Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5)(49)

“Do your healing thing,” I shouted at him. “Please.” I’d seen him shroud himself in the dark mist dragons used for healing or shifting and emerge unscathed.

“He might be too far gone,” Emmett said behind me, as calm as ever. I bet his glasses weren’t even smudged.

“I don’t want your commentary,” I snarled at him. “Either help him or shut up.”

“I can save Mick the man,” Emmett said. “But maybe not Mick the dragon. Or the other way around.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Emmett lifted one hand and sliced the air. “He’s two-natured. He’s learned to be human, embraced it, and more than just for convenience. He’s now as much man as dragon. I can separate the two. One will live, and one will die.”

I remembered Drake explaining in his clinical voice in my hotel lobby that the only way a dragon could take a human lifespan was to split the dragon part of him from the human. No one could do that, he’d said, except a god. Now Emmett was saying he could do that very thing.

Mick snaked his head to Emmett, the wrath in his eyes growing. I quickly stepped between the two.

“No,” I said sharply to Emmett.

Emmett’s eyes flashed. “No choice. He’s not strong enough to heal himself. I promise I’ll show you how to put him back together again.”

Oh sure, because Emmett was so trustworthy.

At that moment, Aine wheeled above us and plunged at Mick, determined to kill. Drake was currently fighting Bancroft for his life—no help there.

Mick rolled away from us and rose on his back legs to meet Aine. He jumped, trying to get airborne, but his broken wing sagged to the ground. He snarled and lashed out, fighting hard, but Aine was less injured than he was, and strong. Her cut abdomen was a flesh wound to a dragon.

I turned on Emmett. “Damn you. Save him.”

Emmett bunched his fists, closed his eyes, and let his body go rigid. Aine struck out at Mick and ripped her claws through his wing that was still whole. Shreds of dragon flew out into the air and fell in blackened bits. Mick didn’t even cry out, his dragon jaw clenched in pain.

I drew a breath to yell at Emmett again when he opened his eyes. Those eyes had gone silver all the way across, making me know for certain that his glasses were only for show.

Emmett uncurled his fists, brought his hands, palms together, straight out in front of him, and jerked his arms apart.

Mick shrieked. The scream went on and on, a horrible sound that vibrated every iota of the air. The storm answered, fingers of lightning finding trees and exploding them into flame.

Aine sprang back as Mick’s body rippled, undulating in black waves so fierce that he threw a ring of dead trees, brush, and old ash in a wide circle around him. Aine beat her wings, lifting backwards as Mick thrashed.

Beyond them, Bancroft broke from Drake, but he didn’t come to see what was happening. He arrowed off into the night, pursued by Drake.

Aine screeched again. She angled her head to look down at the small humans on the ground, then recoiled as her gaze fixed on Emmett. She jerked back, and I swear I saw fear in her ice-green eyes. Aine turned in midair and headed for the sky, dodging lightning strikes as she went.

Mick was still keening. His tail dislodged a stand of trees that had caught fire from the lightning, scattering them like straw.

“Stop!” I yelled at Emmett. Tears stung my face, and my throat was raw. “You’re killing him.”

“No,” Emmett said without looking at me. “I’m saving him. The dragon is dying.”

The mist of dragon darkness gathered around Mick. He continued to fight and flail, but his body gradually disappeared behind the thick cloud.

The darkness solidified around him like a cocoon. I watched in shock, my heart pounding. The storm increased its intensity, lightning filling the sky, one strike following immediately after the other. Thunder rolled continuously, one rumble overriding the next. Wind from the storm reached the clearing, and an icy breeze tore at my hair.

Emmett said nothing, did nothing. He merely stood, his arms lowering to his sides, his eyes opaque.

Another blast of lighting struck the ground twenty feet from the cocoon. The boom of thunder made me shout, and then it deafened me.

The storm had hold of me. Lightning thrust up through me, coming out my hands, lifting me from the ground. I was a Stormwalker in the heart of the storm, with nothing to stop me—no Beneath magic, no Coyote.

I turned and blasted my full power at Emmett.

I was pleased that I made him step off balance. He shot me an annoyed look from behind the lightning, then shielded himself, sending the lightning bouncing harmlessly into the dirt around him.