Unleash the Storm (Steel & Stone, #5)

by Annette Marie

Raum stopped behind the women on the other side of the fire. Yana detached from her mother and silently approached him, holding her arms out with the dragonet toy hanging from one hand. He reached down and scooped her up, holding her with one arm while Ivria passed him his own water canister.

It still blew her mind to see Raum casually holding his daughter like any other father.

She’d eventually gotten around to asking him about it, and the way his face had softened at the question made her stomach swoop. Trust, he’d said. Complete, utter, fearless trust. The magic of the Nightmare Effect fed off even the slightest hint of fright, and only a total absence of fear or doubt—conscious or subconscious—could negate it.

“Eventually, you realize that people are a better home than a place.”

She would rather be on the run with Ash and Lyre than back at the Consulate alone.

Nothing is set in stone. Today, tomorrow, the next week or even the next year,

She glanced back pleadingly at Ash, hoping he would call her out, but he looked far too amused.

At least the water was clear as glass; everyone would see her drowning.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed in a burst of bubbles.

She stood and turned. Ash and Lyre were still standing by the fish but they were watching her, waiting silently.

“I don’t think she’s going to tell us,” Lyre commented to Ash. “It doesn’t look like it.” “Hey, I think she’s blushing. Maybe we don’t actually want to know.” “Probably not.”

“Would you two shut up?”

“We incubi might claim to understand them,” he grumbled to Ash, “but no male can actually comprehend how a woman’s mind works.” “It’s safer to not even try.”

“The only one,” he murmured, his deep voice sliding down to her bones, “I want to belong to is you.”

Well, she wasn’t dead. She hurt way too much to be dead.

The hostile move snapped her out of her panicked indecision. Her fear disappeared as calm determination took over. Fierce, furious protectiveness burned through her. Surprise flashed across the first draconian’s face. Had he seen her eyes go black with shading? Was he surprised at her resistance to his Nightmare Effect, normally effective even on shaded daemons? Almost lazily, she settled into a fighting stance—knees bent, hands held loosely out to her sides with her fingers curled, ready for her claws once she shifted to her daemon glamour. Her instincts told her an attack was coming, and her claws and magic were the only weapons she had.

She launched at them, switching to her daemon glamour mid-lunge. The first pike flashed over her shoulder, the blade skimming across her scales. She came up under the handle and grabbed it, shoving it upright. The draconian spun away from her, instinctively protecting his torso from her attack—but she wasn’t attacking. Her hand closed on the hilt of a short, curved sword sheathed at his hip. As he pulled away, she stepped back, freeing the weapon from its sheath.

Drawing her arm back, she hurled her sword in the face of the nearer draconian. Shocked and caught off guard, he managed to cast a shimmering shield between his head and the blade. At the same time, she sprang for the other one. His pike whipped toward her and she took the blade in the forearm, letting her scales deflect it. Inside his guard, she grabbed him by the shoulder and launched herself over his head, tearing his wrap away from his face. She landed on his back, one foot braced on the empty sheath at his hip, a hand on his shoulder, and the other around his neck, her claws pressed to his throat where his pulse beat. He froze.

Letting out a hissing breath, she removed her hand from the draconian’s neck.

She wrenched sideways and the point skidded across her top. As the draconian stumbled, caught off balance, she rolled and pulled her feet in, then pistoned them into his groin. Flipping onto her feet, she grabbed the handle of his pike and yanked it from his grip. She whipped it sideways, striking him hard in the side of his head.

Pulling one hand off the pike, she flung it out at Hedya. Her swirl of blue and purple magic smashed into Hedya’s shield, dissolving it in a burst of orange light. Piper struck with the pike at the same instant, slamming the butt end into the woman’s sternum. Hedya staggered back, gasping.

Still breathing hard from the strike to the chest, Hedya’s pale eyes moved from Piper, to Ash behind her, and then to Zwi crouched beside Piper’s ankle, the dragonet less than intimidating wrapped in seaweed to support her wings but snarling viciously nonetheless.

Piper called on her magic, pulsing the conflicting powers through her body as the draconian’s spell surged into her. Fiery agony burst through her as her magic devoured the daemon’s spell. Then she flung the power outward, letting it erupt out of her body in every direction. The blast of magic hurled Hedya and the two male draconians away from her.

Ash’s nostrils flared as he inhaled and, somehow, his eyes went blacker.

something had woken him—the smell of her blood? He released her upper arms and in a single motion, he sat up and wrapped his arms around her, crushing her protectively against his chest.

Ash didn’t pay them any heed as he crushed her tight to him. “What did they do to you?” The words came out in a hoarse, guttural growl no louder than a whisper. The deep rage that vibrated through each word sent a shiver running down her spine.

“What did you do to her?” he snarled.

Piper had retreated to the edge of the camp for some privacy for her own tears, but Lyre had found her and held her while she cried from the pain and guilt.

“Oh,” Piper whispered, remembering Coby telling her about Raum’s slide into an emotionless, obedient zombie after Samael killed his first child to punish him.

Even as she inspected the enemy, assessing and calculating, part of her attention was on the tent behind her. Ash needed to stay inside.

Raum dove out of the sky, landing in front of his family. Wings arched over his back, massive sword in his hand, his black eyes cut across Eliada and the warriors. He rose, feet set in a fighting stance, sword at the ready. He exuded danger and deadly power, an unspoken challenge vibrating in the air. He was almost—almost—as terrifying as Ash in full, lethal predator mode.

“He doesn’t belong to you!” she cried. Ash’s voice whispered in her memory, murmuring that the only one he wanted to belong to was her.

Seiya stood a few feet away, gazing lifelessly at nothing, looking exactly how Piper felt. Exhausted and broken inside,

Lyre followed her away from the others, hovering close to her side.

She was running on pure

stubbornness,

Then she stepped forward and wrapped

her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder. His arms closed around her, enveloping her in the spicy cherry scent of incubus. “Thank you for sticking with me through all this crap,” she mumbled into his shoulder, her voice quavering with unshed tears. “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said, his tone so gentle she almost cried again.

“The mind is most powerful in the moment. Focus on the now and the next, not the distant future of maybe and if. Even those of the strongest faith can falter when the eyes focus too far in the distance.”

“Though it can sometimes be a weakness, love is the most powerful drive there is, rivaled only by hatred.

“Love is not a power to be scoffed at, child. It can carry you when you have nothing left.

Love was both a great strength and a great weakness. She would try to remember that.

“Luck is for those with nothing else. I wish you strength and courage.”

She would put on a brave face until she was gone from the Overworld. Then she would decide how much fight she actually had left in her broken heart and burnt soul.

Terror gripped her, shaded calm pulling at the edges of her mind. She shimmered into her daemon form as she spun and grabbed Lyre’s arm. “The Sahar,” she gasped. His eyes, as black as hers undoubtedly were, widened with shock. “No.”

Lifting her blade, she let her shaded instincts take over. Vicious calm spread through her, clearing her mind of everything but the enemies before her and the blood she was about to spill. She sprang into the fray, sword flashing. Fast as a reaper and protected by her dragon-scale clothing, she charged recklessly among the soldiers, dealing any wound she could inflict. Lyre followed her, his arrows picking off the reapers who teleported in behind her.

You are a troublesome creature, silver child, he rumbled, but I am grateful for your tenacity. She stared with wide eyes. Ash frowned at the dragon. “That wasn’t much of an apology,” he said disapprovingly. She shot him an alarmed look and gave her head a small, insistent shake;

He reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his lap. She curled up,

He blinked, then a laugh burst out of him. Humor warmed his eyes, his pleasure genuine with nothing hidden in his gaze.

“Would you like me to kill him?” Kiev’s quiet, menacing voice sent a visible shiver down every apprentice’s spine. Randy’s gaze swung to the draconian and he backed away several fast steps. Retreating from a predator? Had he absorbed any of his training? She waved a hand. “Nah, he’s not worth the effort. But thanks anyway.” “I doubt it would take effort.”