Page 226 of Mama Si's Paradise

Coming to finish me off.

The scream got stuck in my throat. It all happened so fast that I barely had time to think of Grey’s face. That’s all that flashed in front of my eyes in the three seconds it took Shadow to reach me—Grey’s face. Grey smiling. Grey looking at me like I was his own personal wonder on Earth.

Now, I die.

Forty-Eight

A roar filledmy ears so suddenly, I’d have jumped if I wasn’t so frozen in this skin.

Shadow was so close that I had no doubt in my mind he’d fly right through my chest, taking my heart with him the way he’d taken Storm’s eye.

But then a claw covered in black scales was right in front of my face, and itcaughtShadow. It squeezed him into a tight fist, and the screeching sound that came from the small dragon had my insides trembling.

What happened? Am I dead?

I was supposed to be. Because Shadow had been about to rip my chest wide open.

I knew it. Ifeltit.

But no—Storm had caught him. Storm held him in his fist even now, and Shadow was hurting. He barely managed to get his head out between Storm’s claws as the bigger dragon squeezed and squeezed and squeezed…

Then he slammed Shadow against the ground and fuckingbrokehim.

A scream came from across the clearing. Valentine was on his knees again, his hands gripping his hair like he was trying to pull it out of his skull.

Wrong, wrong, wrong—this is all wrong!

I fell on my ass, my legs no longer able to hold me. Storm was backing away. I barely saw Grey as he looked at me, so angry his eyes had turned red. He’d been looking at me even when I thought nobody else had noticed. He and Storm had saved me from Shadow.

God, he was so mad his fangs had extended all the way below his bottom lip, and he looked like he was about to set this whole fucking woods on fire, but…

“Grey Evernight, you have broken the fourth law of dueling. Your dragon has attacked your opponent’s dragon after ending the duel and choosing to spare him!”

My heart jumped. Romin was in the air again, flying, Balthazar spitting fire right over him.

“Grey,”I whispered to the night, and Grey was just as shocked as me when he turned to his brother.

What the hell was happening?!

Why was Romin focused onhim,not Valentine?

Had they not seen Shadow coming for me?!

Wrong!that voice in my head screamed.

So fucking wrong…

Suddenly Grey looked afraid. Grey looked terrified. Grey looked enraged.

Romin’s voice filled my head once more.

“I hereby banish you from the Whispering Woods!”

The world broke into a million pieces right before my eyes.

“No!” I thought I shouted, and Grey’s wings began to move. He jumped in the air, and he was coming for me. He was going to pick me up and fly me away, take me somewhere else where we’d have time to come to terms with what the hellhad happened. Where we’d have time to figure out a way to fix this. Fix all of it. Justmake it right!

I ran, too.

---