, who was still crying, out of the cell.
I nodded at him and stepped through. “Emery.”
He returned my nod. “Reagan. Good to see you.”
“I’ll bet. You all got yourself into quite the pickle, huh?” I patted him on the shoulder. We weren’t at the hugging stage yet. Penny I just let cry, because she seemed very close to shattering, and we needed her to hold it together so we could get out of here.
“Okay, here’s the plan…” I said, leading the way back to the torture chamber room. Cahal didn’t so much as nod hello. It was clear why he had no friends.
“You develop plans now?” Emery asked, following with the others as we headed for the stairs. “You really did learn some things.”
“Yeah. As I said, here’s the plan—we’re going to fight our way out of here, hopefully with the help of Ja and some of her vampires, collect the dragons, and then make a break for the Realm.”
“Ja is down here?” Darius asked.
“She snuck into my rooms in the castle and ambushed me with an offer to trade for help, yeah. She came into the Underworld after Penny tore down the fog—not wise, by the way—and framed Vlad. Lucifer now wants to kill Vlad. Until he finds out what really happened, obviously, which he likely will, and he will want to kill Ja. And you, of course. And probably Penny and Emery.”
“Happy to join the club,” Emery said.
“How will we rendezvous with Ja?” Darius asked.
“No idea. Hopefully we’ll meet her along the way as we try to bust out of here.”
“And the dragons? Do we have a meeting point?”
“They’re out there flying around. I should be able to catch their attention.”
“I take the planning thing back,” Emery said.
“So what is the actual plan part of the plan?” Penny asked, sniffling.
“Freedom. Here we go.” We ran up the stairs to the main floor. “How is your energy? Penny?”
“A little hungry, but we’ve been running on fumes for…however long we’ve been in this accursed place,” she answered, matching my pace. “We’ll make it.”
“We don’t have much choice,” Emery murmured.
“That’s why we’ll make it, obviously,” Penny retorted.
“Ohwee.” We slowed as we neared the door leading out to the main floor. “Penny has found her inner Karen.”
“Yes, I have, and I’m not even ashamed to admit it.”
Cahal paused near the door, his magic wrapping around him and obscuring my vision of him even though I was five feet away. He paused, waiting for everyone to gather on the landing, Darius taking up the rear, before he nodded at me and stepped through.
I let the door close behind him until a soft knock came. I pushed out next.
You and he have developed a strong working relationship, Darius thought as I slipped out the door and took a fast look around. One dead monster-looking dude. Cahal worked fast.
“Yeah,” I whispered as the others filed out, Darius stepping to my back. “We’ve had to. I’ll tell you all about it when we get out of here. We only know the main entrance. Do you know of any other?”
“No,” Darius murmured, probably to keep everyone on the same page. “That’s the way we came in. We didn’t get a chance to explore before we were drugged and locked up.”
“I was wondering how you’d been taken.” I nodded at Cahal, who started jogging along the right side of the hall. I crossed to be right behind him, the rest of them trailing me. “I still think I should just demand to leave. I’m kind of a big deal around here.”
“This sect knows we came here to free you. They know that Lucifer closed access to the Underworld to root us out and planned to execute us himself,” Darius said softly. “They will not just stand aside as you walk out. They will try to capture you, possibly killing us in the process, to turn you back over to Lucifer and gain his favor. Our only way out is by force.”
“Told you so,” Cahal said.
Oh good, he finally had someone to gang up on me with.
Penny’s and my boots echoed against the walls in the empty hallway. I didn’t bother trying to be quiet with her thumping around, obviously tired but trucking on. Light flickered around us, very little sound reaching us from the front. Cahal crossed to the other side of the hall, no longer able to use the shadow trick to hide the rest of us, and slowed near the corner. He edged his head out to look around before pulling back. He flattened against the wall, not saying a word. That meant danger was near.
My turn.
I pulled back a little and drifted to the center of the hallway, pointing first at Penny and then at Emery. I turned the point into two fingers and indicated the space right behind me. Darius and Cahal got the next points, behind them.
It was time to finally, finally display the full extent of my magic. And I’d make sure it was a spectacular show.
