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I still hadn’t moved from where I’d landed behind the bar. My mates were losing. A single mage, covered in stolen magical tickets, was wiping the floor with them.
Anger heightened my senses. The all-powerful enchantress Jaiyana’s mates didn’t lose. They were a team of elemental dragons who should have walked into this fortress and leveled it.
Except we weren’t a team, and that was my fault.
Don’t ask what we're doing. Just fix it.
I stayed behind the bar, but I called on my mate’s elements. Distracting Drukpa’s minions and adding what chaos I could as I racked my brain for answers.
Lux’s eyes flashed with rage, seeing Og’s neck slowly being squeezed by Drukpa’s mage hand. He grew his horns and charged forward like a bull.
Rehan was right. I told him my mates were tools to be used… but I hadn’t sharpened them or picked them up. I just avoided them because they made me happy.
What is wrong with me?
Do you enjoy being miserable?
I mean, maybe? But wouldn’t that make us happy?
Yeah, probably.
What is actually involved in the act of being happy?
Generally, power, control, acknowledgment, and value.
We have power.
We had power…and even then, we weren’t happy, memory loss or not.
A vein in my forehead pulsed unhappily.
I value myself, right?
Bitch, you don’t even believe your emotions are valid. Rehan wasn’t wrong. We removed ourselves from the world just as thoroughly as dragons did. Did it fix anything?
Drukpa stepped to the side of Lux’s charge, and one of his minions sent a bolt of electricity directly into the air prince’s horns. Unfortunately for Drukpa, my mates were very used to being shocked at this point. Lux shrugged it off and turned to charge again.
This time, he went low and managed to kick Drukpa in the balls. Despite all his shields, the mage’s eyes went wide with pain. His shadowy hand eased, and Og used the opportunity to dive forward and grab for the base of the shadowy hand dangling his body mid-air. Og’s fingers jammed against a force of dirty yellow before they could even touch Drukpa’s magic fist.
“You will submit to me!” Drukpa boomed. “I make this world better by giving the lost homes. You need me.”
Drukpa’s words hit me between the eyes. He wasn’t giving the lost homes. My dragons clearly were not lost. No one needed Drukpa. Yet he held himself above everyone.
If this piece of shit could value himself, why couldn’t I?
A tear ran down my face, stinging my broken nose. Self-pity ate at me, and I started to berate myself before stopping. Og called me a hypocrite for precisely this. Emotions were never wrong. Their source could be questionable, but once I felt something, it was raw and honest. The more I punished myself for feeling them, the less I dealt with them. And that’s what got us here. I needed to be honest with myself like my stupid fucking mates asked me to do in the first place.
Familiar power floated at my fingertips. My magic hummed, and my heartbeat thudded in my ears. I reached for me, for my magic which I didn’t know how to exist without, only to have it sucked towards my chest and vanish.
My soul squeezed. “Come back. I lied to myself…I was a dick. I didn’t listen.” Nothing tingled at my fingertips. “I’m a piece of shit. What do you need me to say to fix this?”
Lux jumped back, and another ball of white-hot electric power shot toward him. This time, Lux called on his wind magic and tore apart the storm with his own. Power crashed and boomed through the vaulted space. Lux charged Drukpa, who flew backward and finally released Og.
Gasping for breath, my warlock called on his scales and pressed his backside into Lux. The two rested against each other as Drukpa and his minions circled like sharks.
I put my mates in this position. Me. Two dragons should eat the average supernatural for breakfast, but only if they knew how to cook it. I hadn’t even given the men I cared about a recipe book.
My last hour of existence, from Rehan’s brutally honest betrayal to almost getting my magic back, funneled into one emotion: rage. I stood, grabbed the closest bottle of liquor that looked 100 proof, and shattered the neck on the bar.
