Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King Read Online Free PDF Page B

purplish-black leathers.  The odd-shaped buttons on his torso were actually tiny bird skulls with empty, shadowed eyes, maybe crows.  A pale-violet scarf wrapped his lower face, a contrast to his flaxen hair.  The assassin had the long pointy ears of the fey.  His eyes pulsed with electric-blue as if lightning coiled around his brain, seeking escape, bleeding out along his optic nerves.
    I was up on one knee, my guns pointing his way.  I fired repeatedly, driving him back.  There were little sparks where the bullets were stopped on impact.  Noticing the stiffness of his coat, I figured he’d charged and hardened it in some way with fey magic, the mystic equivalent of body armor.  I aimed higher, trying to puncture the scarf around his lower face. 
    He flung himself back out of the house, not liking my weapon fire a bit.
    I yelled at Sarah, “Call Izumi.  If she’s home, she can help out.”  Izumi was Winter Court fey, and my neighbor on the opposite side from the wolves.  She also wanted to be co-regent of my domain in Fairy.  She had a vested interest in keeping me alive.  The sex wasn’t bad either.
    I went onto the porch, both guns firing blindly because the assassin seemed to have vanish. 
    I didn’t trust appearances.  Most fey have some degree of glamour they can use to magically hide their presence.  Wind roared across the yard, sweeping in to crash across the porch.  I was slammed aside, going off my porch, through the side railing on the far left.  I fell and rolled on the lawn.  A fist of wind picked me up and heaved me into the sky, holding me there.
    The world became an insane carousel.  Everything blurred.  Once he dropped me, the assassin had every reason to believe my balance would be shot to hell.  The guy was good, sticking to wind.  I’d faced lightning from most of the others.  My enemies had finally realized that—as a golden dragon, even in human form—lightning only made me stronger.  Tapping into my inner dragon let me throw lightning around of my own, my heritage from my mother, a dragon princess.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to spare for a prolonged change. 
    A length of silver chain rode the wind to me, wrapping me, binding my arms at my sides.  I sent my guns away to the armory since I couldn’t shoot at the moment, and when I summoned them back, the magazines would be full.  I’d already come close to emptying my clips. 
    The release came that I’d expected; I dropped like a lead weight, crashing into the grass.  Stunned, my thought raced faster than my body’s responses.  I knew I needed to move, but my muscles just didn’t get it, so I poured raw magic into my Dragon Flame tattoo.  The ink warmed.  A fire blast fanned out.  I hoped I’d get lucky and hit the assassin.  At worst, the counter-attack might drove him off a little, and buy me recovery time. 
    The chain was reinforced with fey magic because silver isn’t one of the stronger metals.  The fey might well have underestimated my power.  I’d see if the chain could take real punishment.  My body rallied, arms flexing with dragon strength.  Several links slowly opened, stretching, melting where touched by my dragon flame.   Hah!  The reinforcing spell is crap . 
    The winds came again, attacking my flame more than me.  Whirling funnels attempted to scoop up my fire and save the chain.  It broke, falling away.  And then Izumi was there, wearing an ice-blue, silk jumpsuit, white-gold earrings, and silver studded ankle boots with silver–capped toes.  She wore a white leather vest with fringes.  With her fey glamour, she looked like a Japanese cowgirl, or maybe a really expensive whore.  As if she could read my thoughts, she smiled and dumped tons of snow on me as the air temperature plummeted below zero. 
    Smothering snow and superhot dragon fire annihilated each other, producing a heavy bank of damp steam.   The cloud coiled around the storm fey’s cones of wind,