“Let go, you fucking overgrown gecko!” I screamed, forcing the blades in as far as I could, feeling them grind against the bones, like metal on metal.

“Pull the blade to the left!” Marco yelled and I didn’t ask why, just did it. I dragged the two blades hard to the side and there was a subtle shift in the flesh they were in. The claw popped open and we fell. Alex grabbed my ankle with one claw tipped hand as he clung to Marco with the other.

“Land, just land!” I yelled as the wind rushed around us.

“Not much choice, I’ve broken too many feathers to climb,” Marco replied. We spiraled downward—fast. If Alex hadn’t been hanging onto me I wouldn’t have stayed on.

Eve followed us, and it was then that I realized we’d left Faris on top of the green dragon. Shit sticks.

I looked up to see the dragon diving toward us.

“And here I was worried we’d have to go back for the vampire.” I managed to get one blade into my back sheath as we dropped. I kept the other squeezed in my right hand. There was nothing I could do until we landed and hoped to hell that Faris could get off the dragon’s back.

I shouldn’t have worried.

We hit the dirt hard, Marco unable to slow himself enough, and Alex and I were thrown. The three of us tumbled, rolling at least twenty feet before we lost momentum. A tree stump was my stopping point. Eve landed right behind us, a hell of a lot more graceful than we’d managed.

The dragon landed ahead of us, holding its maimed claw up. Faris stayed where he was.

“I’m safer up here,” he called out.

“Ass hat!” I yelled back.

He gave me a mocking bow as the dragon roared, baring teeth and flicking its split tongue at us. It looked like they’d worked out their act together with the timing.

I eyed the distance between us, and the limping, raging dragon, as it headed our way. “Berget, think you can toss me up to Faris?”

“I could, but the dragon will just snatch you out of the air.”

She made a rather good point. “Eve, get Alex and Marco out of the way.”

If the dragon hadn’t been wounded so badly, it would have been on us already. As it was, I had a second to think.

“Berget, help me dodge the mouth.”

I put my sword into its sheath and ran toward the dragon. Its eyes glittered in the dark, and it opened its mouth wide as it swung its head toward me.

That’s right, run into my mouth, Tracking bitch! The voice was distinctly female and seriously pissed if the volume level was any indication. Her fangs dripped with saliva that sizzled as it dripped to the ground.

Berget ran with me, keeping pace and when the dragon snaked toward me, Berget yanked me out of the way at the last second, spun, and threw me toward the dragon’s back, like we were in the Olympic Games.

Disoriented was a fucking understatement. She’d heaved me like I was a damn shot put and I stumbled hard, going to my knees as I landed on the thick scales of the dragon’s back. Faris grabbed my upper arms and steadied me. I didn’t pause, couldn’t. I reached for the dragon and she leapt into the air, throwing me off balance once more. I needed to get at least one hand on her. She climbed fast, her sinuous body twisting and spinning so I couldn’t keep my balance, couldn’t get my fucking hands on her.

No, I like my demon. He makes me stronger than the other dragons. I will kill you, and the master will reward us both.

“Not going to happen,” I yelled as I tumbled down her spine, the ridges slamming hard into my side. Jerked to a stop, I knew it was Liam, and not Faris holding my ankle. I put my hand on the dragon’s back and the power flowed through me. Calm, soothing, and so very easy to call on. “Be free.” The demon fled, its spirit twisted and writhing in the air above the female dragon. But she wasn’t giving up, either. She reared her head toward us, mouth open wide as her belly rumbled with the beginnings of a fireball I knew from past experience would obliterate us.

I may die, but you will die with me.

“Time to go.” Faris, or Liam—whoever the hell he was at that moment—grabbed me and leapt from the dragon’s back. Flames curled around us, seeming to push us from the dragon as the night sky welcomed our falling bodies. How high were we? I had no fucking idea, but I knew we were about to feel the distance in a very visceral way.

CHAPTER 14

Rylee

Faris kept his arms around me, twisting me so I was scooped in his arms, like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. I didn’t think it was going to help. I held my breath, counting the seconds. Fuck. We were way too fucking high to survive. I closed my eyes and curled forward, hands over the back of my neck; didn’t have time for much more than that.

Landing hurt, but the pain told me I was alive. Faris took the brunt of the fall, his body absorbing the impact. He went to his knees and I was flipped out of his arms, my back screaming with pain where his arms had been as if they had been iron bars and not bones and flesh. I lay on my belly, breathing hard, grateful I could breathe. Surprised more than anything.

A Harpy claw grabbed me, squeezing me hard, dragging me through the dirt in a hopping motion that made me want to puke. “Stop, Eve, please!”

“No,” she said. The ground behind us exploded. Chunks of dirt flew through the air and a ripple effect hit me like a wave of earth lifting and then lowering me again. Eve did stop, and I rolled to see the female dragon, her body half-buried from the impact of her fall. Right where I’d been.