His gaze dropped back to me. “Yes.”
I cleared my throat. “If I walk away from Zyair, will he find another?”
His eyes flared an even more brilliant sapphire. “No. There is only one.”
I felt as though something was ripping apart inside of me. This couldn’t be happening. When I’d told Zyair that Yani and I needed to be set free, he hadn’t said one word about me being his one and only.
“He could have told me this.”
“He should have,” Xandros agreed.
The wind punctuated his comment with a howl, and with a shriek, a section of the roof tore away.
I rose and nervously scanned it as a scattering of rain drifted across my skin. The fire hissed as the drops hit the hot wood. “How long ago was this place abandoned?”
“Years,” Xandros stated. He stood and walked with me toward the entrance, staring up at the roof as we went.
“So, it has withstood the storms for that long.” It was a statement, not a question. What were the chances that it would give way during our brief stay here? But the wind gusted again, and another section rattled ominously.
Then images pummeled my brain. Of trees? Flying through the air? That made no sense…
“Something’s coming.” I spun to face the far wall.
Xandros went very tense. Then heripped off his cloak and moved up beside me. For just an instant, he stood there with the firelight dancing over his naked skin. It brought every bit of ink he possessed to vivid life.
I think my jaw hit the ground, but then I heard it too. Snapping and cracking, as if a giant were pelting toward us, crushing the forest as it came.
With a tremendous crash, several trees burst through the far wall and of the warehouse.
All I saw was a wave of thrashing branches heading straight for us…
16
Jaz
Xandros flung his still transforming body over mine, and I clung to him. Powerful arms scooped me against a chest that had sprouted scales. The wind screamed and all I could hear was splintering wood and the sound of the building ripping apart around us.
He grunted as debris slammed into him. All of a sudden, something huge hit him hard, carrying us sideways. Holding me with one arm, Xandros sank his talons into the floor. They dragged along, tearing parallel rents in the concrete.
Then, as quickly as the violent wind was on us, it was gone. Still gusting though, the rain drove hard, but Xandros’s dragon easily held against it. His wings were mantled over us, shielding me from the settling debris.
“What was that?” I gasped.
“Tornado,” he replied.
I squirmed. “Put me down.”
He set me on my feet, and I blinked in astonishment—the warehouse was mostly gone, only the corner where our fire had been was still standing, along with a bit of the roof overhead. We stood on the crumbling concrete floor, surrounded by debris scattered everywhere Ilooked-—shattered trees and branches, bits of wall and metal, and odd pieces of crate. I spotted our salvaged wing thrown up against an uprooted tree—with the cut sections a small distance away. At least they had survived.
Amazingly, as I squinted into the rain, I saw that the storage building that the pack lived in still stood. The tornado had torn us apart, and left that alone.
A crackling sounded above the wind—I turned to see a flame showing. For a panicked moment, I thought lightning had started a fire—but I realized it was the one we’d built. Sheltered in the concrete walled corner, it had withstood the wind and rain. An evergreen branch had fallen into it, and now the needles were aflame.
Xandros exhaled, and I heard his breath hitch. I turned to look at him, the first tickle of worry niggling at me. “Are you all right?”
“I will be fine.”
That wasn’t the right answer. His beast was enormous and powerful, a darker shadow amid other dark shadows, and the driving rain dripped off him—but something darker dripped onto the ground. It looked black, but I was pretty sure it was blood.
