Was it the ship lurching? Or was it her? Francine only managed to keep her balance by slamming into Julian’s side, and then he had the door open, and they were outside in the screaming storm.
Shouting broke out behind them. Eloise’s voice cut through the noise, and the other voices quieted.
The silence was more terrifying than the storm.
Francine gritted her teeth and shouted through the wind. “You need to get out of here. Find somewhere you can hide. I know your dragon isn’t healed enough yet, but if there’s any chance—” Her thoughts fogged. There was no way out of this, was there? It had been a trap the whole time, and she’d walked straight into it. And dragged Julian with her.
Her lioness snarled. She snarled, too. “I’ll distract them.”
Julian looked at her as though she’d grown two heads. “No.”
“You’re the one they want! If they catch you—”
“And what will they do if they catch you?”
The icy rain was like needles against her skin, but that wasn’t what made Francine shiver. “I’ll be fine!” she bawled over the howling storm.
Julian opened his mouth to reply just as the doors smashed open. A rhinoceros skidded onto the deck with another guard in human shape on its back, rifle raised.
“Hold on!” Julian yelled and wrapped his arms around her.
Francine realized what he was about to do. “No, you can’t—”
She grabbed his face, willing him not to shift. He grimaced with pain as the skin under her fingers turned into hard scales.
He’s too hurt. “Stop this!” she hissed.
“She won’t let you live. You know that, right?” He put his hand on her cheek. “Trust me.”
Francine turned away from him before she could say something she would regret. Her lioness was heat and light behind her eyes. He didn’t want to hide? Fine. She would fight their enemies until he understood what he needed to do.
She’d come here tohelp,to be anything but the paranoid, vindictive monster she’d grown into like a dress that suddenly fit too well, and if that meant dying out here, then she would die.
She didn’t have the chance. Julian held her close and, with a scream that tore at her heart, shifted.
One second she was fighting to free herself from his arms. The next she was airborne, her feet dangling far above the shrinking ship as Julian beat his powerful wings.
Each of his claws was as thick around as one of Francine’s arms, but she wasn’t afraid he would hurt her. She twisted, trying to see his face. Rain pelted her from all directions, so thickand heavy she couldn’t see past his shoulders. Then a flurry of hail struck, and she had to pull her head back into the safety of Julian’s foreclaw.
Her breaths were quick and shallow. It occurred to her, distantly, as though she was seeing her own thoughts through a clouded window, that even though whatever had been in those darts was a drug meant to keep Julian under control … it was still a poison.
She’d been poisoned.
She let her head fall back against the hard curve of one of Julian’s claws. Her legs were still dangling in thin air, and—it was cold, wasn’t it? She’d felt the blast of cold when she and Julian escaped the stateroom, she was sure of it—but she couldn’t feel the cold now. Or much of anything, really.
Francine pressed her palm against the gleaming scales of Julian’s chest. They were warm. She could feel that, at least.
She leaned forward and rested her face against his heat. The storm roared all around them, ice and wind stealing the breath from her lungs.
If Eloise hadn’t drugged me, I could tell him …Tell him what? Her brain felt as wavery as her vision had been after the darts hit her.Tell him I feel safe. Warm. Here. Whatever happens next.
Which was stupid, because … she forgot why.
25
Francine
The storm toyed with them. Once the lights of the ship disappeared, Francine had no way of telling time, or distance. The world shrank down to a series of moments. A howling gust of wind sending them tumbling sideways. Hail raining down like spears. A wave, huge, dark, crawling up from the hungry sea.
