Silence. And then he pulled away so abruptly that she swayed.
Dani, it will be okay...Ash, still reaching for her.
GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
With a final pulse of anger and pureanguish, Ash went too.
She was alone, and it hurt like hell. Like someone had planted claws deep into her guts, and then pulled them free.
Panting, she curled into herself. Awkward, with the talons and wings, but she finally coiled into a ball, where she lay, shaking. Although the pain didn’t abate, the full-blown panic attack didn’t come.
Gritting her teeth, she sent a tentative mental probe, testing. But they were gone, as though they’d never been. She wanted them gone—so why did it feel as though an essential part of her had been cut away? The hole in her soul ached as though it were torn afresh.
To Dani, it was just the proof she needed to get the hell out of here. To go home, to the streets.
Where she belonged.
With a poof of bright flame, Sparkle materialized within the drawn bedcurtains. Embers drifted down onto the bare mattress.
Dani slapped at the smoldering sheets with her Dragon hands, extinguishing them, but not before they left little burn marks in the fabric. Sparkle chirped at her, and vanished again, this time leaving a little cloud of soot that tickled her long nose and caused Dani to sneeze.
She propped herself upright and reached talons to the cloth.
Fortunately, it was designed to tolerate Gryphon claws. She only slightly dented the fabric as she pulled it open.
There was a figure seated in the shadows against the wall. Dani could see dark eyes dancing at her, and a grin plastered across the wide mouth. As she watched, Jacques finished pushing a message into the cylinder mounted on Sparkle’s chest. He whispered something to the bird, and the Phoenix disappeared.
“Good morning,mademoiselle,”Jacques purred at her as he brushed soot from his lap. “I must say, you almost sounded as though you were having a very good time. If you weren’t quite so spiky, I would have joined you.”
He was dressed in his traditional trench coat, but the fabric was pushed upward in a rather disturbing fashion. If Dani hadn’t been in Dragon form, her skin would have flushed scarlet. She spluttered before she managed, “Whats the hells ares yous doing here?”
“Cara asked me to stay with you. She had some Sabres to heal. I must say, I didn’t expect it to be quite so much fun.”
“Glad tos oblige,” she ground out. Memories pounded at her—were they real?
“Rindek—dids hes die?”
Jacques snorted. “Oh, yeah. You just about ripped off his head.”
She closed her eyes. The monster was dead.
“Rindek is dead. But Demeti got away, back through the gates.” Jacques’s voice revealed the depths of his frustration.
Demeti. Her eyes popped open.
“You’ve taken away his army,” Jacques soothed. “The Dragons and Sabres will search until they find him. And hold him accountable for what he has done.”
She tried to squirm her body around on the bed and then hooked a wing on the bedpost. Definitely time to lose the damned Dragon form. If she had her way, she’d never see it again.
Her gut twisted. She’d just divorced the two best qualified to help her with this endeavor.
Jacques watched her with undisguised interest. Dani pulled her legs back up onto the bed, bumping her wing into the headboard. She reached for the curtain.
“I’m just goings tos change form.”
“I can leave,” the Satyr offered, but she noted he didn’t actually move.
“No!” She spoke more sharply than she’d intended, and he raised a brow. “Nos, it’s okay. Is don’ts mind ifs yous ares there. Just gives me a moment, okay?”
