Chapter 15: Chapter 15

EVERMORE

Club Phoenix roars with excitement. They’re going to see who Rex fights in the Dark Ring.

He has many fans, as he approaches and gets in the box. Aspen and his best men have a booth; Knifer, Pincer, Franky, and Sini. He had absolutely no idea we are all here.

The Red Mafia have a dark aura about them. It wasn’t about us. It was about their recent actions.

And there was a new air about Draco too. He had been trying to keep in contact with his mother—but she dropped off the face of the Earth from last night, no longer replying to calls.

I didn’t want to tell Draco that the air around Aspen was already rotten with the final stages of life. It was evidence to me that he had murdered his last mate.

I knew it before Draco. Fiona may have worked it out, but if she does suspect so, she doesn’t dare utter it.

Draco’s aura was quiet. Quiet like a mouse.

Usually Reds were burning hot—but he’s processing his mother’s disappearance and for once I know not to approach my mate. All day he had been trying to contact his mother to no avail.

Ozzy stays at Draco’s side in the growing crowd, arm slung around his shoulders as he speaks into his ear. A comforting older brother.

Fiona is moving about the outskirts of the Club. She’s figuring out how best to execute Aspen in the large crowd. Preferably when he left his booth.

But right now he was tucked away and hard to access.

I am not in a cheeky or haughty mood tonight. I am standing next to the Ring after watching Rex jump up and flex his muscles.

He dramatically silences the crowd with a change in behavior. He starts to peel off his gloves.

The Red King of Requiem City looks my way. His crimson-blood irises burn with confidence and ancient age.

Waverly and Braelynn helped choose an outfit for me today. I am wearing an ice-blue leotard that sparkles with sequins, my long silver hair is free.

“My opponent tonight is none other than Storm’s daughter—Evermore,” Rex growls to the crowd, abruptly capturing Aspen and his men off-guard.

From the corner of my eye, I can see Aspen raise his head and stand up from his booth, fists clenched, eyes haunted and watching the Ring.

~Perfect~, he was already falling for the trap of being distracted by the show we were about to put on.

Draco had to execute this plan without being beaten by his father. It would be the biggest challenge, an initiation into the top position.

I know the only thing I can do now is to entertain. I mist up into the Ring, my leotard solidifies with me.

Including my Sword of Ice Fire. I point the wide-bladed weapon to Rex, we agreed to compromise earlier.

The crowd has gone from screaming in excitement to a silver-bound silence. Rex was versing a girl.

He was giant. I was slim and although tall, I was puny next to him.

But—I was a Silver Dragon. I had many advantages and being Storm’s daughter was just one of them.

Rex walks away from my sword, glancing at it with amusement only. I notice with his bare torso on display he has a butterfly tattoo on his shoulder.

The rest of his skin is pristinely tan and smooth. I want to mark him before we dance.

To mark the untouchable. I would show this Dark Ring legend that I could win if it was a real fight.

Rex must see the lust for blood in my eye, because his demeanor changes and he tenses and freezes as I twirl with the sword and mist with it too.

I have taken a step into the Shadow Realm, a place he cannot access me. I move around Rex with my sword swiping shallow cuts along his skin.

Up and down his torso, I swirl the sword until I’ve cut a large S into his abdomen. Rex’s hands flew through the shadows but couldn’t fight off my sword in this realm.

I take a step back and then I step forward back into mortal reality. Rex tries pushing a red wall of flame in my direction when I reappear.

My sword morphs to a smaller dagger made of Ice as I cut through his flame. Then I walk toward Rex’s bleeding front with a grin.

I’ve raised my weapon and he’s caught my wrist, pulling me in for the dance. The crowd almost sound like they moan with the sudden change of violence to performed seduction.

His hand holds out my arm straight so the dagger is nowhere near him, while I strain to bring it closer.

Rex puts his other arm around my waist and drags me closer until we’re finally flush.

“You psycho Silver bitch,” Rex glowers and then grins sadistically, “~No one’s ever cut me in the Ring.~”

“Courtesy of the greatest, Storm taught me to be the best Shadow Assassin.” I grin wider. “Don’t get complacent or this dagger is slicing off your big arm, Rex. All that beautiful flesh—”

“I could crush you.” Rex tightens his arm around my middle until I feel my ribs groaning and I gasp out in pain as he spins me around in the mock dance. “Behave.” As he says that, he smirks at the crowd, who are now cheering him on.

“~Okay~,” I wheeze out, “You win. Just don’t say you went easy on me.”

Rex had been scouring the crowd, but his eyes float back to mine with knowing power and arrogance I can’t contend with.

He definitely thinks I’ve asked a stupid question, however, I did make him bleed.

“You better go save your Red,” Rex says to me seriously.

“What?” I look over the crowd, but Aspen and his henchmen are still uninterrupted, in the booth and simply watching the fight and dance with narrowed eyes as they receive their ordered shots of vodka, “Where—”

I’m confused why Aspen isn’t dead yet.

“Draco is crying by the restrooms.” Rex leans down to whisper into my ear, “Is this who I’m partnering with—~Ice~? Where’s the Fire?”

I jerk away from him and I quickly slip out of the Ring and into the Shadow Realm to fight my way through the crowd, who had been in a confused state of awe, excitement, confusion, and shock.

When I escape, everyone is laughing, realizing it was just for fun.

“That was a skit, everyone! Let’s begin the first round,” Braelynn yells out from the crowd, holding up a microphone, she’s dressed in red like Waverly, “Bring in Hornbull, the true opponent. This fight is to the death.”

The crowd cheer and focus once again on Rex who’s prowling the box.

Meanwhile, I’ve stepped out of my Shadow walk to find Draco sitting against the wall at the back of the club, head buried in his knees. Fiona has already put her arm across his shoulders, hugging him close.

But Draco won’t respond. His phone is dropped on the floor, and when I pick it up, I see an image of his mother with a shot to the head.

The picture was sent from Aspen to Draco. With one word included. ~Suicide.~

I stare at the phone as an ice rage takes over me. I already know why she did it.

She killed herself, to ~kill~ Aspen through the severed mate bond. To save her sons and to finally escape the abuse.

However, I am furious we were too late. We were going to save her by killing Aspen tonight.

One day, too late. Draco’s aura isn’t rage, it’s just a pure flood of grief.

Fiona looks at me, she’s speechless and scared. Her mauve eyes are watery as she quietly presses her cheek to Draco’s hair.

There is nothing she can do but hold him. It’s all on me now.

I close the phone screen and drop the phone to the floor. As I turn around, I see Rex pummeling the shit out of a real contender equal to his stature.

His violence is controlled and fucking terrifying. It gives me pause.

I make a mental note not to fuck with Rex ever again. Ozzy is standing in the crowd with Waverly and Braelynn at both his sides.

He is suited up in his best to also help host the Dark Ring fighting. Hazel and Zayda are waiting for Rex to finish his rounds, also entranced by the graceful lethality.

I wonder if they know what shifts in power are planned while he entrances every eye in Phoenix. When I look once more for Aspen’s booth, I see him gray and withered, collapsed in the booth and leaning against leather, struggling to breathe as he reaches for a shot of liquor.

His men just watch, they don’t try and help him. Like leech-sucking bastards, they are already picking through his wallet and taking out some wads of cash, snickering to one another.

~Trash.~ I move for Aspen and his men.

However, I don’t make it. Rex jumps out of the ring to seemingly have a break before the next fight, and he immediately steps in front of me and shoves me back a step.

“Where’s the Fire?” Rex snarls as he repeats the question he asked me from before, “~Where’s your Red?~” Rex doesn’t linger, he just glares through my soul.

He doesn’t mean me. I didn’t want to interrupt Draco’s grieving; it was something that shouldn’t be tampered with.

But Rex is asking me to do something profoundly cruel. To switch that feeling in my mate onto the opposite spectrum.

Rage was a kind of heightened anxiety. Grief was depression.

To push Draco over to the other feeling would be so horrible, but… I make a fateful decision.

I can kill Aspen’s men, we can still take over—but it will be pointless to act alone. I need to stop acting alone.

I need to stop being a lone wolf. My mates need me.

And I need them. Rex made that known.

He wasn’t going to approve this any other way. I turn back to see Draco with his head now up, leaning back against the wall, his Red eyes focused on me, cheeks stained with tears.

Draco’s aura immediately starts to flare to an explosive Red just at the sight of me—but I haven’t even done anything. I’m confused and frozen in the crowd, watching Draco spring up to his feet.

I feel a sharp pain in my back. When I look down, I see a blade sticking out of my stomach, blood dripping to the floor.

For a moment I wonder if Rex betrayed us. But it’s not Rex.

Sini leans over me, after sneaking up behind me, he takes my throat in his scarred hand, caressing my weakening pulse and kissing my cheek, “Ever been screwed with a blade, Evermore?” The sick Silver threatens to twist the blade while it’s in my guts.

Sini grunts and makes an uncomfortable noise of pain. Sini is gushing blood from a wound in his neck—a knife stabbed through, as Draco misted behind him, pulling him off me.

The blade slides out of my abdomen, and I fall to the floor. “EVERMORE!” Fiona screams as other close witnesses start to kneel by me, trying to help.

They’re quickly frozen when Fiona comes barreling forward and dropping to her knees, her hands pouring with a pink and pale aura—as she pushes both her hands onto my wound. Applying a hard pressure.

I scream out at the excruciating pain, but she holds me down tight. Fiona’s healing is concentrated into a quick bind.

She restores sliced organs and broken muscle. It burns like liquid hell.

I keep screaming. I almost black out—I think I do actually, because my head hits the floor and then Fiona is slapping me awake.

The pain is now gone. Fiona is right over my face, looking more psycho than I could ever manage, “Ice, where do you think you’re going?! You think I’ll let you die, ~bitch?~ You’re MY BITCH! I healed you! Now tell me you love me! I love you too! Oh fuck that was close.” Fiona starts to cry as I sit up and she latches onto me in a tight hug.

I stand up and drag her up with me. Draco appears with bloody hands as he puts one on each of our napes, pulling us apart and then drooping his arms over our shoulders and walking us toward Aspen’s booth.

I had been crying a little bit from the residual pain of Fiona’s saving torture and she was crying because her two mates had been as well. We’re an emotional triangular mess.

“Don’t cry, my perfect girls.” Draco has also reached a level of unhinged, sounding monotoned and happy at the same time, as he wipes our cheeks with his bloody hands, clearing off our tears but smearing us with Sini’s blood, “You’re safe. We’re safe. I’m Red. I’m ~Red~.” Draco starts to hype himself up to complete the mission.

The crowd has parted for us now. I get the distinct feeling that beatings and murder isn’t too uncommon in Ozzy’s Club Phoenix.

The crowd are partially interested in the drama, but none too surprised beyond those immediately around us. We walk to Aspen’s booth and Draco reaches into his belt, taking out a severed hand from Sini.

He throws it on the table. The hand only had three fingers.

Draco crafted a message. Knifer, Pincer, Franky—three remaining.

Kage and Sini are dead. The message is simple.

Get in line or you’re next. I watch the three remaining henchmen straighten their backs and sit back, nodding respect at Draco.

Not a word of disrespect. Aspen is dying in the corner, smiling.

Especially at Penny.

~Fiona~.

~He recognizes her.~

I look at our pretty little mage, grown up and suddenly not so fucking sweet.

I see a mature fight flare up in Fiona’s mauve eyes as she reacts with ice rage she probably learned off me.

Fiona reaches into Draco’s sheath and takes out his bloody knife, throwing it violently at Aspen.

“~Burn in hell, you fucking pedophile~,” Fiona snarls.

“Fucking die already, cunt.”

The knife had sliced into the corner of his mouth, cutting his face open across his left cheek.

Aspen is no longer smiling as he tries to reach for the knife lodged into the booth behind him.

He fumbles and his strength diminishes as he slumps forward onto the table.

His heart stops beating with his last mate’s death finally catching up to him.

Aspen slowly mists away into ashes and embers, as his own Red fire burns him up from the inside.

His own hatred and violence killing him from within.

“~Boss~.” Pincer turns to Draco, suddenly full of respect.

“Any orders? To prove we’re loyal and should live to serve?”

“Get in the Ring, all three of you,” Draco smiles.

“Don’t worry, it won’t be three against one… I don’t want to hurt your Red pride.” Draco grins.

“It’ll be you three against Rex, Ozzy, and me. ~Fair?~”

Pincer, Franky, and Knifer share a look of approaching death.

But their only mode is to punch through.

“Fair.” Knifer forces the word out.

“Let’s go.” Draco unhands me and Fiona.

They all move to the Ring, where Rex is waiting with Ozzy.

Rex is pacing back and forth, looking far more interested in Draco now as a business partner.

Fiona and I look at the empty booth and we slide in and sit opposite one another.

Usually one of many words, we both silently turn to watch the three Red henchmen as they climb in to face off three more Reds; Ozzy, Draco, and Rex.

It’s fists and fire.

Albeit, the fight only lasts longer because our team is relishing drawing out every second of pain for Aspen’s best.

“~This is the next generation of Reds~,” Waverly speaks into the microphone.

“You’ll show these winners respect!”

They’re already prepping the Riverbeds for the new Red Mafia.

We’ll have Ozzy and his girls on our team too…

“Hey, Evermore…hey.”

I look at Fiona, who’s calming down and wringing her hands on the table.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I ask, smiling warmly at her for the thought of her blow to Aspen.

She got some justice, she always wanted that.

“Will Draco hate me?” Fiona whispers, furrowing her brows.

“Why? He hated Aspen.”

“No, it’s not about his father…it’s about his mother, she called me this morning. She had an idea. She knew I’m good at doing makeup with fake blood and gore, since Draco had told her all about us over the years.” Fiona holds out her hands. Meanwhile, I already start to get the picture.

“Draco’s mom is not dead, Evermore. She used mint to block any mental connection. Aspen was fooled by a picture and he died of self-hatred and guilt eating away at him.”

“But if Aspen is dead…won’t Draco’s mother die, too?” I whisper, concerned.

Realizing none of us had really thought about this outcome.

“Mortal mates live longer, although she will eventually become ill, that’s correct,” Fiona admits with a nod.

“I can help her live longer.”

“We’ll do everything we can to provide assistance,” I reason.

“You’re incredible, Fiona. Don’t you worry about a thing. This news is good news.”

“What’s good news?” Draco asks, appearing at the booth and sliding in next to Fiona.

Rex and Ozzy also walked down to us.

“Well done, girls.” Ozzy compliments us and walks off to Waverly and Braelynn.

“You’re all in,” Rex drawls at me, as he looks between us three.

“We’re business partners from now on.”

“No drugs and no slaves,” I growl at Rex.

“Especially not in the Riverbeds.”

“Only ~some~ drugs.” Rex smiles.

“Slaves? None ~unwilling~. But there are plenty who want to kneel…” Rex seems to sense that energy off Fiona with Draco, as she holds onto Draco’s arm and leans into his side, wanting to melt into him.

With a smirk, Rex spins and stalks off back to his mates.

Draco is waiting for Fiona to speak, but she’s just gone red in the cheeks, staring up at him, looking guilty.

She is too embarrassed to admit what she helped his mother do.

“Did you even watch the fight?” Draco asks us, looking slightly offended.

I shrug, since I did and I didn’t.

I already knew they’d win. Just on time to interrupt Draco’s incoming badgering, I can see a woman in a black dress, moving her way through the crowd.

Beautiful and hardly showing her age, she walks with the straightest back I’ve ever seen, her hands folded in front of her.

A veil of black lace over her face. Fully gothic and beautiful, like a goddess. She really does love that aesthetic.

“Apparently, you get your intellect from your mother,” I tell Draco, cryptically.

“Not your father.”

“I don’t want to talk about my…” Draco starts to snarl, missing the point.

But he stops when a gentle hand falls on his shoulder and squeezes.

Her other hand slides through his muck of red hair. The caress of a mother.

Draco hasn’t even turned to see her and he’s already sprung to his feet, knowing exactly who is there.

Draco spins around and clutches onto his mother with a tight embrace.

He almost knocked her over, but he steadies himself quickly.

Fiona jumps up and scrambles out to Draco and his mom.

I come from the other side, and we join in on the embrace while our handsome Red sobs once again, but this time it’s happy tears.

Draco’s mom has to pull back to escape the never-ending group hug.

She speaks from behind her lace veil as she holds her son’s face in her hands.

“I’m proud of you, Draco, how brave you are,” she speaks calmly, looking to Fiona.

“Penny. You are full of so much spirit.” And she turns to me.

“Evermore. You have a very strong purpose. A formidable destiny. The three of you are blessed by the Sky Gods. Just remember… I will always protect you… Draco, don’t you worry about me anymore.” She smiles at him and steps back, turning to walk away, but she hesitates to look back at us one more time.

“I feel stronger than ever.”

She smiles and moves off to Ozzy to get a much-needed drink.

“You’re the boss now.” I grin by Draco’s ear, kissing his cheek and nipping his ear with my sharp teeth.

“What about Rex?” Fiona asks.

“He’s my boss,” Draco growls. “Fucker.”

“Don’t get any ideas, he’s triple your scrawny ass,” I tease him. “I’m ~kidding~.”

Fiona giggles.

“You cute, sexy brats,” Draco snarls a little more animalistically. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“To the janitor’s closet?” Fiona whispers. “Ooo.”

“Oh, Penny.” Draco starts to smile. “I’m thinking you are willing.”

“Willing what?” Fiona glares and tries not to smile while drawing circles on Draco’s chest and biting her lip.

“You know what I mean.” Draco grins.

“You’re a Dragon’s Slave,” I say bluntly. “Our slave—Penny.”

“Even if I like being that—don’t ~you~ call me Penny,” Fiona growls.

Draco just bursts out laughing, holding her close. “Hey, Penny.” Draco kisses her cheek. “You know how to share, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Fiona wriggles her brows.

“So share the damn name Penny with your girlfriend,” Draco snarls, mocking anger. “Be nice.”

“You can call me Penny.” Fiona glares at me. “Bitch.”

“Brat,” I snap back.

“If you two start fighting, you’re both getting punished,” Draco sneers. “Fucking behave.”

Fiona and I now share a knowing smile.

Ha.

Behave?

~Never.~

End of Book 8