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Vikar swiftly unsheathed another dagger from his belt and threw it at a man across the room. Just as he had done my father, he sent the man down with a blade right between his eyes. The last guard looked at the carnage and backed away, rushing out the door and leaving us before he died too.
Ivar didn’t let him.
Just as he was about to turn the corner, Ivar threw his own knife, using his entire body to propel the blade through the air as quickly as possible. Without pause, his knife sank in deep at the base of the man’s skull, severing his spinal cord and ending his life in an instant.
I rushed toward my daughter and scooped her into my arms. A soft wail escaped my lips and she hugged me close.
“Momma,” she breathed.
“You remember me,” I cried.
“How could I ever forget you, Momma?” she smiled.
Her innocence was as sweet as the relief coursing through my body. I’d been fighting to get back to her for so long that I treasured that moment of her body pressing against mine for as long as I dared, even though I knew that we were still all in incredible danger.
I knew we couldn’t stay here. The sound of the fighting would have been heard by others and every moment that we kept her in this room would put us all in greater peril. We had to get out of here quickly. At the same time, I knew there were likely a great many more women stored away here who hadn’t yet been moved, long-forgotten omegas kept cloistered by the Cult so they could profit off the sale of their bodies. They’d want to ensure that their lucrative ventures were moved to wherever they had taken the others and I had no doubt that there would be many more guards coming to fetch them before the night was through.
I took Esme’s hand in mine and stood up. Vikar and Ivar scanned the room and stro
de purposely out the door. The two alphas opened every door in that hallway. Some rooms were occupied and as swiftly as we could, we guided the omegas out of their rooms and into the growing group that followed us. Most of the girls appeared to be in their early twenties, the age that an omega truly came to her sexual prime. Some doors were locked, requiring several hard kicks to force them open. By the time every door in that hall was opened, there were about twenty women that had joined us.
The castle reverberated from the battle outside even here in its depths. There was no time to explain who we were or why we were there, but the omegas came with us all the same. They knew the dangers and still they chose to follow. I was proud of them.
Without delay, we snuck out of the castle the same way in which we came. We spent as much time as we could dared trying to find where they had taken Ariana, but there wasn’t a single sign of her and when the castle rumbled hard, we knew we had to get out of there fast. We couldn’t spend any more time trying to rescue her when there were so many more lives depending on us.
Once we escaped the castle walls, it was clear the city had deteriorated in the little time we had been inside. The buildings surrounding us were all burning and a number of them appeared to have been clawed apart. It didn’t take long to deduce it was the dragon at fault. It roared with fury and the ground we walked on seemed to tremble with its anger. The palace shuddered behind us, the groaning sound of a crumpling building hard to ignore. I looked up to see that the giant creature had swooped down and used its body to slam into the upper towers, causing the entire structure to lean dangerously toward the side until it finally began to collapse. Several large rocks broke free and slammed down all around us, the cracking sound of rock hitting rock deafening. I burst forward and screamed for everyone to run for their lives.
Vikar took Esme and threw her on his back. We tore off into the night while the echoes of war closed in all around us. Ivar ran next to us, trying to keep the group of omega women all together, but the stone falling down from so high above was merciless. I don’t know how many we lost. I didn’t even try to look back and count for fear of being crushed myself. I stayed as close to Vikar and my daughter as I could, knowing that we all had to escape together.
I prayed to Oslin, asking him to grant us favor and for the fates to allow us to escape with Esme. I would do anything if the gods would just allow us all to reach safety.
Explosions rattled the southern borders of the city. More liquid fire burst up into the sky, burning bright green in the dark of the night. We raced through the streets alongside those still unfortunate enough to be trapped within the city walls, making quick work back to the place where we had snuck inside. The hole had widened. Other groups had used the escape route and I hoped that a great many more would find it and get out. I didn’t even take a moment to look back at who had made it out with us until I reached the tree line of the forest beyond the walls.
Only then did I realize that the majority of the omegas had made it out with us. Vikar and Esme stood safely at my side and Ivar joined us as well. He reached to his belt and unhinged a small gun I hadn’t noticed before. He aimed it up into the air and pulled the trigger.
A soft purple light burst up, just bright enough to be seen in the dead of night. The musical trilling chirp of an albatross resounded in response and several minutes later, Thornclaw and his sons swooped down and landed nearby.
“Thornclaw, I need you to get Luna, Esme, and Vikar out of danger. There’s too many of us for you to take us all. I’ll guide the rest of the women through the forest safely to Valgertha,” Ivar said gruffly and some of the women whimpered nervously.
Vikar deftly tossed Esme onto Thornclaw’s back and she squeaked with excitement. Next, he grabbed me and put me up with her. There wasn’t even a moment for me to say anything at all before the albatross beat his wings in an effort to get off the ground. Almost immediately, the three of us were airborne and I glanced back to see Vikar clasping hands with his brother. I called out for him as he finally climbed onto one of the other bird’s back, but he couldn’t hear me over the sounds of battle that seemed to grow louder as time went on.
Once I was reassured that he would follow, I turned back to the city.
All I saw was destruction. The central castle had been ruined. Only a few walls still stood, but those didn’t last long as the gray dragon landed its enormous body on one of them and it crumbled beneath its claws. Its long neck wove back and forth, and a forked tongue slithered out from between its long pointed teeth. It roared so loudly that I could no longer hear the beat of my own heart. The dragon’s head slunk backwards, and it poured a stream of fire from its jaws, devastating what was left of the city before it spread its gigantic wings and flew off into the distance, leaving a stream of wreckage in its wake.
A very quiet rumble resounded beneath us. I swallowed, never taking my eyes from the city. In seconds, the ground swallowed the walls. For a long moment, everything went dark and a brilliant flash of vivid green light nearly blinded me.
Wicked hot flames tore up into the night sky and even though we were already a fair distance away, I could feel every last ember of heat. A giant plume of liquid fire exploded, engulfing the city. The light was so bright that I had to squint my eyes and the sound of more distant rumblings made me gasp out loud in alarm.
Several more explosions obliterated each section of Ravenrath, destroying everything in a matter of minutes. A city that had stood for hundreds of years was eradicated right before my eyes. A city that I had once considered my home. Gone.
I curled my arms around my daughter. In that moment, every aching second of agony and suffering I endured was worth it. The pair bond pulsed and at once, I allowed myself to be thoroughly surrounded by it.
I had my family now.
That was all that mattered.
The albatrosses carried us on the wind for hours. I held on tight, using my body to shield my daughter from the cold of the air whipping all around us. As the time ticked by, I watched the sun rise in the distance and the further we drew away Ravenrath, the safer I felt. Dark smoke still floated from the ruined city and I guessed it would for some time to come. Liquid fire took a fair amount of time to fully burn out. I’d never seen it used in quantities like that before and it spoke to the power of the Brotherhood far more than anything else.
