Vaesarra’s enormous form wheeled around, her molten eyes promising vengeance. Her massive talons closed around Ash’s ribs, crushing the breath from her lungs, and she leaped into the air.
The terrace fell away in a rush of stone and smoke.
Ash gasped, struggling for breath, but Vaesarra only tightened her grip and beat her wings faster. The wind howled in Ash’s ears as they tore through the dark clouds.
Race!she screamed through their mind-link.
Nothing.
The connection felt muffled, distant. Panic clawed at her throat. Vaesarra’s talons dug deeper, and Ash bit back a cry. Her ribs protested, each breath sharp and shallow.
Race, please, please?—
Still nothing. Just that faint, steady warmth in her chest that told her he was alive but unreachable. Dammit.
Fine. She’d survived mobs, storms, and war. She could survive this vicious bitch herself.
Chapter
Forty
The bitch droppedher on a ledge.
Another fucking ledge.
Christ!
Ash shivered and gritted her teeth against the pain in her ribs.
The wind howled off the mountain peaks, tearing at her hair. The drop below was so steep her stomach heaved.
Hastily, Ash shuffled on her sore backside away from the broken, perilous edge, grasped the parapet stones, and climbed to her feet, her sides screaming as if she’d been stabbed with several daggers.
Breathing slowly, she took in her surroundings…
Atop a lonely tower, high in the heavy clouds—miles from everything. The cracked stone floor was slick with dampness. One wrong turn, and she’d be red confetti on those knife-edged rocks far, far below.Wonderful.
Vaesarra’s furious roar split the sky, the force of her breath lashing over the tower like a gale.
“Oh, sod off already!” Ash shouted, her ribs giving a vicious throb of protest.
The she-dragon hit the parapet in a cyclone of wind, and Ash’s booted feet skidded across the wet granite—she grabbed the crenels before she pitched over the edge.
Bloody sack of scales!
That car-sized head snapped toward Ash as if hearing her. Then the blasted red dragon melted into a very naked Vaesarra, her pale skin visible in the dark, her sinuous beauty as lethal as a cobra’s.
Ash spat her wind-tossed hair from her mouth, every nerve buzzing. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Preserving my reign as queen.” Vaesarra smiled as if she already wore the crown. “With you gone, I’ll support Eracier during his time of sorrow. Be everything he needs.”
“You’re delusional.”
Vaesarra sashayed across the darkened, debris-scattered stone floor to a faded black, wind-torn flag on a bent pole and yanked it free. She draped it around herself like a toga, tying it over one shoulder.
“Fitting, don’t you think?” Her lips curved as she smoothed her hands down her hips, as if it were a bloody ballgown. “History reborn on my shoulders. I will be queen again.”
Ash snorted, clenching her prickling fingers. The dark cloud above roiled in response to her fury. “Oh, yes. Tattered flag, tattered morals. You’re a walking tragedy.”
