The girl was out of her godforsaken mind.
“Get inside!” Connor yelled at Nik and the remaining Maori.
Nik fled toward the door, but a gargantuan double-column of gray-scaled legs slammed down within the clearing, blocking his escape.
He froze, dimly aware that the remaining humans had stopped running as well. Something whispered within him, keeping him calm, but also still and posed like a doll.
Heart thumping against his ribs, Nik’s gaze rose over a rounded, gray belly and up to a mouth of teeth dripping with clear goo. The dragon’s wings still fluttered in the air, massive gray sails reaching across the clearing and nearly sweeping the trees on either side. The eyes, yellow and veined, flickered in the torchlight and bore through his soul.
Every instinct in his body shouted to run, to save himself, but no human in the clearing moved.
The beast’s gaze drew to Connor, and the weight of a million planets left Nik’s frame. Free from whatever had held all of them, Elaina took two steps toward the cave before being stopped by her father. The veterinarian’s gaze caught each of them, and he widened his eyes, warning them not to move.
Of course. If they ran to the mountain, they would give away the hidden cavern, and everyone inside.
Many of their faces twisted. A few lips quivered. A man prayed. It was the most any of them could do.
“Hello, Gale.” Connor folded his arms and looked up. He feigned boredom well. “Are you lost? I can’t believe you’d risk flying so far from the mountain this close to dawn.”
The dragon arched his back and shrank. The torches flickered over his ashen hide as it faded to a light, peachy complexion that paled next to Connor’s dark, Caribbean tone.
Naked except a hairy chest, back, and legs, looking no less the predator as he had in the shape of a dragon, Gale advanced on Connor. A red, scabbed nub held the place where his right index finger should be.
Takata had shown them the talon they’d pulled from their brother’s corpse. If that claw belonged to Gale, the monstrous gray had made the killing blow himself. If Nik remembered his Draconic history well enough, that was a big no-no in the Seventeen Year.
Gale scanned the area. “Where is the runt?”
Connor widened his eyes, somehow managing not to look at the cave. “You mean you haven’t found him, yet? By now I thought you’d have ripped the girl out of his corpse’s arms and secured your crown.” Connor drew a Maori woman to him and whispered into her ear. “I, on the other hand, have been enjoying all the outside world has to offer.” He kissed her neck and fondled her breasts. The woman clung to him, but her horror-filled eyes never left the gray.
Gale narrowed his gaze. “You can’t mate with that one, idiot. She can’t bare your child.”
Connor laughed. “It’s not all about procreation. It’s about the pleasure. You grays need to stop and enjoy the sensations these simple creatures can give you.”
Gale sneered. “That is why the greens are always below us. You are misguided by base needs that lead you nowhere.”
“That is where we differ. There is nowhere I’d rather be, than between a willing set of thighs.” He kissed the girl deeply.
Gale growled. “This hunt has never been about pleasure.”
Connor released the kiss. “I am aware of that, but if you thought for a single instant that I was your competition, I’d be dead already. So who is the wiser, the dragons bleeding out on the hillside, or the one listening to the moans of the woman he thrusts himself into?”
Gale angled a brow. “Fair enough. You’ve never been a problem, but you do have a well-known friendship with a small dragon that has recently caused me a considerable amount of irritation.”
Connor shrugged. “What of it? I’m not the one standing in your way.” Sniffing the woman’s hair, he slipped his hand in her pants.
“So I see,” Gale said. “But just in case.” He reached his arm back as if to hit Connor, and shifted into dragon form with blurring speed.
Connor pushed the woman to safety, ruining the seconds he had to shift and defend himself. She hit the ground at the same moment the gray dragon’s talon met flesh.
Nik cried out as Connor’s blood-soaked body fell. He took two steps then froze as Gale turned on him and the rest of the Maori. The dragon howled and spouted a beam of fire into the air, curling the outer leaves of the surrounding trees. Nik turned from the scorching heat, but he knew he was at the beast’s mercy.
Elaina and Tyler gathered the people into a huddled mass and waited for the flames to engulf them.
Instead, the dragon roared and took two booming steps toward the helpless Maori. The group scattered as the beast jabbed a claw into their midst. A scream echoed through the pre-dawn light. Nik stood, helpless, as Gale hoisted a thrashing blonde girl into the air.
“Elaina!” Tyler cried, reaching for his daughter.
The dragon garbled something in Draconic before he flapped his wings, extinguishing several torches as he took back to the air.
Nik shuddered in disbelief, even as the roar of the dragon told him the creature had left them far behind.
Tyler fell to his knees, his arms reaching toward the sky as if he could magically will his daughter’s return. There was nothing he could do, though. There was nothing any of them could do.
Stunned, Nik surveyed the clearing, realizing the torches were no longer the only source of illumination.
The sky had turned purple as light threatened to peek over the treetops. Dawn had come, and was probably the only reason any of them were still alive.
As Tyler dropped his face into his hands, Nik knew at least one of them might have preferred the dragon’s fire over being left in this clearing. He took a step toward the veterinarian, hoping maybe a simple touch or a kind word might ease his suffering, when a woman behind him cried out, “He’s bleeding!”
Connor. Shit.
Nik bolted toward the shifted dragon’s motionless form.
The woman Connor had kissed knelt beside him. “He pushed me out of the way. He saved me.”
Tears ran down her cheeks and dripped onto a blouse covered in red splatter. Nik had no idea if the blood was hers, or Connor’s.
Puff’s roar blasted through the clearing, but Nik wasn’t sure if the sound existed, or if he only heard the scream in his own head. Either way, he closed his eyes, trying to hide the vision of Connor’s blood from his dragon.
The damage had been done, though. A resounding boom rattled the side of the mountain. Fire and rock shot from the cave into the clearing. Puff emerged, eyes wide as he galloped to his fallen friend.
*Quenor!* Puff howled, dirt piling at his feet as he stopped beside him.
The crystal dragon lapped his friend’s wounds, but Connor didn’t stir.
Nik’s chest clenched, his pulse quickened in time with his dragon, but his blood thickened when the gored man didn’t stir.
*No!* Puff batted Connor’s side with his snout.
The wedge in Nik’s chest folded over until a sob formed in his own throat.
*Wake up!* Again, Puff slammed against Connor, but this time, the man groaned.
Nik released the breath he’d been holding to ward off the pain and steeled himself, stepping back from the blood-soaked soil.
A deep gash ran from Connor’s ankle to his hip. A white area peeked through the blood as Puff continued to lick at the wound. Nik retched, realizing it was a bone.
Another slice ran across Connor’s stomach with near surgical precision. Apparently dragon talons were just as sharp as they looked.
The girl kneeling beside him pulled off her blouse. “We need to put pressure on these wounds.”
Nik eyed the shirt, wondering how clean it was after two days in the cave, but he supposed it was the best that they had. The Maori milled about, many stumbling from the cave and squinting in the dawn light. Pops brought water to Connor’s lips, then spilled the remainder over the gash in the dragon’s leg.
*If he dies because of me…*
“Shut up,” Nik said. “He’s not going to die.”
The girl holding the rag looked at Nik, then glanced at Puff, recognizing that Nik wasn’t speaking to her. Which was good, because he didn’t have time to explain.
Nik grabbed two water bottles held by the waiting children and started cleaning the slice in Connor’s stomach. Just because it wasn’t bleeding as bad, didn’t mean it wasn’t as severe.
A scream echoed over the trees. Puff lifted his head and looked at Nik before scanning the crowd. *Where is Anna?*
Oh, shit.
She’d run away. She’d never made it into the cave.
Nik opened his lips to speak, but the look in the dragon’s eyes told him the dragon had already read his thoughts. Puff looked at his dying friend, his mind in a whirl of conflict.
“I got him,” Nik said. “I won’t let him die. I promise.”
Puff nodded his silver snout before backing between the children bringing supplies. He took one last look at his dying friend before galloping into the woods.
Connor groaned again. Nik shared a glance with the woman helping. Her eyes shared his fear. They’d done the right thing by sending the dragon away, but neither one of them knew if they could uphold their promise to keep this man alive.