“Did she bite you?” I ask him as we jogged. The ghouls were within eyesight of us, but far enough away that we were safe for the time being. Nox’s little explosion had headed them off,apparently.
Damien shook his head. “Clawmarks.”
Ihissed.
Bitch. Clawing my man is myjob.
The colorful floating blobs in the sky nearly made me weep in relief. Our saviors hadcome.
After piling two humans onto each of the five Galadrias, we took to the sky, just in time to see the ghouls grunt and rage belowus.
‘Thank you, Dawn. Once again you’ve saved ourlives.’
She was quiet.‘You smelldifferent.’
Oh.Yeah.
‘Well… this isn’t my dream body. It’s my real body.’How in the world could shesmellthat?
‘How?’ she askedcuriously.
I held on to Damien’s waist. ‘I… opened a portal into the Dream Wars fromEarth.’
She grinned, looking back at me and chuffing.‘I knew you could do that. I sawit.’
Right. She and Master Aki were psychics. I’d almost forgotten. And no one decided to tellme.
‘Dawn, I’m exhausted and my friends are hurt. Is there any way the council would let us rest at sky home, just for a little while, until we can find out how to get back toEarth?’
Dawn flew higher. ‘Dawn already asked and yes, Kit and humans are welcome at skyhome.’
Relief poured through me. I’d given Damien a two-minute rundown of sky home after I’d gotten back to Vancouver, but nothing could prepare anyone for the beauty and shock they were about toexperience.
As we popped above the cloud line, I heard the collective gasp from our group as the floating island came into view. After years of coming to the dark and hellish Dream Wars, breaking through the clouds to see sky home was prettyincredible.
We couldn’t talk much since we were all riding about ten feet from each other, but Maxine met my eyes and I could see tearsthere.
Once we started our descent to the island, half a dozen younglings waddled over tome.
‘Kit! Kit! Kit!’they all mentally bombarded me. I slipped off Dawn slowly, trying not to breathe too deeply, and let them rub against mylegs.
“Hey, guys. These are my friends,” I told the colorful and excited younglings. Reaching out to pet each one, I asked them how they weredoing.
‘We want to learn to fly, but our nurturer says we’re not ready,’a blue youngling toldme.
I smiled and was going to respond when Damien plopped unconscious next to me. The sound was loud and shook the ground slightly, scaring the younglingsoff.
“Damien!” I knelt down to him, feeling his head. He was burningup.
“He’s got a fever! How can that be?” I shouted to the group, hoping they could helpme.
Dawn reached her muzzle around and sniffed his mangled arm. ‘Did breeder scratchhim?’
‘Yes. But he wasn’t bitten.’ And bites caused neuropathy, notfevers.
Dawn’s eyes widened. ‘Breeder nails have poison in them.Smells likethis.’
I wanted to crawl in a corner and rock myself while crying, but there was no time for thatshit.
