“Of course,” he said, as if he knew one of my faults was lying, and as if another of my faults was being terrible at lying.
When the rune was done, his eyes lit in genuine delight, his lips curving at the edges. “Well done. Feel free to tell Maura you’re a quicker study than she is if she refers to you as any kind of cleaning tool.”
I was grinning at him when he leaned forward and kissed me again, the rock still held between us. I felt it press against my stomach, but barely registered it as his hand slid up my shoulder, my neck, igniting sparks.
His lips were soft against mine, his mouth greedy and sure. When his tongue teased into my mouth, my body seemed to turn to liquid heat against his, my knees weakening. He kissed me like I’d never been kissed before.
This time, he was the one who pulled away first, but barely. He rested his forehead against mine, and for the first time, this powerful, unstoppable man looked as if he were trying to catch his breath.
“Let’s place this last stone, set the trap, and go back to the inn,” he murmured.
“After we check on your friends?” I teased him.
“Sure,” he said, his thumb teasing over the edge of my jaw.
I resisted the impulse to turn my face into his hand, to seek morecontact with him. That rock between us might be the only thing to keep my last rags of respectability intact.
Not that I wanted them, at the moment.
The two of us walked through the forest—he must have some internal compass, because I was hopelessly turned around now that I couldn’t feel the slant of the ground or see it through the dense trees—and he stopped to place the stone.
“Now—” he began, but he broke off.
There was a crack overhead, loud as thunder, and he yanked me in his arms, drawing me tight to his body as he turned. He ducked out of the way as a branch crashed down in the place where we’d just been.
Up in the treetops, an enormous bird was swooping down toward us again.
“Griffin. We must be near the nest,” he managed to sound as relaxed as ever. “Stay out of the way.”
Branches shattered overhead as the griffin dove in a blur of claws and dark feathers and murderous intent. I breathed in as if I were about to scream, but it didn’t leave my throat.
He raced away from me, sheathing his sword onto his back—it glowed gold for a split second, then disappeared—and leapt into the air.
The griffin’s gleaming eyes were on me—and then Fieran was between us, and the monster’s attention was owned solely by Fieran.
For one breathless heartbeat, he hung suspended between earth and sky. The world seemed to pause around him.
Shadows glittered around him, dark and metallic, like magic being forged and shattered all at once. For a second, his form was obscured by the shadows.
Then the shadows shattered into wings, into a head that thrust itself upward, into a tail that whipped out like a lash.
His dragon form was huge, a shadow hanging over me, rising steadily to meet the griffin.
I had never felt so small and awed in my life as I did when he struck the griffin, their battle ranging across the sky, blocking out the moon.
Nine
The dragon and the griffin seemed to be everywhere, their battle wide-ranging and deadly. I tried to evade their shadows, but there was no escaping.
The griffin shrieked—a piercing, metallic sound that split through my skull—and I looked up just in time to see itchanging. Its wings spread wider, feathers bristling with unnatural light. The longer I watched, the larger it seemed to grow. Its body swelled, shadows stretching across the clearing until it matched Fieran’s dragon in size…and then surpassed it.
The two collided again in midair, shimmering black meeting feathers, the two of them rolling through the air around each other in a way that defied gravity. For now. Fieran breathed flame, and sparks rained down like shooting stars.
Sudden pain lanced down one shoulder, accompanied by the scent of burning fabric, and I tore at my clothes, trying to beat out the flames. My palm burnt and an animal sound rent the air—my own, I realized—but the flames were gone.
Still, the ground trembled. My teeth rattled in my skull.
I whirled, desperate to get away—to find somewhere,anywhere, that wasn’t beneath them—but my own panic betrayed me. My bootsskidded on loose growth as I stumbled forward, down the slope and straight through a shimmer in the air. It felt like plunging into ice water, every nerve sparking at once.
