Scales rattled with sudden movement. Claws curled around him. Not piercing. Not crushing. Holding him.
Finn’s eyes snapped open.
The ground lurched.
Powerful wings snapped open, kicking up a whirlwind of dust as Cedric launched them skyward.
“What?” The word tore from his throat, choked and disbelieving.
Screams of panic in the distance. Below them, the arena shrank into nothing. The spears, the guards, Darius’s cruelty—everything was left behind.
Cedric’s grip was tight around him, his heartbeat a thundering drum beneath Finn’s cheek. But he was careful, so very careful, as if Finn was something precious.
Finn turned his face into Cedric’s scales, exhaling a shuddering breath.
Cedric hadn’t been his end after all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
If you love me, don’t let me go back.
Finn’s words roared in Cedric’s mind as he shot away from the arena. He trembled, magic burning like cold iron beneath his scales. The beast inside him snarled for release, urging him to tighten his grip. To crush. To kill.
But the knight’s plea overpowered it all. Cedric remembered the horrifying condition of Finn in the dungeon. His protective rage battled Darius’s magic. No, he would not let Finn go back to that.
Ever.
Finn was a warm weight against his chest, curled into the cage of his foreclaws. Beneath his palm, Cedric felt the knight’s heartbeat—a frantic drum against his scales. So fragile. So precious. His other foreclaw held around Finn’s sword, wrested from the sand in his desperate escape.
But Darius’s magic still lingered. It coiled in the marrow of his bones, whispering, demanding. No. He would not give in.
He forced his mind elsewhere. To Finn’s broken voice in the arena. I love you. And I forgive you. Gods, why? Why had Finn forgiven him? And more importantly, how?
His grip on the knight tightened imperceptibly.
Below, the city churned in chaos. The metallic glint of guards scrambling, torches flaring along the streets, the distant clang of alarm bells. Cedric knew they would be pursued soon. His escape was not an end—only a stolen moment.
But it was a moment, nonetheless.
He angled his wings, catching an updraft, lifting them higher. Finn was silent in his grasp, but his breath was uneven. Pain or fear, Cedric couldn’t tell. Maybe both.
The city fell away behind them. The buildings blurred into nothing but a smudge on the horizon, replaced by the vast sprawl of the countryside—fields a patchwork quilt under the late afternoon sun, winding rivers like veins of quicksilver, the dark line of forest curling toward the mountains.
Ahead, a lone tower loomed in the distance.
The outpost. The only place that offered any hope of safety, even if just for tonight.
But safety was a fragile thing. Gwenna was still in Darius’s grasp. His sister, the one person who had never abandoned him, the one person he had failed time and again. The guilt choked him, thick as smoke.
He would save her. He swore it. But first, he had to make sure Finn survived this night.
As they neared the small valley, Cedric began his descent, the air whistling past his scaled hide. He circled the tower once, scanning the perimeter. The wind ruffled his spines, his nostrils flaring to catch any scent of danger, before landing with a soft thud in the small clearing before the outpost.
Gently, so gently, Cedric set Finn down in the clearing. The knight swayed as his feet met the earth, his balance faltering. He reached out, catching himself against Cedric’s side. The dragon went utterly still.
Finn was touching him.
He braced for the recoil—for the disgust, for the moment Finn would remember, would see the monster he had been, the monster he still was. Any second now, Finn would pull away.
