But the forest was real enough, its pine-and-earth scent thick in my nose. But where was the pavilion? The narrow road that led to the human villages with their tourist shops and quaint cafes?
A bellow cut through the noise. I spun.
A man charged toward me, his face contorted with fury. He raised an axe, the blade gleaming red.
I whirled and ran, plunging into the trees where the parking lot should have been. Branches whipped at my face as I crashed through the undergrowth. My boots slipped on moss and roots. Footsteps pounded behind me, men’s guttural shouts echoing through the trees.
My dragon thrashed under my skin, desperate to snap her restraints and save us. I needed to shift, but I couldn’t. Not with humans chasing me. If they saw a dragon, they’d expose my kind and all the other Firstborn Races. It would be a disaster we’d never recover from.
The sounds of pursuit got closer, branches snapping as the men chased me. I ran faster through the forest thatwas not supposed to exist. It was thick and tangled and nothing at all like the thickets that remained in Scotland.
A knife whistled past my head. The blade thunked into a tree to my right, its handle quivering.
My foot struck something hard. Pain shot up my leg as I stumbled and went down. I sprawled on the forest floor, twisted tree roots spreading around me. I flipped onto my side in time tosee the man with the axe charge through the trees. Eyes wide and filled with bloodlust, he hefted his weapon. Long, red hair flew around his head as he thundered toward me.
More men poured from the forest. My ankle throbbed. My mind blanked, only cold, white panic remaining.
A roar shook the ground.
Pain lanced my ears, the stabbing sensation sharp and deep. The trees shivered. The bellow soared, the fury in it snapping me from my panic. The kilted men fell to their knees. Terror covered their faces. My ears popped, and the pain of my burst eardrums faded as my body healed.
Smoke streamed through the trees. It moved like a massive serpent, coiling and twisting around the trunks as it surged straight toward me.
My injured ankle forgotten, I flipped to my hands and knees and tried to run. But the smoke engulfed me. Then itwrapped around me, turning semi-solid. I managed a strangled scream as it jerked me sideways and sped me along the leaf-strewn ground.
Wind and branches whipped around my head. Tree trunks flashed as the smoke carried me away from my pursuers and up and down ridges and clumps of shrubs. We moved too fast for me to fight, let alone wrap my head around what was happening.
A stone hut emerged, its thatched roof descending in a sharp slope that kissed a squat, open doorway. The smoke shoved me inside, sending me staggering across a packed dirt floor. The cloying, earthy scent of peat seared my nostrils.
I whirled, braced for an attack, but the smoke was gone, and a man stood in its place.
No. Not a man.
Adragon. My head went back as I dragged my gaze up…and up. Seven feet tall or close to it, he ducked under the doorframe and stayed hunched so he didn’t hit the ceiling.
Broad shoulders and a thick chest strained a cream-colored linen shirt open at the neck. Hair as black as mine streamed over his shoulders. A blue kilt circled his hips, the end draped over one shoulder and tucked into a wide sword belt. Brown leather boots climbed to his bare knees. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing blue tattoos that covered his forearms. More ink peeked from under his collar.
But it was his eyes that made me suck in a breath. Flames danced in the blue depths, the orange and gold leaping like the hottest fire in a hearth.
Like my dad’s eyes. Like mine when I was furious or scared.
This man wasn’t just a dragon. He was afull-bloodedmale of my species. He’d shifted from smoke to flesh with his clothing intact. Only my dad and brother possessed that ability. I’d never managed it. When I tried, my clothes ended up in a heap. But this man had just done it.
I shook my head as I backed up.Not possible.He couldn’t be real.
My shoulders hit something solid, and I stopped, gaping at the giant who couldn’t possibly exist.
He stepped fully into the hut. Magic rolled off him in waves. Tendrils of smoke lifted away from his body, as if he prepared to shift at any moment. Fire swirled in his eyes as his nostrils flared. Then his eyes flared.
“You…” he breathed, his deep brogue curling around my ears.
Me? I pressed my back hard against the wall.
Men’s shouts rang from outside. The dragon snapped his head toward the door. Then he swung back to me with a fierce expression.
“Wait here and doona come out.”
Before I could respond, he drew a massive sword from the sheath at his hip and darted through the doorway.
