He came here for me.
But I'm in no shape to deal with a massive, flying, fire-breathing beast. Especially because I've heard the stories about shifters going feral and accidentally slaughtering their mates out of some twisted form of mindlessly violent, animalistic obsession.
If I could just get him to shift back to his human form?—
Before I can even think about the best way of forcing him to shift back, the stone castle shudders slightly around me. The ceiling creaks as dust falls in small plumes from above me. This time, when the dragon roars, it’s deafening…and directly above Everett’s apartment.
Fuck.
Claws scrape against stone. My attention snaps to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the bedroom just in time to see a golden, slitted draconic eye appear. My pulse misfires when the dragon spots me, its pupil dilating.
But I can sense that this isn’t Baelfire looking at me. This is a feral animal that’s found its prey.
Another roar shakes this apartment as a fresh slew of bloodless dizziness makes me sway on my feet. Maybe the protective wards will be enough to keep this glorious beast from?—
The dragon swivels its head and opens its mouth, baring long, razor-sharp teeth as a glow lights up below the scales of its throat. I barely have time to dive toward the office’s front door before dragon fire blasts through the glass in the bedroom like molten royal blue death. Stone explodes, and wards shatter behind me as I throw open the office door. I take off down thecorridor, chased by blazing heat and the ferocious snarl of my feral mate.
Magical sirens and shouts echo into this hall from elsewhere in the castle. A group of armed Reformists rounds the corner up ahead of me, led by Everett, who shouts in alarm when he sees me.
My ears are still ringing from the last roar as this hallway trembles under the weight of the beast crawling atop it. I hear the deafening boom of more castle collapsing as the dragon finally breaks into this stronghold, falling into the hallway behind me and sending me stumbling. Stone dust and soot cloud the air as I race toward the troop of terrified Reformists.
Before I can tell them to get down or run, I slam into a scaly, clawed, reptilian hand that knocks the oxygen from my lungs. I’m being dragged backward. Everett’s cry of horror is drowned out by another eardrum-bursting draconic roar just before my entire world flips upside down.
I’m suddenly caged tightly inside the dragon's warm, clawed hand. The moment I'm in its clutches, Baelfire's dragon snarls and launches away from Everbound Castle, propelling us into the sky with brutal beats of its massive, magnificent wings.
My stomach is left behind, along with an echo of Everett screaming my name.
Shit, shit, shit, shit?—
I can barely move in this tight, scaly grip as the dragon picks up speed, climbing higher into the freezing night sky at a breathtaking rate before flattening its wings into a steep, downward glide. Cold wind bites through my skin, sending my blood-lacking, weakened body into further shock until my vision threatens to cave.
But I can’t lose consciousness now. There’s no way I’m leaving my survival odds up to this feral beast, which is already practically crushing me in its hand. I can barely see through thescales encompassing me, but I realize it’s dipping low over the top of Everbound Forest, close enough that its back legs skim the tops of dead trees.
If I die this way, I’ll find a way back to Paradise to haunt you assholes,I mentally warn the gods before struggling to get the etherium knife out of my pocket. Gripping it tightly, I jam it between two scales of the dragon’s hand.
Hot blood gushes from the wound when I rip the knife away. A snarl of pain rips through the night air, but it does what I want.
It lets go of me.
I immediately crash through treetops that barely help break the fall, and then the air is knocked out of me again when I land at exactly the wrong angle.
Crack.
Shit.
Covering my mouth, I try to muffle the sound that tries to escape as angry warmth flares down my left arm. If I had to take a wild guess, that was my humerus snapping, and it fuckinghurts.
Weakness and unconsciousness pool at the edges of my vision as I struggle to breathe in despite the brutal cold burning my throat. Snow is clustered all around me in this dark, foreboding forest, but after a long, grueling moment, I finally manage to sit up and use my good arm to pack some of the snow around my broken bone to help numb the pain and slow the swelling.
The dragon roars somewhere above the forest, and then I go still when I hear trees breaking and a loud thump in the distance. The shrieks of harpies echo through the woods before cutting off with a flash of blue fire that I can just barely make out from here.
But the universe must be showing me mercy, because I’m downwind from Baelfire’s dragon and its heightened sense of smell and hearing.
As silently as I can, I cradle my broken arm against my chest, grab my knife from where it fell, and shuffle backward until I’m supported by the trunk of a twisted, barren tree. I listen carefully for other threats here besides the beast hunting me. Tuning out the pain in my arm and the weakness weighing down my limbs, I try to devise a plan.
But I can’t get around the hope welling in my chest. My dragon knew where to find me. It knew to come to Everbound.
It wouldn’t know any of that if it didn’t have access to Baelfire’s memories, right?
