Ha, now I was seeing things.
Perri squeaked and burned so hot I nearly dropped her, but I held on tighter, refusing to drop her into a snow drift.
“Veskor?”
A voice cut through the storm—raw, unfamiliar, and incomprehensible.
Now I was hearing things as well.
“RONAN! RONAN!”
Perri screeched against me, burning hot. My scales blistered as she slipped from my grasp, the snow around her melting before she even fell. Flames swirled around her body, heating until they were blinding white. Something hard hit me and I realized with a jolt what was happening—somehow, the tracking drakens had found us.
NO.
I scooped up Perri, ignoring the flames and gritting my teeth against the pain. I’d had worse.
The red draken appeared from the squall, barreling straight toward me. I dodged at the last moment with Perri in my arms, falling face first into a snowdrift.
I fought like hell to get out of it, even as Perri’s heat melted the snow around us.
“Have to fly,” I muttered wildly to no one. “Need to?—”
Something hit me from behind, and my fingers and arms were too stiff to hold onto Perri, who tumbled from my arms and disappeared under a layer of white.
WHUMPF.
I went down, and, to my horror, I couldn’t get back up. My lips barely moved, words impossible. Everything hurt, and I was strangely hot in a way that had nothing to do with Perri.
“Perri! Are you all right?”
They’d found her. They would take her.
I forced myself up, diving straight toward the scent and sound of the red draken. My claws wrapped around his ankles and pulled. With an “oomph” he went down hard, and both of us scrabbled in the snow like two wild animals.
“Veskor! Ronan! NO!” Perri cried out.
She didn’t understand. If they took her away …
She was all I had. Like a possessed animal, I bit and scratched, and tried to take out his wings. If I could just get ahold of one and give it a good tear, he’d crumble screaming and?—
BAM. BAM.
The world exploded as a fist caught my temple, and another one my face. My nose crumpled, hot blood pouring down my mouth.
Still I fought.
“Spitty little thing, isn’t he?” gruffed a voice, with grudging respect and annoyance.
Darkness tugged at the edge of my vision, but that only fueled the spite in me. I’d lost half the blood in my body before and still won fights. How could two punches to the face take me out?
I lashed out with my legs, catching the biggest shape in the crotch with my foot claws, and spraying everyone else in the face with snow and ice.
“SHIT!”
“Son of a?—”
I flung my body away from them as hard as I could, landing at the base of a large pine tree. I dragged my body under it, trying to control my ragged breathing and praying the storm hid me.
