Page 38 of Surge of Heat

She kisses my hand. “I know you’ll try. That’s what I’m afraid of. You don’t know how important you are to me.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” I say, and I mean it. I’ll be fine. I always am.

Her gaze meets mine again. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I can’t just walk away from Evander.”

I wince, trying to ignore the way it hurts when she says his name.

But then I stiffen, and Sam stiffens too. Our breathing stops, and I feel deep inside that something’s wrong, even though I don’t know what.

“We should go inside,” I whisper, even though I don’t know why I do.

My head swings slowly around before I lift it, looking into the cloudy sky. There’s a flash of green that I barely register before I shove Sam as hard as I can out of the way. The sun is blocked out. Something comes crashing around me, and then I find myself being plucked from the ground, caught in a cage of claws.

The air from his wings beats all around me, and I struggle to rise within the clawed hand, but fall. I look from between the claws to see the ground has disappeared beneath us. There’s only clouds around us now, and my stomach sinks.I just hope Sam was smart enough to run away. To go inside, where she’ll be safe.

The clawed hand I’m in lifts, sending me flying around inside the little cage. The hand opens near a giant eye, and the green dragon looks down at me. I see it the moment he realizes he got me instead of Sam. Pure fury courses through him. He throws back his head and roars, a deafening sound.

I don’t even have time to cover my ears when he tosses me in the air. Wind rushes all around me, but when I look down, I see an enormous mouth filled with sharp teeth. With nothing else to do, I stretch out as far as I can and catch myself on teeth on both sides. He snaps his mouth together, and I jump back, just in time to avoid the teeth.

I land on the top of his head and he shakes, trying to be rid of me, but I hold on, digging my fingers in between his massive scales. He suddenly dives down, and the wind tears at me, trying to pluck me from his head, but I don’t let go.

We come slamming into the earth, and I’m thrown from his head and roll across the ground. The air is knocked from my lungs. My bones scream and break. The impact is like being hit by a train. I’m trying to gasp in air, but I can’t.

The dragon leaps on top of me. Its claws push down on me, crushing me beneath the weight of the beast.

I taste blood. My vision waivers in and out when I see a red flash of scales between claws.

It takes my brain a second to register what I’m seeing, but then I do.Sam. Sam came for me. Sam is going to try to save me, but she can’t take on the dragon. She needs to get out of here. She needs to escape before it kills me and can focus on her.

I try to scream, to tell her to run. But I can’t. I’m dying. Being crushed to dust.

My body heats up. Warmth spreads over me, and I’m on fire.

Is the dragon burning me?

Screams catch in my throat, and I feel myself growing. Changing. Becoming something different than before, but something that I’ve always been.

The claws are gone. I can breathe. I stretch, feeling good, alive.

Sam is on the back of the green dragon, trying to tear his throat out. Her efforts have left him bloody, but it’s not enough. The dragon is bigger and stronger. His scales are too tough.

I open my mouth and a roar comes out that shakes the very air around me. Both dragons’ heads snap in my direction, and I take a step forward, seeing my leg. My massive leg covered in golden scales.

It all hits me at once.I’m a dragon.

The thought isn’t even strange. It feels right. Like I was always a dragon.

In front of me, the green dragon bucks Sam off of him. She hits the ground, and he turns on her. Fire explodes from my lips, and the green dragon’s head jerks to me. I run straight at him, and at the last second, he leaps into the air and takes off.

Aydan. Run. Get back to the base.It’s Sam’s voice in my head, except they aren’t words.

I try to think back at her.No, not until he’s dead. You won’t be safe until then.

Leaping into the sky, I try to fly, but I fall. I don’t care. The ground is hard, but I can barely feel it through my scales. I leap again and again, and at last, flapping my wings sends me into the sky. Shooting after the green dragon, I realize that I’m much bigger.This male isn’t worthy of Sam. It’s almost laughable that he tried to get her in the first place.

He dives at me from the clouds, and I spin to avoid him with ease. The wind feels amazing around me. My muscles feel free, the way they’re supposed to feel, I think, in a way I’ve never felt before.

Then there’s a flash of red, and I see Sam in all her glory. She’s beautiful in a way that’s impossible to explain, and then her scent washes over me, and I feel an uncontrollable need to take her for my own again.

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