“What is it?”
“Quinn’s group draws closer,” Banan answered.
“And Wallace?”
Banan’s lips turned down in a frown. “He’s no’ far behind.”
“Any sign of Phelan?”
There was a moment’s hesitation before Banan gave a slight shake of his head.
Charon ran a hand down his face. “How long until Wallace reaches us?”
“With the storm, I’d say two hours.”
Without another word, Banan turned and shifted back into a dragon. He let out a roar and spread his midnight blue wings as he leaped into the air and flew away.
“I doona think I’ll ever get used to that,” Lucan said as he came up beside him.
Charon looked up to see several dragons above them. “They knew of us from the verra beginning.”
“I know. Fallon told me.”
“Is he angry? Are you, that they didna help us with Deirdre?”
Lucan sighed at the same time lightning forked across the sky. “In a way I am, and in others I’m no’. Fallon feels the same. I doona believe the Kings would’ve allowed Deirdre or Declan to take over.”
“Jason must be a real threat for them to offer to help,” Charon pointed out.
“Maybe.” Lucan fingered the griffin head of his torc that he’d worn around his neck for seven hundred years. “With the dragons, Jason will be no more.”
“And the selmyr?”
Lucan let out a string of curses. “That is another matter entirely.”
Charon had seen what the selmyr could do. He knew in an instant they could take Laura’s life. Or even his. It didn’t matter how strong he was or what god he had inside him. The selmyr were too powerful.
They could disappear on the wind, looking like a gray mist until they suddenly reappeared. Arran had been bitten by them, and very nearly died.
Arran described their bites to feel like acid, and as the selmyr drank their victims’ blood, the victims became so weak, they could barely move. And in a Warrior’s case, that meant they couldn’t call up their god or use their power.
Charon knew the chances of everyone coming out of the battle was slim, but he had put in a failsafe for the Druids. If the selmyr or Wallace got the upper hand, the Kings would ensure the Druids were kept safe.
The only problem was that while the Druids were away from the castle and Isla’s magic shield, they were mortal.
Laura hadn’t had the privilege of living under the shield, but Charon wanted her to. She deserved to have a long, happy life. And he wanted to be there with her.
Charon spotted Con as he walked down into the valley, Fallon by his side. He and Lucan walked to meet the two.
“Everything is in place,” Con said.
“All the Kings are helping us?” Lucan asked.
There was a subtle shift in Con’s demeanor that told Charon something was amiss.
“We have all we need,” Con said.
A moment later, Fallon and Lucan walked off. Charon waited until they were out of earshot before he asked, “Is everything all right?”
“There are a couple of Kings that couldna be woken.”
Charon was more than a little surprised Con told him such news, but even more worried about what that could mean for the dragons. “Does that happen often?”
“Sometimes a King will sleep for several thousand years. Some have been asleep since before the pyramids were constructed. Most realize we must get on with our lives, as difficult as it is without our dragons.”
“Then they just wake up and find a new world around them?”
“It is the duty of those who remain awake to go in every century or so and share with those who sleep about the world.”
“They’re asleep.”
Con chuckled. “Ah, but a dragon will always hear a dragon.”
The rain slackened and Charon shook his head to displace the water running down his face. “Why tell me this? You could have told Fallon, but you chose no’ to.”
“You doona value your own worth,” Con said as his black gaze came to rest on him. “As to why I didna tell Fallon, I didna want him to know.”
“And me?”
Con shrugged and motioned to the mountains with his hand. “You seem a part of this. I can no’ explain it. I know you are no’ one of us. Yet I feel that you belong to us as much as you belong to the Warriors.”
“I belong to no one.”
A grin pulled at Con’s lips. “There is one who would beg to differ.”
Laura. Charon looked to the west, where he knew the mansion was.
“Aye,” Con murmured. “A verra fine woman you have. Have you told her how you feel?”
“Everyone seems to think they know what I feel when I do no’,” Charon ground out.