Galen looked distinctly uncomfortable as he avoided my line of questioning, choosing to focus on Marc instead. The corner of his mouth tipped up. “You can owe me one.”
Marc’s sharp glare caught me, before shifting to Galen. “I owe you nothing.”
Marc stopped in front of an opening in the rock face, a cave from the look of it. Beyond it, a flat, red wasteland stretched out into an endless desert.
He was still glaring at Galen. “Watch yourself,” he said to me as we made our way inside.
The cavern was huge, much bigger than I’d imagined from the outside. It stood at least four stories tall. Quartz crystals pierced the ceiling and littered the floor. The wide entrance narrowed into a long, darkened chamber. Leta stood in the dusky back, shaking despite the heat of the desert.
Her eyes were hollowed and her breath came quick as Marc approached her. She dipped her head, and a curtain of hair fell over her face. “Leave me alone.”
His steps were steady. There was no mistaking the steel in his voice. “I’m here to help you, Leta.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped. “I’m in control,” she practically shouted.
Galen drew close enough to murmur in my ear. “I’ve got you.”
“I hope,” I murmured. This didn’t look good.
He slid a protective hand down my back. I felt it every inch of the way.
Lightning quick, Leta tried to bolt around Marc. She cried out as he caught her by the wrist. “I don’t need you as master over me!” She clawed at his eyes with her one free hand as he dragged her close. He pinned her to the wall and she let out a long and anguished roar. “I’ve had a master long enough!”
Holy hell. She
roared
.
Marc restrained her against the wall, his arms shaking. He had a grip on both of her wrists now. His body lay thigh to thigh, chest to chest against hers. “This is the way it has to be,” he growled. “You’re a danger to everyone, including—oof—yourself.”
“Galen,” I started, my pulse thudding in my ears.
His grip on me tightened.
The cave suddenly seemed very small.
If Leta had started spitting fire, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“You don’t own me!” she shrieked. “You can’t control me! I’ve been controlled half of my life. Tied down. Manipulated. Shackled. I finally have freedom and I’ll be damned if I’ll be tied again.” She head-butted him, snapping his neck back.
His grip tightened. He shoved her up against the wall once, twice. “You’ve already taken a part of me.”
The heart string. I’d seen it in the OR.
She went after him with teeth and claws. He pulled sideways, but he had her roped in too close and her teeth sliced his shoulder.
She whipped her head back, hair tangling in her eyes. “I didn’t ask for that! I didn’t ask you to save my life. Let’s end it. Right now.” Her teeth were bloody, her eyes wild. “Let’s see who wants to live and who wants to die.”
Seven hells. She wasn’t just a wild dragon, she was completely unhinged.
She was an old army weapon, ready to be unleashed. On us.
Marc stiffened and shook as he held her at arm’s length. “You need to get a fucking grip.”
“You haven’t been a dragon in years.” She snarled. “I can smell it on you. Human.” She spat it as if it were a curse.
“Enough!” Marc lowered his head, the air around him shimmering as his body expanded—shoulders, chest, haunches. Silver scales raced down his back and steam hissed from his snout.
Galen drew his sword and yanked me to his side. “Move. Now.” Together we backed up toward the mouth of the cave.
Marc had shifted into an immense silver dragon. He bellowed, the sound pounding off the cave walls.
Fire shot from his snout. Shit on a biscuit. “My ex is a fucking dragon.”
I’d always known he was a dragon. I’d ridden on his back. But I’d never seen this side of him before.
Leta bent over, screaming. The muscles in her back expanded, muscle and sinew and bone refitting. Her skin formed scales, her hands and feet morphed into six-clawed talons that could rip a person apart. Her neck lengthened and her body expanded until she grew to the size of a horse, then larger still. Hard plates formed and re-formed along her underbelly, racing to keep up with her expanding form.
The ground vibrated as she rose up to her full height.
“Holy fuck,” Galen said under his breath.
Leta snarled while I stood rooted to the spot, looking up at a huge, bronze dragon.
Leta bared her teeth. Marc hissed and launched himself straight at her. Holy fuck was right. Leta slid sideways, directly at us as we scrambled to get the hell out of the way of two angry dragons.
Galen and I dashed outside. The full sun made me see spots as we planted ourselves against the cliff face. I gasped for breath, shading my eyes to see as Leta rolled sideways out onto the hot desert plain.
Marc charged after her as she regained her footing, the sun glinting off her scales.
I could hardly believe it. I pounded the rock face with my hand. It hurt like a bitch, but I needed to feel something, know something besides the prophecy echoing through my head:
The healer shall receive a bronze weapon
.
I’d never seen a bronze dragon—complete with a tail, fangs, and honest-to-god bronze spikes running down her back. “Why? Why couldn’t it just be the dagger?”
Galen closed his hand over mine and yanked it back, my blood slickening our skin. “You said you didn’t want it.”
“I lied.”
This was it. Fate was giving me the finger.
An array of needlelike whiskers framed her long, bottle-shaped face. Massive wings unfurled at her back.
With it, the healer shall arrest the gods.
At least I could control the bronze dagger, keep it hidden in my pocket. It was a weapon I could use.
There was no way I’d ever get a handle on Leta.
The dragon chomped at the air, black smoke trailing from her nostrils.
“How the hell am I supposed to control that?” Marc couldn’t even get her to work with him and he
was
a dragon.
Leta growled low in her throat and shot a massive fireball into the air. She beat her wings, struggling to go airborne.
Oh, no, no, no. She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t be seen.
“Where the hell is she going?” I scrambled sideways to avoid the swipe of a tail.
Galen covered me, sword in hand. I wasn’t sure what he planned to do with it. It’s not like he was going to stab her. It would just piss her off.
She let out a bloodcurdling roar and banked straight toward camp.
Marc slammed into her, sending them both flying sideways.
Galen flanked them, dashing around the side of the battle and putting himself on the hill between the dragon and the camp.
“Galen!” It was ridiculous. I started to run after him, then took a bunch of quick steps back. With every reason on God’s green Earth to do so. It was insane. He was human. He couldn’t do anything.
Marc barrel-rolled Leta and I watched in horror as her teeth sank into his side. She shoved off him. He stumbled back and she charged straight for Galen.
He drew a heavy chain from his belt. It expanded in his hands and it had better hold eighteen other kinds of magic too because he was going to need a hell of a lot more than a dragon collar to stop her.
chapter fourteen
Blood pounded in my ears and every instinct I had screamed for Galen to get out of the way.
But he couldn’t. She was heading for camp. We had to stop her or the first thing she’d hit would be the recovery tent.
We couldn’t reason with her.
We couldn’t shoot her.
No, not unless it was a last resort.
He had to collar her.
The chain connected to a black, spiked loop.
If she got past him, it was all over.
Leta saw the collar and completely lost her mind. She reared her head and shot a fireball directly at Galen.
He dodged sideways. I screamed. He somehow missed the fiery blast, his uniform singed. “Alala!” He yelled the Athenian battle cry as he took a running leap at her.
She whipped out her claws and sliced at him.
Holy shit. “Galen!”
He kept going. He grabbed hold of her massive neck. She twisted, trying to bite him, but he was too close to her head. Her spikes tore into his chest and neck. She bucked like a wild horse and flung him off.
Galen rolled sideways. He was bleeding, his flight suit torn.
I’d never felt so helpless in my life. He was nearly killed by the first bronze weapon. What was I saying? He did die. Now he was about to be annihilated by this one. He wouldn’t survive another direct attack.
He was trapped between her and the side of the hill, with nowhere to run as she raised her spiked tail to crush him.
“Here!” I cried, throat parched, voice raw as I rushed the dragon.
Marc tackled me, his silver body trapping me against the ground, as the dragon launched fire at us. The heat of it tore into me, a sickening burst of superheated death.
Marc pulled away and I crawled a few paces before stumbling to my feet. I’d seen burn victims. I knew what would happen. I checked my arms, my legs, my hands. “I’m clean,” I said, shaky, my voice tilting wildly. What the hell?
Or was I so badly burned that I was delirious?
Marc launched himself onto Leta, rolling her back down the hill, nearly taking me with them.
My knees were rubber as I rushed to Galen.
“Go. Now,” he said, dragging me with him. I ran my hands across his chest, up his arms, ecstatic to have him all in one piece. He checked me over as well, which was annoying because I was somehow fine, but he wasn’t.
He’d taken a hit to the shoulder, possibly the chest. I didn’t know how bad.
I gasped for breath as Galen and I stumbled back to the cave, narrowly avoiding Marc as he rolled Leta onto her back.
Claws ripped. Jaws snapped. Marc caught her around the neck and she roared with fury. She shoved him off and he careened straight at us.
We dodged together, Galen’s hand in mine.
“This way!” Galen ordered, as Marc’s thrashing, spiked tail smashed into the ground not two feet in front of me. Dust and debris rained down.
My eyes watered and I choked as I clutched Galen’s hand, running for all I was worth. He shoved me flush against the cliff face and covered my body with his.
“We’re going to die,” I said against his neck. They were going to stomp us, and what was worse, they wouldn’t even notice.
“Not today,” he said, turning to watch the two dragons, locked together, rolling over and over in the sand. At least they were moving away from camp. For the moment.
Marc let out a bellow and forced Leta onto her back. She snapped wildly as he closed his jaws over her neck. She struggled, keening as he locked his mouth over her underscales, drawing blood.
I gasped. “What is he going to do? Kill her?” Marc wasn’t a murderer, but who knew what he’d do in the throes of dragon blood lust.
“No.” Galen’s grip on me tightened. “Watch.”
Leta’s body loosened and the fight drained out of her. She groaned helplessly, bellowing out every so often, as Marc held her steady. Then gently, slowly, he let her go.
They lay still for a moment, before she touched her snout to his and let out a low huff.
He huffed in return, and then gave a half snarl, half purr as she nuzzled his face.
“Oh,” I said, red-faced. They weren’t fighting at all.
Galen pulled back. “Let’s give them their privacy.”
I turned my attention to his shoulder, next to his torn collar. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, his voice throaty, as I stroked my fingers down the uninjured part of his neck.
My heart pounded. “That’s your adrenaline talking.” He was lucky to be alive.
We made our way just inside the cave, away from the dragons and the battlefield.
I went straight for my medical kit. “What kind of a doctor would I be if I let you bleed to death?”
I tried to make light of it, but the truth was, I didn’t know what I’d do if something happened to him. I needed this moment to see for myself that he was all right.
He’d planted his back in a nook of rock just inside the entrance. He was breathing heavily as I found the zipper of his flight suit under the notch of his collar. I lowered it, exposing a gash to his chest, the torn flesh on his upper arm.
“It’s not bad,” he murmured.
“Always the hero,” I said, preparing medicated gauze to clean him.
He let me. The muscles in his throat worked as I touched him, cared for him. It was all I could do at that moment.
Luckily, the wounds appeared shallow. The thick flight suit had absorbed the worst of the trauma.
He’d risked his life for me. Again. And he’d driven Leta away from our friends.
And if he left tomorrow?
At that moment, it didn’t matter that he was leaving, that this war would never end. He was here with me. Alive. Protecting me.
I curled my fingers around the back of his neck and kissed him.
His breath whooshed in surprise before he took me in a searing kiss that made me forget everything but the heat of his lips and the feel of him against me.
We were alive. We’d made it and I was damned if I was going to let this moment pass.
Heat poured through me as I met him full force with lips and teeth and tongue. It was impossible and insane and I needed it more than I needed my next breath.
He dragged me against him and I felt every hard inch of him, primed and ready for me, just like in my fantasies. Only this time, he was real and he needed me just as much as I needed him.
We surged together, grinding, pushing, pulling as if this were all we had. One kiss. And if we stopped, we might never have it again.
His hand shoved down my pants and his fingers found my pulsing hot core. God, I was so wet for him. Needles of pleasure shot up my spine as he slid his callused fingers through my delicate folds. The friction was unbelievable.
We both gasped as he slipped a finger inside me.
I needed him. I needed more. I needed …
I unzipped his flight suit in one fluid motion and opened it up like the best present I’d ever gotten. His chest was sculpted, his abs a work of art. I ran my hand lower. His cock strained, hard, hot, and throbbing. He hissed out a breath as I took it in hand.