“If Fate has brought us together,” I hissed, “then she has also chosen us to die.”
Matt snorted a laugh. “I always did think she had a wicked sense of bleeding humor,” he agreed.
I stared at him, and he tweaked a brow at me. As if he wasn’t hanging there, dripping blood, bound in chains in the fortress of a ruthless Dragona underlord who would strip his soul bare, shred it, and feed it to him in pieces.
He examined the wings stretched out above me from the wicked grapples, tracing the dried blood across them, and down to the talon marks running all over my body.
“So, mate,” he said slowly. “How many stonking times do we get fed in this dodgy joint? I could eat a bloody Unicorn.”
I stared at him. Then it bubbled up, unbidden, from somewhere deep, where a tiny part of who I’d been still resided.
And to my utter shock, I laughed.
1
Anna
Riding Cara’s beast form was different from riding Sebastian’s. And not just because my body wasn’t interested in rubbing one off on her spine.
With Sebastian, I had sensed a flow of energy between us, erratic but powerful. No such thing existed between Cara and me. Her calm energy surrounded me, but it did not push through my own. Perhaps because it was not invited? I’d have to ask her to know.
There was also the little issue of staying on. Sebastian had animated his mane to hold me in place. Cara either didn’t think of it, or couldn’t achieve it. So I had both hands wrapped in her thick mane as she pelted along the road into town.
Sebastian had healed my wounds and given me a boost of energy. I needed every bit of it just to stay on.
Sebastian.He was gone, captured by Galeran’s followers. Being carted off to who knew where. And Matt and Talakai, now both in the hands of a ruthless Dragona underlord.
Every one of Cara’s strides was like a knife in my heart, carrying me farther away from my guys.
My futuremates.
I had no doubts, not anymore. I was fated to belong to all three of them. Or rather, they belonged to me.
And no one, not the fucking Dragona underlord, or the crazy Bellati Galeran, was going to take them away from me.
My rage did not offer me any solutions—how was I going to get them back? Only the fact that I needed help had enticed me onto the back of Cara’s beast—to be carted away from the men I loved.
I leaned forward over her neck and spoke to the ears pointed back at me. “Jacques is okay?”
My guilt ate at me. I’d almost gotten him killed by rushing in after Talakai.
Cara snorted. “He is fine.”
My body quivered with the desire to jump off—to get back to Xumi’s stronghold. “Are you sure we can’t get enough help to go after them?”
“Xumi’s fortreesses, are weell protected,” she repeated patiently, her beast-form speech broken as she drew breath. “We neeed a strike force, and a plan. Both take time.”
It did little to ease my aching heart as Cara’s long legs carried us into the City of Mierva. It was the middle of the night, and the few people still on the streets stopped and stared as we flashed past. Nothing ran like a Unicorn—to them, we must have been a silver blur.
I pushed my energy along the link, and Matt answered.
Be careful how often you talk to me, Angel,he said.Xumi might be able to detect what I’m doing.
Have you seen her yet?
Nope. The place is bustling, though. Dragon says she’s getting ready to move us.
Panic pulsed through me, and I leaned forward on Cara’s neck. “Matt says Xumi is getting ready to move them.”
