Page 61 of Mate of a Monster

I look up just in time to see the dragons sweeping in.

One by one they plunge through smoke and mist, claws slicing into the flood, lifting children by collars and arms, throwing them on their backs. Wings beat hard enough to scatter debris, heat evaporating sections of water just long enough for some to escape.

A little girl is swept wide, just after the closest dragon bursts past, a full load already on his back and between his claws.

I roar, stepping to the edge and portaling to the highest intact tower. Grabbing two girls by their tunics, I haul them up before shoving them through the portal at London.

Knight, Sinner, and Creed each appear beside me and help pull the remaining children from the rising water.

The sea surges again when a blast of heat hits us from behind, hot enough to burn the shirt off my back—the fabric falling to the ground in a pile of flame and ash.

“Holy shit,” Sinner rasps.

Dragons stretch across the horizon, wing to wing, a living barricade that spans the coastline as far as I can see. Their bodies form a wall of scales and ancient fury, jaws wide as flames pour from them in relentless sheets. Each stream of fire angles downward into the surge.

“They’re creating trenches through the water.”

The sea fights back, though, a strange whistling heard in the wind if you listen hard enough.

It rises higher, darker—swelling against their heat in thick, rolling walls. But the dragons do not break formation.

A massive black flame bursts through the center of their formation, and my attention is immediately drawn to the source. The moment I find her, my entire body jolts.

I’m cold and warm and empty and full all at fucking once.

Haide stands between the massive beasts. Panic sinks its claws down my throat. A single paw would be strong enough to take her ass out with zero effort.

Wind lashes her hair around her face, dark strands thrashing like swords. Her eyes aren’t the same green I know. They burn red.

And that black flame, it pours from her open palms.

It’s not smoke-dark or shadow-dim. It is void fucking black, edged in crimson, moving like liquid night forced into the shape of fire. Like demonic smoke that burns, but that’s not possible. Demonic smoke is reserved for royals. It was created to protect us and only us.

And our mates.

My brows snap, but I shake off the thought.

The fire rolls outward in heavy waves, meeting the ocean head-on, and where it touches water—

“Is it—” Sinner gasps.

“Yes,” I breathe.

The sea recoils, like a mouse in a rat’s cage, it tucks itself away, as if recognizing something superior.

The heat hits me seconds later, slamming into my chest and ripping the breath from my lungs. My magic answers without permission, surging to the surface, pressing hard against my ribs like it wants out.

Like it wants her.

You want her, you want her, you need her.

I growl in response, forcing the trickery from my mind.

Haide throws her arms wider, black fire intensifying as dragons beside her adjust their angle, their flames blending with hers but never overwhelming it. It’s clear that they’re not leading this.

They are amplifying her.

Water crashes upward in towering sheets, but the line holds. Mile after mile of scaled bodies and roaring fire stand strong, and in the very center of it stands the exile I cast away, wielding a force I have never seen before and yet somehow feel I have known all my life.