“Those baby Sabres are worth a fortune on the black market,” Cara said. “I believed that being on council turf would be enough to protect them.”
Sebastian was quick to defend her. “Greed isn’t easy to understand. Not for our people.”
“No.” Cara straightened. “Our issues revolve more around power.”
Sebastian stiffened before his gaze moved back to me. “I will make sure the Talakai question gets put to them. But you may not like the answers. Because the Dragon be, in fact, gone.”
My face must have reflected my reaction. “Okay, that’s enough,” Matt said, putting his arm around my shoulders to pull me past Sebastian. “It’s time to fly.”
I sensed the Bellati’s eyes on us as we walked away, and Cara murmured something to him. After that kiss in the alley, there was no chance of keeping what lay between Matt and me a secret.
I figured my chances of staying in the Shades program were pretty shaky anyway.
But Sebastian and I had shared something powerful as well. Something I didn’t entirely understand. And I had no idea what it meant.
Tyrez turned his enormous head toward us as we approached, and his metallic turquoise eyes gleamed. Kitani was already mounted just ahead of where his neck met his shoulders, with the twins held firmly against her body. Cody sat behind her, with his arms wrapped around her waist.
I eyed the space behind them and wondered how many passengers a Dragon could carry.
Tyrez crouched and offered a foreleg for us to use as a mounting block. It was as big around as me.
I was about toride a Dragon. For real, not in a dream. Or while out cold.
The concept barely penetrated my current state of unreality. Matt shifted his grip to beneath my arm and helped boost me from the foreleg to a seat astride the muscular neck behind Cody. I nestled between the spikes along the spine. Then the Dire pulled himself up behind me, and offered a hand down to Cara, who was, apparently, coming back with us.
She waved away his hand and pulled herself neatly up in front of Kitani, twisting to take one of the twins from her.
“Alls aboards?” inquired Tyrez. I grabbed the spikes in front of me. His long head tilted back toward us. “Keeps all hands inside the aircrafts.”
Cody snorted a laugh. “Like you’ve ever flown on an aircraft. Just point your lizard nose and go.”
The banter did undo a bit of the knot within me, which was likely the entire point.
“Holds ons,” the Dragon warned, and spread his wings.
Then he vaulted into the sky.
My numb state vanished in that instant. Every beat of his enormous wings was reflected in the muscles beneath me. I clung to the spikes in front as I was thrust against the ones behind.
It was nothing like my dream. Then, I’d felt a part of every flap of Talakai’s wings. Now, I was very much a passenger clinging to Tyrez’s neck spikes.
Strong arms wrapped around me, and Matt pushed his face forward until he spoke right into my ear.
“Blimey, it’s great,” he said, the wind whipping the words away.
Great wasn’t the word for it. The hotel roof fell rapidly away below, and then behind us. I gulped and kept my eyes focused on Cody’s broad back, grateful that he’d also managed to find a cloak to cover himself. There was only so much gorgeous nakedness that a woman could be expected to handle. The fact that the cloak had blown back off Matt’s muscular thighs was already giving me heart palpitations.
I leaned back into his solid warmth. What was left of my ponytail was blown to bits—my hair must be all but blinding him as it whipped in the wind. But as the Dragon leveled off, I got brave enough to once again look down.
And I saw the river.
It writhed in the early morning light, and my mouth fell open. Sebastian and I had swum that? It was well over its banks, swirling through forest with such rapidity that the water foamed in places.
I wasn’t the only one thinking it. “I can’t believe you swam that,” Matt said into my ear, and his arms tightened around me. “I was bloody pushin’ the panic button when I spotted that gnarly river on the way over.”
I closed my mouth before anything could get sucked in. “It wasn’t fun,” I stated. But looking at it now, I realized he must have wondered if we’d made it across. It had been a closer call than either I, or the Bellati, were likely to ever admit.
I turned my head toward his. “Sebastian was amazing. He got us through.”
