Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“I know.” I study the healing cut along his arm, then lift his hand and kiss the center of his palm. “Which is why you’re going with Garrick. He carries serum, too.”
“All right.” He grips my waist. “I mean it when I say you own my soul. You’re the only place I feel completely like me anymore. You’re not a trigger,” he repeats, then steals another kiss and walks away. “See you tonight.”
“Tonight,” I call after him. “I love you.”
Warmth floods the bond in reply.
The teams launch, and Tairn stomps down the beach toward me with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t start with me.” I shake my head as Aotrom barrels past Tairn out to where the water covers his ankles, sprinting with his wings tucked tight. “She’ll be back tonight.”
“I’ll say the same when you’ve been unable to communicate with your mate for weeks and are then deprived by choice,” he grumbles, stalking into the woods. Swaying trees mark his passing.
“Humans don’t mate!” I call after him.
“Another sign of your inferiority.” Wood cracks in the distance.
“Curmudgeon,” I mutter, walking toward Ridoc standing at the edge of the water, where the waves don’t quite reach his boots.
“I heard that.”
Aotrom skids to a halt ten feet from Ridoc, driving his snout into the shallows and creating a wave that rushes up the beach and over Ridoc’s shins.
“Why are you such a dick?” Ridoc flings his arms out sideways. “I brought one pair of boots—”
I halt in front of where Andarna sleeps along the tree line. Like hell am I getting near the water. Not when Xaden already wrapped my ribs today.
Aotrom lifts his head, then sprays water through his teeth, completely soaking Ridoc from the tips of his hair to the toes of his boots.
Yikes. I cross my feet and sit, resting my back against Andarna’s shoulder.
“Not fair!” Ridoc wipes the drops from his eyes as Aotrom walks from the water up the beach and disappears into the woods. “I’m still winning. That doesn’t count!” he calls after his dragon. A pause, and he yells, “Because we’re on a mission!”
He shakes his head and slogs toward me, his boots squishing with every step.
“Do I even want to know?”
“He’s getting me back because I won the last round.” He flashes a grin. “I bought enough itching powder to fill a bucket, then dropped it between his scales on the back of his neck right after flight maneuvers a few weeks ago. He had to submerge his entire body in the river to avoid everyone in the Vale knowing I’d gotten the best of him.”
“You guys are weird.” I am suddenly very content with having bonded a grumpy old man, though I can’t say what Andarna will be like in twenty years.
“Are we?” Ridoc tugs at the laces of his boots. “Or are the rest of you the weird ones?” He shrugs, yanking off his boots and setting them in the sand in front of Andarna. “Hopefully they dry out a little before we need to go. I’m going to get some fresh clothes on.” He heads toward camp, then grabs his pack and walks into the woods.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I whisper to my sleeping dragon, laying my head back against her sun-warmed scales and closing my eyes.
The ground shudders.
“I swear to Amari, Tairn, if you spray me down with water—” The ground shudders again and again, and my eyes fly open.
Sand jumps. Water sprays. And in front of us lie fresh dragon tracks.
But neither Tairn nor Aotrom is here.
Apprehension climbs my spine and I rise slowly, favoring my ribs. I draw a dagger with my left hand, then turn my right palm skyward and open myself to Tairn’s power. It seeps into my veins and hums along my skin as I sidestep around Andarna’s shoulder to position myself in front of her neck, where she’s most vulnerable.
Heat gusts against my face, and the scent of sulfur permeates the air.
“Tairn?” I swing my gaze along the beach, but there’s nothing there, just the shimmer of the morning sun on the waves.
“I am busy with curmudgeonly things.”
The sand ten feet in front of me moves, forming a series of furrows like the beach is splitting.
Like talons are flexing.
“TAIRN!” My heart jumps to a gallop as the air before me shimmers, then solidifies into gleaming sky-blue scales between two enormous nostrils.
“Hold fast!” Tairn demands. “I’m coming!”
The dragon before me inhales, then draws back, giving me a full view of pointed teeth before they tilt their head and narrow their golden eyes. Andarna rustles from her sleep, and motion at the edges of my vision makes me glance in both directions—then stare.
Six dragons of varying scale tones fill the beach, and all of them rival the size of Sgaeyl. Their massive claws dig into the sand as they lower their heads one by one.