Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
With new determination, Xiang returned his full attention to the remaining guards, who continued to hound them. Chen covered the doors throughout the throne room in a thick sheet of ice to stop reinforcements from arriving, while Xiang, Kai, and Mei Lian cut through the soldiers. It was no quick fight. These elves were blindingly fast and light on their feet, forcing Xiang to waste precious seconds while Kai killed one after another with little more than a wave of his hand.
“How?” Xiang panted when he found himself without an opponent.
Kai shrugged one shoulder. “I make their hearts explode in their chests.”
“You can do that?” Meimei half shrieked and half panted.
Kai at least had the grace to wince. “It’s not a magic I use often because it’s quite abominable. I feel the person has to truly earn such a death, and these wicked elves were trying to hurt my vampire.”
“I—” Xiang started, but Xiao Dan’s scream stopped him cold.
“Xiang!”
There was a faint ripple in the air between him and Kai. Without thought, Xiang shoved the dragon back while raising his own sword. The blade slammed into Jiang Chong’s, barely knocking it away from Xiang’s neck in time.
Yet, before he could return the attack, Jiang Chong whirled toward Kai, grabbed him by the throat, and pulled him through an opening that swallowed them both in the blink of an eye.
“No!” Xiang screamed, and he lunged for the opening, only to fall flat on the cold, blood-streaked floor. They were gone in a heartbeat. Jiang Chong had stolen his mate. For a moment, it was as if his brain had stopped working and his soul had left his body, disappeared into the unknown with Jiang Chong. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think. There was just the screaming panic from this sudden void within his chest, demanding his dragon return to him. Centuries upon centuries of watching loved ones disappear from his life slammed into him, and he refused to allow Kai to join them.
“Find him! Find him now!” Xiang roared, pushing himself to his feet. He stood back-to-back with his brothers and shimei as they searched the throne room covered in dead bodies for the faintest ripple of where Jiang Chong had moved to next, but there was nothing. Had Jiang Chong dragged Kai off outside of the throne room? Had he slipped away, leaving his lover behind?
The thoughts had barely formed in his mind when a rip sliced through the air and Jiang Chong ran out at an alarming speed, his eyes wide and sword forgotten in his fist. The tear almost closed behind him, crushing Xiang’s heart. In a blink of an eye, the same opening exploded to fifty times its original size as a dragon’s golden head surged out.
Fuck, yes!
Kai had shifted into his dragon form the moment Jiang Chong stole him away. The old bastard had gotten far more than he bargained for with Kai.
Mei Lian thrust her arms into the air and squealed. “Kick his ass, Kai!”
There was one problem. A full-grown and very pissed off dragon could not fit inside of a building. The throne room was an enormous, two-story area that was plenty of space for elves and vampires, but not a dragon. Kai surged through the air, twisting his body as he chased after Jiang Chong, claws scraping and scrabbling on marble columns and even the ceiling. Chunks of plaster and stone crashed down, forcing them to dodge out of the way.
Jiang Chong cried out once, and it was a sound Xiang had been waiting his entire life to hear, but the asshole proved to be too sneaky. He dodged Kai’s snapping jaws and changed direction to run right at Rei and Trin as they continued to fight on the dais. The old vampire narrowly avoided Rei’s sword, grabbed Trin’s arm, and pulled him into an opening he made behind the elf. Aire noticed the chaos and managed to dive in after them as it closed.
Kai roared, shaking the entire castle and deafening them all, but Xiang could still hear the echo of Kai’s human voice in his mind.
My sword!
Xiang thought his heart was going to break. All this work and pain for that sword, and it still eluded Kai’s grasp. The dragon roared again and again, slamming into the walls and tearing the castle apart.
Rei and Yichen ran over to their gathering as they watched the dragon losing his mind. A wise person would get the hell out of there before Kai brought the entire building down on their heads. But Xiang couldn’t leave him. Not when he was in this kind of pain.
“Look!” Chen pointed at a faint blue glow that was barely more than a spot hovering in the air where Jiang Chong and the elves had disappeared.
Xiang took a hesitant step closer, only to stop as the sword in question burst into the human realm and shot across the throne room. Just before it could pierce his chest, the sword stopped and hung in the air at chest level with the point directed toward the ground, as if it were waiting for him to take it.