My boots hit the concrete of the loading bay, and I burst out under the dawn sky. The chaos in the air above the hospital is worse than I’d imagined from inside. It’s like the frontline on the worst day.
It’s war.
The roar of wingbeats is so loud I can feel it in my back teeth.
And to the south, banking out over the water, I see him.
A Red Dragon flying low and fast, claws curled tight to his belly. Something inside them. He’s already a dot against the blue, getting smaller by the second, on a heading that takes him straight toward the smudge of Mistveil on the horizon.
He has her.
The dread that comes for me is bone-deep. The males who broke through tonight are exiles. Sent to the jungle for their heinous crimes. They are not bound by any laws.
Carla won’t survive what this beast has planned for her.
I look around me, trying to find a dragon I can send after them, but there are none. My shifted males are all locked in battle. Working frantically to keep the island safe.
I am still in that in-between phase. My dragon might still be feral from the drugs I’ve been taking all of these years.
Chances are he will be fine.
Fuck!
I might shift and go crazy, attacking everyone and everything.
The dragon is getting away. I’m her last chance.
I think of Flint.
I have to go.
I don’t have a choice.
The shift comes faster than ever before. My clothes split off me, the seams of my pants giving with a sound like wet paper, my boots bursting at the laces. Bone moves under my skin. Wings push out of my back in a long, hot pull that always feels like being turned inside out. Scales sheet down my arms and over my chest. My vision goes wide. My world goes wide. The roar that comes out of me is deafening.
I spread my wings.
Save her.
Save Carla.
My dragon doesn’t fight me.
He wants what I want. He wants to help the female. He’s seen the same thing I’ve seen, and the same dread is twisting through him, and the two of us, for the first time ever, are in complete harmony.
It feels magical, but I have no time to bask in the feeling.
We launch.
A red shape comes at me out of nowhere with snapping jaws. I manage to avoid a bite, but he hits me hard from the side, and we go tumbling through the air, the hospital roof spinning under us. I twist. He’s young and stupid, and I whip my tail into his exposed belly, giving me time to get away.
I climb as fast as my wings will take me.
I find the heading. I lock my eyes on the spot the other male disappeared toward, and I bank. I beat my wings hard, and the wind cracks past me.
I climb above the mess of bodies and find clean air. Below me, the south coast of Draig is a smear of black and yellow lights, with knots of fighting beasts clustered along it.
I stay focused on my target. I have to, or he will get away.
