Page 61 of Saving Her Dragon

The warped laboratory exploded into an absolute inferno of emerald fire and blinding, black smoke. The rusted sheet-metal walls collapsed inward, the concrete floor fracturing as the hidden space twisted under a massive influx of Demonic power.

Leviathan's elegant silhouette expanded monstrously, emerald fire coalescing into the shifting form of the Dragon of the Abyss.

The primordial beast towered over them, obsidian scales swallowing every trace of light. Pale blue fire burned inside its abyssal eyes, while rows of jagged, transparent teeth filled a mouth large enough to swallow them whole.

Its bladed tail tore through the psychic landscape. Then it lunged.

Garrett surged against the chains, every trace of the hollow, defeated prisoner disappearing from his expression. Sydney's present-day Mate rushed back into his eyes, his jaw rigid as he twisted his body between her and the towering beast as far as the restraints allowed.

"Behind me!" Garrett commanded, his chest heaving as he faced the towering beast.

Letting out a long, loud sigh, Sydney threw her hands up and scoffed. "Oh, for Goddess's sake, Garrett."

Inside her mind, Kara let out a low, amused rumble. “Your Mate is remarkably slow to learn, my girl.”

Sydney offered a tiny, sharp smirk into the green smoke, her White Dragon Magic flaring to life in a blinding, beautiful geyser of pure light. “He's pretty, Kara. We make allowances.”

The Dragon of the Abyss lunged, a mountain of razor-sharp glass and emerald malice descending upon them.

Sydney could feel the heavy, agonizing belief Garrett carried that he was a liability, that because this space was built from his captivity, he was entirely powerless.

"Garrett, look at me!" She shouted over the deafening roar of the emerald fire, her White Dragon Magic exploding around her like a protective star. "You think you're helpless because he chained you? This is your mind!"

Garrett didn't break his gaze from the beast, his jaw rigid. "His architecture, Syd!"

"Built inside your soul!" she corrected fiercely, her voice cutting through the Demonic static like iron. "Leviathan built the room, but he built it on your land! That means he isn't the only one with power here. You just never knew it!"

The realization hit Garrett's tactical brain with the force of a physical shockwave that flowed right through their Mating Bond and into Sydney. For years, the Demon Lord had made it structurally impossible for the Man and the Dragon King to reach one another, dictating the terrain. But they weren't operating on Leviathan's terms anymore. Sydney and Kara had just forged an entirely new route.

Reaching out, Sydney’s fingers locked tightly around Garrett's hand. Kara threw her golden energy forward, connecting directly with Han through the masonry.

The circuit was armed.

It wasn't a complex sequence of foreign Sorcery. It was a natural, beautiful, and completely unbroken circuit of Soul Bonds passing effortlessly from one to the next: Garrett to Sydney, Sydney to Kara, Kara to Han, and Han right back into Garrett. It was the absolute, unadulterated opposite of Leviathan's stolen circle. They weren't fighting the architecture with bigger Magic; they were defeating it with the very connections the Demon Lord had tried to corrupt.

The moment the Soul Bond circuit ignited, the five stolen anchors around the stone perimeter began to violently change.

The blue stone shifted first. Sydney felt the familiar, intimate frequency of her silk hair ribbon rip away from the Demon Lord's grasp, snapping back into her soul. “Mine,” she mentally cheered.

Then the red-gold light flared. Alastair’s ancient Dragon King resonance fiercely rejected the Demonic taint. The black-and-silver stone erupted next as Ginnie’s deep, ancestral Threshold Magic turned the road's parameters directly against the builder. The brass–gold light of Grey's centuries-old pocketknife weaponized a brother's unbreakable love into something Leviathan could never counterfeit. Finally, the center ignited. The lavender-white flame of Garrett and Han locked into place.

Each stolen permission token instantly transformed into an absolute, structural denial.

Through the golden tether, a violent surge of heat raced up Sydney's leg. The Homestead wards had found something. Leviathan.

Ginnie's theory had been right. With Garrett and Han's natural signature restored, the Demon Lord could no longer hide behind it.

A massive wave of roaring Dragon King Fire slammed into the road from beyond the tether.

Carrick. Alastair.

The full weight of the Heatherton protections hammered the bridge.

The Dragon of the Abyss let out a deafening, agonized scream. He was officially being attacked from both sides at once, and the big guy was not thrilled.

"Han!" Garrett roared, finally turning his back on the illusion of the chains. He didn't pull against the iron links; he simply stopped believing they had any power over him, and looked directly into Sydney's eyes.

"Come back to me," she commanded, her white fire roaring.