Chapter 55

Sasha
Aiden picked her up and she sobbed into his chest.
“Please, tell me you're lying.” She raised her wet face to stare into his eyes. “It’s okay if you are. Just please, be lying.”
He laid his cheek on the top of her head as he began to move rapidly down the stairs, flying past their family. He sat them down on the couch in his office, before growling and leaping to his feet. Sasha hit the ground hard as he dashed over to his desk to snatch a piece of paper that had been taped to his computer off of it. He read it, before it was crumpled in his hands. He threw it into the trash and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Kalani ran over to the trash to get the paper out. She smoothed it out and read it out loud.
“‘Tiffany is planning to escape and has orders to kill Sasha, Kalani and you. Please, protect her. She is everything to a lot of people.’” She looked up at Sasha. “Do you think this is true?”
“It has to be. Our egg is gone. I felt his flame go out.”
Their brother and father gasped. The girls ignored them.
“So, I guess the question is, who knew about it and who would warn the king?”
Sasha took her hair in her hand and tied it in a knot when she heard Aiden’s roar from the dungeons. She got up, looking at Ana.
“I thought I smelled Ethan, Lani. He must have been here. Now, Ana, sister, I trust you know where the armory is?”
Kalani cleared her throat when Ana shook her head. “She doesn’t, but I do.”
She sprinted out of the room with the others close behind her. She ran out of the castle to a building behind it. The guards bowed to her and opened the doors. Sasha walked in and her mouth dropped open at the sheer number and variety of weapons being housed in the building. Kalani began to load up, hiding blades and even a gun on her body.
Sasha went straight for the bow and arrows. She attached it to her back, before testing the weight of a few daggers and selecting three to carry. She walked up the stairs, ignoring the armor on the second floor. She picked up four small grenades off the third floor, before her name being yelled drew her to the window. Aiden stood out front and his eyes were on fire. He looked up at her and she nodded to him, before backing up. She charged at the window, diving through it.
‘Shift!,’ she screamed at him through their link.
He shifted, catching her on his back, before immediately leaping into the sky. Battle cries sounded from below them as he furiously flapped his wings, eating up the distance to wherever he was going as 6 other dragons took to the skies behind them. She started sliding off of his back and she grasped the base of his neck, holding tight. The iciness of a sudden storm made her shiver. Mikhail grew warmer under her, providing her a source of heat. Irina purred inside her head.
‘He is a good mate,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, they are. Aiden is good, too. You should take it easier on him. He loves us.’
She huffed. ‘We’ll see. He has a lot to prove.’
She buried her face in his scales, trying to use the mate bond to attempt to lessen the feeling of loss that was currently eating her alive. Her tears rolled down her face and Irina nuzzled into her.
‘We will kill that little wolf. We will stomp on her until she explodes. We will flatten all of Tursum for our egg,’ she promised.
‘What if she hurts our baby?’
‘Then I will use her for a chew toy… and then let her heal and do it all over again. That will be her fate until she dies.’ She paused as the excitement and need for Tiffany’s blood overwhelmed them. ‘Besides, Mikhail has been teaching me about being a dragon and I know there is nothing that can break a dragon’s egg’s shell. A true dragon baby cannot be hurt. It is protected by a layer of fluid that keeps it centered. The only way to kill a baby dragon is to let it hatch and wait for it to shift into its human form.’
‘What if magic is used?’
‘There has never been a case of anything, even magic, breaking an egg,’ Irina reassured her.
‘I hope not.’
‘Trust me. Our baby is safe as long as it is in its egg.’
‘Then we have to find it before it hatches. How long do we have before it hatches?’
‘9 months. The human side still needs to develop.’
Sasha’s hand stroked the bow. ‘Well get it back and everyone that stands in our way will die.’
Aiden landed and the ground trembled. Sasha climbed up onto his head.
“MOTHER!,” she yelled. “OH MUMMY DEAREST, I AM HOME!”
Mikhail snorted and smoke billowed out of his nose. He pawed at the ground.
“YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS TO BRING ME MY MOTHER OR I WILL BURN TURSUM TO THE GROUND! 1! 2! 3!”
Energy surged in front of them and Sasha drew her bow, nocking an arrow. Her mother appeared before them and Sasha let the arrow go. It flew through the air and landed between her mother’s feet. She looked down at it, before glaring up at Sasha.
“Well, well, well. Look who it is? Have you come back to beg me for mercy?,” Anastasia sneered.
Sasha loaded another arrow threateningly. “Where is your golden child, Mother?!”
“I sent her away. She showed up with a dragon.”
“A dragon?”
‘Thomas was gone from the dungeon, too. It must have been him,’ Aiden told her.
“Did she have something with her?”
“Not that I saw.”
She fired another arrow and it moved through the hair hanging down over her mother’s shoulder, narrowly missing her throat.
“LIAR! WHERE IS SHE?!”
“Are you deaf? I said she was gone.”
Sasha reattached the bow to her back, before jumping off of Mikhail's head. He raised his paw, caught her and deposited her in front of her mother. She reached out to grab her mother’s arm, twisting it behind her back. Her mother was forced to the ground. Sasha leaned down closer to her mother’s ear.
“Did my pretty older bitch of a sister have an egg with her?”
“If she did, I didn’t see it.”
“Sasha, what is the meaning of this, my child?”
Sasha glanced over her shoulder at the councilman. “Councilman Slonsky! I want to know where Tiffany is and I want to know now!”
“Your mother is correct. She was sent away as soon as she landed with that boy.”
“To where? Where would she go?”
He took another step forward. “We are not sure. She did not tell us where she was going.”
Galina walked over to the execution stage and rang the bell twice. People began filling the courtyard. Sasha wrapped her mother’s hair around her hand and dragged her up onto the stage. She forced her into the stocks and stepped back to walk the stage perimeter.
“WHERE IS TIFFANY?!”
Lukas shifted down and jogged up onto the stage to kneel in front of Anastasia. He brushed her hair out of her face.
“Hello, Mother. It is nice to see you again.”
“Do not touch me,” she hissed.
He smiled at her pleasantly. “You should tell her where our sister went. It will be better for you and your people.”
Anastasia laughed. “Has your bastard of a father died yet? You will soon be following him.”
“Enough!,” Sasha screamed. “GREGORY! SEARCH THE TOWN! FIND HER! BURN IT TO THE GROUND! DO WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO! FIND HER!”
“She’s not here. Your mother is right. Sasha, please, don’t punish Tursum, because your mother doesn’t want to answer your questions.”
She leaned over the edge to stare down at Ethan. “Do you know where she is?”
He sighed. “I do. Your mother told her to go to the Night Howler Pack.”
She jumped off the stage and walked up to him. “Is there anything else?”
His face fell, but he nodded. He raised his hand to cup her face. “She had your egg,” he murmured softly, before glaring over her shoulder at Mikhail. “Yours and his.”
She gripped his wrist. “Ethan…”
Mikhail growled behind her while Aiden copied his sentiment in her head. Sasha ignored them.
“Ethan, I need to know something.”
“What?”
“Were you at the castle yesterday?”
He closed his eyes and swallowed. “Yes.”
She touched his face. “You left the note for us. Why?”
“Because I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt. I didn’t know you had a child. Wait.. how do you have an egg? He said you hadn’t mated yet.”
“Who said that?,” Sasha asked.
“Corbius.”
His mother whimpered. “Ethan, no!”
Dayan growled. Sasha went back onto the stage. She gripped her mother’s hair and pulled her head back. She pulled her dagger out of her waistband and slid it across her mother’s throat. Blood started pouring out of the wound. Sasha leapt off the stage again, landing in front of Ethan.
“Come, you're with us.”
He hugged his mother. “I’m so sorry, Mom, but- but I have to go. I love you.”
Sasha climbed back on Mikhail’s back. She raised an eyebrow at Ethan. “So, did your DNA finally decide what you were going to be?”
He smirked at her before wings exploded out of his back. “Lead and I shall follow, My Queen.”
‘Where are we going, my love?,’ Mikhail asked angrily.
‘Night Howlers Pack. I trust you know where that is?’
‘Of course, I do.’
Mikhail launched himself into the air. The tension in his body was easily felt.
‘What’s wrong?,’ she asked.
‘When this is over, I am going to murder him for touching you.’