There’s nothing. The dragon’s head lowers as it gets closer, its tail curling around to trap me. The second it gets close, I swing my scythe with my good arm and quickly find that the etherium easily cuts through the dragon’s scales.
That tiny nick angers the beast. Its long neck and head snakes forward until it roars right in my face, so loud and brutal that my vision wavers and my ears ring in protest.
Ugh. Dragon breath is a real thing, and it’s fucking horrible. Like slow-roasted rotting decay, smoke, and sulfur.
But its show of inhuman, animalistic anger pisses me off, bringing fury to the surface so quickly I almost choke on it. If this beast really took over completely and destroyed anything left of my mate?—
No.
No.
Standing my ground, I meet the dragon’s ferocious display with my own, shouting at full volume with all the desperate anger boiling inside my scarred chest.
“Give him back!”
The beast snarls and tries to snap at me, but I move quicker, slashing my scythe across its snout. It roars furiously, tail whipping harshly—and effectively tripping me.
I slam into the cold, hard ground, the scythe falling out of my hands. More pain ricochets up my broken arm beneath me, making me cry out. The dragon snarls as the glow of fire rises beneath the scales of its long throat, preparing to turn me into a charred skeleton.
On blind instinct, I reach out with my good arm. Adrenaline and desperation mix in my blood as I touch the scaly tail beside me, and then a surge of blazing power courses through me. It’s the same sensation I experienced with Kenzie, uncontrollable and fierce as strange magic flows freely from my fingertips.
The fire dies in the dragon’s throat. It roars in pain instead, spasming from just my touch before falling to the ground to writhe. Unfortunately, all the thrashing sends its tail flicking into me one last time, knocking me back into a snowdrift.
I’m buried momentarily in sheer cold, unable to breathe as exhaustion from whatever the fuck I just did with holy magic kicks in. Finally, I work my way partially out of the snow drift to cough and grimace in pain, brushing snow out of my face with my good arm to blink blearily at the dim, sinister forest in front of me.
Already, the dragon has shrunk down into?—
Baelfire.
I would recognize that naked, golden-tan, muscular body anywhere, but right now it’s collapsed on the forest floor, unmoving.
Distantly, I hear ravens cawing loudly as they approach. Ice crackles up the trunks of the nearest trees as snow starts to swirl through the air despite no clouds overhead.
I ignore all of that as I drag myself out of the snow to Baelfire’s side, dropping beside him. He’s in horrible condition. I’m trembling with the urge to touch his warm, smooth skin, check him for harm, and see his contagious smile.
“Bael?” I whisper, hope clogging my throat.
But when his head turns, that hope hardens and sinks into my stomach.
His eyes are still the slitted, amber eyes of a dragon. There’s no recognition there as he hisses like an animal and snaps at my fingers, barely missing them.
This isn’t my mate. It’s still the feral thing that’s replaced him.
“Maven!” Everett shouts somewhere nearby.
A second later, he comes to a sharp stop at my side. For a moment, he stares in shock at Baelfire in human form. It’s not hard to gather that this is a first since I “died” six months ago.
The large raven I gave the order to flutters over and settles on my shoulder, pecking almost playfully at my torn sweatshirt.In the cold moonlight, I catch a flash of loathing on Everett’s scarred face before he lifts his hand toward the raven to freeze it.
“Don’t,” I tell him. “I sent it to get you.”
He goes still. “You…” Then he looks at the raven again, looking unexpectedly sick to his stomach. “You mean…you’re the reason for all the ravens? And the whole time, I—gods, I’ve been…”
I’ll talk to him later about my apparent connection to ravens. I barely have time to swerve away when Not-Baelfire tries to bite me again. That snaps Everett out of his miniature existential crisis, and he promptly freezes the shifter from the neck down.
Not-Baelfire snarls and hisses, saliva dripping from his mouth as he gnashes his teeth and struggles uselessly against the ice. When it’s clear he’s not making progress, he makes a strange coughing sound deep in his throat before breathing pure blue fire into the air, nearly singeing Everett’s soot-streaked coat.
“Fucking asshole,” the elemental mutters.
