A Dire sprang for my wings, claws sinking deep—
Suddenly, thunder rolled from the skies above, and a blur of metal flashed through the air, slicing the Dire’s head clean off. The face that emerged through the darkness was hardly human, it had long jaws and dark scales chasing over its skin. But recognition hit me. Marcus, swinging that long sword like it was an extension of his arm. He moved so fast that the metal was barely visible.
A Dire leaped at him from behind, and he somehow reversed the grip, extending the blade behind him. The Dire ran straight onto it, uttered a strangled gasp, and Marcus used both hands on the pommel to rip the sword up and sideways, gutting the beast.
Then a burst of fire shot past me to hit a human form charging at us, yelling as he swung a battleaxe. It blasted him back ten feet, and he began to scream, thrash, and beat at the flames.
Frantic, I grabbed for Fang, and this time she jumped onto my scaled foreleg and scampered back up to her secure perch. Just as Vali arrived with a crash of breaking branches. The yellow-scaled Dragona dropped from above to land on yet another hapless Dire, who she shredded with her talons.
As the next wave of pain drove me to my knees, Marcus flashed by. He fought like a demon, swinging that sword with lethal fury as the lightning ricocheted across the night sky.
When a bolt hit the tree alongside him, it was the final straw. My assailants retreated into the forest, leaving the bodies of their comrades behind.
I tried to straighten, but the agony was all-consuming. The energy from the deaths should have cleared any drug out of my system, but I seemed to be getting worse, not better.
Marcus stood among the trees with his blood-covered sword, looking down at a shredded human body. He poked at it with the tip, then looked at me. His face writhed as his human reasserted itself.
I attempted to straighten. “Whats the fucking hell are yous doing outs here?”
“Dires came into the restaurant,” he said. “They were clearly hunting, so I got worried.”
“I didn’t needs your helps.” A fresh spasm drove the breath clear from me.
He raised a brow. “Yeah, you look like you could only tackle a Fairy. Maybe. What the frek did they do to you?”
“I don’ts knows,” I gasped. “Theys shots me with darts. Buts this isn’t likes any drug I’ve evers experienced before.”
He bent over the dead human form, pulled off the cloak, and peered at the tattoos on the skin. I’d seen some of them before—
Ice traveled down my spine, and I beat him to it. “Mercs.”
“Why would mercs be after us?” he asked.
“No ideas,” I gasped. The pain in my gut was all consuming, but my brain sifted the facts and came up with one conclusion.
His eyes met mine.
“Isobel,” I snarled.
“But how would Isobel know where we are?” Kiko appeared out of the shadows.
“I don’ts know,” I husked, clutching my stomach. “Buts theres were Dragons, befores the Dires appeared.”
Marcus bent and picked up the merc’s dart gun. “If these are Isobel’s mercs, then what? They tried to drug you?”
My mind raced. Because I knew Isobel had something else in her arsenal. “Nots a drug. Its the damned parasites.”
“But—that kills Dragons,” Vali whispered.
Yep, that felt like what they were trying to do, all right. They were chewing through me, and my body was healing in their path. It was a race to see which would win.
“But Isobel isn’t here,” Kiko protested. “So maybe it wasn’t her.”
“She’s not dumb,” Marcus snarled. “She sent them to slow us down while she goes after Rafael.”
And Riley was in the way. I gritted my teeth against the pain and answered Marcus’s question before he could ask it. “She’s ins no shapes to Jump.”
“Fucking hell.” What I read in Marcus’s eyes reflected the panic in my own.
