I dodged to the side, but she managed to snag a single tooth on my coat and drag me backwards.
Absolute helplessness filled my gut—Gisila had me. Even if I was faster, one wrong move and it was over.
I spun into her and used a precious—and precarious—moment to shove my gun into her nostril.
I shot her, but at the same moment she snapped her head, lifting me off my feet and smacking my head into her scale-plated muzzle.
Gisila roared and dropped me. My gun slipped from my grip while pain exploded in my brain, pulsing in my forehead, and I fell.
Nausea swamped me, and I couldn’t see straight. The only thing I could feel was the gritty sensation of the asphalt on my palms as I slumped onto the road.
Shifter strength. Of course.
A kick to the head from a minotaur would have hurt less.
Gisila violently shook her head, blood dripping from her nostril, then bared her teeth at me. She dove for me, and my slayer instincts kicked in.
I tried to roll away from her, but before I could she abruptly yanked her head back and bellowed.
Considine.
A flare of dragon magic rippled through my senses, and the scent of sulfur and smoke filled the air like a haze.
My vision started to clear, and I boosted myself up on my elbows. Before I could fully recover, a dryad jumped on me, slamming me against the cracked pavement and yanking on a handful of my red hair.
Even though my head still pounded, my training took over. I pulled a knife from my thigh bandolier and stabbed it into the dryad’s leg.
The dryad squealed and shifted enough to give me the leverage to sit up and twist so I could elbow her in the face.
She toppled backwards, falling off me. I needed a moment to stabilize myself—the stomach-churning sensation of vertigo writhed within me—and before I took a breath two new fae were on me.
This is bad. Worse than the werewolf mercenaries. There’s just too many of them! And with Gisila in her dragon form…
“Orrin!” Considine shouted, his voice warped to my ears. “Get her out of here!”
The snap of electricity thrummed nearby, but as I tangled with the fae I couldn’t confirm Orrin’s position.
“Brody?” Orrin called.
“On it!”
I was abruptly yanked off the ground and thrown over someone’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
I almost stabbed my knife into the person’s back, stopping when I realized it was Brody carrying me.
The werewolf grunted in pain, and when I stabilized myself on his back, I realized a red cap had stabbed him in the calf. I threw my knife, and the red cap squealed and fell backwards, only to be replaced by a nasty looking hobgoblin.
Brody put on a burst of speed, and we broke out of the circle of fae.
My eyes still weren’t focusing great, and Brody moved too fast for me to make an accurate count, but there had to be at least a seelie or unseelie Court’s worth of fae present—far too many for us to handle even without Gisila.
Orrin, Tetiana, Grove, and Brody and I were clear of the fae pile, but they were on our heels. If we stopped running, they’d surround us again.
Considine and Gisila fought at the far edge of the fae swarm.
Considine clearly had the upper hand despite the size difference. He dodged Gisila with ease and, armed with another dagger, was able to stab the dragon between her scales.
But the fae were starting to help Gisila, jumping Considine whenever possible so his attention was split and Gisila had plenty of time to recover between hits.
