Page 97 of Peacemaker

Chapter Thirty-Two

Forewarnings

I wished the sun would come. Not only because it would chase the rifters into hiding, but because it would allow me to see the dragon.

I saw the shape of him, the hugeness, the fire, and then, I saw the wings. They unfurled and he screamed with the effort, or maybe the joy. Probably both. It was like a very, very difficult birth and though it was stunning and breathtaking to see, it was painful to watch.

He began to flap his enormous wings. There was no way he was getting off the ground. He was too big. Too heavy. And the wings were thin.

Angus muttered something, spun around with me in his arms, and got us the hell out of there.

The dragon flapped his wings, slowly, as though testing them, and almost before Angus set me down—a safer distance away—and we turned once more to watch, the dragon was in the air.

And he was fast. He shot out a long line of flames and the entire city grew silent as it watched. I rubbed at the goosebumps on my skin, then folded my arms over my stiffening nipples. I shivered, and Angus pulled me against his warmth, though it wasn’t cold that caused me to tremble.

“Have you ever seen a dragon?” I asked Angus, my voice a whisper.

“No. I didn’t think they existed.”

“They almost didn’t,” I murmured. I was finally getting my equilibrium back, and I rushed back to the spot where Rhys and I had lain so I could grab up my clothes and begin dressing.

The dragon had disappeared—there wasn’t a sign of him in the vast night sky. From the distance came the muted sound of a primordial dragon screech, and once again, my body reacted.

He was mine.

Oh, my God.

The dragon was mine.

And I was his.

The sounds of battling supernaturals once more screamed to life, and the stench of pain and death hung heavy in the air. With the scents and sounds—and without the distraction of Rhys—came my bloodlust, and I welcomed it with open arms.

“You have to go back to the way station,” Angus told me, keeping me slightly behind his big, protective body as we slipped through the shadows. “You can’t fight without your sword.”

The groups of fighting vampires and rifters seemed more scattered. Even in the short time I’d been occupied with Rhys, many of the fighters had died—on both sides. Vampires could kill rifters, true, but so could rifters kill vampires.

Two of them, locked together like a couple of raging, rabid dogs, hurtled toward us, snarling, biting, clawing, and Angus had time to shove me out of the way before they rammed him.

He shifted almost immediately. Whatever damage they’d done to him, he would heal. Still, I was a distraction for him, and I was going to get us both killed if I didn’t get away from him.

He’d been trying to move me away from the most concentrated areas of the battle, but the fighters were everywhere. And despite the interference of the vampires, the rifters were still hungry. They wanted to kill their enemy, but they wanted hot human blood just as much.

And they continued to sniff out the hiding humans.

Angus roared and impaled a rifter with his silver horn. It didn’t matter that the rifters weren’t sensitive to silver. They were sensitive as hell to the werebull’s silver horn.

Then a vampire screamed and I yanked my stare toward the sound just in time to see a small group of rifters tear the vampire apart and toss his remains into the streets.

Two wolves jumped them and managed to drop three of them before the rifters got the upper hand. They roared their victory and then, they spied me.

One lone, unprotected human, smelling of sex and magic. Even if they couldn’t smell my blood, they could smell something. Something different.

“Uh oh,” I whispered. Then I yelled, “Angus!”

He tossed his head and sent an impaled rifter hurtling through the air as though the big creature were a rag doll. And then he put his body between me and the advancing rifters.

Humans screamed, and I heard a woman begging for her life—for about five seconds. Then her voice was cut off abruptly and she was silenced forever.