Chapter 27 #2
A roar of pain sounded across the courtyard and I looked up in time to see another dragon collapse in an unmoving heap. Now there were only two dragons still standing…Rook and Uther. But where Uther was fresh and untouched, Rook was bloodied and dragging one wing, his movements noticeably slower.
I watched in horror as Uther took to the air then dived at him, front talons extended at his head.
Just as I was certain the talons would close around his skull, Rook ducked low, twisting round to rake his teeth across Uther’s belly.
But Uther slashed downward with his back talons at the same time, clawing into Rook’s uninjured wing, and the bellows of pain from both dragons melded together so that I couldn’t tell one from the other.
I wrenched my eyes away, and shook Rook’s friend. “Wake up, dammit! Rook needs you. You’ve got—”
Another roar of pain cut across me, and I cursed and let go of the unconscious man. Nothing I had done had woken him, and more of the same wasn’t going to work. I needed to find something else.
And then a screech of pain echoed across the courtyard that drowned out every thought in my head.
I knew without looking it had come from Rook, and my stomach cramped in terror again.
My eyes blurred as I twisted to him, and my entire body trembled at what I saw.
Uther had Rook pinned, his whole body under the king’s, and blood was flowing freely from where a claw had punched through his chest. Rook might be able to heal from that wound, given enough time, but it was clear Uther had no intention of giving him that time—his head was thrown back in victory, but his eyes were locked onto the soft spot of Rook’s throat.
No! Protect mate!
The voice echoed inside my head and before I could process it, my limbs tremored and blurred and I launched myself forward.
I smashed into Uther as he dove his head at Rook’s exposed throat, and his teeth slid harmlessly off my scales as my claw closed around his wings and tossed him aside.
He slammed into the ground with an audible thud, and—
Wait a moment. Scales? Claws?
I looked down at myself, blinking one reptilian eye as my gaze roved over my magnificent gray-green scaled body. I twisted my long neck and peered at the wings on my side. I had wings. I was a…dragon. Badass.
A snarl ripped through my amazement and I spun in time to see Uther lunging at Rook again. At…my true mate. I felt it now.
I loosed a bellow of sheer rage and my horned head snapped forward.
I threw myself between them, rising up onto my back legs from under Uther to clamp my jaws around his throat.
He roared in pain as my jaws closed tight…
and then he was silent, a heavy weight in my maw—either unconscious or dead.
I tossed him aside as though he was nothing.
Fury pumped through my body and I stalked closer to where he’d landed, intent on making sure he was the latter. He’d attempted to kill my mate. I bellowed my fury again. He’d hurt my mate.
Panic lanced through my chest. He’d hurt my mate. He’d savaged Rook. I spun round to where the dragon shifter—the other dragon shifter—lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Shit. Hands. I needed hands.
My claws blurred and changed shape, and my body shrank back to its former size as effortlessly as blinking.
I didn’t waste time dwelling on it, instead throwing myself onto my knees next to Rook’s prone form.
He blinked up at me, his body shimmering and blurring, then shrank back into his human form.
I gasped as I took in the wounds all over it.
They all looked horrific, but the one in his chest looked lethal.
“Are you okay?” he croaked.
“Shut up, you idiot,” I said, grabbing his hands and clamping them over the gaping wound in his chest. “That’s my line.”
He chuckled and then grimaced in pain.
“What do I do?” I demanded, looking helplessly at the blood pumping from between his fingers. The wound was worse than I’d thought. He was dying.
“Nothing,” he murmured.
I snarled. “Not acceptable. Tell me what to do, you bastard. You dragged me out here and made me feel things for you, so now you can stick around and deal with the consequences.”
He blinked in surprise. “Bite me.”
“Pretty sure that’s my line, too.”
A flicker of amusement passed over his lips. His beautiful, perfect lips that made my body feel things I couldn’t even have imagined, and that were already losing their color.
“You feel it, too,” he said, searching my face for confirmation. “The mate bond?”
Our mate, the voice repeated in my head insistently. My dragon’s voice. I nodded numbly. Yeah, I felt it. Maybe I always had, and it had been buried as deep as my beast.
“Then claim me. Your beast will strengthen mine, and mine yours. A…” He broke off and sucked in a sharp breath of pain. “A true partnership. Claim me…or let me die.”
Fuck. If there’d even been a question about spending my life with this arrogant asshole who drove me crazy and still managed to occupy my every thought, the roar inside my head would have drowned it out.
But there was never any doubt. It had just taken me a while to see it.
Driven by instinct, I bent my head forward, parted my lips over the point where his neck met his shoulders, and sank my dragon’s fangs into his flesh.
“Mine.”