Page 25 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

The hand moved the other way, and she almost breathed an audible sigh of relief, but stopped herself. Even the slightest noise and it would know exactly where they were. Seizing the moment of reprieve, she pulled even more light into her body, the sensation not warm but cool, like the moon herself. At the same time, she looked at Asher and, using military hand signals, told him where they should both go.

He eyed her, not shaking his head, but not happy.

She eyed him right back.

“Trust me,” she mouthed the words.

He gave the slightest shake of his head and the shaft around them eddied—just barely—but with a triumphant hiss the wraith reached straight for her.

A luminous surge of moonlight-powered energy burst from her very soul as Gwen shot forward. The wraith’s howl of pain chased her as she flitted through the trees, abandoning Asher to his own hiding. She raced from shaft to shaft of moonlight, passing through a few patches of darkness as she avoided branches.

Don’t stop. Don’t look. Keep going.

She gritted her teeth against the dull ache—trying to slow Asher’s fall when they’d plummeted into the ocean had pulled a muscle or something—her wings beat as fast as they could, using the light she’d absorbed to boost her speed. Any second darkness could catch her or pluck her wings from her back. Her skin crawled with the anticipation of it. Only experience kept her from looking over her shoulder.

Finally, she burst onto the long stretch of sand with a gasp of relief.

Though she wasn’t out of danger yet. Gwen went dead still.

The wraith can’t follow me out here.

Not when a full moon glowed with angelic innocence in the star-bitten skies.

With no warning, a lasso of darkness grabbed her by the foot and yanked her off her feet. What the fuck? She’d never seen a wraith do anything like that with light. Gwen didn’t have a chance to fight it before she was being dragged back into the trees, the darkness closing in on her fast.

Then an explosion of blue flame lit up the night.

A single burst in a long stream. The wraith’s scream cut off almost as abruptly as it started and when the fire stopped, the creature was gone. A tiny pile of ash lay on the ground, blending into the sand.

Asher stood nearby and she shot him a wide-eyed look. He’d done that without shifting. Only the most powerful dragons could do that. When had he learned?

“Do you think the storm creature saw?” she asked in a whisper.

Before Asher could answer, a plop of wetness hit her face.

Rain.

Seven hells.

CHAPTER NINE

Gwen

* * *

“Run.” Asher took off across the beach, obviously expecting her to follow.

Which she did.

Gwen was tempted to pull out her wings again to fly faster than she could run but knew she might need them more later. So instead, she awkwardly ran through the deep sand in his wake, pelted by fat raindrops that were so unnaturally cold it felt like being hit with snow, each strike stinging against her skin.

Her clothes and hair were plastered to her by the time they ducked into the too-small crevice they’d found earlier, but at least it protected them from the weather.

“I swear the storm was far away when I used my fire,” Asher said in a voice she’d only ever heard from him once before. Asher was always serious, but this was deadly grim, and heavy. With guilt if she was reading him right.

The same way he’d sounded when he’d come with news of Goran’s death.

His gaze was focused over her head, on the narrow entrance to their hiding spot. “Hopefully they weren’t able to see exactly which island the fire was on.” He paused, and his gaze lowered to her face slowly. Achingly slow. A glitter in his eyes she hadn’t seen since…

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