Then he twisted—andkept twistinguntil flesh tore and her head ripped free of her body with a thick squelch. Her body crumpled to the snow, blood pumping from the stump of her neck.
Tavish tossed her head to the ground, and her hat bounced free and rolled toward the motorcar. He stalked to the head and clapped his hands. Fire flared to life between his palms. He flung the flames at the head, setting it ablaze, before turning to the corpse and repeating the gesture. The blood-soaked snow sizzled and melted beneath the flames, and the stench of burning flesh filled the air.
I shifted back to human form. Icy snow covered my bare feet, but I didn’t feel the cold. I stared at the bloody scene, the human’s last words echoing in my head.
For Prince Ludovic.
For Krovnosta.
Prince Ludovic of Krovnosta was Halina of Krovnosta’s father. And Albie had just killed Ludovic’s wife. Halina was half-human, so the dead vampire couldn’t be her mother. But I’d still messed with the past.
“Oh gods,” I whispered, my knees loosening. “We just…”
Albie rushed to me and gripped my arms. “We need to go. Now.”
“But that was?—”
His hand was suddenly clamped over my mouth, his chest unyielding against my back. “Not now, Portia,” he said in my ear. “This is vampire territory. We can’t linger.”
“The bag!” I mumbled against his palm, panic spiking. “The chronomancer’s spell.”
He released me instantly. We both scanned the snow.
There. A splash of plum-colored velvet half-buried in the drift where I’d hid.
“I see it,” I said.
Tavish shifted into his dragon. Launching himself into the air, he sprayed fire over the scene, engulfing the motorcar and the human’s body. As the flames soared into the air, he swung his head toward Albie and me and snorted.
“Can you shift?” Albie asked me.
My dragon pushed at the edges of my mind, eager to take flight.
I nodded.
“That’s a good lass.” He released me with a little nudge at my back. “Quickly, now.”
I spun into smoke, then rose into the air and twisted into my beast. Diving toward the drift, I extended my claws. Snow exploded upward as I snatched the velvet bag, careful not to crush it in my grip.
Below, Albie’s golden scales caught the firelight as he shifted. He swept low, his talons closing around my discarded clothes before he climbed to join me.
“We’ll fly above the clouds,”Tavish said in the dragon tongue.“Stay high. Stay hidden.”
The three of us beat our wings, rising above the smoke and flames. We soared higher until the clouds swallowed us, concealing us from any eyes below.
But as the carnage on the ground faded behind us, one thought consumed me.
What have I done?
Chapter
Thirteen
TAVISH
We flew for several hours before the mountains gave way to rolling hills, then farmland, then flat plains crisscrossed by rivers.
As the night sky lightened to gray, a city spread below us, the size of it almost incomprehensible. Thousands of buildings lined streets that sprawled across the ground like a spiderweb. Glass glittered in the windows. And, everywhere, light blazed.
