Neither of us looked to the meadow as we went out the front. Instead, we focused on the path.
We moved up to a jog, and he synced his strides with my own. I tried to ignore the way my heart ached with every single footfall.
Soon, the forest closed around us. Something huge whizzed by overhead. A Dragon, there and gone in an instant. My pulse quickened, and then slowed. The meadow was still full of Legion Dragons, one must have deviated from the usual path.
Matt looked up through the branches, and his stride hitched.
I ignored the flying Dragon. If Talakai had come back, he clearly hadn’t bothered to look for us. I wanted one that didn’t want me. And another, who was dying.
Matt didn’t offer any platitudes. It was the truth. And there was nothing he could do about it.
Dammit. Didn’t Fate intend for us to be together? My numbness evaporated as the rage rose. And rose. Until it screamed to be let free, winding tighter with every stride. I gritted my teeth, but it only grew worse until my head ached with it, and my body felt as though it would explode.
It terrified me. I was afraid if I let it loose, it would take me along with it.
Matt moved so close that he bumped into me.Angel, you can’t keep that bottled inside you. You have to let it out.His mindvoice was unusually shrill.
My feet staggered to a halt, and I folded my arms around Sebastian’s dying horn. Matt wrapped himself around me, his pulse thudded straight through into my body. I sensed his terror for me, but I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t even help myself.
Let it go!Sebastian is dying. We can’t help him. His horn is turning to dust.
What was he doing? Each word was like a dagger slicing me open, turning my rage and pain loose upon the world.
Then he delivered the death blow.Talakai isn’t coming back.
My hands curled, the fingernails cutting into my skin.
He doesn’t want us...
I tore apart, my psychic scream rippling through the air. The animals scattered in panic. I was dimly aware of Matt’s arms holding me beneath the arching foliage, one hand pulling my head into his shoulder as he shuddered under the power of what I released.
But he didn’t let me go.
Then, with a crash of breaking branches and a tremendous thud, a Dragon landed on the path.
I looked into eyes that gleamed metallic blue. My legs shook so hard I would not have been able to stand if Matt wasn’t holding me up.
“Good choice, mate,” Matt spoke to the Dragon, but his arms tightened around me.
“Gets on,” Talakai growled at us.
My fractured mind struggled to process the fact that he washere. In front of me.Right now.
Matt’s hands moved to my waist, but they trembled too.He came back, Angel. Touch him. He’s real.
I reached for Talakai’s foreleg, eager and desperate to verify that he was really there. The Dragon shuddered when my fingers ran along his scales. He was so warm—so alive. Energy coursed through me, and I wanted to—
“Up you go,” Matt said as he boosted me onto the Dragon’s neck. He pulled himself up behind me and engulfed me in his arms.
No sooner were we seated than Talakai launched for the sky. I was aware of the wind rushing past, of the beat of his enormous wings, but only peripherally. Because my hands weren’t holding his spikes—they were resting upon the warm scales of his neck.
Ifelthim. His life essence surging beneath us. And the thing inside me hungered for it, unlike any that I had experienced before now. Much worse than a starving person craved food. This was a thing of thesoul.
He had to sense it—when my beast surged, and I almost couldn’t beat it back, his wings hesitated.
Easy, Angel.Matt’s arms tightened around me.Give him a bit of time.
I swallowed, my fingers curling against the indigo-scaled neck.Is he talking to you?
