With a tremendous flap of his wings and a scattering ofbright feathered bodies, he launched into the sky. The dark dragon that was Rhodes joined him, and they ascended into the clouds.
My heart constricted as they vanished. I told myself that nothing mattered but their mission, but it didn’t do any good. My heart and my head were not presenting a unified front.
Xandros spun as my feet hit the ground, and I staggered to a halt. Because the look he fastened upon me was narrowed in anger.
I’d seen the human version of that look focused on the Taziers, and on Kurt, but I’d never experienced it myself. It wasn’t the mesmerizing thing, it was anger, raw and primal. In his dragon version, it was particularly impressive. The spikes bristled out from around his head and down his spine like the hackles of a giant dog, and his eyes glowed a vivid blue as his lip curled to reveal a very long canine.
This time he was more terrifying than magnificent, and it froze me from hairline to toes.
I swallowed and ducked the sharp beak of a lizard bird, before I raised the pack. “I’ve brought cutters.”
He exhaled steam into the damp evening air. “I do not require your assistance.”
His dragon voice was even deeper than his human one, and, although the words were in English, you could really appreciate how Drakonian had developed. Every consonant dropping from his dragon jaws rumbled, and the vowels rolled.
I pulled myself up straight. “It will be faster if you lift and I cut. We have to have theStardrifterready for when they return.”
The spikes around his head flattened, and then rose again, and he swatted at a bird. “Ifthey return.”
“They will succeed.” I forced the words past a throat gone very tight. They were his brothers, and he was worried about them. I didn’t want to admit how concerned I was, too. “How far away is this abandoned place?”
The look he gave me could have melted rock. “Miles,” he growled. “I will have to carry you.”
He made it sound as if he’d rather pull his talons out with his teeth. I tried to placate him. “If we didn’t need to get the metal, you could have gone with them,” I said.
His nostrils flared and his glare, if anything, got worse instead of better. “Just get on,” he growled.
His anger seemed directed at me rather than the situation. Was it because of what had happened with Zyair? Resentment flooded through me. I’d entered that situation with no idea at all of what might happen. My heart twisted as I remembered Zyair’s expression, but what had happened between us had all been based on a misunderstanding. None of this was my fault, dammit.
The assertion gave me the strength to march up to him. “Where do I sit?”
He was so huge he could snap me up with one bite. The thought of riding a flying dragon scared the bejeebers out of me, but I would be damned if I was going to back away now. This was my piece of getting us out of here, and I would see it through. It was far less dangerous than what Zyair and Rhodes were doing.
At least, it should be. Staring into the dragon’s glowering sapphire gaze, I suddenly wasn’t so sure. But then he lowered his head to the ground at my feet.
“Get on,” he repeated.
I secured the pack between my shoulders, grabbed onto a spike that was bigger around than my arm, and scrambled up behind those that radiated around his massive head. Flowing among them, I found thick, red hair—Xandros’s humanoid hair, still there in his dragon form. And his metal earcuffs gleamed from his dragon ears, although they looked ridiculously tiny.
There was a gap in the spikes right behind his head. I pushed my butt against the ones that began along the midline of his neck, and it gave me a backrest despite the bumpy pack.
His head rose. I grabbed hold of his hair—and then let it go again.
“Hold onto it,” he rumbled, sounding a little less pissedoff.
“Won’t it pull?” I asked.
“It is good,” he answered, and I felt the muscles tighten beneath me. “Hold on tight.”
It was the only warning he gave as he launched into the sky. For an instant, all I saw was a swirl of yellow as we passed straight through the angry flock. I yelped and sank my fingers deep into his hair, holding on for all I was worth as the ground dropped away from us.
The birds gave up once we were clear of the trees. I could feel every beat of his wings through the muscles of his neck. The hood on my cloak blew back, but the wool hat clung to my head. The drizzle ran over my face and down between my breasts, making me shiver. But his scales weren’t cold, they were warm between my legs. And not rough, but surprisingly soft to the touch.
To my shock, I didn’t feel vulnerable at all. Xandros might be angry at me, but I just knew, deep down where it mattered, that the giant Drake who cooed at a hedgegopher wouldn’t let me fall. As we rose above the trees, and the wind whipped my hair back from my face—I found myself grinning.
It was a bit bewildering, considering everything we had stacked against us, but there it was—a big, silly smile on my face as I blinked the rain from my eyes and the forest passed beneath us with ever-increasing speed.
This wasglorious. I’d always loved to fly, but no plane or ship could compare to this sense of complete freedom. When Xandros banked, I leaned into the turn, my legs gripping, but not in a panicked manner. I wanted to spread my own arms and fly with him, instead of on him.
