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Ragnar was limp now, effectively decommissioned for the near future, and I glanced around. “We need a fucking slayer,” I added, also to no one in particular.

Sloan and Cam came slowly out of the palace, and we went in search of Dom.

We found him quickly by following the sound of carnage.

Harvey was there, cradling his brother’s jaggedly severed head in his hands and crying like his life was over. I’d hated his twin and even I was moved by the raw emotion of it. It had clearly not been an easy death. Having your head literally ripped off equaled some suffering.

Monster Dom was still ripping into the rest of the shadow-man with gusto about twenty feet away. Full druid berserker mode.

With a sigh I approached. “Domhnall,” I said firmly when I drew close.

He froze, straightened, and turned. He was eating a heart and at least twelve feet tall now with massive antlers growing out of his head.

I’d never seen anything like it, but I just stepped closer and reached my hand up high, palm open to him. “He’s dead, my love,” I told him. “He’ll never hurt me again. Now back to the fight, soldier. We’re not finished yet and we need you.”

He dropped the heart and touched my hand with a bloody claw with absolute delicacy.

I caught his eyes, ascertained that it was still Dom in there. He lowered his head close to me, and I stroked his beastly face once before moving back to Harvey. The other three were trying to get his help to slay Ragnar but he seemed lost to grief.

“Can someone just use his weapon?” I asked the group loudly.

It was a silly question, no one but a slayer could wield one of the dragon slayer relics, but it got Harvey’s attention.

He set his twin’s head gently on the ground and stood up. Tears were still running down his face but his voice was clear enough. “Lead on.”

I wasn’t the only one cursing when we went back to the spot where we’d left Ragnar in and found nothing there.

Dom and Cam tore into the main building to search for him, I presumed.

“Could we fuck this up any more?” Caleb asked no one in particular.

“Where is the other team?” Harvey asked.

Question of the day.

“Take cover!” I screamed as I felt the air shifting again.

This time my father didn’t rain fire down on us. He merely landed gently, but it was worse, much worse as I saw what was hanging out of his mouth.

A pair of legs hung from the side of his mouth, familiar black boots dangling lifelessly. The silver dragon looked directly at me as he spit them out. There was no torso, just some entrails hanging out of the top of the pants.

“No!” I screamed. Oh God, please no.

Caleb didn’t make a sound, but he was at the legs in a flash, gathering them up, emotions running over his face in a way I’d never seen before. I’d never seen him move so fast, didn’t know he could. Didn’t know he could look grief-stricken either.

He ran out of the dragon’s reach in a flash and bent down, grabbing one of the attached feet to look at something.

I glared at my father, tears streaming down my face, and charged with a scream. I was crying even as I hacked at him. He swept me away easily and I was up again, throwing myself at him again, getting thrown again. I felt nothing physically, I’d become numb to everything but what I felt inside, and there it was all sorrow, all pain.

I was thrown even farther and this time as I made my way back I spotted something moving on the dragon’s back.

As I processed what I was seeing, relief flooded me utterly, head to toe.

I heard Caleb’s voice shouting at me. “It wasn’t Christian!” he said as he pounded the hammer against the dragon’s side. He looked tiny against the huge creature. “The legs weren’t Christian!”

I pointed up at the dragon’s back. What looked like a small figure, but was actually a large man was clinging to it, twisting its bright blue sword between scales with vigor.

He wasn’t just alive, he was fighting his heart out.