Horror mixed with rage. “Anna. Whats hass happened?”
She pulled herself up straight. “N-nothing. I just went for a run.”
But the breeze carried her scent to me, and my nostrils flared. I smelled Dire—Matt—all over her.
All over.And powerful—I trembled. The scent was distinctive. Familiar. I was male, too.
I hissed. It was an involuntary sound, but her eyes widened.
“Whats hass he dones?” I rumbled.
“Nothing. We were—” she broke off, then, “It wasn’t his fault.”
Rage consumed me. As I launched into the sky, she called after me—I caught the words, “It was me,” but it changed nothing.
I knew the other Dires were an issue. And the sharding alpha. But I’d considered her safe with Matt, even though the thought of him being with her ate at me.
How could my instincts have been so false?
Five wingbeats along the trail, I saw him. Moving slowly as he pushed his way through the bush.
Was he regretting his choices? It didn’t matter. I’d make him regret them. But I couldn’t land in this stuff, not as a Dragon. I embraced the change above the treetops, altering my body to human while retaining my wings until the last moment.
Matt stood frozen as I peeled them backward over me and dropped like a stone to the trail below.
I had him by the throat in an instant, pinned against a trunk with my finger-talons poised over his jugulars.
“You will die for what you have done,” I snarled.
“What?” his eyes glimmered with his beast, but his confusion seemed genuine. “Get your bleedin’ mitts off me.”
“WAIT!” A shout, as Anna crashed through the bushes toward us. “Talakai, he didn’t do anything!”
I snarled again, not taking my gaze off the Dire. He was curiously unresponsive to my fingers around his throat. I would have expected more of a protest. But although his eyes blazed at me, his fingers clutching my arms didn’t sprout claws. And his life essence was so weak, it barely glimmered.
But the smell of her, all over him, had my talons piercing the flesh. Blood ran down his neck.
His rejoinder almost completed his apparent suicide mission. “You know how to hurt a bloke, Angel. I most definitely didn’t donothing.”
I almost roared at him.
Anna grabbed my arm. “Matt, shut up. Talakai, let him go. What we did—I wanted it. Matt did nothing wrong.”
That finally penetrated. She’d wanted it?
“Then why,” I growled through gritted teeth, “were you crying?”
Matt went rigid, and he twisted to stare at Anna, ignoring the way the movement caused my talons to sink deeper into his neck.
“Strewth, Angel, it’s okay.” The concern in his voice... I loosened my grip, just a little, so he could speak without bleeding.
“We wanted to trigger your power, and we did,” Matt continued. “There’s no shame in that.”
Something was going on that I didn’t understand, but it wasn’t what I’d assumed. I released the Dire shifter and stepped back. I hadn’t been wrong about his energy—he slumped against the tree as though it were holding him erect.
Anna’s face twisted as her glance darted between us. “All we determined is that I am a monster.”
My eyebrows climbed, and I looked from her to Matt.
