Page 56 of Red Fire

Agony, white-hot like molten lava, settles there as his head twists back. I stagger.Fuck!I catch myself and stand tall. His eyes twinkle with humor, and he chuffs.

He knows.

I knew it.

I can still do this. I have to try. I want to turn to look at Octavia, but I know it will be my undoing. I will give it my all.

I prepare to launch an attack on Tank when someone shouts something. There is pointing and more shouting.

“Stop!” Pyro says. “Look,” he adds, pointing to the sky.

I lift my gaze. My dragon wants me to keep fighting.

Protect.

Fight!

Kill!

Tank shifts back into his human form.

I do too. “What the hell!?” I mutter as soon as I am able to talk. My bones feel worse now that I am in human form. I have to work to stand tall and not clutch my side. I feel nothing but relief when I see a large contingent of dragons flying our way. Males have joined and left but in drips and drabs, nothing of this magnitude. There must be at least a hundred dragons flying in formation. They’re a few minutes out, approaching fast.

“Let’s finish this,” Tank snarls, turning slitted eyes on me.

“No!” Pyro shouts. “The games are over! We need to leave.”

A few dragons take to the sky. A few move closer.

“It’s done. If you lift so much as a finger, we will have cause to end you.” Pyro says. Two of the males snarl, and a third growls. They all shift, ready to intervene. Tank hasn’t earned any friends with his behavior today.

I turn and walk back to Octavia, who is holding her hand up to shield her face from the sun; she’s squinting.

She gasps when she spots them. “What is that?”

“They’re from the city,” Pyro says. The male followed me here.

“I think you’re right,” I say. “There are too many of them to be banished males.”

“What do they want?” Octavia asks, unable to take her eyes off the formation. It’s drawing closer at speed, and it’s so big it blocks the sun. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see them. It’s a freaking miracle.”

“You,” I say. “They’re here for you. There is no other explanation.”

There is yelling and then cracking sounds as dragons shift one after the other. Groups of them take to the sky, scattering like leaves in the wind.

Tank turns to us from the field below. “This isn’t over,” he tells me, but since the male has been banished for life, that isn’t true. He can’t enter the city. That is where the king’s guard will take her.

“It’s not safe for you here,” I tell Pyro, who must know this. “They’ll be here any minute.”

Pyro’s group starts to grow restless. One or two of them shift and leave.

“You really should go,” I tell him. “There is no telling how the king’s guard will react when they get here.”

“They can be hard on us,” Pyro explains to Octavia. “They hate us.”

“Maybe we should run while we can.” Octavia turns frightened eyes to me. She grabs my arm. “We should also go, Creed.”

“You have nothing to fear, human,” Pyro says. “The guard will take you back to the city. You are nearly safe. As for the rest of us…” He shakes his head. “We are seen as the lowest form of scum and treated accordingly. I must leave now. You should do the same, Creed.”

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