Through the downpour, he saw land, but no idea if he’d hit his mark.
Without pausing to say a word, she wrapped his head with a dark cloth, clamped the manacle on his arm again, and pushed him to the ground. The chain jerked like she’d stomped on the section closest to his arm with her foot. Damn her.
Power had sizzled and burst around him.
Ah, shit. When she shifted into that freaking dragon, he’d shouted, “Humans have big weapons to kill dragons.” He wouldn’t care, but she had no plans to turn him loose and didn’t want to be blown to pieces with her.
“No one sees mine. I will cloak dragon.”
In the next minute, the chain attached to the manacle yanked hard, pulling him to his feet by his freaking wounded arm. He’d call her a sadist, but she didn’t seem to derive pleasure from hurting him.
That would require human emotion.
It was more that she saw her actions as a means to an end.
None of that softened the agony of her abuse.
He’d stood there in the driving rain, waiting for her next move. Then he heard the loud beating of massive wings.
The sound diminished the farther she flew away from him.
Had she left?
What the hell?
His pulse had raced with a renewed energy. He could escape? He’d gotten her to this point.
She didn’t need him anymore, right?
He’d decided to give it a minute to be sure she had been gone long enough then ...
A loud whooshing sound surrounded him, then his body was yanked up in the air, claws pinning his arms tight on both sides.
He couldn’t guess how long ago that had been. Shock continued to rack his body with cold chills, causing his teeth to rattle so hard he had to clamp them to keep from biting his tongue.
She’d been flying straight into a strong wind since then, getting his head battered. The ends of the blindfold slapped around.
Claws larger than his gryphon’s held him in an unyielding grip. If only he could shift into his gryphon, he could heal.
He couldn’t see a damn thing.
No idea where she headed.
Sharp pellets of rain smacked any exposed skin as she flew them straight into a storm. Thunder pounded everywhere.
Time passed at its own whim.
Blood loss had him losing consciousness then the dragon’s wild movements would jerk him awake.
His stomach flipped when the dragon dropped suddenly from the sky, a move that required Tristan’s gryphon to tuck his wings.
He now had more appreciation for Evalle who often suffered vertigo when teleporting.
Flying Bitch-hild Airline sucked.
The dragon’s movement slowed. That would be her setting her wings for landing.
Ah shit, was she going to land all that heavy-ass body on top of him?
Nope.
She dropped him what felt like ten feet off the ground. He hit, rolling hard until he flopped to a stop. It knocked the wind out of him. His chest hurt like hell and he sucked hard to get air. His head spun.
Human fingers curled around his arm, right above the wound, and lifted him to his feet. He’d never harmed a woman, but this being was no woman.
Brynhild was a monster in female skin.
She yanked the covering off his eyes.
He blinked to see against the deluge of water striking him in the face. She had his bad arm by the chain, but he lifted his free hand to wipe his face. “Where are we?”
“My favorite place when I started shifting into dragon as a young girl.” She actually smiled as she tossed his blindfold away and turned her back on him.
It took him a minute to understand why she didn’t worry about leaving him on his own as she walked to the edge of the ground they stood upon.
Tristan squinted, taking in the spectacular cliffs far out to his right and left with an ocean beyond.
Lightning sparked and fingered across the heavens like bony witches fingers.
Not a person or building in any direction.
He had no idea where he was, but he had a plan.
He’d left his gryphon alone when he had no chance of healing or breaking free, but he could feel energy seeping into his uninjured arm. Maybe the spell on the chain and manacle only worked if the chain made a complete wrap around his neck or both wrists were shackled, like an electrical circuit.
Brynhild held her arms out wide, staring at the surging sea rocked by the storm. She laughed loud and wildly. “I am back!”
While she ignored him, clearly thinking she had him under control, Tristan called up energy into his not-as-injured left arm.
Power rushed through the same arm and flooded his hand.
Claws broke out of his fingertips.
Hope pounded his skull.
He glanced at Brynhild. Still lost in her moment of freedom, holding her face up to the torrent coming down. Her blond braids slapped her body when the wind whipped her hair around.
It was now or never.
His damaged right arm would be useless until it healed. He couldn’t teleport unless he freed that arm.
Screw it. He called up his gryphon as fast as he could and sucked up his backbone. The minute his jaws were wide enough to bite off his right hand, he’d free himself and teleport away.
He’d never tried to teleport in gryphon form, but today was as good a day as any to find out if it would work.
His body began shifting.
Excitement rushed through him. His chest expanded. His head reshaped, but not very fast. He needed jaws powerful enough to snap bone and cut through his wrist the first time. He didn’t think he could make a second bite.
His wings began to form.
Brynhild turned around and screeched, “Stop!”
She stomped her way toward him with hands fisted and face warped in a fit of rage. “No shifting or you die!”
Fuck that. He kept begging his gryphon to break free.
Brynhild slammed to a stop. She started peeling off armor and shifting as she did.
Tristan clenched his fists and called hard on his power, but his shift would not happen in time.
Even if it did, his gryphon couldn’t rip off his hand before the dragon chomped off his beast’s head.
Chapter 4
Questions hanging at the edge of Casidhe’s tongue would have to wait. She couldn’t very well ask Daegan anything about Skarde right now.
She had to take her time and get to know him well enough to talk about his family’s history.
One misstep and she’d expose her connection to Herrick.
Wouldn’t the red dragon love that?
What if she failed to get information on Skarde after being this close to Daegan? Herrick would be furious. Worse, he’d be disappointed. She took a couple breaths, trying to keep her heartbeat under control.
“What has your heart racin’, Luigsech?” Daegan asked, his eyes taking in her every movement. Legs stretched out in front of him, Daegan had the casual pose of someone relaxed. But one look in his dark silver gaze smashed that image. Fully alert, Daegan dangled on the edge of action.
Damn his dragon shifter abilities for sensing so much.
He was back to calling her by her last name, too. They had been on better footing when he’d called her lass.
Before he noticed anything else, she shrugged and twisted her office chair back toward the desk. “What you claim about the Luigsech family bein’ concerned only with Treoir history may have been true two thousand years ago, but—”