Page 11 of Mate of a Monster

London’s jaw clenches as she holds it, muscles in her forearms trembling under the strain.

“She’s going to burn out!” Knight rushes toward her, his eyes blackening with the rise of his Ethos.

My power stirs, fingers twitching to let it loose, but it’s like trying to breathe with a hand over your mouth. Something is suffocating it. Forcing it at bay.

Probably because it’s unnatural to go against the creature born to own our skies.

“Move,” Sinner snarls, sprinting down the steps and into the street as ash begins to fall like black snow.

The dragon turns, his eyes flashing cobalt. Dragons are not mindless beasts. They’re sacred for a reason, and that reason is begging to be seen.

“This is fucked,” Sinner grits out. “Dad is rolling over in hell right now.”

The dragon dives again, faster than before, and this time his fire doesn’t spill wide across buildings. It narrows, a concentrated strike aimed toward the palace entrance.

I whip around to make sure the area is cleared, only to find Arabella standing on the steps, one hand lifted toward me, her expression composed in that soft way of hers.

The fire streaks toward her and my body moves.

Magic surges, violent and instinctive, and I feel the sharp, familiar rise of something waking from a long sleep.

Shadows spill from my feet, climbing up my legs, crawling over my arms, and the air around me drops ten degrees as darkness swells outward, hungry and immediate. But it’s not my ethos as I hoped it would be. It’s demonic smoke, royal magic created only for the kings it serves, coming to my aid, feeling my desperation.

“No!” I scream, running for my mate.

Knight’s Ethos answers at the same time, his demon form taking over.

London’s air wall falters for a heartbeat as she sucks in a breath, then braces harder. The wind screams around her as she tries to angle the fire away again, but the dragon’s power is too old, too determined.

I knock Arabella from where she stands at the last second, the heat of the flames making the demonic smoke around me spark with anger.

Blackness collides with sapphire scales, the dragon disappearing inside it.

A sound rips through the smoke, it’s half roar, half scream, and something in my chest tightens. It’s an unexpected ache and makes no fucking sense.

The smoke convulses.

It tightens like a net, wrapping around wing and tail, spiraling upward until it binds him from jaw to spine. The dragon thrashes, wings struggling hard enough to send shards of roof tile raining down, claws scraping against nothing as he fights the darkness trying to drag him out of the sky.

Creed’s hands lift, fingers curled like he’s holding invisible chains.

“Bring him down,” Knight growls, voice deeper now, altered by the presence of his demon. “Slowly.”

“We are not killing him,” London snaps through clenched teeth, and it isn’t a request: it’s a rule, as old as the realm itself.

Killing a dragon isn’t like killing a man.

A man dies and the world moves on.

A dragon dies and the sky remembers.

The dragons are woven into Rathe’s bone, into its oldest magic. To kill one would be to fracture the realm’s spine. To announce to every creature and power watching from the dark edges of the world that the Kings of Rathe have turned their blades on their own guardians.

We do not do that.

Not unless we want the realm to collapse in ways no council could rebuild.

The smoke tightens again, forcing the dragon still until his claws finally scrape the ground, carving trenches through stone as his weight hits the street. The impact shakes the buildings.