“Yep,” Dray says, “that’s it. So, how exactly are we displacing this dragon?”
Blaze lifts his head, his golden eyes roam over all of us, and I have that feeling again that he’s listening to us all.
“We link hands,” the professor says. “I think it will be the most efficient way of combining our magic. And then, Briony, you need to hold on to that dragon. You need to hold on with all your life, because if you let go...”
“If I let go?” she asks.
“He’ll end up lost in time and space,” Dray says.
“Oh,” Briony murmurs.
For a moment I think she’ll dismiss the idea altogether.
“Do we have any other choices?”
We all look at each other. None are forthcoming.
“Okay,” she says, “then I’m gonna have to hold on tight. Is there a way – I don’t know – I could bind him to me somehow?”
She looks at the dragon and then, before anyone can answer her question, she’s sending a beam of light racing towards him. It hooks around his neck like a collar, the leash ending in her hand.
“A collar? Seriously?” Beaufort says, lifting an eyebrow.
“It’s to keep him safe,” Briony says, as Beaufort’s eyebrow creeps even further up his brow.
“I seem to remember that–”
“No time for that now,” Briony says, her cheeks pinking a little bit. “And this is only temporary. Only until we arrive at Dray’s homestead, right?”
“Right,” Dray says. “Come on, let’s link hands.”
The dragon shakes his head, clearly unhappy about the collar and the leash, but as Briony has said, it’s the best way to ensure he doesn’t get lost in this process – a process none of us are entirely confident in.
“There’s a problem with this plan,” I state, peering down at my still ungloved hands.
They all look at me standing off to one side.
“It’s okay,” Briony says. She hooks the leash over her wrist and then holds her hand out to me.
It’s strange. For such a long time I’ve avoided touch. It’s like there’s been this big fault that’s run down the center of my life; the time before that awful accident when touch and affection were so ingrained in my life I never gave them a second thought, even if those tender moments were mixed with moments of terror and fear and abuse too. Then came the accident, and all those tender moments were whipped away, ripped from me, and I realized how cold, empty, and lonely a life could be withouthuman touch. But it was the burden I had to bear – the punishment for my crime.
Now, I reach out to take her hand as if it isn’t the most absurd action in the entire universe, as if I was just anyone else, as if feeling her skin pressed against mine isn’t an act that nearly has my knees buckling and my body shaking. She smiles up at me and I grip her hand in mine, feeling the tingle of her magic, the warmth of her skin, the faint beat of her blood through her veins.
Briony holds out her other hand, shaking it, and Beaufort takes it eagerly, then holds his other hand out to Dray. Dray mutters under his breath but then takes it, holding his other out to the professor, who looks at it for a long moment, then takes it too.
“Now we combine our magic,” he says, “like we did before.”
All of us send our magic skating off into the center of the circle we’ve created, where it twists and twines and soon becomes this indistinguishable thing – not five individual strands of magic, but one complete, beautiful force.
“Right, you motherfuckers, let’s get out of here,” Dray says. “Let’s go home.”
In my mind, I imagine Dray’s home. I’ve only been there once or twice before. It was nearly as crazy as my shifter brother himself. Noisy, chaotic, overrunning with shifters. I could see how close he was to his brothers, and even though he’d deny it, his parents too. It left me feeling more alone than ever, and I wonder how I’ll feel now when we return, because I have my own family now, don’t I?
I hold the image of Dray’s homestead in my mind and our surroundings snap away. For a moment, all of us float in the abyss of time and space, in a darkness so black it’s impenetrable, and then – snap – we’re back. This time, the new day’s sun blinding us as it creeps over the horizon, the grass beneathour feet dry, and the mansion in which Dray grew up standing proudly in front of us.
“Here it is, Kitten,” Dray says, winking at her across the circle as his three youngest brothers come bounding across the land towards us.
Chapter Fifty
