“We’ll be seeing you, Rebecca.”
She rose gracefully to her feet. “I doubt it.”
I paused. Guy groaned, but I ignored him and met her gaze squarely. “Believe me, one way or another, you will help us clear Keale.”
So much for not poking the angry reptile.
She raised a silver eyebrow. “I do like a woman who can look death in the eye so fearlessly.”
There wasn’t much I wanted to say to that, so I turned and followed Guy down the hall to the front door. Rebecca followed us out onto the porch.
“Goodbye, Rebecca.” I paused, then met her gaze again. “Or would than be Mandy?”
She merely smiled. “Goodbye Harri.”
I’d actually taken two steps before I realized what she said. I stopped abruptly, my stomach sinking as I turned around. There was only three ways she could have known my name—one, she was a speed reader, and had somehow caught my name as I’d briefly flashed my credentials. Two, she’d overheard Guy’s whisper, or three, whoever was on the other end of that call had told her.
I knew, as I met her gaze, it wasn't either of the first two options.
“Who was on the phone, Rebecca?”
Her smile was almost sweet. “My accomplice.”
“Oh man,” Guy muttered. “This is not good.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t dare. If I did, she’d change, I had no doubt about that. I watched her eyes, knowing from Keale that the dragon would rise there first. It would give us a few seconds warning; time enough to run, to feel fear, but not time enough to save ourselves.
“What did he want?”
“You.”
The incandescent blue of her eyes went black and the air began to shimmer with energy. The beast was rising.
“Guy, run!”
I turned and did exactly that. I didn’t get far. One moment I was running, next there was a huge gust of wind that sent me tumbling but before I could scramble to my feet let alone look around, I was being swept into the air.
“Harri!” Guy screamed.
A rock bit through the air close to Rebecca’s right wing. She shifted direction abruptly, and I heard the hiss of steam rise in her throat.
“Oh no, you don’t,” I said, and kicked her belly with all my might.
Dragon’s had thick hides, but it was enough to put her off flaming, enough to give Guy time to run for cover. She hissed, her head snaking around. Steam trickled from her nose and for a moment I thought she was intended to crisp me right there and then.
Then the madness left her eyes. She surged upward, her wings creaking as she headed for the stars. I tried to move, tried to get free before we got too high, but her talons were wrapped so tightly around me that my arms were pinned to my sides and it felt like my cracked ribs were being driven into my chest. I could barely even breathe let alone wriggle free.
I looked down, saw the ground far below us. Too late to get free now—I’d kill myself. Although that would probably be a better death than the one Rebecca had planned. Movement caught my eye—Guy was an ant running toward a matchbox car.
She shifted position, leveling off, and suddenly all I could see was the silver hide of her underbelly. Her wings rose and fell effortlessly and the wind tore at me, colder than ice and just as cutting. Moonlight and stars seemed to surround us, so bright it could have been day. I wondered if she simply intended to find somewhere less habituated to drop me, or whether she intended to eat me. Probably the former, I thought, somewhat vaguely. There wasn’t a whole lot of fat on me, after all, so I’d probably be awfully grisly.
We’d seemed to have been flying for some time when I heard the trumpeting. It was an angry sound that seemed to shudder through every fiber of the silver creature who held me so tightly. The tempo of her wings increased, and the air roared, slapping against me so hard my cheeks flapped. I would have screamed if I’d had the breath.
Again the trumpet sounded, closer this time. Rebecca bellowed in response, an angry sound that shook her body and sawed at my ears. She swerved to the left, snapping my head back, then dove so fast bile rose in my throat. Then we were climbing again, her wings straining, body vibrating with effort.
Abruptly, she swerved right. Something big and red shot past us and bank sharply, wings gleaming with molten fire against the cold light of the moon.
Keale, I thought distantly.
Then, more sharply, Keale!
But how? His wing had still been in plaster last time I’d seen him.
A heavy rumble came from deep inside Rebecca’s gut. The hiss in her throat rose again, then she opened her mouth and spewed fire into the night. A cloud of ash and smoke and heat flew back into me, searing my skin and choking my lungs. I coughed, tears suddenly streaming down my face as I tried desperately to see if Keale was okay.
I spotted him to our right, driving upwards, the flames licking at his tail, scorching where they touched. He kept rising, going beyond my sight but not hers. She screamed and surged forward, her silvery wings almost a blur. The wind seemed to echo her scream, and it was an almost human sound. Maybe it was. Maybe it was me screaming. I couldn’t say. I could barely even see let alone hear.
She swerved to the left. Keale appeared, his tail lashing out like a whip, striking one wing and tearing membrane. She screamed again and shook her head in fury. The moonlight danced across her ice-colored scales and, just for a moment, it looked like her skin was littered with diamonds.Again she made that strange noise in her throat, then flames arced through the sky, almost seeming to follow Keale as he did a belly roll and dove. He reappeared underneath us, his tail once again lashing out. This time it struck her reptilian head and she trumpeted her fury. Droplets of black blood began to splatter across my face and body.
She was hurt, finally.
Fire rained from the sky above. Rebecca swerved, then dove. The snaking lines of streetlights leapt up to greet us, and bile rose in my throat. Then we were rising again, slower than before, Rebecca’s gasps for breath shuddering through her entire body.
Another wall of fire appeared in front of us. She screamed and dove under it. Heat and ash sizzled across my skin and a scream tore up my throat but was released unheard. There was too much noise surrounding us for any sound I made to be heard.
Keale reappeared above us. He shadowed Rebecca’s movements for several wing dips then surged forward and dove directly in front of her, forcing her to swerve and dive away. He was trying to force her down, I realized suddenly, and wondered how the hell that was going to help me. Caught between her claws as I was, I’d be squashed the minute we hit the ground.
A red blur appeared underneath us and arced upwards. His tail flicked out as he arrowed past, catching Rebecca in the head once more. This time, the flow of blood was stronger, soaking my clothes in an instant and filling my nose with its rancid scent.
If the dragons didn’t kill me, that smell damn well could.
But Rebecca didn’t scream, didn’t respond in any way. There was a hint of desperation in the way she hurtled forward.
Keale swooped in from the left. Rebecca dove underneath him, then snaked her head around, spewing fire across his scales. Keale’s tail lashed back and forth, then he rose swiftly, body rolling as he disappeared from my sight.
Rebecca dropped, her body shuddering, as if she’d been hit. Red wings shadowed silver in flight, rising and falling as one. Rebecca bellowed, a sound that became a grunt of pain.
Then the talons that had held me so tightly no longer did so.
I was free.
And hurtling toward a shimmering blackness far below.
Chapter Thirteen
I seemed to be floating, neither conscious nor unconscious, but caught somewhere in between. The ache of my ribs was distant, muted, and the air no longer screamed. It was silent out here in this wet blackness, yet it was not the silence of death.
Wet.
My mind suddenly focused on that one word.
Why was I wet?
I shifted my arms, and felt a familiar ripple across my fingertips.
Water. I was in water.
I licked my lips, and tasted salt. Not just any water, then, but sea.
I was home.
Or at least, as home as a half-breed siren ever could ever get in the gentle bosom of the ocean.
That was why I’d survived the fall. Hitting the water so hard and fast would normally have killed me just as surely as it would had I hit the ground. But sirens were born of the sea; it was in their soul, in their blood, and while that blood was diluted in me, there must have been enough for the sea to recognize. She’d caught me, healed me, kept me safe.
As she would have done to Mona, had Mona still held any life when she’d been dumped here.
I opened my eyes. Dragons no longer fought amongst the stars and I wondered briefly what had happened to them. I hoped Keale was all right. Hoped he wasn’t too badly burned.
I closed my eyes again, and drifted away, safe in the tender grip of the ocean. When consciousness returned, it was to the sound of voices and the realization I was no longer in the water.
“She should be in hospital.” The voice was cool, controlled, male.
Kaij, I realized. What the hell was he doing here—wherever here was?
“Darls, she’s my sister. Trust me when I say the last place she’d want to be right now is in hospital.”
Val was here, too? What the hell was going on? And where the hell were we?
“She doesn’t need the hospital,” another, more feminine voice said. It took me a moment to realize it was Maggie. God, was the whole damn circus here? “Other than bruises and a couple of broken ribs, she’s fine.”
“She should be damn dead, falling from that height,” Kaij muttered, and just for a moment, I’d swear there was relief in his voice.
It was that, more than anything, that forced my eyes open. Above me, trees waved, and moonlight danced coldly through their dark green tresses. I lay on my back below them, but my head resting on what felt like warm steel.
I shifted my head slightly, looking up and back. Kaij’s gaze met mine, the green depths remote.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, voice holding as little warmth as his expression.