This fucking curse has a hold of me.
I’m living by luck, every breath threatening to burn to ash what I’m desperate to keep alive.
Right now, Aeliana’s starlight strikes across the rocky ground on my right, her brightness shining from the open end of the dragon’s hide.
I can’t carry her over my shoulder—which would allow me to break into a run—because I can’t risk even a strand of her hair coming into contact with some part of my back and catching fire.
I also can’t close up the hide completely because she needs to breathe.
If she were conscious, it wouldn’t be a problem. She could walk on her own, and I could shield her with the hide if needed.
As her starlight cuts back and forth across the ground, sudden shrieks break the heavy quiet. The putridscent of scorched flesh tells me some of the vampyrs must have gotten too close to the light.
The fucking things are gaining on me.
I bare my teeth and push myself to go even faster.
The bottleneck where the darkness narrows is straight ahead.
But now a shape moves within it.
Pulling to an abrupt halt, I narrow my eyes, trying to see through this darkness that renders me close to blind.
A sudden blast of fire bursts across my view. A distinctive crimson color.
Kaiba!
A moment later, my cousin swoops across the air only twenty paces in front of me, riding his golden serpent. Another serpent soars through the air behind him but comes from the other side of the darkness.
I can’t stop my grin.
They’re cutting from one side of the narrow pass to the other, coming in from both sides of it, burning anything in their path before swooping back out.
Clever, but I don’t think they’ve seen me.
Like me, they’ll struggle to see in the dark, needing to focus on the path of their flames and the circles of light they can create.
I crouch low, plagued by the reality of my situation.
I can’t reveal that I have the dragon’s hide. I promised Ortansia, the leader of the Tol-Dakri warrior tribe from whom I took the hide, that I would keep my possession of it a secret. The only reason she handed it over without a fight was because I assured her that her tribe wouldn’t know the hide was missing. I can’t risk angering Ortansia or her tribe.
But I also can’t risk touching Aeliana without the protective shield.
Dammit, but unless I want to roll Aeliana out of the hide and leave her lying on the rocky ground—while I back the fuck away from her as quickly as I can—I’m going to have to reveal to Kaiba that I have the hide.
Hell, Antony knows about it, and he’s my enemy. I should be able to trust my cousin, who has proven himself to be loyal to me.
Remaining crouched and conscious of the vampyrs swarming at my back, I raise my voice. “Kaiba!”
His flames flare a moment later, cutting across the ground not two paces ahead of me as he soars back into view.
It’s a damn good thing I didn’t place Aeliana on the ground, after all.
Kaiba’s golden serpent slides to the ground a moment later, its form barely distinguishable in the darkness as his flames die. The final flickers of his fire reveal his sharp focus on the vampyrs behind me.
When I saw him yesterday, his arms were shaking with exhaustion from fighting the vampyr swarm and his clothing was scorched and torn, the damage to the fire-resistant material a testament to how hot his flames were burning.
Today, his dark-brown eyes are bright, and he wears fresh clothing, his mask and hood both pulled back to expose his face.
