Blade Bound (Chicagoland Vampires 13)

Too bad. I was Sentinel of my goddamned House.

I love you, I silently said, and hoped that he could hear me.

The dragon banked sharply, lifted, and I pressed my face into its scales, the scent of chemicals and city, of tears and anger, of sweat and fear.

“Don’t fire!” Ethan yelled, his voice in the earpiece Luc had handed out before we’d left the House. “Don’t fire! Merit’s on the dragon.”

The dargon turned and banked toward the heart of downtown Chicago.

I considered my options. I didn’t think I could finish the magic in the air. I had to wait until it landed and we were both on solid ground. Otherwise, it would disappear beneath me, and I was pretty sure falling a thousand feet wasn’t the same as jumping a few hundred.

So I held on, and felt guilty about the exhilaration of soaring over Chicago, soaring over glass and asphalt as the wind whipped my hair into tangles. I shouldn’t have reveled in the feel of flight, shouldn’t have closed my eyes in the warm breeze. But it wasn’t often that a girl who loved fairy tales, who spent her childhood dreaming of princesses and haunted woods and dragons, got an opportunity like this.

But the exhilaration faded as we moved closer to the river, as I saw what the dragon had done to the city of my heart.

It was an apocalypse. Limited to Chicago, but severe enough that it would take months, if not years, before the city was the same.

;  “Your arm?” he asked.

“It’s fine.” It actually burned like fire, but that didn’t much matter now.

Ethan and Catcher went in for another volley; Catcher tossed fireballs while Ethan spun forward, going in low and catching slices across the dragon’s abdomen. The dragon pushed Ethan away, sent him sailing onto his back.

You good, tiger?

Fine, he said, climbing to his feet again, cheeks pinked with anger. But now I’m pissed.

With what I’d swear looked like fury in his eyes, the dragon slapped its tail at the fireball, sending it flying through the air. Catcher dodged, but not fast enough. It caught him across the thigh, searing his jeans and the skin beneath.

“Shit!” he said, and fought for control.

FIRE, the dragon said.

It was learning, had figured out how to use its scales’ resistance to fireballs to launch them back at us.

Ethan got another shot at its abdomen, and the dragon turned, wings flying around it. “Jonah!” I called out, but a moment too late. The swipe caught Ethan, sent him sprawling forward into the grass.

He didn’t get up immediately, and I had to tell myself he was a vampire and could take care of himself, that he’d just had the breath knocked out of him.

I needed to bind the dragon now, before it hurt anyone else.

I put my palm against the katana’s cutting edge, pulled. Pain shot through my hand as blood beaded at the edge of the steel.

I turned the blade on its side, watched the drops of blood roll down the blade as if with purpose and into the inscription Catcher had etched there. Blood met magic, and fire burst across the blade, which quickly spread from handle to tip.

“With blade and blood I bind you,” I screamed, yelling the words that Catcher had composed.

YOU CANNOT BIND ME. I AM EVERYTHING.

“You are pain and death.”

SHE GAVE ME LIFE, POWER.

“And you killed her, so don’t lie to me. With this blade and blood I bind you!”

The dragon screamed and flapped its wings and began to ascend straight out of the stadium. I wasn’t sure how intelligent it was, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t fall for Mallory’s bait twice. That meant this was our one and only chance to take it down without more injuries, more deaths.

I’d either have to give up, or go with it.