The uncertainty flittered across his features, before they hardened. “I don’t believe what they say you did. And that guy was sick as they came. Weak.” His eyes gleamed. “I’m not.”
“Just try me,” I stated with a snarl of my own.
Beside me, Trix whimpered. A deeper version came from Matt.
Darius tilted his head and inhaled hard, then assessed me with narrowed eyes. “Think I’ll take my chances.”
Something boomed from above, and the trees trembled, just as, with a crashing thump and a cascade of broken branches, a Dragon dropped onto the path.
An effinggiantDragon. He barely fit, having to hold his wings aloft and bend them awkwardly backward to squeeze between the trunks lining the path.
The appearance of a forty-foot scaled and taloned beast definitely threw Darius off his game. It also did a number on me. It was, after all, my first Dragon.
Poor Trix completely lost it. She yanked the leash out of my hand and tried to bolt. Released from Darius’s power, Matt moved like lightning, pinning her to the ground. He rumbled at her, and she stopped struggling. Just lay there, panting.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the enormous beast before us. He was terrifying. And—magnificent. His scales glimmered indigo in the dappled sunlight, and his eyes gleamed a vivid blue.
He glared down at Darius. “Outs fors a runs, alpha?” His voice would have done James Earl Jones proud, so deep I swore the ground trembled with it.
The question seemed innocent, but the menace radiating off the giant beast was not. Darius stood his ground, but I noticed his body wasn’t nearly as keen to see the Dragon as it had been me.
Rather deflating, having a Dragon drop in on you.
Aaron’s loyalty to his alpha was sorely tested—he’d backed toward the forest, his fur standing on end. The sight seemed to bolster Darius’s determination. He straightened, and his alpha power blasted out over the Dragon. “None of your damned business, Dragon.”
The enormous beast didn’t even flinch. He tilted his long head to regard the alpha with a metallic eye. “It is mys business ifs yous threatens a teammate,” he hissed.
Teammate? Right. This was ourteam.
The gods help us all.
Amadeus’s predictions rippled through me, and I finally tore my eyes away from the Dragon and looked toward Darius. I had little doubt as to who would be blamed if our team failed before it had even begun. And it wouldn’t be the academy’s major donor.
I teetered for a moment, so angry I couldn’t breathe. But then I focused on what was most important. “In the interest of our future together as a team, I will state for the record that there will be no extension of personal privileges to you, Darius. Or you, Aaron. We need to learn how to work together as a team, but that line is firm.”
Darius’s eyes now permanently glowed with his beast. His canines had grown long and sharp. But he’d been outgunned by the Dragon’s arrival, and we both knew it.
When he wasn’t immediately eaten, Aaron regained some of his cockiness. “You’ll change yoour mind. Oone taste, and yoou’ll want to be oour bitch.”
I gritted my teeth. “No. I won’t.”
The beta opened his mouth to add something, but Darius shot him a look and he closed it again. To me, the alpha said, “See you around, Babydoll.”
As his face started to lengthen, I snapped, “Not if I see you first.”
But he ignored me, turning away as he dropped to all fours. Within moments, he and Aaron had vanished into the trees.
Matt stood with Trix in his arms. As a human. And every bit as naked as Darius had been.
Very different thing, him being naked. He was so damned gorgeous. Every ridge and contour clearly displayed. My knees, already shaky, actually threatened to give way, and my damned breathing hitched. Before I could stop them, my eyes dropped. I yanked them back up, but my face heated.
The Matt of yesterday would have laughed. But this Aussie wouldn’t even meet my eyes as he handed Trix over to me. “Your poor dog. She’s brave, but the Dragon did her in.”
His voice was hoarse and the words devoid of the usual Aussie slang embellishments. Trix shook all over, and I took a moment to quiet her, while shoving my overactive libido back into the box in my mind. When I next looked up, the Dragon had backed away a few paces and seemed locked in a staring contest with Matt. As though they were having a silent exchange of views.
About me? My eyes narrowed as I looked from Matt to the Dragon.
“Thanks, mate,” the Aussie Dire finally said, but he had a grudging note in his voice.
