It was no ordinary kiss. Everything I’d gathered from himself, and me, I fed into him. With his body still pulsing deep inside me, his eyes flew open in shock.
I released his lips and sat back on him. He offered me his heart-stopping, lopsided grin.
“Blimey, Angel. That was a dynamite root.” He sounded rather breathless.
My brow arched. “That better be a compliment.”
Our eyes locked, and his gleamed at me.
“You bleeding bit me,” I accused in my best Aussie imitation.
He grinned. “Yeah. It’s a Dire thing. I’m not bloody sorry either.”
I frowned down at him. My shoulder ached, but there was no blood. Only scars where his teeth had penetrated. My dream self healed well.
The surrounding air was torn asunder as something screamed, and my entire body flinched.
It was more a shriek, starting deep like a roar and rising to an ear-splitting, high-pitched sound. Filled with anger and agony, and it was very, very close.
Matt’s big hands closed on my hips, and in one smooth move, he pulled me off him and rose to his feet, staring up into the sky.
I caught a glimpse of something huge and lethal diving straight down at him...
I shot upright in bed with my heart threatening to leap clear out of my chest. The sheets were twisted around me, evidence that I’d been thrashing around—I shot a look over to Mari, but she snored on, oblivious.
I thanked whatever powers there may be. Because judging by the way Trix lay at the foot of the bed, shooting me disapproving looks, I’d been rather active while dreaming.
But that shriek echoed through my mind. A Dragon, I was sure of it. I didn’t dare apply a name to it.
You must find your Dragon,Ash had said. I had no idea just how to do that.
And I may have killed the only man that could have helped me.
12
Sebastian
I be glaring through the bars at the underworld Dragon.
He be far less impressed than he should have been. I be, after all, a Bellati.
But then, he knew we needed him alive. I be almost too tired to care. At this point, slicing and dicing him would have provided me a great deal of satisfaction. I told myself that it be because he deserved it, and not because I be feeling any recrimination for not booting Talakai out of the academy once we’d discovered he be Guild.
At least it didn’t seem like the Dragon had acted alone. This underworld Dragona had been the driving force behind it all.
“Our Reader will be here within the hour,” the deep voice rumbled from beside me. So similar to Tyrez, in both voice and in the rugged features, there be little doubt that he and Razir be brothers.
“You do not have to stay,” the big Dragon continued. “I will send word as soon as we get something. And it might take time.”
“Aye,” I agreed. Dragons be very resistant to interrogation—both the physical and the telepathic practiced by Readers. It would take time to get the information we be looking for.
But I had a question I wanted to ask in person. I had my own methods of interrogation.
“Let me in,” I ordered Razir.
His dark brows twitched. “The Reader will need his mind intact,” he reminded me. “And you don’t need more scars.” His metallic eyes traced the fresh one running through one of my eyebrows.
I had many new ones, courtesy of these underworld Dragons. Their talons be the only thing capable of scarring my skin. Everything else I could heal without a mark.
